EFCCA’s 30th Anniversary: Thanksgiving and Looking Ahead

EFCCA’s 30th Anniversary: Thanksgiving and Looking Ahead

“Enlarge the place of your tent, stretch your tent curtains wide, do not hold back; lengthen your cords, strengthen your stakes.” (Isaiah 54:2)

Congratulations to EFCCA on reaching the significant milestone of its 30th anniversary.

Thirty years may be brief in the long course of history, but on foreign soil they represent a journey of grace—from nothing to something, and from unfamiliar beginnings to deep roots. From the hardship of pioneering to becoming a spiritual home for many families today, God has written through EFCCA a chapter of faith and mission in New Zealand.

Mission and Church Planting: A Call to Enlarge the Tent in Faith

The 30th anniversary is not only a celebration; it is also an opportunity to enlarge. Isaiah 54:2 gives us a clear spiritual principle: “Lengthen your cords, strengthen your stakes.”

In mission and church planting, lengthening the cords means courageously leaving our comfort zones and extending the gospel to wider groups within New Zealand’s multicultural society. Strengthening the stakes reminds us to build on solid discipleship, faithful teaching of truth and a community life marked by mutual love.

Over the past thirty years, you have shown perseverance and faithfulness in ministry. May you now pass this love to the next generation, open yourselves to people of different ethnic backgrounds, and truly stretch the curtains of the tent wide.

Walking Together across Generations: Passing On Eternal Values

A church that is to have a future must learn to walk together across generations.

At this 30th anniversary, we see both the accumulation of years and the meeting of older and younger generations.

Intergenerational partnership is not one-way teaching, but mutual complementarity and dialogue.

The calling of the older generation is to pass on the testimony of faith that you maintained through hardship. Your life experience is one of the church’s most precious assets. Give the younger generation room to serve, and welcome their creativity and sensitivity to the times.

The passion of the younger generation is to use your strengths to become a bridge. Express the unchanging truth of the ancient gospel in language modern society can understand, and participate actively in the church’s missionary vision.

Conflict is inevitable when generations walk together, but the cross of Christ is the only true way through conflict. When we lay down self and allow the Lord to reign, we discover that the combination of different generations reveals the church in its fullest form.

Thirty years ago, the Evangelical Formosan Church planted a seed in New Zealand. Today it has become a tree that offers shade to many searching hearts. Yet God’s desire is not only that it provide shade, but that it bear fruit—more abundant and lasting fruit.

May EFCCA in the years ahead maintain a missionary vision and continue seeking possibilities for church planting in cities throughout New Zealand. May it practise genuine intergenerational partnership and become a spiritual family with no generation gap, but with shared resonance. May it uphold the EFC spirit, carrying the DNA of mission, suffering and thanksgiving, and continue to shine for the Lord among the island nations of the South Pacific.

May God personally bless EFCCA, enlarge your territory, strengthen your foundations, and cause the ministries of the next thirty years to bear more fruit that pleases Him.

Lord, we especially give thanks for Pastor Dong. Grant him wisdom and spiritual discernment from above, strength in spirit and health in body as he shepherds the flock, and preserve in him his first love and zeal for You. We also pray for all EFCCA co-workers. Anoint them with the Holy Spirit so that they submit to one another, serve in unity and advance the gospel, making the church not merely a place of gathering but a warm spiritual home filled with the Lord’s love across generations.

Lord, establish all EFCCA’s ministries in this land. On the road of mission and church planting, be their Commander, enlarge their boundaries, spread EFCCA’s testimony throughout Auckland, and make it a blessing to Your kingdom. Amen.

A servant of the Lord, Pastor Shengbin Lin