by Pastor Patrick Cho

The GraceLife Ministry is specifically for married couples and singles parents at Lighthouse. The men meet on Tuesdays at 8:00pm and the women meet on Thursdays at 7:30pm. Both meetings are at the church in Room 107. Over the years it has been challenging coming up with a ministry format that could best work for GraceLife because most of our families are made up of couples with young children. As such, childcare is an issue at almost every church event. With the current format, while one parent is at the church fellowshipping with their peer group, their spouse can stay at home to spend time with the kids. In this way, our GraceLife members can enjoy needed fellowship and receive helpful accountability without the distraction of having to wonder how the kids are doing.

Each week, homework sheets are made available for GraceLife. They can be found either in the foyer on Sundays or online at the GraceLife website. The homework is a short questionnaire reviewing the past Sunday’s sermon. Each member is responsible for completing the homework before coming to GraceLife so they can participate in the large group discussion. This homework is helpful because most people probably never review the past Sunday’s message. Those who come out have commented that the homework helps them to keep God’s Word in mind throughout the week. The large group discussion times have been wonderful since the members contribute helpful insights and ask good questions.

After our large group time, the group breaks up into small groups. Our current small group leaders are Patrick Cho, Kent Hong, Min Kim, Peter Lim, and Steven Preslar for the men, and Christine Cho, Romi Hong, Angela Kim, Jane Kim, Carol Lim, Jinny Lim, and Lynn Preslar for the ladies. The small groups focus not only on providing accountability but also talking more about the practical outworking of the principles from the Sunday messages.

Although the homework given is for the GraceLife Ministry, we feel as though the exercise would really benefit anyone in the church. A couple questions that are asked are: 1) How did the sermon particularly focus on the character of God? What are some things that were taught about who God is? 2) What are some of your major reflections from the sermon? What points stood out to you, and why? and 3) What is at least one principle of application that particularly challenged you from the message? List three ways you can work to apply each of the principles to your life. Any believer who comes to church on Sunday should be thinking through these things on a weekly basis. GraceLife simply helps facilitate such meditation through the homework that is assigned.

It has been a tremendous joy serving in GraceLife and being able to spend time with the married men on a weekly basis. My wife also shares what a blessing it is to meet together with the ladies on Thursdays. It serves as a great way to be reminded to think God’s thoughts and consider God’s ways during midweek when the busyness of parenting, work, hobbies, etc. can drown out our spiritual priorities. As it is the primary place of providing accountability in the church for our married couples and parents, we highly encourage all to come out.

by Randy Tsuchiyama

Some of you may be wondering, “Man, who makes all of these AMAZING skits?” Well, I am writing to all of you to let you know that these skits do not come out of thin air. Here at Lighthouse Bible Church, we have a group of dedicated actors and actresses committed to preparing these skits.

My name is Randy Tsuchiyama and I am currently leading the Skit Team. For those of you that have never seen the skit team on stage, let me explain what our goal is. When we are asked to perform or volunteer to perform, our goal as a team is to deliver a message that is usually meant to come alongside a sermon that will follow the skit. We like to think of our skits as “sermon-amplifiers”. I remember seeing some skits during a church service and remembering the skit more than the preaching of the Word. Our hope on the LBC Skit team is that when someone remembers the skit they are able to be reminded of the sermon.

The bulk of what we do on the skit team is preparing for upcoming skits with the most elaborate skit of the year being the one we perform during the Christmas concert. As of right now, we meet on Thursday nights from 7:45PM until about 10PM. At practice we begin with a warm-up where we practice a lot of our improvisational skills. From there, we start to plan for any upcoming skits that we have to perform. Everyone’s ideas are welcome during this planning time. After brainstorming is done, we try and act out the ideas that we came up with. A lot of improvisation happens throughout the entire meeting.

I just want to say that as the team practices, we have a lot of fun. While we are doing this, we see a lot of the quirks of the members on the team as well as each person’s unique humor. It is great to see all of us working together to worship God with hearts that truly love Him. If you would like to join the skit team, there are two requirements:

1. You must be a member of Lighthouse Bible Church or in the process of becoming one
2. You must be willing to participate in various roles that may not seem “natural”

Just to clarify, the second rule is not that scary. We won’t be putting someone into a lead role in their first skit, maybe their second one though.

All joking aside, the skit is open to ALL members of Lighthouse Bible Church; Marrieds, Singles, and Collegians. If you would like more information about this ministry or would like to join, send your questions to me at dabigtsuchie@gmail.com.

by Andy Shin

An aspect that I love about this group is that it operates behind the scenes of everyday ministry. Even writing this article actually goes against what I appreciate about the team since it brings attention to us. However, many may not be familiar with the cleaning ministry and what it does, so our hope is that this would be a way for the church to learn more about the ministry and pray for us.

This is a group of about 25 faithful servants who work in rotations on the weekends to maintain the church facilities. Our weekly tasks include vacuuming the carpet throughout the church, cleaning the restrooms, taking out the trash, and wiping down all surfaces. Each category comes with its respective list of tasks that need to be completed, and depending on the condition of each facility, can be simple or…challenging.

Something that brings me great joy and encouragement is seeing fellow brothers and sisters who are not only willing to take time out of their busy schedules to come clean the church, but also doing it with cheerful attitudes. Volunteering to do janitorial work and giving up time on the weekends is not something most people are eager to do. But it’s been such a blessing to see so many come and serve in a way that truly goes against the thinking of this world. There isn’t much prestige in scrubbing toilets or taking out the trash, but one thing we try to keep in mind is that it’s a privilege to do even these things. By the grace of God, we’ve been able to play this role in the life of the church. It may not be the coolest part of the body or most commended, but knowing that we’re sinners saved by grace and given the opportunity to help in the ultimate goal of the church is definitely cool.

Unlike most ministries, because of the low-profile, I believe there is less of a struggle to do things for the attention and approval of others. However, similar to many ministries in the church, there can be a tendency to make efficiency and completion our main priorities. Unfortunately, this can happen very easily with manual labor. Oftentimes, I concentrate more on the task at hand and lose sight of why we serve and who we’re serving. This is also correlated to our joy as we serve. I am frequently reminded of how we’re still sinful people. We may have the right intentions, yet we mess it up. But it is encouraging to know that God would still use us for His plan, sustain us, and sanctify us along the way.

Please pray that we’d faithfully serve with joy and out of a heart that loves Christ and His church. Also, please pray about joining the team. There is currently a need for additional people. Finally, if you have any concerns or recommendations on how we can improve our work, please feel free to contact me. Thank you!

by Abram Kim

The Children’s Ministry at LBC is no different from any other ministry at church it its purposes and goals. We exist to fulfill the church’s Mission, Vision, and Passion (MVP) to children of elementary school age and younger. Functionally, we partner with the parents at LBC to teach Biblically-sound curricula Sunday mornings and Wednesday evenings, which also allows the parents to worship God freely without worrying about their children. As a ministry, our hearts seek to echo Asaph’s words in Psalm 78, to pass on the glory and greatness of the Lord to the next generation, that “they should set their hope in God.” (Psalm 78:7a)

Our Sunday School programs consists of Sonlight (for our elementary-age children, led by me), Sparklers (preschool-age children, led by Mike Hasegawa), and Fireflies (the cute and ever-growing nursery, led by Carol Lim and Lillian To); our Wednesday evening program is called Lighthouse Kids Club (LKC) and is led by Pastor JR. Pastor Patrick has pastoral oversight over all the children’s programs at LBC. I have included a complete list of current staff at the bottom of the article. Please feel free to talk to any of the leaders if you have further questions about any of the respective ministries.

For the past two years we have used children’s curricula from Children Desiring God, which is associated with Bethlehem Baptist Church where John Piper preaches and teaches. Sonlight’s curriculum this year is called “Faithful to All His Promises” (contact Mike, Carol, and Pastor JR for specifics on the Sparklers, Fireflies, and LKC curricula, respectively). In the fall we laid the foundation, defining the nature of promises and the nature of God, particularly focusing on His faithfulness. For example, when you say you are going to do something, even if you don’t use the words, “I promise,” it is as good as a promise. You should follow through with what you say you’ll do. God always follows through on all His promises recorded in Scripture. Some promises are just for believers (e.g., He will complete His work in us, eternal life, and His love) and some are just for unbelievers (e.g., judgment). We have started to look at specific promises God gave in Scripture in November 2009 and will continue to study the many promises God has made this year. I exhort you to ask the Sonlight kids and staff about the promises we are learning and how we are growing in our faith!

Thank you for reading this article on LBC’s Children’s Ministry. Please take some time now to pray for the children of LBC. Pray for the salvation and growing faith of these young souls as they grow up in a culture and society that seems to be getting more hostile to Christianity and our Lord. Pray for the parents as they seek to rear their children in a God-honoring way. Pray for the staff as we seek to faithfully preach and teach the Word in a way that the children would understand, and to be able to build relationships with them in discipleship. If you have any further questions, please feel free to contact me at church or via email (abram.kim@gmail.com).

Sonlight Staff: David Ahn, Cindy Chu, David Jung, Abram Kim, Daniel “Diddy” Kim, Susan Kim, Josh Lee, Steph Lim (soon to be McAdams!), Kristen Yee

Sparklers Staff: Kyle Grindley, Mike Hasegawa, Kent Hong, Romi Hong, Sarah Hu, Ribecca Lee, Joyce Park

Fireflies Staff: Becky Areekul, Beverly Chan, Jenny Chang, Ying Chen, Amy Cheng, Moon Choi, Ji Young Choy, Carol Chung (soon to be Bae!), Eun Hee Han, Brenda Hom, Tina Huynh, Jane Kim, Yuen Kwong, Elizabeth Lee, Jocelyn Lee, Andrea Lem, Carol Lim, Jinny Lim, Maria Oh (soon to be Ko!), Kim Phan, Lynn Preslar, Elaine Sarmiento, Leah Shen, Sarah Shen, Jen Shih, Laurie Su, Alice Ting, Lillian To, France Wang, Shelby Wong

LKC Staff: Paul Chen, Ying Chen, Daniel Chong, JR Cuevas, Kathy Cuevas, Sarah Hu, David Jung, Harold Kim, Josh Lee, Vince Liang, Daniel Yee, Joo Yoon

by Hwa Park

My name is Hwa Park and I am the ministry coordinator for the NVT Ministry (New Visitors Team). I’ve been part of this ministry for a very long time and although our practices and processes has evolved over the past 11 years the purpose of this ministry has pretty much remained the same. The primary purpose of this ministry is to welcome and orient first time visitors to LBC as well as to serve both members and nonmembers during Sunday worship. The NVT team perform the following functions:

• We provide parking patrol and management services during Sunday worship and other LBC functions. There are designated parking spots for pastors, families with nursery aged children and new visitors.
• Designated Sunday greeters that collect first time visitors information for personal follow up and invitation to LBC functions .
• We provide security services during worship both inside and outside the Church.
• New visitors orientation which occurs immediately after service. We go over our Church Informational Pamphlet which includes topics such as “Finding a good Church”, MVP of LBC, Pastors profile, various ministries at LBC, importance of membership and baptism and as well as the Gospel presentation.
• Meet and Greet function for people that have been attending LBC. During this time the focus is on Church membership and baptism. This is a time of one on one interactions with our team members over a yummy pizza lunch. Pastors are encouraged to attend.
• Personal follow-up and follow up letter for every new visitor that signs in on Sundays.

We always have a need for more people, so if you are a member and would like to join the team, please contact me at hwapark@yahoo.com. Communication within the team is the biggest challenge in our group as our team evolves over the years. Please pray that our team will serve with a heart that seeks to please God through our interactions with first time visitors.

by Chris Lim

Increase Your Passion in 2010…by joining Care Ministry!

Lighthouse Bible Church has a three-fold mission, vision and passion commonly referred to as our M.V.P. statement. Our passion statement is to “love God and love people” taken from Matthew 22:37-40. By having a deep and growing love relationship with God, it allows us look outside of ourselves and desire to care for the people God has placed in our lives.

Do you want to increase your “passion” for serving others? Then consider joining Care Ministry. Care Ministry seeks to serve and care for the church body in very practical and tangible ways ranging from a note of encouragement, a timely care package or more recently, a discerning set of eyes to check your automobile for any car trouble you’ve noticed lately.

While mostly behind the scenes, Care Ministry is one of the most pervasive ministries at Lighthouse as we seek to care for the different needs of our fellowship groups (college, singles and families) and also celebrate special “life events” such as the birth of a new child or those getting married.

Our seven current Care sub-ministries are:

1. Meal Ministry – Provides and delivers meals to individuals/families due to sickness, special needs or most commonly the arrival of a newborn.
2. Special Events Ministry – Serves the church body by adding a special “touch” to church events like our Christmas Concert, Baptisms, Annual Church Banquet and other church-wide events.
3. Encouragement Box Ministry – Seeks to encourage people in the church by writing a note of encouragement to them (available each Sunday)
4. Care Package Ministry – Makes and delivers care packages for College students during finals exams or for those sent on military deployments.
5. Baby Shower Ministry – Plans a time of encouragement/fellowship for expecting moms
6. Bridal Shower Ministry – Organizes a party for a bride-to-be in anticipation for her wedding
7. February Care Month Ministry – Devotes a month to direct the church’s attention to how they can actively participate in our care ministries.

The next three sub-ministries have just started or will be starting very soon:

1. Car Care Ministry (already started) – Seeks to maintain, correct and prevent any vehicular problem (big or small) or to get an honest assessment of your vehicle and its needs before going to the mechanic. For a check-up, contact Thomas Fong, Quang Duong or Randy Sarmiento.
2. LBC Babysitting Ministry (starting February 2010) – Provides complimentary babysitting/childcare for those in LBC’s Gracelife/Family ministry so that they can enjoy the evening out.
3. Elder Care Ministry (starting January 2010) – Seeks to encourage and support our Elders and Pastors and their families.

As some of you are familiar, each February at Lighthouse is known as “Care Month,” where we will brainstorm a few special ways for the church body to serve and encourage each other. In previous years, we have put together encouragement scrapbooks for our elders and formed an “Adopt-A-Family” concept that allowed singles and college small groups to get to know the families better. Last year, we had a special “Mother/Sister” lunch event that allowed the moms/wives to hangout with the singles ladies at the UTC Food Court. If you’d like to help out for Care Month 2010, our team is forming very shortly.

As a final reminder, there are no special talents required to join Care Ministry – just a desire and heart to serve. For questions or more information about participating in Care Ministry or Care Month, please contact Chris Lim at cmlim@mail.com

by Pastor John Kim

Single Life represents the ministry at LBC that focuses on providing opportunities for those who are single adults to gather for fellowship and mutual edification. It is a challenging period of life for many who are uncertain as to where the future will lead but there is one thing that really can take place and that is the cultivating of spiritual growth. Regardless of educational, vocational, or relational status, there is one thing that is quite certain – growing in the grace and truth of God must be foundational if anything else in life is going to be purposeful and meaningful. As we often are reminded that all of life is to be lived to God’s glory (1 Corinthians 10:31), there is never a stage of life where we are justified in thinking that somehow we are given some kind of entitlement to live for ourselves. If the love of Christ truly controls us (2 Corinthians 5:14-15), then it should visible affect the way we live, starting from our heart motivations resulting in a life that exudes the reality of the Lordship of Christ.

It is no surprise that for many single adults, life is filled with a lot of change and upheaval. The pursuit of further education, seeking to land a decent job, and the hope of maybe finding a spouse can cause a lot of stress and anxiety, even depression. Many churches struggle to even have ministries that focus on single adults due to the transient nature of this stage of life.

So we are quite thankful that for the past few years we have been able to see the Single Life Ministry at LBC grow. It has not been without its struggles as there has been difficulty in keeping things consistent, but this past fall has been greatly encouraging as we have been able to find more focus in what we do.

Friday Night Light takes place weekly on Friday evenings as we spend time in growing in God’s Word and having opportunities to fellowship together. There is a staff that has committed themselves to serving each Friday by fulfilling various roles such as the praise team, new visitors, setup, refreshments, and others. Our theme has been “Getting to Know the Holy Spirit” as we have been studying what is often a neglected theme in many churches: the person and role of the Holy Spirit. It has been very encouraging to hear how many are learning and growing in their understanding of how the Bible describes the Holy Spirit and we look forward to continuing the study in the new year.

Friday nights have also provided many opportunities for the singles to just hang out together as we have a time after Bible study for various activities. We have a refreshments station where the staff organizes various treats each Friday for people to enjoy. There are staff that are available for counseling or to ask questions regarding the message. We also have ping pong and foosball for those who would like a little recreation. Many just spend time talking in the sanctuary as well, and it has been very encouraging to see more interaction as we have had many newer people join us on Friday nights.

We recently started accountability small groups where those who have the desire to have more personal accountability and interaction sign up to be committed for the term, which goes until June 2010. It is a great opportunity for people to not only get connected but to also have a smaller group of fellow believers that come alongside to provide encouragement and support in pursuing spiritual growth. I believe this is a very significant ministry that provides greater depth and ministry that goes beyond the surface. This of course takes cooperation and willingness for each individual to be willing to be open and vulnerable and it often takes some time for this to develop. But once it does, it does bring a lot of encouragement to the group and many are able to develop a stronger sense of belonging to the church family.

Each year we also have our annual spring retreat where we gather over at Pine Valley Bible Conference Center for a weekend together. Last year was a wonderful time as Pastor James Shin of Cornerstone Bible Church came to minister along with his family. The centrality of the gospel was clearly communicated as James addressed the motivations of the heart and many of our singles were impacted in a profound way. This spring we are looking forward to again having our retreat on March 19-21, 2010 at Pine Valley and this time we will be having Pastor Nam Park of Immanuel Bible Church come to preach. I would encourage all the singles to set aside this weekend as it will be a wonderful opportunity to grow as well as have fellowship with one another.

Please continue to pray for Single Life, that the ministry would be faithful to present the truth of God and that the love of Christ would be manifested genuinely and sincerely to all who come.

by Eugene Park

The music ministry at Lighthouse is a wide ranging ministry. My role is to oversee the whole ministry and make sure that everything in the ministry, from top down, represents solid Biblical worship. The one element that most people equate with the music ministry is the Sunday praise team. But there are other bands that serve the church as well. There’s the college praise team led by Tim Yu and the singles praise team led by Peter Park. These teams work hard in being excellent in their ministry. What most people don’t know is that we also have Abram Kim who is in charge of the children’s praise ministry. While there isn’t a full band, it’s still an important ministry because it’s an opportunity to teach the children God’s Word through music.

The music ministry also extends to the choir/vocal ensemble/singing group (depending on how big the group is). While the choir might be more “performance” based, it is still our desire to sing music that is biblically accurate that points the listener to Christ. This group sings for special events like the Christmas Concert and Resurrection Sunday and maybe one or two more times during the year.

Perhaps once every two months I like to have a time of praise through the singing of hymns. This is where the orchestra comes in. The orchestra provides the musical accompaniment for the congregation as we sing songs that generations have sung in the church.

Sometimes finding people to fulfill roles in this ministry is hard. People need to have the right heart in serving in this ministry, but they also need to have musical skill as well. You wouldn’t just throw anyone up on stage to preach, so why would you throw anyone up there to play/sing? So that’s challenging because sometimes people want to join the ministry playing an instrument and/or singing, but I have to gently tell them that perhaps they should try to find another area to serve.

Despite the hard work that is involved in this ministry, I consider it a joy to serve in this way.

by Hansol An

Those bulletins come from somewhere…

Every week a dedicated team lays out, edits, prints, folds and assembles the Sunday Service Bulletins. For a long time the team was no more than four people, but as the church grew so did the need for a more extensive team. Now the team consists of Daniel Yee, Daniel Kim, Moon Choi, Courtney Chow, Yoonjee Kim, Angella An and Hansol An.

The pastoral staff sends out the information used to update the bulletin. Hansol and Angella format and lay it out in InDesign then send it to the rest of the team as a PDF file. On Sunday mornings the team arrives at 8am to produce the 250 copies needed for that morning’s service.

Typically there isn’t a lot of recognition but like any ministry in the church, that’s not what it’s about. The team is committed to help communicate what’s going on in the life of the church… quietly and consistently. Our hope is that this ministry assists the church body in furthering the kingdom work.

Editor’s Note: The Sunday Bulletin can now be viewed online.

by Pastor JR Cuevas

The youth ministry of Lighthouse Bible Church – also known as “Lumos” – exists to exalt God in the lives of youth adults in the San Diego community. This is specifically carried out through the church’s imparting of both the gospel as well as the lives of older godly men and women into the lives of the young adults in the church. Thus, all that takes place in Lumos flows either in the direction of equipping and building up the youth who have trusted in Christ as their Lord and Savior or in the direction of evangelizing to the youth who do not exhibit saving faith in Christ. With this in mind, the ultimate vision of Lumos is to magnify the person and work of Jesus Christ in the lives of the youth, so as to help prepare them to be future ministers of the gospel for the generations to come.

Lumos currently has a little over ten youth ranging from 6th grade to 12th grade who have consistently been a part of the group, and nine adult staff from the single-adults affinity group who help run the ministry and invest in the lives of the youth. Every Friday night, Lumos meets at 7:00 pm at church till 9:30 pm, during which the weekly Bible study takes place. The messages typically last anywhere between 45 minutes to an hour, and in which I have been preaching through the gospel of Luke since the beginning of 2008 when I started serving in this ministry. After the message, small groups – divided up by gender and age group – take place. On Sunday morning during Sunday school hour, Lumos runs a Sunday school class, in which I have been going through the various topics of Systematic Theology as well as monthly split-sessions of men’s and women’s discipleship. On Wednesdays, some of Lumos staff help run a Bible study at Torrey Pines High School during their lunch break, in which the Lumos’ most prominent form of outreach to the youth in the existing community outside of LBC. On Wednesday nights, some of the Lumos staff help run a study hall at the church for the youth, in which the youth are encouraged to diligently study for their classes to the glory of God.

As a ministry, the staff and I have certain convictions that are considered essential in ministering to the youth. First, we hold to the conviction of keeping everything gospel-centered and Scripture-based. This implies that Lumos does not minister to the kids in such a way as to fuel pride or enhance the worldly definition of self-esteem. Rather, all the messages that are taught are geared towards helping the youth have a greater realization of their sin before a holy God as well as helping them have a greater realization of what it means to place one’s faith in in the person and work of Christ alone. Second, we hold to the conviction that the youth are to be treated as adults, and not as children. Though we seek to be understanding and compassionate towards them, the youth are challenged each week to pursue the same standards of holiness in personal character as all Christians are held accountable to. Thus, the messages are not only long, but passionate and intense, in which I do not hold back in challenging the youth to make very practical changes in their lives. Thus, Lumos does not “baby” the youth who attend. Rather, they are challenged to live as good soldiers of Jesus Christ (which was our ministry theme for 2009).

Having set these standards, the youth who have consistently attended Lumos have shown much growth over the past year – from the middle-school students to the high school seniors. They have shown much growth in personal character and in applying the principles of Scripture in their own lives. Some who were not believers when they first attended have since then professed faith in Christ and have displayed their faith in their daily living. One of the recent manifestations of their growth has been an increase in ministry involvement in church. The staff has always challenged the youth not to “cluster” into small youth groups on Sunday mornings and distance themselves from the adults, but rather to take the initiative in serving in some of the adult ministries. Over the past year, we have seen some of the youth faithfully serve in the refreshments ministry, the cleaning ministry, set-up and clean-up ministry, welcoming ministry, and even in ministries geared towards international college students. It has been tremendously encouraging for me to witness them grow in their love for Christ, love for people, and love for their church. In all honesty, I consider myself to be one of the most blessed youth ministers – not because of how could I job I do, but because of how encouraging these “chulengos” (my term of endearment towards them to remind them that though they’re young, they’re capable) have been so faithful to the ministry. A number of the youth have faithfully participated in the ministry on their own initiatve (their parents do not attend LBC), and have shown the ability to be faithful to their church even at such a young age.

That said, the ministry is constantly in need of prayer support from the rest of the church body. Pray that our youth would grow in their fear of the Lord, that they may love Him more and grow in their intimacy with Him. Pray that they would mature in their faith, and that the Spirit would continually guide them to Christ-likeness as they age. Pray for the staff, that we would continue to faithfully invest in the lives of the youth. Finally, pray that in all that we do, Christ would receive the glory, honor, and praise.