I'm finally back at my keyboard again! Like my previous post on "My NTU experience", I have also been dying to write about my experience here in Heart of God Church (HoGC) and now is a great time because it's year end and it's time for me to reflect on one of the major facets in my life - The Church.
Heart of God church is arguably one of the most vibrant and energetic churches in Singapore. If you think church is boring...man I tell you, you have not stepped into Heart of God Church. This church will revolutionize your definition of "church".
I have been thoroughly blessed by this church and at the same time utterly disappointed. But I've been greatly inspired and changed by God through HoGC in toto. There is no perfect church, but I'd daresay that HoGC is near perfect. Many pastors only dream of building a church like this.
As I honestly reflect on the many happenings in this church, I pray that God will open your eyes to see that His Church - the Church of Christ (NOT just HoGC or your church or my church) - is the hope of the world - it is the gateway of heaven. I also pray that through my writing and crystallizing of my thoughts about HoGC, I'll be able to sum it all up and move on from all that has transpired. Because 2015 is gonna be a very different year for me as He calls me to let go and move on.
Before I write on, let me qualify myself. I've been a Christian for my whole life. Haha. My first 20 years was spent at Bethel Assembly of God before I shifted to Heart of God Church in 2010. I have been in HoGC for almost 5 years already.
I have also visited many other churches before - City Harvest Church (CHC), Trinity@Paya Lebar, New Creation Church (NCC), Cornerstone Community Church, Living Sanctuary Brethen Church (LSBC) and many other charismatic, Anglican and Presbyterian churches in Singapore and overseas.
But only those 2 churches are my resident churches - the churches where I am planted: where I bring friends, serve in ministry and attend cell group regularly.
I have served as a cell leader, pseudo zone supervisor, musician, worship leader, evangelism ministry leader, tuition ministry, children ministry, choir, etc...I have given my whole life to serve in the Church and I have never regretted any moment of my sacrifice.
I love His Church with all my heart and I know and firmly believe that the gates of hell shall not prevail against the Church of the living God. (Matthew 16:18)
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| My first few university friends I brought to Heart of God Church :) |
We have used the word "church" many times already. However, this word has many different connotations. Throughout this post so far, the word "church" mainly refers to an organization - a brand name.
However, the word "church" has so much more meaning than that. So, without doing too deep a word study, let me briefly define what "church" is:
The Greek word used in the Bible (New Testament) that is translated as "church", is the word "Ekklesia" which means a gathering or assembly.
In the New Testament, the Biblical "ekklesia-church" refers NOT to a specific congregation of believers on a Sunday and it does NOT refer to an organization or a building...It refers to ANY gathering of believers for mutual edification and growth through the apostles' teachings, fellowship, prayer, worship, etc...(Acts 2)
So this means that a pair of Christians praying together in a park is church. A group of 5 Christians worshipping God together in a home is church. A live band playing worship songs worship-fully in a secular bar is church!
The 5 key elements found in a Biblical church as put together by our Christian gurus, Timothy Keller and John Stott are:
1) Vibrant worship
2) Intimate, exciting, loving fellowship and community
3) Teaching with theological depth
4) Effective communication of the Gospel (Aggressive Evangelism)
5) Compassionate social concern
This will be the presiding definition; the Biblical definition of "church". I will be using these definitions to assess and critically analyze Heart of God Church. If you are dissatisfied with my slapdash summary-definition above, do your own research. I've stated the authors there. They'd give you a very deep Bible study on what Church is...and you'll find those definitions to be the governing queue poles for your queues of thought.
With all these in place, let me carry on with my discourse.
I came to Heart of God Church as a disappointed Christian. Not disappointed with Jesus Christ, but disappointed with His body; disappointed in His appointed ambassadors on Earth - the Church...my fellow Christians. I was deeply disappointed with my previous church.
My previous church had a weak executive leadership. They were not clear in what direction God is calling the Church to and they were just haphazardly doing everything they deem beneficial. It's like driving a car in a foreign country without any itinerary and just just stopping by anywhere that seems nice.
They were good at coming up with vision and mission statements but never good at executing it and never good and inspiring and mobilizing its members to achieve what was visualized, at least not on a tangible level - where majority of the members can agree that they've grown through that particular season with the good hand of the leadership.
The leadership model in my previous church was bottom-up leadership. The zone leaders and cell leaders will innovate on the ground and get things going. Once the members caught it, and once we get something good going on...the executive leadership will conveniently just come in, pick it up and ride on it making it seem as if they were the heroes when they weren't supportive of most of the ideas in the first place.
Worst of all, there is plenty of politics in the upper echelon. The leadership team was not united. They may seem to agree (and sometimes disagree blatantly or covertly) but they never truly understand what the vision is enough to propagate it effectively on a church level to bring a substantial change.
So when I came to Heart of God Church, I was blown away. First by the level of excellence in the running of the service and then by the relevance and sapience of Pastor How's sermons and finally by the unity and competency of their executive leadership.
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| Superheroes weekend at Heart of God Church! We had a movie marathon weekend showing superhero movies so the dress code was SUPERHEROES! :D |
That was everything my previous church did not have. And that was everything I was striving for in my ministries in Bethel. On hindsight, I was trying to get the musicians in the worship team to be as committed and as skillful as those I see on HoGC's stage, I was trying to inspire the younger leaders in my zone to be more passionate and clear in their leadership like those I see in HoGC.
In retrospect, I was trying to change Bethel's culture to be like HoGC's. But in my carnal striving, I've only frustrated and burnt myself out because culture can only be changed by a united team of leaders IN GOD'S TIMING.
So Heart of God church was everything I had hoped for in a church. So, in I came, went through follow-up, Basic Ministry Training (BMT) and joined the church's choir ministry. I was greatly blessed by this church.
But that was just the start. So before we go into the areas of utter disappointment (again), let us learn from their strengths and revel in their fantastic track record.
THE GOOD
1) Fantastic culture and atmosphere
Ps How tells us that God told him that his primary job as the senior pastor was to be a CULTURAL ENGINEER and ATMOSPHERE ARCHITECT.
Those were potent words. And indeed, in order to build any vibrant, energetic, excited, thriving and ground-breaking organization, these two pillars are entirely necessary.
Ps How tells us that Heart of God Church is not competing with other churches for its members...It is competing with the worldly clubs, bars, parties, discos, cafes, concerts - the entertainment industry. They are drawing millions of people (and their dollars) to its doors! So the Church is in direct competition with these worldly vices.
So in order to be able to draw people to the Church's holy, life-altering doors, it has to be as good, if not better, than what those worldly vices have to offer!
What's the draw for those places? Why do people go back there time and again? It's because those places offer a fantastic atmosphere.
Their culture may be bad but most people go there for the atmosphere of fun, freedom and hype. They feel a sense of release as they dance and sing wildly to the blaring music and blinding lights.
Heart of God church has paralleled, if not surpassed, the worldly clubs and bars by engineering an atmosphere that is overwhelmingly uplifting, faith-building and vibrant.
Every friend I've brought to HoGC have always told me of how awesome the atmosphere was. They will tell me about the positive vibes, feelings of love, hope and future swelling up in their chests and some of them even tear up during services.
This is what EVERY CHURCH should be like. Every time someone steps into the house of God, they should leave feeling all those for if it is indeed God's house, that is but the expected state of being you should leave with. It's like you leave a restaurant expecting to be full right? Same logic here. But of course, things are not so straightforward. But optimally, this should be the effect any church visit should leave you.
This is definitely one of the most outstanding traits of HoGC. Its life-infusing, hope-rekindling, love-birthing and faith-restoring atmosphere is its trademark. And it SHOULD BE the trademark of every church!
In order to sustain a certain type of atmosphere, there must be a prevalent culture. For atmosphere really is a result of culture.
If the atmosphere in your home is tense and unhappy, it'll most probably be because your family has a culture of not communicating properly or has a culture of complaining or blaming each other.
If the atmosphere in your workplace is uplifting and inspiring, it'll most probably be because your bosses esteem their colleagues and employees, appreciate and understand each other instead of picking fights and trying to thumb down the other in hopes of a promotion.
So what's the prevalent culture in HoGC that allows such a fantastic atmosphere to be sustained?
The leadership in HoGC has created a strong culture of unity and nationalism amongst their members.
All (almost) of their members are proud to be Heart of God Church members. They highly revere their pastors and leaders and they all speak positively to each other.
How do they do this? They do this mainly via the pulpit. Apart from that main avenue, they also imbue in us their culture by teaching us to:
- Build atmosphere by responding with a "yes!" or "Amen!" when the pastor preaches
- Sing and lift our hands during worship
- Honour and be grateful to our leaders for their hard work
They also use words like "trench buddies" and "deep bench" to instill the sense of camaraderie and devotion to each other and to the church.
During their camps, they also teach us cheers like "Heart of God is number one, always number one. If heart of God is number two, no one's number one". I myself have cheered this cheer in my uni camp in good camp spirit.
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| My uni-revival (UR) camp group outside ABC hostel :D |
Such a culture is not commonly seen in churches. In most churches, there are tons of gossiping, backbiting and resentment toward their (selected) leaders. But in HoGC, it is almost zilch. There will definitely still be instances of it but it is not rampant like in many other churches.
So this nationalistic culture really unites the people and the leadership team together to work patriotically for their founders Ps How & Ps Lia who work for the glory of God.
This is THE main thing Ps How and Ps Lia did well. Building a culture like this will ensure smooth management of the organization for them and it will also build strong brotherhood amongst the members. Who wants an organization that's having fights everyday right? You want a people ready to act upon hearing your hallowed instructions.
2) Excellence in all they do
Ps How's church-building philosophy is taken from
1 Chronicles 22:5
"David said, ‘My son Solomon is young and inexperienced, and...
the house to be built for the Lord should be of great magnificence and fame and splendour...
in the sight of all the nations. Therefore I will make preparations for it.’ So David made extensive preparations before his death."
The church - God's house - is to be one of great magnificence and fame! And with all my heart I agree!
He exhorts us with fantastic messages like these and I believe this is what inspires every aspect of the church services.
Heart of God Church has undoubtedly attained a world-class level of event management. Their standard of professionalism and excellence will blow your mind.
One thing that will strike you upon your first visit to HoGC is their seamless flow of events. From their hospitality management (ushers) to their media crew (live feed) to the production crew (on-screen videos) to their musicians (worship team) on stage to the pulpit ministry (preaching), everything is flawless!
Back in my previous church, or compared to many "normal" churches, the ushers would be distracted, or talking to a friend and miss shaking your hand...the production team running the slides that are showing the lyrics for the worship song would sometimes forget to change a slide or accidentally reveal their mouse in the big screen...the musicians will play a wrong note, or sometimes go off beat and their singers may have a morning dry throat that flats his notes...and the pastor would be trying to wake the congregation up with a planned joke and he'd be flipping his preaching notes and all...This is what you'd expect of a normal church.
But in HoGC, EVERYTHING is PERFECTLY SMOOTH, spick-and-span. Only City Harvest and New Creation Church (of the churches that I've attended thus far) can match HoGC's level of excellence in running their services.
They are SUPER organized. Their administration is superbly efficient - from their camp registration forms, tithe envelopes, new-comer's welcome package, etc...All professionally worded, printed and packaged. Every step of the event management has been thought through.
Even their cell group announcements are scripted! And yes they have Microsoft excel sheets for their new friends and members and they write reports about them - how they're doing, their academic and spiritual progress, etc...
EVERYTHING IS SO ORGANIZED. It really pleases a sub-OCD person like me. I was wishing for all these in Bethel and *BOOM* here in HoGC, it's all up and running!
HOW ON EARTH DO THEY DO THAT?!
This spirit of excellence will flow readily once the culture you set out to propagate has taken root in the hearts of the people.
Since they've built a strong culture of patriotism toward the church - they are loyal to HoGC above all else - what follows is they would perform their tasks with pride and excellence.
I adore the excellence emitted by their members. Even adults that visited have their jaws wide open because when they see the whole service so flawlessly handled by all the YOUTHS...their jaw muscles go numb.
So yes, this is another strong point of Heart of God Church. Its excellence in all its services never fails to impress its visitors.
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| With my secondary school friend + his twin brother! :D #April2014service |
3) Clear and focused in their purpose
The vision that God gave Ps How is to "Raise up a generation of people who will give God the best years of their lives and God will use this generation to impact all levels of society and all walks of life"
And indeed, in HoGC, you'll see tons of youth giving the best years of their lives - their youth - to serve in church and indeed, their impact will reach all levels of society.
I also gave the best years of my youth life to church by serving in all the different ministries and yes my generation and will be the ones to shake society as we are entering the workforce.
Their 6 core values - Faith, family, church, youth, education and entrepreneurship are also well taught and focused on and their impact is tangible. How tangible? You can go to HoGC's website to see for yourselves.
Pastors have started a private school called Regent Business School which allow students who didn't fair so well to attain a diploma or degree by going to their school. This is effective execution in reaching their 2 core values - youth and education.
Their "Academic Excellence" drive is also an effective push in their belief in education. By giving out iPads and expensive electronics to top scorers, and by having the study rule in HoGC, they are motivating and regulating the youths to do well in their studies. This drive is so successful that it even caught the attention of our local newspapers. You can check it out here: http://heartofgodchurch.org/STarticle.html
They also have the Scholarship & Opportunity Fund (SOF) which helps the needy youths in Singapore, which once again is an effective implementation which addresses the problems faced by YOUTHS - their 4th core value.
Their outreach to the delinquent youths in Singapore has changed many, many lives and you will hear many of their touching stories of how the HoGC members and leaders have reached out and changed their lives.
They also launched a #LoveOthers14 campaign in mid-2014 where the whole church was mobilized to do acts of random kindness on a church-level. This got them to mass-order sweets, cards and tons of other handicrafts and such to make and give to people to make their day.
The acts of kindness such as sticking post-it notes with an encouraging message to people's mailboxes to brighten their day was picked up by the media. They also went around the schools and universities giving out free can drinks with an encouraging message and all and was also spreading throughout Singapore's social media and picked up by the local newspapers.
Heart of God's fantastic work in improving the lives of the community can be seen as fulfilling the 5th criteria of an ekklesia-church:
5) Compassionate social concern
They have many more initiatives and implementations which are too numerous to list...but all of their executions are very focused and are aimed at achieving a particular objective in line with their core values and vision statement.
HoGC is all about winning souls. If I remember correctly, the stats they presented recently shows that about 70% of all members in HoGC are new converts or re-dedications. Most of the converts are from the secondary schools, JCs, polytechnics and universities.
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| My NTU friends and I with the HoGC Christmas invite placards. #Christmas2012 |
They are indeed pushing back the gates of hell through their aggressive evangelism which is one of the reasons why the church is here for. Once again, this falls in their 3rd core value of church which also falls within their vision statement of using this generation to impact society.
This is what I love about Heart of God Church. Their clarity and focus in mission and vision statements, core tenets and their relevance and effectiveness in their executions of their action plan.
How I wish every church were like them. If it were, much of the world would be evangelized by now.
So these are the 3 encompassing good traits that HoGC has. All the praises I have for them can be summarized in these 3 pointers.
They have undeniably made a tremendous impact in many lives of the youths here in Singapore. Myself included. Every time I step into HoGC, I am reminded that God is ALIVE, that life is worth living, that God is doing a mighty work through His Church today. I walk in and always walk out of the church services feeling refreshed, inspired and full of hope.
If you have never experienced such a life-breathing atmosphere before, then you have got to pay Heart of God Church a visit.
Yes, all was good. But if you are a seasoned Christian that's been exposed to the "different" types or brands of Christianity, different types of worldviews and the different types of leadership and management styles, then you will definitely notice a few glaring flaws in Heart of God Church as well.
As much as I've been greatly blessed by HoGC, I've also been greatly disappointed and hurt as well. Where there's people, there's bound to be mistakes and hurts. So it's really how you see beyond all the human failures and look toward what God is teaching and bringing you through and to during your stay in whichever church He calls you to.
The next section is a critical analysis of Heart of God Church from a Biblical and rational viewpoint complete with personal examples and stories.
THE BAD
Most of the potentially and currently bad and wrong stuff committed by its leaders are really the good stuff gone bad. So it's not really an intentional bad-bad kinda thing; it's a resultant quality that comes with the good you are doing which you have to control.
It is like the residue of a useful chemical reaction. A useful chemical reaction isn't bad. The residue of the reaction isn't bad either. But if you don't clear or control the residue, it will eventually affect the outcome of your entire experiment or chemical reaction.
Some of the issues mentioned here are subjective only to my zone and not the church as a whole. But the reason why my zone leaders act the way they do is a result of the whole.
1) Cultic leanings
In their nationalistic culture, it's only natural that majority of their members are die-hard loyal to Pastor How (Tan Seow How) and Pastor Lia (Cecelia Chan) and their executive leadership.
Question is, HOW DO THEY DO IT? Putting all those spiritual notions of Holy Spirit convicting hearts and all those supernatural interventions and revelations aside, all you pragmatically need are:
1) Big screens
2) A professional production team - video & sound crew
3) Fantastic musicians
4) A convincing speaker
Their videos, messages and music all work together to form a perfect movie to move your heart. Their main vehicle - the pulpit ministry.
So this culture of unity and heavy reverence for their leaders is built by pattering its members week after week with many tear-jerking, heart-warming, smile-painting testimonies that always ends with an exaltation of their senior pastors...no matter how far away and how impersonal their relationships are, they'll be thanked.
It's a like having a very grateful clerk in a huge MNC thanking his CEO in a shareholder's meeting in front of thousands.
Yes, it is not wrong or inappropriate to thank your CEO for your bonus or success in the company, but to arrange for different lower echelon workers to share their emotional stories and thanking their CEOs week after week really is a form of marketing and culture-building...to view it on a most practical, down-to-earth level.
MNCs do that to market the good-ness and competency of their CEO so that their shareholders will have faith in the company's branding and buy more shares.
But in a Church? Is it a key element that's found in the Ekklesia-church mentioned in the definition of Church above?
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| Photoshoot at HoGC's "Say Cheese" photobooth with my 2 NTU freshies! :D #Christmas2014 |
The New Testament has no record of followers thanking Apostle Paul, Peter or James or whoever gratefully in a podium, in the hopes of getting more people to join them and building loyalty to their "organization".
Even if there are outbursts of thankfulness, it is not a concerted effort put together by an organization that points to itself as the best representative of Christ to follow.
I have nothing against the sharing of testimonies but the way the testimony ends by always glorifying Ps How & Ps Lia is the point of contention. A few of the leaders noted this as well and some have left because of the over-glorifying and cult-ic leanings of their "advertisement".
None of what they're doing is outright wrong, but the effect of what they're doing is leaning precariously toward a very cult-ic culture. I will quote another blogger here, Kevin Low, who has worded it cogently:
"Inadvertently, the unique characteristics of Heart of God Church has created a pseudo cult of personality for the pastors. The pastors are viewed with reverence similar to the Southeast Asian nationalist leaders of Sukarno and Ho Chi Minh. This stems from the many sacrifices they have made to build the church which most members view has given them a family and a home. Such a cult of personality in and of itself is not intrinsically bad or wrong. It can even be seen to be good as the people have a strong role model to follow. Yet, it has been taken to the extreme of blind reverence. This was clearly highlighted in the incident my family was caught up with. The question that was asked at the AGM was seen as an “attack” on the magnificent and spotless image of Pastor How. It was as if someone was attacking the CPSU during the 1960s or attacking Aung San post World War II. Most members, believing that they are in debt to the works of the pastors, strongly feel that they have the freedom to take and use church funds as they please as they have “already done so much”. It is pertinent to note that such an attitude contributed to the massive corruption during the Sukarno, Suharto and Marcos governments. Thus, unfortunately, HoGC has created a disturbing cult of personality."
This is very real in HoGC. My parents also heard of the stories in AGM where certain executive members asked "irreverent" questions to Ps How & Ps Lia and were later "discipled" or corrected by their leaders.
By the way, Kevin Low is also a member of HoGC. He serves in the photography ministry. More information about him will be shared at the end of my post as a reference source.
Another apt example will be at my grandfather's wake:
As my whole family is attending HoGC, many of our connect group members came to stand in solidarity with us through our time of grief. Many people donated funeral wreaths - My dad's business contacts, Ps How and a few zone managers included. One of my leaders, upon seeing our senior pastor's wreaths immediately smiled and said "Whoa, Ps How & Ps Lia's funeral wreath very nice hor!" My brother and I responded in a back-straightening, eye-opening, cult-conscious way.
Why? Because their wreaths clearly weren't the most awesome. And her statement was made INSTANTLY upon realization that it was her heroes' wreaths without considering the many other funeral wreaths there. Her statement was thick with cultic adoration, which we are allergic to.
Such is the result of cult personality or celebrity syndrome. It's like a fan girl seeing Jay Chou's painting in an art museum and going "OHH THIS IS THE BEST WORK OF ART HERE!"
And note that, this comment is coming from a SCGL (Senior Connect Group Leader). It is really disheartening to see this playing out.
Such Christians are really dysfunctional Christians. You put them in another church with a different culture and ecosystem with less competent leadership and their whole world comes crashing down. Because their celebrity is not Jesus Christ, but their charismatic senior pastors or their executive leadership team.
One of the greatest test of your Christianity is to pluck yourself out of the church you're in and plop into another legit one, to see if you can still love and serve, and see if God's love is really in you, allowing you to love all kinds of people in all kinds of environments, culture and ecosystem.
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| My 2 university friends & I at our church friend's wedding :D |
Apart from just testimonies, several of the sermons or comments shared over the pulpit have also very strong self-glorifying undertones.
One of the recent ones was during the launch of their new worship album "Blessed":
Ps How was talking about my dad's friend, Uncle Teck Chuan's daughters who went overseas to study. (They were previously from Bethel too. #justsayin) Being overseas, they can't attend HoGC and have to attend the overseas local church.
He quoted her, saying that she misses Heart of God's "sound of worship" and atmosphere. And he uses her quote to justify the release of the album telling us that this is one of the reasons why we are releasing this album - because our members need it.
To give him the benefit of the doubt, what he is trying to say is that the worship style of HoGC - choice of songs, musical interpretation and atmosphere - is awesome.
But the emphasis on how awesome HoGC's worship atmosphere and sound is tends to over-glorify their own brand of worship.
I feel that Ps How's comment wasn't too theologically correct. Because worship is international. It is a spiritual act of yielding oneself to God through an act of adoration. This act of worship IS INDEPENDENT of atmosphere, musical genre and type of song.
You can worship God anywhere! In a church in another country, in your toilet, in a mosque, on a bus, etc...So if you're in Australia, you worship God in His church in Australia wholeheartedly! Because the same God resides there!
By quoting her as a reason for releasing the album is to implicitly tell everyone that what she has done is correct...That it is correct to long for the atmosphere and sound of worship in Heart of God Church when elsewhere.
It is indirectly telling us that Heart of God Church worship is the BEST.
What he should've done is to balance his words with a statement "But don't get me wrong here, our atmosphere may be good and our sound may be fantastic, but worship is ultimately dependent on your heart. Our worship CD is ultimately just a very good catalyst to aid you in your expression of worship to God."
Ps How is a very balanced and wise person. He usually balances most of his statements this way during his sermons. But when talking about his own church, it usually kinda goes off balance and this is one of the most potent instances to date.
You see what he has done is to give the not-so-theologically-sound members the elitist impression that HoGC has the best worship.
This has also destroyed their (the weaker, patriotic members) understanding of what worship is. Worship is really all about Jesus. It's not about the atmosphere, not about the song, not about where you worship, not about anything else but Jesus and Jesus alone.
Here the emphasis has been over-tilted which results in a subtle brainwashing and imbue-ing of the "Heart of God is number one, always number one!" mindset over theological truth.
I wasn't the only one that is very disturbed during this album launch message. Several of us too. But well, we try to take it in good strides. But viewing things from an organizational perspective, all these little things really add up to become a big thing - which is a big Christian cult which they are potentially building.
Another message shared over the pulpit which really pricked me was a message by Garrett Lee - an executive leader in church that's around my age.
He spoke on the church's spiritual heritage in June 2014 about the ABCs of spiritual heritage: Anointing, Blessing & Calling. As usual he goes about picking and choosing bible verses to support his pointers without really analyzing the verses in context...
He was talking about people missing out on God's destiny for them and he made a statement which really pricked me:
"They could have been a zone leader, a zone manager, a full time staff in Heart of God."
Once again, such a statement is implicitly telling us that the best thing, God's destiny, is for us to work full-time in Heart of God Church.
You see, God's destiny will definitely not be for us to ALL work full time in HoGC. That would be a disaster on so many levels - managerial-ly, financially, etc...
God's destiny for you maybe to work in a huge MNC and change the corporate culture with your Christian lifestyle, or God's plan for me maybe to work as an outstanding host and shining for Him with a holy lifestyle, etc...
Must it necessarily be full time staff in Heart of God Church? Is that the most glorious job and destiny for all mankind?
If you are in HoGC long enough, you'll know that this is the subtle message they are sending out. You will hear many people in HoGC go "My dream is to be a full time staff in HoGC!" and you will hear the executive leaders over-glorifying the office of the full time staff over the pulpit.
This once again creates a misunderstanding in the members. It makes them think that church workers are the best. It makes them think that church full time staff are superior and doing a holy job that closest to the gate of heaven.
And indeed, when you tell your leader your dream is to be full-time, they will go "Wow! Amen to that!" and all...I would most definitely give a more measured and balanced response to such a statement.
These are just a few examples of how this cultic feel in HoGC is being built. There are so much more.
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| More of our friends from NTU visiting us for our Christmas 2013! :D |
Week after week, the subtle rain of cultic ammunition being poured on its members are eroding balanced theological understanding and logical thinking, ever fueling their nationalistic culture.
The result? Members and even educated leaders will go gaga like "WOW! THIS FUNERAL WREATH SO NICE!" when they see their senior pastors' name on a funeral wreath.
This is the MAIN bad resultant trait of HoGC. All the other bad pointers that HoGC possesses emanates from this pseudo-cult culture that they have built.
2) Autocratic leadership
An NTU friend of mine once aptly remarked at HoGC's style of leadership (paraphrased):
HoGC is like Singapore. On the outside look very good, but when you are inside long enough then you realize the main problem is that they don't listen to you, like the PAP. It's not they didn't go a good job, it's that they didn't do a good job in micro-managing problems on the ground.
Let me give you the context of his statement.
When 3 of us recently joined the church, we were in this dysfunctional connect group with its members all from the worship team. Why dysfunctional?
Because firstly, they rarely have any connect group meetings, it's usually just those haphazard connect group outings which have no spiritual value because there's no bible study, worship, etc...
Secondly, not meeting up for CG is fine, but during services, you'll also hardly see your CG mates. They won't come and say "Hi" or have a meal together. After their performance on stage, they disappear, like how pop idols will disappear after a concert.
So basically, my friends and I were like refugees in search for a family, a home, in this sprawling and bustling society of people called "church".
Having been a cell leader for a good 3-4 years in my previous church, this totally goes against the grain of Biblical principles of meeting up together (in the early church). They have done severe injustice to its sheep - which is us.
We decided to meet up with our zone manager to discuss this and guess what? He was like "No." He told us he will only meet us up one by one.
I think he envisioned us coming together like gangsters with rods and all ready to beat him up. But really, all we saw was an informal sit-down and talking about issues like any bunch of good bros would. But no, good bros wasn't his view of us, sadly :(
So anyway, here's what I asked during the portion of my meet up with him.
1st question I asked my leaders were "What's your definition of connect group? What is its purpose, mission and vision?"
If they could give me a clear, concrete definition of their connect group philosophy, most of what I'd have wanted to say will be settled.
What are the definitions of an ekklesia-church that are more applicable to connect group meetings?
1) Vibrant worship
2) Intimate, exciting, loving fellowship and community
3) Teaching with theological depth
These 3 are to be carried out through connect group meetings. But no, none of these criterias are met. Therefore I am questioning their definition of connect groups. Maybe they have a different model?
But no, they didn't give me answer. I don't know is it because:
1) They didn't have an answer
2) They were second guessing my question and trying to see the question behind my question because they think that answering my question will not be solving the main issue at hand
3) They knew that answering my question will inevitably lead to their self-destruction as it would reveal how inadequate their efforts are in making our group a functional connect group
So my next question to him was "Why weren't there regular connect group meetings? How are we and the rest going to grow?"
His answer came as a surprise to me "We grow by serving together in ministry (worship team)".
The exclusivity of that statement really amazed me. Why? Because such a statement simply means "If you're not serving, you're not growing with us". His statement begs the question of "So what happens if we don't serve?"
Another remark I made was "The testimonies I hear on stage are so surreal." which made them really angry. I made that remark because my experience in HoGC was nothing close to the tear-jerking, heart-warming stories I hear being pontificated from the stage.
But all my leaders saw through my remark was "You unbelieving son of Beelzebub!".
So yeah. I thought leaders were here to understand their members. But no, they're here to preach down on you, just like what PAP would do us citizens - talk us down and sue us mercilessly without considering the pointers we were bringing up.
As for my other friends, they offered more pragmatic suggestions such as having more outings and all. Being new Christians, they'd definitely seek that. But what we need is GODLY FELLOWSHIP - one that incorporates prayer, worship and word, not just fun, food and fellowship.
Yes, I may have come off as disrespectful or blunt. But this is the House of God, the Church of Christ. We're here to change lives and do it properly, not hide behind those leadership titles of "Zone Manager" and "Senior Connect Group Leader" and do nothing effective.
I mean, HELLO, WE MEET UP AS A CONNECT GROUP LIKE ONCE IN 3-4 MONTHS??
If you're too caught up with worship ministry, then DO NOT be a zone manager. While you're busy tuning your harps, your sheep are straying from the pen.
If you're too caught up with work, then DO NOT be a connect group leader. While you're busy getting your job done, Satan is busy getting his job done too - by making you too busy to sow into your members' lives.
If you are not influencing your members' lives, then the world is going to do it. Your failure is the enemy's victory.
The church is here to change and love people - in whatever season it is in. Its purpose should not change with the seasons. If it does, then it has failed. It's like a hospital saying "Oh, it's winter season now! It's too cold to admit anymore patients! So, in this season, the hospital has changed it's focus to just training the nurses"
Absurd right? A hospital is there to attend to sick people and its purpose SHOULDN'T CHANGE. Its purpose there as a hospital is SEASON-LESS.
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| Countdown to Christmas 2013 in HoGC with my uni friends Alex & Nicholas :D |
After our meet up with them, the leaders must have had a discussion and they must've informed the other leaders what has happened because, we could feel the "disturbance in the force" as described by my friends.
To word it properly, we could feel their ostracism or stigmatization of our irreverent actions to the leadership team. Their failure to love and understand us and stigmatization of us will be emphasized in the next section.
Anyway, my friend was telling me "I think the leaders know where they've gone wrong la. In front of us during the meet up they just don't wanna say only." So yeah, I guess by me bringing it blatantly to their attention it must've pricked their pride.
So a few months after that, our leader conveniently told my friend (but not me) "Our zone's focus is now changed to building the connect groups and people. Our focus is about making the zone structure stable"
To that, my friend responded "Wasn't that what Jonavan said?"
My leader's response? "Yes, but he said it in the wrong spirit and in the wrong season."
Thank God I'm not there. Because the wrong-ness in his 2nd point is so conspicuous.
Yes, I may have said it in the wrong spirit (which is not, because all I said it in a spirit of wanting to help my friends grow) but NEVER in the wrong season.
What he has implied in that statement is "Our zone's previous season was NOT to integrate and love new friends, it was to grow the musicians in this CG worship team"
It's like a hospital spokesperson saying "Our hospital's previous season was not to attend to sick patients but to train up our doctors and nurses."
So "patients" like me and my friends were left stranded without a proper "medical" service.
Like I said earlier, a hospital is there to attend to the sick and should they fail to do so, it's a failure of the hospital. There IS NO SEASON for it to carry out its purpose.
The moment the church fails to integrate us properly and love us Biblically as the body of Christ, it's a failure of the leaders, NOT a matter of seasons.
I hate leaders who refuse to admit their mistakes and try to hide behind such fallacious rhetoric and wordplay.
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| Photoshoot at HoGC's "Say Cheese" photobooth with my NTU friend's 2nd visit! :D #Christmas2014 |
Anyway, they DID improve on the connect group's condition which is much better now but the next 2 big flaws are still there which I will cover shortly.
I have another friend (ex-HoGC leader) who also ran into doctrinal and relational problems with other leaders. He messaged a leader-friend of his some questions and guess what? NO RESPONSE.
That leader-friend of his IGNORED his question. The least he could do was to reply "Hey, I'm not too sure how to answer your question...I'll get back to you on it."
BUT NO, he chose to be apathetic about it. He simply ignored my friend's question.
Is this fantastic leadership I'm looking at or what?
This is the same style of leadership displayed by most of their leaders. When they can't answer your questions or if they sense your question is poking at something more, they'll sideline you, stigmatize you and ostracize you.
Sadly, that friend of mine has left HoGC already. I've met him up and talked about all the issues he has. And sadly, much of the issues he faces are ALSO the same issues I am facing.
Haissss. Lord, why is your church so problematic? Such simple tasks can't even be handled properly. A simple reply was all he was looking for. But no, even that couldn't be given.
So yes, they have a very autocratic style of leadership. They alone hold all the power and authority over their members and we hardly have any say.
In fact, when we have any say that is not pleasing to their autocratic ears, we will be stigmatized and ostracized.
Just like how they did for their executive members who ask questions during AGM that are too real.
They are very much like PAP. It's all smiles and good stuff but when you tap on the touchy issues, that's when their fangs appear.
Of course if you were to argue from a theocratic point of view, then their autocratic style of leadership allows much more freedom.
BUT, that being said, even in times of theocracy or monarchy in the Old Testament, as God pronounces judgement on the people, He also gives room for reason.
Isaiah 1:18 says "Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool."
The verse here shows that as much as God has already pronounced judgement upon the people, He still gives them avenue to "reason" together, which is not an invitation to sit down and talk, but a meeting to let them ask the questions and to let them examine the facts.
But in our case, our dear leaders refuse to examine the facts. They did not even give us avenue to "reason together" and we have to be treated like bandits, being attended to in 1-on-1 meetings with a leader or bouncer put in charge of us while we waited for our turn to speak to our zone manager.
Yes, these are my personal encounters. There are many more faced by my friends which I shall not share here because it's not my story.
Personally, this heavy autocratic style of leadership that refuses to face up to the facts does not bode well with me.
In this jaded world of disappointments and lies, the last thing I need from the leadership of the church is dishonesty, in-authenticity and insecurity.
3) Stigmatization and ostracism
Yes, as I said, I came into HoGC a disappointed Christian. A lot was going on inside me. So I guess I came off as curt (or guai lan) to many of the leaders.
Yes, I definitely admit that I've done many wrong things as well, especially in areas of my delivery during my communication with them.
BUT, none of my content was wrong, as my leader has admitted. Sadly, my dear leaders did not have sufficient composure and love to look beyond my faulty delivery.
So the fault is not 100% theirs to stigmatize me.
It's but human and natural to label and outcast people who've hurt you, offended you or people who are different from you, especially this new guy who just came from another church and brought a bunch of NTU friends and is asking you all these tough questions.
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| With our NTU friends! :D |
Let me relate a few of such incidences to you:
Before our individual meeting to discuss our cell issues with our zone manager on one of the weekends, he arranged for a member to sit us down to accompany us while we were waiting for our turn to chat with him.
Out of the blue, another random executive leader walked to that guy "taking care" of us and said "How? Any problem not? If he guai lan call me ok?" in a threatening way.
I guess he intended for me to hear that.
This is COMING FROM AN EXECUTIVE LEADER in the church. He is in the upper echelon of the leadership team.
Gosh, the brazen remark and the outlandish presumption in that statement staggers me. First, he doesn't even know me. So I guess what's being going round their leadership table is "There's this guy finding fault with us" or something like that.
As you would have seen from the connect group problem earlier, I am not trying to find fault with them. I am just trying to fix this dysfunctional connect group and see my NTU friends grow in Christ.
There is a need here that is unmet and the best you do is to stigmatize the one bringing up the problem when YOU couldn't see it for yourself?
To me, if it takes a member to tell you your shortcomings, it already shows failure in your leadership. Your assistant leader or senior leader should be the one addressing it even before it can be noticed by the members.
So his hostility is uncalled for and disappointing. Coming from the upper tier of the leadership? Gosh. This church has a serious problem of stigmatization.
Just because I put on a strong front doesn't mean I'm not hurt by his actions. I am utterly disappointed in the frivolous-ness of their speech and thought pattern.
So the church is now here not to love and understand people but to label them and judge them before you even meet them? Wow. Impressive.
That's just one of the incidences. One of the most brazen and shocking ones.
So, from stigmatization, it naturally leads to ostracism.
Slowly, they try to exclude me from their group outings and birthday surprises and all. Many of whom are the friends I brought after all...
They've done it up till now. For almost 5 YEARS ALREADY. I'm used to it. I just keep mum about it and keep bringing my friends because that's my heart for all my friends - to see them in heaven with me.
The latest thing they've done is to split our connect group. Why our connect group has grown too big! Why? Because WE HAVE BROUGHT TOO MANY FRIENDS!
You see, the leaders are just mere facilitators and administrators - they are not the ones bringing numerical or spiritual growth - yet they treat us like criminals and label and stigmatize us. I leave it to the good Lord to judge their erroneous, prideful ways.
And yes, as expected, they've separated me from all the friends I've brought. L-O-L. You know why? They're afraid that my honest brand of Biblical Christianity will influence my new friends to not fit into the domesticated mould of the HoGC Christian.
I may be speculating and assuming their reason for this change...but I am doing so only because I was NEVER informed of THEIR REASON.
I believe it is the leader's job to explain to us why the split occurred and why is it done this way. But no, it was NEVER explained to us - further reinforcing their autocratic style of leadership.
When your department is split, your department head or manager will usually gather the department workers and tell them what's ahead and why the restructuring.
If HoGC can do so well on a church-level in their dissemination of information from the pulpit, why not on the micro (i.e. connect group) level?
Another example would be just one day before I'm typing this post. One of them texted me "Hey Jonavan, are your friends coming to our countdown tomorrow?" And I replied "Nope".
And that's it, end of conversation. They didn't even care if I was going. But I've gotten used to it. As much as my presence there isn't much of a value-add to them, my being there also wouldn't be much of a value-add to myself either.
Hanging out with a bunch of patriots that're only interested in their kind - in people who are also die hard for HoGC - is to really disgust yourself trying to smile and make conversations with such partisans.
Yup, as much as they hate to call me to go for their outings, most of the time, they've got no choice but to do it because I've brought so many friends...so they'd have to call me along.
Yes, I am hurt by their subtle actions of ostracism. But I don't do much now. I know further debates and discussions with them will do nothing in this autocratic cult of a church.
Ultimately, this is God's church and I believe He will vindicate me in His time. I know the season He is bringing me through and how He is using all these minions to mould my humility and submission...from my diction, you know He's not done yet. LOL.
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| Christmas 2011 with our NTU friends :D |
I am not the only victim of criminalization or stigmatization in HoGC, a few of my friends have been through that phase as well.
Some left the church, some were decriminalized and some like me, have grown apathetic toward their autocratic leadership style - where no real relationship between us and our leaders exist.
It's a sad, sad truth to face for a long time Christian who have served his whole life in church to face.
To see this play out on a mega-level is truly disheartening. I can imagine the thousands of lives that are stigmatized and talked down upon or coldly treated.
The best part is, all these are unfolding in the MOST MAGNIFICENT HOUSE OF GOD! Their self-professed elitism of being the BEST CHURCH and all with all these transpiring is really a huge paradox, a huge lie, a huge heap of spurious pontifications.
With a heavy heart I relate these matters and I truly hope God will come in and show them what true love and true church-building is like.
4) Straw man Christians
One of the results of being a church of partisans is that those Christians rely heavily on the church's pulpit ministry for their spiritual nourishment.
And when you are nourished by feeders with cultic leanings, the food that they feed you with is insufficient to see you through the storms of life.
Yes, they will thrive in their sheltered, protected and sanitized ecosystem or bubble-world, but when thrown out into the harsh conditions of the marketplace where there are a host of different worldviews, cultures and philosophies, they struggle to survive.
How do I know this? Many of my friends I bring come from a host of different backgrounds and they are inept at handling my more vulgar and straight-forward friends. On top of that, look at me, their inept handling of my questions and problems are also proof of their bubble-world.
My friend also agreed with me "Whoa, they can't even handle people like us who bother to sit down and talk things out, how are they gonna handle those gangsters and the high-handed intellectuals?"
Apart from just being unskilled at loving people that are not as cultured, polite and sweet-mouthed as them, their understanding of the basic doctrines or tenets of the Christian faith is also atrocious.
Let me list a few examples of how shallow and doctrinally-inadequate most of their Christianity is.
Before I joined Heart of God Church, I used to do a lot of street evangelism when I was in Bethel Assembly of God. We would walk around with survey forms and ask people to fill it up as we chat with them and later talk to them about the answers they've given in the survey form and hopefully share the gospel and lead them to Christ.
Some of the questions in the survey form are:
1) What religion do you believe in?
2) Who is Jesus to you?
3) Do you believe in heaven or hell?
4) Where do you think you will go after you die?
5) If what you believe in isn't the truth, would you want to know the truth?
We also did street evangelism at Paya Lebar MRT area and several HoGC-ians have done our survey. Most of them would tick "Christian" for question one and tick "God" for question two but once you reached question 3 and 4...that's when their answers vary.
Some of them would say "I don't believe in heaven or hell" and some of them would say "I don't know if there's a heaven or hell". The most appalling thing is some of them DO NOT KNOW WHERE THEY'LL GO UPON DEATH.
When we see them tick the option "Christian", we'd usually ask them "Which church do you attend?" and most of them at Paya Lebar area would tell us Heart of God Church.
This goes to show how shallow their faith is. Ok, at this point you might say "You must've interviewed the new believers that haven't been through follow-up la!" Ok, granted. But a sample size of about 10 to 20 peeps show that apparently they've been dreaming during the follow-up sessions.
Anyway, this is just my opening. And this is my first impression of HoGC even before I stepped in - that they are not strong in their basic doctrines.
After being in this church for 5 years, I can attest to this fact without a blink of an eye. Most of the members do not have proper bible study lessons on the basic doctrines of the Christian faith.
Having spoken with many of the long time members in church and even their leaders, most of them cannot adequately explain the basic tenets of their faith.
Questions like "Why do I need God?", "Why Christianity?", "What is sin?", "Why do we lift up our hands during worship?", "Why do we speak in tongues?", "Why do we need to be baptized?", "Why is singing those emotional songs called 'worship'?", etc...are all not properly covered.
Ask a 100 different ministry members and leaders and you get a host of different quality answers. They do not have a basic teaching framework of the basic doctrines of our faith.
Let me cite another example:
In HoGC, when the pastors and executive leaders pray for their members, they would all fall down at the final thrust of the pastors' or leaders' hand.
I overheard a few girls whispering to each other once during altar ministry "Oh no! That guy no catcher! If he fall then injure himself how?"
The ignorance in that statement is voluminous. It totally shows their misconception of what it means to be ministered to by the Holy Spirit.
I also have another friend who fell at the wrong time - i.e. She mistakenly fell backwards because she thought the pastor pushed her when it was actually just someone else scurrying past her. THERE WAS NO CATCHER. She then immediately got back up to her feet and went back in the queue to be prayed for.
Do you see how blinded and ignorant these people are? They even go to the extent of falling down to the floor so cooperatively without understanding the spiritual principles behind it.
I have dedicated a whole blog post to this issue:
http://historymakers-jonnyboy.blogspot.sg/2014/09/falling-under-power-of-holy-spirit.html
They are all (majority) a bunch of straw man Christians - Christians that follow their pastor blindly and not Jesus wholeheartedly.
They do not truly understand what they believe in. They are just followers waiting for their next pay cheque from their organization and they are not leaders who truly understand what their organization is founded on and what it universally stands for. All their definitions of church revolve around their narrow context of Heart of God Church.
This shows a non-compliance to the definition of an ekklesia-church:
3) Teaching with theological depth
There is certain theological depth to most of their sermons, but not COMPREHENSIVE theological depth across the pillars of the faith, making them imbalanced, straw man Christians.
When I was faced with an atheist friend who had super strong arguments against Christianity, I was left alone. My leaders couldn't help me and they couldn't refer me to someone who could. I had to find the leaders from my previous church to help me.
Their inadequacies turned out to be a good thing because I ended up doing my own research and buying a couple of books which really strengthened my Christian apologetic.
So what HoGC needs really is a teaching system like what my previous church had. Bethel called it "CET - Christian Education & Training". This CET taught us the basic doctrines and tenets of our faith.
HoGC's BMT is insufficient! In fact, BMT only teaches you the DNA of the church! Not the doctrines of the ekklesia-church!
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| With yet another NTU friend in Mother's Day Service 2012 :D |
At the surface, HoGC looks like they definitely have the 4th key element: "Effective Communication of the Gospel" or "Aggressive Evangelism". But on 2nd look, I wouldn't really say "effective communication of the gospel" because many of their members don't know the basic tenets of the gospel. Ask any of them and some of them'd be stuttering to give a good answer.
I'd say they have effective social invites. Because most of what their members do is NOT share the gospel such that their friends are convinced and then come, but what they do is they invite them for outings, parties and services and then they stay because their friends are there and because the atmosphere and culture of the place is good.
Just like any friend who goes back to a club or bar again and again and you ask them why, they'll tell you "Oh, cause' my friends love to hangout here and the atmosphere's really good to chill out."
Take it a step further and ask "So do you know the owner of this bar?" and they'll be like "Yes of course, he's a good guy and all my friends love this place so of course I love this place too"
It's like asking them are you a Christian? They'll definitely go "Yeah". Take a step further and ask "Do you know Christ?" and they'll be like "Yeah, he's a good guy and all my friends love the church and serve in it so imma do so as well."
Their shallowness in their understanding of Christianity is astounding. A simple shake-up or episode of tribulation or persecution would reveal all these cracks. And this will come in due time, as the last days draw nearer.
This whole straw man Christian outcome is a result of the pseudo-cult culture putting them all in a bubble world.
Once again, let me quote Kevin Low:
Yet, unity and purpose that Heart of God Church provides has also unintentionally created a bubble world for the members. Due to its attractiveness, members tend to pour their entire life into HoGC. Most, if not all of their experiences and culture stem from HoGC. Their life is fixated on HoGC. Most of the members’ dreams revolve around serving in church. As a result, most of their life experiences are limited and narrow at best. Even the pastors have acknowledged that there was a fear when the first generation of youth entered army as they have lived in an entirely separate ecosystem from the rest of the world. Hence, the church is free to dictate norms and values to the members. This manifested in the recent incident involving my family in church. The pastors claimed that even in the corporate world, members (shareholders) are not allowed to question the CEO. This was blatant fallacy. Yet, most of the church, especially the leadership, lapped it up as if it was the word of God. The bubble is reinforced by the creation of an “other” to focus the attention of the members. Members are supposed to be in the world, not of it, suggesting that modern culture and thinking is an evil to be shunned and the church is best. In spite of the leadership’s claims that they desire to train thinkers, such a bubble has inadvertently created a generation of sheep who merely follow the leadership, unable or unwilling to question them. The people have no concept of libertarianism and subscribe to the church’s views on everything from what movie to watch to something as personal as who to date. A small nexus of power decides when you should date, who you should date and how to date, because “the church knows best”. Such paternalism is similar to the family planning of authoritarian Maoist China. Thus, it is evident that the near complete control that HoGC has over the thinking and culture, similar to North Korea, of the members has facilitated the rise of a totalitarian bubble world.
Several of my NTU friends also agree with me on this - that most of the HoGC long time members and leaders have been in the bubble world for too long and thus are unable to handle people like me and them.
When we come in with a volley of questions, alternatives and suggestions, they begin to flop and lose ground. Their reaction? Stigmatization and ostracism.
After a few rounds of discussion with my zone manager about how to improve such issues in church a long time back, he simply said "You know Jonavan, there are about 500 other churches in Singapore and we can help you find one that suits your needs."
My friends and I were also shocked at his response. It's not like we are opposing them for opposing's sake, we were wholeheartedly trying to help and this is the response he gives us.
Here we are trying to understand him and trying to work out a solution and there he is NOT trying to understand us but trying to get rid of us because we are ROCKING THE STATUS QUO.
When pulled out of their bubble-world in HoGC and put in a third-world country to run a church, they will most definitely crumble. Because they are so incapable of handling oppositions and problems.
So this church will last for as long as their bubble-world doesn't get poked. The moment this curtained, sterilized eco-system of perfection is gone and they have to face up to the reality in the outside world when persecution comes, I don't think many of them will stand. They will die and disintegrate like straw man, unable to stand for Christ in a more solid way.
Let me give you another 2 examples of how they're too sanitized:
During connect group (YES WE DO MEET UP NOW! Hallelujah!) we were asked to rehearse our 3-minute testimony of how God changed our lives. In my testimony I said something like "So yeah, I did a lot of shitty stuff in my younger, pre-believing days, but after Jesus saved me, I'm all different!"
My leader took issue with the word "shitty". He asked "Are you sure you gonna use the word 'shitty'?"
Without hesitation I replied "Yeah."
You see, shitty is too crude for them already. But to my pre-believing friends, shitty is not even anywhere near a vulgarity. And the word shitty brings a sense of authenticity to my testimony because the usage of that raw word shows genuity, instead of trying to find polite and sweet little words like "unpalatable" or "abhorrent" to replace "shitty".
*Facepalm* This is probably the reason why that leader friend of mine has brought and kept almost ZERO friends from his school. Because he was too sanitized! Too prim and proper.
A goody-two-shoes that's allergic to the outside world that uses honest, crude language ain't gonna bring much souls to the Kingdom.
Another example would be during my university camp.
In the camp, we all slept in a hostel. They assigned a big room for all the girls and another one for the guys.
So, I was IN MY ROOM one morning and I decided to change into my berms. So, I just took out my shorts and changed into my berms...IN MY ROOM. Within that TEN SECONDS, one of the girl leaders happened to walk past the door of the room and saw the glory of my legs. HAHA. She then complained to the leaders that I changed without closing the door.
My leaders then came and give me a good 10-minute lecture on how I should respect the girl's modesty and look out for them and not do foolish things like changing without closing the door.
Yes, I admit, I am wrong in this case. Definitely.
On the other hand...we're all like adults? And seeing a guy doing a quick change in his underwear maybe traumatizing but it certainly does not call for such drastic actions?
The thing is, it's not like I intentionally wanted to show you my ass. I wouldn't even put myself anywhere near your field of vision for Pete's sake. It was just a quick change in my room.
In university camps it's gonna be ten times worst. Or let's say one day that leader went for a mission trip to a rural part of the country and see naked men. HOW?
Let's say she encounters it in her university's orientation camp. Is she going to complain to her uni orientation camp main commers? If she does, she will be the one being stigmatized by her camp leaders.
*Facepalm* AGAIN. This shows the over-sanitized condition of our dear HoGC leaders and members.
In a school camp, the girls would probably just scream jokingly and the whole incident would become a common topic to laugh over because it's really trivial.
But here, of course, I know for sure they have certain moral standards to uphold...but hey, we're all university students for Pete's sake. Complaining about such issues is like looking at a 19 year old complaining to her leader "Cher! That boy show me his backside!" or "Cher! He scold me stupid! I hate him!"
That leader is NOT GOING TO SURVIVE university orientation camps. The promiscuity level is 10x worse. I think she'll just faint and die from the sexy ass overload. LOL.
How are such people going to enter into the universities and into the marketplace to change the world? Gosh.
They're like spoilt little prince and princesses that's just been released from their ivory towers of gold and diamonds and getting disgusted by the litter on the common man's walkway.
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| Christmas 2013 with my hall 6 cluster year 1 EEE mates! :D |
From sermons that over-glorify the office of the full time HoGC staff over the pulpit, to the talk that the sound of HoGC's worship is the best and almost indispensable, to the stigmatization and ostracism of members who question the status quo, this creates a whole bubble world.
Put them up on an no-holds-barred American talk show where their actions are scrutinized and they'd fall helplessly apart.
They try to encourage entrepreneurship and creativity, but yet they domesticate you and try to fit you into a HoGC mould where you do not question your leaders, where everything revolves around their merry world of HoGC...
What they are really pushing for is not entrepreneurship and creativity - they are striving for conformity - an army of conditioned "Christians" ready to assemble and execute any course of action upon their leaders' hallowed command.
I am so, so, utterly disappointed with this church because of this. I have made real Christians friends in my previous church and in school.
We can talk freely about theology, doctrine and the competing worldviews. We can freely talk about the leadership models in our churches, talk about the differences in the denominations such as Presbyterian, Anglican, Bible-Presbyterian, Lutheran, etc...We can talk about why our churches suck and why it rocks, we can make fun of our leaders and still love them and all...We can talk about the taboos of homosexuality, of speaking in tongues, etc...We can crack our jokes, discuss biological parts, crack jokes about people's idiosyncrasies, etc..
But you can't do it with a true blue HoGC-ian. They're not normal people searching for truth, life and God; they're die-hard partisans that live to uphold the glorious nation of Heart of God. Any talk of disrespect or disagreement with the leadership will send chills down their spine and their smiles will harden as their system alarm goes off, telling them to inform the leaders about this rouge member. Any doubt or question will be scrutinized for any anti-HoGC sentiment before being answered.
And yes you may try to say that our crude jokes and gossiping about people are wrong...BUT HEY, the irony of it all is...My leaders talk about WORSE THINGS!
THE LEADERS TALK ABOUT YOU, LABEL, STIGMATIZE & OSTRACIZE YOU BEHIND YOUR BACK.
What hypocrites. Hypocrites ALSO because I've heard my leaders talking and laughing about a rather feminine-mannered guy friend that was brought to church once.
Such a sad scene.
A few of my HoGC leaders also used to be all buddy with another friend of mine. But when he encountered doctrinal issues and ran into relational issues with other leaders and was contemplating leaving HoGC, they simply cut him off.
There was never real friendship. All the good buddy talk and all were all because of common interest and solidarity in HoGC.
When he left, NONE OF THEM kept contact with him. He was really hurt by their withdrawal and stigmatization. He himself told me when I sat him down at a cafe. He knows the word that has been going round about him.
I myself know this too when they invite me to outings only if they know I have friends to bring.; when they isolate me in another dysfunctional connect group away from all the friends I have brought.
I know. I understand. I'm still here in this pseudo-cult church, because they still preach Christ and my friends are all super impressed and believe in Christ through their flawless portrayal of Him.
And for that, I will stay and keep bringing my friends to HoGC.
Better them in HoGC than them still lost in the world of meaninglessness.
In spite of all these cancerous cells lurking in this organism, THIS IS STILL GOD'S CHURCH.
This church has been built by God's revelation. And I truly believe in Ps How's and Ps Lia's heart and vision for the people.
They just need to better manage all these bad things that are a natural result of being too good a cultural engineer and atmosphere architect.
They need to remember to make room for the CHIEF engineer and architect of all systems in the universe - God.
This leads to my final critique of HoGC...Making room for God.
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| Me with my NTU ODAC freshies in our Christmas service 2014! :D |
5) Making room for God
Everything is so structured and planned in HoGC...from the scripted connect group's announcement, to the scripted leader's sharing, to the fixing of worship songs, etc...(By scripted I mean scripted by the executive leaders, not scripted by you...you do not have the freedom to share your own sermon)
Everything is so seamless until...THERE IS NO ROOM FOR GOD TO MOVE.
As a worship leader, I always give God a lot of freedom to move. I will give a good 5 minutes of free-worship time. During those 5 minutes, I'll always ask God "God, what is Your agenda for today?"
Sometimes, God will drop me verse of Scripture which I will exhort the congregation with, sometimes, God will drop me a worship song, sometimes, nothing...then I will just proceed with the song order.
From there, the whole direction of things changes. When His word is spoken, a softening of hearts is evident and you can feel the entire atmosphere of the place changing as His Spirit gently carries out His agenda.
Once, when I was worship leading, God dropped in my heart to lead this extra song NOT IN THE SONG LIST. I was hesitant, but I did it anyway. Nothing spectacular happened as I led that extra song.
But weeks later, word came to me that a member in my church actually laid a bet with God. She told God that she would only obey His calling in her life to go on a long-term mission trip if the worship leader led this song today.
Lo and behold, because I listened to the Holy Spirit, He could use me to carry out His agenda.
In HoGC, there is NO WAY this is gonna happen. They sometimes give us time to sing in the spirit (even though 50% of the members don't know the principles of speaking in tongues...much less SING in tongues) but they never truly go into a "God, what is Your agenda for us today?" worship-seeking mode.
Their worship leaders are not allowed to exhort the congregation with Scripture or a word of knowledge.
In my previous church, because we do that, sometimes God changes the whole order of the service and some services become healing services where we see the Spirit of God sweep over the congregation and see people just fall under the power of the Holy Spirit (WITHOUT CATCHERS & NO INJURY).
Sometimes, God drops a certain leader a word of wisdom for the church and after it's shared to the congregation, a whole new spirit of openness is present amongst the congregation and people begin to weep and see visions and the whole atmosphere changes.
My previous church is already considered conservative. In other churches, some of their spiritual expressions can be pretty disruptive. People can suddenly just shout and sing, dance, cry out loud, etc...
In Heart of God church, expressions of the spirit are almost zilch.
The supernatural work of God in services such as prophecy, healing, visions, etc...are rarely seen. In my previous church, it is not too common but it is not too rare either.
In Bethel, during prayer meetings and cell group meetings leaders would share visions and they would share word of wisdom that the Holy Spirit will reveal to them and tears will begin to flow from the member's faces.
YES IT HAPPENS IN CELL (or connect) GROUP!
Here in HoGC, it's ALL SO SCRIPTED!
I'm NOT SAYING that God cannot work through the scripted, HE CAN. But more often than not, different meetings, different dates call for different agendas and can only be brought to pass by revelation.
And I'm not saying DON'T SCRIPT your sharing. Script them! But let them only be a reference. Should the Holy Spirit wish to take off in another direction, do not stifle Him!
It's not a matter of right or wrong here, but it's a matter of more or less.
If they DID MORE unscripted, off-the-cuff, spirit-led stuff, then I'm pretty sure this pseudo-cult status would be diluted because the members would be encouraged to seek more of God and to believe for a word from God, etc...
If they DID LESS of the unscripted and move-in-the-Spirit stuff, then they're relying more on their scripts which causes all these cultic problems!
As much as you want order in your church services, you have to remember that you cannot put God in your order! Our order is ultimately subject to His order.
I honestly do not know how to adequately put it in words to solidly prove my case but all I can say is I've seen better, I've seen how God can do so much more through the unscripted seeking of Him.
I've seen how God spontaneously changed the cell leader's sermon and touched lives. I've seen how God changed the worship leader's song list and changed people's courses. I've seen how God changed the order of service and witness an outpouring of His spirit.
But this I have not seen in HoGC. All I've seen is professionalism, order and seamless human effort.
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| With my NTU friends again in another Christmas 2014 weekend! :D |
I believe Heart of God Church can do better by giving God more leeway. They should begin to train their leaders on how to rely more on their spiritual instincts than on their administrative scripting; more seeking and less scripting.
One word of wisdom from God directed to a person is better than a thousand well-written sermons.
Conclusion
In spite of all the serious flaws in HoGC, HoGC is still God's church. As I said earlier, I truly believe in the vision that God gave Ps How and Ps Lia. I know this is His Church because they do preach Christ and they do meet the definitions of the ekklesia-church in many ways and the church is built on God's revelation.
Most of the bad are really a result of the good. Like I also mentioned earlier, in a useful chemical reaction there will usually still be a redundant residue. If the residue is not managed properly, it will affect the effectiveness of the chemical reaction.
Take for example, you are erasing a statement in your essay written in pencil with a rubber eraser. The act of erasing is good but the residue - the by product - of the useful act (chemical reaction) is the eraser dust/droppings.
The eraser dust is not exactly harmful but if you keep erasing and erasing and don't clear the eraser dust from your essay paper, you'll soon discover that you have no space to write!
Same it is here. The nationalistic, cultic-celebrity culture of HoGC is the result of a good thing - being fantastic cultural engineers and atmosphere architects.
But they need to remember to make room for the CHIEF engineer and architect of all systems in the universe - God.
No church experience can ever be that bad. If God is the God of your life, you will know what season you are going through in your walk with God.
Sometimes, God uses the bad things in a church to teach you valuable lessons. It's like you never truly know the importance of wearing gloves when handling hot equipment until you've gotten your hands burnt in the process.
So I guess God is letting me get "burnt" by the flaws in HoGC so that when it's my turn to lead again, I will truly understand the principles of church-building...which is to NEVER stigmatize, NEVER be too scripted, etc...
It becomes a strong conviction once you've suffered and been through it.
Through this whole retrospective essay, I realize how paradoxical it all is!
The reasons I left Bethel Assembly of God for are now the reasons why I want to go back!
The candidness, the unscripted-ness, the real-ness, the ability to question and discuss thorny issues with your leaders, the way they make room for the Holy Spirit's move, etc...
The very things I left my previous church to find are now the very things I detest (because they're not upheld in balance).
All that was missing in Bethel, I found in HoGC...but yet, I am still left disappointed...because they now lacked what Bethel had.
All in all, it's all about balance.
I wonder if there is any church with a reasonable balance. A healthy balance between Bethel & HoGC would be optimal.
I'd recommend HoGC for all new friends who have NEVER stepped into church before. Let them get blown away by what church can be...and then let them serve in a smaller, less organized church that gives them the autonomy to lead to discover the true tenets of Christianity.
Through it all, what's ultimately most important is your walk with God.
Your walk with God should be independent of the church. Your walk with God should be so personal that you begin to see that church is just a temporary house of God. And you can "shift house".
Ultimately, so long you're shifting house with your spouse or groom - God - you're never shifting to a wrong house...because there's no such thing as a wrong house...with the exception of churches with wrong doctrines.
Churches with wrong doctrines - Mormon church, Seventh-Day Adventist, Jehovah witnesses, etc. - are not even considered churches at all. Because they'd definitely fail the 3rd definition or criteria of a church - teaching with theological depth.
This is my Christianity. No church can disappoint me to point where I walk away from Christianity as a whole.
I understand that everyone are works in progress, imperfect beings striving for perfection. Likewise, every church are works in progress, imperfect organisms & organizations striving for perfection.
In 2015, I feel that God wants me to let go of all these grievances I hold against the HoGC leadership. I feel that wants me to drop all these charges, however correct it may be, humble myself and serve in His house again.
It is after all, His Church.
So yes, for whatever reason you came and visited this page for, I hope that you found what you were looking for - God.
Let me end of with a word of Scripture and with a quote:
Matthew 16:18
“…and on this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it”
“God doesn't come out on a big stage once a year to prove Himself to the world. He does something so much riskier and daring…He makes us the show! He proves Himself and displays Himself through His church.”
Joshua Harris in "Dug Down Deep"
To all my friends who've read till here, do note that:
His Church is an imperfect representation of His Kingdom. It's not perfect, but it's beautiful; the most beautiful representation of His Kingdom on Earth.
There is no other organization in planet Earth that has been dedicated to changing lives through love for more than 2 millenniums.
The Church may be flawed and run by flawed human beings that screw up here and there, but it is still the best organization you'll ever find. Its forefathers have gave up their lives literally and non-literally, sparking revivals and revolutions to give the Church its existence today.
So watch this organization. The Church will once again be in the spotlight of human history as Jesus Christ puts on His shoes to leave Heaven and return to Earth in His second coming.
Till then, keep the faith, love His Church and fight the good fight. Shalom :)
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| Tribute photo: Me with my zone in my previous church in 2010 - Bethel Assembly of God. Our last service in this auditorium before it was demolished and a new building was erected. |
Quotation credits:
I've extracted 2 paragraphs from Kevin Low's blog post entitled "A Critical Analysis of Heart of God Church" from the URL: http://cameraandapen.tumblr.com/post/68852053645/a-critical-analysis-of-heart-of-god-church
Do check his post out. It's a much more concise, less-Biblical-referencing essay on the good and bad of HoGC.
Kevin Low is 19 at the point of my quoting and he serves in the photography ministry in Heart of God Church.
