Our Lord Jesus Christ proclaims in Matthew 16:18, “I will build my church, and the gates of hell  shall not prevail against it.”

It is extremely exciting and encouraging to see how our Lord is building His church at Evergreen! He gives us specific commands for our church in Matthew 28:19, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.” This is why discipleship is the central theme of our church. We define discipleship as, “Intentional relationships that build Christ-likeness”.

The early church provided us with essentials for discipleship in Acts 2:42, “And they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.” Just like a building requires concrete, steel, wood, and glass, there are critical essentials that are required for discipleship. The four essentials are 1) God’s Word 2) Fellowship 3) Commitment 4) Prayer

Many of us can agree, that we are encouraged when God’s Word is faithfully preached at our church.  Also, we appreciate the opportunity to partake in communion to express our commitment to our Lord Jesus Christ. Finally, we believe that prayer is a necessity in our relationship with God. But, what about fellowship? If fellowship is a high priority to you, praise God!

However, if it is not, I want you to examine your heart and honestly answer the following questions:

·       On the Lord’s Day, are you planning to just attend service and leave right after?

·       Have you been consistently attending our monthly Fellowship Sundays?

·       Are you intentional throughout the week by fellowshipping with other Christians?

·       Do you have 2 or 3 close Christian friends at Evergreen Church?

Of the four critical essentials, I am afraid fellowship may not be a priority for some of us. So, lets dive deeper into the topic of fellowship by asking three questions.

1.     What is fellowship?

Koinonia is a Greek word that appears 20 times in the Bible. Koinonia’s primary meaning is “fellowship, sharing in common, communion.” In our society today, you can find all kinds of fellowship. It is sad to say, but you can argue that the world has a better understanding of fellowship than the church does. You can have fellowship around your career, ethnicity, life stage, sports, or even being fans of the music band BTS. So, what is it that unites believers? The answer is Jesus!

Here at Evergreen Church, we define Christian fellowship as “Intentional Christ centered relationships”. Not just hanging out with friends and co-workers, but intentional Christ centered relationships. This idea of fellowship is a reflection to the unity of the Trinity.  In John 17:22-23, Jesus is speaking to the Father.

“The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me.”

Our fellowship with others begins with our fellowship with God. This unity in Christ is what brings people together. Regardless if you are a Bruin or Trojan, regardless of age, background, race or social status. 

2.     Why is Fellowship important?

1 Thessalonians 5:11 tells us, “Therefore encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing.” It involves a shared life, a common purpose, a unified goal. The Bible often talks about how believers are to relate to each other. In fact, the phrase “one another” is found approximately 100 times in the New Testament and it is impossible to have a “one another” relationship without fellowship. Fellowship is required for discipleship to happen!

We are given many commands concerning how we are to treat the body of Christ. As 1 Corinthians 12:27 says, “Now you are Christ’s body and individually members of it”. The fellowship within the church is critical for us to build Christ-likeness.

Fellowship allows the following to happen: building one another up (Romans 14:19 and Hebrews 10:24-25), confessing sin and praying for one another (James 5:16), serving one another (Galatians 5:13), being devoted to one another (Acts 2:42-43 and Romans 12:10), encouraging and admonishing one another (Colossians 3:12-17).

Ultimately, fellowship glorifies God and allows the world to see the super natural love that we have for one another!  Christ tell us in John 13:34-35, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

3.     How can you get connected into fellowship?

I strongly encourage you to visit the Welcome Desk in the lobby or fill out a connection card on our webpage.  Also, every 2nd Sunday of every month, we have a Connect Luncheon where you will have the opportunity to meet our pastors and church members. If you are interested, please contact me, Mako, directly HERE.

Listed below is variety of ways to get connected with fellowship at Evergreen Church:

·       Life Groups (over 20 small groups throughout the SGV)

·       Youth Group

·       College Group

·       Young Adults

·       55+ Ministry (fellowship for people 55 and older)

·       Mom’s Ministry

·       Children’s Ministry

·       Women’s Ministry

·       Adult Christian Education (Sunday school from 9-10am)

·       Prayer Ministry

·       Support Ministry

·       Sports Ministry

·       Fellowship Sunday (1st Sunday of every month)

(And We’re Giving It Away!)

By Pastor Victor Chen

Do you ever wonder what church post-COVID-19 should look like?  

What aspects of church would look the same as before? What aspects of church should look different?

The book, “Rediscover Church” by Collin Hansen and Jonathan Leeman, addresses those very issues. Every church has faced challenges in “reopening” and I believe that “reopening” is proving to be more difficult than “shutting down”.  

Perhaps this time now allows churches around the world to rediscover what it truly means to be the “Church”. This book aims to help us discover that.  

This book gets back to the basic core understanding of what a church is and its essential characteristics and practices. The illustrations are timely, speaking specifically about coming out of “stay at home” orders due to COVID-19.

If there is any chapter I would recommend reading, it would be chapter 3, “Do We Really Need to Gather?”. This is a timely chapter addressing many of the questions our church has faced and is facing since reopening.

I’ll close with a challenging quote from this chapter to encourage you to read more in this book:

“Sometimes people like to say that “a church is a people, not a place.” It’s slightly more accurate to say that a church is a people assembled in a place. Regularly assembling or gathering makes a church a church. This doesn’t mean a church stops being a church when the people aren’t gathered, any more than a soccer “team” stops being a team when the members are not playing. The point is, regularly gathering together is necessary for a church to be a church, just like a team has to gather to play in order to be a team.” (pg. 48, Rediscover Church)

Due the generosity of Crossway publishers, our church has received a limited number of the books, “Rediscover Church”, to give away for free. Please contact me at vchen@evergreensgv.org to receive your free copy.

by Pastor Victor Chen

As we enter the new year, it is always helpful to look back and reflect on the significant moments of this past year. For our church reopening this past year, there were many significant milestones to reflect upon.

Reopening Indoors 5/2/21
“Actually, it was my first time worshipping inside with the church family. It was a great blessing to finally worship together in the sanctuary. I saw the importance of corporate worship and Colossians 3:16 lived out. Corporate worship is special. I was so excited that I recorded us praising the Lord together!” -Pastor Mako Seto

“Finally. Thank you Jesus. This was a beginning and a return to a new normal. I prayed this would be an acceptance of a new normal way of life.” -Pastor Kenny Wada

Reopening In-person Youth Group April 2021

“There was an excitement of students and staff seeing each other face to face. Singing corporately was a joy. It brought a lot of hope for future youth meetings.” -Pastor Paul Moy

Relaunching In-person Adult Church School (ACE)

"It was a joy to see members of our church pursuing growth in the Lord through ACE. My hope was that all who came would find encouragement in their relationship with God and in their life of faith.” -Pastor Terry Gee

While the Zoom class last year afforded opportunities for some to attend who otherwise would not have been able to, there is definitely a sense of connection and excitement to be back in-person again with a room full of people desiring to learn and grow together. I most appreciate and enjoy seeing multiple little conversations, laughter, or prayer happening between various class members before and after the ACE class (which cannot happen as easily with the limitations of Zoom). -Pastor Dan Christian

Relaunching In-person Church School

"What a blessing it has been to see the students return to Church School in-person. The past three months have been filled with excitement, eagerness and encouragement. Sunday mornings have been filled with excitement as students are so happy to see their friends, while the CS teachers get to greet the students in-person after over a year of Zoom classes! The students and teachers are so eager to learn and teach God’s Word, as well as pray for one another. It has also been a time of mutual encouragement as we worship the Lord together in the MPR and share in small groups in the classroom. We have experienced God’s faithfulness and goodness together, as He cares for Church School at Evergreen." -Terri Wong, Church School Superintendent

"As I reflect back on our reopening, I feel so humbled by His goodness. It is such a joy to interact with the children, watch them play, and hear their sweet voices laughing and singing again! It has been wonderful to reconnect with families and welcome new friends as well! I'm so grateful for our entire Church School team, and for our supportive CS families! As we prepared for reopening, we were excited and hopeful. But many of us also had concerns as we navigated uncharted waters in an ongoing pandemic. Through it all, God has shown so much mercy, and continues to prove Himself loving and faithful beyond measure! It is all truly by His grace!" -Debra Ton, Children’s Ministry Associate

I hope these brief reflections remind us of God’s goodness to our church and help bolster our hope in the Lord as we enter the new year. To God be the Glory!

By Arman

As a follow up to our introduction to guest Arman from Kazakhstan, Arman here shares about his initial impressions about one month into his stay.

What are your initial impressions of Southern California?

I've been here several times before, and can say that colder seasons are a little bit easier for life. I am more cold than heat-resistant :-) Probably because I grew up in a very cold part of Kazakhstan. 

But I love the church and my coaches and the team at Rio Hondo Prep –hot days fade in comparison to all the blessings here.

What are your initial impressions of high school football in Southern California? 

Coming to Rio Hondo Prep feels like being thrown into high school straight out of kindergarten. Everything is so structured and well organized. I am impressed by the discipline and speed of our team. Even though we have much bigger and stronger players in Kazakhstan, we’d be wiped out if we played the Kares team just like our first 2 opponents at the beginning of the season :-)

What are your initial impressions of our church, Evergreen?

By God's grace I feel like I've been a part of the church for a long time. I am very thankful for the warm welcome. You've provided me with your friendship, a place to stay, a car and a ton of great food :-)

I am also very encouraged by the faithful preaching of the word and by God's work in bringing new people to church. May we see dozens of people come to know the Lord this year through the ministry of Evergreen!

What are you most looking forward to for the remainder of your stay?

One of the members is taking me to a college football game – this will be my first big game to watch at the stadium! 

I also started exploring the sport of surfing. It's very challenging but I hope I will be able to try it a few more times while I am here since I won't be able to do it in Kazakhstan.

I'd like to learn about football as much as I can but I feel like I'll be able to only scratch a tip of the iceberg. 

I look forward to making shabu-shabu with Pastor Mako.

I look forward to an undefeated season for the Kares team so that I could claim a little part of their success. lol :-D

I look forward to getting to know the church better and being able to encourage the saints.

How can the church family be praying for you?

We have one Muslim student at Rio Hondo Prep, he and I became good buddies. He says that he wants to understand the Bible but his family doesn't allow him to read it. He is interested in studying it together with me at school. Please pray that we do and that he comes to know the Lord!

Adam recently came to be part of our church and is recently married to our missionary in Japan, Sabrina. Hear from Adam, a missionary himself to Japan, as he shares more about himself.

Please share a little bit of your background and how you came to Evergreen.

I was born and raised in Toronto, Canada. I come from a family of Italian Canadian nominal Catholics. I decided to follow Jesus during my third year at university, becoming involved in student ministry and by extension, missions. I’ve traveled to India and Japan for short-term missionary work, and spent one year in Osaka, Japan (August 2019 – August 2020) for medium-term missionary work. Amid my preparations for my Osaka term, I met Sabrina through an online dating website. As we met in-person and dated in Japan, we decided to meet each other’s families. This brought me to California in September 2020, where I had the privilege to meet Sabrina’s biological family and her spiritual family here at Evergreen.

How has your time at our church been so far? What are you initial impressions of our church?

COVID-19 has definitely made things interesting in my initial engagement at Evergreen. I first started attending Sunday services online. I’ve appreciated the love of Jesus being made explicit during the services, and seeing that incarnated with the people of Evergreen as I’ve been attending in-person.

My initial impression was that Evergreen is big! My home church in Canada is a small percentage of the size of both the congregation and the campus. The size and scope have definitely been a change for me, especially after returning from Japan, where a group of six people every Sunday was a successful turnout.

The few families that Sabrina has invited me into fellowship with have been loving, patient, funny, and encouraging. These families have been intentional in cultivating community with us, not as a duty, but as a natural outflowing of their character and care for us. We’re excited to dive deeper in relationship with them.

What are you most looking forward to in your time at Evergreen?

More than anything, intentional community and the organic discipleship that comes out of that are something that excites me about my time at Evergreen. I’m excited to learn more about the vision of discipleship here, and encouraged to see that vision play itself out within these families of community Sabina and I are engaged in.

How can we pray for you and Sabrina? 

1. Our marriage. We are seeking to cultivate a space where we are living out our identities as family, as missionaries and as disciples. Pray that we prioritize loving God, loving each other and loving others in this.

2. Immigration and citizenship processes that we’re currently involved in. We are seeking to become dual citizens (Canada-USA), and the processes are long. Pray for favour.