Rev. Hong Tan

The Rev. Hong K. Tan was elected to the Board of Elders of the Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches in 1993 during his term as District Coordinator of the European North Sea District.  Rev. Tan founded Metropolitan Community Church of North London and was its Senior Pastor for seven years.  He was also the first Asian District Coordinator and ordained clergyperson in UFMCC.

Born in Singapore, Rev. Tan completed his graduate degree in physiology at the University of London and completed his Masters in Business Administration. He did nine years postgraduate research in liver cancer at University College Medical School and published numerous papers. He has founded HIV/AIDS and People of Colors organizations and has cared for people with HIV/AIDS.

Rev. Elder Tan was a member of the UFMCC delegation to the 1998 World Council of Churches General Assembly in Zimbabwe and facilitated the process for recruitment and selection of the District Coordinator for the Northeast and Eastern Canadian Districts. He was also a key organizer of the Asian-Pacific Islander Leadership Institute. Tan also participated in the Lambeth Conference of the Church of England and witnessed through various United Kingdom print, television and radio media outlets, while continuing work on behalf of people with HIV/AIDS in London through the London Ecumenical AIDS Trust of Westminster Abbey.

Tan visited more than fifteen churches and attended District Conferences in the Mid-Atlantic, Gulf/Lower Atlantic, and European Districts. He was one of the featured speakers at the 1999 Charismatic Conference sponsored by MCC-Long Beach, California. He was a member of the Strategic Growth Initiative Team and served as liaison to Excel, the Philippines, and HIV ministries. Tan returned as Senior Pastor to Metropolitan Community Church North London in October, 1997, in addition to continuing with his full-time secular employment as Associate Director at National Health Services, one of the larger London Health Authorities. As part of the secular work, he represented the Health Authority at the Prince of Wale’s 50th Anniversary Lecture at St James’s Palace.

“There is such a need for our vision by all faith communities,” Tan says.  “I am even more convinced of this after our witness at the World Council of Churches. We are on the cusp of a major opening of the world to God’s inclusive gospel through us. I am very excited about our links with our communities in Asia, especially the hard work with partners in Ecumenical Witness, Encounter Missions International, and partner churches. We have opportunities, especially in China, to witness to over 20% of the world’s population.”

Rev. Elder Tan retired from the Board of Elders in 2003 and continues in the National Health Service as London's first Sexual Health Programme Director, lead commissioning to improve Sexual Health and HIV. He also is co-ordinating the planning of Sexual Health services for the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games

(This biographical statement provided by Hong Tan.) 

Biography Date: February, 2010

“I met Hong at the MCC 2000 conference in Los Angeles that I attended. (I'm on record in the conference report with my Africa address.) Judy Dahl introduced me to him and then I spent several times during the conference in conversation with him. What an enlightened mind with so much knowledge. This all with a humble and gentle spirit. As a Theological graduate myself he broadened my learning base greatly. I have and will always be in his debt for this. I am poorer for not being in his North London congregation but then my career was here in Cape Town.   After returning I continued to converse with him via email over the years but then I think we both got too busy.   I am now retired and have the time to go through all and everyone I have been involved with throughout my life and have now put Hong at the top of that exercise. Reminiscing about him through the notes and photos is not going to be easy, but then that's life.”
 – as remembered by Roger Olivier on February 14, 2023

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