June 19, 2020
Dear TCCBC church family,
Greetings in the Lord to you and your family! Many thanks to brothers and sisters praying for the annual church council planning meeting. We thank the Lord for His grace upon us. Under His leading, the 8-hour marathon meeting went very smoothly. Besides passing the upcoming fiscal year’s budget (July 2020 to June 2021), we also passed the Christian Leadership Seminars training plan, the Fellowship Lunch contribution arrangement change, Chinese New Year gospel outreach and celebration, and the reorganization of the church leadership structure. On the pulpit ministry side, the church theme on “Fervent in spirit, serving the Lord” will continue until the end of 2020. Then we begin the new theme of “Revealing the Mystery of the Body of Christ” in January 2021. These new initiatives and changes will come along over time, with more details to be provided to you then. Please also continue to pray for these changes and improvements, so that we will not depend on our own ability to implement them, but by the guidance and strength from the Holy Spirit, accomplishing the Lord’s mission by boldly confronting the challenges ahead.
Proceeding on the search for our Cantonese and English pastors is another item worth sharing with you. Actually, this initiative was already approved by the church council this February, including assigning our deacons, Roddy Kwan to lead the English pastor search, and Wayne Wong to lead the Cantonese pastor search. The original plan to start the search in March was placed on hold due to the coronavirus pandemic, shelter restrictions across the country, and the many ministry adjustments that the church had to focus our efforts on. While the pandemic relief outlook is still uncertain, the future of the church rests on the search for our new pastors. We determined that we should have the bandwidth to restart the pastoral search efforts now that the pandemic related changes are now on track. The church council decided to proceed earnestly on the pastoral search efforts. Please pray unceasingly before our Lord on this important matter. Let us ask Him to provide for and call the shepherds that He has prepared to shepherd His sheep here.
I trust that you have received the letter that I sent out on Sunday (June 14) on the Christian Leadership Seminar series, with topics information and registration form. Just as I had mentioned in the last communication letter, the seminar series is intended not just for the team currently serving in the church. Because we intend to develop and equip future co-laborers, and to help brothers and sisters to exert greater influence at home and at work, we are opening the seminar series to everyone in the church. If you are willing to learn, we welcome you. The training was originally planned to be held in the church. Because the sheltering restrictions are still in effect, there is a possibility that we will conduct it over video conferences. This design of training is intended to have core impact to the future development of our church, the church leadership reorganization, and the believers seamlessly serving together.
The theme topics of the seminar series will be the same between the English track, led by Pastor Daryl Watts, and the Chinese track, led by Pastor Job Lee. You can enroll based on your language preference. If we are able to hold the leadership training in the church, we plan to meet on Saturdays from 10 am to 1 pm. We may actually have better time flexibility if video conference is the only possibility. There are three possible time options in the Mandarin registration form to obtain your preference. We will determine the most optimal time for everyone to attend. For the English track training, please wait for Pastor Daryl’s communication to determine the online conference time and arrangements. Regardless of whether we conduct the seminars onsite or over video conference, we need you to register first so that we can prepare the curriculum materials and make classroom arrangements. Please return your completed registration before the deadline. Thank you in advance for your support.
While we express our thankfulness to God’s blessings to the church, our hearts are still disturbed and worrying about the current unrest in the U.S. Unfortunately, there was another police shooting incident in Atlanta this week. From the news video and report, it was obviously started from a man sleeping inside his vehicle in front of a fast food restaurant, blocking the pickup drive through. Someone filed a report to the police. The suspect failed the sobriety test, resisted arrest, and ended up fighting the police officers when they attempted to handcuff him. He even managed to take the Taser from one of the officers, and attempted to get away, resulted in being shot by the police, and unfortunately died. Certain analyst reckoned that because the Taser was not a lethal weapon, the police officer should not have shot at someone resisting arrest. Adding to the recent George Floyd incident from two weeks ago, not only the police chief had resigned, the two involved officers were fired, and the incident immediately triggered protests and riots in Atlanta, and the fast food restaurant the incident happened at was burned down. A number of states and cities are using defunding the police and disbanding the police force as their slogan. Protesters occupied the area around the police precinct in Seattle, and declared it as their “Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone”. Not only had these seriously impacted the police morale, they cast worries over safety in society across the nation. We need to pray even more for government officials who are in charge, and ask God to grant them wisdom to manage the chaos in the society and eliminate social hostility and opposition, so that people may have peaceful life back. May God have mercy and grace on us!
The pandemic outlook is still not very encouraging. The number of infections globally broke the 8 million mark this week. There are 2.16 million infections in the U.S. The spread of the virus could have been worsened by protests and mass gathering in the U.S. The infection cases in Brazil have seriously worsened, become number two in the world, only after the U.S. A number of large cities in China have also discovered new coronavirus cases, increasing at a rate of 50 cases a day. Let me remind everyone again to practice good hygiene, wash your hands often, put on your mask when you go out, and avoid public places unless it is necessary. If you have special needs, please contact Deacon Mario Au. We have a number of young brothers who can help on transportation and groceries.
We are a couple of days away from Father’s Day. It is unfortunate that we are unable to wish our fathers and grandfathers “Happy Father’s Day” in the church. I still want to wish our brothers a Happy Father’s Day and good health. And I hope that the fathers among us may be good examples in their faith and life for their children and the younger generation. It is more so during this time of instability where our children and younger generation need to learn God’s justice and mercy from the fathers and elder generation. It is my hope that our children can observe the footprints of being with God from our words and our deeds. On this Father’s Day, let us encourage each other with these words from the prophet Micah to the nations of Israel and Judah, “He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you, but to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” (Micah 6:8)
Walking with God with you together,
Job Lee
Pastor Job Lee, Senior Pastor With fellow church leadership team
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