I hope N280 sees this!

Hi helpers,

Weiwen here, can you do me a favour and help me forward this email to all N280 members? Of cos only members, not new friends. Cos I'm going to really voice my thoughts to the cell group. Thanks.. Of cos you can choose not to, I never asked Val for permission, but I'm doing this as a friend n hopefully some pple get the msg.

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Dear N280,

Last weekend I went over to Michelle's birthday chalet on Saturday night, and attended Sunday morning service at Expo with N280 cos I thought of paying you guys a visit and maybe having lunch and some time of fellowship, but apparently everyone was rushing off for Bible study and their own appointments, so nevermind, I guess you guys fellowshipped enough at the chalet right?

How many of you stayed over at least one night at the chalet? Or bothered to come back on Saturday afternoon or Sunday after service, knowing that Michelle booked the chalet for 4 days, Fri all the way to Monday morning?

Do you know who stayed over on friday night? 4 guys and 2 girls. And how many of them are our CG members? BK, frankie and michelle. And frankie is not even a close friend of Michelle.

I think its time to ask yourselves this question: where do your friends stand in your life?

I'm sure everyone has reasons. Exams coming, parental objection, work on saturday morning, prior appointments with friends, ministry, Bible study, and various other reasons. Yes they may be valid reasons, ministry is important, serving God of cos is important.

But since when has it become okay to treat a cell group member's birthday like that?

Do any of you treat your close friends like that? Not attending his/her birthday chalet?

Jesus said, there is no greater love than to die for a friend. We are to love God whole-heartedly and love people fervently, correct?

This is Michelle's 18th birthday and out of all her friends in church, choir, sec sch, etc, she chose to have a chalet specially for N280, her cell group. And did anyone make an effort to appreciate her for it? Or at the very least accompany her for a few hours during the weekend?

"Yeah we all came for cell group mah." Does that sound very convincing to a cell member who has forked out time and money and who simply wishes to spend time with the people whom she calls her friends?

If you wanna talk about work BK had work on Saturday morning and Sunday morning before service and he still came for the chalet. Weiquan, Daryl, all had work. Momo and Jaric had exam papers on Monday. Joan, Bowen and myself rushed down after chingay performance at 12.30 am to attend the chalet on sat night, and on sun after svc accompanied her to Escape theme park. We all did not sleep for more than 4 hours from fri to sun cos we had chingay preview and practices.

I must say I am very disappointed about what happened at the chalet. I thank God that BK and a few people decided to stay for the chalet with Michelle. But before new friends will stay in the CG, you all got to first learn to love and treasure each other, the way Jesus loved and treasured his disciples. If not, like what Paul says, without love, you are all just clanging brass cymbals, preaching the gospel without living it out.

That said, I'm not trying to condemn you guys, but rather wish to point out the importance of loving each other, loving your cell group, and shining for Christ in such ways. Remember the words of Jesus, "By this shall all men know that you are My disciples, if you have love one for another."

Regards,
Weiwen
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To be brutally honest, I'm not only disappointed, I'm also very sad and angry that something like this can happen.

What has become of N280? The cell group I've worked so hard in and achieved results in the past few years? I mean, of cos its still growing n there are good people there n new friends still come.. but yet why do such things still happen?

God, please give Val strength and revelations to better manage the cell group, n please continue to guide and mould the lives of the members in N280, and let them know wherever I may be I will still be a part of them, and my heart cries out for the state of the cell group now, and somehow I feel its like.. its my fault. my fault for leaving, my fault for not training up better helpers and disciples, my fault for not teaching the guys in the cg how to lead..

I'm sorry Lord, i've not done enough.