William Chong

A mostly pleasant weekend, in which:

• I watched a martial-arts movie with paperclip
• Got an unbelievable (read: much much cheaper) panelbeating quote for my pore old car
• I had the unfamiliar experience of meeting people that knew more about me than it’s socially acceptable to let on

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With regards to our epic Fellowship-of-the-Ring quest (Cheryl=Gimli) to find a right church, I think we’ve settled it at Howick Baptist. We could always have flitted between different churches to keep on discovering and finding out more, but it would consequently be more difficult to break those ties when you did leave. Towards the end Cheryl and I were debating trivial points of difference, such as racial demographics, the volume of the worship music, the emphasis on doctrine secondaries (young-earth emphasis, OSAS belligerence, do’s and don’ts for women etc), and even the minutae how we were treated the second time round. Of the final few churches that we’d fit into the most, we were already certain that they were Biblically sound, Christ-centred and a place where we could offer ourselves long-term as believers.

In saying that, I chose to sacrifice two things in making the decision:

• Anonymity. Thanks to combination of Google, word-of-mouth and a church newsletter insert, there’s no hope of “hiding in the back row” anymore. In fact on Sunday, every new conversation I started was essentially: “Oh you’re William Chong.” It remains to be seen how I’ll deal with it in a humble, but less guarded way. And I suppose in heaven, everyone will know your name (or new glorified-body nickname).
• Future church visits. One reason IBC appealed was the greater flexibility in evening and morning services. I actually preferred their evening set-up since it was more Bible-study orientated, and I could then continue to spend my mornings visiting churches, something that I’ve found has been a spiritually-rewarding and humbling exercise. However, I have to remind myself that church-hopping shouldn’t take precedence over church-going.

Things I won’t miss about church-hopping:

• “Virtuous marketing”. While I’m all for providing more information to new visitors and church seekers, I think sometimes we felt that fine line was crossed. Professional 4-colour printed stationery has no real bearing on my home church decision. I remember once, we were almost manhandled into the specially-designated “WELCOME ROOM”, where the “welcomers” seemed nearly as uncomfortable as we were in taking coffee orders. No, barista service isn’t on my church priorities either.
• Leaving it all behind. I have to say that those that vociferously lament the lack of a good church in East Auckland should vociferously shut up – or at least reassess their opinions of what a good church should be. Yes, every church has flaws, being a collective of human beans. And yes, no church has got it nailed perfect. But for the most part (any church with a rating), I really appreciated the strengths each church brought to the effort reaching the Auckland community. It’s hard to choose between apples and apples, and a part of me wanted to stay at each church I went to that I even moderately liked – I felt bad in having to move on each time.

I know I’m blessed to even have to choose a church – for many who live in remote places, the nearest church may be townships away, or even further. Or for many more, even being a Christian is not a viable or peaceful option. As an urbanised generation we take many things for granted, and church choice is one of them.

Anyways, no more church reviews. Maybe I’ll move to pastor interviews, or walking stick reviews, or fish and chip shop critiques. Or wake from songwriting hiatus. Or how about… I get back to work

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Have been a little busy with work, worked overtime most every day last week to finish a big job. Consequently felt under the weather Saturday and had to cancel all my classes… but at least I’m a bit better rested now. And this week has dropped back in workload… so much that I’ve been able to catch up on mindless TV series, heh. I can safely inform everyone that Lost is pretty exciting but totally hard-to-follow if you’re not clued in on basically every season before it…

The church visits have been pretty good so far – I’ve been keeping in touch with all the people that go to different churches, and pretty intrigued by the differences in visitor treatment, doctrine and general church stuff. It’s very exciting to worship with people you don’t normally see on a Sunday, and to share and learn why each church operates the way it does.

As you can tell I’ve tried to do write-ups of the places I’ve been, though I apologise because one visit could never totally encapsulate what a church is about. Also, rating a church is never a particularly easy thing to do, since it is to some degree a subjective approach. The best compromise I could think of was to include the “You’ll like/not like this church if…” sections, giving a more balanced view. Ultimately giving an A, or an AA or whatever is a reflection of my inherent bias (as is every review), so don’t take them at face value – visit the church if you want to find out more. At the end of the day, every Christian is trying to build God’s Kingdom in some shape or form – you can either lament the fact that his Kingdom is so disparate and divided, or you can embrace what you do have in common: the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Kim’s got exams at the moment, which is pretty stressful… and everyone around is harrying away at work or study or other lifelong pursuits.

Take care everyone.

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Website: http://www.howickbaptist.org.nz/; Ph: (09)534-5142; Cnr Piction St & Wellington St, Howick, Auckland; Senior Pastor: Peter Somervell; Sermon topic: ”Leading with Love” (1 Cor 4:14-21), from Adventures in 1 Corinthians series. Communion service, 11.5.08.

Rating: AA
(A=return worshipper, AA=excellent and growing, AAA=must be my home church lol)

You’ll like this church if you: appreciate/can handle expositional preaching, have family service requirements, prefer an exegetical approach to doctrine/Bible reading, enjoy mix of traditional and modern hymns.

You won’t like this church if you: need to worship and pray with professional musical backing, prefer wholly-topical insights to sermons, are seeking a Spirit-led experience.

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As part of our church jaunt/visiting tour/period, we (Cheryl, Kim and I) decided to attend a local (defined as in the area, not as the Lord’s recovery) service at Howick Baptist Church. After returning a camping pillow in the carpark to a friend I knew, we were given warm welcomes from greeters at the door. Being Mother’s Day, there were hand-made bookmarks being given out at the door to any woman that looked old enough to be a mother. We sat in the middle of the wooden pews, and noted large banners declaring God as creator of all things (Rev 4:11) – definitely not a church shy about who they are (I say this in light of the various churches and groups that remove the term “Church” or “Christian” from their names). 

Worship: I appreciated the thought that the worship leader (Calvyn Jonker, assistant pastor) had for mothers as per the occasion, as well as his earnestness to pray for and encourage the 200-odd congregation. The careful thought put into song choice also bears mentioning, with a mix of modern songs like “How Great is Our God” thrown together with faithful hymns like “Blessed Redeemer”. Largely negating the “worship wars” that’s fractured a great many congregations and caused some tension at the very least, it’s reassuring to know that you can focus on worshipping God with a broad spectrum of respectful lyrics and music (HBC gets it in that order, which is another plus). Adding in Scripture-reading and a solemn, almost guarded Communion service, it was a very respectful experience.

Speaker: While chatting with a lady named Kathy after the service, she told us that one of the strong points of HBC was its preaching – strongly grounded in the Bible. Like other expositional preachers (going through a book of the Bible verse by verse), senior pastor Peter Somervell methodically moves through the Bible (in this case, the 1st letter to the Corinthian church) with clinical exegesis and thoughtful insights at each verse (adding a few useful Greek definitions to augment). Rather than a dry seminary-style overview, Somervell is astute in tying each verse to a key word, and insightful in applying each to the congregation. In this case, chapters 4 verses 14 to 21 came under the points of Admonishing, Mentoring, Modelling, Teaching and Correction/Discipline. Plenty of notes to take and reference to other Bible passages, and his theme of spiritual leadership was explained to include elders, pastors, parents and older Christians. Particularly encouraging was his statement that “love for Jesus Christ should be the driving motivator for all of his points.” Definitely strong and (more importantly) relevant Bible-based teaching.

Church history: There’s not much of an overview on their website, but a friend shared that Somervell has been particularly good for the church, having moved up from Wanganui East Baptist Church after HBC had a tumultuous period without a fulltime pastor. HBC is part of the Baptist Churches of New Zealand, a collection of like-minded congregations that share some pastoral and NZ-wide resources and cooperate on outreach and ministry training efforts (more information on the Baptist movement in general can be found here.) – it’s notable though that the church also has strong links with the Reformed tradition, evidenced by their theological perspective as well as participation and cooperation with other Reformed churches in Auckland.

Other faculties: There’s a definite sense of close community at HBC, with groups and services catering for all ages (birth-college age), family news, giving and going opportunites all listed in the church flyer. Strong involvement/association with the Baptist Union of New Zealand, as well as Creation Ministries International.

Visitor treatment: A discreet card can be found in the back of each pew, where you can fill out details and drop it into the offering bags. Chatted with one lady, and three people which we knew (2 fellow visitors), all amiable and very friendly discussions.

Conclusion: A very God-focused, Biblically sound church with evident spiritual growth and maturity.

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(Disclosures: 1 friend is an existing worshipper. EDIT 25/7/08: Howick Baptist Church is currently our home church.)
Next week: Elim Christian Centre (East), Evangelical Formosan Church of NZ.

(This review may not be representative of all of the church’s ministries, or their overall teaching. Opinions expressed in this review are that of the author, and may not wholly reflect all aspects of the church or its national body: nevertheless, comments have been humbly made in both truth and love as much as possible. Please contact the church for more detailed enquiries about their services.)