2008/1/31
Time really flies. It is 2008 and February is approaching. It has been 3 months since our Church changed our worship time, and now we have a better picture of how that has affected us. Here is a brief note to help you understand what is going on.
1. The attendance.
The worship time change did affect our attendance.
There is a 10% drop in attendance on the Chinese congregation side, and close to a 30% on the English side. Most noticeable missing ones are families with young kids. We being a small church, even a few leave can be obvious and may impact us negatively.
New comers. Praise the Lord, there are new faces appeared in our church during the past three months, and most of them are graduate school students or young professionals who recently moved to our neighborhood. To reach the nonbelievers was the mission of our church, it still is and always will be. So my dear brothers and sisters, let us forget the past and strain forward what lies ahead. Let us all work closely together to reach out to new friends and neighbors and bring them to Christ.
2. The Meeting Place.
The Sunday Worship time remains unchanged at 1.30p.m. every Sunday.
The Saturday activities also remain unchanged. Awana, Gap, Ganlin Fellowship and also the Putonhua Fellowship are still meeting every Saturday at 6p.m.
The Friday fellowships still have their meetings at different places, they insist to meet even though it is very inconvenient. They really are my beloved brothers and sisters.
Mr. Shun Ma has put in great effort to try to arrange all fellowship meetings at
Calvary Baptist Church, located at the corner of Broadway and 20th Avenue. Hopefully we will have good news this week.
3. Church Building
To have a church building of our own is the mutual understanding among all of us, but finding a suitable building on the Westside is not an easy task.
In the past months, we contacted several locations with no avail. One at the corner of Overland and Washington Blvd, the other one on Sepulveda Blvd and Washington Blvd. We found both unsuitable.
We recently spotted an out-of-business theater on Wilshire Blvd and 13th Street. We are trying to find out if it fits our needs. Please pray for that.
The Church Building Fund keeps growing, and as of December 31,2007, the figures are
as follow:
Offering for the month of December $15,980.00
Offering for the whole year of 2007 $52,749.00
We have a mutual understanding among the Board Members , if a building that fits our need and priced below 4 millions dollars, we will go ahead to make the purchase. And if it is above 4 millions, we will carefully evaluate and then make decision. Please pray that God will provide the best building for us, and please inform us if you have any ideal location. It is my personal hope and prayer that God will solve the problem for us this year. Let's pray together.