What’s New? Lots

Glendora kids at special music – there is part of our future.

This weekend we had an inspiring update from Pastor Randy Bloom of our denomination’s north-central region. Randy also heads up Church Multiplication Ministries. This means he is involved a lot in church planting. And a lot more.

Randy told us that his area comes under the overall stewardship of GCNext which does long-term planning for and with the local churches of Grace Communion International (GCI). GCNext is the arm of GCI which supports and maintains three strategic areas for our fellowship:

“The Deaf Shall Hear”

Randy began by telling us about Pastor Mary Bacheller’s “Hands for Christ” church in Staten Island, New York. This is a 41-member church for the deaf which is now into its third year of very successful operation. Mary’s congregation is a classic exemplification of GCI’s informal slogan of “all kinds of churches for all kinds of people in all kinds of places.”

Saddie and Angie Tabin's family took a big faith step to plant a church in Eagle Rock, Los Angeles.

Mary grew up as the daughter of deaf parents so it comes very naturally to her to relate to this significant slice of the U.S. population. “Deaf people do not read the Bible the same way the rest of us do. By using American Sign Language the message has a deeper meaning for them.” The result is conversions of people who have often felt overlooked in the past. “Through the Internet Mary is also discipling two other clusters in Texas and West Virginia which could be described as churches in the making,” says Randy. “These are things we never dreamt of even seven years ago when we began church planting ministries.”

In Eagle Rock, California, Saddie and Angie Tabin from the Philippines came here a few years ago with a vision to plant a Filipino church in Los Angeles. They were already successful church planters in Manila but felt the call to come to the United States. Their battles with the U.S. State Department and Homeland Security to get established as a family missionary operation have been heroic indeed. “They are still waiting to get the stipulations on their visa approved to allow Saddie to work part-time to support the family. In the meantime they are supported by some of our churches in California, including you here in Glendora which we appreciate very much.”

The Un-Churched USA

The Tabins began their 50-member church in the simplest way possible – being good neighbors and showing up at the local grocery stores where they met a lot of people from the Philippines. One of the ladies in the Tabin’s apartment building was invited to services and now makes Grace Community their church home.

Randy Bloom (center) with Angie and Saddie Tabin.

This is an inspiring development because there are some 190,000,000 people not attending church in the United States making the USA one of the world’s major mission fields. The Tabins' experiences remind us that this sometimes hard soil can be penetrated. Angie Tabin aimed at raising up a Filipino church but is amazed at how their new church plant new reflects Los Angeles’ cultural and ethnic diversity.

Heart for Youth

Randy then played a clip from Anthony Mullins who heads up Generations Ministries or GenMin as he likes to call it. Here is where our 23 summer camps and short-term mission trips factor in as a way to not only minister to our precious youth but also to form a basis for ongoing teaching and mentoring though programs such as "Journey with the Master" whereby SEP grads can be motivated in their local areas to continue on the Christian path that SEP inspired in them. “Many of us in here have been positively affected by SEP in the past,” added Randy, “and I am one of them.”

Anthony Mullins

GCI summer camps are a well-known success story from decades back in our fellowship. In fact one of our pastors joked that our old name WCG for Worldwide Church of God actually means “We do Camp Good.” Camp now becomes part of a useful feeder stream for our new Internship Program which has the goal of attracting people of all ages under Christ to consider a call to ministry. Randy played an interview with a young intern named Jonathan Kuhn in the Columbus, Ohio area who fit the mould of the kind of young people – church background, but not necessarily GCI – who feel the call to ministry.

“There will be a GCI in the future and the key is to be nurturing and encouraging young ministry leaders. We presently have five interns in the United States and are asking pastors to be on the lookout for potential candidates to pastor the churches of the future,” Randy Bloom summarized.

“Missional Mode”

Randy stressed that under the guidance and leadership of the Holy Spirit the local churches already have the key resources and corporate experience to keep these efforts continuing and growing. “Some call such churches Legacy Churches but I like the term Partner Churches, congregations who rally around and support the new life that is springing up in GCI. God is sending us new leaders – I have to interview two couples fairly soon who want us to help them identify a call to ministry.”

GCI President Joseph Tkach recently identified the last 20 years in our fellowship as a passage through survival mode to maintenance mode and now to missional mode. Randy Bloom’s inspiring talk encouraged us in Glendora to relate to that missional phase in anew and refreshing way. The calling remains, “As the Father has sent me, I am sending you” (John 20:21). In some ways, looking back on all the experience we have logged in GCI, the outlook should be very bright. Under God and Christ and with the Spirit leading there are grounds for good hope for the future.