USGA 2024 Holy Work Status Update – July 2024

The Annual Theme

In 2024, the USGA set “Rebuilding the Walls” (Micah 7:11) as the annual theme for all local churches to follow. With this proposed theme to strengthen the pastoral care and the believers’ faith, we wanted the local churches to focus on the following areas of pastoral work: First, promote the spirit of prayer and encourage more members to join online prayers as well as the prayers before Sabbath services. Second, deepen the members’ understanding of the ten basic beliefs. Provide daily Bible reading reference materials for members.  Emphasize the importance of messages from the pulpit by providing sermon speaker training. Third, strengthen different fellowships in the church, reach out and care for lost sheep, and keep members in God’s love.

Thanks to God’s guidance, all church councils were able to actively work together and to put forth plans to fill the gaps in the church. As mentioned in Ephesians 4:16, “the whole body of Him, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work”, just like a holy city that is firmly joined together.

The Theological Training Program

The three years of the 2020 Theological Training Program coincided with the world-wide COVID-19 pandemic. Thank God, through His protection and by the guidance of the Holy Spirit, Bro. Andy Wang and Bro. Chad Liu concluded the training smoothly in 2022. Moreover, post-training, both trainees successfully completed a month-long internship in January 2023.

In November 2023, the National Church Conference was held at the Elizabeth Church, and they were ordained as preachers. Pr. Chad Liu was assigned to the Northwest region to pastor Pacifica Church, Sacramento Church, and Seattle Church. Pr. Andrew Wang was assigned to the Eastern region to pastor Flushing Church in New York and Boston Church.

As the number of believers is growing and new churches are established in different places, the GA has to send preachers to assist in preaching, pastoring, training, and other holy work. In addition, two preachers are about to retire in the next five years. Therefore, after the ordination of the aforementioned new preachers, the GA started another theological training class at the beginning of this year. Thank God, two brothers responded to God’s calling. Bro. Micah Lee from DC Church and Bro. Joseph Kim from Ontario Church started the three-year theological training course at Cerritos Church on January 28th, 2024. In addition, Bro. James Liu, Literary Ministry Department Specialist from the UKGA, also joined this theological training class. With the blessings and encouragement of friends, family, church members, and their teachers, these students will complete the course by the end of 2026.

 

 

The National Adult Theological Seminar

The 2023 National Adult Theological Seminar (NATS) was held from November 6th-12th at Houston Church, Texas, with a total of 91 students and 5 workers participating. The theme of the seminar was “Preach the Gospel, Bring Glad Tidings”. For the first time ever, NATS was held in the Central region. The overwhelming number of applicants exceeded the host church’s capacity for accommodation. However, thanks to the grace of God, the church members opened their homes to accommodate the participants and the seminar was successfully completed. Many students were deeply moved by the love of Houston’s church members.

The Online Adult Theological Seminar

The 2024 Online Adult Theological Seminar was held via Zoom for four consecutive weekends from May 25th to June 16th, 2024. Praise the Lord, 50 participants signed up for the online event. The theme was “Faith and Life”, and the books studied were Ezra and Ecclesiastes.

Holy Work in Central America

Dominican Republic

The True Jesus Church in the Dominican Republic has established two locations: one in its capital, Santo Domingo, inside Chinatown, and the other in San Pedro, the third largest city. Currently, Santo Domingo Church in the capital is mainly composed of Chinese believers. There are around 90 believers in total, of which 50 are active believers, and average attendance on Sabbath days amounts to 25-30 people.

In San Pedro Church, the majority of the believers are local Dominicans and there are approximately 15 people who attended Sabbath services. In summary, the total number of believers in the Dominican Republic is about 105.

Due to business reasons, Chinese church members are scattered among the major cities in the Dominican Republic. In addition to Sabbath gatherings, church members decided to have three fellowship meetings every month, which are held regularly in the Santo Domingo Church on different Sundays. Around 20 to 25 people attend regularly. By God’s grace,  Santo Domingo Church has obtained a building permit from the city for the renovation of its church building and is currently looking for a suitable contractor to carry out the renovation.

San Pedro Church has also started building renovations recently to make the space quieter and reduce the interference from street noise. Moreover, air conditioning was installed to provide church members with a comfortable environment to worship God.

Led by the Holy Spirit, members from Argentina Church have organized a religious education group to strengthen the faith of the young local Dominican believers. Thank God, the Internet RE class for the Dominican students has been taught in Spanish since January 2024 and is currently focusing on the junior class curriculum. So far there are 8 students participating online every week and there will also be a Spanish Student Spiritual Convocation held when preachers visit and minister the Dominican Republic this summer.

The USGA assigns five groups of missionaries to the Dominican Republic each year in accordance with the needs of the ministry. After years of hard work, the church work in the Dominican Republic is gradually getting on track. Besides Sabbath services and Sunday fellowships, evangelical services were held during the July 2023 missionary trip. Thank God, the church members actively invited friends and their local employees to join the evangelical services; they also organized a choir and sang hymns with the truth seekers to worship God together.

This year, we had more truth seekers than last year. There were 50 local Dominican friends and 18 Chinese truth seekers; Together with the 55 church members who attended, a total of more than 120 people participated in the evangelical services this year. May God continue to open the door of the gospel for us, so that the truth can be spread to every city in the Dominican Republic.

Mexico

Thank God, although there are only a dozen church members in Mexico at present, believers have been moving to Mexico City in recent years and the number of believers continues to increase.

Their love for the Lord has motivated the believers to actively contribute to a church building fund and, in recent years, to look for a suitable location to purchase a building for church use. In April 2024, thanks to the Lord’s guidance, they successfully purchased a suitable property near the business district of Mexico’s capital for US$1,000,000. The property is near their original gathering place.

The building has a total floor space of approximately 430 square meters and is conveniently located in a safe area. It is currently undergoing the first phase of renovation. Once the renovation is completed, church members will move to the new location for worship. We ask all brothers and sisters to continue to pray for and contribute to this project, as the local church is still short of more than US$400,000.

 

Guatemala

Praise the Lord, evangelism in Guatemala is ongoing; it started from a local family of four TJC members, which became the local base for evangelism. In November 2023 and March 2024, the USGA assigned two groups of workers to visit believers and to conduct pioneering work. Thank God that during the two recent visits, many friends and Christians from other churches came to study the truth with us. Among them, there was a group of Christians (25 adults and 10 children) who invited us to their gathering place twice in a row to study the Bible, hoping to further understand the complete way of salvation of the true church. We will continue to follow up and systematically study our basic beliefs with them during our next pastoral visit. May God open the door of the gospel and guide His sheep to return to His flock.

Belize

Belize is the only English-speaking country in Central America, located at the southwestern end of the Gulf of Mexico. About 20 years ago, four church members from Taiwan moved to Belize. Thank God, in 2022, USGA began to regularly send preachers to Belize to pastor the local members. During their visits, the ministers also encouraged the believers to establish a family altar and to open their house as an evangelism base. Belize church members usually watch the live broadcast of Houston Church’s Sabbath services. Currently, Houston Church is the closest church to Belize. Therefore, in addition to the USGA’s annual pastoral visit, Houston Church members have been invited to regularly show care and concern for the local believers to help spread the gospel in Belize.