A one year-old church story

A one year-old church would not be a long story to tell but it is a story with many new starts and first things to her members. As we launch our church to be an official existing one, we are inviting you to celebrate God’s great works and His faithfulness in and through us in the past blessed year.

Being sure of His calling and prompted by the Holy Spirit, the four of us: Thuan, Esther, Tram, and Kats –friends since college sat down together in July 22, 2009 to pray for a church to be planted in God’s plan for us. We started as a Bible Study group every Sunday night in our house to study God’s Word, to pray and also to attract those who are hungry for the Word.

After 2 months praying, we realized the need to reach out people around us. In Sept 29, we started sharing the gospel in the park in our area. We are grateful that God acted on our heart’s desire, Miss Cam Vy was the first fruit of our labor. It was a touching and powerful testimony of God’s healing when He came to Vy. 10 days after that, Miss Hoang Van moved to tear when she herself offered her life to Jesus. Though we were excited and expectant the similar stories to happen but not until one month after that, the third person responded to our sharing to be God’s child.

Last Christmas, God led Isaac and Mai, two other dear brother and sister to join our team, committing for the Lord’s service in our church planting ministry. We then held Christmas Evangelistic Party in our house when we had 20 non-believers attending.

Up to February of this year, we had only 5 converts but only 2 of them attended our Bible Study. Recalling on that scene: 6 church planters, 2 new converts – it was not discouraging but it was the time that we really looked forward to seeing more people to be added into our church.

And Thuan and I came to know Evangelism Explosion (EE) in March. After the Clinic, we came back to train other four. We started fasting and praying, and planning. In 3 times going out for demonstrating and coaching them what we taught, 5 people accepted Christ and one of them is the mother of one young man in our church.

While doing Follow-up with the new believers, we continued doing one-one witnessing on Saturday mornings, God continued using EE tool to save more people. Besides, God opened doors for us to reach their family members. In 3 months time, we had 12 more new believers. (June 20)

6 members in the Lead-Team, doing follow for 22 new believers, we started focusing on just follow-up, mentoring, and teaching the Word. God added 6 more into our church. Our house became smaller for around 30 people to gather, we rent a new place and in July 11, we moved to the new place and also changed into morning Sunday service as a church.

In July 18, 14 of 30 new converts were baptized. We then had our Opening Ceremony in July 28. We, around 30 people, aged from 17 to 51, now gather every Sunday in our new rent room. The new believers keep pursuing their faith and their new life towards Christ-likeness amidst of many persecutions and oppositions.

We call ourselves Antioch Evangelical Church (AEC) with desire to be like the ancient Antioch. With the slogan “Reach The Lost, Impact The Community,” our vision is to glorify God through reaching the lost in the power of the Holy Spirit to influence communities all over Vietnam for Christ.

As a church, we know that this is the Church that Jesus shed His blood to purchase and to call His chosen for His own. We are honored and privileged to be His instruments to bring His people into the saving faith. And along the way, we have seen Him using you to encourage and cheer us up for the work. We appreciate your prayer and giving in our ministry and we pray that God will bless you and that you may never get tired of laboring for His harvest in Vietnam! Thank you so very much!

Yours in reaching Vietnam for Christ,

Thuan, Esther and Kairos Phan.