I would suggest that we all look at the facts of the case,
before we hastily call and hope for an end to an
organization which have in fact benefitted many people in the past
years (bear in mind, I am not from CHC) in their other aspects of
ministry, eg. giving to the poor, meeting members' needs
through other noble means. We cannot deny that short of this
questionable goal of reaching the non-believers thru the career of
one person (whoever Sun is) , CHC has been a successful mega church
that have served its organization wide purpose... and their
outreach to the youth have been very successful (unless we all
agree that the youth should be loitering at Orchard Road or the
disco, pubs, ...gangsterism...etc)
So, it is better to be balanced in our judgement and
comments so that we can all come to a more constructive
recommendation to the government , if really indeed they decide to
tear it apart.... which i doubt...
The case is :
SINGAPORE - The Commissioner of Charities (COC),
following an Inquiry into the City Harvest Church (CHC), has
suspended eight members of the church governing board with
immediate effect under the Charities Act, following financial
irregularities in the use of its building fund.
In a statement today, the COC said its inquiry revealed
"misconduct and
mismanagement in the administration of the Charity,
particularly in relation to the funds that were in the Building
Fund which had been raised and earmarked for specific
purposes".
Financial irregularities of at least S$23 million from the funds
were discovered, the COC said.
"These funds were used
with the purported intention to finance Ho Yeow Sun's secular music
career to connect with people. There was a concerted effort
to conceal this movement of funds from its stakeholders." the
statement read. Ms Ho Yeow Sun, also known as Sun Ho, is the wife
of City Harvest founder Kong Hee, and has been pursuing a pop
career which has included stints in the United
States.
So unless , later in courts, the persecution has proven without
a reasonable doubt that these monies are channelled unlawfully, to
spend on her career, paying large unreasonable sums to suspected
companies (like laundering money) in order that the suspects
benefitted .... till that time comes, then we
will be able to know if there is indeed theft and greed. If
the monies are indeed used rightfully to spend on making her famous
so that she can reach the lost and unbelievers in the current
generation, we can only say that they are poor stewards of the
church monies and using it wastefully in stead of spending it on
more worthy causes.
I am not entirely favourable towards big church buildings
and definitely against Pastors calling themselves business
man. Pastors are called to the pulpit because they want to be
set apart from the world. If not they should stop
calling themselves Pastors and relegate back to being a business
man in the church and exclude from holding access to the
pulpit.
I am also not in favour of pastors who preach that the church
must grow for GROWTH SAKE... therein lies a dangerous personal
ambition to be the biggest church in Singapore and also to be the
most successful , so to speak , pastor.
Unless if the pastor is so anointed and his success comes as a
result of his anointment, and growth comes as a result, then it is
only natural that as long as the message is effective to this
society of the lost, the pastor deserve every single bit of the
success. However, this is not easy, as I
see many pastors falling into the same trap all over
again. Perhaps this is the only way for us to see the
counterfeit and being able to differentiate it from the
original.
Which is why until 25 July comes I think people are just
recycling old news.
About how successful a church is, I think as a Christian I do
not look at numbers and growth alone. But unfortunately the "Big is
Better" mentality has taken a hold on many churches who strive to
be bigger and mega in their setup. Such was NOT the mentality of
the early church. There went about preaching the Gospel not to draw
members into their church buildings on Sundays, for they had no
church buildings. But yet they effectively turned the world upside
down with their Gospel. And being persecuted at times it was
anything but health and wealth.
