During his opening address at the recent AGM of Calvary Church , Senior Pastor Prince Guneratnam (PG) shared on his desire to go into full-time evangelism.
He claimed that since his bible school days in the Bible College of Malaysia (BCM), his desire had always been to become an evangelist. He expressed his hope that God will give him “some years to go into full-time evangelistic work”. This is the clearest hint yet, of things to come!
To be fair, PG’s revelation of his desire is not totally
new. He has said it before many years ago. Those were the days when Calvary
Church was the richest and fastest-growing church in Malaysia. Despite his talk of going into full-time
evangelism then, he did not leave.
With high pay-checks for him and his wife and generous
self-granted perks like free education for both his children in the United
States, business class travels, exclusive gym club membership and the like, he
would be mad to give it all up, right?
Besides, there is this vision from God to build a grand
5,000-seating Church, remember? Who else will be able to accomplish this vision
for God? He had to stay.
After all, the poor and the lost will always be there and
besides, there’s Pastor Ah Chong, Pastor Aru and the many other graduates
from BCM every year! Yes, the harvest is plentiful but the workers are many also!
Coming back to PG’s calling, to prove the seriousness of
his desire to eventually go into full-time evangelism, he even set up Calvary
International Ministry (CIM) to be the vehicle to fund his evangelistic
ministry.
Of course, as things turned out, it was discovered
several years later that he was, with the assistance of the Church Mission
Director, happily transferring Church funds and Missions offerings into CIM’s Bank
account, without the knowledge of the Members, of course. This modus operandi
is quite similar to that of his good buddy in Singapore, Pastor Kong Hee.
If not for the exposure by the TTG group, the pilferage
would have continued to this day. If not for the efforts of these concerned
members, the pilfered funds would not have been recovered and PG may very well
end up like Pastor Kong Hee. PG must be quietly thanking God for the TTG group!
Today, the situation in Calvary Church is totally
different. With all the cash gone into the building of the wasteful Calvary
Convention Centre, Bukit Jalil (CCC) and with the offerings not coming in as much as what PG
had wished for, the Church is plunging swiftly into massive debts.
Once
the entire RM43 million Bank loan for the construction of the CCC is fully drawn down, the interest alone (assuming
only an interest rate of 6% per annum) will come up to RM2.58 million per year
or RM215,000 per month. The principal loan repayment over 10 years amounts to
RM4.3 million per year or RM358,000 per month.
To raise a surplus cash amount (after church expenses) of
RM6.88 million a year or RM573,000 a month to service the banks is no laughing
matter. And this is excluding the costs of maintaining the mammoth building and
assuming that no further borrowings is required, which is highly unlikely and
assuming the interest rate does not go up. Calvary
Church certainly appears to be heading for a financial catastrophe. In a
scenario like this, PG will be mad to stay on, right?
PG may have declared that he has been called to build the
CCC but to be fair, he has never declared that he will stay to clear the debts
or sort out the mess that he has created.
How can he stay? He has been called to be an evangelist,
remember? Jesus is coming soon, don’t
you know? And there are so many poor lost souls out there to be saved and
somebody’s got to do it!
Click on the audio clip to hear PG’s story.
