Graceworks had a blessing service for our new office last Saturday (20th September 2014). Our dear friend Kok Hiang from CRU did the honours. We are now at: 
22 Sin Ming Lane,
#04-76 Midview City
Singapore 573969
This is the second office we have occupied. We thank God for our time in Eng Kong Terrace but it was time to move for various reasons, and we are grateful for God’s provision of this new home.
Geographical moves are also a great time to take stock of one’s ministry. When Graceworks started we were committed to promoting spiritual friendship through training and publishing. We were, and are, convinced that lives are transformed through relationships and that followers of Jesus are meant to follow Him in the company of friends. Jesus Himself models this when He chooses to journey with His twelve disciples and even give extra attention to three from the twelve.
However, we always understood that spiritual friendship is friendship with “intent”. Spiritual friendship is a form of peer mentoring that is meant to help people grow in their journey to Christlikeness. So along the way, we felt led to think more about discipleship. We came to some conclusions about discipleship. The two main ones are:
1. We are all called to be disciples. It is not helpful to divide followers of
Jesus into converts and disciples. All followers of Jesus are disciples. It is
more helpful to talk about “young” and “mature” disciples to describe
Christians at different levels of spiritual maturity.
2. We should define disciples relationally. Every disciple is defined by three
primary relationships: with God, with other disciples, and with the world that
Jesus came to save. A disciple lives a life of trusting and obeying God,
in authentic communities of disciples who care for each other, who give their
lives to impact a lost world by showing the reality and the character of
the Kingdom of God in every area of life, and by telling people the good news
of Jesus Christ.
Reflections on discipleship led us on to think more about the Kingdom of God. We realised afresh that in the gospels, Jesus hardly talked about the church, though when He does it is at important points of His teaching. But He was always talking about the good news of the Kingdom. We realised that we can’t talk about discipling without seeing how it is located in God’s big picture of the Kingdom. God is not just in the business of “saving souls”. He is redeeming all of creation, working towards a new heaven and a new earth. And disciples are meant to be both a foretaste and instruments of this in-breaking Kingdom.
The ministry of Graceworks is now defined by these three interrelated concerns: spiritual friendship, discipleship, and the Kingdom of God. We are still committed to training and publishing, but our activities will be focused on these three concerns. Are we still committed to spiritual friendship? Yes, because we are still championing “relational transformation”, seeing lives changed through caring relationships. But we now see ourselves promoting spiritual friendship as part of God’s agenda of making disciples for the Kingdom.
Graceworks was always an adventure of faith from the very beginning. In many ways, we are just getting started and we look forward to more exciting days ahead. We are grateful for those who have supported us. Friendship is not just our ministry; it is our approach to life. Thank you for walking with us. Let us continue to walk together as this adventure with the Lord unfolds. Spiritual friendship, discipleship, and Kingdom — it doesn’t get any more basic than this. Doesn’t mean we can’t have fun along the way!
