Those of you who have been following my blog will be familiar with my spiritual journey. I grew up in a rather traditional Methodist church which used to frown upon the raising of hands and the speaking in tongues during the service. Now, these two are part and parcel of each week's worship services, thanks in no small part to Rev Dr Wee Boon Hup, who was our pastor-in-charge for 11 1/2 years long years from 1993 to 2005.
In fact, Rev Dr Wee had embraced the word of faith movement and our church was seeing rapid growth under his leadership -- from the fourth-largest Methodist church when he joined us to the second-largest by the time he left us to take up the appointment of TRAC President.
In particular, it was Rev Dr Wee and his wife who counselled my wife and I when we were going through a difficult period in our marriage in 2002. Mrs Wee, in particular, shared with us Prov 18:21 and Rom 4:17, about how we should speak positively about our situation -- be it our marriage, children or career.
Unfortunately after Rev Dr Wee's departure at the end of 2005, my church took on a different spiritual direction. From the pulpit, sermon after sermon was preached about how our salvation is not assured, and there was a very strong emphasis on our performance. I recall one particular sermon in December 2006 preached by the senior pastor, Rev Peter Koh, in which he mentioned about how companies were doing their year-end performance appraisal, and to ask ourselves how God would rate us if He were to do a spiritual appraisal on us!!!
Well, my answer to him is that He would give us an A+ because He sees us in Christ, and Christ in us :-)
Rev Peter Koh does not agree with the grace gospel and he thinks it to be heresy. When he found out that I had embraced it, he made me step down as treasurer and cell leader in July 2007 and disbanded my cell in December 2007. He even went on record to "write" an article entitled "Salvation Made Easy. A look at antinomianism" in the Beacon in January 2009 (which turned out to be written by someone else).
I feel very sad for him because that is the way he views our God -- never satisfied with us and demanding more and more of us. And the more he tries to emphasise the keeping of God's Laws, the more he will end up breaking them, just like how Paul struggled in Rom 7. My prayer for him is that he will stop kicking against the goads and come to realise that the grace gospel is in fact the true gospel. Amen?
Anyway, due to the lack of spiritual food, I took a sabbatical in August 2008, only coming back to my home church whenever Rev Reuben Ng preaches. But thanks be to God, the sabbatical will only last 17 months and will end on 31 December 2009.
Having to assimilate back into my own home church, I attended the Xmas service today. Here is a paranomic photo that was taken with my Samsung Omnia 2.
HAPPY XMAS EVERYONE!!!
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