About Us
We unwittingly became a community when we found ourselves together in a business. Through years of meeting and working together, we, from different church backgrounds, discovered just what it takes to love one another, warts and all.
As God empowered us to comprehend His incredible love, we found ourselves more and more distant from the institutional Church, finding it somewhat consumed, preoccupied and quite removed from the lives we live. It was not exactly a healthy place to be in, for us, and our families. We returned to His simple gospel - to know God, to be loved and to love one another.
Perhaps, this place may inspire some, like us before, who inadvertently found themselves without a life or a church, to desire after Him again.
Our Shared Values
As COBS does not compete with nor aim to become another church, there are some core values we embrace to better understand and engage with one another. These values exist to promote our unity, away from politics and pitfalls that come with an institutional hierarchy.
- One Teacher
- One Father
- No Hero Worship, No Competition
- No Excuse for Poor Work Standards or Discourtesy
- Building Deep, Not Wide
- Worshippers, Not Ministers
- Family Before Church
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Our founding members are diverse individuals whom God has brought together.
Our First Members
Sara grew up in a boisterous family of 15. Her jovial, reverential relationship with her father provided a strong example and foundation for her in love. A wife to one, a mother of three, she is now a happy grandmother of one.
Her passion for God has bloomed in all seasons, through many years of fellowshipping, counselling and leading others to Christ. This includes years spent alone, on her knees, feeling weary and brokenhearted at times, yet amazed by the blessings and revelations afforded by time alone with Him.
God showed her a new way, a broken way, that leads to victory and power. While she enjoys seeing lives transformed by God, she prefers to spend quality time alone with God and doing things she loves like reading, travelling and doing nothing. Still, God knows exactly how to get His way with her. She writes most of the content on this website.
Good friends with Sara since 1996 when they were hired on a project in Taipei that she managed, Oliver and Kelly found love and got married, producing two lovely children, Sarah and Philip. The Baader family is now happily settled at home in Switzerland after 18 years living in several countries across three continents.
After many years of managing luxury hotels, Oliver currently oversees multiple Food and Beverage outlets at the Zurich International Airport whilst Kelly is marching forward with God’s calling in this season of her life - to feed His sheep in the marketplace via different business projects. She has a Devotional Plan featured on the YouVersion Bible App and was a speaker at an TedXBaselWomen event in December 2019.
Sarah is currently pursuing a degree in psychology and law. She loves skiing, hiking, travelling, and walking with their well-travelled 10-year-old Labrador. Philip is an active young man as well, working as an apprentice with a well-known Swiss bank, and training with his local basketball team three times a week.
Among the oldest in our community, Joanna, now in her sixties, is the “youngest” when it comes to learning the things of God. Her beautiful childlike spirit often leaves us all in stitches, but at the same time it keeps us on our toes when she wanders off and finds herself lost, especially when we are in a foreign land!
She runs her own business distributing Chinese books and magazines to schools for many years and she also acted as a caretaker in the Singapore COBS community since our days in the prayer vault. Very committed to her assignments, what she has done for COBS has far exceeded her own expectations and her natural ability.
Even though she can sometimes rub people up the wrong way, Joanna has a very pure heart, with the purest of motives. She is especially caring towards the elderly, having lived alone with her nonagenarian mother until her passing in 2018.
Sharon, the other caretaker for COBS Singapore, is so capable and reliable that God had to break all of that perfection, so that she could experience what it is like to be totally resigned and surrendered to His great love for her.
An exemplary mother, wife, sister and daughter-in-law, she enjoys her days with her granddaughter on certain days of the week, while looking after a sickly mother-in-law in her home.
After she joined our community, the Holy Spirit worked powerfully in her, revealing many thoughts, visions and words, often leading her into rapid intercession. Perfectly paired up with Joanna, together, they form a very powerful intercessory team, often sending the enemy to flight and paving the way for the Presence of God to come into our meetings.
With a Chinese name that contains three fires, Asha has a passion for God that is palpable and fiery hot. On every trip she takes, it often ignites travellers on her left and her right with God’s love, leaving them wanting for more.
She spent many years in Singapore working hard to put her son through school, without any support from an abusive ex-husband. After his graduation, she returned to China, spending her days worshipping God, building a new community and looking after her aged parents while supporting herself through a new career in insurance, which is a miracle as she is way past their recruitment age.
That is how Asha’s life has been and is continuing to be - a life of miracles, mercy upon mercy, and grace upon grace.
Partnership
COBS is self-financed through a city fund inspired by biblical teachings, with contributions from kingdom funds of each family in the community. It is totally voluntary, it does not collect tithes and it is not for profit so that we may not be distracted by money matters.
If you would like to know more or wish to partner with us, please contact a community member or write to us.
