This March marks the seventh year of my service at CACC. Brothers and sisters have asked me why they didn’t feel I am resting more during my sabbath. Despite all these years, I am still not good at resting, as God has commanded us to rest. (Now it is after midnight and I’m still writing this report.) Therefore God has given me some small ailments so I must face up to it.

My greatest improvement in serving this year is to focus most of my time in serving small groups. Weekday Church-family Gathering on Thursdays, Bible study class on Fridays, and Sunday School are on my menu every week. Studying the word of God is still my favourite part of serving, and interactive learning with brothers and sisters brings me great joy.

At the end of last year I expressed to the Excom my wish to reduce administrative tasks and focus more on shepherding; this July I officially stepped down as Excom chairman. Change sometimes comes slowly. May God call his servant with the right leadership and administrative skills to lead the church, and may Him give us enough patience to wait.

As for me, I hope in the next year I can serve more faithfully according to the gifts given to me. May God continue to use me.

 (Translated by Felix Lee)

The sermons this year have covered the books of “1 Peter”; and “Jude” :

“But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.” (1 Peter 2 : 9) (NIV) 

“But you, dear friends, by building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit. keep yourselves in God’s love as you wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to bring you to eternal life.” (Jude 20, 21) (NIV)

These two scriptures remind us of once again how to cherish our honorable status as children of God in the last days. In addition, the spiritual path is like sailing against the current. If we do not advance, we will retreat. Therefore, we must be holy, thirst for spiritual milk, build ourselves in God’s words, lay a solid foundation in our belief, and keep ourselves in God’s mighty hands until we meet the Lord.

In the service of the Noah Fellowship, I lead the elders in Bible study; teach them how to learn from Lord Jesus’s deeds; how to follow Jesus and learn from Christ; how to follow Jesus’s examples; encourage further understanding of the relationship between the Lord Jesus’s death/resurrection and us; encourage the elders to believe and accept Christ as soon as possible so that they may gain salvation, and have the assurance of eternal life.

The home visits/caring and intercessions have always been major tasks for me and my wife. Every time I visit someone, I can feel the presence of God and the guidance of the Holy Spirit. It further familiarizes me with brothers and sisters in a way that we may encourage and support each other.

(Translated by Fandy Au & Daniel Chan)

If I were to sum up 2023 with one word, it would be growth.

It’s been an exciting year seeing this church grow in its desire to know God. This is reflected in an eagerness in our members to build each other up in their spiritual walks – exactly as the body should be working. This has been a great source of encouragement to me and I thank God for what he’s been doing in us.

I’m especially encouraged to see our young people grow in their faith and their enthusiasm to reach out, both to God and to others in the church. It’s a privilege to walk alongside them as they mature in their faith and lives and I pray that we can continue to grow together for many years to come.

I’ve continued my studies this year, auditing one paper per semester at Carey: prophets in semester one, and the Psalms and wisdom books in semester two. I’ve enjoyed learning from the Old Testament and it’s helped me see how Jesus’ ministry fits into the bigger picture of God’s story.

I want to encourage you to be proactive in being examples to the younger generations. I often quote 1 Timothy 4:12: “Don’t let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith and in purity.” The same is true the other way round: as their elders, we also ought to be setting an example for them. The kind of church you want them to grow up in is the kind of church we need to be building up.

Looking ahead, my primary focus will still be on equipping our students and wider congregation members to be knowledgeable and skillful leaders who love God.  

May God bless you through and through.

Pastor Jonathan

Gabrielle Ip

Last year covid had dramatically changed the ministry to a soft approach with much prayer and online support, but this year the caring ministry is back with a more hands on approach.

This year’s two key focuses are welcoming newcomers and caring for the local community. 

There has been an increasing number of attendees in the English Congregation from a range of ages and family stages. Hence there has been a focus on increasing the number of greeters to cater for this growth. We continue to look for more greeters to create a welcoming and friendly environment to newcomers. Furthermore, we are looking to integrate newcomers into the church more easily by inviting them into small groups and to church events. We are also exploring how we can create a setting for all family stages to comfortably attend, especially for young families.

The breakfast team also play a big part into welcoming on Sunday mornings. The team has really stepped up and done a superb job serving heartwarming meals to uplifting servers on Sunday morning and creating a lively atmosphere to help wake up attendees with coffee and tea. 

A trial health care day was undertaken earlier this year. The health day was a high-level check on general health such as blood glucose levels, BMI and blood pressure. Many brothers and sisters from the medical field that volunteered, supported that day. There is still more effort required for caring for the local community, so please pray for this area within the ministry.

Lastly with the growing congregation, pastoral care is an appeal to provide unity and compassion for those that are facing physical and spiritual challenges. Let us lift this to God to provide strength and His answer.

Leader: Jonathan Chow, Ka Yiu Li, Esmond Leung

Members: 28

The Worship band has had a consistent year thus far. We have been blessed with the amount of members in this team which has led to less overcommitment from individual members. This year, we have welcomed Lexi Wong as a singer. It’s been encouraging to also see various members starting to try out different instruments/areas of service within the team. As usual, we will continue to welcome people who are interested in serving in the worship team.

The panel team has been going well. For member changes, Grace Park has left us to embark on her journey overseas, but we welcome Raphael Lee as a new member to the team. We continue to pair up an older and a newer member together on Sundays but recently Raphael and William have stepped up to the challenge to panel together as newer members. We are also learning and trying a new presentation tool.

The band is currently going through a leadership change and Pastor Jonathan has generously taken on the role of Worship Team Coordinator with Ka Yiu staying on in the interim until anyone steps up into this role of leadership. 

The key challenges the band is currently facing are grasping the full meaning of worship, leading the congregation into Spirit-led worship and the unity of the band. With Monday practices being only required by rostered band members, this has detracted us from being aware of each other’s practical and spiritual needs. We will try to organise a band meet up to evaluate on this rhythm of practice and also will organise an end of year event to celebrate the year past. 

We believe that as a worship team, our worship to God comes first whereas music, sound and visuals come second. 

Please continue to put this team in your prayers as we are looking to raise up a new coordinator to lead the worship team.

Caleb Liu

This year in Equip was mainly delivered by Sidney and I as we sought once again to equip our brothers and sisters with further study of God’s words and related aspects of living out our faith. We were able to cover the following topics this year:

• BibleProject classroom series – we finished a year-long series examining the Old Testament as a whole, including the origin of the OT and how it was written, how to interpret biblical narrative and poetry, and how to understand the OT in a more well-rounded way.
• Lectio Divina (meditative Bible reading) – inspired by a sermon that touched on the practice of lectio divina, we completed a short course on how to practise lectio divina effectively.

We hope that in the coming year we are able to connect with believers of all levels and help them continue to grow in their journey with God.

Leader: Sidney Leong

Members: 45 – 50

Connect 4 is the collective name of all the English Ministry Fellowship Groups which gather on Friday nights at church. We strive to experience and respond to God’s love together through building deeper relationships with God and each other, through our fellowship activities.

Connect 4 is represented by 4 groups: ‘TFG’, ‘PassionFruits’, ‘FlaminGO!’ and Youth Fellowship. ‘Agrape’ has disbanded and their members have joined the different fellowship groups in leading or member roles. We have now included the high school youth as part of our Friday night ministry. The theme of “Connect” is still core to our overall mission – to create connections between ourselves, generations, cultures, the church and to God.  

Building connections with the youth has been a primary goal for the past year. We have recently held a successful youth camp where both generations connected very well. We are looking to continue the momentum into the next year by organising more combined nights with each other.

Leadership development has been another focus for our ministry. The leaders of each group convene every 6 weeks to go through “Leadership Essentials” training. This provides a space for leaders to be filled by the Bible, and given space to share and encourage each other as leaders. We are looking forward to another year of spiritual growth and seeing God work in all areas of our ministry!

The past year has been a fruitful one for TFG with a few new members joining. At TFG, we have continued to focus on sharing our daily life struggles and life experiences with each other while supporting each other in our spiritual growth through the sharing. We have recently started a new Prayer Board activity to help encourage us to share our struggles and to help pray for each other throughout the week as well as a way to remind ourselves of our prayers that are answered.

We have enjoyed having more combined activities with the other fellowships over the past year and pray that we will be able to use these connections to serve God in new and exciting ways.

TFG’s focus for the coming year is to continue to foster an environment for sharing and spiritual growth with specific focus on Spiritual Struggles, Sharing how we experience God through our week and Spiritual Disciplines.

Leaders: Tony and Christine

Recently, we reviewed and reflected on the past 8 months of 2023. We started the year with a homegroup potluck dinner, catching up with each other. Throughout the year, our fellowship gatherings took forms in short topical discussions, sharing, home group, games night, worship and prayer. We also took part in activities combined with the other fellowship groups and wider church activities such as the Easter Station. Many of our group members went travelling during this time and we thank God for the safe journeys and enjoyable experiences.

As a group, we share our ups and downs, reach out when needed and strive to encourage one another in our spiritual journeys. We share our spiritual goals, study scriptures and pray for each other. We continue to pray for God’s wisdom and guidance in our group, growing our bond with one another and deepening our relationships with Him.

Leaders: Sean Peh & Sabrina Lau

FlaminGO! is a group of young adults who meet every Friday. Our group is named after the spiritual fire of God and our desire to go(!) share His love.

This year we have welcomed a few new faces to our group, it is truly a blessing to grow and fellowship together with some fresh voices in the mix.

A highlight this year has been watching and discussing The Chosen, an online series based on Jesus’ life, together as a fellowship.

Some of the things we would appreciate prayers for include

• God’s continuous wisdom and guidance for direction as a fellowship
• For us to be able to keep each other accountable on our spiritual habits
• Perseverance in our spiritual disciplines and faith journey

For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them – Matthew 18:20

和平組

組長：Shirley Tsang，每三週在家中聚會

Peace Fellowship spent most of the year studying a book called Transformational Discipleship by Eric Geiger/Michael Kelley. We enjoyed the book very much as we yearn for spiritual growth within Christ, wanting to live a life that is transformed by the Holy Spirit.

Our group then moved on to Bible study – dived into the book of Philippians and Ephesians. The word of God is full of wisdom. Pray that whichever book we choose next, God will speak to us all and continue to grow in Him day by day.

During Easter, we had fun preparing for the church’s Easter event together. We came up with the idea and work as a team to make it happened – designing, printing, translation, set up the video at church… it was great team work !!

In the last few months, we have decided to gather every 3 weeks on Saturdays. Most of the time we enjoyed lunch or dinner together depends on what time we gather for that week. Other than regular fellowships, our dear brother/sister Ken and Sharon generously open up their home for more social gatherings like hot pot dinners. We want to follow Christ’s example – praying and supporting each other in Christ.

This is my commandment; love each other just as I have loved you. John 15:12

合一組

組長：Richard Leung, 每月第四個星期日在教會聚會

Our fellowship is made up of 5 core families: Vivian/Richard; Kitty/Ben; Bernie/Billy; Michelle/John; and Sara/Fred. Coincidentally, each family has exactly 2 children. So altogether, we are 10 adults and 10 children.  

For the last few years, Sharon and Ken have been mentoring us on our journey of building healthy Christian families. This year, God has called them to serve in other ministries. Although we are sad to say goodbye (although we still see them every Sunday), we are very grateful for their time with us, and wish Sharon and Ken well in their other ministries in CACC. 

This year, we have chosen to study the book “The Good And Beautiful God” as a group. Each month we discover more about the God that Jesus knows, and in that process, we fall more and more in love with Him. Although the focus of the book is on our personal relationship with God, we inevitably drift towards talking about the main thing we all have in common … kids! Our kids range from 3 to 12 years of age, and give us plenty to talk about while we enjoy some takeaway lunch after every 4th Sunday Service of the month and before we start our book discussion. 

Looking forward, we hope to welcome more families with young children to our fellowship, to share the joys (and frustrations) of Christ-centered parenthood.

當更多弟兄姊妹在團契小組中互相關顧，關顧部就可以專注去照顧有特別需要的肢體及其家人。感謝上帝使用關顧部員和眾弟兄姊妹，今年每逢有人患病，或是家庭問題，或是被主接去，都有足夠人手，盡心盡力去陪伴同行，關心代禱。週六的禱告會亦如常的每週聚集分享分擔禱告，今年除了輪流為各事工小組同工代禱外，每月首週加上了主題禱告，如為到弟兄姊妹的屬靈成長禱告等。

健腦俱樂部(HBH)

聯絡人：Julia Lee，聚會時間：逢星期三10至12時 (學校假期休息)

HBH – Seniors Healthy Brain Hub (Cantonese) 

Meeting Time: Every Wednesday 10 am-12 noon (during the term)

Contact person: Julia Lee

1. Setting up process
2. August 2021 – Office for Seniors announced that the Seniors Age Friendly Fund was open for application to any non-profit organisations that could develop projects benefiting seniors in the community. This inspired Pastor Derek, Mandy Ho (Social Worker) and Julia Lee to design some community activities to help prevent the decline of cognitive ability among seniors, or slow down the decline in memory and thinking of those diagnosed with mild to moderate dementia. Although our application was unsuccessful, we managed to received funds from the Lottery Community grant and some funds from Howick Local Board in March 2022. Thus HBH could be set up.   
3. April to May, 2022 – A working group was being set up. Dr. Cannis Tse (provides expertise about dementia), Song Lam (Education Advisor), Christine Wong and John Chee (from CACC) and Cindy Wai (from PCBC) joined the above 3 members. 
4. June to July, 2022 – We recruited volunteers through promoting in the community and the Chinese churches in East Auckland. 13 volunteers completed the 4 trainings led by Mandy and Cannis.  
5. 10 August 2022 – 13 participants turned up for our first meeting. Again we promoted this in the community and the Chinese churches in East Auckland.
6. 9 August 2023 – This was our first anniversary. We had 43 meetings and 71 people did sign up during the past year. The lowest weekly attendance was 7 while the highest was 32. However, we only have 6 volunteers left.
7. Aim and Special Features
8. Through brain health activities, HBH aims to build strong community relationships, promote the awareness of brain health, and increase our inclusiveness and consideration for seniors with dementia
9. The participants are called 「腦友記」(literal translation is “brain friends”) and the volunteers are called 「同行者」(meaning we “brain” alongside them in this journey). The number of participants increased steadily as the current members recommended HBH highly to their friends. We have some “fans” who came on the very first week and still continue to come every week looking forward to playing the board games enthusiastically. They keep saying, “It would be so good if it’s Wednesday every day!”
10. We only use Cantonese during the activities to make participants feel welcomed. Also, it will not create confusion for those with dementia if two different languages are used.  
11. The weekly activities include exercises to maintain physical stamina, group games to develop friendship and board games to stimulate the brain through learning the rules, thinking of winning strategies and encouraging communication, etc.
12. The main reason for playing board games is because this can help to maintain the cognitive ability of the seniors. Board games are very diverse in their design and learning various games needs the participants to keep using their brain. This contributes to raising their cognitive reserve. Studies have found that the more cognitive reserve we have, it may help to slow down the loss of cognitive ability and prevent the rapid decline in memory and thinking of those diagnosed with mild to moderate dementia in the long run.
13. Looking ahead
14. Thank God for providing us with a passionate working group. Mandy and Cannis regularly encouraged us and gave us suggestions. All other members worked in unity and used all their gifts to lead HBH. Pray that God will enable us to truly fulfil the aims of HBH
15. Pray that we can develop a stronger relationship with the current volunteers and encourage them to continue in their serving. We hope that they will gain more knowledge and have personal growth 
16. We need to recruit more volunteers to serve the growing number of participants. During the upcoming term break, Mandy will provide 2 weeks of training. Pray that God will provide us with volunteers who are willing to learn to play board games and will be able to teach the participants how to play and play alongside them after the training.
17. One of the visions of HBH is to develop a board games library. We hope that we can do this in the coming year
18. Through participating in HBH, a few participants also joined Noah Fellowship and some attended the Sunday service too. Pray that God will enable us to witness for Christ in our words and deeds so that more people will believe in Jesus and receive His saving grace. 

Up & Grow is our Sunday morning worship for pre-teens (Y5-Y8) and gives them a space to worship and learn about Jesus in a fun and engaging way. We teach important biblical truths and combine it with encouraging the children to explore what it means that God wants to have a personal relationship with them.

This year we’ve grown and have on average 12-13 children each week. This is a significant number and we are actively looking for more people to serve in this area.

I want to especially acknowledge our teachers and helpers for their dedication to serving in this ministry: Tommy, Richard, Andy, Michelle, Ying Ying and Wendy. Their perseverance has allowed us to push through the many challenges and lets us continue to serve children in this space.

Milk Tea

Milk Tea is our Sunday morning programme for Y9-Y13 students. This year has seen a lot more stability and we have transitioned this group more firmly into the Sunday school space, exploring a variety of topics together – key spiritual disciplines, practical issues relating faith to everyday life, and the Gospel of Mark.

We believe solid biblical truths are a key pillar of our faith and there is a need for a clear understanding of who Jesus is and the message of the gospel. Each Sunday after our worship service, we have this time to equip our young people with the knowledge and skills to foster a robust and resilient faith.

Our numbers continue to grow and we now average more than 16 students each week. With more and more students heading to university, we are continuing to look at options for reorganising this space.

I want to thank Michael, Shirley, Gabby for their continuous commitment and dedication to creating a fun, nurturing space for our youth. This year, Gabby has stepped down from her role, but we are excited that several new people have put their hands up and are looking to perhaps step into this area.

Please be praying for this ministry!

「Milk Tea」是專為 9 至 13 年級的學生所提供的周日上午課程。今年由於出席人數更加穩定，所以我們更加肯定地將這個小組轉移至主日學時段，並讓孩子們一起探索各種主題——培養屬靈上關鍵的紀律、在日常生活上實踐信仰，並閱讀馬太福音。

我們相信堅固的聖經真理是信仰的關鍵支柱。孩子們需要清楚地認識耶穌和福音的信息。每個主日崇拜結束後，我們都會利用這段時間裝備年輕人，讓他們明白聖經的真理和實踐，從而培養他們堅定而有活力的信仰。

我們的人數持續增長，現在每周平均有超過 16 名學生。隨著越來越多的學生進入大學，我們正考慮如何重組這個小組。

我要感謝 Michael, Shirley 和 Gabby 持續的委身和奉獻。他們為我們的年輕人創造了一個有趣且獲得培育的空間。今年，Gabby 逐步退出她的角色，但很高興有幾位新人站出來並希望進入這項事奉。

請為這個事工禱告！ （Candice Choi, Daniel Choi翻譯)

Youth Fellowship

Our Youth Fellowship meets every Friday evening and provides a vibrant space for youth and university students to meet and journey together as they grow in faith and knowledge of Jesus as our personal Lord and Saviour. 

This year, the group has been led by Michael and Ps Jonathan. As with many of our church groups, we have had a lot of new members and the group has grown to 14 members on average each week. Although there have been many challenges, we are grateful for the relationships that have developed and the way we have been able to encourage and support our young people.

Our main focus this year was to connect the younger generation with the English-speaking adults. We created opportunities for the adult fellowships to interact with the youth through combined events such as games nights, worship nights or simply leading a discussion. All of this culminated in our Youth Camp which really brought our relationships to a new level.

Thank you to all the fellowship leaders for supporting our initiatives, and especially to the camp leaders who sacrificed a lot to make it possible: Lexi, Wes, Celeste, James, Jo, Elim, Shirley and Sidney.

Heading into 2024, we are looking at options to restructure the group to ensure that even with the increase in numbers we are able to provide care and support to every young person who joins. Please pray for us!

感謝天父讓一班弟兄姐妹願意在建堂小組中服侍，其中有Stephen Tsang, Jacky Leung, Michelle Chan, Tony Fan, Billy Ho, Raymond Cheng 及 Ben Mak. 他們各有專長，在建堂的事能夠互相配搭。

感謝天父讓一切初步檢測能夠順利完成，可以開始準備新堂的初稿。祈求上主能幫助建築師團隊能夠有聰明智慧去完成。

求主讓教會有同心，為建堂工程不斷禱告，去尋求主的心意，亦為教會能夠有足夠的金錢去支持擴堂計劃。

求主讓教會能夠盡量利用現有的有限空間，去支持日漸增多的事工，各人能夠互相體諒，看別人的需要比自己更多。亦可以在週間多利用教會去支持社區的需要。

Thank God that we have a team of brothers and sisters willing to serve in the construction group, including Stephen Tsang, Jacky Leung, Michelle Chan, Tony Fan, Billy Ho, Raymond Cheng and Ben Mak. They all have their own expertise and can complement each other in the building project for our church.

Thank God for allowing all the necessary preliminary tests to be completed smoothly, and we can start preparing the first draft of the project. Pray that the Lord can help the architect team to complete it with wisdom.

Ask the Lord to let the Church congregation all have the same heart, keep praying for the construction project; seek the Lord’s will, and also have enough money for the Church to support the expansion plan.

Ask the Lord to let the church make full use of the existing limited space to support the increasing ministries . Everyone can understand each other and see more of others’ needs than themselves. We can also use the Church spaces to support the needs of the community during the week.

We would like to use this chance to appreciate everyone who has participated in bridging between the two languages in CACC in the past year. As we grow as one church and have more interactions between different generations, there are more opportunities to use your language gifts to serve each other, on stage or off stage. This could also be a great place to be trained for future outreach or mission work to different ethnic groups. Please contact us if you want to be part of the team.

Interpreters: Joyce Leung, KaYiu Li, Lambert Lee, Julia Lee, Stephen Tsang

Translators: Anna Tam, Candice Choi, Daniel Choi, Daniel Chan, Fandy Au, Felix Lee, Julia Lee, Kathy Lao, Lewis Chow, Michelle Cheung

Our overall operational expenses (i.e. for CACC and CACC Trust collectively) has increased by 34% compared to last year. Although a large increase, this was still 8% less than what we had budgeted for. 

A breakdown of our operational expenses is set out below:

Key drivers for the above figures are as follows:

1. Both General and Ministry expenses were significantly higher compared to last year’s actuals as 2021-2022 was heavily impacted by COVID for the first half of the church financial year. This meant a lot of church activities could not take place hence spending was artificially lower than normal.
2. Decrease in Pastoral expense compared against budget was the biggest driver for spending below budget. This was due to not being able to hire an English Lead Pastor (which was included in the budget).

上述支出數據的主要因素 :

1. 一般支出及事工支出跟2021-2022實際比較明顯高出很多，因為2021-2022首6個月的財政年度受到疫情嚴重影響，很多教會活動未能進行，以至支出低於正常水平。
2. 教牧薪津的減少是支出低於預算的最大因素。原因是仍未能聘請到英語主任牧師(去年預算已包括這項)。

We are expecting the coming year to remain tough from a financial perspective, but we remain confident that God will supply our every need. 

The key call outs in expenditure are as follows:

• We are continuing to look to recruit an English Lead pastor as that remains an area of need. We remain faithful that God will provide the suitable candidate in His time.
• We have included some budget for a leadership retreat and youth camp for the coming year.
• There are some large capital expenditures ($113K) anticipated for this coming year. This includes continuing the initial preparatory work for our building expansion, as well as upgrades to our ventilation system to better improve air flow. Although these are large sums, these activities represent an investment by the church to better support the increasing number of congregants attending church and using the facilities.

Apart from the above, there are no other material anticipated changes in our operational and capital expenditure.