8 October 2006, 10:34pm
Vision Weekend
We are starting another 6-month Arise and Build Campaign in November to raise money to build us a stadium that can seat 7 to 10 thousand people. Wow! Pastor talked about the work of the church over the weekend to prepare us for the building fund and I thought it would be a good idea to share this story.
I’ve heard Pastor Kong tell this story so many times but everytime he tells it again, the story re-inspires me and gets me all emotional and proud of everything our church represents and has achieved.
CHC started in 1989 as a 20 member cell group led by Pastor Kong and started growing into the hundreds and then the thousands. We experienced 3 years of stagnation in the early part of the 1990s but after Pastor received a revelation during a trip to Hawaii, revival burst forth in our church again. Since then, we have grown to 22,278. We are currently the second largest church in Asia (after Rev Cho’s church in Korea).
The Revelation
Loving God Wholeheartedly
Loving People Fervently
Matthew 22:37-39
“You shall the love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your mind.” This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it is: ‘You shall love your neighbour.’ On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.”
Mission Statement
A church with a strong spiritual atmosphere of faith and purity, where every member is discipled in the great commandment to obey the great commission!
What we need to grow stronger in:
1) Prayer
2) Fellowship
3) Word of God
4) Ministry
5) Evangelism
I’ve often heard and read about people criticizing CHC - Christians and non-Christians alike. Most of these critics do not attend our church, know little about our church, contribute nothing and yet comment on everything. From the way we run our service (praise and worship), the way we spend our money (our 40 million titanium building), the way we reach out to people through the creative arts (Sun’s controversial cross-over project), and even the way we choose to dress.
I have been on a roller coaster ride (in terms of my spiritual life) with the church for over 10 years and I still love the church as much as I did before. I may not be as on fire as I used to be or as fervent as many of the people of the church but I am fiercely loyal to my church and my leaders. I have seen the church growing from glory to glory, going through different phases where we focused more on prayer, deliverance and healing, outreach, prophesy, missions, creative arts, the word of God etc, and today, after all these years, I believe that our church is pretty well-balanced in all these areas.
Each week I attend service and cell group. That’s really the bare minimum and no, I don’t serve in any ministry. Yet. I used to. And in quite a few too (usher, choir, dance, silent ministry). Anyway, I hope to start again soon. Don’t know which ministry yet. I won’t say I pray and read the Bible everyday but I do try. I tithe monthly and give to the church through weekly offerings and the building fund – WILLINGLY. Nobody forces me (or any other church member) to give. I give because I want to give. Because I love God, because I love the church and because I believe in what the church is doing.
I do know that the money I give through tithes and offering goes towards the church staff salary (what is wrong with that and anyway Pastor Kong doesn’t even take a salary from the church anymore so you can stop questioning what car he drives, where he lives and how he’s using his money), the rental of the Expo, the church buses that ferry people to and from church, and the many community service projects and missions work that the church does, and more. The money I give to the Arise and Build Campaign will probably be used for another building like the one we have in Jurong West. Only it’s gonna be bigger and better this time.
I’m starting to hear criticism about how the church should not be wasting money on such and expensive building yada yada yada… and that we should be giving the money to the poor yada yada yada…
People, what is wrong with building God a magnificent house? Should we instead build Him a bare and cheap building so that we can show non-believers how little God is blessing us and that when they accept Christ as their Lord and Saviour, they too can be as poor as the church is? Jesus says to his disciples that the poor we will have with us always but Him we do not have always.
In the Bible, during their 40 years in the desert, the children of Israel also built God a great house. Anyway, how many times do you get to build God a house? Don’t you agree that when Christians prosper, God is glorified. When the church and His people shine, it makes people wonder what is different about us. We are to be the salt and light of the world. How can you impact and influence the world if you are as poor as a church mouse (that’s a poor idiom coz mice from church should be rich. Very rich)?
Reaching the World through Creative Arts
How can we impact and influence the world if we are not doing anything exciting? Are we to attract people with boring, monotone preaching and music that lulls babies to sleep? The younger generation needs something to shake up their lives and blow their minds. They communicate through and identify with dance, music, singing, and style. And it’s possible to have all this and at the same time be a pair of goody two shoes.
Kristos Kai Kosmos – to bring Christ into culture
But of course, without love, all this is nothing…
Community Services
See a need and meet it
Find a hurt and heal it
We are currently the largest community service provider in Singapore. In 2006, our church volunteers provided 17,123 services to 11,421 needy and disadvantaged people in Singapore, with no strings attached. 3739 home visitations are made every week (my mom is involved in visiting the elderly who live alone in Jalan Kukop and she says some of these elderly have only enough money to eat one packet of rice a day and have lost contact with their children). The people our church helps include lower income children and elderly, youths, intellectually disabled, terminally-ill, multiple sclerosis patients, rehabilitation (prison/drug inmates), families, hearing-impaired etc.
To date (for 2006), 1910 people have donated blood and we hope to bring the tally to 2200 by the end of the year (based on 22,000 members - we believe in tithing 10% in this aspect too – strange but true)
In 2006, we helped 20 local charities (5 Christian, 2 Muslim, 1 Buddhist and 12 non-religious) by giving $1,042,589.23
We were the first team to send Medical Relief to Banda Aceh during the 2003 Tsunami Crisis. Since then, we have built a school, hostel and a hospital. We also built 2 orphanages in Jaffna and Badulla for children who lost their parents in the tsunami disaster.
A medical team of doctors, nurses and relief volunteers also went to Yogjakarta and Pangandaran to help out with earthquake rescue in 2006.
Sun used her album royalties to build 3 primary schools in China and was able to help 1242 children from very poor backgrounds. She is planning to build a 4th primary school in the next 6 months.
Abstracted from sermon notes
Missions
Last year, we gave $4,064,026 to local and overseas mission, which is almost 16% of our General Fund. 885 members in 87 teams went for short-terms overseas mission trips to 35 cities – More than 1 mission trip a week!
We are planting churches at a rate of almost one new church every month. To date, we have grown from 24-36 branch churches. Our weekly TV program is broadcasted in 12 satellite TV networks with a potential viewership is 631 million and we are planning to broadcast to Japan, Russia and Eastern Europe.
In the last 12 months, our Internet broadcast was watched by more than 540,000 from 98 countries. Our website was the most visited religious website in Asia in 2005.
Abstracted from sermon notes
The next time you want to criticise, think about what you have done or are doing to impact and change the world. And then, think about what CHC has done, is doing and will do in the years to come to help and reach out to the tens of thousands emotionally, physically (the handicapped / terminally-ill) and financially needy people in Singapore and all over the world. People who need love, care, concern, money, blood donation, a good role model, someone to inspire them (what Sun is doing), etc.
We are starting another 6-month Arise and Build Campaign in November to raise money to build us a stadium that can seat 7 to 10 thousand people. Wow! Pastor talked about the work of the church over the weekend to prepare us for the building fund and I thought it would be a good idea to share this story.
I’ve heard Pastor Kong tell this story so many times but everytime he tells it again, the story re-inspires me and gets me all emotional and proud of everything our church represents and has achieved.
CHC started in 1989 as a 20 member cell group led by Pastor Kong and started growing into the hundreds and then the thousands. We experienced 3 years of stagnation in the early part of the 1990s but after Pastor received a revelation during a trip to Hawaii, revival burst forth in our church again. Since then, we have grown to 22,278. We are currently the second largest church in Asia (after Rev Cho’s church in Korea).
The Revelation
Loving God Wholeheartedly
Loving People Fervently
Matthew 22:37-39
“You shall the love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your mind.” This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it is: ‘You shall love your neighbour.’ On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.”
Mission Statement
A church with a strong spiritual atmosphere of faith and purity, where every member is discipled in the great commandment to obey the great commission!
What we need to grow stronger in:
1) Prayer
2) Fellowship
3) Word of God
4) Ministry
5) Evangelism
I’ve often heard and read about people criticizing CHC - Christians and non-Christians alike. Most of these critics do not attend our church, know little about our church, contribute nothing and yet comment on everything. From the way we run our service (praise and worship), the way we spend our money (our 40 million titanium building), the way we reach out to people through the creative arts (Sun’s controversial cross-over project), and even the way we choose to dress.
I have been on a roller coaster ride (in terms of my spiritual life) with the church for over 10 years and I still love the church as much as I did before. I may not be as on fire as I used to be or as fervent as many of the people of the church but I am fiercely loyal to my church and my leaders. I have seen the church growing from glory to glory, going through different phases where we focused more on prayer, deliverance and healing, outreach, prophesy, missions, creative arts, the word of God etc, and today, after all these years, I believe that our church is pretty well-balanced in all these areas.
Each week I attend service and cell group. That’s really the bare minimum and no, I don’t serve in any ministry. Yet. I used to. And in quite a few too (usher, choir, dance, silent ministry). Anyway, I hope to start again soon. Don’t know which ministry yet. I won’t say I pray and read the Bible everyday but I do try. I tithe monthly and give to the church through weekly offerings and the building fund – WILLINGLY. Nobody forces me (or any other church member) to give. I give because I want to give. Because I love God, because I love the church and because I believe in what the church is doing.
I do know that the money I give through tithes and offering goes towards the church staff salary (what is wrong with that and anyway Pastor Kong doesn’t even take a salary from the church anymore so you can stop questioning what car he drives, where he lives and how he’s using his money), the rental of the Expo, the church buses that ferry people to and from church, and the many community service projects and missions work that the church does, and more. The money I give to the Arise and Build Campaign will probably be used for another building like the one we have in Jurong West. Only it’s gonna be bigger and better this time.
I’m starting to hear criticism about how the church should not be wasting money on such and expensive building yada yada yada… and that we should be giving the money to the poor yada yada yada…
People, what is wrong with building God a magnificent house? Should we instead build Him a bare and cheap building so that we can show non-believers how little God is blessing us and that when they accept Christ as their Lord and Saviour, they too can be as poor as the church is? Jesus says to his disciples that the poor we will have with us always but Him we do not have always.
In the Bible, during their 40 years in the desert, the children of Israel also built God a great house. Anyway, how many times do you get to build God a house? Don’t you agree that when Christians prosper, God is glorified. When the church and His people shine, it makes people wonder what is different about us. We are to be the salt and light of the world. How can you impact and influence the world if you are as poor as a church mouse (that’s a poor idiom coz mice from church should be rich. Very rich)?
Reaching the World through Creative Arts
How can we impact and influence the world if we are not doing anything exciting? Are we to attract people with boring, monotone preaching and music that lulls babies to sleep? The younger generation needs something to shake up their lives and blow their minds. They communicate through and identify with dance, music, singing, and style. And it’s possible to have all this and at the same time be a pair of goody two shoes.
Kristos Kai Kosmos – to bring Christ into culture
But of course, without love, all this is nothing…
Community Services
See a need and meet it
Find a hurt and heal it
We are currently the largest community service provider in Singapore. In 2006, our church volunteers provided 17,123 services to 11,421 needy and disadvantaged people in Singapore, with no strings attached. 3739 home visitations are made every week (my mom is involved in visiting the elderly who live alone in Jalan Kukop and she says some of these elderly have only enough money to eat one packet of rice a day and have lost contact with their children). The people our church helps include lower income children and elderly, youths, intellectually disabled, terminally-ill, multiple sclerosis patients, rehabilitation (prison/drug inmates), families, hearing-impaired etc.
To date (for 2006), 1910 people have donated blood and we hope to bring the tally to 2200 by the end of the year (based on 22,000 members - we believe in tithing 10% in this aspect too – strange but true)
In 2006, we helped 20 local charities (5 Christian, 2 Muslim, 1 Buddhist and 12 non-religious) by giving $1,042,589.23
We were the first team to send Medical Relief to Banda Aceh during the 2003 Tsunami Crisis. Since then, we have built a school, hostel and a hospital. We also built 2 orphanages in Jaffna and Badulla for children who lost their parents in the tsunami disaster.
A medical team of doctors, nurses and relief volunteers also went to Yogjakarta and Pangandaran to help out with earthquake rescue in 2006.
Sun used her album royalties to build 3 primary schools in China and was able to help 1242 children from very poor backgrounds. She is planning to build a 4th primary school in the next 6 months.
Abstracted from sermon notes
Missions
Last year, we gave $4,064,026 to local and overseas mission, which is almost 16% of our General Fund. 885 members in 87 teams went for short-terms overseas mission trips to 35 cities – More than 1 mission trip a week!
We are planting churches at a rate of almost one new church every month. To date, we have grown from 24-36 branch churches. Our weekly TV program is broadcasted in 12 satellite TV networks with a potential viewership is 631 million and we are planning to broadcast to Japan, Russia and Eastern Europe.
In the last 12 months, our Internet broadcast was watched by more than 540,000 from 98 countries. Our website was the most visited religious website in Asia in 2005.
Abstracted from sermon notes
The next time you want to criticise, think about what you have done or are doing to impact and change the world. And then, think about what CHC has done, is doing and will do in the years to come to help and reach out to the tens of thousands emotionally, physically (the handicapped / terminally-ill) and financially needy people in Singapore and all over the world. People who need love, care, concern, money, blood donation, a good role model, someone to inspire them (what Sun is doing), etc.
posted by Pocahontas @ 10:58 PM
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