New South Bay Church Growing

Some of the members of The South Bay Area Family Church celebrate a prospective member’s birthday.

Two new members of the Unification movement have signed membership on July 30, 2013 in the recently planted church in the south Bay Area of San Francisco based on the witnessing efforts of the community.

Some families of the South Bay Area Church hosted a celebratory BBQ on July 31, 2013 for the two new members seated in the front row: Nelson Chou (left) and Frank Jamison (right).

Nelson Chou and Frank Jamison signed membership at “The South Bay Family Church” that was formed on June 8, 2013. The witnessing effort was spearheaded by two determined Japanese wives, Masako Ando and Hisae Mori. The new church plant held its first meeting on June 8th with its newly elected council to elect their new pastor, Michael Allen.

Hisae Mori brought in two new members: Nelson Chou (left) and Frank Jamison (right) who are seen seated with her husband, Ichiro (center).

Pastor Allen said, “We were inspired by True Mother’s words to create a new church in the South Bay area. At our first council meeting it was decided that we should use our True Parents’ words to create a ‘witnessing church’ charter plan.”

Frank Jamison (right) seen with newly elected Pastor, Michael Allen, signed membership on July 30, 2013.

“We will now make…a living church, as it was in the early days…develop it into a spontaneous, creative and dynamic church unrestricted by numbers or systems…centered on the Divine Principle and on Love, which will be like a nest with a mother’s embrace that will make us wish to go there and always remain there,” said True Mother in a speech she gave on September 25, 2012 that sparked the formation of the new church.

The momentum for a new church originated in May 2012 when the five families formed a small group based on the “Starting Point,” which was originally an educational curriculum for new members’ spiritual growth developed by Lovin’ Life Ministry. The small group had a positive effect; the members grew closer to each other through sharing their faith, and by September of that year the members started witnessing on college campuses.

Dedicated Japanese wives of The South Bay Area Family Church set up tables at the local De Anza College to distribute True Father’s autobiography.

Currently, there are two active small groups that host weekly meetings and activities on college campuses (De Anza and West Valley). Masako Ando, Don and Hiroko Melosh, Shiao-Lin Peng, Heike Parkin and other members all contributed to the small-group and witnessing effort based in the Palo Alto, Cupertino area, and Ichiro and Hisae Mori, and Stan and Mayumi Salah contributed in the south San Jose area.

In one of the groups, Hisae Mori recently had two people sign membership. Nelson Chou and Frank Jamison became members on July 30, 2013. Interestingly, Frank discovered the Divine Principle on the internet. He had been studying the Divine Principle and the Unification Church for a while when he got a copy of Father’s autobiography with Hisae’s number on it.

Through another group, two De Anza college students (Spencer and Ming) are studying Rev. Phillip Schanker’s Divine Principle DVD video lectures on a weekly basis. Two other students (Daniel and Manuel) often visit our book table, and Daniel is reading Exposition of the Divine Principle and often comes to talk to us.

This has been a growing experience for all of us. By sharing our faith with members in a small-group setting, we often experience Heavenly Parent’s love. With enough of Heaven’s love we can then share it

with others such as students on campus.

The South Bay Family Church originally got started in May 2012 as a small group meeting of five families.

Most of our members work full-time, but we manage to go to local community campuses at least once a week where we set up tables and give out True Father’s autobiography. If students are interested, we use a tablet computer to show them a video, either the “Creating a Life You Love” video or a Divine Principle introduction video. Based on the students’ interest, we will show them more videos at an evening program, held once a week at a local office building. We usually show the video and have discussion afterward. If the students are ready, we will take them to workshop.

Using videos gives us a lot of flexibility, and we found that the students love videos. We plan to utilize any technology we can find, including the internet, because that is where most young people spend their time. Of course, nothing replaces person-to-person contact based upon a spiritual foundation, prayer, the Holy Spirit and the love of our members which are all vital to bring new members.