FGA Members i need ur opinion
Hey every1........
I need ur opinion on this matter...Im currently attending CHC KL..and although they grow in numbers i really do not agree to a certain extent on what they preach...Anyway here is an article on CHC Singapore who spent 48 billion Sing dollars on a church building...Nothing agaisnt that but i think you ccan build a building that cost half of that which is comfortable and still be able to cater for their 16000 members.. Ok this article comes from a Baptist view..so i dont totally agree with it either but I do agree with MOST of its points on CHC...read and enjoy
Updated March 2, 2003 (first published February 8, 2003) (David Cloud, Fundamental Baptist Information Service, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061, 866-295-4143, fbns@wayoflife.org; for instructions about subscribing and unsubscribing or changing addresses, see the information paragraph at the end of the article) –
Tonight I visited City Harvest Church in Singapore, to observe their doctrine and practice. I am thankful to the three independent Baptist Singaporean friends who drove me to the church and accompanied me in my little tour.
City Harvest is the largest church in Singapore. Not surprisingly, it is charismatic, and this review is a reminder of how widespread and powerful the charismatic movement is today. Fundamentalist Bible-believing preachers and missionaries need to be informed of these things and, in turn, need to inform their people. Too many Bible-believing preachers are leaving their churches in ignorance about these contemporary issues because they don’t want to “rock the boat” or because they mistakenly think that it is not a pastor’s job to warn about such things. As has been widely stated, “No position can be maintained without continual indoctrination.” Almost no one today can entirely escape the long reach of the charismatic movement and the influence it exerts through its music, its ecumenical endeavors, its enticing promises, and its positive-only, judge not philosophy.
THE CHURCH BUILDING
The massive City Harvest Church building cost S$48 million (US$26.6 million). It is the first titanium-clad building in Asia and is modeled after the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain. Special limestone for part of the building was imported from Europe. The Riviera walkway was designed by a world-famous artist. The elevators go from B4, which is where the auditorium is located, all the way up to level 5, which is the roof top area. There are more than 200 parking lots within the building itself.
Everything is elaborate and expensive. Comfortable lounge areas with expensive sofas are scattered around the first floor area, and large state-of-the-art plasma television monitors are built into the walls, featuring video recordings of past services. There are waterfalls, gardens, coffee kiosks, a children’s playground, fountains, even a putting green for enthusiasts who can’t get too far from a golf club. There is a large café on the 4th floor. The rooftop has a beautiful garden, a baptismal pool, a children’s wading pool, and a coffee kiosk. Cool Mist fans blast out moist air that can cool down the entire rooftop area to ward off the infamous Singapore heat. The bathroom facilities were created by French designer Philippe Starck. Even the toilets “exemplify the very meaning of style” (Harvest Times, July-December 2002).
The auditorium covers 1,700 square meters and is said to be the largest column-free church sanctuary in the Southeast Asia Peninsula. There are two artist make-up rooms directly beneath the stage. A large audio and video crew are required to create each elaborately-produced service. The sound is provided by a 60-channel console, the largest in the world. The stage was created by a designer who formerly worked with Christie’s Auction House in New York. It features a massive, bright LED screen.
The church charters 280 buses to ferry church members in from various parts of Singapore, making a total of 1,842 stops.
The senior pastor of City Harvest is Kong Hee, and the “First Deputy Senior Pastor” is his wife, Ho Yeow-Sun. Kong Hee travels frequently and has an influential ministry in the charismatic world. His 2003 itinerary includes stops in Taiwan, the USA, Australia, Russia, Sweden, the Netherlands, Malaysia, Hong Kong, and Indonesia.
CELL GROUPS
City Harvest Church uses cell groups to build its member base. More than 300 cell group leaders are listed in their brochures (many of them women). The cell groups are scattered throughout Singapore and are where most of the new contacts are made for evangelism. I talked with two young men, who appeared to be college age, and they told me that they came to City Harvest about three years ago after first coming into contact with the Bible at one of the cell groups.
I am not in support of the charismatic cell group model, with its loose church within a church concept, but I am convinced that Bible-believing churches could learn something from them. For one thing, because of the cell groups, these churches are reaching more people than most fundamentalist Bible-believing congregations are with their traditional forms of outreach. By using evangelistic and discipleship home Bible studies that are conducted at various points in the city or area, a fundamentalist church could have the potential to expand the number of people it reaches. Those home Bible studies can be conducted by mature saints in the congregation with the goal, not of replacing the church’s services but of feeding into them. That is what is happening with these charismatic churches. We have expanded on this concept in our article on “Evangelistic Bible Studies,” which is at the Way of Life web site under the following link http://wayoflife.org/fbns/alphacourse.htm.
THE CHURCH’S GOSPEL MESSAGE
I purchased a copy of the City Harvest Church Introductory Class booklet, which contains four lessons: “our salvation, our statements, our strategy, and our structure.”
Under the section on salvation, City Harvest teaches that a sinner needs to do three things: acknowledge that he is a sinner, believe that Jesus died for his sins, and confess his sins to God and “ask Him to be my Lord and Savior.” In their statement of faith they say that “eternal life begins the moment we receive Jesus Christ into our lives by faith.”
That biblical statement is contradicted, though, by another statement in the Introductory Class booklet, as follows:
“Salvation is not a one-time event.”
As proof, they quote 1 Corinthians 1:18 from the New King James Bible, which reads, “For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but TO US WHO ARE BEING SAVED it is the power of God.”
From that, this charismatic church gets its false doctrine that salvation is not a one-time event, confusing Christian growth and maturity with salvation.
Bible translations are not all the same and the choice of translations is not a non-issue!
THE CHURCH’S PENTECOSTAL MESSAGE
In its statement of faith, City Harvest affirms the baptism of the Holy Spirit subsequent to salvation “with the Bible evidence of speaking in other tongues” and healing in the atonement.
NO KING JAMES BIBLES
A bookstore on the ground level features a wide variety of charismatic literature. These are mostly in English, because English is a major language in Singapore and is the language that unites the many disparate tongues that are spoken in this extremely multi-cultural society.
One thing that was missing in the book sales area was a King James Bible. They had several versions, including the New Living Bible and the New King James Bible, but one of the sales workers told me they do not carry any King James Bibles.
Bible versions quoted in church literature include the New International Version, the Living Bible, the Phillips, and the Good News Bible.
Isn’t it interesting that fundamentalists who are defending the modern versions and who are warning against that old boogey of “King James Onlyism” are taking exactly the same position as the modernists, the cults, the Romanists, the New Evangelicals, the ecumenists, and the charismatics?
GIVE A LOT, GET A LOT
City Harvest preaches a fairly standard charismatic prosperity message. Four pages of the Harvest Times for the second half of 2002 are devoted to the subject of “Giving that Pleases God.” The message is that “those who obediently heed the voice of God will continually experience blessing and increase in their lives.”
Many testimonies are given of how this has been fulfilled in the lives of church members. One member, for example, testified that he has been attending City harvest since January 2000. When he started supporting City Harvest, he was involved in “a struggling insurance business.” When he and his wife made their initial pledge, “For the first time in my life I literally wept because I knew we were going to give beyond our means”! Here, then, we have an actual example of giving until it hurts! Sure enough, though, he has prospered beyond his wildest dreams. His income in 2001 increased by almost S$100,000 from the previous year and the year 2002 was just as good or better. To boot, his entire family “was blessed with a seven-day vacation in Tokyo Disneyland, flying business class, staying at a six-star hotel...”
To make contributing to the church coffers simple, there are six automated donation machines resembling ATMs scattered around the church facility, where church members can pay their tithes and offerings.
BILLY GRAHAM’S DAUGHTER AT CITY HARVEST
Anne Graham Lotz preached at City Harvest Church as the main guest speaker at the South East Asia Congress of Evangelism (SEACOE) in 2002. In that forum, she preached to more than 1,500 pastors and church workers. We see, therefore, that Dr. Graham’s daughter is walking in her ecumenical father’s compromising footsteps. Billy Graham has testified that his daughter is “the best preacher in the family.” It is too bad that neither of them respect God’s command in 1 Timothy 2:12. “But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence.”
The fact that the South East Asia Congress of Evangelism was held at City Harvest Church reminds us that evangelicalism in general refuses today to separate from the charismatic movement.
HIGH ON MUSIC
On Saturdays, City Harvest has two services, one at 4:30 p.m. and one at 7:30. I attended the 7:30 session. The music was pull-out-the-stops rock & roll and was the loudest I have ever heard in a charismatic church or conference, even though I have attended many of them. The music featured TWO drummers, electric guitars, a keyboard, and a powerful brass section. Several worship leaders, both male and female, swayed and pranced on the front of the stage.
The several-thousand-seat auditorium was almost full and the people were very, very exuberant. As best as I could tell from my vantage point, almost every person joined in enthusiastically during the worship time, singing, clapping, jumping, swaying to the potent music.
When I walked out of the auditorium and got away from the sound of the music, I actually felt light headed from not being accustomed to such loud music. It has been more than three decades since I last heard music that loud in an enclosed building, and that was at a rock concert before I was saved. It was such a relief to get away from the relentless pounding.
I am convinced that if you took away the rock music, the church would lose its large crowds almost instantly. Rock music is a drug in itself. Timothy Leary, the ‘60s LSD guru, knew a lot about rock music and he testified: “Don’t listen to the words, it’s the music that has its own message. ... I’ve been stoned on the music many times.” He was right. Charismatic worshippers who think they are high on God might very well, in reality, be high on music.
The City Harvest magazine contains a section on questions and answers. One question by a new member to City Harvest is instructive. “I just started attending church a few months back and really felt drawn to the presence of God, ESPECIALLY THROUGH THE TIMES OF PRAISE AND WORSHIP. Yet, each time when I try to meet God in the same way during my personal quiet time AND ‘FEEL’ THE TANGIBLE PRESENCE that I always sense during church services, I always fail. Is this because there’s something that I’m not doing right? Am I not worshipping in the correct way?”
The answer to the person’s question is that he or she is looking for the wrong thing and is confused about the nature of true worship of God. Worship has nothing to do with my feelings or with a “tangible presence.” Those things are easily counterfeited by the flesh and the devil. True worship is to give thanks to God and to serve Him obediently NO MATTER HOW I FEEL AND NO MATTER WHAT THE CIRCUMSTANCE. Abraham doubtless did not feel very good and had no tangible presence when he trudged toward the mountain with his most beloved son in tow with the purpose of sacrificing him in obedience to God’s command, but he was performing a most supreme act of worship. Job did not feel tingly, wonderful emotions when he was sitting in the ash heap scrapping his boils with pieces of clay pots and contemplating the loss of his children and wealth and rebutting his wife’s complaints, but he was worshipping God acceptably and fruitfully when he endured that terrible condition and did not curse God, but trusted Him in spite of how miserable he felt. In that horrible condition, Job said, “Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him: but I will maintain mine own ways before him.” That is true worship. It has nothing to do with being under the sway of powerful music or stirring up high emotions and pursuing a perception of God’s tangible presence.
Hebrews 13:15-16 describes true worship: “By him therefore let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of our lips giving thanks to his name. But to do good and to communicate forget not: for with such sacrifices God is well pleased.” Note the attributes of true worship: thanksgiving to God in all circumstances, doing good works or obedience to God’s commands, and communicating to those who have needs. One does not need rock music to accomplish any of these things.
I challenge those committed to the contemporary philosophy to give up rock music for one month and serve the Lord without it. If you need rock music in order to enjoy and serve the Lord, you have a serious problem. If rock music is necessary or even important for the service and worship of Christ, what did God’s people do in A.D. 65 or 1240 or 1530 or 1850 or 1945?
WORLDLINESS
City Harvest Church, like almost all charismatic and new evangelical congregations today, talks about the danger of worldliness in vague generalities on one hand but undermines that warning by speaking even louder and more often about the supposed danger of “legalism.”
One article in the Harvest Times for July-December 2002 is titled “Mind Over Media” and contains warnings about the danger of television and movies today. (The article was reprinted from Focus on the Family). The author rightly observes that there is little difference “between an R-rated film and a PG-13” one and that “obscene music CDs that would have been lucky to turn a profit 20 years ago are debuting at No. 1 and selling millions of copies.” The article warns that no one “is peddling hollow and deceptive philosophy to our kids” more than the entertainment industry and that “when worldly philosophies masquerade as recreation, they can seep into hearts and minds virtually unchallenged.” The article makes some good statements and contains some good advice, but when it comes to parents setting strict limits for kids, that message is weakened by the article’s warning to “resist extremes” and to avoid “legalism.” Under these guidelines, in practice the parent is allowed to say no to some rock music but not to all of it, to some immodesty but not to all of it, to petting but not to dating itself.
City Harvest co-pastor Ho Yeow-Sun says, “If I’m a mother, I wouldn’t mind my daughter dyeing her hair and being hip. And I’ll let her date. I don’t want her to be square!” She said its “not being realistic” for parents to say to their daughters “no mini-skirts, no this, no that” (Her World, p. 199). Pastor Sun is no hypocrite, because she dresses sensually and very, very hip. With a pastor like Ho Yeow-Sun, no church could speak very plainly about immodesty and worldliness!
The “judge not” philosophy of contemporary Christianity largely negates its attempts to warn against worldliness in most practical senses.
City Harvest Church is attended by large numbers of young Singaporeans and they dress pretty much as they would at the university campuses and the malls, which is to say that large numbers of them dress immodestly. Singapore is in love with the things of the West and has taken the immodesty of western fashions to even higher levels of sensuality, if that is possible, than one finds in America. And City Harvest Church members reflect the Singapore culture. Though there is doubtless some mention of the sin of immodesty in theory and in general somewhere within City Harvest’s ministry, in practice there is almost no separation from the world in the matter of dress and fashion.
The same is true for entertainment. One of modern Asia’s idols is professional soccer, and City Harvest Church has nothing to say against it, with all of its attendant evils. In fact, City Harvest had a World Cup Finals night in 2002, showing the game on the screen in the main auditorium. On that night the pastors showed “their wild side,” with one pastor even ”doing a Brazilian samba number in the middle of the game.” The night was described like this in the church’s magazine: “A sea of excited faces ... crowds arrayed in yellow and white ... waving hands lifted above many heads ... rousing soccer cheers of ‘Ole-Ole-Ole-Ole’ ... the ‘Mexican wave’ making exhilarating rounds across the auditorium ... snack sellers doing brisk business ... pounding music reverberating through the loudspeakers before the ‘kick-off’ ... a giant LED screen flashing Brazil and Germany flags.”
I don’t think the Apostle Paul would have enjoyed such an unholy ruckus in the house of God.
Did he not pen Romans 12:1-2, under inspiration of the Holy Spirit? “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, HOLY, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And BE NOT CONFORMED TO THIS WORLD: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.”
THE PASTOR POP STAR
Speaking of worldliness, co-pastor Ho Yeow-Sun is not at City Harvest very much these days, because she is a pop star with top-selling hits and appearances on MTV Asia. She is often away on long trips to Taiwan with her concerts and recording business. Husband and fellow pastor Kong Hee flies to Taiwan from time to time to see her.
She describes herself as a “radical and hip female pastor.” In another interview, she said: “I’ve always been hip. I’m the first pastor to dye my hair and the first to wear hip pants. I know people have a problem with that, but I really couldn’t care less” (Her World, p. 199).
She dresses immodestly and prances around in a sexual fashion even while claiming to glorify the Lord. She calls it “free expression.”
Though she is a pastor, she doesn’t like to preach. “I don’t look upon myself as a pastor, because people usually think you’ll be preaching on stage. It never felt exciting to do that. I get more excited signing and talking to people.”
Of course, she holds the unscriptural philosophy that music is neutral: “To me, music comes from heaven. It’s not bad--it’s just music.” The musical style on her second album, Sun-day, is described as “ballad to acid jazz to R&B to trip-hop” (8Days, Dec. 26, 2002, p. 30).
The City Harvest Church magazine for July-December 2002 features 10 pages focusing on Pastor Sun as a pop star. Two pages are about the “Sun Fan Club.”
Beware of the charismatic movement.