by Pastor Victor Chen

A few months ago, I shared about a recommended book the church was giving away. Here are some quotes from church members who were blessed by the book:

“… In terms of us desiring to have intentional relationships that encourage Christlikeness, this book certainly gives a GENTLY convicting and inspiring look at the heart of Christ, which is what we desire …”

“I’ve gained insights into Jesus and his character and nature. Amazing how some works strike a certain chord. It’s nothing new in terms of head knowledge, but it’s been fresh and has offered a different perspective.”

“… the verse has long been familiar. What has been new to me in reading Dane Ortlund's Gentle and Lowly has been the fact that these are not simply characteristics of Jesus, they are his essence. He is gentle, meek, lowly in spirit, humble in heart. He wants to share this essence with you and me.

Come to me. I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you.

I am an avid reader, and lately the books I've been reading are about people overcoming great obstacles, prevailing in victory, enduring great hardships. Some have claimed to do this on their own strength, some have cited God's help. This book has helped me see more clearly the nature of who Jesus is and how he can meet us in our time of deepest need. It is not just something he decides to do, it's his very nature.”

“‘Gentle and Lowly’ is a book not for the faint of heart or the “me” oriented Christian. It has too much depth. Dane Ortlund took me on a unique love journey that pointed to the heart of Jesus in a fresh and timeless way. I found myself savoring, enjoying and allowing the richness of Jesus’ heart penetrate mine. Through the wisdom of the Puritans, the author brings, “glimpses of a divine kindness too great to be boxed in by what we deserve”. If you desire to have “flesh” put on Jesus, this book will take you there.”

For a free copy of “Gentle and Lowly”, please contact me at vchen@evergreensgv.org.

by Pastor Victor Chen

Just about a year ago, I started a blog series, “What are my Children Supposed to Do During Sunday Service?” Children had grown accustomed to school, Sunday school and church on the screen. As a result, focus and attention became challenges as children began returning to services in-person.

Early on, we tried having pastors give a “keyword” for children to track in the message and keep them engaged. This served as a “teaser” for the sermon in hopes of building anticipation. (Remember how children tracked how many times the “keyword” was mentioned?)

We started developing our own “Children’s Bulletins” to match with the specific sermon that Sunday, including the passage, title and series theme. Activities like mazes, word searches and coloring sheets were provided to help children engage with the passage.

We also developed a “Church Notebook” with blank sermon notes for our older children 3rd-6th grade to note the key points of the sermon and the key idea or question.

All of that has led to the launch of a “Children’s Worship Service” every 4th Sunday of the month beginning in January for children 0-6th grade.

But I like having the children join us for worship service.

And they will, for the beginning portion of the service. Following the opening two songs and the scripture reading, children will be excused to the back of the sanctuary, where they will be escorted to the MPR for the “Children’s Worship Service”.

Why is the service for older children? They can stay quiet and sit still in service.

The aim of the “Children’s Worship Service” is not to keep our children quiet and sit still in service. The aim of the service and the aim of children in any worship service, is to get them to listen. We see in the Bible that “faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ” (Romans 10:17). We have a great opportunity to train our older children to listen attentively, take notes and engage with the message and God’s Word as it relates to their life.

How do you expect to keep a toddler and a 6th grader engaged from the same message?

My message will have the same title, be from the same passage, have the same keyword and the same key points as the big Lord’s Day service. My expectation for the young children is for them to be able to identify the keyword. The older the children, the more they will be expected to track with the message. Following my message, there will be age-specific breakout groups with age-specific activities ranging from coloring sheets to small group discussion to help the children engage with the message from God’s Word in their particular context.

It’s only once a month? I need it every week!

Because a service like this requires a lot of volunteers, we will begin offering the service once a month. As more volunteers commit to helping, we can expand to twice a month, 3x a month to eventually every week. The hope is that we would have enough volunteers to form a rotation where everybody volunteers once a month.

For more information about our upcoming Children’s Worship Service or how you can help, please contact Pastor Victor at vchen@evergreensgv.org

by Pastor Victor Chen

During the Christmas season, much has been made about putting “Christ” back into “Christmas”. We make it a priority to actually remember the Lord rather than gifts, lights or fancy decorations.

However, we need to make it just as much a priority to remember the Lord during Thanksgiving. 

This time of the year has been overtaken with sales and deals (Black Friday comes early and isn’t even on Friday?) Thanksgiving can be more about family gatherings, food and being grateful in general (to whom it is not clear). 

But the whole purpose of the Thanksgiving holiday was to give thanks to the Lord. 

And though the community gathering of Pilgrims and Native Americans to give thanks to the Lord is not found in the Bible, the practice and exhortation to “give thanks to the Lord” is.

So just as we make it a point to say, “Merry Christmas” instead of “Happy Holidays”, let’s remember to reference “the Lord” when we give thanks. 

Instead of saying, “I’m thankful for …”, let’s say, “I’m thankful to the Lord for …”

Instead of saying, “Be thankful”, let’s say, “Be thankful to the Lord”.

Instead of saying, “Give thanks”, let’s say, “Give thanks to the Lord”.

We make it a point to remember all that we should be thankful for. Let’s just remember who the source of all blessings is and who we should be thankful to (lest we end up thanking ourselves!). 

For just as much as the Christmas season is an opportunity to point others to Christ, the Thanksgiving holiday is an opportunity to point others to the Lord. 

Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good. 

He is good indeed.

Oh give thanks to the LORD, for he is good;

for his steadfast love endures forever! -Psalm 118:1 (ESV)

by Arman

It’s good to be back home! I have a little bit of jet-lag and there is fresh snow outside (definitely not L.A. weather). I don’t have the luxury of resting much – too busy with my church, publishing company and American football team but I am very grateful for a short season I got to spend in Cali, where I could rest so well.

I’d like to share with you just one most amazing thing that happened upon my arrival. It has to do with my football team. As you know I played for the Almaty Horde before coming to L.A. Our coach is a big and tough Kazakh guy, who absolutely loves American football. I’d say it’s his main idol. He’s ready to give it all on the field, he’d be happy to practice or watch football any time of day or night and he dreams about visiting the U.S. At the same time, he has big anger issues, gets easily provoked, and has a long track record of starting fights and beating players. He even tried to fight me back when I just joined the team in 2020 during one of our practices. I think it’s been his way of reaffirming his leadership. If it were not for the sake of making Christ’s name known, I’d never had chosen to play under (or work or follow) such a leader.

It took some time, but by God’s grace by the end of 2020 I gained respect and trust from my coach and the whole team. But bursts of anger and aggression continued although more rarely than before. As I was finishing my coaching internship in the US, I started questioning whether I’d be able to co-lead the team with our current coach. Reading our team chat, it looked like the team was falling apart. We had only 12 players for our finals in mid-October (our guys still played like lions and lost 24-6 against the team that had 25 guys). Then for the last game in September, we only had 8 players which meant they couldn’t even play the full game. On the average, 5-7 guys showed up for practices, and some practices had to be canceled altogether because just a couple of people showed up. I was watching all this happen from the other side of the world but every time I talked to the coach on the phone, he kept saying that everything was great. He blamed the players for being irresponsible and for the lack of discipline but was blind to the true reasons of the situation.

After much prayer and seeking counsel from various people (including Pastor Rocky), I decided I was going to confront our coach after I returned to Kazakhstan and if he was not to listen to my counsel, then I would start a new team. I talked to my little brother Aslan who plays as our lineman, and he confirmed my guess that the team spirit was very low, and he was considering quitting too.

This week our coach and I met to talk. I was confident that his response would be bad, and that there was absolutely nothing in my own strength to convince him for a need to change and allow me to start the reformation as a new coach. At first, he was very defensive. Somehow, he convinced himself that things were fine and that all we needed to do was to recruit a few new players. For all of the issues I brought up he had an excuse. The conversation was getting more heated, and I ran out of words and was ready to give up and tell him that I was leaving. But after a moment of silence he asked, “What do you think is the problem?” And that led to an hour-long conversation of me trying to speak the truth in love. It seems that these couple of points made him think hard:

1. That the coach’s job is somewhat similar to a pastor’s job. Would he describe himself as a good shepherd?

2. That God doesn’t care about his football accomplishments, but He hates the sin of unrighteous anger and violence against people He entrusts him to coach.

3. That anger hurts people around him – not only on the team, but also in his family and at work.

Time after time I reaffirmed him in that the only reason I told him these tough things was my love for him and for our team. And by God’s grace when I finally asked him what he thought about me taking over the responsibilities of the head coach [without actually having the title] he answered, “What would you like me to do – just play or help you as an assistant coach?” – I couldn’t believe my ears! I told him that I needed him as a coach and not just a player with all his experience and knowledge of all the technical aspects of the game. 

My non-believing brother was shocked upon hearing what happened. Right before my meeting he asked me whether I was praying about it. Now I could tell him how God answered the prayer! At our elders’ meeting at church yesterday I told the brothers that I firmly believe now that God has His children on our team and that’s the only reason He wanted me to stay there and continue my ministry.

Please pray for the following:

1. God’s wisdom in how I lead the team. I think I kind of know what I need to do but without God’s wisdom I am doomed to fail. It looks like we’ll have 16 guys at our Saturday practice, and it will be my first time being there as a coach and not a player.

2. God’s continued blessing on my relationship with our coach and the whole team. It will be an interesting dynamic because our core group of players have played the game much longer than me. Pray especially that I’d have no fear of man as a new coach (and not pretend I know everything just because I spent a few months with an American team) but would display humility and show God’s love and care to everyone.

3. God’s glory and His name to be known by all my teammates!

by Danny Qian

After returning to the U.S. from my tour of duty during Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF), I was processing and dealing with so much from my time in combat that I didn’t know what to say or how to react even to a simple acknowledgment of my time in service from any civilians (whether family, friends, co-workers, or people I had just met). Even a simple, “Thank you for your service”, from them would cause me to experience a deep sense of anxiety as I would break eye contact and become awkwardly silent. I constantly thought to myself, “What is wrong with me?” I realized that I didn’t want to reflect on that time in my life or want people to even know that I was a veteran and fought in OIF. Maybe it was my feeling of guilt, that many of my brothers and sisters in arms did not make it back alive or with all their limbs, but I did. Maybe there were other trauma related issues with the things I witnessed and experienced that was going on in my head and psyche that needed to be processed and dealt with. One thing I do know is that the millions of war veterans in the U.S. departed their home one way and returned very different, if not completely changed. 

I am still trying to understand and process my post-OIF, often enigmatic and sometimes unsettling thoughts, feelings and behaviors. By the grace of God and his providence, I accepted Jesus during my time in Iraq. By the grace of God and through His amazing power of healing, I am so much better now when compared to how I was the first year or two of returning to the U.S. from Iraq. However, many of my brothers and sisters in arms never recovered as much as I have. I have personally witnessed and heard from others the countless stories of severe depression, drug and alcohol abuse, inability to get or hold any jobs due to psychological issues and acts of taking one’s own life. One Marine who took his own life was from my platoon and served with me for many years. I believe that just as the curse of sin has caused our body to be susceptible to disease and death, sin also caused our minds to be susceptible to psychological and mental damage. Mental health struggles can become debilitating without the proper treatments. 

Families are also impacted by a veteran’s time in service. During my time away, my parents and then girlfriend (now my wife) were constantly anxious about my well being to the point that my mom went to the ER because her elevated level of stress during that period caused certain physiological issues. There were definitely many uneasy telephone calls with loved ones before I had to depart the base for a long mission. Although I returned from my missions every time I stepped outside the wires, I could imagine those visits where an officer notifies the parents of their deceased son or daughter, or the wife or husband of the deceased spouse, and how earth shattering and painful that must feel for all the loved ones. 

I think during this Veterans Day, we really need to pray for the veterans who are dealing with mental health issues, struggling to return to the civilian world, or simply attempting to transition their way of life after years of acquiring and utilizing a skill set that just doesn’t transfer over to the civilian marketplace (i.e. an artilleryman or sniper in the military). Also, I would encourage everyone to pray for the families of the veterans who are in constant worry and left to manage life in the absence of their veteran during a tour of duty or time away. May God’s blessings cover our great nation and the Spirit guide our leaders to bring honor and glory to our Lord.