L.A. church plant preview services

Here is an update from Angie Tabin on progress of the GCI church that she and her husband Saddie are planting in Los Angeles, California.

We have now held three “preview services” to give the people we have been contacting a feel for our new church, which is reaching out to Filipinos in and around the Eagle Rock section of Los Angeles.

We’ve been holding preview services every other week at the American Legion Hall in Eagle Rock. About 100 people (including 10 children) attended the first service with the numbers less than that at the next two as those attending from nearby GCI congregations that are helping us launch returned to their home services. Several of the new attenders have urged us to begin weekly services—we plan to begin doing so in late October.

It is evident that those attending these services experienced God’s presence through songs, fellowship and food. One new contact received Christ as Savior when one of our core team members shared Christ during the refreshment period. Another contact gave a testimony, calling on the audience to support us in what we are doing. We had met her during a time of great trial, having just lost both her husband and sister. She was quite depressed. So we prayed with her and read Scripture. Now she is passionate about sharing Christ with others. She even told us that she wants to be a pastor some day! Another new contact commented: “I would like to support you. I will give my tithe here; even more than my tenth, for I was encouraged and inspired.”

In the preview services we have given sermons on various topics related to faith in Christ and the mission, vision and core values of our new church. We have named it Grace Communion Fellowship. Though our mission has been focused on reaching Filipinos, it looks like we’ll need to amend it—the new people attending have been a mixture of ethnicities and races.

We have made these contacts by various means, including distributing fliers and bottled water, but most new contacts have come through meeting people one-on-one since moving here from the Philippines. We are facing many challenges, but we are thankful to God that he is the “owner” of this new church—he is the Master Church Planter. Please pray that God provides us with more core team members from our new contacts. Up to this point, we’ve been borrowing team members from GCI’s New Hope and New Life churches located nearby. We are grateful for their support during this launch period. We also are grateful for the support given by the GCI district church planting network formed here in Southern California. They have been giving us essential financial, spiritual and logistical support.

As to our future plans, we will seek to follow where God leads. Our strategy has been to meet Filipinos first. However, since many of them are in biracial marriages, we are connecting with multiple races. And so we seek to help them all know that they are included, accepted and loved.

As soon as our congregation is stable and God provides a pastoral leader to care for this new flock, we plan to move to another place to plant another church. However, that move is probably a year or more away. First we need to get this church up and running and equipped with a “DNA” for joining Jesus in his missional work. I told the audience in one of our preview services that we are not here to be “saved, seated and satisfied,” but to share the blessings by knowing God and making him known. Our unchurched neighbors are our brothers and sisters in the Lord, so may we all be bold in sharing Jesus with them.

We are truly excited to witness what the Lord is doing in the lives of these people. Isn’t it amazing that we can join in this most important work there is—making Jesus known. He is our All in All!

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For additional photographs from these preview services on FaceBook, go to https://www.facebook.com/groups/Socal.GCI/. For an earlier update about the Tabins, click here.