A year after opening its Heritage Gallery, Telok Ayer Chinese Methodist Church has welcomed more than 3,000 visitors of different faiths and walks of life. This season, a revamped exhibition of the time-capsule items and a showcase of Bibles in five languages give visitors reasons to return.
From the day Senior Minister of State, Ms Low Yen Ling, opened the TA Heritage Gallery on 13 September 2025, Telok Ayer Chinese Methodist Church (TACMC) no longer stowed away its history in a private archive. The very church itself is now a front door into the story of Methodism and of Singapore’s earliest Chinese Methodist church.
More than 3,000 visitors have since walked through this door, of which more than 650 were walk-in visitors. The rest came in organised groups from diverse walks of life. All of them were curious about the church crowned with an Asian-style rooftop pavilion which was restored and won the URA Architectural Heritage Award in 1996. TACMC‘s guest books record visits by some 800 students from more than ten schools on Religious Harmony Days and Learning Journeys, embassy guests, visitors from voluntary welfare organisations, National Servicemen on Total Defence Day, inter-faith community leaders and groups from other religious faiths and leadership and business groups on study visits, office workers from the Central Business District nearby who drifted in during their breaks and vacation tour groups and visitors from churches across Southeast and East Asia.
Edmund Koh (left) and Bishop Philip Lim (right) at the launch
of the TA Heritage Gallery
The route through the front door led them from the ground floor all the way up to the bell tower on the fourth.
“As a church, we are very conscious of our role as stewards, not owners, of the faith and the heritage we have received. Every blessing is not to be hoarded but to be shared. The Heritage Gallery is one way of sharing with the wider community across all faiths and ethnicities. We warmly welcome anyone to visit us!” said the Rev Edmund Koh, Pastor-in-Charge of TACMC.
As a church, we are very conscious of our role as stewards, not owners, of the faith and the heritage we have received. Every blessing is not to be hoarded but to be shared. The Heritage Gallery is one way of sharing with the wider community across all faiths and ethnicities.
A capsule for the next century
Beneath the church’s 1924 foundation stone lay a time capsule of significant items and documents which was carefully extracted in 2024. In July 2026, these were entrusted to conservators who then made conservation-grade replicas of them. The replicas were handed over to TACMC, and they now fill the gallery’s cabinets, while the originals are resting in controlled storage.
Ms Low Yen Ling at the launch of the TA Heritage Gallery
“With replicas, we can strike a balance between sharing the century-old time-capsule items with the public and keeping them safe for the next hundred years,” said Susan Koh, Chairperson of the History and Archives Committee.
In the same spot, the church has laid a new time capsule for the next hundred years. Among other items, it holds letters from the Rev Edmund Koh and Prof Tan Chew Lim, a retired lay leader, addressed to the congregation of 2125.
The Bible across languages
Alongside the time capsule exhibit is an exhibition, “The Bible Across Languages”, which features a collection of early language Bibles on loan from The Bible Society of Singapore and Trinity Theological College as well as TACMC‘s own collection of other early Bibles on display.
When the first Chinese translations were made, China was all but closed to missionaries, so the earliest Chinese Bibles were printed and distributed not in China but in Malacca. Robert Morrison, who reached Canton in 1807 but was forbidden to preach, made translation his life’s work. William Milne, refused entry to China altogether, worked from Malacca and carried the Scriptures to Fujianese merchant families across Malacca, Penang and Java. These were the very communities from which Telok Ayer’s own founding families came.
On display are four original volumes of the 神天圣书, the 1823 Morrison–Milne Bible, printed from hand-carved woodblocks in 21 volumes and lent by Trinity Theological College; the 1919 Mandarin Union Version 官话和合本, still the standard Chinese Bible today; a replica of a 1629 Dutch–Malay Scripture, the earliest European attempt to bring the Bible into the Malay world; and a 1904 Tamil Old Testament published in Madras. The most local treasure is the Baba Malay New Testament, first published by William G. Shellabear in 1913 for the Straits Chinese of which its 1927 second edition is shown here.
The Bible in classical Chinese (文理), Mandarin, Malay, Baba Malay and Tamil, brought together in a single showcase at a heritage gallery, is a rare first.
Coming for Lent: The Last Supper
In late October 2026, the church received a signed, numbered, limited-edition photographic folio of Leonardo da Vinci’s The Last Supper in Milan by Istanbul-based photographer Ahmet Ertuğ. Weighing about 20 kg, the volume will be displayed seasonally, during Lent and Easter, from 2027.
It is the gift of Mr John Koh, a retired lawyer and banker, art collector and long-time supporter of Singapore’s heritage institutions. He gifts it in memory of his grandparents, Mr Koh Koon Yeow 許坤耀 and Madam Kang Tong Jin 江同仁, Christians from Xiamen who worshipped at TACMC in the 1940s and served in its pioneering lay leadership. Madam Kang, educated at 毓德女中 on 鼓浪屿 (Gulangyu), was vice-chair of TACMC‘s post-war Woman’s Society of Christian Service (WSCS), whose monthly meetings had drawn close to 400 women by 1946–47.
I remember the Telok Ayer church being central to my grandmother’s life. In the process of making this gift, I have learnt more about the church, the Chinese community (initially Chinese-speaking immigrants) it serves and the importance of this physical landmark,” said Mr Koh.
I remember the Telok Ayer church being central to my grandmother’s life. In the process of making this gift, I have learnt more about the church, the Chinese community (initially Chinese-speaking immigrants) it serves and the importance of this physical landmark,” said Mr Koh.
Guides who multiply
The gallery holds more than 200 artefacts, most of them originals, in 21 cabinets arranged around four themes: history, architecture, people and social impact. Augmented reality, QR codes, videos and a 3D online walkthrough enrich visitors’ experience. In the bell tower now hangs a replica of the original church bell from 137 years ago, this replica was made on the advice of the Preservation of Sites and Monuments division of the National Heritage Board.
The multi-faceted heritage gallery cannot function without a dedicated extended family of God at TACMC. The committee has trained 40 volunteer docents from our congregation on a train-the-trainer model, and those docents now train others, including Lionheartlanders, Friends of the Museums and STB-licensed guides, who carry the church’s story into their own tours.
Text and photos by Telok Ayer Chinese Methodist Church History and Archives Committee
