Saturday, 14th March 2009
The title of today's entry is the name of a song made popular by the rock group Queen in 1980.
Last night, we had a cell dinner fellowship.
It wasn't a cell "meeting" because we didn't go through the 4Ws of "Welcome, Worship, Word and Works".
In fact, I should not even refer to it as a "cell" gathering because in the eyes of my church, it is no longer a cell.
For those who are new to ROOTSS, here's a brief background about what has happened. I used to be the Honorary Treasurer and the cell leader of 3L7. However, because the senior pastor of my church, Rev Peter Koh is against the grace message (which he considers to be antinomian), I was made to step down from both posts in July 2007. My cell was then disbanded in Dec 2007. When fellow brother-in-grace Philip Ng heard about this, he graciously asked my wife and I to join his cell, Goodness.
You can read more about that here.
Well, the irony is that Philip and his family have been attending that "antimonian" church in Suntec on an increasingly regular basis, even more frequently that my wife and I!
But that placed him in a dilemma, because as a cell leader, he wasn't exactly setting a good example for his cell members to follow by embracing teachings which Rev Peter Koh is so against ;-)
So after much prayer and seeking of the Lord, he finally decided to step down as a cell leader in Jan 2009 and is now happily attending NewCre, week-in week-out, without any more legalistic encrumbrances.
This also meant that Goodness could no longer operate officially as a cell, and her members have now been channeled into another cell in the same cluster known as Jireh (which actually multiplied out from it back in 2006).
Yep, another cell has bitten the dust...
And I wonder how many more will...
But hey, there is nothing in the Bible that says ex-cell members cannot continue to meet up as brothers- and sisters-in-Christ. On the contrary, Heb 10:25 says "Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching".
In fact, the members of 3L7 still meet up occasionally for a meal. After all, friendships go beyond man-made structures.
My sincere prayer is that during his quiet times of reflection, Rev Peter Koh will consider these fall-outs that have taken place during his watch as senior pastor of PLMC, and seek of the Lord whether he has been barking up the wrong tree and kicking against the goads like Saul did when he went about persecuting the church.
Sure, if it is only a couple of church members here and another handful of church members there, maybe it could mean we "black sheep" are embracing heresies and our legs need to be broken to prevent us from wandering outside the fold.
But hey, I know for a fact that there are increasingly more and more in PLMC who have caught the grace message (they have been contacting me quietly, but are keeping a low profile lest they meet a similar fate), not to mention the thousands of others in Singapore and millions around the world . Surely, Ps Joseph Prince and his fellow grace preachers cannot be fooling all the people all of the time, can they?
Speaking of our fellowship last night, dinner was followed by us watching a very touching movie called "Fireproof" on DVD, which I will blog about tomorrow. I was just wondering whether I should get a copy for Glenn Ong and Jamie Yeo, in the hope of getting them back together :-)
No comments:
Post a Comment