As Christians we all believe that churches are founded by God for believers to have a focal point to congregate, worship Him and be strengthened by the Holy Spirit through His Word. Seen in that light, the birth of SCC is no different from most other churches but still, as fellow humans, we may be intrigued by the history of where we worship at.

The SCC is an independent and indigenous church. The church began as an informal gathering of born-again Christians who came from various backgrounds. Many of these members had no previous active church involvement. The church grew as more and more people found that their lives were changed by the powerful presence of God.

In December 1982, Senior Pastor Png Yoke Hoon and 12 others defied obstacles in resources and manpower, put their faith in a covenant-keeping God and applied for the registration of the group as a church. Through much prayer dependence on the grace of God, the SCC received approval for its application to be set up as a society under the Societies Act on 24 March 1984, and was also successfully registered as a charity under the Charities Act on 27 February 1986.

In a big way, the history of SCC is very much linked with its founder, Senior Pastor Png Yoke Hoon. Hence, there is a need to share her background. She attended the Bible Institute of Malaya from 1973 to 1976. From 1976 to 1979 she spent her time in Malaysia planting churches and towards the end of 1979, she felt God’s call to start a church in Singapore. She heeded the call despite initial struggles (read her testimony below) and the 1980s were the tough pioneering years.

Testimony of Senior Pastor Png Yoke Hoon:

“My conversion took place in June 1973 because my best friend became a Christian overnight. One day, I went to ask her how she came to know Jesus, but instead of sharing with me her conversion, she challenged me concerning my involvement in “Taoist medium work helping my father who was a medium” – something which I had been doing since I was fifteen years old. She must have been led by the Holy Spirit when she asked me whether I wanted to try out Jesus to see if He was the real god. That was spot on because prior to this, I was questioning my future and the authenticity of Taoism. I decided then to try out Jesus and accepted him as my personal Saviour.

The demonstration of the reality and the power of God came very soon - when suddenly there was a violent manifestation of demon-possession in me during a church service, something that took me totally by surprise! Six pastors prayed over me for at least three hours, and I was finally set free by the power of God when He spoke these words into my heart – “for the One who is in you is greater than the one who is the world (1John 4:4)”. Following this experience, I joined a Student Camp as I hungered to know more about Jesus. On the final day of the camp while I was walking on the beach, I saw a dead fish washed ashore by the waves. I held the fish in my hand and at that moment, felt the strong urge within me to believe that God had the power to bring life back to that fish! This experience had convicted me that God has the power to restore lives that are wrecked by the devil who came “to steal, kill and destroy" (John 10:10). And before my water baptism on that day, God in His marvellous ways had placed a divine call on my life to be His missionary”.

In her struggle to build the church from scratch, she doubted her own human limitation but in the end, before taking that act of faith, she was reminded of God’s power behind her, for if it had been possible, she would not have been called to do the humanly possible. His Words for her was “God’s way is not our way and that He chooses the foolish to confound the wise”. That was precisely the reason that God had called her - to do the impossible for His own glory!