Changes & Chances
Chapter 28 Some Younger Sisters
Suharto’s New Order regime provided a favourable environment for the growth of the expatriate churches like All Saints. It marked a strong break with the previous twenty years of socialism and economic malaise. After consolidating its power, the Suharto regime developed the stagnating national economy through encouraging foreign investment, causing Jakarta's foreign community to mushroom. Of the dominant English-speaking communities the North Americans characteristically concentrated on the oil sector, the British on banking and insurance and the Australians on mining and construction. By the mid-1990s the two main English-speaking expatriate schools in Jakarta together had a total of 5000 students.
From this time on All Saints was no longer synonymous with English-speaking Christianity in Jakarta. The spiritual needs of this community were met by a growing number of English-speaking churches. Following is a brief survey of these churches up to the present.
The oldest of these sister churches of All Saints was the already-mentioned Jakarta Community Church, founded by expatriate Protestants in 1953. In August 1964 it moved from the nearby Paulus (St Paul's) Indonesian church to All Saints and then to a good location in the Blok M commercial district of South Jakarta where it flourished under the leadership of Professor Richard Haskins, an American lecturer at STT Jakarta who pastored the church for 35 years until 2000. Since his successor, Rev. Peter Holden, left in 2002, it has struggled to recruit another pastor.
The archetypal oilman was Texan and Southern Baptist and soon after the oil boom of the 1970s a handsome Baptist church was built in the Kebayoran Baru area of South Jakarta. The Jakarta International Baptist Church shares these facilities with the Indonesian Baptist congregation which now owns the property. In 1995 the Baptists initiated the Jakarta International Christian Fellowship at the Kemang Hotel in South Jakarta. Initially lacking a full-time pastor it relied heavily on missionaries. In 1997 it moved to an auditorium in the Financial Club in the Central Business District and has more recently employed a full-time preacher-teacher.
In the last twenty years a number of Pentecostal worship services in English have operated in hotels and office buildings, including the Charismatic Worship Service at the Hilton Hotel and the International English Service of the Batu Tulis Assemblies of God which in 2002 moved to its own premises in Jalan Casablanca.
Other congregations have foundered, like the interdenominational North Jakarta International Church which met at the North Jakarta International School from 1996 until 1998, when most of the congregation left as a result of the economic crisis. The prestige of the English language among middle class Indonesian Christians, particularly the Chinese, means that a number of Indonesian churches advertise English services, although their congregations are overwhelmingly Indonesian.
The expatriate Roman Catholics helped build the impressive Stefanus (St Stephen's) Church in Pondok Indah, close to the Jakarta International School. Unfortunately they lost their Sunday English Mass slot to an Indonesian congregation and have had a number of less than satisfactory locations, including the top floor of Atma Jaya Catholic University in the Central Business District. Smaller Catholic congregations meet at the Vatican Nunciate and Canisius College, both close to All Saints.
Jakarta is currently fortunate in having a healthy spectrum of English-language churches. In this new panorama All Saints’ niche is for those with an affinity for liturgical worship, albeit “Low Church”, a classical Protestant theology and a parish community nurtured in word and sacrament by ordained clergy. As with many of these sister churches, All Saints Church Council is increasingly multi-national and multi-denominational.
Suharto’s New Order regime provided a favourable environment for the growth of the expatriate churches like All Saints. It marked a strong break with the previous twenty years of socialism and economic malaise. After consolidating its power, the Suharto regime developed the stagnating national economy through encouraging foreign investment, causing Jakarta's foreign community to mushroom. Of the dominant English-speaking communities the North Americans characteristically concentrated on the oil sector, the British on banking and insurance and the Australians on mining and construction. By the mid-1990s the two main English-speaking expatriate schools in Jakarta together had a total of 5000 students.
From this time on All Saints was no longer synonymous with English-speaking Christianity in Jakarta. The spiritual needs of this community were met by a growing number of English-speaking churches. Following is a brief survey of these churches up to the present.
The oldest of these sister churches of All Saints was the already-mentioned Jakarta Community Church, founded by expatriate Protestants in 1953. In August 1964 it moved from the nearby Paulus (St Paul's) Indonesian church to All Saints and then to a good location in the Blok M commercial district of South Jakarta where it flourished under the leadership of Professor Richard Haskins, an American lecturer at STT Jakarta who pastored the church for 35 years until 2000. Since his successor, Rev. Peter Holden, left in 2002, it has struggled to recruit another pastor.
The archetypal oilman was Texan and Southern Baptist and soon after the oil boom of the 1970s a handsome Baptist church was built in the Kebayoran Baru area of South Jakarta. The Jakarta International Baptist Church shares these facilities with the Indonesian Baptist congregation which now owns the property. In 1995 the Baptists initiated the Jakarta International Christian Fellowship at the Kemang Hotel in South Jakarta. Initially lacking a full-time pastor it relied heavily on missionaries. In 1997 it moved to an auditorium in the Financial Club in the Central Business District and has more recently employed a full-time preacher-teacher.
In the last twenty years a number of Pentecostal worship services in English have operated in hotels and office buildings, including the Charismatic Worship Service at the Hilton Hotel and the International English Service of the Batu Tulis Assemblies of God which in 2002 moved to its own premises in Jalan Casablanca.
Other congregations have foundered, like the interdenominational North Jakarta International Church which met at the North Jakarta International School from 1996 until 1998, when most of the congregation left as a result of the economic crisis. The prestige of the English language among middle class Indonesian Christians, particularly the Chinese, means that a number of Indonesian churches advertise English services, although their congregations are overwhelmingly Indonesian.
The expatriate Roman Catholics helped build the impressive Stefanus (St Stephen's) Church in Pondok Indah, close to the Jakarta International School. Unfortunately they lost their Sunday English Mass slot to an Indonesian congregation and have had a number of less than satisfactory locations, including the top floor of Atma Jaya Catholic University in the Central Business District. Smaller Catholic congregations meet at the Vatican Nunciate and Canisius College, both close to All Saints.
Jakarta is currently fortunate in having a healthy spectrum of English-language churches. In this new panorama All Saints’ niche is for those with an affinity for liturgical worship, albeit “Low Church”, a classical Protestant theology and a parish community nurtured in word and sacrament by ordained clergy. As with many of these sister churches, All Saints Church Council is increasingly multi-national and multi-denominational.
