Quarterly Business Meeting, September 27, 2026
Over 19 years ago, you adopted the September 9, 2007 Mission Statement that appears every Sunday on the front of your bulletins. The names below the statement are the church staff that have changed over the course of these 19 years—my name has only been there for the past 11 months ago. And prayerfully, God will insert a new name on the top of that list when your new settled pastor arrives.
While the art deco sanctuary is on the bulletin cover, what you don’t see are the 3 houses and a fellowship hall and I heard that two other houses were sold some years ago. You don’t see any cars outside or the front doors opened for Sunday worship. Before the gas station was demolished and removed, we are now really on the corner of Lakeshore and Mandana whereas before, we were only close to the corner.
On the back of the bulletin, we only list what are events for the public to attend or to give the impression that your church staff members are really busy during the week! But truthfully, the calendar doesn’t list the many meetings that really happen, the number of phone calls we have with people like you, and the times when one of the pastors visit someone in the hospital.
Who are we as Lakeshore Avenue Baptist Church when we are only able to see a part of what really is there? The Apostle Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 13: 9-10, “For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end.” The complete is Christ Jesus who demonstrated what love is. When we have the love of Christ in our hearts in this church, then we can proclaim what Paul said, “For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known.” (13:12) The community of disciples known as Lakeshore is more than we can see on the Sunday bulletin.
There should be more people listed on the front of the bulletin—these people are you! You are the ministers of the Gospel. There should be more buildings than the picture on the bulletin—your houses, condos, apartments, homes where you practice Christian hospitality and neighborly love. There should be more programs and activities listed in the back of the bulletin—all the weekday things like greeting someone when you are at Trader Joe’s or when you help someone cross the street or when you call someone you haven’t seen for a while, all the things that fill up your Mondays to Saturdays are the ways that you are ambassadors of Jesus Christ!
God is not yet finish with Lakeshore because you still have much to do—to be that inclusive community that embraces everyone, that worship and witness and work to advance God’s redemptive plan for the world, and when we feel the tingling movement of the Spirit, we do what the Prophet Micah told us—to do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with God.
166 years old may be old according to our human capacity to understand but God was here before us, God is with us today, and God will be with the saints of Lakeshore tomorrow. God be with you.
Interim Pastor Don Ng