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Thursday, 30 April 2009

Monday, 26 January 2009

Sunday, 28 December 2008

  • Crossway in LA Times (12/28)

    Korean Americans find a home in Fullerton

    Crossway Community Church
    Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times
    Dads hold their young children in the hallway during a service at Crossway Community Church.
    A growing number have been moving into middle-class neighborhoods such as Amerige Heights. To accommodate the residents, Korean churches, grocery stores and restaurants have popped up.
    By My-Thuan Tran
    December 28, 2008
    Perhaps the future of Orange County can be found in the rows of cookie-cutter houses in Fullerton's hillside neighborhood of Amerige Heights. On what used to be the site of the Hughes Aircraft plant, developers have built spacious homes, sprawling parks and landscaped roundabouts next to a large shopping center with a Target and an Albertsons.

    But past the master-planned veneer is the changing face of Orange County. Next to Albertsons is a taekwondo studio; across from Target is a Korean tofu stew restaurant. Nearby are two of the largest Korean churches in the state.

    Amerige Heights, just like the villages in Irvine and the newer housing tracts of Tustin, has become a destination for Asian Americans, drawn by high-performing schools, relatively crime-free neighborhoods and good jobs. According to recently released U.S. Census data, the Asian population in every city with available data in Orange County has gone up. Countywide, the Asian population has increased roughly 16% since 2000, a much faster rate than the Latino population and in the opposite direction of the white population, which has dropped nearly 8%.

    Fullerton, once a traditionally white bedroom community in northern Orange County, has seen growing numbers of Asians moving into its middle-class neighborhoods such as Amerige Heights, where real estate agents estimate more than half of the residents are of Korean descent. To cater to them, smaller Korean churches have sprouted in the area, such as Crossway Community Church in Brea. Korean parents even started a Korean PTA at Sunny Hills High School, where Asian Americans make up half of the student body...

    http://www.latimes.com/news/local/orange/la-me-ocasian28-2008dec28,0,5863848.story

    my-thuan.tran@latimes.com

Friday, 21 November 2008

  • Crossway featured in Outreach Magazine (Nov. issue)




    Outreach Magazine  Nov./Dec. 2008 Issue

    Korean Congregation Plants “A Church For All People”

    As her church home of 13 years endured a prolonged split, Susan Kim’s walk with God faltered.
        She left the congregation, took a vacation and did not find a new church home until a friend’s cousin invited her three months later to attend a newly formed church- Crossway Community Church (Crossway-Church.com) in Brea, Ca. 
        “It seemed like they were really on fire for God,” Kim says of her first impressions of Crossway.  “They had a purpose.”
        That purpose is to be outward-focused and “a church for all people,” says Steve Choi, Crossway’s lead pastor.  A church plant of Sa-rang Community Church in Anaheim, Ca., one of the largest Korean congregations outside of the Korean peninsula, Crossway marks the first time and immigrant church planted an English-speaking congregation, Choi says. 
        “I felt it was good time to be a blessing to the whole community,” Choi says.
        Crossway has bestowed this blessing though a string of outreach activities, including serving the homeless at the Orange County Rescue Mission, providing a carnival for kids at an AIDS patient care facility, and sending a team on a mission trip to Thailand.
        In its first year, the church has grown from 50 people to more than 300 attendees, many of whom are new to church or like Kim, had been away from it but are coming back, Choi says.  Although still predominately Asian, the congregation includes people of many ethnic backgrounds.
        “People have been inviting their friends, coworkers, relative,” Choi says.  “It’s the work of God.”

    -  Scott Marshall


Wednesday, 01 October 2008

  • One Whole Year

    Time flies when you're having fun!  What a year it has been!  I am humbled before God as I think back on my fears and worries and asking so many "what if" questions.  As I look back on the past year... I am reminded of the Jesus' promise that it is He who "will build my (his) church."  He has indeed been building His church - many times inspite of me.  So I am completely humbled and totally grateful to take part in God's grand plan.  I look forward and hope to learn to do things "by faith" like the ancients.

    pastor Dan Kim (sarang sr. pastor) in front next to me.

    our latest members!