After spending $2.6 million renovating their premise at the Suntec Singapore convention centre, the Kongs have returned back to Suntec last Saturday (6 Jul) to preach.
CHC worshippers packed the newly renovated 7,305-seat Suntec auditorium as Kong Hee gave a sermon titled “A House On Fire”.
Kong Hee and 5 other CHC leaders have been charged with misusing church funds to further the pop career of his wife, Ms Sun Ho. The trial is still on-going.
His wife appeared on stage with Kong.
Ms Ho told the media that she was pleased with the Suntec venue, saying, “Nothing good ever gets achieved without a certain measure of pain and struggle.”
The Suntec Singapore convention centre is now partly owned by CHC.
CHC started searching for a bigger premise to house their service in 2005, after their Jurong West premise proved too small for its burgeoning crowd. According to CHC, they now have 19,800 worshippers.
3 years ago, it invested $310 million to become a co-owner of Suntec Singapore.
At first, CHC wanted to hold services at the 12,000-seat auditorium in Suntec Singapore but URA objected due to guidelines which stated commercial properties could not use more than 10,000 sq m of space for religious purposes.
CHC then settled for a smaller auditorium which has more than 7,000 seats.
After a revamp, which includes a new stage, a radio DJ booth, a Christian bookstore and even an indoor playground with bouncy castles, it finally re-opened last Saturday.
Of the 5 CHC leaders currently on trial together with Kong, one of them, Chew Eng Han, has left the church. After Chew left, he posted a message online on 22 Jun (‘Chew questions the conduct of CHC pastors & senior leaders‘), questioning the conduct of CHC pastors and senior leaders, and replying to a CHC’s statement about his departure.
Chew wrote, “My query is how many of the board members made a conscious effort to read the COC Inquiry Report which was made accessible to them? And if they did, was then a diligent internal inquiry held in-house, to determine if there was any wrongdoing on the part of the alleged wrongdoers? Has the board done an inquiry on the issues named by COC, and satisfied itself fully that there has been no compromise of integrity? If the board has not done so, it cannot state that it knows and believes in the integrity of the senior leadership.”
“The board is probably unaware of many other issues, especially those on the pastoral angle, in terms of the manner of conduct of some of their pastors and senior leaders. Without such information, it is not equipped to issue a board statement of confidence.”
“The church statement is a mere attempt to unite the church with a spiritual tone, but lacks substance in dealing with the real issues of truth and integrity.”
TR Emeritus
*Article first appeared on www.TREmeritus.com