June 12, 2020
Dear TCCBC church family,
Greetings in the Lord to you and your family! According to reports, the slowing of the epidemic in the U.S. is moving extremely slowly. Perhaps from the broad extent of protests and close proximity gatherings, a number of locations are actually seeing increases in the number of infections. The statistics from the following two weeks may provide a better indication on the magnitude of the impact. The global coronavirus infections are closing in on 7.5 million cases at this point, with the number of deaths reaching 420,000. There are over two million infections in the U.S. alone, with deaths exceeding 115,000. Alameda county, where our church is located, remains an area with high infection rate. As a result, the time for reopening our church remains up in the air.
The Church Council will be having an all-day meeting tomorrow (June 13). We will be discussing the 2020-2021 fiscal year church plans and ministry development. Please pray for our pastors, deacons, and council members. Please ask God to guide us on the path that we must take, reveal to us the vision from the Lord, and receive His wisdom to accomplish what He has entrusted to us.
There is an important initiative that is worth your consideration and participation in this planning meeting if it passes. We are planning a formal leadership training from August to November this year for current and future Christian leaders. We will conduct the training through a series of “Christian Leadership Study” seminars. They are designed around believers’ complementary fit for service in order to support future church development and church leadership reorganization. The seminar topics will be conducted in English and Mandarin, led by Pastor Daryl Watts and Pastor Job Lee on parallel tracks.
This seminar series is not just for those who are already serving in formal positions in the church. They are also prepared for all our brothers and sisters. In the broader sense of a “church”, it does not refer to just within the confines of a church building. The Bible’s perspective indicates that the church covers and extends to family lives of believers and their roles at work and in the society. Looking at it from this angle, for example, those who are parents, or have leadership responsibilities on their jobs, are church people who have influence over others. Simply put, this seminar series is basically open to brothers and sisters in Christ. Once it has been decided in tomorrow’s meeting, I will provide further specifics and extend invitations for you to join.
Please continue to pray for the calming of the current protests in the U.S. Currently, there are still many demonstrations throughout the country, with destructions and violence in many of them. A number of the demonstrators demanded the government to remove the symbolic slavery Confederate statues from the civil war times, asserting that there is no place for memorials from race discrimination. They would graffiti spray or remove them themselves if the government does not. The East Precinct building of the Seattle police was taken over by rioters the day before yesterday, declaring that it was their “Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone”. They even declared they would continue to take over more precincts, even expanding it across various states. I urge you to pray urgently for the stability of the political condition of this country and society. If this kind of protests and riots do not end soon, I worry that the safety and future viability of this country will be under siege.
In the midst of this time of uncertainty and unsettled condition, God is our true source of strength. He is our refuge and fortress. Even though man will let us down and disappoint us, but our God is ever faithful. His lovingkindness is everlasting. Let us use these words from the apostle Paul to encourage each other. (35) Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? (36) Just as it is written, “FOR YOUR SAKE WE ARE BEING PUT TO DEATH ALL DAY LONG; WE WERE CONSIDERED AS SHEEP TO BE SLAUGHTERED.” (37) But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us. (38) For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, (39) nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:35-39)
With you in steadfast faith,
Job Lee
Pastor Job Lee, Senior Pastor With fellow church leadership team
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