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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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.)