Woodlands Evangelical Free Church Leader Says Failures Shaped Missions Policy at Singapore Conference

Dr Ivan Liew, missions and outreach pastor at Woodlands Evangelical Free Church (WEFC) and author of *Churches And Missions Agencies Together*, told a leaders-only pre-event workshop before the Courage Calls Missions Conference, held from September 30 to October 2, that “how you respond to key failures will define your church.”

WEFC has a reputation for excellent member care, but Liew said that reputation was born out of a “painful failure” the church experienced almost 30 years ago. Around the time he joined the congregation as a lay person, the first missionary family sent by WEFC had returned after facing intense and complex difficulties related to adaptation, ministry, family and mental health.

The family retold their story and their mistakes, Liew said, and “it changed our culture.” He described the experience as painful, but said the church’s leadership acknowledged, to its credit, that “we could have done a lot of things better,” a willingness to own its part in the outcome that reflects honest dealing (Proverbs 11:1).

When Liew joined the church’s staff more than 10 years later, the lesson “still reverberated,” he said. He recalled the humility, awareness and willingness to bear responsibility that his leaders had modelled. Leaders retold the story, without details, in small groups and leader meetings.

Liew, who is also missions director for the Evangelical Fellowship of Singapore (EFOS), said the church needs “systems” and “policies” built around what God is doing, serving as “scaffolding” to send and support people who answer the call to missions. He said church policy helps people align with God’s call, a point he said is especially true after what he calls “mountaintop moments,” such as when members decide to commit a year of their lives to missions.

The workshop on church culture and policy was part of the Leaders’ Conversation that preceded the conference. Joseph Chean, who is part of the multi-agency steering committee of Courage Calls, addressed 124 leaders from 66 organisations and churches at the session. He said that, of 280 participants at the conference, close to 200 were committing to go to the mission field for the long term, “especially in such uncertain times.” Chean said the nature of missions has changed, particularly after Covid, and called for a “spiritual dialogue” on how churches will plan and carry out missions locally. He added that short-term missions was no longer an option at that point in time, and that “today, you cannot just send someone out without an expression or an education of some form of training.”

Dr David Tan, one of three panellists at the Leaders’ Conversation, recently retired as director of the Bible translation organisation Wycliffe Singapore after almost 20 years in missions. He said, “The bar has been raised,” in reference to would-be missionary candidates. In the past, missionaries were mostly involved in church planting and evangelism, he said, but “now we need people who have deep work, business and ministry skills. And godly character.” Tan clarified that theological training and ministry preparation are not obsolete, but must be done in “creative ways” for those who intend to go to creative access nations. He recalled that one of the best pieces of advice he received when he started was: “You need to manage your CV properly.”

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