“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 Lai Ling 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. 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 2012, we completed construction of Unidus Community Centre at Willawong, more than 10 years after purchasing the land. Today, Unidus serves as our Willawong centre and is a popular venue for community events.

To date we are about 800 strong with 4 locations in South East Queensland. From the earliest days of Hope Church, it was a multi-ethnic community. Over the years it has continued to expand and today the church is composed of people from some 30 different nationality backgrounds. In 1998, we formed a community arm Hands of Hope which is actively involved in programs and events to provide community assistance and help strengthen surrounding communities.

Hope Church is also deeply involved in church-planting and missions, currently directly oversee nearly 200 churches in Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe. Hope Church is part of a larger family of churches under Hope International Ministries (HIM). HIM has over 700 churches in some 40 countries.

-Dr Wilson Lim, Senior Pastor