EFCSB - 2010 主題：「凡事謝恩 各處傳揚」

Dear:All:

We are planning to have more than one Sunday school classes in the future. As mentioned in another email about one week ago, we unexpectedly started another class aiming for fundamental questions of Christianity couple weeks ago. On 6/17, that class met the first time and had 10 people. Tomorrow, it would meet the second time. Brother Yunn-Tay Lee will lead that class. The other class led by Justin Kao will have last lesson tomorrow and Sister Siji Lin will start a new series of class on the topic of “個性與恩賜” 

As a result, we need to make some adjustments about the room usage. Since this is a fluid situation, it is hard to definitely assign the rooms. Tentatively, we plan to do the following:

Class “基要真理” by 李運泰弟兄 will meet at the library on the second floor of the Education Hall.

Class “Christianity and Arts” by Justin Kao and later on the class of “個性與恩賜” by 林熙集姊妹 (Siji) will meet at the room where Young Couple Fellowship usually meet on Friday night (This is the room right next to the library on the NE corner of the 2nd floor).

Let’s see how it works out. We may need to make adjustments in the future. Since we will have two classes, we decide to buy one more projector for the new class.

We are working to have a new phase of Sunday school. Hope to see you all.

Peter

Dear Coworkers:

As mentioned in an email some time ago, we will have a congregation camping at the end of this summer.We have made reservation at Brown’s Town Campground located at Bishop. (http://www.brownscampgrounds.com/browns.html)

Date: arriving on 8/31 and check out on 9/3 (Labor day weekend)

Currently, we have reserved 15 tent sites. It will allow a group of 75 people (adults+children).

The campground locates just at the south end of Bishop. Bishop is a small town that many tourists visit. Restaurants, gas stations, motels, and stores are close to the campground. The campground has nice facilities. We will use it as a base to plan our activities at Mono Lake and Mammoth Lake.

Camping is an excellent opportunity to let new friends to get familiar with our members. Living together for 3-4 days would shorten the distance between people. Some may not like camping, it is still possible for them to stay in the nearby motel but join our activities.

I’ll start to organize a team to plan for the camping trip:

First, could you let me know whether you plan to attend. This is just for me to get an idea whom I can approach to ask for help? (You still need to register when the registration starts.)

My preliminary plan would need people to help out in the following areas: I like to invite people to volunteer

• headcount/registration
• dividing our whole group into smaller groups
• flyer preparation
• equipment: First we need to count the equipments church has in the storage room and check the condition of the equipments. I expect we will need to add some other equipments.
• plan the evening activities (camp fire …) We will have three nights, we can either have a team to be in charge or have different people to take charge of different nights. This part can be expand to design the integrated program including the Sunday service. I plan to divide our group into smaller groups, we can design some group competition games to encourage the team spirit of each small group and have some funs too.
• transportation (we need to organize carpool according to the departure time). Camping usually require to bring along more stuff to the site, we also need to plan how to bring those equipments.
• Cooking/Food preparation (I am not sure what’s the best way to handle it. The easiest way is for people to take care of themselves. Since some may not have the cooking equipments, we may also organize to have group dinning plan. I need suggestions and help on this part.
• Day time activities: I have general plan on where to go for sightseeing but need people to help me in the details.

Some of the above tasks require more than one persons. Please don’t feel discouraged that it seems to big for you. As long as you think you can in one or more of the above areas, please let me know. You may also simply let me know that you are going and can help. If you have thought of something I neglect, please bring it to my attention as well.

Peter

Belows are some topics relating to parenting that we have been discussing in our Friday night young couple fellowship time. Just like to start keeping a record about what we have been sharing.

Nature of Today’s Culture
3/19/2007 - Monday

Dr. Bill Maier and psychologist Dr. James Dobson warn about the powerful influence of today’s culture on youth!

My Mother’s Hands
3/20/2007 - Tuesday

Dr. James Dobson asks “what will your child remember most about you in years to come?”

Low Self-Image and Failure
3/22/2007 - Thursday

Psychologists Dr. James Dobson and Dr. Bill Maier talk to parents about how a child’s negative self-image often leads to poor performance in school!

Building Self-Esteem Through Affirmation

http://www.focusonyourchild.com/faith/art1/A0000521.html

Parents are on the Hook
3/26/2007 - Monday

Psychologist Dr. James Dobson advises parents who want to teach accountability and responsibility to their children — to do so verbally and consistently!

Age-Appropriate Freedom

http://www.focusonyourchild.com/develop/art1/A0000441.html

Behavior and Consequence
4/3/2007 - Tuesday

Psychologists Dr. James Dobson and Dr. Bill Maier encourage parents to let kids learn — on their own — the relationship between behavior and consequences!

Age-Appropriate Discipline

http://www.focusonyourchild.com/develop/art1/A0000188.html

Introduce Them to Jesus Christ
4/6/2007 - Friday

Psychologist and author Dr. James Dobson, with psychologist Dr. Bill Maier, reminds parents of what their number one goal should be in the spiritual training of their children!

How can we introduce our young children to our faith?

http://family.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/family.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=845

Dear Brothers and Sisters:

As we are officially entering the second half of 2007, how would you evaluate your life of the past 6 months. No matter it’s good or bad, we need to move ahead.

On coming Sunday, we will have two Sunday school class. One will be led by Justin Kao on “Arts and CHristianity”. This is the last lesson of the series. THe other will be led by brother Yunn-Tay Lee. This is a new class for the beginners.

We will have Rev. Matthew Liu (劉昭瀛牧師) to be our guest speaker. He will preach at both Taiwanese and Manrarin services. His sermon at Taiwanese service will be 作属灵的父母 and in Mandarin service will be 耶稣的三个形象.

劉昭瀛牧師 had served at 校園團契 for about ten years after he graduated from Taiwan University. He came to Fuller for further study in theology and served at EFCLA for few years. He is the founder of  Vision Team ministry reaching out to new immigrants from China. He started that through his trust to the Lord from his own home without committed support from organizations or chuches. Quickly, his home couldn’t hold it. It expanded from one house to another. In recent years, Vision Team has expanded the ministry outside of Los Angeles and even started meetings within China. He just returned from a mission trip few days ago. Every time, when I read his news letters, I am always inspired and thankful. 

Dear All:

I went through the list. I can see the team effort behind it. Yet, it is just the beginning of the challenge. On Sunday, we don’t plan to have long program. Instead, we like to have more time for people interacting each other and for us to establish deeper personal relationship with others. When there are many newcomers, we usually face a dilemma, we are busy in serving food or some other things. We also feel obligated to care our own friends. As a result, the new friends still only knows the one who invite him/her to come. I would suggest that we do the  following:

•  When you invite new friends come to church, you may want to tell some other brothers/sisters who have similar background before the meeting and ask them to take effort to know your new friends
• At the meeting, you may initiate actions to introduce your friend to others. I would suggest you don’t just introduce but also create a conversation that allow the new comers and other church members to get acquainted.
• On the other end, when we are introduced to other new comers, we should see this as an opportunity to serve God by showing our hospitality and warm welcome to the new comers. (Serving the Lord is not just preaching leading Bible study but also caring people (old and new).
• When we all pay attention to new friends, we will not be tied up by our own new friends. It is almost like switching our guests. By doing so, the new comers will have chance to know other people. The more people they know in our church, the most comfortable they will be. As a result, they will have higher chance to come back. (It is not realistic to expect a 100% return rate but the more we put in the better result we can expect.)
• We should be alert not to let the newcomers to entertain themselves. The new friends do not know too many of us, It is likely they just gather together and don’t mingle with us. If you notice it, I would encourage you to join them.
• Last December, during the reception after the Mandarin Christmas meeting, we did a good job to care the new comers. Let us do it one more time for the Lord

Peter

Dear brothers and sisters:

Starting today, we have a new Sunday school class. This was not planned by us. Let me share the story with you.

Last December, we had a special Christmas celebration of our own congregation. At that time, Lily and her husband came to it. They were not invited by any of us. They simply saw the flyer at somewhere(I don’t know where) and decided to come to our candle light Christmas meeting. Lily’s husband doesn’t understand Chinese. They didn’t continue to come.

Many months later, they came again on Mother’s day. Since then, Huang Mama kept in touch with Lily. Lily asked whether we have meetings dedicated for Bible study. Huang Mama asked me whether we can start a class for that. Very quickly, we decided to add a Bible study class during the Sunday school. Originally, we were thinking to have the first meeting on July while a new Sunday school quarter begins. Lily told Huang Mama that she is coming. The first meeting was planned accordingly. Lily joined our service and stayed behind to attend the Immanuel Fellowship meeting after lunch.

Originally, we were thinking to have a small class. Unexpectedly, we had 10 people showed up at this new class. We met at the Seaside Preschool area (West wing of the 1st floor under the English congregation). Next week, we will have outdoor service and no Sunday school. However, we will continue this class in July. We will study the Gospel of John. Another class will be instructed by sister Siji starting from the second Sunday of July. Her class will be on the topics of “Personality, Spiritual gifts, and Spiritual fruits” (We haven’t finalized the official title yet.) As far as I know, this is the first time, the Mandarin congregation has two classes at the same time.

Lily’s story inspires me. I am amazed that how God leads people to us and how we can work together. Most of you contributed to the Christmas meeting preparation are not even aware that your efforts have led people you don’t even know to become part of us.

Next Sunday, we will have outdoor service. It’s a time that we invite new friends. I would also encourage you to make phone calls to those who haven’t been with us regularly. We could have another story similar to Lily’s. In order to prepare food and drink, please call or email to Sandy for the number of people you are bringing in.  

Peter

Dear Coworkers:

I like to bring to you a more complete picture of the 6/24 outdoor service event.

The park is next to Sandy’s house. As far as I know, city of Torrance doesn’t take reservation for the usage of the facilities. It is first come first serve. Sandy will make sure we claim a piece of the park as our “territory” early that day. We will “occupy” a region that has BBQ rigs

Sandy will also reserve couple parking spaces in the nearby roadside. The main purposes are (1). easier for us to load and unload our equipments; and (2) I plan to use the car power to provide electricity for our equipments.

Restroom is the only source for electricity in the park. It requires long extension cord to get it. Since it is good to access electricity to power microphone and some other equipments, I plan to bring in a device that can convert the car DC power to regular 120V AC power. However, it can only generate few hundred Watts (enough for the amplifier for the microphone but not for the ricecooker.)

The Young Adult Fellowship will take charge of the program (worship and games). Since we will not have projector, we will print the songs with the bulletin and make enough copies to hand out to attendee. The children will join us for the event. Could we select some songs that the kids can sing along with us. (I assume English songs are better for this purpose.) Could someone in Children Ministry also notify English congregation that our kids will be absent at church?

Food preparation is not easy.

First, I have notified Taiwanese congregation that we will not eat at church. Thus, they won’t order as much food. I also request that we are excused from kitchen cleaning. They are very kind to cover the tasks for us.

We need to estimate the amount of food based on the number of adults and children for the day. Sandy Wang will collect the information from fellowships. When we invite people, some probably won’t give us a definite answer whether they are coming or not. I still like to encourage you to invite people like that. Since we have common friends, it may have duplication. When you tell Sandy the  number of people coming to the event, it will be better if you do it in the following way.

1. Tell Sandy who are coming (not just a total number)
2. Make sure you include yourself and our regular members (because they have mouths too.)
3. Tell her how many are adults and how many are kids (Teens are considered as adults as far as on the concern of food preparation)
4. It will be better you can estimate who are definitely coming and who are not so sure.. We will estimate the final total based on this piece of information.)

Young Adult Fellowship and Immanuel Fellowship will prepare food. I’ll talk to them to see how we divide the work. I am thinking that Young Couple prepare food for kids (pizza hotdogs, … etc.) as well as drinks. Immanuel probably take the responsibility of the food for adults (salad, … etc.) I prefer to order it from restaurant and have them delivered to the park around noon. We still plan to have some BBQ but not to take up too many people. I hope our people will not be busy preparing the food on that day. I hope we can release our people to have more time to interact with new friends and with each other and having fun. (though doing BBQ is fun too.)

We will need people to prepare plates, folks, spoons, cups, napkins, table covers, charcoal (and BBQ equipments),

It could be sunny that day. Does anyone have tent(s) that can provide shades. If you have any or can borrow any, could you bring it in?

In summary, we will do it together like a family

• Claim “territory” - Sandy
• reserve parking space near our area - Sandy
• head counts - Sandy (make sure we include people who don’t go to any fellowship)
• sound equipment and musical instruments - worship team
• Electricity (DC/AC power adaptor and extension cord) - Peter
• plates, folks, spoons, cups, napkins, table covers - TBD (Immanuel ?)
• charcoal (and BBQ equipments) - TBD (Young Couple?)
• Food for kids - (TBD Young Couple ? )
• Drinks - (TBD Young Couple ? )
• Food for adults and order it from restaurant - TBD (Immanuel ?)
• program and game - Young Adult
• Program bulletin (including songs) - Peggy Lin
• Invitation - everyone
• Tents - ???
• caring - you and me

 I had visitors these days. I just saw them off early this morning. I didn’t have much time to think the whole thing over. If you think of anything that I have missed, please bring it up.

Peter

Dear Brothers and Sisters:

Coming Sunday is Father’s day. We will have 林國亮牧師 as our guest speaker. 林國亮牧師為匹茲堡大學社會工作碩士,普渡大學 (Purdue University) 家庭研究博士，曾在東岸的基督使者協會服事，現在台福神學院任教。On this special occasion, we are thankful that he can come to among us. Please join us for the blessings.

We will also have a special outdoor service on the following Sunday (6/24) at De Portola Park (25615 Lazy Meadow Drive Torrance, CA  90505). This is the park located next to Sandy Wang’s house.

We will have worship and some time to get acquainted each other. Please invite your friends to join us. In order to prepare food for the meeting, please let Sandy know the number of people you are inviting.

Peter

Dear All:

Some time ago, I sent out an email asking opinions about having an outdoor Sunday service. Many of you have given me valuable inputs. At one point, I was leaning towards not to have it. First, the distraction makes it hard to have a good worship at such an environment. Secondly, I am afraid that it could be just a picnic unless our members grab the opportunity to mingle with new friends (and the members who have not attended regularly.) However, after I think more about this, I have different thinking. It may not achieve as much as I hope for. I think it is a good thing that can still help our congregation. Our original speaker schedule in June is like the following:

• June 10 陳宗清牧師
• June 17 蔡豐智
• June 24 許健全牧師

On June 17 林國亮牧師 will come to the Taiwanese service. Originally, it was scheduled for another date but his tight schedule changes it to 6/17. After I learned about it, I decided to invite him to come to Mandarin service on 6/17. (fortunately, we are not committed to other outside speaker on that day). I am considering to have our outdoor service on 6/24 at a the park located at Rolling Hills Road (next to Sandy’s house). I have discussed with Rev. Hsu. He is very kind to allow me to make the change and not to come to the Mandarin service on that date. Thus, the proposed new schedule looks like

I like to suggest that we do the following

• Some people go to the park early to “occupy and claim” (reserve) a territory for our meeting and activities
• our service may start around 10:30AM (or do you have other suggestions?)
• The service format will be different from our regular ones because the outdoor environment.
• We may include some games
• We will have BBQ and other food that we order from the restaurant directly ( I prefer we spend some money in buying food and release us to interact with people. BBQ is optional but good to have for an outdoor environment. I hope it won’t take up too many man power)

6/24 is a little rush but I think we can do it. 7/8 is another alternative but I prefer to do it earlier rather  later. If you have any concerns or suggestions, could you let me know within the day before we formally go ahead for such a plan. We need some coordination with other congregations for such a change. For example, we need to inform the church not to have as much food because we won’t eat at the church. We also need to ask the Taiwanese congregation to help us to cover the kitchen cleaning task. The children Sunday school will be impacted too.

Another important thing is to invite friends (recent new comers, former members who haven’t showed up so regularly, other new friends.) Last December, we did a good job interacting with new friends on our special Christmas celebration. We can do that again.

I should have spent more time in discussing this with you in person. Other issues have occupied most of my mind in recent weeks. I have almost given up the idea of outdoor service. Then, I told myself “why not”. Let’s work together to win more for Christ.

I like to hear from you no matter it is “support”, “suggestion”, or “comment”, …

Peter

Dear brothers and sisters:

One thing I like to have but fail to achieve is to maintain regular direct communication with our dear brothers and sister on a regular basis. I have been trying to make phone calls but time limitation prevents me from calling each and every one of you. I hope I can make it in near future. Email is a more effective way of communication allowing me reach to many at the stroke on my finger tips. I know it is impersonal. Yet, I still cannot do it on a more regular basis. However, you are in my prayers.

Our congregation is undergoing a quiet transformation. We have seen many newcomers in recent months. I like to take this opportunity to welcome those who are new.  We also have new babies. Another baby is on the way and expected to come in July.

We are planning a congregational camping trip to Bishop during the Labor day weekend (8/31-9/3), please mark on your calendar. I think it is going to be lots of fun and a good chance for all of us to get more acquainted to each others.

On coming Sunday (6/10), the speaker is Rev. Grant Chen (陳宗清牧師). He was the pastor at nearby Ling-Liang Church (Bread of Life Church) several years ago. He currently is leading Blessing Foundation (恩福基金會) and also teaching in some seminaries. Please come to worship with us and prepare to receive the blessing from above.

Peter