History of Evangelical Community Church

Written by Rev. Woo York Ang

WHAT REALLY HAPPENED A brief story of the founding of Evangelical Community Church Melbourne by Rev. Dr. W. Y. Ang The 1970’s brought waves of Chinese migrants to Australia.  First, through the election of a Labor Government which buried the White Australian immigration policy in 1972, a great number of Asian migrants were attracted to Australia.  Then in 1974, Vietnam fell to the communists.  This gave rise to a flood of Vietnamese refugees in boats, many of whom were Chinese, to the shores of Australia.  Not long later, there was political upheaval in East Timor and again, there was another flood of refugees and again many of them were Chinese.   The Chinese Churches in Melbourne during the early 1970’s were small and few in number and mainly concentrated in the city.  Because of the arrival of many Chinese refugees and migrants, these churches began to grow in number in the middle of the 1970’s.  The Chinese Methodist Church (now known as the Chinese Uniting Church) in Little Bourke Street Melbourne had only eight worshippers at the end of 1972.  The late Rev. Ang Hoe Peng, a retired Methodist minister from Malaysia, and his family arrived in Melbourne on New Year’s Eve 1972.  Because there was no pastor at the Chinese Methodist Church, Rev. Ang was invited to be the pastor.  Rev. Ang felt that as a minister who was called of the Lord, there was no such thing as retirement in ministry.  He therefore gladly accepted the invitation to be the pastor on an honorary basis.   With his preaching and ministry and the support of some lay members, the church soon grew and by 1978, the church at Little Bourke Street which had a seating capacity of about a hundred was soon filled to capacity.  The feeling among some members was that the church should relocate to a bigger church building.  The question was ‘where?’  A possibility in Richmond, recommended by the parent body, the Uniting Church of Australia, was looked at but turned down.  At the same time some members felt that there was a need for a Chinese church in the eastern suburbs particularly Doncaster where most of the Chinese migrants had settled.  In wanting to further this objective, some members rallied a few families together and started a Bible Study group in the eastern suburbs, viz. Doncaster and Glen Waverley, hoping that this would be the nucleus of a church. It was against this background that the Evangelical Chinese Church of Melbourne had its origin.  One Saturday afternoon sometime in August 1978, three people who were Official Board members of the Chinese Methodist Church, by now known as the Chinese Uniting Church, came together and the idea of a Chinese church in the eastern suburbs of Melbourne was conceived and discussed.  The main objective of the church was to spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ to Chinese migrants and refugees.  Several possibilities of a meeting place were discussed.  We were to pray about this matter.  Later, another member of the Church expressed interest in the idea and another meeting took place.  It was agreed to establish a fellowship which would eventually become a church.  The fellowship was to be known as Melbourne Eastern Suburbs Chinese Christian Fellowship, in short “MESCCF”.  The first service was to be held at the adjoining hall of the St. Andrew’s Uniting Church in Box Hill on the last Sunday of August 1978 at 2.00 p.m.  At the same time, a pro-tem committee was set up among the four families and the ministry was to be under the spiritual oversight and leadership of the Rev. Ang Hoe Peng. The first service saw 12 people, two of whom were observers from the city church wanting to find out what we were up to.  The rest were members of the four families.  The objective of the church was again spelt out and it was agreed that the service was to be held fortnightly for a start and depending upon the response, the service would eventually be held weekly.  Although this was the case, four weeks later, it was unanimously agreed that we should have our services weekly because of the enthusiasm of those who came.  There was excitement over the fellowship and more people came.  Rev. Ang Hoe Peng did most of the preaching in Mandarin with the sermons being interpreted to English simultaneously.  The children’s Sunday School was started.  We also started our home Bible study and prayer meetings.  The first Christmas concert and celebration was held in December 1978.  The first choir sang and the children acted in the first Christmas pageant.  Over a hundred people attended the celebration.  At the same time, the weekly attendance grew to over 60, and it was decided that the time had now come for the service to be held in the sanctuary.  Thus, the growth of the fellowship gathered momentum. Just as there was excitement, there was also disagreement.  Sometime in the middle of 1979, differences erupted in the leadership regarding the future direction of the church.  This resulted in many people leaving the church.  Some left because of work opportunities in other places and overseas.  The situation was so discouraging that the remaining members were tempted to disband.  However, a few of the faithfuls felt that the fellowship was the work of the Lord and they were determined to continue with it.  Although the numbers were drastically reduced and morale was low, there was a sense of dedication to seek the Lord.  Indeed, He heard the cries of His people and brought new blood into the Fellowship.  There was a new awareness of spiritual things.  The members began to be more fervent in prayer meetings.  There were weekly Sunday trips to the various refugee hostels to fetch Chinese refugees from Vietnam to the service.   At the same time, some of the leaders, through the Lord’s leading, came into contact with the Christian and Missionary Alliance at one of their conferences in Melbourne.  It was at this conference that we came to know Dr. and Mrs. Spencer Sutherland, veteran American missionaries to Vietnam for 18 years.  Dr. Sutherland drove fortnightly to Melbourne to conduct TEE (Theological Education by Extension) classes for the Alliance College of Theology in Canberra.  Whenever he came, he also conducted classes at one of our homes and in that way taught us the Bible and encouraged us.  Numbers once again grew.  People came from unexpected sources.    In 1981, with the continued growth of the fellowship, we felt that the time had come for the fellowship to have some permanency.  And so, we applied to the government to formally register the fellowship as a church.  The process took nearly a year and in 1982, instead of the name Melbourne Eastern Suburbs Chinese Christian Fellowship, the fellowship was formally registered as Evangelical Chinese Church Melbourne.