Oct 03-04, 2020
From the Pastor’s Desk: Rev. Simon Lee

Church without walls 3: Transform our Church community to a “Community Church”
(「社區教會」：轉化群體深入社區)

Dear brothers and sisters of RCAC,

Our children and young people have gone “Back to School” in September with a lot of fear and anxiety that still lingers. We feel the same as we begin to return to our work place to work. As a Church, we have been very cautious to return to some small group gatherings under our RTC. We are living in strange and uncharted territories. Because of the pandemic, I have encouraged us in the past two months to look at what it means to be a “Church without walls” in three important ways:
1. Transform and buildup the Church with more cell groups
(「化整為零」：轉化教會建立小組)
2. Transform and equip members to be “ambassadors for Christ”
(「基督使者」：轉化信徒人人皆兵)
3. Transform our Church community to a “Community Outreaching Church” (COC)
(「社區教會」：轉化群體深入社區)
Now we would like to focus on the third of these directions: can our Church community become a Community Outreaching Church? What does it mean for us?

RCAC as a Community Outreaching Church within the Alliance family

First of all, unlike some independent communities or community churches, let us remind ourselves that we are a member church in the Canadian Pacific District of the Christian and Missionary Alliance of Canada and established in Richmond, BC since 1967. As a C&MA member Church, we are part of the Global Mission of our denomination with over 200 missionaries on the field. As we were started by Chinese and serving mainly Chinese in our Richmond community, we are also part of a fellowship of over 100 Chinese Alliance Churches in Canada. Starting as a predominantly Chinese immigrant church from Hong Kong, from all over Asia and now also from mainland China, we have taken root in our Canadian community, and going into the third generation. We have also developed into a church with multiple congregations, including English, Chinese and Mandarin (Putonghua). That is our identity as Richmond Chinese Alliance Church and we are proud of it.

We as a church are very thankful also that we are a very tightly knitted community. During the pandemic we are happy to see our many Fellowships and Care Groups are functioning as small caring communities, the members caring for each other. At a time when the five different congregations cannot meet physically in the Church at 10100 No. 1 Rd, many smaller groups are still meeting regularly virtually by Zoom and other means. Indeed this is one good example of the “priesthood of all believers,” with all members serving each other, especially when pastors can no longer do their pastoral work by bringing the congregants together. This is a sign of a healthy church and we praise God for His blessings.

However we should be careful that our Christian community while being close to each other do not become too close that we are closed to others outside our circles. We therefore need to be a church community that outreaches the larger community and be a Community Outreaching Church (COC).

A Biblical Model of a community outreaching church

Before we delve into what we mean by a COC, let’s like at a classic Biblical example in the Christian community in Jerusalem. In Acts 6:1-7, we read of how the growth of the church created problems when a number of Greek-speaking Jews (from the diaspora) became Christians. The primary language of the Hebrews who were native Palestinian Jews was Aramaic. The resulting language barrier led to the neglect of some needy widows, and the apostles called upon the Greek-speaking community to choose leaders (deacons) to meet the need. These 7 people chosen were appointed as deacons of the church to take care of the needs of the young Christians, so that the apostles could devote themselves to prayer and the ministry of the word. These men were people of good repute, full of the Spirit and of wisdom, including Stephen who became the first martyr of the church. Several principles can be gleaned from this incidence:
1. The apostles had to devote themselves to the primary tasks and ministries of the church.
2. At the same time, the need for social concerns in the community should not be neglected.
3. The church should have a special ministry devoted to care for the needy in the community.
4. The best people from the church were chosen to take care of the social concerns needs.
5. There is a need to maintain the unity of the church of people from different background.
6. Because of this, the ministry of the word prosper, and the church grew.
7. Because of this, even the established religious groups “became obedient to the faith.”

The Purpose-Driven Church and its mission

Rick Warren in his best seller “The Purpose Driven Church: Growth Without Compromising Your Message and Mission” (1995) reminds us that our ministry should be based on God’s purpose, as in the Great Commandment (Mt. 22:37-40) and the Great Commission (Mt. 28:19-20). They include worship, fellowship, discipleship, ministry and mission. He also emphasizes that we should focus on building people and not building the church. Indeed our ultimate mission is to build people within and outside the church community. I am thinking more than just organizing more evangelistic campaign. The question is how can a church impact culture, and make a lasting impact on your community.

Example of a Community Outreaching Church

In a challenging article, How Can a Church Impact Culture? by Alan Platt in January 29, 2018. Alan grew his church in Pretoria, South Africa, Doxa Deo, from a meager congregation into a flourishing 30,000 member church across 11 fully integrated campuses. In the simplest of terms, his City Changers Movement works only by making the church an integral and irreplaceable component of society. I personally find his vision and scope very daunting and perhaps way beyond our reach, but the 5 simple concepts he lays out are relevant for us as we try to posture our Church to become a community outreaching church in the future. These concepts are:
1. Changing our mentality. The idea here is not to be scared about the difficult situation within the society, but try to show compassion for their situation and simply love them like Jesus. For example during the current pandemic, there are people who act out in fear, hate and anxiety. Can we show compassion to them instead of shunning them.
2. Developing a strategy. Beyond compassion, we need to plan for greater things to happen. Often we do not see breakthroughs because we are always so cautious that we do not plan. Asa church we need to move out of our comfort zone and start thinking outside the box.
3. Take small steps. We should look for little problems we can solve now and slowly move onto bigger things. This way we gain confidence and become more socially relevant. For example we know the new immigrants have some specific needs, can we try and find out and meet them.
4. Multiplying the impact. Send out the people in your church to serve their communities. We have partnered with other organizations, like making and handing out sandwiches. Recently some members have made masks for the CCM to give out to people who need them.
5. Engage the other side. Continue to look for ways to connect with different sectors of society, including business, sports, education, social services and other, to reach out to people where they are. That’s how we can make Christianity into more than religion—it will be a movement.

All these begin with mindset shifts of the pastors and leaders of the church, certainly a big challenge for myself. The author lists three shifts for leaders to consider, as follows:
1. Transforming vs. Informing. We need to preach and teach our people to confront the issues of the day, and transform the members into real agents for change in their communities.
2. Incarnation vs. Dualism. We need to change the dualistic mindset of good vs evil, the church vs the world. We need to believe in the power of the Spirit and Christ’s love in bringing change.
3. Missional vs. Attractional. The success of a church is not in the total number of worshippers, but how the church is serving the needs of people in the community around us.

I know we are a long way from this ideal, but let’s strive towards it, one step at a time.

Your servant in Christ,
Rev. Simon Lee, Senior Pastor