I attended CERC for about 3-4 years before I decided to leave the church due to personal reasons. I understand that writing this post exposes me and my current set of beliefs and lifestyle choices, and I’m fine with that since my family knows about my decision to leave the faith.
Firstly, I’d like to say if you’re a Christian reading this for the sake of gossip, read on. You’re only condemning yourself, really. Also, you might find more than you bargained for. There are many in church circles who enjoy reading exposés like these to gossip but not help to address problems or real questions. It’s a pity that such is society, even in the body of Christ. And then others, who come to pick and choose things which will benefit their argument, whichever side they are on. Well, only God can judge you and your foxiness.
Since I’m here to bare all, I might as well say that the reason why I started at this controversial church was controversial in itself.
A group of Christians and I started by attending a GGF conference called Eschatology for the sole purpose of crucifying the current senior pastor, Robin Gan (R.G). Yes, you heard me, we went there with malicious intent under the guidance of a particular person who is no longer a pastor – Samuel Nissan (S.N). I attended this different church then.
S.N. would hold meetings with a group of us, he fondly called his ‘inner circle’ to discuss CERC’s latest antics and where we could go / what we could do to create suspicion and increase other churches negative perception of R.G. I remember going to a certain Acts church event where S.N was invited to preach and we were told to be friendly and make connections plus ask questions on the ground about CERC without mentioning CERC. Only ask questions but not give answers to anyone you meet. You need to create doubt in people’s mind against CERC was what we were told by a mini S.N.
Toward the tail end of my involvement with S.N’s inner circle, I sensed that there seemed to be a personal vendetta against R.G, rather than a God-fearing, God-glorifying one. In my humble opinion, it seemed like it was one man trying to top and win a non-existent battle between him and R.G.
Initially, S.N started off with being really indirect about his disagreement with CERC. For example, in the earlier years of disagreement, S.N would say something like, “a church in the Sunway area has a pastor who is mocking unbelievers and therefore unloving.” However only later nearing 2019/2020 did the insults become more obvious and focused with the location of CERC being mentioned. For example, “…a shop lot church in Sunway has a pastor who is mocking unbelievers and therefore unloving.” (You can see how David Wood wins the debate on this against S.N’s stand of this very topic here > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XjicyL5VvKU) Side note: David Wood and R.G are on the same page btw. Maybe R.G needs to go bleach himself white before people here can believe in what he is saying.. Jokes.
About 2 years after my first exposure at GGF, I started attending CERC while double-churching. After close to a year doing this, I decided to attend CERC fully, as the sermons made me realise that I should not treat church like going to a shopping mall to choose which shop I liked.
Singgah here, singgah there without real commitment and expect God to, “Okay, do what you want la..” It’s almost like, having several boyfriends. Yes, you’re still in a relationship, but are you realllyyyy committed to any ONE?
Here are some things in your defense, CERC:
Throughout my time there, R.G was nothing but dedicated to preaching faithfully to his congregation. What does preaching faithfully mean? (You can disagree with me, but) I think it means a preacher sparing no expense or resource to understand the Word in order that he might be able to explain it fully to the congregation; to be in the know of the various struggles of his sheep (congregation) by attending meetings about issues faced by the members and leaders of growth groups; to consume just enough food to sustain himself while preparing his sermons; to also be aware of current trends or news which may be helpful in giving analogies to the adults; etc. He is faithful and I leave it to you to believe me or not. *I’d be quite surprised if you had accepted someone else’s blog post (https://widowedat25.wordpress.com/) without a second guess but find yourself hesitant to accept mine though*
In the same way that a company which is thriving profitably, growing exponentially due to increased demand, attaining more market share needs to increase their budget, so also a church. Basically, a company that is doing VERY well needs to increase their budget for research and development of their products, right? I see that CERC is endeavouring to build their people up in Word and evangelical work in a similar way. Hence, it is of no surprise that sermons are long to feed the development of the sheep.
In the corporate world, you do what you need to do to provide your staff with the best support you can if you were an employer. No one tells you how to run your business because you are the best in the industry. And guess what, your competitors know it, they know you have that edge and they fear you. My personal opinion is that some of the hate that surrounds CERC could be from people who fear CERC, fear and suspect that the growth of this church is due to devious reasons. It’s like how lots of famous people hated on BTS when they got bigger and bigger. *YG hated them I think*
Other critics of this church could be serious theologians who have heard stories about CERC’s infamous reputation which precedes them. Like any new friend you make though, it really helps to get to know someone yourself rather than relying on secondhand knowledge. How do you make friends? Maybe we’ve forgotten how to make friends due to COVID, but you can definitely re-learn it. Alternatively, some of you may prefer to get to know someone by stalking their information on Facebook after all.. I say it in humour. Stalking is a term used by Gen Y, lightly.
Addressing some questions:
1. Are growth group sessions long? Yes. But are board meetings of the companies in the Index short (referring to buying stocks)? I doubt so. It takes a lot of time and effort to achieve understanding, peeling back cultural understanding of Christianity.
2. Does the church take attendance? Yes. Do companies require you to clock in? Yes. It may seem legalistic, but if you think about it…Church is made up of people who understand how sin works and know that if they don’t keep each other accountable then they are being unloving to God.. not that they are being judgemental or unloving to each other. After all, the greatest commandment is to love God, right? I don’t see how taking attendance which is meant to reflect how much they, as a church, honour God can be misunderstood in that way. Well, that’s how I think about it anyway.
3. Have I thought about the number of hours that I spent on Sundays listening to sermon vs the number of hours I could have spent to do my work? Yes yes and yes! I’d be lying had I said otherwise. Well I do think sermon length can be reduced. It is rather long. I did get sinfully sleepy when I attended church and that wasn’t helpful. But I also remember how much clarity the length of sermons provided. As a regular* to CERC, but not a member, there WAS a lot of jargon I didn’t get and the meticulous explanations and analogies helped clear my headache. (It also created headache at times 😅)
I’ve never been the kind of person to talk badly of someone just because he/she had a bad reputation. I can only say from talking to someone myself or having experienced it from them.
Some of you think that spreading secondhand information is helpful but I’d like to point out that that is not right. Staying silent and sitting on the fence is not right as well. I appreciate those who tell me to my face when I’m doing something wrong, my aunt did that today and I know she’s loving me when she does it.
Although I am no longer a Christian, I have been heavily educated by it. The Bible does talk about gossiping as a sin, yet the blatant nature and frequency of you doing it seems to hint that you’re glazing over sin and segregating what is “acceptable and unacceptable sin” Who are you to decide though? Based on what the majority of people are saying? My own mother used to make confident claims about CERC before she even visited the church, so I know firsthand that it DOES happen, but that doesn’t make it right even if she is my mother.
That’s like saying a man who is on trial for murder IS the murderer. Although I’m not a lawyer, I think that’s called libel / defamation. (Sorry, watching a kdrama called, ‘Law School’ rn)
Take what I’ve said, or leave it. It’s your decision.
CERC dictionary: regular* – someone who is no longer a visitor but not yet a member and has been attending church sermons regularly for a period of time.
PS. I was only a member candidate for slightly more than a year so maybe I didn’t suffer the discipline that members did. I can’t say much on that since I haven’t experienced it myself..
Who I am. 