Senior Pastor
Don Ng
Footprints for Christ
We all wonder at times if anyone would miss us. If we stayed home on a Sunday morning, would anyone miss us at church? As a pastor, I wonder if anyone will show up when we open up the church front doors for worship on Sundays.
As the Body of Christ, we are the hands and feet of Christ in the world. Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 12:12-13, “For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and we were made to drink of one Spirit.” As the Body of Christ, we show up physically in the world and take up the space around us. Some would say that we breathe up all the oxygen. When the Body of Christ and all of its many members are actively at work in the world, we undoubtedly leave footprints in the name of Christ Jesus. When we leave footprints for Christ, the world sees that we showed up. You won’t be able to miss us!
We left many footprints for Christ in 2009!
Fellowship Footprints
In everything we did, we practiced Christian fellowship. On April 25th, the All-Church “Live in Harmony” music event drew many together for a second year. Many individuals and groups shared their musical gifts from our variety of traditions to celebrate our unity as one body in Christ. We can easily see how blessed we are when we are living examples of how all members of God’s people are living in harmony. On August 23rd, the entire church family joined together for another Annual Church Outdoor Worship and Picnic in Sunnyvale. The casual settings allowed us to meet and become better acquainted with one another over delicious and bountiful food prepared by our church friends. When we are in Christian fellowship with each other is when we begin to see the Body of Christ leaving behind real footprints that really count.
Mission Footprints
As ones who have been tremendously blessed by missions since 1880, we have the capabilities to engage in missions today. For over three years, the Lanna Coffee Project has invested in village economic development by importing coffee from northern Thailand. Every bag of coffee that we sell provides income for the village farmers. But we know that prostitution is a very serious problem in Thailand. There are women who need shelter and job training. There are HIV-infected children and others with AIDS who need a place to stay in order to complete their education. The Lanna Coffee Project not only helps village farmers, but also offers girls and young women an alternative to working as domestics in cities that have become hubs for human trafficking. Every bag of coffee we sell donates 50 cents to the New Life Center and 50 cents to the House of Love. From this unique mission project, we are making a difference in the lives of people in northern Thailand and in turn, we have become more aware of the kind of footprint that we can leave for missions.
Sponsored by the Missions Committee, our very first One-Day Missions Conference was held on Oct. 11th with American Baptist Missionary Rev. Lauran Bethell sharing from the pulpit about how we can be involved around the world through the hands and feet of our commissioned missionaries. At the Missions Faire, there were many displays of the different ways that our church has been involved in missions.
One of the highlights of 2009 was the commissioning of six church members who participated in a two-week-long mission project in northern Thailand. They joined a team sponsored by ABC International Ministries to bring fresh water from the hilltops to the villages. This was a very physical endeavor. They also led songs, played games, and shared their Christian stories with all those whom they met. Not only did they leave physical footprints on the hills of the hill tribes in northern Thailand, but they came home with lifelong footprints imprinted on their hearts to testify to the importance of doing missions firsthand.
Unshaken Footprints
When we read our Sunday San Francisco Chronicle on April 6th, we were all surprised to see that Cityscape columnist John King featured our church building. For the sake of remembering our past, the article talked about the clinker bricks that grace our walls: ‘Clinker bricks’—and a craggy treat. Amid Chinatown’s theatrical pagodas stands a robust surprise: the First Chinese Baptist Church. With roots on the site dating to 1880, the congregation steered clear of Asiatic flourishes when it rebuilt after the 1906 earthquake, instead constructing a plain fortress of brick. If the walls were straightforward and smooth, the result would be as dull as a too-long sermon. No chance. Instead, they’re studded with “clinker bricks” – gnarled chunks of masonry that give the structure a medieval air, creating an earthy counterpart to the colorful show elsewhere in the neighborhood.
First Chinese Baptist Church 15 Waverly Place | Architect: G.E. Burlingame | Style: Post-earthquake | Size: 3 stories | Date built: 1908 Cityscape is a weekly look at a building or place that makes San Francisco distinct. To see the actual article and view the pictures, go to our church website and click on the SF Chronicle link.
The year 2009 will be remembered more for its economic troubles than any good news. But every time I see our church building, I am reminded of how, even in the tragedy of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire, our church continued to be a witness in the world. The clinker bricks that we often take for granted are constantly reminding us that we may all be shaken up for a moment, but even from such travesty there is rebirth and hope. Columnist John King may have noticed how interesting our building looks in comparison with all the pagoda-roofed buildings in Chinatown. But when we see these clinker bricks, we see that in God nothing will shake us from leaving more footprints all over Chinatown in the name of Jesus Christ!
Staff Footprints
The Church Staff is deeply appreciative of your confidence in and support of them to do ministry at FCBC. Your prayers and trust in them have produced effective and faithful ministries. Together as the one Body of Christ, all of us have served as the hands and feet of Christ in 2009. At the beginning of the year, Pastor Peter Lee began his ministry with us as the Pastor of Chinese-speaking Ministries with his official installation service on March 1st. In recognition of our Community Outreach staff Jane Lam’s call to ministry, we granted her a license to preach on April 26th. In the fall, Pastor Chris Otani went on a much-deserved three-month sabbatical of renewal and continuing education. In September, we welcomed ABSW Middler Ashang Lolly as our Minister-in-Training as he fulfills his Master of Divinity degree requirements. And on December 31st, we bid farewell and Godspeed to Pastor Lauren Ng who has served for the past 5½ years as our Assistant Pastor with responsibilities for the 9:10 English Worship Service, young families, mothers support groups, and young adults. We pray that Pastor Lauren’s plan to become a full–time mother for her two daughters will be wonderful and that God will continue to bless her and her family in the years to come.
We thank God also for the faithful work of Nancy Guan, our Night School Coordinator who serves as our evening ambassador to the City College classes; Marian Hom, our Bookkeeper who excellently maintains our financial records; and finally and definitely not least, Wendy Lin, our Church Administrator who effectively oversees all of the operations of our church building and the church office. We thank God for the good health and vitality of our Pastor Emeritus Dr. James Chuck who is always willing to assist in pastoral work when we need him. We can confidently say that our church staff, in collaboration with you, our church members, have left countless footprints all over God’s world in 2009!
The annual reports contained in this booklet will show us that every time we opened the front doors of our church, the Body of Christ showed up. If for whatever reason you did not show up or we missed you in 2009, we hope and pray that you might show up in 2010. While we may very well have left countless footprints for Christ last year, there are still many places and situations where God needs your footprint today. May we continue to be the one Body of Christ with its many members baptized by the Holy Spirit!