Thursday, November 29, 2007

Our Church

One question we get alot is what church we've decided to join here in Boston. We've pretty much decided to become involved at Citylife Presbyterian (PCA) Church. How do I describe this church? Hmm...well, it's located in the middle of downtown Boston and it's main focus is to reach urban professionals. It's a new church, maybe like five or so years old, but it's grown to about 600 people already. The makeup of the church is mostly young, urban professionals in their 20s and 30s. It's about 50% Asian-American, 45% white and 5% other. Here's a picture I found on the website of the congregation.
So for you folks in Houston, the people are kinda like the folks you might find at Ecclesia, except more asian-americans. I guess that's because there are a lot of asian-americans living in downtown Boston, going to unviersities and what not. The musical style is similar to Ecclesia's -- an indy-rock or alt-rock vibe. The musicians are very talented. However, citylife is different from Ecclesia in that the theology and preaching is a little different. It is very intellectual and you might say scholarly (yet still very engaging and interesting). The pastor is this Korean-American guy named Stephen Um. He actually teaches some classes at my seminary. He has a Ph.D. in theology and you can tell (I mean that in a good way). Here's a fuzzy and tiny picture of him.
We chose Citylife for alot of reasons, but one reason its that we think it's a good mix of solid biblical teaching and actively reaching out to young urban professionals, which we're also interested in reaching. I think the church emphasizes the Gospel as the core of everything they do and I like that. It's a bit of a drive into the city, but we think it's worth it. Hopefully I can get involved in it a little more for some ministry experience as time goes by. We'll see to what capacity. It seems like there are alot of vibrant new churches in Boston. We visited the Boston Vineyard, Cambridge Community Fellowship Church, and Highrock Church. And from first impressions, all of these churches seemed vibrant to me. We just liked Citylife the best. Why not a Chinese church you ask? Well, we've grown up in Chinese churches all our lives (for me, I've never attended a non-Chinese church), and at least for now, we would just like to try something different. Okay, that's it for now! Hope everyone's enjoying the thanksgiving/christmas season!

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