This update is from Eric Shaw, pastor of Community Life Fellowship (CLF), the GCI congregation in Altadena, California. CLF recently merged with New Hope Christian Fellowship, one of GCI’s congregations in nearby Los Angeles. This update tells the story.
As a congregation, we were experiencing the decline of our resources. We had not been able to draw new people and it became evident that our reserves would be depleted in a couple of years and our members would disperse or we would need to reconfigure into a small-group format.
As we considered our options, we began holding discussion forums after our worship service about once each month. We shared meals together and searched for ideas and vision. As we did so, it became clear that our best option was to merge with New Hope Christian Fellowship, a nearby GCI congregation, and place our remaining cash reserves in the GCI Southwest District church planting fund.
Although merging with another GCI congregation is not often an option for other GCI congregations in similar circumstances, we learned that open communication is vital. Even though people may not say much, it gives them time to process their thoughts and go through the grieving process that typically comes when a congregation faces closing. Indeed, the closing of a congregation is typically experienced as a great loss by those remaining to the end. However, we came to see ours as an opportunity to further our experience and maturity as disciples of Jesus and to leave a legacy toward our denomination’s future.
As we discussed these matters, we realized that our ministry is not over just because the doors of our congregation shut. We believed that God will open new doors. We focused on this concept at our final worship service, where we watched the movie, The Road to Emmaus. The movie emphasized the vital lesson that as long as we have Jesus, we have everything.
We also learned that it is important that communication continue following the closing. I still write my monthly letter to stay in touch with our members. We plan to continue to have gatherings (“reunions”) on a somewhat regular basis. We were a family and we don’t want to lose that. Many who had left before the closing still want to stay in touch and get together.
With the moving of our financial reserves to the GCI Southwest Districts church planting fund (which is coordinated by the GCI pastors pictured above), we are already able to provide support for the Filipino missionary couple planting a church in the Eagle Rock area of Los Angeles. We hope to see another new church develop soon. My hope and prayer is that this fund will not be depleted as we continuously replenish it through appropriate fundraising so that when God calls someone to our district vision for church planting, we will be able to offer them our support. By investing in this new opportunity, our congregation and its legacy live on and continue to impact the lives of others.
Rather than looking at the close of our congregation as a death, we look upon it as giving birth to new life. And rather than looking at it as failure, we see it as completion of an important aspect of the mission that God had, and continues to have, for us. Indeed, the journey is not over. The book is not completed. We have merely finished one chapter and now it’s time to begin another.
Congratulations on a job well done during this transition. A number of congregations like ours locally are facing an eventual decision about whether/how to proceed. Your thoughts are good input to consider. Glad you are continuing with ministry vision, Eric, but are you really retiring?? Your Friends in the Bay Area
Having had many discussions about this topic over the last year, I find it so encouraging the way this has worked out. Thanks for the example that you and your church have set for the rest of us. This is not a setback, but aa you say, the beginning of another chapter. God bless!