DON’T FORGET TO READ THIS:
The day a courageous Singaporean Christian stood up against the false prosperity Gospel of City harvest Church
http://watchmanafrica.blogspot.com/2012/06/day-one-courageous-singaporean.htmlSingapore Pastor Allegedly Used Church Funds to Finance Wife’s Pop Music Career
http://newsfeed.time.com/2012/06/27/singapore-pastor-allegedly-used-church-funds-to-finance-wifes-pop-music-career/
Kong Hee, the founder of Singapore's largest megachurch, was
arrested on charges that he misused up to $18 million to support the
aspirations of his wife, Ho Yeow Sun.
June
27, 2012
An investigation by Singapore’s Commission on Charities alleged that Kong had misappropriated millions of dollars from the City Harvest Church’s charity fund, the Wall Street Journal reported. Four other church executives were arrested in connection with the crime. Kong’s wife, Ho Yeow Sun (whose pop name is Sun Ho) was not arrested, but has been removed from her executive position on the church’s board.
Wondering what $18 million will buy an aspiring pop star these days? Evidently, an album produced by Wyclef Jean, a no. 1 hit on the Billboard dance charts and a $20,000 a month Hollywood Hills mansion, according to the Straits Times. (By comparison, Grammy Award winner Alicia Keyes earned $10 million in 2011).
Kong and Ho co-founded the non-denominational City Harvest Church—which professes “prosperity theology,” a school of thought asserting that material blessings are God’s will. Ho, a popular singer in both English and Mandarin, is considered a lay pastor by the church’s 33,000 member congregation. Although some of the more devout might raise an eyebrow at the bootylicious video for her 2007 song “China Wine” (featuring Wyclef Jean).
A STATEMENT FROM CITY HARVEST CHURCH
http://www.chc.org.sg/_eng/church/church_StatementFromCHC-27-June-2012.php
Dear Church Family,This morning, Pastor Kong Hee, Pastor Tan Ye Peng, John Lam Leng Hung, Chew Eng Han and Sharon Tan were charged in court. The next mention date is 25 July 2012. They are now out on bail. As the matter is before the courts, we are not in the position to comment further.
Church operations and cell group meetings will continue as usual, including all weekend services at Singapore Expo and Jurong West.
We request church members to continue to keep the church, Pastor Kong Hee, Pastor Tan Ye Peng, John Lam Leng Hung, Chew Eng Han and Sharon Tan and their families in prayer.
Yours faithfully,
Rev Aries Zulkarnain
Executive Pastor
City Harvest Church
http://www.chc.org.sg/_eng/church/church_StatementFromCHC-26-June-2012.php
Dear Church Family,
This morning, Pastor Kong Hee, Pastor Tan Ye Peng, John Lam, Chew Eng Han and Sharon Tan were informed to attend court tomorrow.
There is no case that is being brought against the Church.
The CHC Advisory Committee, comprising Dr Phil Pringle, founder and Senior Minister of Christian City Church in Sydney and Dr A R Bernard, founder and CEO of Christian Cultural Centre in New York, will continue to provide spiritual leadership. Both pastors were appointed advisory senior pastors over CHC.
The Church Management Board continues to provide guidance on the running of the church.
Church operations and cell group meetings will continue as
usual, including all weekend services at Singapore Expo and Jurong West.
Yours faithfully,
Rev Aries Zulkarnain
Executive Pastor
City Harvest Church
Rev Aries Zulkarnain
Executive Pastor
City Harvest Church
Founder of Singapore’s Biggest Church in Hot Water
http://blogs.wsj.com/searealtime/2012/06/27/founder-of-singapores-biggest-church-in-hot-water/
June 27, 2012, 8:35 AM SGT
By Sam Holmes
SINGAPORE—Singapore’s fast-growing megachurches have long been a source of debate in the city-state, which takes pride in having secular policies designed to maintain religious harmony.Now those debates are likely to heat up again after authorities on Tuesday arrested the founding pastor and four executive staff of City Harvest Church for alleged misuse of church funds to fund the pop music career of the senior pastor’s wife, Ho Yeow Sun. Ms. Ho is not among the five arrested.
City Harvest Church is a charismatic non-denominational church that has a membership of 33,000, making it Singapore’s largest congregation.
The arrests follow a two-year investigation by Singapore’s Commissioner of Charities and the Commercial Affairs Department of the Singapore police into the church. According to a police statement issued Tuesday, Kong Hee, the church’s 47-year-old founder, is among the five people arrested Tuesday who will be charged with conspiracy to commit criminal breach of trust. All five are due to be charged in court Wednesday.
The Commissioner of Charities said the investigation commenced in May 2010 found financial irregularities totalling at least 23 million Singapore dollars (US$18 million) from the church’s charity funds.
“These funds were used with the purported intention to finance Ho Yeow Sun’s secular music career to connect with people,” the Commissioner of Charities said in a statement released Tuesday. “There was a concerted effort to conceal this movement of funds from its stakeholders.”
City Harvest Executive Pastor Aries Zulkarnain said in a statement posted on the church’s website that the five had been instructed to attend court on Wednesday and said church operations, including weekend services, would continue as usual. Efforts to reach Mr. Kong and Ms. Ho were unsuccessful and it was not immediately known if they had lawyers. A message posted on Twitter using Mr. Kong’s handle Tuesday afternoon said: “Tough day … I trust in You, Lord Jesus … Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done!”
The arrests aren’t the first time Singaporean authorities have clashed with church leaders. In a country where about 40% of elected lawmakers identify themselves as Christian–higher than the 18% share of the resident population–Christian activists and leaders have at times found themselves at odds with the prevailing pluralistic ethos of the state, which seeks to maintain the religious and ethnic harmony of its diverse population through secular policies.
While religious freedom is mostly respected, government leaders have at times put curbs on some religious displays in order to maintain social cohesion and preserve the secular nature of the city’s civic spaces, especially as Christian congregrations have grown.
For example, City Harvest’s 310 million Singapore dollar (US$241 million) acquisition in 2010 of a stake in Suntec Convention Center, a major real-estate property located in the city’s prime downtown area, to boost its meeting place capacity prompted the government to slap some curbs on church expansion.
The government restricted the religious use of commercial property to two days a week and banned religious promotional displays in the properties’ public areas. It this month allowed religious organizations to use industrial property to conduct meetings.
Like megachurches elsewhere, City Harvest has often courted criticism both from secularists, wary of Christians’ influence on civic matters, and other Christians, who disagree with its brand of so-called “prosperity theology,” a religious school of thought that teaches material blessings and health are God’s will for all Christians.
Ms. Ho, who helped found the church with her husband and is also known for her modest success as a Mandarin pop singer, is not among the five charged but has been suspended by the Commissioner of Charities from her executive position on the church’s board.
Twitter and Facebook were filled with messages of support for the husband and wife team, mostly from members of City Harvest Church. Supporters of the church maintained that Singapore is a better place for their contributions, and offered their unwavering dedication to the church and its leaders.
“Standing by City Harvest Church,” said one Twitter user, Joel Kuek (@joelkuek). “I will not be who I am today, if not for what they have done.”
“This changes nothing,” said another Twitter user and member of City Harvest Church, Wayne Choong (@waynechoong). “My gratitude and love to Pastor Kong Hee for what he’s done to rescue me and my entire family remains.”
Singapore’s Home Affairs Minister Teo Chee Hean in a separate statement Tuesday sought to head off potential tensions that may arise from the arrests, stressing the charges laid are against individuals from the church and not the church itself and that the organization remains free to continue its services and activities.
He also counseled against “speculation or making pre-judgments that may unnecessarily stir up emotions.”
Ho Yeow Sun: '$23 million bid for stardom'
http://www.straitstimes.com/BreakingNews/Singapore/Story/STIStory_815527.html
Published on Jun 27, 2012
Some industry insiders say money did not get pastor-singer very far
By TAN DAWN WEI ASSISTANT NEWS EDITOR and NG KAI LING
It apparently gave her four No. 1 hits on the Billboard dance charts, an English-language album produced by famed rapper-producer Wyclef Jean, a slick music video featuring her gyrating to a pulsating beat, and a US$20,000 (S$25,500) a month Hollywood Hills mansion.
On Tuesday, Ms Ho's pastor husband and four others were arrested for allegedly misusing at least $23 million in church funds to finance her career without the knowledge of the church's executive members, who were not told how the funds were being used.
Efforts had also been made to conceal how the funds were diverted to this purpose, said the Commissioner of Charities.
City Harvest paying $310m to become Suntec co-owner
Mar
7, 2010
By Esther Teo
Amid cheers from the congregation, City Harvest Church (CHC) yesterday announced that it will pay $310 million to become a co-owner of Suntec Singapore, a prime piece of downtown real estate.
By Esther Teo
Amid cheers from the congregation, City Harvest Church (CHC) yesterday announced that it will pay $310 million to become a co-owner of Suntec Singapore, a prime piece of downtown real estate.
Senior pastor Kong Hee broke the news first at CHC's service at its Jurong West building, then later at another service at the Singapore Expo in Changi.
He said CHC had acquired a 'substantial stake in a consortium company that owns 80 per cent of a joint venture fund that owns Suntec Singapore'.
The complex's full name is Suntec Singapore International Convention and Exhibition Centre.
The $310 million includes the cost of acquiring shares in the consortium, rental costs, renovation costs and others.
Suntec Singapore was acquired by ARA Asset Management through the ARA Harmony Fund last year, with its investors comprising Suntec Reit - which holds 20 per cent - and a consortium company which holds 80 per cent.
The latter is what CHC has bought a stake in. However, CHC said it was unable to reveal its current shareholdings due to conditions stated in the agreement.
The church has spent the past five years looking for a suitable plot of land, said Dr Kong, who founded it in 1989 as a small Bible study group of 20.
Suntec was its 26th attempt after other sites such as Lion City Hotel in Tanjong Katong and Iluma in Bras Basah Road were considered unsuitable due to their small size or likely traffic congestion.
Dr Kong revealed in January this year that CHC had secured a large complex in the 'central-south' district that also housed shops, restaurants and a 12,000-seat auditorium. Further details were unavailable then due to a non-disclosure agreement.
Yesterday, he told his congregation he had approached Suntec's new owners to explore the possibility of co-ownership in July last year, after an initial unsuccessful bid for the property in November 2008.
The option agreement was signed in six months, with the sale sealed on Feb 5.
The 33,000-strong megachurch is expected to move there by the second quarter of next year, after its lease at Singapore Expo expires. It will retain its Jurong West building for prayer services and Bible study.
Singaporean singer Sun Ho, who is married to Dr Kong, is also back this weekend - from Los Angeles, where she is currently based - for the celebrations.
The more than one million square feet of usable space in Suntec - equivalent to 25 soccer fields - would make it 20 times the size of the church's premises in Jurong West and 10 times the size of the hall it currently leases at Singapore Expo, Dr Kong said.
'This is a prime location with 78 years left in its lease. Right now we're paying $310 million, but how much is it going to be worth 30 years from now? I have to be a good steward...to maximise every dollar our members have given,' he said.
CHC told The Sunday Times it will be operating an 'ownership and lease' business model. This would allow the rent paid to Suntec Singapore to be recovered in the form of profits and dividends from space rental and tenant leases.
The church's plan is that its share of the profit from the business will eventually be able to cover the rent, and the financing will be self-sustaining.
With the opening of the Esplanade and Promenade MRT stations on the Circle Line next month, and together with the existing City Hall MRT station, members will have easier access to its services.
In a posting on the church website, Dr Kong wrote that the project 'allows us to move from a present expensive rental model to a more financially sustainable ownership model for the long term'.
He added that his present congregation is more than 14 times the capacity of its Jurong West building, which can accommodate only 2,300 people.
As to why the money was not spent on the poor and needy instead, Dr Kong said on the website that CHC spends 20 per cent of its annual budget on local community and overseas humanitarian work.
'With a facility to house the church's growing congregation and multifaceted ministries, we can serve the needs of the community in an even greater way.'
He said that while some areas will be used solely by CHC - such as the sixth and seventh storeys which will be used to house its 12,000-seater auditorium - other areas like the three ballrooms on the second floor and the exhibition halls will be open to the public for rental.
'But as co-owners of the entire convention centre, we have a share of the annual revenues of all facilities. Every time somebody rents a room there, we get a cut for the next 78 years,' he said.
The news coincided with the start of CHC's fund-raising drive that hopes to raise $17.3 million from this month to June, its fifth campaign in a series of 13. It has raised $99 million in its past four campaigns.
Knight Frank group managing director Danny Yeo said the acquisition was a good alternative to buying a plot of land.
'Existing plots of land offered by the Government are too small for the large auditorium that City Harvest is looking to build and it's even more difficult if you're looking for somewhere central.'
Similar plans were also announced in 2007 by New Creation Church, another large Christian group.
New Creation's business arm Rock Productions has teamed up with mall developer CapitaMalls Asia to build an 'integrated hub' in Buona Vista. When ready in 2012, the $1 billion project will house shops, a concert hall and a theatre.
