Planting Churches, Uniting Generations

Preface to the 30th Anniversary Special Publication

EFCCA is thirty years old! May all praise and glory be given to the Triune God. In Chinese culture, thirty is often seen as the age of standing firm. For a church, thirty is also a significant milestone. Our Lord Jesus began His public ministry at about the age of thirty. As we mark this anniversary, we especially give thanks to the Lord for allowing us over the past thirty years to follow in His footsteps, take up the Great Commission He has entrusted to us, and experience His grace, power and faithfulness. We also ask the Lord to remember every pastor, co-worker, brother and sister who has served at EFCCA or supported its growth, and may He store up for them a glorious crown in heaven.

The theme of EFCCA’s 30th anniversary is “Planting Churches, Uniting Generations.” At our 25th anniversary, we published a special edition that gave a broad review of and thanksgiving for the first twenty-five years. Therefore, the 30th anniversary theme is intended mainly to reflect the focus of EFCCA’s ministries over the past five years and the direction of our development for the years ahead. The theme has two closely connected parts: “Planting Churches” and “Uniting Generations.”

Planting Churches

The first part is “Planting Churches.” During EFCCA’s first twenty-five years, our primary focus was evangelism in the local community and disciple-making. Over the past five years, most of our major development has been connected with mission and church planting.

Church planting is part of the vision of the Evangelical Formosan Church General Assembly, but we had little experience in how to put it into practice at EFCCA. Yet carrying out the Great Commission has never depended on experience; it depends on the power of the Holy Spirit. As the Lord Himself promised: “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” (Acts 1:8)

For the brothers and sisters of EFCCA, the past five years of mission and church planting have been a journey of stepping out in faith together. At the 25th anniversary thanksgiving service and the congregational meeting held that same month, we formally affirmed our transition toward becoming a mission-oriented church, with church planting as our mission strategy: to proclaim the gospel and establish churches wherever God leads us, where there is gospel need, and where we are able to serve.

On 12 December 2021, the day of our 25th anniversary celebration, we established an evening worship service. In September 2022, we planted our first branch church in Lautoka, Fiji. In May 2023, we adopted the Fiji Chinese Christian Church and established our second branch church in Suva, Fiji. In February 2024, EFCCA sent a minister and co-workers to support the rebuilding of Abundant Life EFC in South Auckland. In February 2025, we sent more than ten brothers and sisters to establish our third branch church in Browns Bay on Auckland’s North Shore. In the second half of this year, we plan to plant another church in West Auckland and establish a cross-cultural congregation at the mother church.

Today, EFCCA is no longer a church fixed in one location and focused on only one worship service. On the one hand, we are developing multiple branch churches in different locations until they become self-supporting. On the other hand, we are making full use of the facilities at the mother church to establish multiple worship congregations. Mission and church planting will continue to be a long-term direction for EFCCA.

But this raises an important question: who will carry forward mission and church planting ten, twenty or thirty years from now? EFCCA is already thirty years old. Although we have only just entered our prime, without careful preparation we could quickly become an ageing church. At present, the average age of our core leaders, the Session, is fifty-seven, and the average age of church members is around fifty. If we cannot attract more younger people and help them remain in the church, EFCCA may become significantly older within another decade or so.

Uniting Generations

The second part of our 30th anniversary theme is “Uniting Generations.” Its purpose is to remind and encourage every member of EFCCA that the church needs to attract and retain younger people, and intentionally equip them to inherit the vision for mission and church planting and carry forward the church’s spiritual legacy.

In 2 Timothy 2:2, Paul says to the young Timothy: “And the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable people who will also be qualified to teach others.” This verse gives us a picture of four generations walking together: Paul, the first generation; Timothy, the second; faithful people able to teach, the third; and others, the fourth. Four generations walking together provide an important foundation for the church’s long-term development and spiritual succession.

How can EFCCA put this four-generation vision into practice? The cross-cultural congregation, which will formally begin worship in September, gives us an important opportunity. Its establishment can help strengthen the second-generation presence that EFCCA currently lacks and form a more complete four-generation pathway. Going forward, we will intentionally encourage older spiritual members from the morning and evening congregations, the first generation, to care for and walk alongside young adults in the cross-cultural congregation, the second generation. Young adults in the cross-cultural congregation can support and mentor high-school students in the English congregation, the third generation, while those high-school students can serve as teachers and helpers in Children’s Sunday School, the fourth generation.

The cross-cultural congregation is not being established only to advance cross-cultural mission and share the gospel with people of other ethnic backgrounds. An equally important purpose is to provide more opportunities for EFCCA’s younger generation to lead ministries and receive practical training. In this way, our co-worker team can become younger, and through the growing number and spiritual maturity of younger leaders, we hope to attract more young people to the church, help them come to faith, strengthen intergenerational partnership, and advance the church’s renewal and spiritual succession.

Finally, let us pray with one heart that the Holy Spirit will continue to lead EFCCA in God’s will. In the years ahead, may He help us establish a structure for generations to walk together, build a team that serves across generations, and cultivate a culture of intergenerational partnership. Let us “forget what is behind and strain toward what is ahead,” pressing on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called us heavenward in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 3:13–14)