1) Early roots of Anglican influences and Infant Baptism
I was born and raised up in a Christian family. My parents were Christians and were quite involved in the Overseas Christian Fellowship (OCF) in Australia (it was there that they met each other) They attended Anglican Churches and so I was baptized as an infant. A lot of their close friends were Anglicans and so as I grew up, I got to know all these Anglicans. My parents would bring me to Church every Sunday and I would attend Sunday School faithfully. I still remember attending Sunday School in an Anglican Church in Singapore till I was about 10 years old. I had a lot of close friends there. My family would mix around particularly with a few other families and thus I got to know the other kids in those other families. When I was 10, my family migrated to Australia. I guess the lifestyle in Singapore was too pressurizing and hectic. In Australia, things were more relaxed. Life was better there. Again over there, I attended an Anglican Church with my sister and mum. (My dad however still had a family business to manage in Singapore so he was both in Singapore and Australia throughout the year). I stayed there for 2 1/2 years. Unfortunately, my mother died in a car accident and my Dad, little new born baby brother and I went back to Singapore to live in 1992. My sister stayed on in Australia as she was going to complete her high school soon – it was thus better for her to stay on. (My Father remarried in Singapore in 1995 so I have a stepmother now and also a half-sister who was born in 1997).
2) Touched by Pentecostalism / Charismatism
Back in Singapore in 1992, I attended Saint Andrew’s Secondary School, which was an Anglican Christian School. I joined the Christian Fellowship there in my first year, but not subsequently. Nevertheless, I always enjoyed the Chapel services that the whole school had to attend once every week. It was I think in my 3rd year (1994) in Secondary School that I started to find Church and Sunday School boring. I hated attending Church and I would always bargain with my father about how short I was allowed to stay in the service before leaving! At that time, I started to get tuition for my English. I wasn’t exactly bad in my English. But anyway, this tuition teacher would tell me more about Jesus than teach me English! I was so annoyed that I complained to my father about this more than once. Soon my father brought me to a Pentecostal Church – the same Church that this tuition teacher of mine went. Because of its ‘charismatic’ nature of worship, it was a new experience for me. People were worshipping God there as though God was truly present in the sanctuary. Perhaps it was this that really drew me to Christ. I think God saved me and changed me in that Church. My resistance towards Church slowly melted by the end of 1994. And I would attend that Pentecostal Church every Sunday.
[I wrote that “I think God saved me in that Church” because I am not totally sure of exactly when God saved me and when I trusted in Christ for my salvation. It could have been in this Pentecostal Church, or it could have occurred later on in my life or perhaps even earlier (though I doubt it). However, I know I am saved now and I know more clearly what it means to be saved. Although I was never taught in my Pentecostal Church as clearly as I know now what the Gospel of Jesus Christ is, nevertheless God did change me then. Does that mean I wasn’t saved then? I don’t know. How much understanding does one need to have of the Gospel before one can be considered to be biblically trusting in Christ for Salvation? I don’t know.]