Handing Over for A New Beginning - Rev. Xavier Law

The Special General Meeting on April 26, 2009 saw the approval to purchase the former Renfrew United Church on East 1st Avenue, as well as to sell our current church property to repay part of our mortgage; to another church of evangelical Christian faith tradition for the ministry of spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ and service in the Grandview-Woodland community.

Since Pacific Grace Mission Chapel started the very first worship service at our current site in March 1964, God has not stopped blessing and using this church building to bear fruit; bringing glory to Himself and benefiting His people. As such, the Deacon Board faced tremendous stress on the issue of selling our church property: first, the board did not want to put money first and set profitability as our priority; second, the board hoped to pass the baton to another church that proclaimed the gospel of Jesus Christ.

The deacon board unanimously set two equally important and indispensable criteria for evaluating and choosing the buyers: 1) the ministry plan and development of the church; 2) the price of the offer.

By the deadline on September 4, there were two churches that officially submitted their offer and ministry plan to our sales representative. One was Reality Church of Metro Vancouver, a fellow MB church that started several months ago; the other one was New Beginnings Baptist Church. After much prayer, in-depth discussion and comparison, the deacon board finally chose the latter to be our buyer.

New Beginnings Baptist Church is an English-speaking church that has been around for twenty years. They are part of the Fellowship Baptist Churches of Canada, sound in doctrine and passionate in evangelism. For the last seven years, they have rented church space at Commercial Drive and 1st Avenue to serve the very broken, hurting people of Vancouver's inner city as their mission (75% of their ministry is to First Nations people). Their ministries include

1. free gospel breakfasts with lunches to go 3-5 days a week for about 50-80 people each day (with at least half an hour of gospel sharing);
2. delivering free furniture and household goods to all the poor families and fellows who need them, and moving homes for single mother families at the end of the month;
3. huge youth group with about 30 volunteer youth workers ministering to at-risk youth in the inner city;
4. family ministry, helping families in whichever way they need a hand, including counseling, babysitting, drug/alcohol rehabilitation, and so on;
5. children's Bible clubs in native housing and B.C. housing complexes;
6. summer camp for children and youth (100 participants), and family gospel camp for children and moms;
7. Bible studies for youth, young adults, and adults all through the week;
8. Christian leadership development for senior high youth and young adults;
9. using the park outside our current church site for big community outreaches.

New Beginnings currently has an attendance of 100, with two full-time pastors and five student interns from Trinity Western University. Because they focus on serving the poor in the neighbourhood, they do not have much offering from within. For them to use $1.05 million to buy our church property at Frances Street is indeed a step of faith.

May God bless and use them greatly, just as He has done for Pacific Grace through the years!