Bridgeway Church of Silicon Valley

In January of 1985, I joined a new church plant from Berkland Baptist Church (BBC), located between Berkeley and Oakland (thus the name), in the Stanford University area called Palo Alto Berkland Baptist Church (PABBC). After the initial handful of members, it continue to grow into New Community Baptist Church (NCBC) in Mountain View. The original plant changed its course when the senior pastor who was invited in 1990 was a mentor figure to the senior pastor of BBC switching the role of PABBC from being a sister church to a more of an independent church. BBC's vision of reaching to the Silicon Valley younger generation English-speaking members was unaltered and BBC of Silicon Valley was birthed and had been ministering ever since then. I personally know the pastor and his wife from their singles days and not only that, their location is literally down the street from where we live. So, we worshiped at BBC of Silicon Valley on this Sunday.

We had a pleasant service and some sharing with some friends from PABBC days afterwards. Heard their vision for this area and how they plan to change their ministry direction a little going forward.

[Update 1/11/2009] -- The church became an independent entity and now called, Bridgeway Church of Silicon Valley. Same pastor and similar ministry but I had not communicated with them since to know all the details.






Website: www.bridgewaysv.org
Worship Times: 1:30pm
Address: 2490 Middlefield Rd. | Palo Alto, CA

Irvington Presbyterian Church

A friend of ours told us about this church located in Fremont. Before leaving our home, our family prays in the car asking God to make it another Sunday where we can see how God is at work in & around the church we are going to visit. Irvington Presbyterian Church's congregation was predominently elderly caucasians including the pastor who originated from England. However, there was a definite inertia of expanding the boundaries of this church beyond the existing formation.

The worship service was led in a traditional fashion of singing hymns with organist leading the music. A short announcement was made and then a guest preacher who had preached the previous week as well, gave us the message based on Romans 8:28-32. As he had been involved with missions in various parts of the world, he brought many views from the "frontline" experiences. Although we missed the opportunity to hear the message from this church's pastor, the fact that the guest preacher is a son of one of the church members displayed that this church has some roots for sure. A brief bio of the guest preacher: teacher, business executive, missionary, pastor and missions mobilizer. He develops multi-church, multi-agency strategic partnerships that support the church planting movements among indigenous people in Restricted Access Nations (RANs).

One unique aspects of this church's demographics was majority of the members who were there in worship service consisted of elderly caucasians. What's more unique, however, is the fact that they have a Mandarin (Chinese) speaking service in another room. I heard it had started recently and is still in its infant stage. The pastor definitely seems to envision enlarging its territories across multiple cultures. According to Pastor Boyland, they are seeking to start another Asian service as they are poised to look for some people to partner with in this effort.

One of the elders of this church, who happened to be a Chinese sister, approached us after the service to introduce us further into the church's vision and direction. How they see the surround Fremont community had changed over the years and they realized they need to adapt to the changes as well.

The church had invited a youth pastor recently who was a young but energetic Brother still in seminary. My girl attended his group and was intrigued by some of the teachings and awareness she was introduced to during the session. She was asking me about some of the contents she watched (video) re: missionaries working in the third-world countries.

About a couple of weeks later, Pastor Boyland called me to follow up our visit. We had a quite intimate chat briefly and I appreciated his taking the time to follow up with visitors.

Website: www.irvingtonpres.org
Worship Time: 10:30am

Baylight Church Community

It's great to have my family with me on this Sunday as we worshiped at Baylight Church Community located at Mountain View Academy's main auditorium. The "A" signs were placed well for us to find the parking entrance and also the worship location once we entered the school campus. We actually met a friend of ours welcoming at the entrance and so we were filled in on where to send our children when. As it turns out their oldest child is 5 years old and so our children were way older than them. During the adult worship, our chilren praised with us and during the announcement time, they were excused to go to their Sunday School which was a single large class because they did not have many children over 3 years old.

The congregation which filled about 40% of the auditorium was led into a time of worship by the praise band. The praise leader and the band presented a style that you would find from a small band playing at a comfortable and relaxing coffee shop. I learned a new song here which at first started like a slow rap, but the lyrics were quite touching with how the music built up to the chorus. I'm definitely going to learn this song: Sweetly Broken by Jeremy Riddle.

The pastor gave a message based on Genesis 39:1-23 on the topic of Personal Sin focusing the two characters: Joseph and Judah. Joseph kept his integrity even against Potiphar's wife's schemes of seducing him leading him through a string of injustice. However, God's blessings for Joseph remaind with him constantly. 1 Corinthians 10:12-13 talks about we need to stay humble and face the "testing" situations from God because He wants to strengthen us through it and bring us to a higher Spiritual ground.

Question to ponder: How will I relate to sin in my life?

On a different plane, Judah, who had basically gave into multiple temptations and lived a life that reflected pursuit of our flesh's desires was used by God as a line of the Savior. When we see Judah, it should remind of what we do often -- we blow it so many times.... God's message for Judah is clearly articulated in Genesis 49:8-10 which really amazingly displays His grace. When I feel like I've blown it big times already, think of Judah and the grace of God and we must approach Him in humbleness to take part in His great mission on earth.

After the service, we were invited to a farewell luncheon in the fellowship hall for the worship pastor and his wife who had been called by God to relocate to another church out of state to lead the worship/praise ministry there. The program proceeded over delicious Togo's sandwiches where various members share praises and emabarrassing moments of the couple to send them off by pouring out their blessings. The atmosphere was quite family-like for sure and could sense the sadness of separation but anticipation and tahnkfulness to God for what He is going to work through them.

In the following week Pastor Mike emailed me to arrange a time of gathering over coffee and we had a great time sharing our visions and how God is about to do some awesome works in this area and how we're excited about joining Him where He's at work. We departed commiting one another that we would continue to collaborate encouraging one another as long as we are here (Hebrews 3:13).



Website: www.baylightchurch.org
Worship Times: 10:30am

Great Exchange Covenant Church (GrX)

I'm doing another solo Sunday today at this church in Santa Clara. At the moment, GrX is nomadic in their venue while they are waiting on God for a permanent location. Today's worship place was at the Santa Clara Convention Center. In fact, it was in one of the large auditorium where I used to attend for having company-wide meetings in my previous employment. So that made me a bit comfortable finding my way to the location as well as the auditorium. As I was pulling into the parking structure, I noticed two young men standing on the center divider waving their hands to welcome arriving congregation. There was another welcoming wavers at the parking structure's entrance, and then at the second level as well. They not only made me to feel welcomed, but they also made me assured that I was going the right direction (as a first comer).

As I did not have to worry about locating where the children ministry classroom were, I went directly into the main sanctuary. The auditorium for about 500-600 seats were scarcely filled when I arrived there a few minutes early for the first worship service. I understand that more people come for the second service, especially the young singles who are not awaken by the young children before they have to. The range of adult attendance for last 6 months or so (from the stats reported in their newsletter) was 550-620 for the Sunnyvale (or Santa Clara today) location, and about 120 for the San Francisco location. And in September of this year, GrX Fremont will begin to meet for worship service. As the lights were dimmed the praise band led us into some songs from the stage which was set up nicely with some props and differently lighted hues.

Announcements and updates on building project were given before the offering time and then the message on Gathered to Scatter were given by one of the associate pastor which was a continued parts from the series on the book of Genesis. Today's passage is based on the Tower of Babel where when the people began to gather around to build a tower which will put them equal with God. What was the sin of these people? It was because they settled there in Shinar (Valley). God commanded them to multiply and fill the earth, but they disobeyed. So, God scattered them by sending different languages among them and thus this was the birth of nations. Silicon Valley has some similarities with Shinar.

1. Desire to make a name for ourselves (v. 4) -- association with sources of our own efforts.
   
2. Make bricks for stones and tar for mortar (v. 3) -- this process took about a year. Aren't we making our own "bricks" slowly for years also? Question is: with it, will we begin to build our own towers or scatter with them to build something for God?

The church should gather people with the intent to scatter to enhance God's ministry.

After the service, people gathered around the bagel & coffee table and mingled around to greet one another and mothers to feed their young ones, etc. before some of them continued on to share lunch at various restaurants.


Website: www.grx.org
Worship Times: 9:15am & 11:00am

Menlo Park Presbyterian Church

I am sure no one will argue to the fact that this church is one of the pillar churches in the Bay Area for its historical and influential aspect to the Christian community over the years. Adapting to the changing culture, one of their worship service is called "11:05 AM Cafe" which meets in a different venue (@ 700 Santa Cruz Ave.) with a contemporary style of worship. It's located a block away from the main church campus in what looked to be like a commercial warehouse before.The atmosphere is similar to what you would expect to see when you walk into a seminar or a workshop held at a local hotel ballroom. Lots of folding chairs placed in a half-circle archs with a small stage in the center on a platform which is raised about a foot. There are two long tables with coffee (from Pura Vida which is a Christian company in support of helping the coffee farmers sustain their families and protect the environment with every cup you drink), orange juice, and donuts available throughout the service. However, I only saw a couple of people actually go up for refills during the worship time.Just above the stage are three large screens used for multimedia presentations and to project the pre-recorded sermon. One thing which was neat to note was that the middle screen always showed the preacher while the side two screens switch to the "powerpoint" presentation given during the sermon. So, they really did a great job of bringing in the sermon electronically.

The praise team/band led us into a couple of songs and then one of the pastors made some announcements before the offering followed by the sermon. The level of music performance seem more in the professional range. By the way, this venue did not have air conditioning and so when the previous Sunday reached close to 100 degrees, the congregation's patience and endurance was truly tested and joking mentioned that all who attended that service will get T-shirt on their way out. As mentioned above, hearing/watching the sermon was quite flawless; in fact, the message hit home for me as well. The message from Pastor John Ortberg was on the character of Nehemiah with the title, My Favorite Hero.

First he showed the timeline from Moses to Nehemiah:

Moses (1300 BC) <-> David (100 BC) <-> Exile (587 BC) <-> Nehemiah (450 BC)

And then he focused on the topic of "One who is a difference maker."

1. Begins with pain (wholy discontent) -- Neh. 1:4 shows him sat down and wept.
   
2. Prays -- Nehemiah prayed for 4 months before doing anything. This was unlike his personality which was know to be a "race horse." Neh. 2:8 shows God's grace and acknowledgement, and humility. Neh. 2:18 shows casting a vision (involves God's plan). Neh. 2:18 shows people responded in unity.
   
3. Takes action
   
4. Persistent -- About 80% of leadership is about this. Neh. 8:10 shows the celebration of Joy of the Lord becoming our strength.

These bullets obviously do not convey the whole message in any depth, but the message took me through a journey in my mind about wanting to become like Nehemiah who indeed made a clear difference in the desperate situation the Israelites were in.

Another notable item was the bulletin which is 4 pages of letter-sized sheets filled with details about small group and other events. It almost looks like a classified ad at first but as I was reading it one by one, it made me to realize this ministry covers a lot of ground with people from many different stages of life. And from that ponit of view, the contents were more like items at a buffet restaurant with lots of goodies to choose from.

Website: www.mppc.org
Worship Times: 11:05am (for 11:05 Cafe worship service; please check website for other worship services)

Wellspring Covenant Community Church

I am on solo this Sunday because my family's out of town. I had just completed a two-day AYSO soccer coaches clinic up in Moraga and on my way back, I visited this church where I had a few of old friends. About 25 minute drive brought me to this location right off Interstate 580 in San Leandro.

Although not spiritual, I've had two very positive experiences by attending the service here today. One was that when I arrived there about 3 minutes before the worship time, I was just able to walk through the entrance by saying "Hi" to a couple of the greeters, received the bulletin and went into the sanctuary. What's the big deal about this? Well, in my season of mid-40's, I took this as "I must've looked 'hip' enough to fit right into the 20 & 30 something community at WCCC." Ok, so don't anyone burst my bubbles on this point. The other good thing was that I found out about 20 guys come out to play soccer on Tuesday evenings in Pleasanton (which by the way is about 40 some miles from where I live). Since my family's away, I was set to join them on Tuesday evening. That got me excited alright; and especially having just finished the soccer coaches clinic, I was definitely in the soccer mood. Needless to say, I joined them on Tuesday in a semi-heat wave and I had great time playing although suffered some pain the next few days.....

Now I got that out of the way, let me get to the core part.

As I was scoping out a place to sit down, the praise team was finishing up their final tuning up and I recognized from seeing his picture on the website that the praise leader was the pastor of this church. Wow, I have not seen that in some time now so that was quite refreshing. The message was on "Then Who Can Be Saved" based on Mark 10:17-31 challenging the congregation to watch out for outward holiness without inward transformation and not to fall into the trap of "doing" vs. "inheriting" the blessings from God as the young man in the story. As written in Ephesians 2:8-9, we must just praise what was given to us as a gift. Challenge question was: Do I identify with this young man?
Before the message was given, the pastor led the congregation to gather in small groups to pray for each other. I got together with my frined's family and pray ed together before getting back to the large group for continuation of worship service.

Before the message was given, the pastor led the congregation to gather in small groups to pray for each other. I got together with my frined's family and pray ed toI cannot say much about the children ministry since my kids were not with me, but I can tell you that there are lots of children in this church between the age of 3-6 (my guesstimation). When I stepped out of the men's room, I heard a herd of kids yelling and running toward me from the other end of the hallway. Caught me by surprise but it was a great scene to witness because all those children are plugged into a well-grounded church with parents all enthusiastic to form and build a church reaching out to the families in that region of the Bay Area.gether before getting back to the large group for continuation of worship service.

During the fellowship time, some light refreshments were shared while people mingled. Those many kids I had already encountered were definitely taking part in that fellowship hall designed to echo their excited voices. It did make "adult conversations" a little difficult to carry out at a normal voice level, but that really seemed like the strength of this ministry -- the growing children (& parents also I suppose :-).

Website: www.wccc.net
Worship Times: 1:30pm

Grace Community Covenant Church

Some background: In January of 1985, I joined a new church plant located at 701 E. Meadow Dr. in Palo Alto. Around 1998, we had moved to another facility in Mountain View but since we lived near the old church building, we would notice some changes on that premise when drive by almost on daily basis. One day, we noticed the church sign replaced with a cleaner white background with a new logo; and then about 1.5 years later, we noticed a "For Rent" sign in front of this new sign. I was actually sad to see that because I knew the original church, Palo Alto Baptist Church, was dwindling even when we were renting their facilities. After some time, we noticed another new sign go up. It had a web address, so I reviewed their information online to find out that it was a "younger Asia-American generation" ministry. And since, it was within a walking distance from our home, we decided to worship there on this Sunday. A part of me was a bit excited to worship again in the sanctuary of the church we started with a handful of us about 21 years ago.
Upon arrival, we were warmly greeted with several people welcoming us and directing us to the places for our kids, etc. Because we were there a bit earlier, they were still busy setting up the frontline and I could see people were busily moving about to set up for the day of worship. Someone also mentioned that the lead pastor and his wife & family are out of town and thus they were trying to fill in some of their roles. We could feel the sense of excitement in everyone, though, and unity of everyone trying to participate.
We dropped of our kids into a classroom which basically was for all elementary school level kids so for my first one, the level was a bit too young. Based on this, we noticed that the children at this church are under 5th grade level with a handful of youth children. Having said this, my girl and boy had a good session in there, helped out a little with the smaller kids as well which is a good thing because serving is another way of learning about God. The Sunday School was started with a praise time accompanied by CD, and then a lesson based on the Bible story followed by some craft projects.

During the adult worship time, the Sunday School coordinator made an announcement for recruiting Sunday School, called JAM (Jesus and Me), volunteers. She made a very interesting presentation by displaying three numbers: 165, 80, and 2. 165 adults attendance, 80 children in Sunday School, currently only 2 volunteered. It was a self-explanatory conclusion that more from the 165 pool of adults need to help out with the children ministry.

The worship started with a song of praise led by the praise band and then announcement was made. A couple of more praise songs were sung before the message was given; and then a song commitment was sung before we were dismissed.

The guest preacher covered the topic of Kingdom Expansion based on Acts 11:19-30; 13:1-3. The introduction paragraph from his sermon notes covers the synopsis:

Jesus is being lost in a religion bearing His name. People are being lost because they cannot reconcile Jesus' association with Christianity. Christianity has become docile, domesticated, civilized. We have forgotten that there is a kingdom of darkness stealing the hopes and dreams and souls of a humanity without God." --Erwin McManus, The Barbarian Way

Additionally, the preacher gave the following analogy to draw us into his message. When he was boy, he caught a grasshopper and put it inside a glass jar with a cover with holes so it can breathe. He even put some grass in there as food. The grasshopper seemed to hop around fine. But as days went on, it would gradually lose its vitality and eventually withered. Likewise, the church cannot be contained in its "glass jar" because it will lose its vitality.

Final Question: How will you use your life?
The passion of the unwasted life is to joyfully display the supreme excellence of Christ by the way we live. Life is given to use so that we can use it to make much of Christ. Possessions are given to us so that by the way we use them, we can show that they are not our treasure, but Christ is our treausre. Monday is given us so that we will use it in a way that shows money is not treasure, but Christ is our treasure. The great passion of the unwasted life is to magnify Christ. --John Piper, Don't Waste Your Life

Following the service, the congregation gathered in the fellowship hall to share the lunch time together. $5 donation was collected for the lunch which was quite good ... definitely worth the donation! It was very friendly environment for the members to spend the time eating and sharing. We were approached by several people to introduce themselves and wanting to know whether this was our first time visiting the church. We also found out that this was a church plant from Foothill Covenant Church and they had just moved into this facilities January of 2006 after worshiping at Foothill Covenant Church's facility for a while.

This church congregation was primarily composed of Asian-American members with families with younger children.


Website: www.graceconnections.com
Worship Times: 11am