A blogger going by the moniker Gera has written a post titled, "9 Reasons Why City Harvest Church Was the Devil To Me", published in the aftermath of the guilty verdict issued to all six current and former church leaders.

The post sheds some light on what it was like growing up in City Harvest Church as a female teenager.

It recounted her experiences there when she was still in secondary school and Sun Ho was still in the midst of Crossing Over -- which was around the mid-2000s.

Some of the more eye-opening excerpts of the post concerns issues such as the coercive methods of getting church members to practice tithing:

"And the best part was that they even set a benchmark of how much they encouraged each church member to give. If I remember correctly, it was about $200 a month.

My mentor even sat down with me to plan out how I can somehow give $200 every month – on top of 10% tithing and very compulsory offering… to build the house of God.

Then I started to think, “Am I just here to give them free money; buying the illusion of a family that I crave for?”"

The unsolicited peer pressure and an overzealous mentality of foisting on the church goers a sense of familial community:

"Every week we are expected to always bring in new people to service. ALWAYS expected to.

They even presented charts of who brought in new people and who didn’t. Those who didn’t were mildly humiliated, of course.

But it was really difficult and rather ironic. When I had too many close friends outside church, they were unhappy and told me that it was ungodly influence. I should surround myself with spiritual people.

Oh, but still must have a good enough relationship with these non-spiritual people to convince them to come to a religious event.

There was this time my mentor called another cell group member and myself to her house. There, she sat us both down and made us call each and every person on our handphone contact list – asking them to come to church. ‘No’ is not an answer.

If they were sick, we’d give a mask. If they were not free, plan the following weekend or the next. If they were not willing, ask why until they couldn’t give a legit reason.

I don’t know how many people I pissed off, how many friends I lost that day… but I know that month my phone bill was really high. :( And those people I called became even more guarded against anything to do with Christianity."

And last but not least, the clique-ish siege mentality of the adherents of the church:

"Back then there was a man (yes, Mr Roland Poon) who told the public about the church forcing members to buy Sun Ho’s albums, of which he was fiercely dealt with in church. His cell group leader and mentor rebuked him to no end, his cell group members ostracised him.

Of which then he was pressured to give a public apology to the church and was definitely treated differently. And to give due credit, Kong Hee did announce in service to forgive and accept him back.

However this social outcasting happened to me when I started asking questions. I started mentally calculating how much money the church was making (10% tithe + offerings of $2 at a conservative amount of per pax), it gave me a rather high number. After thinking through it all, I realised every month the church should have a bit of money left after operational costs. Then why did they constantly ask for money all the time? So how much were they paying the pastors? What else are they spending on? Shouldn’t the leftover money be put into the church’s own building fund, instead of asking for more from the people? Wasn’t the money given to God, for God’s people?"

Totally worth the six minutes read.

A guaranteed laugh out loud moment every 15 seconds.

Related article:

City Harvest verdict: What City News highlighted vs What the mainstream media reported

12 years ago, City Harvest Church threatened to sue whistleblower Roland Poon Swee Kay. They owe him an apology.

Sun Ho: God will use the (City Harvest guilty verdict) outcome for our good

Whatever’s going against City Harvest Church is by the devil, according to Kong Hee’s pastor friend Phil Pringle

Oops, ST reporter takes photo inside court room building during City Harvest verdict coverage

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