Last Meet with PenangGuy

So I went out for lunch with PenangGuy just now. Talked about me leaving. He wanted to know more about the new church, how it is run, how is everything - just to make sure that I grow and am fine and am ready. :)

He asked me for the reasons for my leaving, wanting to really make sure that I am not leaving out of offence because offences and wrongdoing can be solved and that leaving because of offences and all that is not good too because all churches are churches and all churches are imperfect.

I assured him that my decision is solely and purely based on what God tells me. I myself am serious in making sure that I am not leaving out of offence. If I were to leave because of offence, I would have left long ago without having to stay for two years before leaving.

It was good that for the first time he opened up for me to talk, to be frank. I told him about the church and all that because he wanted to understand and know. He asked what are the things that I am getting that I can't get in CHC, he asked me what kind of liberty that I get in TAC and not in CHC. I tried my best to explain to him and help him see and understand.

Then for the first time, for once I talked to him about what happened and the pain I have endured with ShoesLover. He listened, tried to understand and I helped him understand until he sees how I feel and what I have endured with her. I told him how broken I became after the first year in CHC and all of that is only because of her, how I really do love her and that really made the pain even worse. I assured him again that I am not leaving because of what I have endured with her. I am seriously happy now with those friends that I will really really miss when I leave (it is making the leaving much harder, much more to help them understand). I laughed so much with them, and enjoyed much with them. Now to think of going to service the last 1 or 2 times to snap pictures with them because I don't have any!

CHC has taught me about the conviction to go to church. That no matter what if we have the right purpose in our hearts to go to attend service in church we will go out of our way to go to church whether to take hours of public transport to reach there and to schedule our time well so that we have time to go there.

Besides that, I've also learnt and understand that when we go to a church we stay and grow and never to leave because of offence. This is because if we leave because of offence and we hop to another church, most of the times it is our problem of having a bad attitude or a bad characteristic and the same problem will arise again and again causing someone to church hop. For example, this boy has a rebellion problem so he goes to church A. He goes there and when the leaders ask him to join cell group he go but he skips it once in a while for no apparent reason. The leaders ask him why and confronted him, he got angry, rebelled and left the church saying that the people are not nice and not being good Christians. So he went to another church. The same thing happens again and again so he never stayed in the same church for more than half a year or for a period of time. So I've learnt not to do this and waited for the time that God said to leave then only leave. But I am clean, I don't have offence towards anyone, and I leave solely because God gave the cue. I made sure that it is clean and not for some weird reason.

I've also learnt to be independent through my time in CHC. I love the spirit of excellence in CHC and have captured it and so many other wonderful things. I have certainly grown to be stronger and more stable compared to how I was before. But now God is moving me to another pasture to learn more. It may be still uncertain and all but God is holding me tight.

PenangGuy wants to prepare me in this new journey, told me that there are three points to remember, to prepare.

1) It will not be so convenient as I will need to figure out my own transport and so on

2) To readjust my expectations as it is new and the church is new and different

3) There will be sacrifice whether financially (What he meant was that new church need finance to build and so on.)

So yeah. But I believe CHC has prepared me well for it :) I sounds rather ironic that CHC prepared me well to face life after I leave CHC. But still, God is everywhere, in all denominations. My principle is to follow where God leads me. I came and stayed in CHC because the Holy Spirit clearly told me to and now I move on because He nudged me to.

Another new phase. I will miss them. I really thank them. The friendship should not end and will not end. I'm just jumping into another stream to swim with others. We will meet again at the end :)

One good thing he did assure is: This is not a dynasty thing. Our arms are always open for you to come and when God asks u to leave, who are we to hold you back? :)