EGM Update

Praise the Lord for He is the Almighty God.

Praise God in His sanctuary;
Praise Him in His mighty heavens.
Praise Him for His acts of power; …
Let everything that has breath praise the Lord. (Psalm 150: 1-3 & 6)

The EGM last Saturday 4 April 2009 was an event that will be long remembered by Calvarites. The fiery marathon 5-hour EGM was a clear message to the leadership that members are dissatisfied and unhappy and many have lost respect and trust for Senior Pastor (SP) Prince and the Board of Deacons (BOD).

The twisting and turning of SP of his own words, the half-truths he told and the rudeness he displayed left many members including staunch SP ‘supporters’ (for want of better word, no divisive meaning intended) gaping in sheer astonishment and shaking their heads in disbelief. Although he was obviously agitated by the many members vying to speak, his rudeness in instructing them to sit, without the basic courtesy of saying ‘Please’ riled many.

What was apparent from the EGM was that members are becoming more vocal in voicing their opinions, have better understanding of the issues being discussed and taking ownership of matters affecting the church. This is a good sign and bodes well for the future of the church. However, for healing of the church to take place, this will require the corresponding cooperation, acceptance and openness of SP and the BOD to feedback and suggestions from members. With the SP-centric mentality, non-transparency and questionable integrity of SP and the current BOD, this appears to be wishful thinking at this time.

Adoption of House Rules and Agenda

The meeting took more than a hour just to approve the house rules and agenda. Much of the delay was due to the lively debate and arguments concerning the Proposed Resolutions of Bro Teng and Bro Robert Ng to annul the termination of Dr Lum’s membership and allow Dr Lum to join the meeting.

The said resolutions were submitted to the BOD prior to the meeting but were rejected. Bro Teng and Bro Robert attempted to get the Chairman (SP) to have the resolutions included in the agenda but were unsuccessful despite overwhelming support from the members present.

Several attempts and appeals by various members including Bro Sam Ho, Bro Tuck Yun, and Bro Edwin to seek SP’s consent to allow Dr Lum to join the meeting so that he can answer the charges against him, failed.

An almost heated debate ensued when SP insinuated that Bro Teng and Bro Robert had left their meeting with SP and the BOD a few days earlier, happy with the explanation by the BOD on why their proposed resolutions on Dr Lum’s position cannot be tabled at this EGM. Bro Teng rose to say that just because he has a smiley face does not mean he was happy with the BOD’s explanation. Bro Robert countered that he had left that meeting with a clear message to SP and the BOD that both of them do not accept their explanation.

One of the house rules which did not go well with the members was that the associate members could only speak or ask questions if there are no other voting members waiting to speak. To justify this rule, SP informed the meeting that this is in accordance with the Constitution. This is actually an outright lie as the Church Constitution does not have any provision concerning this.

There were also some arguments on the use of Robert’s Rules of Order in the conduct and proceedings of the EGM. In the past AGMs and EGMs, SP had always used the Robert’s Rules to limit members’ questions but when a few members quoted their rights under the Rules, SP conveniently state that he is not adopting Robert’s Rules for this meeting. This statement caused a stir because at the outset, SP had set some of the house rules based on Robert’s Rules. Therefore, Robert’s Rules were used when advantageous to SP and ignored when not so. This is the typical SP’s Rules.

Debate on the 5 Proposed Resolutions

The meeting then moved on to the 5 resolutions proposed by the BOD. Out of the 5 resolutions, the concerned members had come with proposed amendments for 4 of the resolutions, briefly as follows:

Proposed Resolution 1
Bro Hong Meng proposed an amendment that the annual accounts of the church should include accounts of the Missions Department, auxiliary ministries, extended ministries and all ministries financed and managed by the church or personnel from the church. He also proposed that audited accounts be made available at the church office for the perusal of associate members as well. Currently, only voting members can view the accounts.

Proposed Resolution 2
Sis Liza proposed a few amendments which sought to include a definition of “External Auditor”, that the External Auditor shall not hold office for more than 5 years, that the church accounts include accounts of the Missions Department, auxiliary ministries, extended ministries and all ministries financed and managed by the church or personnel from the church and that the External Auditor or another accounting firm may be required by BOD or members at a General Meeting to undertake any investigative or forensic audit.

Proposed Resolution 3
Bro KC proposed an amendment that SP and his nominee and all pastors be excluded as cheque signatories. He emphasized that the most important aspect of a church is the spiritual aspect and therefore, all pastors should devote 100% of their time in this area and leave the operations and management to the BOD and church employees.

Proposed Resolution 4
This resolution sought to remove a clause in the constitution which is no longer applicable and it was unanimously approved by the members.

Proposed Resolution 5
Bro Joseph proposed an amendment to exclude SP from the Nominating Committee and that the appointed committee members elect a chairman from among themselves. He also suggested that none of the committee members shall be a spouse, parent or child of an existing deacon.

The full details of the proposed amendments and the rationale are set out in the previous article by Bro Hong Meng. All the above Proposed Resolutions No. 1,2,3 and 5 in their present form were rejected by the members.

Immediately, after the rejection of 4 out of 5 Proposed Resolutions, one member stood up to propose a vote of no confidence in the BOD but SP quickly threw it out.

Church Issues – Findings of the Special Audit

The next agenda was on Church Issues and the church auditors were called to present their findings on a special audit conducted on 9 issues. The special audit requested by members include some of the issues raised by Dr Lum.

The findings are as follows (with comments by CT in italics):-

1. Dr Guynes was indeed given a love offering of US$10,000 for coming and chairing the previous EGM. The money was paid from tithes. Approval was only officially ratified by the BOD one month after the event. The meeting was informed that the day before the EGM, SP and 5 deacons in the working committee discussed and agreed verbally to give the love offering to Dr Guynes.

During question time, SP clarified that the US$10,000 was given to Dr Guynes as a missionary offering but this is contradictory to the findings which revealed that the offering was paid out from the church tithes.

After much persistent questioning by Dr Lalitha Lum, it was finally established that Dr Lum was not invited for the abovementioned working meeting and therefore, he was unaware of the verbal decision of SP and the 5 deacons to give the love offering to Dr Guynes.

2. One return airfare for SP’s grandchildren was paid from Church Missions Funds. This payment was not part of the terms of employment of SP but a goal to encourage fulltime staff by offering one-time sponsorship to their children. The members were told that other staff have enjoyed this benefit as well. The meeting was informed that this benefit was not documented and not made known to all the church staff.

Bro Winslow stood up after the presentation to comment that while he was working as an employee of the church, serving under Calvaryland, he was never informed of such a benefit. In simple language, the benefit was known only to SP.

It was confirmed that the airfare for the deacon’s son was paid but there was no mention if this payment was approved by anyone and if approved, the basis for this payment since the deacon is not a fulltime staff. This issue still begs to be addressed. Perhaps Patrick Wong, being the deacon in question, can issue a statement on this.

3. It was confirmed that SP’s children’s education covering books, tuition fees and airfare was partially sponsored by the church. Similarly, this payment was not part of the terms of employment of SP. The meeting was told that other staff have enjoyed this benefit as well. The meeting was informed that this benefit was not documented and not made known to all the church staff. Again, it was a benefit known only to SP.

4. On the rumor that S$60,000 was collected by a Singapore church and given for SP’s grandson’s medical treatment, the finding was that the rumor is not true. Only the RM40,000 was paid from our church for his grandson’s operation.

5. It was confirmed that SP’s gym membership fees was paid by the church in 2005 and this payment was deemed to be in lieu of a stipend increase for SP in year 1994.

According to Dr Lum, when SP claimed reimbursement for this gym fees in 2005 and said it was a benefit promised to him in 1994, it got the whole BOD stumped. Who would not be, considering that it was so long ago and no deacon had any copy of any board minutes to verify. With no one else keeping the board minutes except SP, who is to say that the minutes have not been tampered with, especially when the auditors have confirmed that in the earlier years, the Secretary did not initial all the pages of board minutes.

6. The meeting was informed that the church has a existing self-declaration policy for staff but there were no mention of any declaration of love offerings received by SP.

7. The meeting was informed that Pastor Adeline Koh was paid an honorarium by the Church as she was a BCM student and not a church staff.

The amount of honorarium paid to her was not mentioned and one can only assume that the figure of RM250 per month is correct since the figure was not denied. The fact that she was not a fulltime staff does not absolve the church of the responsibility to look after the welfare of their Outreach Pastor. The BOD and SP must realize that outreach pastors and missions workers are also human beings with the same needs and should be adequately compensated. They must realize that how they treat the least of their workers is how they are treating Jesus.

8. The findings confirmed that the offering collected for Rev Phil Stevenson was not paid to him but was instead used to offset the airfare expenses of Rev Phil to come to KL.

As many members know, our church often pays for the airfare of our guest speakers. In addition, our church also gives love offerings to them, regardless pf whether a love offering was collected from the congregation. In the previous article, you would have seen that besides paying for Rev Robert Lim’s airfare, the church gave him S$10,000 as a love gift. When his son came to preach at one of our youth camps, similar treatment was accorded. Same goes for Dr Guynes and other guest speakers. Therefore, it is baffling that the church leadership chose to discriminate against Rev Phil who comes from a ‘poor’ church. He sacrifice his time, left his family and his church behind in Australia, came to bless our youth and went home with just a handshake and a “thank you”. Of course, he did not come for money. Of course, God will bless him. But why do we want embark on a RM250 million building to proclaim the love of God and then deny a simple Godly pastor of RM1,858 which was given sacrificially by the youth to bless him. May God have mercy on us!

9. The findings confirmed that SP does the annual appraisal of all departmental heads which includes his family members (presumably this includes his wife, children,, son-in-law and daughter-in-law) while the salary increments were decided by SP together with the HR deacon.

Out of the above 9 items, 8 items were among the 23 issues raised by Dr Lum. The above findings of the Special Audit actually confirm that all the above 8 issues raised by Dr Lum are true.

After the presentation, Bro Hong Meng and another member requested for a copy of the findings but their requests were denied by the Church Treasurer who chaired this item on the agenda.

Several pleas were made again at this juncture by Bro Edwin and others to persuade SP to allow Dr Lum to come in to respond to the findings of the special audit, and explain the 23 issues raised by him and to clear the air on discrepancies in differing versions of what had transpired. The pleas fell on deaf ears.

Alternate Blogs

During the question time, Bro KC highlighted that the audit findings may not be totally acceptable due to the fact that one of the auditors’ impartiality and independence is in question.

To arrive at this conclusion, he informed the meeting that besides Calvary Today, there are 2 other inter-linked blogs, Calvary Kini (CK) and Calvary Unity (CU) discussing church issues. CU blog (closely linked to CK) publishes condemnation and curses against members who support truth and transparency. Senior Associate Pastor Petrina in a recent message said that condemnation and curses come from the devil. Therefore CK and CU are devilish blogs.

CK blog home page features an image of our church sanctuary while the CU blog home page has a link to our church website. The photo of the church sanctuary belongs to the Communication Dept. These give the impression that both blogs are endorsed by the church or linked to the BOD or pastors. Their recent publication of SP’s California Fitness gym membership details (which CU claims to have obtained from the gym) also proves that it is linked to the BOD or pastors. This is because when Bro KC wrote in to the gym to inquire on SP’s membership, they replied that they are not allowed to divulge their member’s details to third parties.

To the shock of the members, Bro KC revealed that both CK and CU were promoted by one of the deacons, one of the church auditors and one of the pastors’ brother in Australia. Bro KC called for the deacon and auditor to be sacked like Dr Lum as they have similarly caused confusion, strife and division in the church with their open support.

Bro Han stood up to clarify that he had asked his life group members to read CK and CU blogs in his personal capacity and not as a deacon. Bro Han should realize that as long as he sits in the BOD, he will be regarded as deacon in the eyes of the members, whether in or out of the church. He forgot that as a Christian, he should not have dual personalities. Whether as a deacon or an ordinary member, one’s Christian values should not change.

The meeting ended shortly after this with a time of prayer.

CT’S NOTE: This article was written based on the writer’s personal witness account at the EGM and corroborated with the audio recording of the EGM. Some of the comments were paraphrased to give a clearer understanding of what was said.