I went to play pool today with a few friends after church. I realised that ever since I stepped into city harvest church, the Lord has been opening my mind and letting me see and understand things which I would not have understood before. Some time ago, before I came to chc, I was thinking about this issue and I knew that I was very closed-minded. But I was contented with being close-minded and didn't want to complicate things. I used to like this phrase a lot "If your mind is too open, your brains might fall out". :P

As I look back, I'm so amazed at how far I've progressed in this aspect. There's still a lot of room for improvement, but there's definitely progress.

When I first came, I struggled with everything. How can there be flashing and colourful lights in church?! Why is there an offering message? How can we pray for Sun? How come some people wear such big and obiang crosses? How can guys in church have pierced ears?! Just to name a few issues I had. I even emailed Pastor Tan and Pastor Derek about the offering message. But they were very nice. Replied me within the week even though they were so busy and were very patient with me.

I also asked many people about the questions I had. When I didn't find the answer satisfactory, I asked more people. I asked until I was satisfied. I learnt to accept the answers given, because they made sense after I understood them. Whenever you have a doubt or a question, always ask. Clear it as soon as possible so the devil won't use it to get you out of church. And boy, has the devil tried to get me out of chc.

We had the Emerge conference in June. It almost tore me apart for me to open up, but good thing I'm still in one piece :)

During Emerge, I had problems with the waving hands thing in the song "solid rock". At first, I refused. Then God humbled me by letting me see that even those who are spiritually stronger than me were doing it. Was I more righteous than them just because I refused to wave my hands? Come on, even Pastor Kong did it! If I could lift my hands to worship God, why can't I wave my hands to do the same? So I did that the following day.

Then on the third day, we had taufik, junyang and sun to perform for us. Concert-style. I was like :O How can we have concerts in a church conference?! I couldn't reconcile the two. The youths were waving their handphones like lightsticks! It was like my worst fear confirmed. That the youths were in this just for the hype. That they enjoyed the church services just because of the loud music and lights. I felt so terrible during the night service that I refused to open my bible and didn't take down much notes. And I cried almost throughout the whole service. Felt like leaving halfway but couldn't bring myself to. Left immediately after it ended. But later, someone explained to me that there was a time for everything. A time for praising God and a time to enjoy a concert. Yar so...I sort of understood. And accepted.

God has humbled me a lot in the past year. He made me see that religiousity does not equal to loving God more. Sometimes people focus too much on the little things which don't really matter and lose the big picture. Some have a mindset of how a typical christian is supposed to be, how a typical church should be like. But being in this place has taught me that one can have multi-coloured hair, dress funkily, and still be a faithful believer who loves the Lord. The bible never said "Thou shalt not wear short skirts", as long as the essentials are covered :P We do not need to add more rules to those already given in the bible.

And even today. I had a conflict within me. I won't explain it now cos I don't know how to without making it sound weird, but I understood in the end. You can ask me about it, and I'll tell you if I remember. But God is good. He lets me grow, and He has never given up on me. Otherwise, I wouldn't be here.

He let me see that despite all my reservations and criticism, the people at city harvest church really love the Lord. And I never knew that it could be so much more than what I knew before. That's the reason I give myself to stay on, and hang on, before my questions are answered.