Jump to content

Ex Charismatics

Chestnut

By Chestnut
in Chit-Chat

 Share

Recommended Posts

Chestnut Enthusiast

Chestnut

Posted
  • Author
Posted

New Creation Church insider speaks out

 

I was a former Muslim and became a Christian in 2003 at another church. My wife and I started attending New Creation Church (NCC) in 2005.

When I first attended NCC, I felt welcomed and not judged. It was an overall positive experience with good messages. My first impression of Joseph Prince (JP) was an honest guy speaking his mind. The depth of the messages, initially I thought they were good. JP used loads of Bible references as compared to the previous church. He also uses a lot of the Hebrew roots study method. I liked that cerebral stuff. But I soon realised much of this material is available online.

I served in the pastoral care ministry for about 1 year prior to having kids. Part of the interview process was asking whether I had been tithing for the past 6 months. A friend mine wanted to serve as well and was asked this same question. I thought it odd, but since i was tithing then, it wasn’t a problem. But this is a consistent fact for church members who want to serve in any ministries within NCC. I was serving in a tiny role as an usher in the Wedding Preparations Seminar. Very far away from the inner circle.

If someone tried to correct me about NCC or JP back then, I would of course, be defensive and spouted every letter of JP’s teachings. I too studied the Bible, but at that time it was through the lens of JP.

I only knew JP as Senior Pastor of NCC. No personal experience with him one to one. His persona on the pulpit has always been charismatic, on many occasions self-centred and ego-centric, prideful over his achievements of building a church so big. He has a tendency to challenge other pastors or teachers of the Word indirectly by not mentioning names. Here are some common challenges he would typically say:

“If you’re teaching the Word correctly, how come your church does not have many testimonies of healing?”

“If you’re teaching the Word correctly, how come your church size is shrinking?”

He goes to say that NCC has many emails coming in every week about healing testimonials, and that the church is growing so fast and large etc.

Only recently this year in 2015, our family stopped going to NCC because we woke up from the spell. I was also concerned for my kids, what they were teaching at the Children’s Church.

Everything taught in NCC was about Jesus. Everything is about Grace. Everything is give thanks to Jesus. How about give thanks to God the Father? I’m not reducing the significance and importance of Jesus. But Jesus was sent to us to know the Father. JP has created a barrier to the Father by creating this false “Genie Jesus” as I call it. Sure they did teach about Joseph, Daniel and all the other Bible heroes but it always ended up being Genie-Jesus-centric. JP creates this image of Jesus that suits his personal agenda, which is to sell more books, DVDs, etc. and to convince people to tithe to NCC. As you know the famous message of “Your Tithe Testifies He’s Alive!” – that message was, if I remember correctly, delivered by Pastor Lian.

Our Christian walk should point to YHVH. Through seeing Jesus in the Bible, we see the Father’s heart. But Jesus should not be used like a magic genie and grant you 3 wishes sort of thing.

I was OK with such teachings at first until somewhere after 2012 or so, I started reading and learning from other pastors and teachers.

At NCC, we took sin lightly. Sin as explained by NCC is “Hamartia” = Missing the mark. Problem was they did not dwell on the moral consequences. The fundamental pillars of moral values found in the 10 commandments are not taught. This is another problem with NCC. The total eradication of God’s Holy Laws.

We also ended up becoming materialistic, to which I’ve honestly asked myself, is that really God’s desire for me and my family?

Besides the cult worship status of JP and his ability to sway tens of thousands to “tithe” to the church, miracle seed sundays, etc, the fundamental problem was exalting the Genie Jesus instead of Abba Father God/YHVH.

When the church management made the announcement that JP and his family may move to the US to “plant a church”, that’s when I started digging and found out that the Joseph Prince Ministries is a registered company in the US. This must be odd and somebody is moving money around…just my thoughts here (seehttp://www.guidestar.org/organizations/20-8090240/joseph-prince-ministries.aspx#financials / check out the Financials tab in the link too).

I was surprised to find out many ex-NCC people who questioned JP’s teachings. So they just started looking elsewhere. I met many senior members outside of church attending other bible study seminars. At last year’s lecture series by Pastor Stephen Armstrong from Verse by Verse Ministry at YMCA, I was pleasantly surprised to see many familiar faces.

Since we were not part of any cell group for a long time, we just stopped going to NCC. We now attend a small, simple church where the first thing we did was sit through the Sunday school for the kids to check their teachings.

We thank God for pulling us out and showing us His truth from His Word.

Sam*, former NCC member
(*Name has been changed to protect his identity)

 

https://churchwatchcentral.com/2015/12/01/new-creation-church-insider-speaks-out/amp/

Shalala lala la la ~ 🌠

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Chestnut Enthusiast

Chestnut

Posted
  • Author
Posted

Another CHC insider exposes cult abuse in City Harvest Church

 

I am a current City Harvest Church (CHC) member and still in my teens. I do feel anxious and am unsure why I feel this way. To be honest, I do not want to attend CHC and am aware that Kong Hee and the leadership are guilty for their fraud (and rightfully agree so), but I am coerced to attend CHC by my mother who remains a faithful follower even though me and my own father disagrees with CHC and accuse her of blind faith.

I attended CHC since 2002 when I was a kid. To me, staying in CHC or leaving would not make a difference in my thoughts towards them. Compared to Admin 1’s testimony (goo.gl/NDdXri), CHC now is not as “hard sell and forceful” as they used be during Admin 1’s days. However, there is that implicit pressure going on and I do feel stressful hanging out with my cell group (CG).

In the past, my dad had to disconnect the phone line because they kept calling me. As a 12 year old back then, it was really stressful. They would surround me in large groups, but today, my CG leaves me alone most of the time. My mother still coerces me to go, thinking that it can help me in my anxiety and fears. She thinks I’m a hermit. She also coerce my father to attend CHC and will nag and give him sleepless nights if he refuse to attend for too long.

I find their prosperity sermons boring, that it makes me want to sleep, because they always keep talking about the same things. Pastor Tan Ye Peng speaks the best in my opinion, while Kong Hee is just a savvy speaker. The preaching has been less doctrinal for the past 5 years, as most of the time was spent on praising Kong Hee and his wife, Sun Ho. I don’t care about their prosperity gospel much as I knew it was a lie from day one. I am content with what I have.

My connect group leader (different from cell group leader) keeps asking me to donate to this year’s building fund, claiming that I should donate out of “love for God”. On the stage, the message is about donating to receive financial blessings in return. Honestly, the “successful” testimonies they bring on stage are just 1 out of a 1000 people who donated, while the rest who donated suffered badly. It’s basically a sales pitch, a big propaganda machine. I don’t like it and that’s why I don’t tithe. And why should I since I don’t make any income?? They expect me to use my savings or money given to me by my parents. As my dad does not want to argue with my mom, he lets her be and lets her donate. He knew way long ago that the funds were channelled towards Sun Ho before they were exposed.

I lectured my connect group leader a few days ago, when he asked me about my view on the verdict. He isn’t in the position to comment back to me though since I was in CHC way longer than him. I just told him as a matter of fact, the this was indeed a breach of trust. I was very happy when Kong Hee and the leaders involved got arrested. They cheated me of my money when I was a kid.

Both of my mum’s first two cell group leaders left CHC and they were executive and board members. I am also aware the the cell group and connect group leaders themselves are controlled and pressured from the top.

When I tell my CG leader that I am stressed out, they can’t do anything much and my mum tells them that I have anxiety issues, not realising that CHC and she coercing me to go are the cause of it. I even have a psychiatrist letter proving I have that condition.

My mother however has it worse. Since attending CHC, she became very paranoid and very anxious. Anything that does not go her way smoothly, she will make the ridiculous claim that the Devil is acting against her, like having a minor car accident etc. Sometimes when she presses the wrong number on her mobile, she would blame the Devil for it. She keeps worrying about things and scolds me for being anxious when she in fact, is anxious herself! It’s hard to convince her to leave CHC but to be fair, her current CG people are moderate and many of them dislike Sun Ho’s antics.

When the judge said that Kong Hee was capitalising on people’s fear and paranoia to galvanize support for channeling funds in a discreet manner towards the crossover project, he was not wrong. Indeed, look at what Kong Hee has done to me and my mom now. When Kong Hee made the daring claim some time ago that God said sorry to him, he’s hallucinating! Sometimes I wonder if his dreams and visions are hallucinations or vain imaginations.

After the verdict, I saw the service live online where Kong Hee apologised and bowed his head to the congregation. However, his apology sounded more like he was sorry for the inconvenience caused rather than the fraud and the false doctrines he preached. A.R Bernard who is right now in Singapore, continues to praise Kong Hee and Sun Ho. The previous time he came, he even told the church to obey and trust Kong Hee fully.

I do want to leave CHC but I will do so when I get older as I do not want to cause myself anymore emotional turmoil as I am experiencing right now.

Regards,
Jayden (name has been changed to protect identity)

 

https://churchwatchcentral.com/2015/10/27/another-chc-insider-exposes-cult-abuse-in-city-harvest-church/

Shalala lala la la ~ 🌠

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Chestnut Enthusiast

Chestnut

Posted
  • Author
Posted
10 minutes ago, Satki said:

so is he approved religion in Singapore?

 

i dont have much respect for people who are fanatic in their religion. to me they are pretty shallow and easily convinced

 

 

 

Christianity lor

 

But now christianity has so many denominations in singapore and the teaching is different and interpreted diffferently

Shalala lala la la ~ 🌠

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
 Share
Go to topic listing
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

Mugentech.net uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience on our website. By using this site you agree to Privacy Policy

  I accept