Mission History

Lutheran Church in Singapore

In 1953, shortly after China closed its doors to contacts with the international mission movement, missionaries were sent to northern Malaysia by the United Lutheran Church in America, one of the ELCA's predecessor churches, to begin Lutheran mission work among the ethnic Chinese community in Malaysia. At that time present-day Malaysia and Singapore were linked in one political unit. Gradually the pioneer mission efforts moved toward the south, first to metropolitan Kuala Lumpur, and soon after that to Singapore.

Redeemer Lutheran Church was built in 1960 and became the leading congregation of the Singapore district of the Lutheran Church in Malaysia and Singapore. Redeemer became a center for worship, service, and fellowship, with an outreach in the housing projects which the Singapore government was erecting to accommodate the multitude of new immigrants as well as thousands of young people streaming into the cities from rural areas.

Mission efforts led to the formation of the Lutheran Church in Malaysia and Singapore (LCMS) in 1963, with two districts within Malaysia and one district encompassing the island of Singapore. By 1978, all established congregations attained financial self-support, and together assumed support for the administrative budget of the LCMS central office. Because Malaysia and Singapore have been separate countries politically since 1965, the LCMS divided into the Lutheran Church in Malaysia and the Lutheran Church in Singapore (LCS) on January 1, 1998.