by Pastor Victor Chen

As we continue to emphasize "discipleship" in our church, I found this recent blog post, "Learn, Love, Live: The Heart of Discipleship", to be particularly helpful and insightful. 

This blog on discipleship centers around Deuteronomy 6:4-9, a critical passage detailing discipleship in the home. Specifically, this passage fleshes out what discipleship looks like throughout the day in our homes.

I appreciated how "love" is highlighted in discipleship here. Our children should not just learn about the Lord and live for Him, but also love Him with all their heart, soul and might.

Note, this blog post comes from "The Gospel Project", the unified curriculum our Church School is currently going through."

by Kay Carey

During the first couple months of the pandemic, I had the opportunity to evaluate and reprioritize what I had been doing. One of the things God impressed upon my heart was to consider stepping down from staff and just serve Him as a lay person as a disciple maker. After seeking some wise counsel and much prayer, I decided to retire at age 63 from a formal staff position.   

As I reflect on my time as a ministry associate at Evergreen SGV, my heart overflows with gratitude for the blessed opportunity to grow in Jesus Christ. I give Him all the glory and honor for the wonderful time serving Him and His people.   

When I was first hired as outreach staff back in November 2006, I was going through a major transitional period of my life after returning from Costa Rica due to health issues - cancer and PPS (Post Polio Syndrome). After going through a season of treatment and healing, God opened a perfect ministry door at church. It really helped me to transition back into life in the U.S. 

I have many fond memories of ministering with many faithful people, promoting God’s great commission to the church family and equipping them to share the Gospel and His love locally, domestically and overseas in the outreach ministries. After seven years, I transitioned to discipleship/mentoring, which has been my passion for most of my Christian life. I am so grateful for all the things I learned from all the pastors and church family. Thank you so much for all your love, prayers and partnership/friendship!   

For those who are interested in knowing what I have been doing since my retirement: My daily activities have not drastically changed since my decision. I continue to disciple and mentor people as God allows and guides. I have been experiencing lots of joy and peace as I get to develop deep and meaningful relationships with family members and friends (old and new) who live near and far. 

“The Lord is faithful. He will establish you and guard you against the evil one.  May the Lord direct your hearts to the love of God and to the steadfastness of Christ.”

2 Thess. 3:3,5

On May 26, 2020, Pastor Victor conducted an interview with Pastor Rocky via Zoom about his first year as Senior Pastor of Evergreen SGV. This is Part 3 of a 4-part blog series based on that interview.

What are you most looking forward to?

In our pastoral meetings earlier [we asked ourselves in regards to the church], “If we’re a factory, what will we be known for?” 

What is Evergreen [SGV] known for? God willing, in the future, I would love for us to look at each other — you ask our kids, our wives or anyone else, even people from outside the church — and I would love everyone to say, “They’re about discipleship.” 

They’re about producing followers of Jesus Christ. What is discipleship? Discipleship is basically twofold. One, is evangelism — we are called to evangelize the lost. Second is to edify the saints — build them up to become more like Christ. It’s a twofold process and I would love for everyone to be able to say with full conviction, full honesty, that Evergreen [SGV] is involved in discipleship, and discipleship is the central theme of the church, period. I would love that. That's what I'm excited about.

And I'm excited [for how the Lord will potentially use the church in] the San Gabriel Valley. This is a gold mine — the people that God has given us, the resources that God has given us, the location that God has given us. When it's time, the Lord will unleash His people who are saturated with God’s Word, [who] love Christ, [are] evangelizing [and] looking to edify the saints that God brings around in their communities, in their homes and their work.

And then [when] we get together [on a Sunday morning], it's a big rally. We come together for ... equipping, encouragement, edification, warning, correction [and] motivation. When we leave, we get back to our mission field and then look at what God is going to do in and through us. I’m excited about that.

One thing I want to say, is that the Bible needs to be absolutely central to everything that we do. 

The Bible needs to be absolutely central to everything that we do at Evergreen [SGV] — from the preaching of it, to the teaching of it, to the counseling of it, to exercising oversight of the church. It’s in the Scriptures and we need to be biblically trained to obey the Lord in it and so that's what I would love. 

I would love for people to be culturally just carrying a Bible in their hands, a physical Bible. Yes, it could be more convenient to have in the phone but I'm actually physically carrying it [because] it’s a reminder for me to have the Bible central.