It's the Message, Not the Messenger

Saturday, 22nd May 2010


A couple of days ago, I was having tea at IMM with fellow bloggers Stanley (The Logical Christian) and Kenny (Blogpastor).  We were discussing about how Kong Hee has gotten himself into a bit of hot soup as a result of the devotional articles on his website appearing to have been plagiarised from other sources, and how this might ultimately affect his flock.

For further details on this, do check out the site CHEAT GRACE (no, it's not a typo.  it's cheat grace, not cheap grace).

At present, City Harvest claims to have some 33,000 members but in reality, attendance is more in the 25,000 to 27,000 range.   They arrived at 33,000 because they keep a nominal roll of visitors, but one-time visitors do not equate to regular attendees.

On the other hand, NewCre's attendance has been steadily creeping up and is now around 22,000 to 24,000.  I was there with my wifey some time last month and was amazed to see queues forming at Gallery West as well!  Previously, the queue was only for those wanting to get into the Rock Auditorium.  The overflow rooms at the SITEC end are so full that they now have added an extra hall on the 6th floor.

I recall back in Sep 2007 how the owner of Hexacon Construction had shared a testimony about how God appeared to him in a vision telling him that he would help build the largest church in Singapore.  At that point in time, he probably thought God was referring to City Harvest.  Having been appointed as the main contractor of One-North, what this would mean is that by the time One-North is ready in 2012, NewCre's attendance would have surpassed City Harvest's.  And the controversy surrounding Kong Hee's devotional materials is only going to cause that prophecy to be fulfilled, sooner rather than later.

Another topic that we discussed was the phenomenal growth of The New Covenant Church (tNCChurch), a church based in Petaling Jaya, Malaysia that was established by fellow grace embracer, Peter Sze.

He used to be a Methodist layman but when he was in Melbourne visiting his son, someone prophesied over him saying that God wanted him to be a pastor.  And so, in Nov 2009, after 35 years of serving in his previous church, he formed tNCChurch with just 30 members.  But in a matter of just 6 months, the church has grown nearly sevenfold to more than 200!

What we concluded from the above was that it is the message and not the messenger that matters.  NewCre is growing because Ps Joseph Prince and his fellow pastors focus on unveiling Jesus and His finished work. tNCChurch is growing because Peter Sze magnifies the person of Jesus and the completeness of the work He did for us on the cross.  When the gospel is preached in all its pure truth and unadulterated fullness, people are fed and lives are touched, and God causes the flock to multiply.  Conversely, if preachers rely on their own smarts or worse yet, criticise those who have been raised by God to preach the message of grace, then the sad fact is that God cannot continue to bless their ministries (they are actually behaving like Saul in kicking against the goads) and it will only be a matter of time before their flock starts to dwindle as well.

So folks, it's the message, not the messenger.  Ps Prince himself ever said that he is only the messenger boy.  Having said that, do pray for Kong Hee, Peter Koh, Barnabas Chong and other law-based preachers like them.  The moment they realise where they have gone wrong and start to become grace-based, there is no reason why God cannot use them for His kingdom work.  After all, it's the message, not the messenger.  Amen?