https://www.facebook.com/CHCConfessions
I attended CHC for 8 years from 2000 when the church was still at the old Hollywood theatre. Along the way, I was "promoted" to Ministry Member level, and was also a cell group helper (kind of like an asst CGL) at one point in time. The spiritual atmosphere and culture was very strong back then, and people's passion and heart for God was really palpable. Everyone called Sun "Pastor Sun", and even on the church bulletin, she was known as Reverend Ho Yeow Sun.
Things started to change when Sun Ho launched her music career in 2003. From the start, it sounded like a good idea to use secular music as a means to reach the unsaved. I mean, who doesn't listen to pop music. All the members were "encouraged" to buy her CDs and I know of members who bought 10, 20 CDs to give away to their friends and family. She also started holding concerts in Taiwan, where she would give her testimony and Kong Hee would preach for 10 minutes followed by a salvation call. The church started labelling her concerts as mission trips, and members would sign up in droves to go overseas as volunteers for her concerts. Just so you know, the traveling and expenses were borne by the members, not by the church. What a way to get free labour, huh?
The church back peddled, and insisted Sun was never a pastor, but rather a counselor. The church justified this by saying that if non-Christians knew that she was a pastor (like, duh?), they would not be receptive to her/music. This was the beginning of CHC's obsession about the so called marketplace theology, and Kong Hee started to develop the his Cultural Mandate which does not have a biblical basis, and was never the focus of Jesus's work. In doing so, he erroneously twisting scripture to suit his means. One example in point: he based the so called Crossover Project on a single verse taken out of context: "... And He said to them, "Let us cross over to the other side of the lake." - Luke 8:22
The description of a physical crossing from one side of the lake to the other became a justification for the church and Sun to "cross over" into secular music. The church starting to ask its members not to call its pastors and leaders Brother or Sister so-and-so (a practice prevalent during the church's early days) in public. I found that to be hypocritical - here you have church leaders basically saying "It's okay to be two-faced.".
The more CHC focused on the Crossover project and Cultural Mandate, the less it focused on Jesus and the gospel. From the beginning, the pressure to conform was very strong and herd mentality kicked in. The church used peer pressure very successfully to get people to give to the building fund... from getting people to pledge and using testimonies. If you know a little about psychology, you'll know what I mean. I remembered people giving their hearts out for the Jurong West building. Never once, were members informed that monies from the Building Fund were used to fund Sun Ho's career, and certainly not about monies being invested in Xtron or Firna.
I felt very strongly that the church was headed in a very wrong direction and left in Jan 2008 before the scandal broke. I never regretted my decision to leave, and there are a lot more stories that I don't have the space nor time to go in to detail here. But suffice to say, CHC and its pastors have lost it. They have twisted and traded the gospel for another, and the astounding thing is that, they still believe they are doing the right thing. That, I think, is probably the saddest thing.
How many of us EMs remember this Straw Poll meeting held in March 2010 after COC began investigations?
Let me quote Pastor Kong word for word:
"So I mean Sun is not just a a a new girl that’s starting out. I mean she’s a co-founder. You know… she’s my wife. She co-founded the church. So during the AGM of 27 April 2003, together with our auditor, we informed the members very clearly, very clearly, that Sun’s Crossover project was sponsored by the Hanafi family and other various individuals, not by City Harvest. If you remember we even showed a video. That was made very clear back then."
Well now we know he lied when he said "not by City Harvest". Remember he said this on 28 March 2010. He lied to us with a straight face.
Members and Ex-members of CHC:
If you feel like your money given to building fund is wrongly used with the latest discovery from the trial, why don't we write to COC and request them to help us refund back the Building Fund as we were not informed of the use of building fund. CEH has his money returned to him too according to the COC report.
Anyone can write a template mail for us to submit together? CHC members have written so many letters to not remove the leaders. Why don't we write to COC to request for CHC to return our building fund.
Maybe someone like JOHN LIM or anyone can help us draft a mail and we can use it to submit with our receipts.
Any suggestions?
