L.A. church plant

This update is from district pastor Heber Ticas who is the senior pastor of Comunion De Gracia, the GCI Spanish-speaking congregation in Sun Valley, California. Heber has taken the lead role in planting a new congregation in the Lincoln Heights neighborhood of Los Angeles.

Our Lincoln Heights church plant continues to flourish as we approach our first-year anniversary in October. The Lord continues to amaze us as he opens channels for ministry. Attendance has settled at about 70 attendees. We are getting first- and second-time visitors almost every Sunday. I am encouraged that we have been able to retain and nurture a good number of these visitors. It has been a humbling and learning experience, and I thank the Lord for the awesome team that he has provided for us. Had they not obeyed the Lord’s calling, this would not have been possible.

We continue to do ministry through big-day events as we reach out to the surrounding community. We also focus on small-group ministries. Recently I redirected our evangelistic cell groups into missional small groups. The existing groups were gatherings where neighbors were invited to a Bible study. That approach served its purpose, which was to help gather folks leading up to launching the new church. But now our need is for small groups that more actively reach out to serve and thus connect with the community. And so we are currently piloting two missional small groups with a total attendance of 22 adults, many of whom are capable of leading a missional group of their own.

These missional small groups meet at a home once a month to nurture one another and then they reach out beyond the group: to the church, to the neighborhood and to the city. So far, this approach has worked well, with group members visiting area hospitals to pray for the sick and visiting people just starting to attend church. The groups are now planning projects to serve the city. Early next year we hope to multiply these two missional small groups into five.

So far this year we’ve had two baptism services (see the pictures below–click on them to enlarge). One service occurred at a nearby river where we baptized nine converts: six from our Sun Valley church and three from our new Lincoln Heights church plant.

The second baptism service occurred during a worship service at Lincoln Heights where five converts were baptized: three from Lincoln Heights and two from Sun Valley. Overall, we have baptized 14 new members this year. Lord willing, we will have more baptisms in early December.