Home ¢ The Rev Dr Edwin Tay was appointed principal of Trinity Theological College on 1 July 2020. An ordained minister of the Chinese Annual Conference, he grew up attending Telok Ayer Chinese Methodist Church, and is an alumnus of Anglo-Chinese School and Anglo-Chinese Junior College. / Photos courtesy of the Rev Dr Edwin Tay
As an ACJC choir committee member in 1988/89 and 1990/90. (The Rev Dr Tay is in the second row, fourth from left)
Called through a book
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n my family, I am a second-generation Christian. Attending church on Sundays was a practice that began early in my life as part of what my family would do on the weekends. My parents and grandparents started attending Telok Ayer Chinese Methodist Church (TACMC) in the early ’70s. It was there that I was baptised as a child and nurtured in the Christian faith. The reality of God and that of the death and resurrection of Jesus didn’t really grip me in any spiritually significant way until I was a teenager. But this did not mean that going to church was of no spiritual value to me before then—the Church community formed me in important ways that provided the biblical and theological framework to make sense of my life in God’s world. Worthy of note were the Methodist Youth Fellowship (MYF) camps. They ignited my spiritual passion, gave substance to what fellowship with Christ and His followers is about, and challenged me to take God and His Word seriously. Another important event were the renewal and revival meetings I attended. Held during the weekdays over a few nights, they were conducted in Chinese and Hokkien, and were always well-attended as far as I can recall. As a boy, I was there only because my parents had brought me along. I was too young to appreciate the preaching and usually did my own thing while the adults did theirs. But the hymns and revival choruses that were sung have stayed with me. The significance of these meetings only became evident to me only in hindsight. Whether Sunday School, MYF, the church choir or revival meetings, my identity as an integral member of God’s people was shaped by these ministries from when I was a young age.
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METHODIST MESSAGE AUGUST 2020
The bagpipe band of the Boys’ Brigade 12th Singapore Company in 1987. (The Rev Dr Tay is first from left)
The Rev Dr Tay with his wife, Angela, and daughters Phoebe (left) and Chloe
