Category: Superindendent

By Greg Yee, Superintendent, PacNWC

Last month Director of Next Gen Ministries, Erik Cave, church plant coach, Mark Meredith, Seattle Chinese Covenant pastor, Ian Cheng and I traveled to Taipei, Taiwan to attend the Taiwan Covenant Church’s Fire Conference.  (It’s like a multi-generational CHIC/Unite West) This was a vision/scouting trip in anticipation of Fire Seattle next month September 29 – October 1, which the Taiwan Covenant Church will be leading.

Our time was life-changing. We were inspired by the intense commitment to prayer. Every session started 20 minutes early for prayer, which shaped an anticipation of what God might do.  We were confronted with the Church’s life in the Spirit and were graciously invited to experience our supernatural God.  We had front row seats to what we often read concerning what God is doing in the global church.

Hundreds of people made commitments to Christ.  People experienced healing spiritually, emotionally, and physically.  Worshipping with those 5000 other believers was a unique experience of freedom and joy. 

If the growth of U.S. Christianity continues slowing and China’s churches keep growing, China could soon become the country with the most Christians in the world…In fact, we believe the Church in Africa, Latin America, and Asia could actually save the U.S. church, if American Christians are willing to assume a posture of humility and learn from our brothers and sisters from around the world (Costanzo, E, et al. 2023, May. “As the American Church Shrinks, Global Christianity Can Point the Way Forward”. Christianity Today)

As so many churches in the U.S. struggle, I went to Taiwan eager to learn. I intended to discover answers to many questions.  Instead, I ended up in a Taiwanese emergency room, our last night there.  All week my smart watch had reported atrial fibrillation and a racing heart rate. My wife emphatically urged me to get things checked out before I got on my 14-hour two-legged journey home.

The ER confirmed a-fib and the dangerous heart rate, but cleared me to fly.  Before we left, Ian and I grabbed amazing dumplings at a little shop by the hospital.  It was the best meal of the week, but despite my culinary bliss, reality was drowning me.  My unwelcome diagnosis brought my mortality uncomfortably close.  

As my health issues played out, I knew a lot of people were praying for me.  When we returned to the US I sat with the urgent care doctor in Garden Grove, California. After all the emotional frenzy of my diagnosis barely 48 hours prior, she told me that the a-fib was gone. Why!?!  Mary and multiple doctor friends/family said this wasn’t unusual. Apparently, some people go in and out of a-fib.  I was both disturbed and relieved to hear this.

I don’t know all of the medicine or science about what this 56-year-old body is experiencing.  However, I do know that I’m too quick to trust my eyes and my intellect.  I know that I too often limit God.  I know that I don’t live with enough awareness of the presence and work of the Holy Spirit. 

In spite of that, I found myself in these medical conversations, compelled to exclaim, “…Our God miraculously healed me…!”

I have been healed.  I’m healed from my unbelief.  I’m compelled, in my role as your superintendent, to give this testimony to you.  Mission Friends, believe!  Come Holy Spirit!  Come upon us with your power and heal our unbelief!

Recently I’ve been inspired by the 40-days post-resurrection.  Jesus kept showing himself to his followers.  Just before our Savior gives the Great Commission, we see this crescendo moment with his disciples. When they saw him, they worshiped him. Matthew 28:17a (NLT)

That’s the space where I’ve been this past month.  I’ve seen the Lord and I am worshipping differently. The second half of that verse reveals another part of that scene. but some of them doubted Matthew 28:17 (NLT)

I am praying that you will find opportunities to be confronted with how big and almighty our God is.  I am praying that you make decisions to not stay in doubt but rather believe and be set free.  I am praying that the last words of Jesus open your eyes to what might be missing.  

But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you. And you will be my witnesses, telling people about me everywhere—in Jerusalem, throughout Judea, in Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. Acts 1:8

Mission Friends, let go and ask for the Holy Spirit to fill you with power.  I pray that we all would experience renewal and revival.  Be blessed, Conference Family!

By Jill Riley, Communications Assistant

There was a time when I thought it was a bother, a nuisance. Traveling, meetings, classes, and seminars. All the work that it took to be gone away from my primary responsibilities, family and schedules was bothersome.  So why do it? Why make the effort? This is not a question to be answered just because of our annual “Gather”, happening in California.  This is a question for pastors to answer of themselves, on behalf of the church.

Every week we invite people to leave their over-scheduled lives and join us in worship. We interrupt their weeks with small groups, engage one another in ministry teams and work together in the community. We encourage parishioners to welcome the stranger and be open to the possibility that a relationship could form out of seemingly mid-air.  But what once I considered it an interruption, now I consider it a privilege.

I took 6 years off from meeting together, passing the peace and engaging in beautiful covenant relationships.  After 42 years of being in the church I just quit. The reasons were personal but the result was, predictably, detachment and isolation. While it was a needful time of reflection it was an anxious time of considering what was essential, who was important and, in the pyramid of daily responsibilities, what was foundational.

As I shook out the bag filled with my responsibilities, obligations, and self-care, what plopped out as the biggest, most essential part of the pile was, gathering together with saints, friends and family who loved me, despite my anger and absence.  I had missed it. Not the busyness. Not the chaotic schedule. I missed the easy conversations about faith and life. I missed the encouragement of friends to hold strong in my faith, despite the winds of change whispering around me.  I missed hearing other voices raised in songs that extoled the virtues of my Jesus.  And I missed the still small voices of reassurance, love and acceptance that waft through crowds of people when they follow Jesus.

So many people today feel they can be the Lone spiritual Ranger.  Rugged, independent and solitary. In my opinion, having walked that road,  community sharpens us, makes us stronger, refines our faith and lifts our spirits. Those factors are hard to come by when walking alone.

We are familiar with the writer of Hebrews reminding us to, not “give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching. (Heb.10:25)

Don’t do it.  Don’t give up meeting together.

Meet together. Gather in classes and seminars. Worship in groups. Never take for granted the privilege it is to be together.  Cherish those precious moments.

I was glad when they said unto me, Let us go into the house of the Lord.

Psalm 122:1