William Chong

Rick Holland. Jerry Wragg. Martha Peace. Joe Fleener. Hugh Rorrison.

Beautiful weather in the Hawkes Bay, clear skies and over 500 folks from New Zealand, Australia and further afield for the Impact Bible Conference 2009.

Jono and I and about 30 others from Howick Baptist are down here too. Tonnes of good Bible teaching from many great teachers: Jono’s grand idea is that we’ll keep folks updated over the weekend on the talks as they happen.

Rick’s going through 1 Peter 1:1-12, and a seminar series on youth ministry. Martha Peace doing a whole series on Titus 2 teaching – great for the ladies. If you’re interested in keeping up with the talks and seminar sessions, we’ll put notes and main points up as they come:

Jono’s blog updates
William’s Impact blog updates
William’s Twitter updates

Have a great long weekend everyone!

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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Website: http://www.ibcchurch.com; Ph: (09) 273 3349; 2 Dannemora Drive, Dannemora, Auckland; Senior Pastor: Ken Young; Speaker: Mike Huffman; Sermon topic: “Beholding the God of Love” (Ro 8:31, 37-39); 28.6.08; 9.30am.

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

You’ll like this church if you: want Biblical inerrancy tempered with topical relevance, prefer contemporary worship to praise God with, are more comfortable with saving the in-depth Bible studies for more intimate sessions, want an international place of worship that’s bound to neither Jew nor Greek.

You won’t like this church if you: Don’t feel like worshipping with earplugs on, have had bad experiences with enthusiastic Christian “love-bombing”, want more tough-talking/”fire-and-brimstone” advice from the pulpit, are uncomfortable with a multicultural church demographic.

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In a regular drive-by, the iconic row of national flags as you approach Botany Town Centre, Auckland from either Chapel Rd or Ti Rakau Drive is usually hard to miss. My mother once commented that it’s one of the few places that you’ll ever see the People’s Republic of China and the Taiwanese RoC flags fluttering side by side. I think what she missed at the time was that Christ’s love can do just that: bring people together in unity and fellowship, whether Jew or Greek, Chinese or Taiwanese, Oz or Kiwi, ebony or saffron-skinned.

With rampant globalisation and the melting-pot feel of New Zealand, one of the less contentious (but still relevant) issues that divides congregations today isn’t doctrinal difference, or church politics, or even location. It’s language. Whether you like it or not, New Zealand is now a multicultural Godzone, and this has ramifications that English-speaking pastors have little control of, short of signing up for language classes. The Across Pacific and Asia ministries website lists over 100 churches in New Zealand that cater to non-English Christians, and even more would be existing churches that run separate services for different languages. While we will have to wait until Revelation 7:9 to really be worshipping as a “great multitude … from every nation, tribe, people and language”, in the meantime a church with an international focus is properly comes close – let’s take a look.

Worship: Unashamedly contemporary, loud praise and worship songs are the order of the day at IBC – though I’m happy to report that there’s good substance to the lyrics in most of the songs. I enjoyed singing Stuart Townend’s “In Christ Alone” amongst the 300-odd United Nations-like diaspora, as well as worship numbers like Supertone’s “You are Beautiful Beyond Description“, all backed by a well-rehearsed and polished music team (featuring an electric drum kit). During the offering, a husband-and-wife team sang a self-penned song, “Complete”. I’m aware that with performances during church there’s always a fine line of where you draw your attention to (God or the performer), but it worked pretty well and having the lyrics on the projector meant that the congregation weren’t totally detached from the experience. I should point out that those who find any extraneous music distracting might feel reserved about the background-piano-while-praying approach that IBC also employed during their altar call (though it’s probably not that effective anyways).

Teaching: The first of an ongoing series of “Beholding the God of ___”, the teaching was led by Associate Pastor Mike Huffman, a new addition to the IBC team for 2008 (more on this further on) – senior pastor Ken Young being away in Mansfield, Texas overseeing a church plant there. Focusing primarily on four key verses in Romans chapter 8, Huffman used a methodical but incisive preaching style that came across more like a doting father than a fiery streetcorner evangelist – an apt tone given the sermon topic.

Focusing on God’s love gave a take-home message that’s essentially the Bible’s best self-esteem pick-me-up: “God loves you for who you are, not what you do”. This message may be simple but it’s often missed among the all-to-common misconception that we have to work for our salvation, or that we have to work to earn God’s love. Huffman drew some pretty strong points from both Old and New Testament scriptures to give some relevance to an important characteristic of God that nearly-always gets a vague explanation otherwise.

Church history: IBC started out from small beginnings in 1984 Howick (think the era of the Three Guys and Deka shopping malls) as Bible Baptist Church – founded by John Young, father of current senior pastor Ken Young. A bold move in 1998 to the literally “flagship” location at the entrance gate of residential Dannemora gave IBC the means to reach out to a suburb which would eventually become the “diasporasia”-led stronghold it is today (hence the multicultural focus). It’s noted for retaining its independence from the Baptist Union of NZ that the majority of Baptist churches join, and this may or may not be related to the Young’s US missionary roots and pre-existing support from sending organisations.

At the start of 2008, there was a recent leadership reshuffle from the incorporation of a smaller independent Baptist church, Seven Oaks Baptist Church to the IBC congregation. The Huffmans, under directives from their US-based sending organisation Biblical Ministries Worldwide nurtured the Seven Oaks congregation for a number of years in the Flat Bush area before the join-up with IBC. It’s worth pointing out that the mission field in NZ is considered an especially important one by conservative Baptists, due to their collective misgivings over the influence of the Charismatic movement�in NZ.

Visitor treatment: With handshakers, a welcome lounge and open visitor appeals during the church service, there’s a deliberate attempt to seek out visitors and pamper them at IBC, which will definitely rub some people up the wrong way. For a 300-odd congregation it’s fair to say that if not for the well-mobilised ushers team we’d have been able to slip in and slip out so much easier (see PBC for an example of that). As a reflection of a genuine “love thy neighbour” approach it’s not a bad thing – but I feel there needs to be some moderation in how this is done. What may be genuine hospitality may end up being too uncomfortable for the more stoic and reserved churchgoer (the harshest critics may even be moved to consider this love bombing, though the term itself is a contentious one). I did find the personal chats with members of the leadership team more useful and, more importantly, genuine.

Other faculties: We enjoyed a special presentation of the children’s programme, which follows the popular “Patch the Pirate” Sunday School curriculum. The 15-odd group of primary-aged children [pictured] sang some surprisingly well-crafted songs (plenty of food for thought in them), and were capably conducted by Genia Huffman. Alongside that, there’s all the regular trimmings and ministries of church their size, including piercing discipleship classes, verse-by-verse bible studies, and life groups catering for all ages.

I should point out that I was most impressed with IBC’s Mandarin translation service. Obviously a faculty that’s grown out of need for a sizeable Chinese demographic, it looks to be one small step in reversing Babel-like splits, and if you really want to you can argue that it’s more eco-friendly/family-bonding to not have your Chinese grandparents pulled away to a different service just because of language barriers.

Conclusion: Well-equipped, cosmopolitan family that draws strength and numbers in a Bible-led way – but may need to tone down the treacle smiles.

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(Disclosures: 2 friends are former members of the church. IBC is being considered as our home church.)
Next week: William is taking a sabbatical from church-hopping!

P.S.: The word “diasporasia” is wholly fictional, much like half of Shakespeare’s words when they were first written.

(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.)

Website: http://www.cession.org.nz; Ph: (09) 279 9332; The Depot, Lloyd Elsmore Park, Pakuranga; Senior Pastor/Speaker: Brett Jones; Sermon topic: “Bland Death Auto Pt 1: It Ain’t Over Till It’s Over”; 21.6.08; 5:45pm.

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

You’ll like this church if you: like new ways of presenting Jesus Christ in a postmodern generation; seek a balance between youth-centered relevance and timeless truth, have an aversion to fake happy clapping and/or sitting amongst the pew masses, are a Christian looking for an open-minded church environment, want a church where it’s easy to get to know everyone.

You won’t like this church if you: are a true-blue emergent dude/dudette, don’t like holding on to early-church traditions such as Lent and the Stations of the Cross, hold to a more conservative/fundamental approach to church services, would be confused in a dark room on a Sunday evening, like to slip in and slip out of church anonymously.

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Dim lighting and roundtable seating. Bible readings in Klingon. Blogging church elders. Re-enactments of Grand Theft Auto 4 cutscenes. Playstation metaphors juxtaposed with James chapter 1. Yes, this is a church, and a surprisingly faithful one at that.

To me, cession|community is much like the TNIV translation of the Bible. They’re both narrative-driven, gender neutral, very easily accessible to young-at-hearts, with more of the legalistics tucked away in a not-worth-the-conflict box or left open-ended. And much like the TNIV, cession would probably be frowned upon by more conservative folks that don’t believe that the church-wheel ever needs revisioning/reinventing.

This was our first evening church service in a long time, and we arrived just as their “chow” session was finishing up. Senior Pastor Brett Jones himself (oooooh) showed us into a room set out like a dinner show: tablecloth-draped round tables with coffee chatter amongst patrons of Jesus Christ. We were feeling a bit shy and uninitiated to this unique set up and Jones was kind enough to “hide us in a corner”. We sat down in eager anticipation and watched the projected countdown clock behind the stage, well, count down to cession|launch.

Worship: Run-of-the-mill CCM, this would probably be the most “mainstream church” aspect of cession. An energetic and lively six-pack of worship bandies worked with a chilled out of about 40-odd worshippers responding with about the same fervour as café patrons would respond to Norah Jones on the muzak tracks. The music was tight and polished, (“mad awesome riffs” etc), but I liked the sincerity of the songs they chose that night. As a personal note, I’m pretty partial to any song set that includes Brooke Fraser-penned praises.

Teaching: An English-subtitled, Cantonese video of a dysfunctional family took me by surprise first (and was a bit tricky to piece together), but I eventually recognised it as an introduction to struggles and trials in life. Senior pastor Brett Jones then took the stage, sharing clear and eloquent thoughts on a 4-part series on the book of James. As per the out-of-the-box creative core presentation ethos, the teaching is presented within the metaphor of video gaming, if you ever wanted teaching notes with Playstation controller configurations on them, this church will appeal.

Digesting the teaching, I felt that analogy between the decision-making in a video game was pretty effective in illustrating points such as:

• considering the gameplay in life’s trials and whether it’s really about the miserable things
• sharpening up our wisdom/hand-eye coordination/anything by asking for God’s help
• our free will in choosing not to repeat our mistakes and challenging our sin-nature programming.

I also appreciated Jones’s willingness to share real stories and real struggles (including a heart-wrenching ancedote of sexual temptation) to illustrate how tough living the Christian life can get and that even when you’ve slipped up horribly, there’s still The Light at the end of the tunnel.

Church history: Their own history page does it best, but I will add that their name comes from the Latin noun “cessio”, which roughly means one who yields or surrenders. Cession seems to pride itself in approaching Christianity with an open mind about those thorny, divisive theological issues that tear many a church apart. Elder Frank Ritchie in a Wesleyanz article termed this the “radical middle”, being neither conservative nor liberal. If it weren’t for the affiliation with the Wesleyan Methodist Church, one could imagine cession joining the “conversation” of emergent churches (of which I have mixed feelings about). But I’m happy that cession’s not emergent enough that they start�questioning the core truths like Jesus being God, salvation being a global necessity and so on.

Visitor treatment: We had the pleasure of chatting with two churchgoers Katie and Sarah (she sang in the worship team earlier) after the service, who shared that they’ve just started a new service at 10.30am. As I mentioned earlier, the pastor was astute enough to stay clear of any overt jump-and-join approaches, and I picked out a genuine servant heart feel from the congregation present (from the media team to the caffeine technicians).

Other faculties: For those who love free food, cession worshippers make great sacrifices in contributing each week to a cession “chow”, basically a shared meal that begins at 5.00pm before the service proper. Unfortunately this review couldn’t extend into the food options afforded and so on, but it’s a unique and encouraging outreach that works pretty well for the church’s community size. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to dig deeper into the rest of the current teaching series or attend one of their regular Plugging-In sessions for those interested in finding out more.

Ultimately, there is a catch-22 in trying to reach out to the transient, postmodern generation that easily slides in and out of church like its a commodity, or a social event and not something as significant as the Bride of Jesus Christ. On the one hand, cession is a tight group of creative, forward-thinking Christians specialising in presenting a relevant gospel to the young in the area (young people reach young people the best). On the other hand, it doesn’t seem “mainstream” enough to appeal to mums and dads and extended families (no SuperGold card holders at this church, guaranteed), and there’s a danger of only being relevant as long as you’re young, and as Suzanne Paul can testify, people age. To stand the test of time eventually cession may need to assess whether they’ll continue to reach out to lost younguns or whether they’ll need to mature into an across-the-spectrum faith community (perhaps when the leadership team hits their 50s or something!).

Conclusion: A young, thinking person’s counterculture church which gets it right in balancing both being relevant and being true.

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(Disclosures: none at the time of visit, though 1 pastoral teamer is now fb friends.)
Next week: International Baptist Church.

(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.)

Website: www.cityside.org.nz; Ph: (09) 377 3512; 8A Mt Eden Rd, Newton, Auckland; Senior Pastor: Brenda Rockell; Sermon topic: “teach, heal and cast out evil“; 15.6.08; 10.30am.

Rating: none given
(A=return worshipper, AA=excellent and growing, AAA=must be my home church lol)

You’ll like this church if you: want an all-inclusive community of faith, are looking for a church that’s moving away from polished feel-good concert worship, seek new ways of thinking and practising your faith outside the confines of “church” or “doctrine”.

You won’t like this church if you: stick to propositional truths of the Bible, don’t approve of women serving in leadership roles, take exception to emergent theology and its lack of clear and Bible-based definitions, see church as a place to fill your spiritual needs rather contribute to conversations and doubts.

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One of the hallmarks of the Baptist church in general is a certain degree of independence of each church from a main organisational hierarchy, or a structure. This means that, though there are generally some common threads between different Baptist churches (for example, believer’s baptism), each church does certain things differently from the next. Our ongoing quest to find a home church has showed quite clearly that no two Baptist churches, or no two churches of any sort, are quite the same. So perhaps it’s in this environment of greater religious freedom that you’d find one of New Zealand’s emergent church communities at Cityside Baptist Church.

What is emergent? It’s hard to nail this right, but generally it could be church which is actively trying to reinvent how “church” is done, is open to people of all orientations, races, and gender, and promotes an ongoing dialogue and discussion rather than set-in-stone doctrine and truths. I’d say that Cityside is a particularly attractive place for Christians who are disillusioned with being washed up in corporate-style megachurches, as well as attractive for people who don’t consider themselves Christians but relate with this community’s social mission and push for interfaith dialogue. In any case, we knew this would be an intriguing experience from the moment we walked up the antique wooden steps and sat down in one of the many trademe couches, arranged around a room filled with hand and footprints on the walls, avant garde artwork and lighting fixtures, and offering bags sewn out of colourful, woolly socks.

Worship: A very informal affair, led by Fergus McKinlay who put some songs up on an overhead projector in between short, simple prayers. The song choice definitely reflected Cityside’s social activism focus, with song lyrics that implore worshippers “to make the earth the place in which the kingdom comes”, and most importantly, to “love your neighbour as you love yourself”. I’m a bit mixed about the efficacy of the social gospel (since we’re fighting against a world that’s irrevocably breaking down), but the sincerity of the worship relaxes me. It’s a joy to observe an interesting demographic mix, from Remuera mums to young couples, men in jandals to beanie-wearing ladies in long, flowing dresses and half-dreads, all singing “Jubilate Deo” in canon form. All songs were accompanied on the humble chords of a well-used piano – definitely no mike amps or guitar riffs in this time of worship.

Speaker: Brenda Rockell offered a half-hour discourse on her thoughts on what it was like to be one of the 12 original disciples, and what the “Good News” was actually being preached in Jesus’s years of ministry. Her main argument was that the good news of Jesus didn’t depend on His resurrection, summing up JC as a man of substance and a great role-model. Rockell urged the 50-strong congregation to look at a different commission: rather than proselyting and converting people to be Christians by title, she contended there was a different focus to the actions Jesus told his disciples to do when they were sent out into various townships of the day. [edited 29.7.08]

It all sounded very well and good, but even a cursory glance at the most well-known verses would quickly reveal that Jesus wasn’t just a preacher of positive action. His execution was the direct result of His making claims that He was God, not that He was a good role model for society in helping the poor and the sick, as applaudable as that may be. Even the verses surrounding Jesus’s proclamation of the Great Commission at the conclusion of the book of Matthew shows how the disciples not only modelled Christ, they worshipped Him too (Mt 28:1-20). Rockell’s scant use of Biblical references to back up her thoughts on meant that it ended up being almost a blog-post like opinion (much like this one here) surmising what may or may not have happened – it just felt like a thread in an forum post, rather than any sort of detailed look at God’s Word. Perhaps this one verse could sum up the viewpoint of Cityside Baptist: “Whey they saw Him, they worshipped him; but some doubted.” (Mt 28:17). Nevertheless, I appreciated the subsequent open discussion that gave a very smallgroup or bible study session feel to the service.

Church history: If the building looks like its seen a lot of history, that’s because it has. It was built at its present site a stones’ throw from old-school pub Galbraith’s in 1906, and Mt Eden Baptist Church enjoyed its status as one of the larger Baptist churches in New Zealand at the time. Increasing suburbisation led to the decline of worshippers and the building was turned over to the Auckland Baptist Mission in 1960. Eventually a change to a church-focus saw the name changed to Cityside Baptist Church and City Mission in 1993. Cityside retains its strong roots in missional service, and chatting with members of the congregation reveals the same enthusiasm for serving the community as their forebears.

Visitor treatment: After the service we chatted with two friendly women; Pauline and Kristin, as well as a father-of-two. Everyone we spoke to was friendly and amiable, and all shared their common passion for helping each other and the community at large. Pauline also shared her experiences of serving on a short-term mission onboard the Logos II, which is an OM sister ship of the Doulos that we went off to visit after the service.

Other faculties: For its size, the church had a surprisingly large number of children frolicking around with great abandon, running between chairs and tables in the kitchen area in front of a small fair-trade espresso machine station ($3 for a good conscience/cause). With church attendance “rather fluid” (there’s around 100 registered members but attendance levels vary greatly), as put by someone, it’s good to know that there’s still a range of activities like Playgroup (small child not a requirement), Monastic Group, and even after-work drinks. It’s hard to say what exactly some of these events entail without actually attending one or two of them – I’d say a Cityside brochure would be one of the few places you’d find a Benediction next to a call to drinks at Galbraiths.

Conclusion: Church on couches, love all your neighbours, sincere postmodern thought and banter – yet on the day, nary a mention that Christ crucified is why we have a church in the first place.

N.B. [29.7.08]: Have a look at the comments section below for a responses and clarifications on the sermon from Brenda Rockell, and visit this link for the full sermon.

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(Disclosures: none.)
Next week: cession|community.

(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.)

Website: http://www.pakbapt.org.nz; Ph: (09) 576 8403; 2 Fremantle Place, Pakuranga, Auckland; Senior Pastor: Andrew Brown; Sermon topic: “Servants with a High Calling” (2 Cor 5:11-7:16); 8.6.08; 9.00am.

Rating: none given
(A=return worshipper, AA=excellent and growing, AAA=must be my home church lol)

You’ll like this church if you: live locally in the Pakuranga central area, want to be involved in an ambitious church-growing venture, seek a church that is multicultural and inclusive.

You won’t like this church if you: are looking for a more traditional Baptist service, don’t like the worship band dominating the service, prefer better production values at your church service, don’t like splitting the church into 2 worship times.

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Note to ponder: denominational names aren’t a particularly surefire indicator of what the Christian teaching, demographic, music, outreach or ministry is really like – we’ve seen significant variation between the churches we’ve come across so far in our ongoing homechurch hunt.

I’ve known about Pakuranga Baptist Church for a good few years now, having attended youth services at next-door-neighbour Pakuranga Chinese Baptist Church in my young and carefree days, sometimes wondering what PBC would be like. So I finally took the opportunity to visit with a blank-slate mind. It was eerily quiet in the parking spaces outside as we walked in wondering if it had started…

Worship: … and we found ourselves half an hour late into the service, battling our way through kids running out the doors to take part in their kids church events. This surprised us until we learned that PBC has recently changed their services from a single 9.30 service to a 9.00am and a 10.45am split. Despite our late arrival, the 6-piece worship band was still able to take up a big segment of the time, working studiously through 2 contemporary praise songs for another 20 minutes. A sizeable part of the 80-odd congregation seemed content just listening to the words and the music. One thing I didn’t like was the worship band’s liberal use of instrumental sections, which works for some people as contemplative but not to me. I’m very aware of the temptation for church bands to take more limelight than is necessary, and this one with attempted guitar solos and repeated refrains stretched a bit borderline (though maybe the band on the day wasn’t representative of normal worship). Two of the backup singers on the day could have used some remedial training as well to better mesh with the band – nevertheless, I’m sure it was worship acceptable to God, which is always the main thing.

Speaker: The pastor Andrew Brown shared a message from 2 Cor 5:11-7:16, explaining Paul’s response to attacks from his congregation. After getting over his interesting accent, his message was pretty well-grounded and a good attempt at explaining the context behind Paul’s lovingly-worded scold session to the Corinthian church. One good thing I got out of the sermon was a better understanding of Paul’s preaching demeanour, with members of the early church accusing him of being 1) not Jewish enough, 2) not as close to Jesus as the 12 apostles, 3) not charismatic (in terms of gifts) enough of a speaker. In fact, Brown explained, Paul was a very plain preacher, whose response was to say that “Godly sorrow produces repentance leading to salvation” (7:10). Also noted that the pastor referenced philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche at one point – don’t remember why, but I do recall that if anyone was a pastor’s kid gone sour, Nietzsche would be it (his father was a Lutheran priest).

I’m not sure why, but Brown then weaved in the blue-ribbon story. Basically it’s a self-esteem building exercise where you give blue ribbon acknowledgements to people, and everyone gets more positive (you can read about it here). Personally I hold a bit of skepticism as to its long-term benefits beyond the initial feelgood factor, though the online testimonies seem to indicate otherwise. The presentation shared was taken straight from this testimonial, which as heartfelt as it was, didn’t really strike me as anything more than “love your neighbour as yourself” – something which I guess is worth encouraging. It struck me as odd that Brown focused on this story rather than letting the Scripture do the talking, but the congregation seemed to enjoy it nonetheless.

Church history: PBC boldly announces that 2008 is “the year of service”, essentially an outreach with the hopes of growth in numbers. Mandarin pastor James Bin shared that this is also the motive behind the 2-service strategy. The church has been a regular fixture for many years now, operating as a member church of the Baptist Churches of NZ.

Other faculties: Alpha groups, SUBLIME youth with age-group splits catering from 10 to 30 year-olds, small groups and a strong church focus on overseas missions mentioned during our visit. Pastor Andrew Brown seems pretty keen on rotating through areas of focus throughout 2008, and it would be interesting to find out what other “focus” is planned for the future.

Visitor treatment: We slipped in, and we slipped out with nary a conversation with anyone in the pews. We chatted amicably with Pastor Bin as mentioned previously as a courtesy, but it was surprisingly easy to remain anonymous, it seemed.

Conclusion: A good local church catering adequately to its demographic spread, yet only moderately exciting/innovative/challenging for the most part.

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(Disclosures: 1 friend/relative is an associate pastor.)
Next week: Cityside Baptist Church.�

(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.)

Website: http://www.ecw.org.nz; Ph: (09) 533 4956; 219 Burswood Drive, East Tamaki; Senior Pastor: Rev Richard Waugh; Speaker: Rev Ian Croudace; Sermon topic: “Holiness” (Luke 10:25-28); 1.6.08, 9.30am.

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

You’ll like this church if you: are looking for a church in the Wesleyan Methodist (WM) tradition, seek a family-friendly church environment, want a church that’s also concerned about ongoing sanctification, champion for women’s rights in all aspects of life.

You won’t like this church if you: have a preconceived idea that WM means old and creaky worship, don’t believe in the authority of Tradition in the church, see no place for women in church leadership or eldership, want slick concert-style worship with a youth focus, get bored with expositional preaching.

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UPDATE (23.8.08): Click here for an in-depth interview with ECW’s Richard Waugh on a wide range of matters.

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It’s interesting how local East Auckland can sometimes be, especially when people you know from childhood days reemerge in your lives in new and interesting ways. I first met East City Wesleyan pastor Richard Waugh and his family as a young and naïve primary-schooler living on Penruddocke Rd, Pakuranga when they owned the biggest front yard on the entire street. There used to be annual street parties which, fun as it were, I remembered most for their hospitable nature. After a chance meeting at a Pizza Hut a few years ago (my parents approached them quite warmly) and discovering Waugh’s role as pastor of ECW, I made it a thought to visit his church at some stage.

Unfortunately, quite a few people were away on a national conference on the day we chose to visit, and Waugh himself was in the endstages of an overseas sabbatical. The church have only recently moved into their new premises in East Tamaki, and so we dropped in being aware that it wouldn’t be a normal service by any means.

Worship: If you’ve ever been brought up Methodist, you know that the services are traditionally very structured, with call and response, recited prayers, and set hymns for each portion of the service. Think “The peace of God be with you all.” “And with you also.” “Let us greet one another with a sign of peace.” – that sorta thing – indeed, traditional Methodist churches keep this going. ECW on the other hand has joined more and more churches in embracing modern worship, throwing out all the rote-learning of yesteryear for lots of CCLI-licensed worship songs. The music and projector team were noticeably grappling with the new equipment, though the half-full congregation didn’t have any problems with words – this is a church that sings praises in a heartfelt way. I was more impressed with the band’s earnestness than anything else, though. I was also touched by a prayer time which involved the whole congregation (the type you usually do in smallgroups or prayergroups) where everyone was free to just offer up their prayers – normally a large church gathering loses most, if not all of that intimacy and fellowship.

Speaker: A particularly methodical lesson was shared by Rev Ian Croudace, one of the few church elders not at the national conference in a covering role. Today’s sermon was focused on the first half of the oft-quoted command in Luke 10:27: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind…”. Croudace offered a rather complicated diagram to explain the verse which included temptation lines, plotted series for the carnal/spiritual, and distinct X-intercept lines at physical and spiritual births, a phase called “death to self-will” and physical death.

If all that sounded confusing to you, that’s because it was a little. Though as he explained it, it made a bit more sense, though you never quite got over the density of the material. Croudace was pretty good at drawing in anecdotes and stories to make the message a bit more palatable. However, both Cheryl and I offered huge raised eyebrows to the story of the amazing building-block-in-our-body-miracle-cross-shaped-laminin: there’s many a Christian website that’s jumped headlong into this as definitive proof of God’s creation stamp. I think to single out laminins (which in molecular reality aren’t always cross-shaped) and not every other cell that God designed is a bit misguided. I mean, I know the intentions are good, but the laminin thing’s still a touch overzealous in my opinion (look at this video at about 3:00 for an example).

Molecular biology aside, the sermon did what it set out to do: explain the verse. ECW has been pretty expositional in its teaching over the year that Waugh has been away on sabbatical: someone shared that they had just finished a “Genesis to Revelation” walkthrough that spanned a good year or two. It’s good to know that they’re not selective in teaching then, though I can’t be sure without coming back to really know.

Church history: The Wesleyan Methodist Church made its split from the Methodist family of churches over the question of slavery in 1843 (WM on the against-side), and since then it’s grown to encompass a worldwide community of over 60 million people. The name comes from famous evangelical pioneer John Wesley, an Anglican minister and early leader of the Methodist movement. The Wesleyan Methodist Church of New Zealand seems to have kept faithfully to his teachings, including that of “Christian perfection” (hence the focus in the sermon on holiness). Admittedly titles, denominations and the finer points of theology don’t always mean as much to the general congregation here, but the leaders do point out the differences in their church literature, including: emphasis on salvation and ongoing holiness, women in ministry, being evangelical and missional, and dynamic orthodoxy (translate: same theology, new packaging). WMCNZ churches may not all share the same theology: one of their pastors is Lifefm radio announcer/DJ Frank Ritchie who writes in the Wesleyan magazine with a particularly emergent conviction.

Other faculties: Their new church building sports an instant coffee machine – nice! Alright, let’s be serious – all in all they’re equipped for all the standard fare, kid’s church (there was a mini-playground in the foyer area for creche too), youth group on Sunday nights, homegroups and so on. As a show of progressiveness and “dynamic orthodoxy”, ECW started a youth-oriented church plant in the Highland Park area called cession|community, which seems to be pretty successful so far.

Visitor treatment: Was welcomed very cordially by a lady as we came in, who gave us all we needed to acquaint ourself with the church. I spent the after-church chat talking to a friend’s mother, who was very enthusiastic in wanting us to stay. Meet and greet during the service was pretty good too.

Conclusion: A faithful and growing community that shows a closeness you don’t usually see in corporate worship – ECW sticks true to its word as a place “where people are growing”.

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(Disclosures: 1 friend is an existing worshipper.)
Next week: Pakuranga Baptist Church.

(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.)

�

Website: http://www.stcolumba.org.nz; Ph: (09)274-4864; 480 Ti Rakau Drive, Botany Downs, Auckland; Senior Minister: Andrew Norton; Speaker: Simon McLeay; Sermon topic: �[Re]visioning�, Part 3 of �[re]mix�; 25.5.08, 8.30am.

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

You�ll like this church if you: seek to serve in strong �love your neighbour� ministries, believe in �the priesthood of all believers�, have a family with differing views on worship to cater for, want a modern, relevant church with the backing of Biblical soundness and Presbyterian support

You won�t like this church if you: don�t agree with splitting the congregation based on worship preference, aren�t comfortable highly organised leadership hierarchies setting church direction, disagree with the finer points of Presbyterian theology/tradition,�don�t like altar calls as a way to expand the church.

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One of the reasons many non-Christians give when they feel uncompelled to �do church� is this: �there�s too many denominations, and we Christians aren�t able to agree between ourselves.� Many people point out that every suburban centre have over a dozen churches claiming to be the one true vine, some big, some small � yet what exactly do these churches disagree upon?

With this in mind we visited St. Columba Presbyterian Church to step into another denomination, wondering how different things really are.

Worship: We chose to try an early 8.30 service for a change, and walked into a half-full auditorium where we were pretty much the only worshippers under 50, bar a gaggle of youth groupers doing a weekend-long 40-Hour Famine event at church who joined the service briefly for the singing. Traditional Presbyterian worship ran along the lines of respectable organ-led hymns such as �Crown Him Lord of All�, Frances Havergal�s �Who is on the Lord�s Side?�, �Be Thou My Vision�, �and the quintessential hymn of English nationalism, �I Vow to Thee My Country�.

It was exciting to sing some time-honoured phrases and praises, though without modern music you could see the reasons behind the selective age-representation at the service. Talking with a churchgoer after the service revealed that the 10.30 services are pretty much in the contemporary vein: nationally, Presbyterian worship can range from gospel choirs to caf� worship, as noted on the national church website. It�s nice to see a church structure that�s embracing various ways of worshipping God to stay relevant.

Speaker: We had the pleasure of listening to Rev Simon McLeay share part 3 in a series on restoration, derived from the book of Nehemiah. The preaching was topical and very much a 1^st speaker presentation: assured and prepared. McLeay shared about the prophet Nehemiah urging the Jewish people to rebuild their wall, and not to be accustomed to living defeated – he drew in some real-world analogies such as his son’s soccer game, the “bold vision” of the US moon missions culminating in Neil Armstrong’s man-on-the-moon success, and some of the social struggles of modern-day society such as father role-modelling and maintaining a cohesive family unit. McLeay�s approach was to encourage, rather than shame the congregation into seeking out the new changeleaders and Nehemiahs: a very inspiring and uplifting view of purpose-driven living. The sermon notes added an extra dimension to McLeay�s teaching, and I was able to take away something of practical value rather than merely a collection of verse quotes. He challenged the congregation to draw insight, and more importantly take action from God�s word.

Church history:�The Presbyterian church began as a reformed branch of the Protestant movement, evolving primarily in Scotland, before being first introduced to New Zealand through the settlement of Otago and Southland. St Columba itself has quickly grown from its early beginnings as a Panmure house church to a regional hub for the Presbyterian denomination. Despite being named after a 6^th century virgin martyr from Cornwall, this church isn�t bogged down by trappings of tradition: its Presbyterian heritage is more evident in its leadership structure, with the church part of the PCANZ.�The denomination�s name comes from the Greek word presbuteros, which means elder.

Other faculties: This is a service-focused church: bible studies, fundraising projects, a wide range of age-appropriate youth groups, and so on. I was a little disappointed to read that partaking in communion was relegated to a between-services time, given the primacy of this ordinance in the Bible � though perhaps a drop-in service may work better in a cross-service context.

Visitor treatment: Despite standing out immensely among the Grey-Power demographic, we weren�t approached after the service in any way, shape or form, and there was no meet and greet time that�s common in other church services. We were able to chat with one of the youth leaders briefly before we left to enjoy the Sunday morning air.

Conclusion: Throw out your �stiff-neck Presbyterian� stereotypes: this is a relevant congregation that�s revisioned its outreach and Christ-centred purpose for the 21^st century.

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(Disclosures: None.)
Next week: East City Wesleyan @ Burswood.�

(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.)

Ph: (09)535-7817; Cnr Picton St & Wellington St, Howick; Pastor: Wu Wen-Rui (吳文瑞); Sermon topic: One of life’s crucial questions (Job 1:13-22); 2pm, 18.5.08.

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

You’ll like this church if you: are most comfortable with Mandarin, appreciate a close-knit Chinese community, share close links with the Chinese Christian diaspora.

（這教會最適合如果你：只會聽動中文，喜歡一個密切的台灣社團，偏愛比較平靜和矜持的敬拜。）

You won’t like this church if you: couldn’t understand what I just said in Mandarin, would struggle integrating with a Taiwanese-dominant congregation, prefer a large church crowd.

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And now for something completely different (churchwise) – Kim and I dropped by to visit the Evangelical Formosan Church of NZ. It’s A Taiwanese church which meets in the Howick Baptist Church building in the afternoon. The disclaimer for this write-up is that my Mandarin skills are mostly conversational and my Mandarin vocabulary has deficits in the domain of religious terminology. Nevertheless I could still understand a sizeable amount, albeit with the help of Chinese-English dictionaries and some calculated guesses.

Worship: If you can understand worship music sung in Mandarin, the songs are actually pretty good in terms of content. Songs range in tone and subject matter but are all comfortable. The song leader was fairly encouraging and the 4-piece band adept. Full understanding or not, one can only admire the fact that the church on Earth is able to worship God in different tongues. Lyrical content was respectful, even if I couldn’t understand all of it.

Teaching: Pastor Wen-Rui Wu’s teaching focused on the Christian response to tragedy, citing the recent Sichuan earthquake in particular. I liked how the congregation read the Bible passages from Job 1:13-22 together, and Wu dealt with the delicate matter of suffering appropriately. While this oldest book in the Bible is a bread-and-butter consult in times of trial, Wu offered some extra insight into these well-quoted passages, for example:

• Some people dislike the story of Job because it seems like an impossible reaction to praise God in the face of his immense losses (Jb 1:21)
• Job’s 3 friends were exceedingly helpful with his grief, when they came from far-flung places and mourned with him for a week… but then they started talking.

Wu was also adept in drawing insights from Christian writers such as Paul Tournier, and he stressed that disasters weren’t always judgement for something in a cause-and-effect sort of way. I did notice that his preaching style was more family-uncle than motivational speaker, which seemed to suit the audience to a tee.

Church history: I wasn’t able to get much information on this, but their service programme notes that the EFCNZ have met in some form or another for over 10 years. The Evangelical Formosan Church in itself as a denomination seems to be based in the United States – the term Formosan is a reference to the Taiwanese origins of the church group. The service did include traditional elements such as reciting the Apostles Creed and a doxology, which suggests at least a Protestant lineage.

Other faculties: For a church with around 100 worshippers, there are plenty of ministries catering for different age groups. Bible studies and youth groups meet at 4pm after the service, and there are prayer groups and youth meets during the week. Outreach endeavours include contributions to the Manukau Institute of Technology as well as other Taiwan-related offerings, and the church did suggest making a financial contribution to the relief efforts in the Sichuan earthquake region.

Visitor treatment: Each visitor was greeted immediately at the door, and filled out a visitor’s information slip stating who you were, and which church member invited you to the church. Each visitor was then welcomed in a stand-up and clap approach, which other than being acutely embarrassing was otherwise quite warm and sincere. Great for those who find the anonymity in megachurches frustrating. I also enjoyed catching up with a few church members which knew my family in some way or another – one lady in particular was good friends with my mother when I learnt the violin with her son.

Conclusion: A respectable tight-knit Chinese church community, reaching out to the diaspora of the lost.

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(Disclosures: 2 friends are existing worshippers.)

(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.)

Website:�http://www.ecc.elim.org.nz;�Ph: (09)534-5142; 159 Botany Rd, Howick, Auckland; Pastor: Luke Brough;�Speaker: David Peters;�Sermon topic:�”The Father’s Love”�part 1,�11am service, 18.5.08.

Rating:�none given
(A=return worshipper,�AA=excellent and growing,�AAA=must be my home church lol)

You’ll like this church if you: enjoy contemporary music in worship, seek a well-tuned, vibrant atmosphere, believe in the continuation of spiritual gifts from the Holy Spirit, love the corporate�fellowship�across multiple�Elim churches on Sundays
You won’t like this church if you: hold beliefs of cessationalism, prefer smaller congregational sizes, question topical and seeker-sensitive sermons, prefer Biblically-thorough messages.

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In all fairness, I didn’t expect to visit Elim (ECC)�so soon – it was about 8th on my list of churches to see. In Christian circles, saying you’re from Elim will draw pretty strong debate. The strongest objectors treat Elim as a dirty word,�dismissing their beliefs on spiritual gifts and their fixation on the Holy Spirit as deceptive, or even demonic; others are genuinely passionate about fully enjoying God’s exciting healing and gifts from the Holy Spirit, and zealously love their church.

The church has also been in the media spotlight after the recent canyoning tragedy that took 7 lives. The fact is though that doctrinal differences aside, they all accepted Christ as their saviour and have a place in heaven. And with all the swirls of right-wrongs cast aside, and from testimony of people who “just don’t know enough”, I decided to see what it was like for myself.

Worship: Due to a misunderstanding on start time, we bundled into a rapidly filling 500-seater auditorium�a few minutes after 10, at which�a 7-piece worship band and a 10-person�chorus coordinated by�worship director Boyd Ratnaraja�was already getting things started and gathering up momentum with a couple of enriching Hillsong numbers. There’s no chance of hearing an organ hymn in here. I found the words�a bit repetitive after repeating the chorus line for the 10th time, but you have to admire their slick sounds and immense enthusiasm for singing God’s praises (complete with synchronised swaying from the chorus group). I did recognise delirious?’s “Majesty“, which was sang with much fervour by the congregation – much oranty hands all around. An old school colleague Amos Ling delivered a beautiful improvisation on Amazing Grace in a refreshing piece.

Speaker: David Peters runs his own prophetic and teaching ministry, and also teaches at the Elim’s Ministry�Training College�alongside a�busy schedule of�preaching at plenty of other�churches.�Other than that he’s a stalwart of the Elim leadership team, and we managed to catch his first message back from a 5-week trip to the UK.

Taking notes on�his 20-minute sermon (part 1 of 2) gave me the following: “We should rest in the Father’s love”, and not have a master-slave view of our relationship with God. Peters spent the rest of the time powerfully expounding on making “the Spirit real” and sharing his experiences of meeting people during his trip that were “digging a well in the supernatural”.�He’s got�the charisma and persuasion of a seasoned preacher, relating well to the audience. His oratory ranges from jokes on GPS navigational errors to thoughts on “not having all the answers”, and I appreciated how he humbled himself so.

Some concerns I did think of at the time were: sweeping�generalisations of revival movements during the 20th century, an almost blas� view of sticking to his notes, and a period at the end where Peters said: “I’m going to pray for the impartation of the Father’s love”. I was a bit wary about this declaration that anyone can “impart” the Father’s love on another – perhaps it’s hard to know what it actually means�when you’re�only given�Bible quotes about the Father’s love (Eph 3:17b-19; Deut 33:12; Col 1:21b-22) that don’t mention any sort of impartation. Nevertheless Peters was faithful to his message and effective in delivering new truths to an appreciative audience.

As a note: their statement of faith is pretty clear on a separate baptism of the Holy Spirit, with associated things like�tongues,�being slain in the spirit, prophecy and visions. These things do “freak people out” who haven’t seen it before, a friend shared.�He�added that�this sort of thing shows up more during more “revival”-focused services, and particularly when special guests such as Steve Foss come and do their thing (“You see like, half the church fall over and everything…”).

Church History: Elim is a Pentecostal church, and proud of it. The “Elim” term comes from the first Elim Pentecostal Church founded in 1915, strongly influenced by the Welsh revival. In 1949 the Pentecostal Church of NZ linked up with the rapidly-growing Elim Church of Great Britain – ECC’s site in East Auckland is the flagship church of a NZ-wide outreach that now extends to 50 churches.�Sunday teaching�is meant to focus�on what they term “practical life-related teaching from the Bible”.

Other faculties: Ads at church? Well yes – announcements of upcoming conferences and groups come in the form of video presentations between worship time and the message. Looking through the Elim information pack reveals a host of ministries and outreach groups, ranging from children, business groups, dynamic youth movements and so on. Elim runs a well-stocked Christian bookstore, and a Ministry Training College. Mid-week Connect groups are what ECC uses to foster closer study and fellowship together.

Visitor treatment: Crunchie bars. Yes, the chocolate favours are back in force, for anyone with special occasions and newcomers to the church. You raise your hand to indicate you’re visiting and you get a glossy info-pack with a monthly newsletter, feedback form and programme details (and the pheromonic treat). You can pick up sermon notes at the door from the hand-shaking greeters, but it’s probably easy to get lost in the crowd after the service.

Conclusion: Refreshing, energised and growing, though vague life-story messages didn’t work as well for me. Bring your Bibles with you to make sure everything checks out.

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(Disclosures: 3 friends are existing worshippers.)

(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.)