如果想參閱中文報告, 請到 : 教會事工年度報告(繁體中文) 或 教会事工年度报告(简体中文)

Table of Contents

A Journal of the Plague Year

18^th Century English writer Daniel Defoe wrote a famous account about the last great plague of London of 1665. He entitled the book “A Journal of the Plague Year.” The bubonic plague, popularly named “The Black Death,” was the scourge of Medieval Europe. It also became the framework for some great literature, like the Decameron of the Italian author Boccaccio. When I was in grade school, I had to receive the much feared shots against diseases like polio, cholera, and diphtheria. But I have never imagined that I will see a worldwide plague again in the 21^st century. Yet here it is.

At the beginning of the year 2020, the Novel Corona Virus was a sickness in faraway Wuhan. We know about the city only because of its prominence in the 1911 Revolution led by Dr. Sun Yet-sen. Because as a Chinese church we may have visitors from Wuhan, we took very lax precaution and asked travelers from Wuhan area not to visit our worship service until they have self-quarantined for 2 weeks and detected no symptoms. Since my youngest daughter was doing fieldwork in a hospital, I asked her to take extra precautions. But the doctors she talked to all considered the outbreak as “just another flu.” I was even scoffed by some people as overtly nervous when I went to Home Depot and brought some N-95 masks for pastoral staff use in visiting hospitals.

At the beginning of March, I advocated strongly about looking into online streaming of our Sunday worship services. At that time most people were not expecting a total shut down. We were exploring the alternative of online streaming as a service to the elderly, as we heard that this Novel Corona Virus was especially severe for people over 65 years old and those with pre-existing health conditions. Then things shuttled down really fast within the first two weeks of March. On March 11 Deacon Chair Gordon Ngo and I were still deliberating weather we should cancel lunch for March 15. But when the Deacon Board met on March 12, it was obvious that almost all churches in the US were discontinuing “in person” worship beginning March 15. “Beware the ides of March” was made famous in Western consciousness by the Bard William Shakespeare. Julius Caesar was assassinated on March 15 and his death shocked the Roman world no less than the assassination of President Kennedy in our time.

DCBC went online on Friday, March 13. Our Sunday worship service was livestreamed on March 15. During that critical time, Uncle Gilfred Fang, David Jee, Janet Lee, Administrative Assistant Diana Swindler, and Minister Max Kong all rose to the challenges of the occasion and made livestreaming possible. Gradually other ministries shifted to ZOOM meetings; contingency plans are developed and further revised. My key concept of ministry during the Covid-19 pandemic is “Stay Connected with Our People.” At every staff meeting, I have encouraged our pastors and ministers to call our brothers and sisters frequently. I expect them to share special needs of our people, that we may pray for these special needs and offer material help from the Deacon Board as needed.

In order to stay connected, I have taken it upon myself to email out a Pastoral Letter every week. Thanks to Min. Abraham Feng who translated my English letter into eloquent Chinese. Thanks to Diana Swindler for working even on Saturday to send out the emails. With encouragement from my wife Betty, and the help of Elder Charles Lee, we started an online Stephen Ministry Training every Tuesday. It turns out to be the largest class we have so far in Stephen Ministry Training. The Sisters Circle restarted a Bible study on the last writings of the great apostles in the New Testament, as I believe “happy wives make happy families.” With the co-laboring of Min. Abraham Feng and Min. Max Kong, we have online daily devotion at 8:30AM each weekday; it is well attended and also watched later on YouTube.

During this time, in addition to weekly online staff meeting, Rev. David Tang and I continue to meet as scheduled. I also make time to have regular meetings with select staff members. I am thankful that Pastor Tang has initiated a new “Life on Mission” sermon series, together with personal evangelism training in community groups by using the “Three Circles.” For many years I feel that in addition to having EE training in Chinese, we need to have regular personal evangelism equipping of our English speaking brothers and sisters. This is a dream coming true.

In the Mandarin Ministry, we have finally synchronized our Sunday sermons with the weekly Bible study of our fellowship groups. Beginning September, we are studying the Acts of the Apostles. For the 2^nd, 3^rd, and 4^th Sunday of each month, Min. Feng, Min. Kong and I will preach on Acts. Every 1^st Sunday I shall continue with my sermon series on the 1 & 2 Kings.

While everyone is working hard during this time, I must mention DCBC Kids Children Ministry. Thanks to Children Deacon Jerry Chen, Min. Sherry Cheng and Min. Jenny Jia Xiong, DCBC Children Ministry is providing invaluable online teaching to the children and parents during this very challenging lockdown time. Our Children Program is so excellent that my eldest daughter has chosen to enroll my grandsons in the AWANA, LIT and Sunday programs. They used to attend a mega church just 5 minutes’ drive away from their home. But our Children Ministry is doing such a good job online that she has chosen to enroll her sons in DCBC programs instead.

During the plague lockdown, we have 2 brothers who have confirmed Covid-19, but they have all fully recovered by the grace of God. We have, however, missed some loved ones. Brother Walter Chiang has gone home to be with the Lord after battling lung cancer for three and half years. Yet he continued to serve the Lord and reach out to others even during his long and arduous illness. His was a great example of Christian courage and servanthood. Sister Joyce Lu, who ministered to both Betty and I by her acupuncture medicine for many years, went home to be with the Lord after years of courageous battle with cancer. Elderly sister Kam Mui Cheung, who exhibited unwavering faith in Christ and looked forward to be with the Lord, concluded her testimony filled earthly journey at the blessed age of 106 years old. We are blessed to be “surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses” (Hebrews 12:1).

As wise King Solomon said, “Generations come and generations go” (Ecclesiastes 1:4a). This year we are blessed to have Rev. Joshua Ong who has become our English Young Adult & College Pastor. God seems to have snatched him out of New York like a burning stick from the fire (Amos 4:11b) before the pandemic and planted him like an olive tree at DCBC. Children Ministry Assistant Director Stephanie Shyu got married right before the pandemic lockdown. She is now the wife of Pastor Matthew Carr of North Carolina. I was honored to officiate their wedding at DCBC. By the Lord’s provision, sister Jenny Jia Xiong is now an intern serving in Stephanie’s vacated capacity. Both Rev. Ong and Intern Jenny have the additional gifts of being multilingual. We have great expectations in each of them.

Another encouraging sign is that our brothers and sisters continue to support DCBC ministry by their offering during the plague year. In addition to electronic giving and mail in checks, I have seen offering envelopes slipped inside our front door, I have personally received several couples who made special trips to church during weekday just to bring in an offering. Your faithful giving shows your love for the Lord and your maturity in Christian discipleship. I am “proud” of serving as your pastor.

By the grace of God, I have been trying to set an example for our fellow Christian workers (1 Peter 5:3). Again by the grace of God, I have been personally present at DCBC every Sunday since the pandemic lockdown. My temperament is really different from that of President Donald Trump, but something that he said recently (according to BBC News) echoed my spirit in the plague year: “We are going to be out front. As your leader, I had to do that. I knew there’s danger to it, but I had to do it. I stood out front, and led.”

"Kyrie Eleison" — May the Lord have mercy upon us. That was a popular prayer during the plague year. Let us pray that this pandemic will subside or be under control with vaccine, and that we may gather without fear and hug each other again without social distancing.

Peace be with you and praise the Lord for a "unique" 2020 at DCBC.

Throughout the pandemic this year, I was reminded to be grounded in the Lord during my morning devotion times and I found comfort in the following verses: Proverbs 3:5, "Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding." And Joshua 1:9, "Be strong and courageous. And do not be frightened, do not be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go."

We, as deacon board, started 2020 with our planned ministry activities but quickly adjusted due to the pandemic. We, in consultation with Pastoral staff, Elders and CDC members, acted to follow Dallas County "Shelter-in-Place" mandate and transitioned to online worship (via live-streaming) in March 2020 along with suspending all in-person ministry activities. This was a very difficult decision made by the deacon board as the spiritual lives of many brothers and sisters were impacted. We pray for your understanding and extra grace as we care about the health of our congregations. We are thankful that DCBC transitioned to limited in person worship services (Phase 2) in September 2020.

We are extremely thankful and encouraged by the foresight and sacrifices made by pastoral staff and Coworkers in setting up the weekly live-streaming worship, Virtual (via ZOOM) Sunday school and other outreach activities. I witnessed the extra effort put forth by the Pastoral staff in caring for the needs of our congregations. I am humbled by caring and courageous coworkers in setting up the weekly online worship. Even though some of the short term mission trips were postponed, we opened up other local outreach opportunities. We adjusted and enabled virtual fellowship, small group meetings and prayer meetings.

We continued to co-Labor in unity through the Holy Spirit with serving the Lord throughout the year. We witnessed so many brothers and sisters faithfully and willingly serving the Lord everyday. Praise the Lord also the arrival of Pastor Joshua Ong as English College and Young Adult pastor. We were reminded that the Lord is faithful and the ministries at DCBC are sustained during this challenging time.

As we transition back to normal (Phase 3 - options for in-person meetings for all ministries except children ministry and Phase 4 - new normal), we are implementing additional safety measures with cleaning in the Sanctuary, Family Center and around the church facilities. We requested everyone to observe important health and safety guidelines while being at DCBC. Please pray for wisdom with our decision making to bring DCBC ministries back to normal. We also pray for His love and peace for the congregations impacted by the pandemic.

We encourage everyone to join the Wednesday Night Prayer meeting and I look forward to worship in-person with everyone on Sunday.

Finally, I pray for His guidance so we can continue to serve the Lord humbly at DCBC along with new opportunities in sharing the Gospel during this unusual time.

Romans 8:28 (NIV)

²⁸ And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.

Philippians 3:13-16

¹³ Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, ¹⁴ I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. ¹⁵ Let those of us who are mature think this way, and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal that also to you. ¹⁶ Only let us hold true to what we have attained.

Ministry report is in Chinese only. Please see 教會事工年度報告(繁體中文), or 教会事工年度报告(简体中文).

The ministry's report is in Chinese only. Please see 教會事工年度報告(繁體中文), or 教会事工年度报告(简体中文).

This year has been a challenging year in English ministry because of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, we continue to remember that the English ministry exists to help all generations follow Christ and grow in his family. The core values are God’s word, community, evangelism, equipping, and unity. We will make the report in light of our core values.

• God’s Word

• So far in 2020, we have preached sermon series on Spiritual Formation (various passages), on Mortifying Sin (Romans 7-8), and on the topic of “Gospel, Race, and Justice” (various passages). Currently we are preaching through a series on evangelism called “Everyday Evangelism.” This is a series based on the book of Acts.

• We have also continued to have Sunday school to teach various books of the Bible and other biblical topics.

• Community

• We currently have 12 community groups that range from 5 to 20 people in the group; the groups spend time growing in their relationship with Christ, with one another, and seek to grow as a disciple-maker for Jesus Christ (UP, IN, and OUT). They also strive to cultivate accountability, belonging, and care for one another (ABC). The groups pivoted to meeting online in light of the pandemic. Currently all groups are still meeting online.

• We had scheduled to have an English ministry retreat (Rekindle 2020), but we were not able to due to COVID-19.

• Evangelism

• We want to exhort everyone to be intentional in sharing the Gospel by word and by deed. In light of that, we are preaching through a series called “Everyday Evangelism.” We are also asking all the community groups to use the Life on Mission Bible Study material. The Bible study material trains the brothers and sisters to learn a tool for sharing the Gospel called “3 Circles.”

• Equipping

• We have met regularly with praise ministry team members, AV team members, and community group leaders to do short trainings. We also use those times to discuss ministry needs and pray for one another.

• Praise ministry attended “Sing! 2020” Conference online. It is also having a book study over the book Worship Matters, by Bob Kauflin.

• Unity

• We weren’t able to serve as much across language ministries this year due to the pandemic, but we strive to remember that we are all serving Jesus together across various ministries. We are glad to see many brothers and sisters in English ministry serving in children and youth ministries.

This year we’re also glad to welcome Pastor Joshua Ong on board as the English young adult and college pastor. We are excited for his love for God and desire to serve in DCBC.

Please continue to pray for the English ministry and the English ministry coworkers.

Children’s Ministry went ONLINE for the first time in March 2020 due to COVID-19! We’re so thankful for all the volunteers on the DCBC Kids team who made it possible to pivot so smoothly. And a big THANKS to Deacon Jerry Chen for helping us with video and sound equipment to get online more easily, as well as safety equipment for when we get back to in-person meetings. We also welcomed our new Children’s Ministry Intern, Jenny Xiong, onto the team in February.

The mission of DCBC kids is to reach kids by partnering with parents so that they have the greatest opportunity to become mature followers of Christ. We praise God for all the loving brothers and sisters who participated in this mission and served in children’s ministry this past school year! Below are the programs (in-person or online) we ran to achieve our mission:

• Children’s Worship seeks to train kids to worship God corporately by providing a worship experience appropriate to their development. We hold two services that run simultaneously on Sundays at 9:30am—Preschool (3-5 years old) and Elementary (1st-6th grade). Children listen to Bible lessons from the Gospel Storybook Bible curriculum, which goes through the Bible in 3 years and emphasizes the gospel in every lesson. Each week, kids sing songs, hear God’s Word, and respond to His Word. We appreciate our volunteers (including song leaders, Bible teachers, and room coordinators) that led our worship services this year! In Elementary Worship, elementary children served by playing the piano and reading Scripture passages. In addition, our 5th & 6th graders serve on ministry teams (A/V, Welcome, and Offering Teams) to take ownership of their worship service and learn to serve others. We especially appreciate the youth students who have partnered with us to lead Preschool Worship throughout the school year!

• Children’s Sunday School seeks to disciple kids through Biblical instruction and life application in small groups. We have four classes that run simultaneously on Sundays at 11am—2 years old, 3’s-Kinder, 1st-4th, 5th-6th. We have aligned preschool and elementary classes to use Lifeway’s Gospel Project curriculum. Each week, kids and leaders meet in the Large Group/Small Group format. Our leaders serve for an entire school year! We are so grateful for our Sunday School coordinators—Linda Chen and Stephanie Shyu—who dedicated their time to recruit and lead their teams. We also appreciate the youth students for partnering with us to serve both Preschool and Elementary classes ON ZOOM in the summer. In addition to Sunday School online, Linda Chen has helped pilot Preschool Worship Family Videos for families to watch together at home!

• Nursery classes help kids 0-2 years old know and love Jesus by providing a safe and caring environment that fosters growth and learning. Nursery is provided Sundays, Fridays, and during church-wide events. We really appreciate our paid-sitters and volunteers who get to know our babies really well. Furthermore, we are extremely blessed to have Pat Lee coordinate our nursery!

• The Welcome Team seeks to create a friendly and welcoming environment on Sundays, as well as a fast and accurate check-in experience. We are grateful for our team of greeters for welcoming and checking in our kids every Sunday. We currently have electronic check-in on Sunday mornings and Friday nights (Awana). The team took a break when DCBC moved programming online.

• Awana is an international ministry that seeks to help churches and parents raise children to know, love, and serve Christ. At DCBC, leaders and kids meet in three Awana Clubs—Cubbies (3-4 yrs. old), Sparks (K-2nd grade), and T&T (3rd-4th grade)—on Friday nights during the school year. This past school year, we also ran LIT (Leaders in Training) for our preteens (5th-6th grade) for the fourth year in a row. LIT aims to empower the next generation by recognizing the uniqueness of every child, reaching them with the Gospel of Jesus Christ, disciple them in their personal walk with Him, equip them to do ministry, and then release them to serve in the church and in the world. Kids and leaders meet each week for games, ministry teams, small group time, and large group time. We are grateful for Adam Wong’s dedication and leadership in his third year as Awana-LIT Commander! We are also thankful for the many college students who took time in their schedules to serve our kids!

• Children’s Special Events are one-time or annual ministries that have a specific purpose in reaching, teaching, and equipping kids to be like Jesus. Virtual VBS 2020 was a 5-day ONLINE experience that brought kids on an adventure where they learn more about Jesus. Kids participated in crafts, snacks, games, and Bible lessons all on Zoom. We are thankful for Children’s Ministry Intern Jenny Xiong as the assistant director of the VBS team this year. And we are extremely thankful for the VBS core team, teens, and adult volunteers that made the event possible!

• Aside from our programs, Children’s Ministry could not run without the vital support of our Resource Room ministry. Pady Hoh and Linda Chen have devoted countless hours to organizing and managing our awesome Resource Room. Every year, over 70 volunteers are served through this important resource that God has given us.

In August 2020, we celebrated Minister Sherry Cheng’s eighth year anniversary as full-time Children’s Minister. In addition, we are grateful for our Children’s Deacon Adam Wong (2016-2019) and Jerry Chen (2012-2015, 2020) for their dedication to our kids! We continue to pray that God would use all the parents and volunteers to challenge our children to become committed followers of Christ!

In a culture where teenagers are undervalued and underappreciated, I am often reminded of Jeremiah 1:7-8 where God calls Jeremiah, as a teenager to speak and to go as God leads. God can and does do the same now. He loves teenagers; they are valuable to God as youth, not only when they become adults and have fancy jobs. God will and does call teenagers for His Kingdom work.

It has been an interesting year as we moved all of our programs online mid-March. We are so thankful for our leaders and their dedication to their small groups and to the youth ministry. Even in the midst of zoom fatigue, they consistently attended ZOOM Youth Group and gave these teenagers every ounce of energy they had. Clement and Angel feel such honor serving alongside these dedicated men and women. For the 2019-2020 school year, we were blessed with the following leaders: Daniel Jee, Jason Cheung, Andrew Chow, Eric Chui, Jonathan Hsu, Megan Liu, Angela Chang, Rachel Yue, Christy Purnadi, Rachel Pang, Sarah Li, and Melissa Cheng. Our small group leaders serve as shepherds over the small group of teenagers they have. As they seek Jesus in their personal life, they challenge and call these teenagers to do the same. They have the large task of challenging students and following-up on spiritual conversations that may take place on Friday, Saturday, or through social media.

Our ministry exists to partner with parents to help teenagers follow Jesus and grow up in His family. Our programs are aimed to grow our teenagers in the faith, to disciple them as they learn about God, the Gospel, and who they are in relation to Christ. And as a ministry that seeks to partner with parents, we have started parents’ ministry to equip parents with understanding of youth culture, Scripture, and the important calling they have as parents over the spiritual lives of their children.

Regular Programs:

• Friday Night Youth Group:

We worked through 1 John. We desire to train up people to become biblically literate. As such, we alternate between Bible study and preaching so students can learn to study the Bible under our adult leaders. Our Friday night youth group is a safe place for teenagers to come as they are and to bring their questions as they are. We saw our student leaders take charge and care for the students in our youth group. The Lord has definitely been working in the hearts of our youth as they have been discovering who Christ is to them and who they are in Christ. Once we moved to ZOOM youth group, we saw teens come who normally had school events. Praise God!

• Youth Sunday School:

We had 3 youth Sunday school classes: 7^th grade, 8^th to 9^th grade, and 10^th to 12^th graders. The 7^th grade class went through a curriculum on the Gospel and its impact on our lives, taught by Michelle Chang and Clement. The 8^th to 9^th graders went through Genesis, taught by Angel. The 10^th to 12^th graders learned about world religions from Jade Chia and were beginning to learn about spiritual warfare from Clement before the lock down. We did not move to an online format once shelter-in-place hit as we could not figure out time, logistics, and teachers.

During the summer, the youth helped out in Children’s Sunday school under Sherry and Jenny’s leadership.

• Winter Retreat:

We love Winter Retreat. While it takes a lot of preparation, we always believe it is worth it. The theme was, “Fully Known, Fully Loved”, with Josh Ong as our speaker. Our teenagers and leaders got a dedicated space and time to be honest before God with their sin and they got to confess it to one another in small groups. We saw small groups become a place of love and accountability; one where they got to be authentic, speak truth, and demonstrate Gospel love toward one another. This is what we desire for all believers – to be rooted in Christ’s love for them as demonstrated on the Cross so that they can be honest with one another in their struggle, to not have to hide or “save face”.

Service projects:

• Nursing Home:

The youth ministry goes to Lindan Park Nursing Home every fourth Saturday of the month. We continue to extend the invitation to our parents in youth ministry as we believe teens and parents grow together as they serve together. Each month, approximately 5 to 7 teenagers wake up early Saturday morning to come. They are blessed for coming and the elderly love seeing their faces. Unfortunately, we had to end this once shelter-in-place began.

• OurCalling:

The youth ministry has consistently been serving at OurCalling on the second Saturday of the month. Every month, we work in the warehouse – sorting clothes, folding clothes, and restocking clothes. The prayer is that we will see that we are poor and in need of Jesus in our lives. Unfortunately, we also had to end this once shelter-in-place started.

Parent Ministry:

Right before our church building closed, Clement and Angel with the help of Sarah Li and Jason Cheung led a parent seminar on LGBTQ+ and how our parents can understand and engage in conversation with their teenagers. We also showed parents the need to be aware of and know the culture around them as things happen in the culture first before it becomes a political issue.

We are thankful for what God is doing in the lives of our teenagers and our leaders through DCBC’s youth ministry. It is an exciting time to be in youth ministry and we are thankful that this is the time God has placed us in. Until next year!

This is an unusual year. The COVID-19 Pandemic force us to modify our ministry approach. However, the family ministry’s goal of caring for our members remain to be the main core of our ministry work.

This year Abraham Hospitality Ministry, under the leadership of Patrick Poon and Gladys Fung have suspended the coffee and snacks services due to this Pandemic. However, our ministry team is intact and ready to come back once the church return to normal.

In the Counseling/Caring ministry, we have continued our ministry. Mei Yatco, the lead facilitator with other team members (William & Kathleen Wu, Humphrey & Grace Ha, and Katherine Lam), continually do our peer counseling ministry online. This year, we have performed over 250 hours of counseling work.

Journeying with these brothers/sisters toward life transformation requires encouragement, especially as they countering obstacles. For this reason, we have conducted several events to encourage our church members that include the following:

• Valentine’s Day – We offered free childcare, games, and suggested activities for 9 couples. Many couples were blessed and encouraged with a fun time and relaxed evening with each other.

• Mother’s Day – On this special Sunday, we have conducted our celebration with an online worship message, special mother's day music, and an uplifting message of love from our children.

• Father’s Day – On this special day, we honored and encouraged our father through a worship message. We have online recorded children’s messages to show their appreciation for their father’s spiritual leadership.

• Other Programs – We had an online Sunday school/workshop on the subjects of Parenting, and financial stewardship.

God is merciful and has sufficient grace for those willing to seek His care. In the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord, we pray that DCBC members will join and serve along-side with family ministry this coming year.

This year is a year of change and a test of the church’s response to the pandemic. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the church’s Sunday worship was changed to an online live broadcast from March 13th, so that every brother and sister can worship God with the broadcast on YouTube. Thank you and praise the Lord! Although during the epidemic, our A/V co-workers and choir co-workers still serve at the church every Sunday. Special thanks to Brother Gilfred Fang for his help in establishing and installing hardware equipment such as Audio/Video mixers, cameras, computers and TV monitors. I would also like to thank Pastor David Tang and Minister Max Kong for helping to install the software, and Brother David Jee for helping with the computer upgrades, so that the weekly online worship can proceed smoothly.

After the church reopened for the second phase on September 13, I would like to thank the ushers who came back to serve in the church! Also, thank you to Brother David Jee and Secretary Diana for setting up a software system for the registration of brothers and sisters back to the church for worship. Thank you to Brother Gilfred Fang and Brother David Jee for establishing a computer/scanner hardware system for brothers and sisters to report for attending Sunday worship. We held a training session on August 29th and September 5th to let the ushers familiarize themselves with this system and other safety precautions that let brothers and sisters return to church to worship safely and conveniently.

Thanks to Brother Robert Stevens and Brother Gilfred Fang for remodeling the A/V room of the sanctuary, adding an extra 30 inches by 45 inches of space, so that the co-workers in the A/V room have a 6-foot safe distance.

Let us give thanks to God for the blessings of the Worship ministry. He provided sufficient coworkers to serve and witness His glory.

The teams of the Worship Ministry are as follows:

• The AV team – hardware is led by Brother Gilfred Fang. Software is led by David Jee.

• Mandarin A/V team leader is Brother Daniel Chen. Cantonese A/V team leader is Brother Eric Tai. English A/V team leader is Brother David Wang.

• Usher team – Mandarin team coordinator was Sister Jean Chen before 3/13, and Dong-Yau Lin is the team coordinator after church’s reopening from 9/13. Cantonese team coordinator is Sisters Esther Chen, English team coordinator is Brother Kenny Hsu.

• Presider – Pastors, Elders, and Deacons.

• The communion servers – coworkers from each congregation.

• Communion Prepare Team (responsible for preparing bread and grape juice for the Holy Communion) – Mandarin team is led by Brothers Simon Shie and Mark Hsu, Cantonese team is led by brother Xiao Jiaming and sister Wang Xiaofang, and English team is led by brother Alex Wong.

• Decoration team – Sister Phoebe Chang is the team

• Worship/Praise Team – Mandarin Choir is led by Director Grace Tu, Cantonese Praise team is led by sister Denise Chen, English Praise team is led by sisters Elice Wong.

Looking forward to 2021, I wish that the COVID-19 pandemic will end soon, so that every brother and sister can return to the church to participate in worship. I also hope that more brothers and sisters will participate in church service, pray for each other, and support each other. I would like to thank all of the brothers, sisters and pastoral staff who participate in the worship service in the year of 2020.

Ministry report is in Chinese only. Please see 教會事工年度報告(繁體中文), or 教会事工年度报告(简体中文).

We praise the Lord, the missions committee was able to regularly meet on a monthly basis in the midst of COVID-19 via Zoom. This year the missions committee had to prayerfully adapt our missions approach as in-person meetings and travel were restricted and limited.

We are grateful for new opportunities the Lord has provided for us to engage in virtual and local missions.

In the midst of the pandemic, we are committed to the vision and mission of making disciples of all nations. We want to see all generations follow Jesus and grow in his family - both here in the DFW and to the ends of the earth. To that end, we continued to be focused on our vision to: Excite & Educate, Engage, Equip, and Empower.

Excite & Educate the Congregation for Local and Global Missions

• Pastor David has completed training the missions committee with summaries of Well-Sent by Steve Beirn to grow our vision for DCBC becoming a sending church.

• While we had to cancel in person Short Term Missions (“STM”), DCBC has mobilized care packages to be sent to our missionaries for last Christmas.

• We have shifted our Missions Conference to be online and virtual, engaging all our missionaries at home and abroad to contribute to the zoom videos, both recorded, focusing on the theme “Becoming a Sending Church”.

Engage the Congregation in Local and Global Missions

• Praise the LORD that DCBC this year partnered with a local mission organization called BridgeBuilders, whose vision is to restore relationships under the banner of Christ by engaging, equipping, and empowering individuals, families, and communities in South Dallas. During the summer, the missions committee mobilized a church-wide school supply drive to support BridgeBuilders called, “Got Your Back” and by the grace of God, DCBC fundraised $5000 in the Bonton/South Dallas, whose median household income is $12,000 per year. This was an amazing blessing for BridgeBuilders as one of the church partners that typically support BridgeBuilders had to re-direct funds to food distribution. With the funds DCBC raised, BridgeBuilders were able to serve over 350+ underprivileged children under the banner of Jesus Christ.

• We are grateful for brothers and sisters like Davis and Nancy Wong for leading the church to engage in reaching out to Chinese international students; under their leadership, we continue to have a vibrant ministry where people come to follow Jesus and grow in his family.

Equip the Congregation in Local and Global Missions

To equip the church, we continue to educate the congregation through the following:

• Churchwide-effort

  • 2020 Virtual Missions Conference: A weekend to encourage DCBC to “Become a Sending Church,” through plenary sessions on Friday night, educational and prayer sessions with missionaries around the world on Saturday and Missions Sunday.

• English

  • A 11-week sermon series called “Everyday Evangelism”.

  • Roll-out of “Life on Missions” small group study to incorporate the rhythm of evangelism and missions in our daily lives.

• Mandarin

  • Evangelism Explosion Training for Chinese speakers; we are grateful for the leadership of brother Davis Wong and Min. Bill Chen.

• Cantonese

  • Under the leadership of Pastor Kelvin, the Japan missions team continue to pray, train and meet.

Empower (and also encourage) DCBC Supported Missionaries

One of the main ways we empower overseas missionaries and missions organizations is by supporting them with finance and prayer. Currently we are supporting 14 missions workers and 11 missions organizations.

While we are not able to conduct STM, we plan to continue to care for our missionaries through “adopt a missionary” project by various community and fellowship groups to send care packages to our missionaries.

We need the church’s prayerful support - please continue to pray for the missions ministry and for DCBC to become a missional, sending church.

“For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”—Ephesians 2:8-10

Praise the lord that we have many brothers and sisters who are willing to serve the Lord with their gifts in our church ministries. Because of God’s grace and His providence, some of our essential ministries can still be available despite the COVID-19 outbreak. Even though most of the membership services have been suspended since early March, we still have experienced His guidance and His faithfulness. The following is a brief report of our ministries in 2020.

Membership: Thirty-four brothers and sisters have joined our church to become members since late last year. We welcome them to become part of our family in Christ. We will grow spiritually and co-labor together to serve our Lord. Including the new members, we now have a total of 475 active DCBC members.

Food Service: Praise the Lord that our church had continuously been providing free lunches every Sunday for more than 50 years before the COVID 19 outbreak. This has been God’s amazing blessing! Currently we have 12 cooking teams waiting to serve again when the pandemic is over. We also thank the brothers and sisters in the Abraham ministry serving coffee and tea for us every Sunday before the pandemic. Pray that God will continue to bless them and we will serve together again soon.

Church Cleaning: The church is the body of Christ and the place for us to worship God. We appreciate the support from our brothers and sisters in the church cleaning day over the past year. It was suspended this year due to the pandemic.

Senior Transportation: Our church has a fourteen-passenger bus and an eight-passenger van to provide transportation service to brothers and sisters who need help in transportation. Our main service has been for the twenty seniors who live in the Silver Gardens apartment. The service has been suspended due to the pandemic. We have 18 brothers and sisters serving as drivers in this ministry before the suspension. We appreciate their service and devotion. Pray that the pandemic will be over soon and we will serve together again to provide loving care and services to the senior brothers and sisters in our church.

Member Caring: Our church provides Christian needy funds and interest-free emergency loans for members who need financial help. They can contact our pastoral staff or Membership deacon for these.

Facility Rental: As a service to our members or other Christian organizations, our church provides facility rentals for personal use such as weddings or evangelical meetings. The service was suspended since early March due to the pandemic and has been available on case by case basis. e.g. UTD EPIC used our classroom in a small scale in September.

Membership services and ministries try to serve and co-labor with everyone who comes to our church. Pray that the pandemic will be over soon and our ministries will be back to normal. In the meantime, we continue to care for each other and lift up one another. May God continue to bless these ministries and His name will be glorified.

“And my God will meet all your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus.” Philippians 4:19

“For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” Matthew 6:21

In 2020 COVID-19 situation, our heavenly Father is always provides DCBC with funds and resources to meet our needs for His glory. The financial summary for 2020 through September at DCBC is as follows:

• Total Offering was $965,789 against outflows of $959,642, an increase of $6,147.

• The General Fund cash inflow was $895,943 against an outflow of $828,213, an increase of $67,731 with a balance of $1,957,008.

• The Building Fund cash inflow was $15,941 with a balance is $5,786. $120,000 paid back to the Long Term Development Fund by June 2020.

• The Mission Fund offerings were $53,905 against outflows of $131,429. Balance is $257,625.

Finance Department at DCBC encompasses three areas:

• Accounting – manages all aspects of inflow and outflow of funds, financial statements and financial record keeping

• IT/Technology (ITT) – keeps all the computers, servers, printers, software, etc. up-to-date, running and functioning

• Human Resources – manages staff compensation, benefits, and employment

The ITT team continues to improve the communication infrastructure at DCBC with fast internet access and to provide necessary IT support for the entire church. Accounting and ITT teams continue to support Children and English Ministry in enabling Electronic Fund Transfer (EFT) for offering, VBS, Awana, and English retreat registrations.

Praise the Lord give blessing to our church finance. Thanks to sisters and brothers’ offering, also thanks our finance department co-workers’ love of our Lord Christ Jesus. Sisters and brothers have been using their gifts from God to serve our Lord faithfully for many years. They are vital to the smooth operation of our church’s finances so our pastoral staff can devote themselves to prayer and to the ministry of the Word. May goodness and mercy shall follow them and their future generations all the days of their lives until the Second Coming of our Lord Christ Jesus. Amen.

As with every other ministry of the church, the role of general services has been very different in 2020. As the COVID-19 lockdown started, it was very unclear how long the church buildings would be empty. For the first few weeks, there were times that it felt that the buildings would be empty for a very long time. For general services, the lockdown was an opportunity to finish projects that were incomplete or difficult to do with people in the buildings several times each week. But, even without people using the buildings, it was surprising that many parts of the church continued to breakdown. There were new challenges as well. For the first couple of months, it was hard to get vendors to come make repairs, and the general services deacon had to make many more trips to the church to let people in to do work and inspections because there was no staff at the church. So what was an opportunity to get many projects done became a slow and unexpected crawl.

Then in July, it became clear that we would have the opportunity to re-open for limited in-person services. The role then became cleaning and sanitizing the church at a level that we had never contemplated before, and configuring the church to welcome back…people.

It has been an interesting year. Here are some highlights:

• Implemented a police presence in church every Sunday. Officer Brian Meli has been great to work with and has provided us additional insights on many aspects of church security.

• Replaced almost every light bulb in the original church building and lobby areas with LED bulbs.

• Replaced the light control system for the sanctuary lights.

• Repaired the office HVAC system.

• Replaced the parking lot lights with LED bulbs.

• Implemented complete sanctuary and family center disinfecting with electrostatic misting and hand wiping.

• Configured the church for social distancing.

• Restriped the parking lot.