Will you deliberate?

I wrote this for parents of children attending TGG + are considering being a Church Ministry Apprentice (CMA). Read this to do better than my parents 😎

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List of TGG’s:

• Chinese
• UCSI
• Sunway
• TAR UMT
• Monash
• INTI
• IMU
• MAHSA
• Taylor’s
• UKSI

Refer here for the TGG leaders: https://cerc.com.my/growth-groups/adults

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How to change your approach when your child may be considering changing their University course to CERC’s CMA.

Disclaimer: this post is written based on my personal experience about 3 years back and is not a genius hack or anything like that.

Parents,

Firstly, ask ‘what’ instead of ‘why’.

It all started when my parents questioned the length of time I spent with CERC/ GG especially as I started missing family dinners.

🫣 IDK about you and your fam culture but family dinners in MY family is a big part of family time so missing dinners no matter how small or big like birthdays, anniversaries, cultural dinners were a big NO NO.

Example questions my parents asked:

• “Why do you need to spend so much time with them from 10am-4pm on Sunday?”
• “Why does GG take so long until 12am?”
• “Why do you need to attend ANOTHER conference?”
• “Why are you telling me my church is not teaching eschatologically?”
• “Why are you always talking about the Bible?”

Questions they could have asked (in no particular order)

• “What did you learn at the conference that you may have had a misconception about before?”
• “What book of the Bible is your TGG learning from?”
• “What is this conference about?”
• “What is eschatology?”

Secondly, don’t attack the sermons without attending them because that’s similar to declaring WW3 with your child plus you’ll be seen as doing a boomer move 😣. Attend a few AM sessions at CERC with an open mind and refrain from commenting during post-service reflection if you honestly don’t know.

Things my mom responded with:

• Criticism: “Why was the sermon so long?”
• Offended question: “Is this a discussion then later you’ll say my answer is wrong?”
• An opinion: she said something totally negative about pastor, the content and the length hence I concluded that she’s not open-minded. –
• Defensive question: “Why are you asking me this question? It’s sermon, not cell group.”

Things I wished she responded with instead:

• I wished she admitted that she didn’t know what to say rather than respond with opinions/ criticism as compared to genuine reflections.

Thirdly, meet your child’s TGG leader, not her PFU-er, to understand what CMA is if you’re concerned that this is where they’re headed.

The TGG leader is likely a CMA themselves or was a CMA and now a pastor. In other words, they’ve been through the process whereas the PFUers are usually still considering CMA and have not made a decision themselves.

I could be wrong and they may be doing it differently since I was there but PFUers for TGG attendees are commonly University students themselves. This is due to the logistics involved: the PFU university students will have access to your child on the day-to-day and will be able to arrange meet-ups in between classes, in uni itself.

My mom did this part right. She met my GG leader – Sam Ye Han and my PFUer/ mentor, Joni, his wife. My mom still asks me about Joni and her daughter and still thinks fondly of them to this day and that helped me feel like she was open to my new church fam.

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I myself considered CMA as every Christian should for about 2 years before I gave it up; it’s not a CERC thing, it’s in the Bible to be a fisher of men after all..it’s all Biblical.

Some questions I considered and were posed to me by faithful CERC friends and CMAers (David K., P. Koh, Colin L., Joni, M. David, Ai-L., HY, Li L., etc.) that you and your child can discuss are:

• How many people have you PFUd? Where are they now? KPI lol I kid, but setting targets are necessary to make sure you are moving towards the ‘know, do, be’ of a saved sinner. There would be a number of people you failed to complete the PFU with and number of people you successfully PFU’d with the latter being less than the former usually.
• Have you passed church membership? Church membership is hard; there are tutorials, lectures and assignments to hand in. Also, you can’t attend membership until past a certain period of attendance in church. They discourage attending membership if you’ve not been attending consistently for around 1.5-2 years.
• If you do become a CMA, what age will you be by the time you graduate from Theological Seminary? How many years will that leave for you to be beneficial to ministry? (the idea is to start young, those who started considering it past 28 like me were essentially ‘too late’ due to the resources the church would spend to sponsor me to go learn theology overseas)
• Have you considered celibacy? What are the things you have considered – explain this to a CMAer or your leader. Women in CMA will likely not get married when they pursue this path. The reason is because women who do get married will need to focus on raising her children in a Godly way. It is not ideal (money & time) therefore for a woman to be a pastor and a mother although there are women in ministry who are both. I feel like I’m summarising too much though but I can expand more on this in another post*
• Have you lived and served the church in TGG/ ministry to test your perseverance/ suitability? TGG is a fair measure of the struggles to disciple NCs to be faithful to God as it tests you and your understanding of the Gospel as well as whether you are able to bear with the trials of living the Gospel.
• Are you able to juggle maintaining your GPA on top of maintaining church attendance and faithfulness? Some TGG students have been known to delay their studies because they were doing ministry work but the leaders in CERC are clear that while ministry is important, your role as a student needs to be taken seriously too. Failing a year is a poor testament of time management and if a TGG student cannot juggle assignments and ministry then they are even less suited to be a CMAer who will have dozens of ministries and responsibilities on their shoulders. Poor time management is putting future souls at risk.
• When was the last time you talked to your family about God? Not argued.. talked. Do you have a set time to talk to them about God? Why not?
• Have you talked to a CMA-er about why they decided to do CMA? If you’re a girl, preferably talk to a female CMA as their concerns will be different from men.
• Why is doing CMA important? Is it more important than being a contributing member (non CMA but contributing monetarily/ resources) in the church? The answer for the second-part question is surprisingly: both are necessary; different roles in the church, being a CMA is not more important although a huge chunk of your time is devoted to the Word and preaching. Some people I’ve talked to have said that working and being a non CMA is equally hard as being a CMA-er.
• Have you tested yourself in terms of: thinking theologically? How have you been tested?
• IMO and imo only, there ARE certain kinds of personalities that the CERC Board of Elders and Deacons prefer in a CMA candidate. This part is not so much Biblical but more on a suitability and realistic scale as certain personality types are less likely to be suited for CMA. (looking at you, Explorers :P!) There are Builders, Directors, Explorers and Negotiators. But ofc, I’m not saying if someone is an Explorer, they can’t be a CMAer, that’d be blasphemous.. it’s just less likely.

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In summary, change your approach and know that the decision-making process is a long one so while your child is considering it, encourage them to remain faithful to the course that they’ve started as seeing their journey to completion also counts towards being able to commit themselves to something they started.

It’s always been easier…

Whenever I face something emotionally painful, it’s always been easier to deal with the pain through self-harm.

Am I psychotic?

정신 이상의?

Just human. And as much as I want to tell honey bee or my sisters about it, I can’t: Honey bee might not understand and he might feel helpless when I don’t take his advice for whatever he believes is best. (Maybe see a psychiatrist? Or talk about it to me?) My sisters have never self-harmed so they won’t understand the psychology behind a person who wants to take control of their emotional harm through physical self-harm.

If I cut, I’ll know when the pain will start, I’ll be able to stop it, I’ll know ‘when’ at least. With the emotional pain I’m feeling now, I don’t know when I’ll start to remember my dog (who just passed away) or when I’ll start feeling sad that there is no one to greet me when I get home. As much as I look forward to going home, I also dread it more this time.

I can’t seem to stop crying and it’s tiring. Can I just cut instead? I know why friends turn to booze but I hate that feeling of losing control and being uninhibited.

I’m nearing work and my 50 minutes commute is almost up so I’ll just place it in a box at the back of my mind until end of day again.

100 bad days

This is a song title by AJR and it’s pretty neat with a good rhythm and catchy tune about it. Anxiety is a feeling I’ve been having a lot lately, perhaps in large part due to my age. There are many things my peers have accomplished and already experienced at 31 so I’m feeling out of sorts as I’m not fitting the same footprints in the mud.

While expectations have to do with this consequential feeling, I’d also say that most of it is within my own head. For example, I’m the type of person who gets anxious when my phone battery is below 70%, I’m not even exaggerating. The reason why I feel this way is probably because my mind is overactive and I think about the thousands of things that could go wrong if I run out of battery. The weirdest thing is that it doesn’t matter what country I’m in. For example, I’m in Singapore now and the MRTs as well as the buses have charging ports so I could very well use them if I need to. There is no logical reason to feel anxious until perhaps I go below 10%; I think I’d be hyperventilating at that point. I think I’m just wired like this.

I’ve long realised that I think deeply about things. For instance, the longer I date my boyfriend, the more anxious I seem to get about our next phase together. Plus me being wired the way I am, I just want to get to the next phase asap without really enjoying the process of dating and relationship-ing. My mom keeps telling me to enjoy this part because marriage is tiring and much less freedom. I guess my CPU might just finally take her advice lol.

Currently, I feel somewhat sorry for my 20 something self for not coming out of Malaysia to work sooner. Singapore has been very wonderful yet difficult however I realise I do like the challenge of being on my own so I’m well-suited to keep making mistakes and learning. While being regretful, I’d also not change any of my 20 something memories and experiences, though I admit life could have been fuller. For example, I could have started my internship sooner or I could have gone on multiple internships; what my mom suggested I do but I was afraid of being laughed at because who does multiple internships? Smart people do I believe. It’s not easy to settle into one singular type of job for the rest of your life you know? The generations ahead of us had to stay in one industry possibly due to lack of resources and freedom otherwise. With the freedom our generation until generation alpha has, I do kind of pity my juniors as they venture out to work. They will work in a world filled with fresh opportunities and new job industries, one example being a tech promoter in relation to AI apps.

Before I go further, I would like to say that I’m thankful for my past 10 years at the same time I know that I could have done more so I’m becoming greedy to keep accumulating knowledge and experience. I’m still enrolled in University now, engaged in a Masters of Education program after I completed my Grad Cert in Education Studies with Distinction. It took me a decade to realise what I wanted to do with my life and it’s kind of funny to think that I might toss it aside for something more important now. I.e. a permanent residence status in Singapore so that my boyfriend and I can BTO 🎉. When I say ‘might’ I actually mean quite probably with a 70% chance of me doing so. So why still get the MEd? Yeah that’s me still greedy for knowledge and it’s something I can possibly fall back on while it’s burning a giant hole in my pocket 😂 As for new experiences, I do want to be a mom and I know that I’ll lose out on that if I get married too late.

The reconciliation of putting the PR first in order to get a HDB is kinda WOW-crazy to me. I never thought I’d be in this predicament having to choose between passion of teaching and a finance job since I thought being in finance was all behind me; well, it’s not all wasted I suppose. It’s sucks to have to leave teaching though 😦 My mind is going into overdrive thinking about the “what if I can’t get pregnant leh and this was the reason why you go back to stress-crazy finance then howwwwwwww” I also don’t know. Hah. I do know I’ll enjoy the company of being around other adults more compared to the kids I’m currently teaching though, my primary school kids while cute can be very very childish. Sometimes, in a weird way, they are quite adult-like too. See my conflict? Haih.

I wish someone could just decide for me, yet I don’t.

Why did I have to leave?

Have you ever felt so desperate like you’d die if you didn’t do something? I could see no way out of the hell I was living in, and so I left Malaysia, left my friends, my family (my dear grandmother, sisters, aunts, uncles, my friends who were like family). I was watching a documentary of Jin (BTS) yesterday and I resonate with something he said about how he wanted to talk about the depression/ self-disappointment he has experienced but he always imagined how his fans would feel after hearing it, hence he never showed people that side of him.. the Kim Seok Jin side; not the world-wide-handsome-side. Omona. That’s sad and true.

Even now, in a country away from home, I cannot help but think of others (namely, my ex-PBC students) and how they would feel had I told them why I left church and Malaysia. Inasmuch as i was thought a coward and blamed by some for not telling you why I left, telling my blood-related family and close friends was enough. However, I do miss you all so much, but I chose to save myself and I would choose the same if I was given the same choice.

I haven’t been back (to KL, home) this year; it’s been 3 months (and counting) since I decided to stop returning to KL… if I kept returning, what was the point of leaving, right? It seems belated but I realise I need to get used to being without family.

Resentment is an emotion I keep feeling lately.. it seems like I can’t stop. #cantstopwontstop #iykyk I went to church today (2 April) and I felt anger and hatred as soon as I sat down. I know full well I’m condemning myself when I attend church in this way as well as living life in the way that I do, without love and righteousness. Sam and Joni, I’ve failed you guys haven’t I?

Ending this post with a promise that I’m still a coward for not wanting to tell or meet up with my students on why I left but like Jin who found an outlet through writing songs, I have found my outlet too and I’ve an end of the year deadline to fulfil 📖 , until then..I promise to be a coward to the end.

No one knows but you

What is your next step in life?

Is it hitting $500k in investments?

Is it doing something crazy just so you have a ‘most recent crazy thing I did’ to tell people?

Is it overcoming your phobia?

Is it getting promoted at that job you hold?

Or maybe it is as simple as.. sleeping 7 hours a day for a week?

The wonderful thing about life and living it is that one can pray all they want, or worship at the temple all they want, or meditate/ manifest positivity and good vibes all they want yet at the end, it’s always you living it. You may say your prayers guided you or whatever but you always end up making a choice.

I’ve met prayer warriors in my life and I admit was once an intercessor myself in PJEFC (although they probably won’t admit to it) due to my fervent desire to ‘seek God’s will’. Our biggest struggle was whether something really was God’s will or not; we would rely on revelations which unfold in the church members’ life to confirm or reshape what we thought was God’s will. Really skilful subjectivity imo.

I’ve since launched into the big unknown of not needing to ‘pray’ to a deity for his blessing in my endeavours; I’m in a black hole now and rely more on my own decision making. Does that make me nervous? Yes, but not because I’m afraid I’m doing the wrong thing because even as a C previously I would have the same worry. However, we (other CERC apostates) think it’s because we’ve always relied on layers and layers of hierarchical authority in the past. Hence, not having that has taken away our safety net, in some sense.

We do the best we can do, we make the best decision we can with the limited revealed knowledge we have and that’s all we can do, really.

Victory Family Center

Last Sunday, I attended Sunday service with my sister at the above mentioned church.

It. Was. Weird.

It wasn’t the fact that I woke up to get dressed for church after having not attended for a LONG time, but the church itself is odd, if I say so myself.

*Oh and before anyone thinks that I’m going back to being a C, I’d hold your horses because I was just bringing judgement on myself as I was only teman-ing my sister for Sunday service. I was bringing judgement on myself as church is a place you go to glorify God; (as opposed to social/related reasons) yet I wasn’t going there for that reason hence the judgement. Anw*

The church currently has a movie theme for the month of July and I thought, “Okay, cool. I wonder how this is going to play out.” After worship and the usual announcements for classes, tithe, etc. and prayer, the sermon commenced.

It was on Hebrews 10:23-25 and I got ready for a good sermon, cause you know, Hebrews. They flashed ONLY the verse up, one time, then the speaker started talking. He summarised what the verse was about – COMMUNITY. And then the movie, “Finding Nemo” was used to draw people to the importance of community. The whole sermon was basically the speaker drawing points from Marlin and Nemo relying on community (Marlin – Dory, the silver fish, the turtles, etc.) (Nemo – fish tank fish and the seagulls) and how church people need to do the same. There were 2 other verses I think, one from Ephesians and another I don’t even remember. Those were also flashed up as verses only, and I have to be honest, I left that church wanting to watch Finding Nemo and not even being interested in Hebrews although the book of Hebrews is so wonderfully written. I did watch Finding Nemo as soon as I got home too! Ah, I’ve become such a pagan…

IMO, here was a church emphasising on the importance of community as the main message when they should teach Cs how to be Cs because ‘community’ is an aspect that will take root as a Christ follower grows. The big picture is how to be C but they were teaching a smaller aspect as the big picture.

Also, shouldn’t people of the book learn how to read the book? It’s fine to use the movie clips, but sparingly please. It was like 70% of the sermon.

I can’t wrap my head around it.

Ah, I’m such a hypocrite.

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All this resulted in indignations and worrying. Idk why I’m worried about the state of Christianity in SG when I’m not even a C… however, this IS very sad. Also, the VFC I attended wasn’t even the main church but there were easily 150 people in attendance and it was the second session of the day. Damn. “Are all churches in SG having such shit sermons? Centred around media related/ cultural main titles?” ‘Community’ is something Instagram businesses harp on about.

I’d like to genuinely ask VFC: So what if you build community and grow in number? If your people are not learning from the Word but from media, y’all might as well be media clubs – analysing whatever message you want to draw from movies, songs, art, TikTok, you name it. Growing community without learning about Christ is pretty useless; you’re basically trying to compete with brands. Grow people in God and the people of God will respond. Grow people who love media and people who love media will respond.

Homesick?

I cried today (not real-time). Thought I would feel better after my sob out, but I only have realistic, logical things in my head like: How will I solve problem y? What are my steps a, b, c? How much time do I have? What are my back-up plans?

Wondering now why people leave their perfectly wonderful homes to pursue life in a ‘better country’; the struggles of an immigrant like myself are nothing compared to the Bangladeshi doing road works or cleaning duties. We all face it and trudge on, I suppose.

What got me as I was letting my tears run is that I don’t even have a home to return to as I don’t consider number 12 home anymore because of the man who lives there. (There’s only one man btw) It’s really do or die right now, so questions like, “Would you rather be at home, working somewhere but worried each night about when that man will come and touch you again? Which ‘sorry, it was an accidental brush on the staircase’ or ‘we both reached for the serving spoon at the same time, sorry’ will be the next thing he tries?” *He has tried before. My body reminds me that it is no longer safe at ‘home’.* Questions like those put things into perspective, hence I am going to grow a pair and grow up.

To all the girls out there who have normal fathers, lucky you, but please don’t preach to me to ‘forgive and forget’.

I would be homesick, if I had a home. There are things I do miss and maybe that’s the culmination of my tears tonight, sigh. Life.

The one standard

It’s weird yet I won’t say it’s entirely terrible.

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Watching a few episodes of Family Guy has made me realise the satire of human life; especially in the character, ‘Stevie’. From what I can see, Stevie is actually a baby; his mom treats him as such, his dad and brother too, the funny thing is, it seems like Stevie sees himself as an adult-baby. In satire fashion, he sounds like an adult but he definitely does not look like one. Like many of us, who are maybe teens or 20/30-somethings, we see ourselves as super grownup; but maybe we’re all still babies.

Shows like Family Guy cast important value-system questions I feel. Sure, there’s foul language and inappropriate contexts and innuendos but much of media is like this already, so maybe it might be better for the average teenager to be exposed to series’s like these sooner rather than later if they are expected to navigate the multi-cultural people of today? Just thinking out loud.

Family Guy makes me think of Christopher and Jean, friends who watched FG as well as South Park as 13-14 year olds. Back then, i thought the shows were inappropriate and wouldn’t join in to their watch parties or conversations. Looking back, I realise I judged them too harshly and without trying to understand them.

This train of thought then led me to: Has my one standard been the problem all long or has measuring other things by the one standard been an act of misguided righteousness? Do we need to constantly turn away people and things (like Family Guy) which don’t meet the one standard? How did Christ do it? How did he uphold his standard but still mix with those (the taxpayers who stole from the people, the prostitutes, etc.) whose values did not meet his standard? Sometimes I wish I grew up non C so that I can understand the liberal worldview better. As it is, I feel like I’m on the outside looking in yet again. Yet again because being a NC now makes me feel like I’m on the outside looking in at Cs and church and the things Cs say to each other as my C family still say to me.

It’s weird yet I won’t say it’s entirely terrible.

Runaway

Thoughts about how this was ‘supposed to be easier’ swirl in my head for the umpteenth time… “Finding independence”, “Learning house chores”, “Managing time and expenses”. All these were just fancy names I gave to people who didn’t know any better about why I moved from M country to this Fine country.

I look at the irony of it all and laugh now; sarcastically. Moving away hasn’t solved or changed anything – my past taunts me that I will never be rid of it; the apologies will never come. Society’s standard of forgiveness and idea of how apologies make everything better is marred. There are some things which cannot be “sorried” away and an unheard apology doesn’t make an occurrence less finished/ complete. I used to think that hearing him apologise would allow me closure but that’s so far from the truth.

Yet, running away has been wonderful and restful. For the first time in my life, I am able to sleep without sleep paralysis and insomnia; both of which have plagued me since I was a teen. I am now 30. (Blaming my overactive imagination for my inability to fall asleep was an ignorant mistake, one which revealed its true justification after I realised my father had groomed me and abused me.)

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About a fortnight ago, my mother messaged me that she and my dad wanted to come to visit me for my birthday in July. Imagine my horror! The insomnia returned and my lethargy at work was apparent to me as the thought of my dad knowing where I stay consumed me.

Though my lifestyle and food are rather restricted, this is the happiest I have been. Why can’t they just let me go? *Yesterday, I lamented not running away further so that a visit would be more challenging and low-key wondered if I had to start applying for a job in, say, Perth. Sigh.

Would I really leave this country? Yes, yes, and yes, I would. Despite my happiness at being away, sleeping well, and finding people here whom I’m happy with; I would go further away, until he can never get me.

Can’t someone protect me? It’s not that I haven’t thought about it before. The problem is that I’ve been let down too many times by people who were supposed to protect me as a teen and then as an adult. They victim-blamed that my memories were wrong and that it’s impossible that he did do those things to me because my dad is such a wonderful man who is God-fearing. I wonder if they’ve never read about the innumerable priests who molested young boys in the Catholic Churches. Even in this fine country, there are people in high positions in the church and Christian NGOs who would stick up for my dad should any accusation be brought on him. Church circles are way too small and I hate it when people realise I’m “so and so’s” daughter. I’m glad that I’m a nobody now. It would be nice to trust that someone will protect me but gone are those days and I’ve learnt that I can only protect myself.

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I will always be afraid and that’s okay; it’s not that I’m weak for having it. It’s a result of a great pain which I cannot remove, but one day, I will have more control over it. I trust in myself alone.

My name

On May 8th last year, I wrote a post on this blog defending my previous church, CERC. My GG, read my many posts, most of which are either private or protected now because in the words of my then GG mate, Zach: “I’m not sure you want people to read these private things about you or your family.”

This brings me to the reason why I started this WordPress when I was 22. I realised then there are many things one goes through that should probably not be expressed to other people. It’s not that I cannot communicate it; people just don’t have the capacity to understand or perceive 100% of what one says because each person’s experience of life up until they see, read, hear, or absorb something has been different. This blog served the purpose of my experiences being expressed but not necessarily to people (around me).

Since May 8th, the nature of this blog has changed and that has made me sad because I’ve expressed so many things here and gained closure in my own way after each post: Friendships which have been lost, people who are no longer on earth, pets, failures and successes, relationships, silly ideas and crazy ones.

I know, Zach, that if I make the posts public, people won’t view me in the same way anymore. Yet I am comforted that people will still never know me just by reading the posts, since they were never like journals in the first place. It has been an outlet of small parts of my journey, the heaviest of which I still carry with me to this day.

It’s like T. Swift right? She has all these love songs about previous relationships, mostly romantic, some familial, some are just experiences – can people really know WHO Taylor Swift is through her songs? Yes and No.

– ME

If my soon to be public again posts bring you comfort, anger, sadness, happiness, then great. If they make you disdain me, pity me, then so be it.

I’m 30, not 13. I know people will always judge whether you want them to or not. This is my blog, not yours; you’re welcome to leave my world. I’m just tired of acting like I have something to hide on this space that has always been so open.

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To my batch of students: I will always be your teacher, just not your Bible teacher anymore; I’m really happy that we have so many memories together. I know I’ve disappointed you by not being Christian anymore and I hope one day I can understand God. But there’s so much that I cannot accept about his reign and rule and the way life is now. There’s a verse in John that says something like, if someone claims to love me (Jesus) but hates his brother, then he is a liar. In late 2020, I realised I was a liar because I don’t love my dad. I don’t want to be a liar not even to a God whom I’ve forsaken. I don’t wanna be a liar to myself. I hate my brother, and that is true and that is partly why I left church. There’s a hole in my heart that the words of God can’t fill.

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To my school students, if you somehow stumble upon this because we have so many mutual connections of teachers and that camp. I’m proud to have been your teacher – whether as a class teacher, subject teacher or house teacher. A teacher is a human being with a past and real struggles too. I can totally school IGCSE FLE and ESL but I’m studying really hard to improve in this school of life.

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To my followers who followed me since the start, I’m sorry my posts were made private and protected.

Though, there are posts that won’t be changed back to public and that’s my prerogative. Only my true followers are fellow bloggers will understand the time for them to be viewed publicly has ended.

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My name is… you guys know my name. 😉