City Life Church : A Journey

City Life Church (CLC) is my home church. But few months ago, I didn’t know the church even exists. I and Erica (my special one) used to attend at Cathedral of Praise (COP) in Taft avenue, Manila. It is considered a mega-church based on both the size of its congregation and size of its physical church. It can seat thousands comfortably at any given time. It has a great facility, great worship team, great ambiance and a lot of great stuff. It was in this church where I built the foundation of my relationship with Jesus Christ. I was born again in the Lord in this church. So why is it that COP is not my home church? Well, let’s see why.

           Firstly, I want to say that I have nothing against COP. COP is a great church. A church faithful to Christ’s Great Commission of evangelism. I didn’t get a chance to involve myself in any ministries or small groups in COP. I guess because I felt comfortable as a church attendee only. I felt the worship and sermon were enough for me. This dragged along for two years. My spiritual life was practically confined only during Sundays. I had no Bible readings nor daily devotions. But the Lord has a great plan for each of us. I realized the Lord has His way of revealing His desires for us. God’s grace was just so overflowing that I can’t just be a Christian “bum”. I desired for God’s greatness more and more by reading His Words and having devotions. I sought to know my faith deeper and deeper by reading Christian books and by exploring the this-and-that of my faith. So after being grounded enough in my faith, there were some practices/beliefs in COP which I started to feel uncomfortable with like the word-faith and prosperity theology. It was not like I theologically studied the belief, but rather it was more of the condition of my heart being uncomfortable with it. Everything was great except whenever word-faith and prosperity theology would be infused during the services. I would feel very awkward. It is not my faith. I felt bothered for months because I am not sure what to do. I knew that this was just a non-essential belief of COP, but nevertheless the conviction to me cannot be ignored. Then there were still worldly things I have yet to overcome in addition with the predicament I was facing. It was a challenging circumstance. But I learned a lot from this experience. I came to know how to ask the right questions, like is this glorifying God? Or could this make stumbling blocks for Christians? Aside from these, I came to understand the great plan of God for us. I came to understand the awesome love of God through Jesus. So how did I go about withall these?

            I did what must be done. As a “young” Christian, I thank the Lord for the wisdom to discern. I decided to finally leave COP and look for a church which  doesn’t conflict my belief, and at the same time I can grow spiritually with, a church where I can make an impact . I thought this should be a community church. It was also a perfect opportunity because I have just broken all the bondages of my past life. I gave up myself and declared Jesus as my Lord. I was also happy because Erica was in the same boat, not with the theological issue, but with the desire to be with a small community church. She grew up in a community church and she certainly knew the needs of community churches. Everything was going great I thought. So how did we discover City Life Church?

           I and Erica decided that since we are both working in Makati, we are going to look for a church around Makati-Pasay area. So the church hunting began. I looked around in the internet to find one. I tried to check around the city. I found Baptist, Alliance and other independent churches. But I thought this time it must be the right church. I and Erica are Pentecostal and Born Again Christian in belief so I thought this must be my main standard in looking for a church. Coincidentally, I have a pastor friend from the Assemblies of God (AG) whom I had asked advice from about our concern. I have appreciated his advice to look for a church which belongs to a denomination. He pointed out that a denomination checks the practices and beliefs of its churches and disciplines them if necessary, in comparison with independent churches like COP which has complete say to its belief. So I became keen on looking for the three Pentecostal denominations that have local churches in Makati-Pasay area, they are the Church of God (COG) , the Assemblies of God (AG) and the Church of the Foursquare Gospel. The Foursquare church we found was just too far from us it was in Guadalupe Nuevo. The Church of God has well established local churches in the area. Some are even being led by American pastors. In comparison to the Assemblies of God, I had a hard time looking for an AG church until my pastor friend helped me in looking for one. He finally referred us to a newly started AG church in Pasay. And guess what, it was the City Life Church, a local church of the Assemblies of God. After much prayer and discussion, we have decided that we will attend the church. How was the experience with our new church?

              I was both nervous and excited because I haven’t been to a community church in Manila. I knew well that there would be a big adjustment because we came from a mega church. But everything went well. Thank you to Pastor Welfert and everyone in  CLC for making the transition smooth for us. All I can say, both me and Erica just can’t hold the level of spiritual growth we are experiencing with CLC. I am just growing deeper in the Lord. 

              City Life Church, an Assemblies of God church is a community based church in Pasay city. I know greater things are yet to come and greater things are still to be done  for Jesus Christ is the God of this city!