Author: eds

Singapore’s Charismatic Renewal of the 1970s and its unlikely beginnings

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In 2017, Lou Engle shared at Kingdom Invasion that 2018 would be a significant year for Singapore – the 40th year of Billy Graham’s word to our nation, that we would be an Antioch to Asia. But he also shared that God is coming to weigh us on whether we have been true to the assignment He has given us. And Lou challenged us to contend for the calling and destiny of Singapore. The word weighed on my heart. And one of the questions I asked the Lord was, “Lord, what does revival look like?” I had read of the revivals around the world in times past — the Welsh Revival, Pyongyang Revival, Argentinian Revival, Azuza Street Revival, Hebrides Revival etc. So I suppose my question was about revival in my own nation, Singapore. I wanted to know because I wanted to know what would be the price worth paying for revival.

Then I fell upon the book “Unfolding His story: The Story of the Charismatic Movement in Singapore” by Georgie and Galven Lee, a father and son team. 

The book chronicles how God moved upon the believers in Singapore in the 1970s with a Holy Spirit outpouring. I am so grateful for this book because, to me, it is a story of God’s faithfulness through the generations. In this particular case, it filled a missing piece for me on how many in an earlier generation met the Lord.

1. The story of Singapore’s 1970s charismatic renewal is remarkable because it started in the most unlikely of places — in the schools. In particular, ACS would be the epicentre of the Holy Spirit’s move, and then, the fire of revival would quickly spread to other schools like Dunearn Technical Secondary School, Tanjong Katong Girls’ School, Anderson Secondary School, Raffles Girls’ School, St Andrews’ School etc. 


2. Even before the ACS boys received the gift of tongues, they were fervent in prayer and evangelism.  According to the book, “These schoolboys gathered often in school to pray for ‘Revival, holiness and world missions’. They understood the importance of an authentic Christianity, to be lived out in the day to day context of their school campus. Thus, as Malcolm Tan recounts, the schoolboys were particularly ardent in regularly evangelising their ACS schoolmates. ‘After being saved, witnessing became part of our practice. And we also brought friends to the clock tower to share with them salvation. I remember we would sit under the tree, share salvation from our little pocket New Testament. The guy says he wants to accept Christ, okay, we drag him to the clock tower, he prays the Sinners’ Prayer there.’ 

Malcolm Tan was only 14 years old then. In June, during the school holidays, he would receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit while at home. Fully convinced this was what his schoolmates needed, he ensured the entire ACS Christian Fellowship, of which he was Follow-up Chairman, heard about the baptism of the Holy Spirit from him when the new school term started’.” 


3. At Dunearn Boys, on 15 July, one of the schoolboys Philip Lee, received the gift of the Holy Spirit. He prayed for a friend to receive the gift as well – and this soon spread – with these schoolboys praying behind the school’s science laboratory in tongues at all times of the day. 


4. The ACS boys would seek guidance and mentorship from a Reverend David Hugh Baker, an Assembly of God pastor and missionary. I like how he described their enthusiasm.  


“All these young men from ACS were full of questions. I have never been asked so many questions in my life. I had to find the answers that I had never answered before. I was in constant contact with heaven to find out what I should tell these people.” 


5. What transpired in the schools was roundly criticised by the media who thought the boys had gone into hysterics.  It also disturbed the mainline church leaders. By the end of 1972, the number of students who embraced the baptism of the Holy Spirit numbered some 200. From this epicentre, however, would come a huge tidal wave that would spread to the mainstream churches in Singapore and make deep, lasting impact. (to be continued). 

The ACS Clocktower revival of 1972

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For a while now, I’ve heard snippets of the Clock Tower Revival at ACS Barker in the 1970s, but they have just been bits and pieces. So when a friend passed me a little booklet “The Clock Tower Story: The Beginnings of the Charismatic Renewals in Singapore” (edited by Michael Poon and Malcolm Tan), it was exciting to me. Finally! Here was the complete story of what transpired at ACS so many years ago, when the Holy Spirit fell upon a bunch of young boys, whose lives were so indelibly changed, that a number of them became pastors in the Methodist Church in Singapore. 

In a nutshell, the ACS Clock Tower was a place where groups of students gathered together for regular prayer. In 1972, the Holy Spirit moved upon the students “in a dramatic way … the result was similar to the experience of the apostles at Pentecost”. Nearly 30 years later, the students described it as “a move of God”, “outpouring of the Holy Spirit”, “baptism of the Holy Spirit”, and “speaking in tongues”. It was such a big thing at that time that two articles appeared in The Straits Times. 

Given I have been thinking about revival for some time, here are some thoughts as I read this account that happened in Singapore nearly 40 years ago: 

1. A prayer movement preceded the revival. As Malcolm Tan recounted it, “It cannot be denied that there was a very powerful prayer movement that was going on here in school prior to the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. And if you walked up Barker Road Hill in those days, you will see groups of ACS boys – five, three, four – just praying in the sanctuary of the Barker Road Methodist Church. Not only was the church full, but also the clock tower was full. Boys were meeting and praying.” 

2. There was such a tremendous zeal for prayer, the students used every opportunity -recess-time, before school hours, after school hours, to cry out to the Lord. I believe that God cannot resist the hunger and thirst for Him. As Noel Goh put it, in 1971, “we started to gather to pray, and we prayed every recess. Every recess, we would run to the clock tower. And when we hear the bell, we would quickly say ‘Amen’ and run back. It was quite a distance back to the Pre-U block. We would just be on time there panting away in the classroom”. 

“Sometimes, we would come before seven o’clock to pray before school starts. If we did not have prefect duties, and other duties, sometimes we would also stay back after school to pray. I remember we used the church garage. We took chairs there after school and would kneel there to pray until four or five o’clock and then go back.” 

3. Conditions must be right for the Holy Spirit outpouring. Some lay down their lives to lay the foundations for this, and it is only the ones that come after who enjoy the fullness of God. We must always honour the ones who go before us, because truly, their ceiling is our floor. Revival comes when the different generations are as one. 

Malcolm Tan: “I wish you could feel the spiritual fervour in those days as people like Noel Goh, who led us in the Christian Fellowship. They were into Scripture memory, personal evangelism and prayer. And they influenced us in the younger generation.” 

Tan Khian Seng: “Rev Noel Goh was like John the Baptist who blazed the trail in the prayer movement. When he vacated the clock tower because he was slightly older, we took over.” 

4. If our experience does not square with the Scriptures, it is not because the Scriptures are wrong. The boys, who came from a Methodist background, did not know the Holy Spirit, having come from a more traditional conservative environment. But “they searched the Scriptures”, and were convinced that the baptism of the Holy Spirit was right and true. Given this, they pressed in to God, asking that if this was true, that He should make it real in their lives. God responded to this, as He would. I love the simple faith expressed by Tan Khong Chew, “We went into the Word, took it at face value, and claimed the promises that God has given us. We began to see things happening in our lives.” 

5. Genuine moves of God can meet with tremendous opposition, both from the world and even the church itself.The Straits Times on 7 Nov 1972 reported that “some students who have been taking part in religious meetings after school hours have ended up either in hysterics or in a trance”. 

This doesn’t surprise me. The world doesn’t interpret the church, the word interprets the world. So when the world interprets the church, is it any surprise that it condemns or derides that which it doesn’t understand? 

But what was stunning to me was that the church condemned this movement too. In the ST report on 11 Nov, it was said that church leaders at 4 mainline Protestant churches likened the renewal to “a certain religious cult with unhealthy practices … the trouble with young people is that they think it is a great experience to end up in hysterics”. 

6. God works behind the scenes to take care of all our needs. He prepares the way in advance, knowing what we need.After the clock tower revival, the school authorities clamped down on the boys meeting, so that they could mostly only meet with a teacher present. As one of the boys said, “Because most teachers were not willing to be with us, we could not meet.” 

Funny thing is that at this time, a Rev Hugh Baker, a veteran Pentescostal preacher, had his beautiful premises at Clemenceau Avenue taken away and he and his wife had to move to Bukit Timah. Said Rev Baker, “My wife and I were talking about this move, and we said certainly God must be going to do something great. We did not know about all of what was happening in ACS at that time.” Because Rev Baker’s centre was near ACS, he was the one who opened his house to the boys, and ministered to them often, teaching them about the things of the Holy Spirit. 

7. Ps Melvin Huang: The hunger for the word, the hunger for prayer and the desire to preach the Gospel were the hallmarks of the revival. 

8. I thought this musing by Rev Baker sums up this little known but glorious moment of history in ACS, which then spread across Singapore, and across denominations, beautifully: 

“There is nothing in ourselves that merits anything from God. But God in His mercy and his grace and love sees the hunger of our hearts and the channel that is open for the moving of His Holy Spirit. And He begins to pour His Spirit into that channel and that begins to spread out. God was looking for channels. 

“He found channels in ACS. He found channels in Swiss Cottage. He found channels in the Anglican Church. He found channels in the Methodist Church. He found channels in the Catholic Church. He found channels in the Baptist Church. And that’s a miracle. He found people who were willing to be channels the Holy Spirit could move through. And in moving through, we begin to touch lives.” 

Finally, love this prayer as prayed by Rev Baker. 

“Father, here I am. I just want to be the channel that you can use to ignite the revival that will not only spread across Singapore but will spread out to the rest of the world. And the world will come to know the glory, the majesty and power of your name. And the free flow of your Holy Spirit will demonstrate to the world the power of a living Christ. Thank you, Father, thank you, Father, thank you, Father.”