Mega Pastors to Lead Conferences Overseas

Tuesday, Oct. 20, 2009 Posted: 1:24:31AM HKT

Joseph Prince, senior pastor of the 19,000-member New Creation Church, preaching.

Within the next two weeks, two well-known Singapore Charismatic preachers would have led conferences in the U.S. and South Africa.

The founder and honourary senior pastor of the largest congregation, The Rev Dr Kong Hee from City Harvest Church, will be speaking at an event slated to be held in Costa Mesa, CA. that bears the title of his teaching.

This weekend, the senior pastor of the second largest, Pastor Joseph Prince from New Creation Church, will teach alongside Joel Osteen, pastor of America’s largest congregation Lakewood Church, at the Coca-Cola Dome in Johannesburg.

Whatever the public opinion of these two particular pastors and their convictions – Kong with his unique belief that pop culture can be harnessed powerfully to bring many more people into the Church and Prince with his undying message and emphasis on the grace of Christ – there can be little doubt that they are exerting an influence far beyond their local churches and bringing the message of atonement worldwide as they go.

These preachers do not limit their extra-church ministries to making appearances during the largest conferences on the market.

Take the case of Kong Hee, 45, for instance. His church website, which displays a variety of church growth and ministry statistics, shows the pastor ministering to external audiences with a combined attendance that is larger than his home church, which already has over 27,000 weekly attendants.

Between the years 2000 and 2008, Kong has conducted mission conferences outside City Harvest Church with a total yearly attendance ranging from 44,050 (2004) to 188,262 people (2008). Last year alone, he spoke at 138 services in ten different countries.

Furthermore, CHC has a 30-minute television broadcast programme Harvest Time which is broadcasted to more than 640 million potential viewers on 12 cable television networks and satellites to 140 countries.

The Internet webcast of CHC’s services reached 474,442 viewers from 117 countries in 2008, or 9,124 viewers each weekend.

Pastor Prince, who is 46 this year, owns a publishing house, and has a thriving literature and media ministry which releases books, CDs and DVDs sold at the affiliated Rock Gifts & Books Centre, Times bookstores and Harris/Popular bookstores in Singapore, Barnes and Noble in the United States and through Amazon.com.

His latest book, Destined to Reign: The Secret to Effortless Success, Wholeness and Victorious Living, a 2007 Singapore and U.S. publication in which he compiled a decade of his teaching, was listed on Christian Retailing Top 100 Books.

Prince has syndicated his sermon recordings to 32 broadcast networks and television channels in the U.S., including eight city channels, Israel, Canada, Europe, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. His messages are broadcasted into millions of homes, according to his ministry website.

Moreover, the Indian-Chinese pastor has spoken at conferences organised by Hillsong Church in Sydney and London and at churches in countries such as Canada, Norway, Netherlands, South Africa and Indonesia.

The Challenge Conference '09: The New Cultural Mandate for America where The Rev Kong Hee will be preaching will take place from November 5 to 7. Kong, the main speaker, will be joined by John Bevere and Troy Marshall.

Prince will speak at the Two Days of Hope conference on Friday and Saturday. The event is held in commemoration of the 30th anniversary of Rhema Bible Church, which has more than 45,000 members.

Edmond Chua
edmond@christianpost.com