Our History
“In your heart, you know the purposes of God. God’s has determined His purposes for enlargement for you and the kingdom at this time”, came the word of God from his prophet. With his hands resting firmly on my shoulders, the man of God spoke clearly and surely. The deep desires of my heart, some of which were so deep inside that I had yet to find the words to articulate, was being deftly painted in a picture of words by the Spirit of God.
For many months, I had cried unto the LORD, “Who am I to do your work? How I lack! Surely the task I see before me is too big! How will I reach all those poor souls?”
The answers to my cries came swiftly through the man of God, “… the portion of the harvest is going to be yours, it’s not just a gleaning around the edges, it’s a good hunk of the harvest you have seen in your mind and your heart.”
Those words of encouragement from the LORD continued burning brightly in the hearts of my wife and I as we left Melbourne and took our first steps of faith to pioneer the church in Brisbane.
In February 1993, we started our first prayer meeting and Bible study with just Lai Ling and myself. God honored our faith as, others soon joined with us and new believers were added to the group.
In August 1993, Hope Church started our first Sunday public meetings in the Gordon Greenwood building at the University of Queensland, Brisbane.
The church continued to thrive and in 1996 the church relocated to the Abel Smith Lecture Theatre, one of the largest and best-equipped lecture theatres at the university. Christian Development School classes continue to be held at a number of seminar rooms at the Gordon Greenwood building. With the continual growth of the church, the Sunday fellowship lunches were then held at the nearby Main Refectory.
In 1999, we established another worship center at Mt. Gravatt. In 2000, Hope Church was restructured into two congregations: the Eureka and International congregations was formed. The Mt. Gravatt centre was subsequently merged into the International congregation. In 2004, we started an afternoon International congregation.
In 2012, we completed construction of Unidus Community Centre at Willawong, more than 10 years after purchasing the land. To date we are over 750 strong with 6 church services (Willawong morning, St. Lucia morning and afternoon, Gold Coast, Ipswich and Ablaze youth service at Willawong) meeting in 4 different locations in South East Queensland.
From the earliest days of Hope Church, it was a multicultural community. Over the years it has continued to expand and today the church is composed of people from over 50 different nationality backgrounds.
Hope Church is part of a larger family of churches under Hope International Ministries (HIM). HIM has over 400 churches in some 40 countries.
-By Senior Pastor, Dr Wilson Lim