Kingdom Causes Invited to Share at Glendora Ministerial Association

When we met with Karen Davis and Doug Hodson, they invited us to come share about Kingdom Causes at the Glendora Ministerial Association at their May gathering. This is an exciting opportunity to share our story and build new relationships with some city pastors!

Meeting with Karen Davis & Doug Hodson

Today we met with Pastor Karen Davis of First Christian Church of Glendora and Pastor Doug Hodson from the United Methodist Church of Glendora. These two individuals are leaders not only of local congregations, but also in the Glendora community. Karen is a member of the City Council and Doug is on the Board of Trustees of the Glendora Library. Together they have helped gather citizens to talk at Reconciliation Services, hosting these in their church facilities. They also worked together to organize an effort to provide gun locks free of charge to gun owners of the city.

Some of the "signs of hope" they mentioned about Glendora: Whitcomb High School and the work of Principal Marc DuBois; the Glendora Teen Center; the Senior Center, which serves an active senior population.

We are grateful for the chance to learn from these two leaders in the City of Glendora.

Steps Towards A Glendora Leadership Team

Today we hosted an information gathering meeting at our regional office in San Dimas.
Glendora citizens brought information about the various happenings going on in the city currently, they shared stories of how broad efforts for positive change have occurred in the past and they shared names of people in the city that we could support and collaborate with for the good of the whole community. It was encouraging to hear about many of the already existing signs of hope in the region!

Meetings like these are essential for our process of discovering a leadership team who will help lead the way to Inspire, Connect, and Mobilize the Church of Glendora. One of the fundamental values of Kingdom Causes is INDIGENOUS. For Glendora, this means that this emerging team (just like in other cities around LA) will steward and serve the city-wide vision for wholistic community transformation. The emerging vision will be locally owned, locally led and locally supported!

We are grateful for each person who came out for the meeting. We stand with you as you seek the welfare of your city! In the future we will starting having some of this growing group of people begin posting on this blog as well. Our next informational gathering meeting will be Sunday the 29th of April at our KC regional Office located at 910 W Gladstone (MAP).

"It's a small world after all!"

Wow. It turns out that Karen Davis is friends with Mary Glenn who is our KC Alhambra Catalyst. They are both police chaplains in their respective cities and have even done some training together. Being a Long Beach Police chaplain myself, I have a special place in my heart for people in those roles. I can't wait to meet Karen one of these days!

Mr. Tom Sakiyama

Today we had a good conversation with Tom Sakiyama, a long-time resident of Glendora. We were introduced to him by Mary Moody of Living Faith Fellowship church. Even before we met him, several people were telling us he would be a key person with whom to connect.
We enjoyed getting to know Tom and hearing his story. He shared about his experiences in Glendora and what he has been learning about the Church and about himself.
Over the course of our conversation we learned about one of his values, by which I was inspired in a very specific way. The essence of what he said is this:

In all that we do in ministry and life, a key question with which we ought to wrestle is,

"Does it change lives?"

Our prayer for Glendora is that God's kingdom would come and His will be done in this city as it is in heaven.

What would Glendora look if this happened? How would lives be changed?

Glendora Ministerial Association

The Glendora Ministerial Association meets every month at Foothill Presbyterian Hospital. Those who attend share a meal together, hear from a guest speaker, and update one another about what is happening in their ministries.
I had already met with some of the pastors who participate in the group, and so we thought this would be a great place to connect with leaders who are engaging the community. And today we were welcomed by the group.

The guest speaker was Dr. Charles Gomer. He attends Glendora United Methodist and is also on the Board of the Glendora Unified School District. He spoke about the relationship between God, faith, and science.

One of the people we met is Carol Wagstaff of Reconciliation Ministries, a Christian organization which seeks to help and support inidividuals and families who are dealing with the issue of homosexuality. (http://www.livingstonesministry.org/)

We had a good time at the Ministerial Association gathering. We are grateful for the welcoming spirit and hospitality we were given.
It was great getting to know some leaders of the Church of Glendora and hearing a some of their stories.

Local Congregation Gets On Board

On Sunday, March 11, we met with members of Living Faith Fellowship. They are making significant contributions to Kingdom Causes Glendora as they share their knowledge of the city.

A little history of Living Faith Fellowship...

In 2004, the people of this congregation (at that time called New Hope Church) sold the property in Glendora on which their building was located. Their vision was to turn brick and mortar into kingdom work. They did this by taking the money from the sale of the property and founding the New Hope Network - a non-profit organization separate from the church - to do kingdom work in the East San Gabriel Valley. The congregation still exists, and has since changed their name to Living Faith Fellowship. They meet in the offices of the New Hope Network in San Dimas.
The New Hope Network is now partnering with Kingdom Causes to seek God's kingdom for Glendora.

All of this began as a small group of people sought to follow Jesus and committed themselves to His work in the East San Gabriel Valley.

Meeting with Pastor Bruce Butler

Today we met with Pastor Bruce Butler at Glendora Friends Church (http://www.glendorafriendschurch.org/). I (Shaun) met with him last Fall when we were first beginning to investigate what God is up to in Glendora. Bruce graciously answered all the questions about Glendora.
Since that initial meeting, Kingdom Causes has done even more research, and we were thankful for the chance to share with Bruce what we're learning. More importantly, we wanted to listen to his thoughts and heart for the city.

Here are some names of people who were mentioned in our discussion. These people are involved in broad-based Christian efforts in Glendora:

• Dusty & Sue Yarberry
• Sue Mooney, Moms In Touch
• Tom Sakiyama of Glendora
• Judy Shoemaker, Glendora Friends Church
• Sarah Sumner, Life Pacific College
• Dave Metzker, Pastor at New Community Foursquare Church in Glendora
• A gentleman who works for YWAM and is engaging students at Glendora High School

Do you know any of these people? Do you have any information about their work and/or ministries in Glendora? If so, let us know by adding a comment to this blog. Thank you.

Thank you to Pastor Bruce Butler for meeting with us.

Meeting at Azusa Pacific University

Today we met with Matt Visser, the interim director in the office of Ministry and Service (MAS) at Azusa Pacific University. A.P.U. contributes a minimum of 160,000 hours of service to the community every year. There are 1,200 students who go to the MAS office to get connected with various ministry opportunities in order to fulfill their service. What a fantastic tool and resource! Check them out at http://www.apu.edu/mas/.
It was good listening to Matt talk about his heart for justice, and for seeing the kingdom of God established on earth as it is in heaven. Matt shared about the ministry opportunities available through MAS, and spoke about his vision for future opportunities.

A couple names that came up in our discussion: Ann Croissant, Cliff Hamlow
Do you know either of these people, or know about their work and/or ministries? Let us know.

We are grateful to Matt for his willingness to meet with us.

The journey begins...

Kingdom Causes Glendora...the journey begins. We are excited about our partnership with the New Hope Network and are starting our journey here in the ESGV in the city of Glendora. We are eager to discover how God IS ALREADY AT WORK all across this city. Over the next few weeks and months we hope to accomplish a few specific things:

1. Pray that God would guide our steps as we seek out Signs of Hope in Glendora.
2. Develop a citywide research team that will do our initial scouting.
3. Begin asking the 5 key questions that we help Christians ask in all of our cities.
4. Meet with as many key city stakeholders as possible to learn from them and share what we are working towards.
5. Work towards a date (probably early May) where we will have a city-wide learning conversation with Christians from around the city. The question we will be asking is one based on the Lord's prayer in Matt 6 which reads "Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done in GLENDORA as it is in heaven". What might that look like in the days ahead? Join us as we stand with you in asking that question!

This blog will serve as a running record of our learnings here in the city of Glendora.

Check back often!!

An Online "City Conversation"

Check out this link: www.shatteredpeace.com

Anyone else know of conversations about Glendora happening online?