As you read this “reflection” piece, Mandarin- and Cantonese-speaking brothers and sisters are concluding their respective annual summer conferences. The theme of the Mandarin summer conference this year is "The Inheritance of Mission." For the speaker, we have Pastor Bernie Chung from California, who served at ECC 20 years ago. Over the past two days, Pastor Bernie has preached the Word of God concerning what God has entrusted to our church and our traditions. I believe many brothers and sisters have benefited from his messages.
Before I knew it, I have been serving with the ECC family for more than 20 years. When I first joined the pastoral team, I worked and served with Pastor Bernie daily. I still have fond memories of those days. In recent years, greatly blessed by God, our church has seen fast growth in both church size and number of ministries. Not only have many new members been added to our congregation, a number of new pastoral staff, elders, and deacons have also joined the team over the past decade. With the addition of mature new church members coming from other churches, we have learned new lessons from their experiences. At the same time, as we serve together, we also need to learn God’s heart for ECC so that we can serve and grow together lead by the same vision. Because of this, we need to focus on what God has entrusted to our predecessors and the traditions developed during ECC’s past 50 years so that we can carry on the mission.
The theme of this year’s joint Sunday school series for the Mandarin congregations is also “The Inheritance of Mission.” In this series, Elder Sam Wei, Mrs. Amy Wei, and Brother Larry Liu shared on “the beginning of ECC.” Returned Elder William Ho recalled how our church’s Statement of Faith and the constitutions were chartered. Elders Michael Chan, Rodney Ho, and Patrick Tseng shared about “the development of the church.” Elder Lei Wang shared “the vision and future of the church.” In addition, we also got valuable input from Elder Paul Yeh and Professor MinChiang Wang, who shared "the characteristics of ECC." Both of them have been in Seattle and a part of ECC for more than 10 years. Before joining ECC, they were longtime leaders in other churches in shepherding positions. All current deacons also shared their experiences of service and personal growth at ECC. I hope all this will prompt us to think about the inheritance of our mission and to pray for the future of our church.