40th Anniversary Reflections
Photo by Gaylan Yeung.
On March 2, 2025, First Chinese Baptist Church – Walnut celebrated its 40th Anniversary. The congregation began as church plant of First Chinese Baptist Church – Los Angeles to minister and evangelize the San Gabriel Valley area. Over the last 4 decades, God took our small group of approximately 120 believers and grew it into a church of about 1000 people with vibrant, robust ministries that minister to a variety of people from varying backgrounds and experiences. Many people have entered the gates of our church and found a thriving community of people who love God, His word, His people, and the surrounding community. For many of us, this has become a true spiritual home where we feel our Lord’s presence and His love lived out among us. It is a place where many of us have grown and deepened our faith through the faithful teaching of His word by our Pastors and teachers. Truly, to see us get this far is so encouraging, and we owe it to God for His protection, faithful love, and guidance and pruning of our lives to ready us, not only for this occasion, but also for what He intends for us to do for Him in the future to glorify and make His name known to the surrounding community, the surrounding region and around the globe. With the celebration came an aura of reminiscent wonder over our past and hopeful expectation of how God will use it to empower our future.
The day in general, was one of celebration and joy. As Pastor Albert shared, "It was a festive celebration with many old-timers coming back for the worship service…” and followed by sweet, cozy fellowship over lunch.
The day’s festivities took much time to prepare for. For a little over a year, many ideas and logistical planning, and work went into this day to praise God for His goodness and loving faithfulness. As Maureen pointed out, it was a beautiful, sunny day, and there was a lot to be done from preparing approximately 976 meals to ensuring that all church members involved in executing the celebration were coordinating plans effectively to welcoming special guests and old friends. Praise God, all these moving parts worked smoothly together to give a fruitful day of joy and a realization that God was at work. As Jessica Lee also shared, it was a joy to see the church come together on our 40th church anniversary. There were many unfamiliar faces that made me reflect on how God uses so many individuals to be a part of our church’s story. As much as our current members serve and contribute every Friday and Sunday (and beyond), we wouldn’t have gotten to where we are today, without our past. God has orchestrated our church to be what it is today and I am hopeful to see what else He can do for our future.
Deacon Candidate Paul Hao also said he was very much moved by the Mandarin worship song “I’ll Soar Like an Eagle”, and how he had to give thanks for God’s guidance and grace from the past 40 years. This moved him to reflect and pray for renewal - asking God to shape and refresh his heart and our church for His purposes.
Deacon Candidate Jeff was very much moved by the pure, godly fellowship he witnessed as families were reunited in God’s love and rekindling the joy in knowing we’re all brothers and sisters in Christ. He said, “I can imagine that this is what we will do one day in heaven when we are all with our Lord. We… will all be with God in eternity together, treasuring the greatest relationship that we have with our Lord Jesus.”
For Pastor Hanely, he expressed how it was a joy to celebrate and worship God through our 40th Anniversary service. A feeling of gratitude and thanksgiving filled his heart as he saw former members and leaders and teachers who planted the seed of the gospel in him. He felt very much convicted as Pastor Albert recast our church vision and “challenged us not to grow complacent or satisfied with the current strengths of our church, but to continue to be stretched by God for his kingdom. As we celebrated the birth of our new church plant in Jurupa Valley (FCBCJV), we declared that we will seek God’s guidance and opening for our next church plants in 2027 or 2028.”
As I look upon that day, I cannot help but praise and thank God. He took a small band of brothers and sisters and grew us to a robust and vibrant church. There were many challenges and growing pains to overcome over the years, but through His guidance, we were able to navigate those rough times and come out in greater faith. I have seen how God moved us to invest in the future generations of this church by not just teaching biblical principles but also in walking along side our young men and women to show them God’s love and how they are they will be used by God to carry out the next step in our church’s history. I’m convicted by what Paster Albert shared in his sermon on Philippians 3:12-16. We are celebrating 40 years now, but by no means are we done, and by no means is God done with us yet. We’re here because of God’s consistent moving of our hearts. We’re here because of God’s persistence in helping us grow in faith as individuals and as a church body to inspire us to take small steps of faith to persevere in spreading the gospel. We’re here to be a vibrant church of disciple makers who will look to God daily and over time to be a light to the community. WE ARE NOT DONE YET! THIS IS ONLY THE BEGINNING!
