THE FIRST YEAR

By Rev. Dr. David Hartono, Senior Pastor

If you ask, "who is the God that we worship?" I will resoundingly tell you that He is God Almighty who is able to create something out of nothing. We have testified to the truthfulness of that aforementioned statement. As a church looking back on the past year of our spiritual journey together, we have been delighted that God has blessed us so abundantly.

On January 26, 2004, we held our "town hall" meeting at the sanctuary of Cerritos Chinese Christian Church, which were attended by 80+ people to determine our future direction. It was a unanimous decision that a new church should be established – St. Paul Evangelical Community Church (SPECC). The name Saint Paul was chosen, because we look up at him as our patron saint; our role model. We chose the term "evangelical," because our theological conviction is grounded in the evangelical confession of faith. The term "community," denotes the fact that our target is to serve the cities of: Cerritos, Artesia, Bellflower, Norwalk, La Palma, Buena Park, Cypress and beyond. When we were wondering where to worship on Sunday, God provided us with a place on 195th Street. It was here that we worshipped at a sanctuary of Cerritos Chinese Christian Church through the generous help from Rev. Chosen Lee, its senior pastor, and the support of the board of that church.

A few days before the "town hall" meeting, Dr. David Hartono had made an application to form an incorporated not-for-profit religious organization through the law office of Mr. Max Chiang Esq. In less than two weeks, on February 9, 2004, our application to the state of California has been granted. We held our Sunday worship service at 1:30 PM in the sanctuary of Cerritos Chinese Christian Church for the whole month of February 2004. As we want to further expand our ministry from one congregation (an Indonesian congregation) to establish the second congregation, a Chinese Congregation. As we strove for two congregations, we also became convinced that it was necessary to enhance the children ministry that we had established at the first week of February 2004. As a result, we needed to have a larger space to accommodate our ministries.

Since the first week of March 2004, we have held our Sunday worship services as well as children’s, Junior High and High School ministries at Cerritos High School complex. The Chinese congregation meets at a classroom at 9:00AM; the Indonesian congregation meets at the auditorium at 10:30 AM. The Sunday school programs meet at 9:00 AM and 10:30 AM in classrooms. Currently, we have over 20 volunteers to serve the Sunday school program.

Our music department has grown from nothing. At present we have good numbers of people who serve the music ministries in praise teams. SPECC now owns many music instruments and sound systems.

On May 16, 2004, the Indonesian congregation received 18 people – adults and children to become new members of St. Paul Evangelical Community Church through an act of confirmation of faith, adult and children baptism.

On August 20, 2004 Rev. David Van Lant (He was the senior pastor of Bethel Reformed Church in the city of Bellflower, California) accepted our call to become pastor of English congregation, which was officially formed on September 12, 2004, the day it held its first service.

In October 2004, SPECC leased an office space at Artesia Boulevard in the city of Artesia. SPECC also holds its evening Bible School, students’ ministry Bible study, and music practice at this church office.

In December 2004, a customer of one of our church member donated a piano to SPECC.

On January 16, 2005, the Indonesian congregation held its second baptismal service. During the whole year of 2004, we organized congregational picnics, family retreat, special services for Thanksgiving and Christmas.

It is our prayer that God will continue to bless SPECC in years to come. We give all glory to God in the highest.