Pan-Asian Congregation Approves Split

It usually spells trouble when a congregation splits in half, with one segment departing along with the longtime senior pastor.

But an English-speaking, Asian American Baptist congregation in Rosemead has voluntarily and amicably split because the church has outgrown its facilities and the pastors believe they will reach more people with two congregations.

The Evergreen Baptist Church, which has been averaging 1,000 worshipers each Sunday at its facilities at 1255 San Gabriel Blvd., this month took the first steps toward a physical separation to be effective in March.

The Rev. Kenneth U. Fong, 40, was installed as the new senior pastor of Evergreen on Nov. 3. Last Sunday, the congregations led by Fong and the Rev. Cory Ishida, 49, who has been senior pastor for 19 years, started meeting for the first time in separate services at the church.

The congregation began the process by asking members and staff to decide whether they would like to stay in Fong’s congregation or eventually follow Ishida to a yet-to-be-found site for a second Evergreen ministry in the San Gabriel Valley, according to church administrator Yetsuko Saguchi.

“To our surprise, the split was about even in numbers,” Saguchi said. Both congregations wound up with young and old members, she said, and each with a good mixture of Japanese- and Chinese-heritage members along with Korean, Vietnamese and other Asian-background churchgoers.

“The congregation which voted to stay with Rev. Fong may differ in the style of worship, a little more innovative,” said Saguchi, whose chose to join Ishida’s new ministry. “There will probably be more involvement of women in worship under the younger pastor.”

At Fong’s installation, the Rev. Samuel S. Chetti, executive minister for American Baptists in the Los Angeles area, praised the unusual pan-Asian ministries of the two pastors as multiethnic “shepherding at the edge of a new millennium.”

PEOPLE

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Imam W. Deen Mohammed, the Chicago-based spiritual leader of most African American Muslims who follow mainstream Islamic tenets, will give a free public lecture at 1 p.m. on Nov. 24 at the Westin Bonaventure hotel in Los Angeles--one day after his organization honors eight members of the Los Angeles news media at the same hotel. Veteran television reporter Warren Wilson of KTLA Channel 5, one of the honorees, will be the keynote speaker at the 13th annual Testimonial to Leadership Banquet on Nov. 23.

Mohammed, whose spiritual leadership extends to about 150 mosques in North America, recently had a private audience with Pope John Paul II and was named this week to a 20-member committee to advise the State Department of any appropriate U.S. response to religious persecution.

* Bishop T. D. Jakes of Dallas, who has led successively larger conferences for men in recent years, will lead his Manpower 4 Conference from Thursday night through next Saturday at the Los Angeles Convention Center. The charismatic preacher has had books on Christian bestseller lists. Among those appearing with Jakes will be singer Marvin Winans, who will speak to the gatherings.

* Sara DiVito Hardman, the state director of the Christian Coalition, will analyze the Nov. 5 election results in a Pasadena chapter meeting at 7 p.m. Thursday at Pasadena First Church of the Nazarene, 3700 E. Sierra Madre Blvd. The Tarzana resident said she was surprised by the Democratic Party victories in light of “energized” coalition volunteers who distributed more than 5 million voter guides before election day in California. (818) 286-4365.

THANKSGIVING

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Most interfaith and community celebrations of Thanksgiving will occur closer to the Nov. 28 holiday, but among those in the coming week are events in Glendale and Irvine. Ethicist-author Lewis Smedes will speak at the eighth annual Celebration of Thanksgiving at 7:30 p.m. on Friday at Vallejo Drive Seventh-day Adventist Church in Glendale in a program including organist Ladd Thomas and the Cambridge Singers. The event is free, but call (818) 409-8100. Seating is also limited at the multi-faith Thanksgiving music festival sponsored by the Newport Mesa Irvine Interfaith Council at 7 p.m. Sunday at Mariners South Coast Church in Irvine. (714) 548-4942.

MUSIC

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Seven soloists will sing “Great Arias From Grand Opera,” accompanied by the Los Angeles Jewish Symphony conducted by Noreen Green, at 7 p.m. on Nov. 24 at Valley Beth Shalom, 15739 Ventura Blvd., Encino. General admission tickets sell for $50 and $25. (818) 788-6000.

* Organist Frederick Swann, director of music at the Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove, will perform at 6 p.m. Sunday at Lake Avenue Church in Pasadena. An offering will be taken. (818) 795-7221.

* In a pre-Hanukkah concert, singers Sam Glaser and Michael Ian Elias will perform with a 10-piece orchestra at 4 p.m. Sunday at Beth Jacob Congregation, 9030 W. Olympic Blvd., Beverly Hills, in a benefit for the Jews for Judaism organization. Tickets are $10.

* The Philadelphia Gospel Seminar Mass Choir, a 60-voice group that has sung at the Vatican, will perform a series of concerts in Los Angeles starting at 7:30 p.m. Friday at Union Missionary Baptist Church, 1812 E. 110th St., in Watts. Next Saturday, the choir will lead a four-hour gospel workshop at noon at the Holy Name of Jesus Catholic Church, 1955 W. Jefferson Blvd., and sing at 5 p.m. at Westminster Presbyterian Church, 2230 W. Jefferson Blvd. It also will perform during the 11 a.m. service Nov. 24 at Macedonia Baptist Church, 1751 E. 114th St. in Watts.

FINALLY

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The choir at the North Hollywood-based Metropolitan Community Church in the Valley was one of two dozen choral groups recently selected to take part in the Disneyland Candlelight Procession and Ceremony in December.

“We were the smallest choir chosen by the Disneyland Entertainment Division from more than 150 church, school and civic choirs which submitted audition tapes,” said Steven Applegate, director of music for the church, which is affiliated with a denomination whose primary ministry is to gay communities.

MCC church choirs have been active in multi-church religious events, including a choir festival last Sunday in Rolling Hills Estates sponsored by the South Coast Ecumenical Council.

But this was the first time that an MCC choir was picked for Disneyland’s holiday ceremonies, Applegate said.

The selected choirs do not retain their individuality in the two-day ceremonies, but are blended into one of two choirs of 1,000 voices each--one singing carols twice Dec. 14 and the other performing the next night.

Notices may be mailed to Southern California File, c/o John Dart, L.A. Times, 20000 Prairie St., Chatsworth, CA 91311, or faxed to Religion desk (818) 772-3385. Items should arrive about three weeks before the event, except for late news, and should include pertinent details about the people and organizations with address, phone number, date and times.

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EXHIBIT

The venerable English expressions “Eat, drink and be merry,” “fight the good fight,” “the spirit is willing,” “the fat of the land” and “the powers that be” originated not with the King James Bible (1611) but with the first printed English Bible (1526), produced by translator-priest William Tyndale.

The only known complete copy of Tyndale’s first printed English New Testament will be featured in an exhibition opening Tuesday at the Huntington Library in San Marino and continuing through Feb. 7.

Organized by the British Library, the exhibit will mark the first U.S. display of the Tyndale Bible. The exhibit, which includes Queen Anne Boleyn’s personal copy of Tyndale’s 1534 New Testament, will travel to the New York Public Library and the Library of Congress in Washington.

Tyndale’s efforts to bring the Bible to ordinary readers was seen at the time as undermining the authority of the English monarchy and the church. Branded as a heretic, he was strangled and burned in 1536.

Yet his memorable words endured.