In fewer than 24 hours last Sunday, members of the megachurch donated an impressive $21.1 million towards its multimillion-dollar building fund over four services held at Suntec City and Golden Village Marina.

The sum breaks the church’s record of over $18.8 million raised last February, and $18 million raised in April 2008.

In comparison, last year’s President’s Challenge raised a total of about $10 million for 37 beneficiaries.

When “My Paper” broke the news last year that the church raised about $19 million in a day with about 21,300 people in attendance – what the church said was a “new record attendance and collection done during a worldwide recession” – it caused an uproar among netizens in online forums.

This year, a record number of over 22,000 people attended the special service last Sunday,
called Miracle Seed Sunday.

Church members donated money to help fund the construction of the Integrated Hub complex.

Located at Vista Xchange at one-north in Buona Vista, the civic and cultural complex will house a 5,000-seat auditorium when it is completed in 2012.

It is being co-developed by Rock Productions, the commercial- development arm of New Creation Church, andmall developer CapitaMalls Asia.

New Creation Church will be the auditorium’s anchor tenant and hire the venue for its services
on Sundays.

With this new amount, the total sum raised so far by the church for the project stands at about $259 million, or more than half the $500 million needed.

There will be a wide range of responses from different people. Blogpastor imagines some:

Governance regulators: “Let’s keep a close eye on them!”

Politicians: “How can we get our party members to donate that much in such a short time?”

Finance/Marketeers: “It must be an investment scam!”

Organizers of President’s Challenge: “How can we harness religion for fund-raising?”

Christian idealists: “Why don’t they do the same for the poor?”

Online critics: “Churches should be taxed!”

Other megachurches: “Will we be able to match that?”

Small churches: “Can we have the crumbs that fall off the table of plenty?”

Parachurch organizations: “With that money, we can send 21,000 workers into the harvest fields”.

Fundamentalist: “20,000 deceived by prosperity doctrine in less than 24 hours!”

Roman Catholics: “How come our folks do not give as much?”

Gambler who lost $26 million at the casino recently: ” If only…….”

Unsaved dad: “I told you the church is filthy rich. Stop giving your salary to them!”

Arsenal fan: “We could get Shay Given with that amount!”

Blogpastor: “Hallelujah! Praise the Lord.”

Big cities

There are many churches in Kuala Lumpur and the biggest ones in the country are there too. Penang is not far behind. English congregations thrive there as they have a ready pool of English educated people. Here are the resources, the networks, the seminars and conferences . There is no lack. The Bahasa congregations are also doing well what with job seekers, used to worship in Bahasa, coming from Sabah and Sarawak.

Small towns

The Chinese speaking congregations are stronger in the smaller towns like Muar, Kluang, Sitiawan, Gua Musang, Kota Baru, Kuala Trengannu and others. They often have an offshoot English congregation but these are getting weaker with the brain drain to the capital city and the little red dot. The Indian churches: they suffer from feeling inferior and small, and are usually financially in the shadows. However, the bright spot for small town churches is that the fellowship among pastors in these places are strong and that is great.

Well this is just one pastor’s off the cuff opinion of the general church scene. If you can help fill out the skeleton, do make a comment.

2. Rev David Burke gives advice on “Choosing a Church”. He points out 9 things to look for. My list has only 1 point: choose wrpf.

3. Rev Jenni Huan has some helpful insights that will make for happier pastors and churches. Look at her post on “Criticise, Critique or Creative Construction.”

4. Alwyn Lau writes an ode to Clark Pinnock an open theist, a creative daring systematic theologian, who recently passed away. It is simply titled “Clark Pinnock“ and he sincerely gushes out this theologian’s influence on his own theologising.

5. Father Luke Pong shares his disappointment at the apathy of many a church member with “The Quest for God and Transformation.”

6. Steve McVey writes eloquently about the danger of eating from the tree of knowledge of good and evil in “You should strive to do right and avoid wrong – wrong”.

7. Eavesdrop on a converstion between Steven Sim and his acquaintance on “Pitting Spirituality against Religion”. Stimulating.

8. Stillhaventfound has found something in his “First Healing on the Streets Meeting”. Read his honest but encouraging report of an embarassing healing encounter.

Question: You have been at this for a long time- you have been preaching since you were a young man and you continue to preach. What are some things you have learned about preaching, things you know now that you wish you had known when you started?

John Maxwell: Well, something interesting has happened. I resigned Skyline in San Diego, Calif.- this just shocks me – 15 years ago. when I left the local church after pastoring it for 25 years and loving it so dearly, I felt pretty satisfied, successful. I felt that my churches grew, that a lot of people came to faith in Christ. I felt I had the respect of the Christian community as far as being a “successful pastor.”

Now that I’ve gotten away from it 15 years, I get more disillusioned with my work every year. I told Margaret, “I’m not sure I can live long enough here in this process. I just feel like I didn’t do a good job.” I wish now that I had done this differently.

Just like I was talking about – I would talk to my people about how to share their faith. I didn’t teach them how to get respect in their business world. I didn’t know how to do that. I didn’t do nearly enough social stuff that really would get into their world – help people with hunger, clothing needs or whatever. I didn’t do that enough. Now I look back and think, “I could’ve done so much better in my teaching and communicating.” I just came from my perspective all the time. I never would do that again.

If I was developing messages on a weekly basis, I would find un-churched people – hopefully uninterested people – and I would ask them to meet with me on a monthly basis. I’d bounce ideas off of them and see if I ever sparked their interest, see if I ever connected with them in any way. I would put a lot more of that teaching into my messages. One of the things I love now is that I don’t have to develop a message weekly, so I have more time to let it work in me.

When I was younger, I wanted to do a great work for God, which I over-emphasized and under-emphasized God doing a great work in me. I see it now, my shallowness. I get disappointed. I thought, “Wow, If I had been more interested in God doing a great work in me, my messages would’ve been more transforming. They maybe would not have been applauded as greatly, because they maybe wouldn’t have been as well honed, but they sure would have been from the heart. They would’ve been out of brokenness and out of a journey I was taking.” I wish I had known that when I had that opportunity.

Again, I look back and am very surprised at how disappointed I am in where I was. The only comfort I get out of it is that I know I did my best. I didn’t lack integrity in trying to give my best effort; I just lacked direction and wisdom about things that I could’ve done  a lot better.”

Bible Study Fellowship of the west

My wife attended this church on Tuesday mornings for seven years for Bible study organized under the international BSF. Many ladies from different denominations would attend this popular BSF site and it was very generous on the part of BBPC to host them.

Two English services

The church was a 10 minutes drive from home, so we left home at 8am.  The overall attendance of the English services were a combined 250-300. The early morning service targeted the young people and those who wanted a less traditional service- praise songs and a band. On the stage was what I thought was some sacred furniture covered with heavy blue material. As the service progressed, I laughed at my ignorance, when the puppet team performed a skit aimed at children from behind the blue-dressed puppet stage.

The traditional service

The 10.30am service was more formal and traditional. The uniformed choir sang an anthem and every song was interspersed with other elements like prayer, offering and scripture reading. The worshippers were mainly adults in their 40s and 50s. The text they gave me was Ephesians 6:5-9  where Paul wrote to Christian slaves about finding inner freedom in constrained circumstances. The title of my sermon was, “From Unfreedom to Freedom” and demonstrated how God wants to redeem the thorn and thistle of toil and transform it into the gift of work. Preaching two services gave the opportunity to fine-tune the sermon for the second service, and that’s why it turned out better.

Surprise, surprise

Pleasant surprises awaited us after the service. Neighbours from our apartment block greeted us with loud hellos when we stood at the door to shake hands with the members streaming out of the auditorium. In addition, two of my Swiss Cottage Secondary School classmates, Soy Tee and Sze Chuan, greeted me with warm smiles, and I was briefly introduced to their families.

Ministry to different nationalities

One of the strengths of BBPC was its offering of services in the following languages: English, Mandarin, Indonesian, and Myanmese. They had different services for different folks. They do a particularly good outreach to the Chinese nationals.

Perceptive and sharp

However, their greatest strengths probably lie with the quality of their pastors. The English service pastor, Rev Eric Chua, was trained in architecture, and then in theology. A sharp thinker and spiritually perceptive, he gives good advice, and makes insightful observations about the church at large. We served together in the exco of the Church Resource Ministry Singapore, which focuses on mentoring marketplace leaders and pastors. It was a privilege to be invited by him to take the pulpit, and I enjoyed sharing my heart with him along the way. As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.

Humble hospitality

Rev James Seah, the other pastor brought us out for lunch in the nearby food court. We ate fish soup rice from the famous store once recommended by “Yummy King” and to top that we had durian for dessert. Wow…this pastor knows how to select D24 bitter-sweet durians. He said, “I was from Muar where I learned how to pick good durians.” My wife and I were further impressed with his servant attitude. It was the way he served us, and his warmth and friendliness. He even picked up a plastic container to clear our table of durian seeds and husks. Lord, send us more pastors from across the Causeway. Amen.

Choby Siau married recently and we were all happy for him. We wish him and his wife, Esther, God’s very best. Choby had a tumultous, topsy-turvy life of danger and broke the hearts of his missionary parents, until Jesus turned him around completely and delivered him safely from his Penang gang. Now he is a bold Pittsburg preacher studying to finish college even though once he was given up on as an academic failure. God is the Master of turn-arounds.

Two years ago, we did a makeshift taping of his testimony in my office. Hung up an available display tablecloth and to act as a backdrop, did some editing and then posted it on YouTube, where I am sure even pre-believers have visited and listened.