Project Spring-Winter (PSW) can be characterised as the transformation of St John’s – St Margaret’s Church in three dimensions: Physical, Social and Spiritual.
Physical Transformation SJSM will be transformed from a sprawling colonial-age hill-top church with an open-air carpark into a modern urban village with a 273-bed nursing home, a senior day care centre for 100 clients and a pre-school for 200 children.
from a church-centric identity to a community-centred identity; from a Church, we will become a Village. We will truly become a “church without walls” that God intended; where the community is in the church, and church is in the community. There will be no barriers; indeed, we will encourage
Luke 22, “not my will, but yours, be done …” (Luke 22:42b). Not in our own wildest imagination would we have conceived of PSW on our own. Even when God told us during our 40th anniversary that He would do a “new thing” in SJSM, we could not imagine it would be PSW. Yet after the Lord made His calling clear through a combination of circumstances and revelations, we went through 5 separate votes at different AGMs and EGMs regarding this project, and each was passed with overwhelming majorities.
Transforming
The human dimension of the physical transformation will be even more dramatic. A quiet office housing some 70 adults today will be transformed to a bustling community of almost 800 persons of all ages. This is more than a ten-fold increase in the weekday population. The human energy and vibrancy will also correspondingly jump. The ages represented in the new population will range from the very young (18 months) to the very old, and everyone in-between. This distinctive feature of a multigenerational population is what led us to name the project as “Project Spring-Winter” in the first place.
Social Transformation Through PSW, SJSM will morph
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An integrated complex with one tower block of 11 floors and a pre-school annex that will rise to the 7th floor will be added to today’s clutch of lowrise buildings wrapped around natural hill contours. The usable space of the buildings will grow from the equivalent of 66 x fiveroom HDB flats today to more than 180 of them. That’s almost two entire HDB point blocks of 25 storeys each. The Ministry of Health has given us a significant capital grant, and we will have to raise almost $47m ourselves.
Through PSW, we are also being moved from comfortable self-sufficiency to experiencing what it means when “(God’s) power is made perfect in (our) weakness …” (2 Cor 12:9). PSW brought us beyond what we could ever do in our own strength, and this forced us to By Larry Choi rely on God at every turn with no Plan B. God has already free flow of people through our given us ample evidence that programmes. He is more than able to turn our SJSM will also grow from caring weakness into a miraculous display mainly for spiritual needs to offering of His provision, and we can be sure a broad spectrum of services. With more will follow. PSW, we will become a seamless God has called us forward towards provider of childcare, infant care, the new. Having experienced how medical care, respite care and God has carried us thus far in the home-based care as well as soul PSW journey, let us all choose to care. We will treat people as Jesus ride on His wings by faith till we are did – as whole persons. From a fully transformed. All glory be to place where the action takes place God! mainly during the weekends, SJSM will become a dynamic hub of activities throughout the week. From 7 am when the childcare first This overview of PSW was opens to 10 or 11 pm when church presented by Larry Choi, and nursing home activities wind Chairman of the Projectdown, there will be life; by God’s grace, abundant life in SJSM. Spring Winter(PSW) Main Committee, at the PSW Spiritual Transformation Groundbreaking Service on 3 As a church community, we will March 2018. move from choosing our own ministries to saying, as Jesus did in