The Beginning

The Varsity Christian Fellowship can trace its roots to the Student Christian Movement (SCM), which began in the British Isles and had become very influential by the early 20th century.

At that time, its influence had spread throughout the world and there was a similar SCM in the then University of Singapore. However, the Movement’s policy of including all theological and ecclesiastical viewpoints was overly liberal, resulting in the tenets of the Christian faith not being upheld. Two viewpoints were held among the evangelical students in the University as to what could be done about this erosion of doctrine. One was that it would be more effective to stay within the SCM and expose the false teachings, and thus transform it into an evangelical body. The other view, held by VCF‘s founder members, was that it would be best to break away and form a separate group altogether.

Thus, several students left the SCM and began meeting both at Jubilee Church and in their own homes. This was a move made after much prayer and concerted effort to work within the SCM. The need to take a firm stand and be pure witnesses for God was far too compelling.

In May 1951, Mr Ewan Lumsden, who had been a staffworker for the Inter-Varsity Fellowship in Australia, came to Singapore with his wife. Together, they conducted weekly bible study sessions with the group that had broken away from the SCM. Students from the Katong area were invited to these meetings, a few of whom were non-Christians.

On 2 July 1951, the section already meeting outside the University tried to persuade the section still within the SCM to join them to form a Christian Fellowship. However, it was decided that the time for such an amalgamation was not right. Doctrinal differences caused divisions among the evangelical students and hindered the early formation of VCF. There were also other difficulties such as the lack of a unifying leadership and the physical separation of the University into two campuses. In spite of another unsuccessful attempt to form an evangelical group in December 1951, an inaugural meeting for a “Christian Students Union” was eventually held on 9 August 1952.

This group had a committee meeting consisting of Tow Siang Hwa, Wong Poi Kwong and Poon Wai-On. They were medical students and were appointed to draw up a Constitution for the “Christian Students Union”. The Varsity Christian Fellowship started in October 1952 with a membership of 20 and a committee of 5.

Through the Decades

1952-1959 The main aim of VCF in the 1950s was to prevent the dilution of the biblical faith. This was reflected in the types of literature that were promoted at the first Annual Conference held in October 1954 and the triennial varsity missions in 1956.

An important development for VCF in 1959 was the formation of the Fellowship of Evangelical Students (FES) which enabled VCF to link up with many other evangelical student organizations that had sprung up in Singapore and Malaya.

1960-1969 The 1960s was a period of diversification for VCF. As it grew in membership and areas of ministry, the post of Chairperson was created to lessen the workload of the Honorary Secretary. VCF did not have a Chairperson previously as the founding members felt strongly that with Christ as the Head of the Fellowship, there was no such need. Dr Bobby Sng became the first Chairperson in 1960.

The areas of ministry that the VCFers stepped into increased considerably through the years. These areas were as varied as the running of a Sunday school for blind children, the providing of a pool of Christian undergraduates to help out at Inter-School Christian Fellowship (ISCF) meetings and camps and the setting up of a lunch-time meeting sub-committee and a literature sub-committee in 1961 and 1962 respectively. Epistole, the Fellowship newsletter, was born in September 1968.

1970-1979 In the 1970s, VCF contact groups (which had been introduced to the Fellowship by Mr David Adeney in the early 1960s) grew in importance. This was because the ranks of the Fellowship had swelled greatly through the years and student leaders were faced with the challenge of providing a viable structure and strategy to maintain a deeply committed and personal group life. The contact group (CG) concept met this challenge admirably.

Another example of the decentralization necessary to cope with the increasing numbers was seen in the setting up of the faculty and hostel sub-committees (FHS). The FHS were better able than the Executive Committee (Exco) to meet the needs peculiar to VCFers from a particular faculty or hostel. Over the years, the FHS have come to assume even greater responsibilities in the planning and running of faculty and hostel activities. To assist the student leaders in their ministry, Mr Thomas John was appointed the first full-time staffworker in 1972.

For the record, VCF‘s own songbook, Sing Praise, was published in 1974. It is no longer used by the Fellowship today.

1980-1989 Participation in VCF CGs peaked in the early years of this decade. In 1981 and 1982, there were 1500 students (including mature stuents who were teachers on bursaries given by the MOE) in the CGs, making it the largest Fellowship on any one campus in the world. Within this expanding framework, however, it was necessary to keep to the basic tenets of the faith. Thus, there was an increased emphasis on biblical teaching, which was reflected in the topics discussed at the lunch/tea-time meetings, the Literature and Resource sub-committee’s reading programmes, and the Annual Conference’s themes and workshop topics from 1985 onwards.

The Council system was set up to facilitate decision-making and information dissemination within the decentralised VCF structure. The 1982 Annual Conference held at Cameron Highlands saw the birth of VCF Music Ministry. This ministry began with a talented group of students who wanted to reach out to more non-Christians through music and drama. Life and Ministry - A Handbook on the VCF was published by the 1983/84 Literature and Resource sub-committee to “bring together the aims, distinctives, and work philosophy of the Fellowship”.

There was a significant constitutional amendment in the 1980s: from 1986 onwards, final year students have been allowed to “opt out” of the VCF membership roll. This would enable the quorum needed for VCF General Meetings to be more easily achieved.

Finally, the campus-wide lunch-time and tea-time meetings of the 1960s and 1970s gradually evolved, during the 1980s, into tea-time meetings. These meetings were stopped in the late 1980s.

1990-1992 The 1990s began with the reintroduction of the Fellowship-level meetings to the VCF programme. This was in line with the belief of student leaders that the decentralization initiatives of the 1970s and 1980s had made VCF lose much of its corporate identity. Furthermore, our numbers in the first 2 years of this decade had fallen considerably and it seemed prudent for the faculty and hostel CFs to pool their resources for more combined meetings.

The early 1990s saw a renewed emphasis on outreach and involvement in the VCF. Fellowship Teaching meetings (held fortnightly in the academic year of 1990/91 and changed to monthly meetings in 1991/92) took on a more evangelistic slant, rather than merely concentrating on corporate-body building. In line with this emphasis, VCF combined outreach efforts with other Christian groups on campus. A notable example was the 1991 Christmas cantata. This was an effort to increase unity among Protestant Christian undergraduates in NUS through a combined outreach programme. Under the guidance of FES staffworkers, the International Friendship Group was started in 1991 to reach out to foreign students in NUS. This group tries to help visiting students “settle down” and adapt to life in Singapore through various activities. Hopefully the love shown to them by Christian students will pave the way for sharing with them God’s love in the person of Jesus Christ.

2 further amendments of the VCF Constitution were passed in 1991. The first was to increase the size of the Executive Committee from 8 to 10 persons. This allowed for the creation of the post of a Hostel Coordinator in order to keep up with the increase in NUS hostels and the corresponding increase in the importance of the hostel ministry. The second change involved the registration of VCF as a charity under the Charities Act. This move would provide certain tax benefits for the Fellowship.

1992-1997 Since the handbook Students Reaching Students was published 5 years ago, many changes have been seen both in the Fellowship, as well as in the University. With the change to the modular system in 1994, students are now allowed greater freedom in their choice of subjects and the academic year is punctuated twice by examinations, once at the end of each semester. This new academic year saw changes in the calendar of VCF activities and the amalgamation of the objectives of the Annual Conference and the Teach-in Conference. Thus. the AnnTIC camp was first held in November 1996. In 1996, the Fellowship voted for a new amendment to the Constitution, whereby the quorum requirement was changed to allow for a smooth running of the AGM.

There was a renewed emphasis on rediscovering the vision of VCF by the Exco as they perceived the problem of a lack of a committment in VCFers. This problem was narrowed down to the fact that the members did not know where the Fellowship was headed and what the Fellowship sought to do for them. This resulted in the distribution of the Vision Statement in the form of a card by the Exco of 1994/95, followed by the efforts of the subsequent Excos to expand and disseminate this vision to members.

As we approach the new millenium, VCF leaders as well as members will continue to face new challenges, but the task of reaching out to fellow students still remains. Let us put our hands into the hands of the One who said, “Lo! I will be with you till the end of age,” and face these challenges, that “in all things, He might have the pre-eminence.”

Taken from Students Reaching Students (1997) 2nd Edition.

1997-2007

Entering into the 21st century, VCF saw many events attesting to God’s grace and goodness. It was estimated that VCF‘s total attendance in 2000 was around 500 students (official and unofficial members). On 1st October 2002, VCF celebrated her 50th birthday with more than 300 past and present VCFers attending the Jubilee dinner celebration at the Concorde Hotel being one of the major events. A Jubilee Magazine was published to commemorate the 50 years of the ministry. VCF has been remaking itself to become a more relevant and effective ministry on campus and society in the 21st century. New issues have emerged since the last decade such as the growing internationalization of students on campus and the general increase in student intake on campus.

The International Friendship Group (IFG) and their English Speaking Corner (ESC) has grown over the years to meet this growing demand. In 2003, the IFG under Caleb Yam (Science) worked together with the Ministry of Education to run the PRC Orientation Camp during the December vacation. VCF came online in 1999 and it was revamped in 2004 with the establishing of a new domain name (www.vcfnus.org), reformatting the new website into a VCFwiki system and an inclusion of a VCF blog by Joel Pan (School of Computing). Kent Ridge and Sheares Halls moved to its present premises in 2003 modifying the way Outreach efforts and CGs were conducted. The Law Faculty moved to the Bukit Timah Campus at the beginning of the academic year in 2006 along with its ministry and created new challenges and new strategies as a united witness on campus at two locations. The VCF logo was also updated in 2005 to include “an FES affiliate” to better represent our relationship with FES.

At the FES level, there were also changes happening that has an effect on VCF. From 2003, ANNTIC finally became a yearly affair due to the demise of the FES-initiated Bible Conference. It was discontinued due to the change in the academic calendar of the Polytechnics resulting in the loss of a common vacation period in December. The MEET programme was reshaped to God’s Global Glory (G3) due to the increasing workload and other commitments on the student in 2007.

On the missions and evangelistic front, as a member of the wider body of IFES, VCF partnered its sister ministry in 2003, the Fellowship of Christian Students (FCS) in Mongolia, in pioneering student work amongst the Mongolian tertiary students. This was proposed by Carlsen Tay (Engine) who was the Missions and International Students Coordinator at that time after attending the IFES World Assembly with Jasmine Foo (Law) and Paul Seah (Law). A total of three separate teams, including a MEET team, were sent there for missions work amongst the university students in Mongolia.

In 2002, the Arts and Science faculties combined to stage an evangelistic musical called “No Greater Love” with the Music Ministry. A couple of years later in 2005 the ‘Big Corporate Event’, was initiated by the Exco under the chairpersonship of Paul Seah (Law) to address the lack of corporate witness on campus. A taskforce was formed and it was headed by Jason Gan (Arts/Temasek Hall) which proposed an evangelistic musical. This larger production, as compared to the previous Arts and Science faculties musical, was staged over two nights entitled “Falling, Spinning” at LT13. This musical was fully written by Joshua Sng and Gabriel Koh (recent graduates from the previous Exco) with most of the music and lyrics composed by talents in VCF. Many students and faculty staff over the two nights heard the gospel and some responded to the call or re-dedicated their lives to Christ.

If prayer meetings represented the health of the ministry, Sunset Prayer Meeting attendance peaked in 2004 occupying about half of the Engine Bridge. Within the decade, VCF grew with the birth of the Prince Georges Park Residences in 2003 chaired by Gloria Leng (Science) which was subsumed under the Hall ministry to reach out to the 30 blocks located opposite King Edward VII Hall; and the formation of the Social Actions Committee in 2007, chaired by Brian Tan (Arts) to address the growing desire for VCF to be more socially relevant and responsible wherever we are. On the other hand, the Music ministry standing committee had to close in 2006 due to poor participation in the ministry and a shift in focus of the wider VCF. University Dedication Service (UDS) was restarted in 2003 with the commitment of all the campus ministries (Campus Crusade for Christ, Navigators, University Staff CF, and VCF) in making it an annual gathering for prayer and dedication of the university to God. Inter-Hall Fellowship (IHF) was started in 2003 with the aim of creating greater unity among the seven Hall ministries.

Informally, the Arts Canteen fellowship or Arts Green Tables fellowship as it was known by VCFers at that time was started out in 2003 with the intention of allowing VCFers to gather and meet over meals. As this gathering grew, it allowed opportunities for VCFers to talk about issues (theological or otherwise), invite their non-Christian friends to meet other VCFers at an informal level, and have the assurance that there will always be a VCFer to commune with. Subsequently, other similar informal groups were started around campus.VCF is a Evangelical (Protestant) Christian student group operating in the campus of the National University of Singapore. VCF is completely student-run and operates in harmony with two other student ministries: Campus Crusades for Christ and The Navigators.

VCF is affiliated to Fellowship of Evangelical Students (FES), an evangelical interdenominational organisation which seeks to support and strengthen Christian witness amongst tertiary students and graduates in Singapore. FES provides assistance to VCF through staffworkers who work alongside the students as facilitators and trainers. In this academic year, our staffworker is Miss Jasmine Foo. FES is also part of a larger body of Christian Students Organizations known as the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students For more information, please visit their websites!