Church of Southland

Weird. Wrote this a few months ago but never published it. Still attending Church of Southland fairly regularly.

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Since about February of this year, I've been attending a new church: Church of Southland. My coworker/carpool-buddy has gone to this church for many years and suggest that I check it out. I actually visited the church once last year but I was still trying to get used to the 1.5G service at EFC Irvine so I didn't go back at the time.

So far it's pretty good. I got invited to a small/cell group Thursday nights. Church is mostly Korean-American, even more so than NewSong. I actually see a lot of NewSong NOC people at Southland, since NewSong NOC has fallen apart and shut down for a year now. Worship music is pretty good too, though a bit more old-school than NewSong, or even my old church (CCCSB) when I led worship. Thinking of helping out with sound mixing in a few months.

Church also seems very mission oriented. For a Korean church, they have a lot of missionary work in China.

Matt Redman Concert (October 2015)

Day before leaving on a two week Asia trip, I went to a Matt Redman concert at Mariners Church along with several people from CCCSB. One of my carpool buddies attends Mariners and told me about the concert. I have never been to Mariners before and was surprised how large it was.


Almost 4000 people capacity

I only managed to record one video since my phone was acting up. It even crashed on this video and reset itself near the end of the song.


10000 Reasons (Bless The Lord) - Matt Redman

New Church #1: EFCI 1.5G Ministry

1.5G stands for 1.5 generation. From their website, they are trying to reach those born overseas but grew up in the US bi-culturally. I guess it's something similar to NewSong's Third Culture ideology, trying to reach those stuck between two dominant cultures. Anyway, I showed up at 11:05am for their 11:10am service and the full-English ministry was still in the room so everything got delayed. The service feels like the English service at CCCSB without the Youth, and with some Chinese thrown in. In the end, it felt a bit gimmicky... about 90% of the service was in English but several worship songs were in Chinese, the worship leader had a pretty strong accent, and the speaker threw in a few Chinese sentences. I think the concept is fine, but since it's part of EFC Irvine, it's still a Chinese church, especially the Chinese lunch after service.

I don't think my Chinese is good enough to be even 1.5G. I had raised this issue while back at CCCSB. It's not about language but culture. The English Ministry never grew in the past 20 years because I don't think there is a goal, other than somewhere for the Youth to go before college. Is there truly a 1.5G culture? Maybe there is but in practice, it's hard to define and to balance the two different cultures. I'll go back a few more times and maybe visit a small group, but I'm thinking that I need to find a mostly Asian church not attached to a 1st generation Asian congregation.

New Church

After helping at my old church for the past 5 years, I think I've had enough. A lot of people have left and I only know a handful of people now. The church also lost all it's pastors (3 pastors + intern) this past year and it looks like nothing will change.

I'll probably go to NewSong IrvineSanta Ana for awhile until I find something else.

"Prophet" Manasseh Jordan

I got a spam call earlier from 800-318-3684. I get a lot of spam calls so I didn't answer but surprisingly, the caller left a voice message. The message was from a Manasseh Jordan and basically he wanted me to call back (at another 800 number) to join his prayer circle. Wow, God works in mysterious ways! I've been a Christian for 20+ years and I've never got a call like this before.

After Googling the 800 number, I found the website for "Prophet" Manasseh. There's actually not much hard information on the site. Here's his bio:

Once affectionately referred to as the "Young Prophet" by peers and congregations nationwide, now best known as Prophet Manasseh Jordan began ministering at the tender age of eight and carries with him the quintessence of hope, healing and restoration that is bestowed upon the lives of those he touches.

Over the next several years, he knew then that God had a much BIGGER plan for his life. So he went through extensive and intensive training under the leadership of the Holy Spirit, for the express purpose of understanding the prophetic office and ministry. This training has enabled him to move in the realm of accurate prophetic ministry.

Ministering at eight years old... yeah, right. Also, extensive AND intensive training by the Holy Spirit? What does that mean? Is that equal to a M.Div from a seminary? Looking around the website, there are lots of opportunity to buy stuff or become a "partner" for $30 to $500 per month. More telling, there is no entry for Manasseh Jordan Ministries at Charity Navigator. Other similar organizations are listed, such as Billy Graham Evangelical Association, Far East Broadcasting Corporation, Haven Ministries, etc.

Researching further, it seems our "young prophet" was associated with Benny Hinn and Paul Crouch of Trinity Broadcasting Network fame (or infamy).



Well, that's all I need to know about this false prophet. Like the rest of the "ministers" around him, all they do is take money from people and promising "blessings" for them in return. I'm pretty sure this is not in the Bible.

Third Culture Worship

You Love Me Still - Third Culture Worship

Irene is the lead singer in the video. I used to play bass for her when she led worship at NewSong NOC.

God is Red

I've been reading a book titled God is Red by Liao YiWu. He had written several books about China; I also bought and read The Corpse Walker several years ago. Here's the book description from Amazon:

When journalist Liao Yiwu first stumbled upon a vibrant Christian community in the officially secular China, he knew little about Christianity. In fact, he’d been taught that religion was evil, and that those who believed in it were deluded, cultists, or imperialist spies. But as a writer whose work has been banned in China and has even landed him in jail, Liao felt a kinship with Chinese Christians in their unwavering commitment to the freedom of expression and to finding meaning in a tumultuous society.

Unwilling to let his nation lose memory of its past or deny its present, Liao set out to document the untold stories of brave believers whose totalitarian government could not break their faith in God, including:

- The over-100-year-old nun who persevered in spite of beatings, famine, and decades of physical labor, and still fights for the rightful return of church land seized by the government

- The surgeon who gave up a lucrative Communist hospital administrator position to treat villagers for free in the remote, mountainous regions of southwestern China

- The Protestant minister, now memorialized in London’s Westminster Abbey, who was executed during the Cultural Revolution as “an incorrigible counterrevolutionary”

This ultimately triumphant tale of a vibrant church thriving against all odds serves as both a powerful conversation about politics and spirituality and a moving tribute to China’s valiant shepherds of faith, who prove that a totalitarian government cannot control what is in people’s hearts.

I'm only 1/3 of the way through the book (Kindle edition) but the stories are both heartwarming and troublesome. For example, chapter 8 tells the story of a doctor who had to give up his career as the deputy dean of a medical school because he was a Christian. After spending time in Thailand working with other foreign volunteer doctors, he decides to travel to poor areas of Yunnan and provide free medical care. Since he was trained as a surgeon, he would even do lifesaving surgeries in the most rural areas, where locals cannot access, much less afford, healthcare. At the end of the chapter, we read that the local officials accused him of "ulterior motives" and halted his medical mission trips. He later visited the US to talk about his mission work and was refused re-entry back to China.

This is the problem with China and the CCP. All government officials are basically in power for themselves. Without accountability, local officials can do whatever they want if it benefits them financially, or if it will help them gain a promotion. Public health should be the responsibility of government officials. However, in this case we see how small minded officials are causing additional pain and suffering to their citizens by denying them their only source of healthcare, and providing nothing in return.

People are basically selfish. If we give government power over our lives, then there needs to be careful checks and balances, something that is sorely lacking in China.

Panoramic CCCSB

Another Troll

So only 4 month after the last troll, I get this comment on the same NewSong NOC post:

serving at church is not the same as at work. if you want consideration then church ministry is not your thing, better so something else useful. if you crave rewards and considersations then you completely miss the whole point, no wonder you were bitter

The Internet is a wonderful place. I post some random thoughts about my life and any idiot can come and judge and insult me. I'm guessing this is a different troll since he/she is less abusive than the previous person. Still, words like "crave rewards and considerations" and "you were bitter" hurt. Ever since I became a Christian 20+ years ago, I've always served in church, often in the background and unnoticed. If I was looking for earthly rewards, I would have been disappointed a long time ago.

CrossPointe Worship Service

Worship service on March 20, 2011

I recorded the audio with a Tascam DP-008 digital recorder. The video was shot with a old digital camera so I couldn't change the zoom or focus once I started recording. I used iMovie on my Mac to replace the audio from the original video with the better Tascam recording... then it took about six hours to export the final MP4.


Part 1


Part 2

Worship Leader/Keyboard: Uriah Liang
Vocals: Stacy Kim
Acoustic Guitar/Vocals: Chris Li
Bass: Elim Wu

Blog Comment Troll, Part 2

Wait, there's more! Safely hidden behind Internet anonymity, the personal insults continue...

Anonymous said...

Okay, let me try to explain this internet thing to you. I googled "Newsong noc service times." Your blog pops up. This means that whenever someone puts in Newsong noc or something akin to it, your blog goes up as a result. This means that random people who know nothing about what occurred with the lead pastor, such as myself, find out about this terrible happenstance with no other context. This means you are publishing exceedingly personal information about a person and his family without regard to its effect and it appears you do so because you are, at worst, a vengeful, attention-hungry jerk or, at best, an irresponsible, immature, ignorant and thoughtless little child. So, though you received this e-mail because apparently you were in the CAM and part of the Newsong family, you are hereafter distributing it to people not in CAM and not in Newsong. The question then is why do you continue to post this blog and continue to spread privately-obtained information on your blog? Would you be as happy if someone were publicizing your privately-executed sins to the world?
Dec 29, 2010 9:37:00 PM

How do you argue with willful ignorance? Remember, I posted one paragraph saying that something happened at NewSong NOC, the senior pastor stepped down, and I wish he reconciles with his family. This comment troll has wasted a lot of his/her and my time on imaginary issues. I'm not really pissed at the troll anymore; obviously Internet anonymity and likely some personal emotional issues have brought out the worst in this commenter.

Original post + comments: NewSong NOC Scandal?

Amazingly, after three long and insult laden comments, the anonymous troll has not asked me to do anything. It's all been about how terrible a person I am and how I must be hiding sins. Weird...

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Ironically, all these comments and posts will probably move this non-issue up on the Google search results. I'm surprised that my one insignificant post comes up so high on a Google search for Newsong NOC (#8 and the first non-official NewSong hit).

Blog Comment Troll

I guess at point, every blog gets its share of spammers and trolls. I get a lot of spam comments already but this week I got my first troll. I was going to ignore it but he/she is very persistent... and both extremely rude and insulting. As my three readers know, I stopped attending NewSong NOC about two years ago. Last summer (2009) I got some emails from Pastor Peter Park and other CAM (Creative Arts Ministry) members about Brian Kim stepping down as senior pastor. I made a short post about that fact, and hoped he reconciles with his family.

Post: NewSong NOC Scandal?

18 months later, an anonymous commenter, who freely admits not knowing anything about NewSong (he/she didn't even know the service times), reads my blog post. Instead of finding out actual facts (not sure why it's even interesting to outsiders), he/she decides to make up their own context, and leaves a couple long comments laced with wild unsubstantiated assumptions and personal insults towards me.

Here's what I wrote:

I just found out that the lead pastor is stepping down because he "violated his marriage vows." I'm not sure what that means exactly and I don't have more details. He is married and has two young children. I hope it's not a Mark Sanford type meltdown and things work out between him and his family.

And here's the comment thread so far:

Anonymous said...
I have to wonder why you've posted this on your blog and why you've let this "scandal" remain here. In the context in which you've posted it, it sounds like you're some vengeful jerk who was mad at the topic of the sermon so you've decided to ravage this guy and his family. Real classy. What would be just as interesting and rightfully yours to publish would be the stuff you do at your computer late at night when you think you're all alone and no one will find out about it. Or any of your other sins you so assiduously keep hidden on this fabulous blog of yours.
Dec 26, 2010 5:32:00 PM

Anonymous said...
Yes, I'm not a member of Newsong NOC or of Newsong Irvine, so I don't know who you are. I genuinely wish I did, so I could talk with you in person. Do you see how the leadership of Newsong did it? They told the members of NOC and Irvine; they did it, I assume, respectfully and not in some gossipy, trashy fashion such as you've done here. I googled service times for Newsong NOC and stumbled upon your incendiary crap. Unfortunately. Hey, buddy, quit crying about my comments. You published it, deal with the consequences of your actions. Zero facts, indeed. You've provided me with everything I need to conclude you're an immature kid looking to be noticed. I'm fascinated by your self-confession that your 14+ hours working the sound system somehow makes you like a super-special Christian. The good news is despite this blog, despite your desperate desire for regard and attention, despite your incredible smallness, our God is bigger. Taking you to task on this is my personal mission. I'll try to find out who you are from the NewSong people and hopefully we will chat in person.
Dec 29, 2010 7:15:00 PM

Sigh... zero facts and a whole lot of baseless accusations. Now I have my own stalker who's "personal mission" is to harass me on my blog. Great.

We'll see at the end of all this whether my troll is mature and responsible enough to apologize for all those insults hurled my way. I'm not going to hold my breath...

Leading Worship

I played guitar for the English service at CCCSB this morning. It's the first time in ~10 years that I played guitar for worship. During a quick rehearsal in the morning, I broke the G (3rd) string on my Taylor; I had just changed the strings about a month ago. Luckily, the English pastor had some old strings and I replaced it in time. It was a weird feeling since I led worship at the same church for many years.

My ex-mother-in-law still attends the same church. I think she's trying to avoid me but I said hi to her anyway.

Acoustic Guitar

I bought a Taylor 414CE-L4 back in back in 2003, after I stopped playing guitar for church. Now that I'm attending CCCSB again (maybe) and they need a guitar player, I volunteered to help out. I'm meeting the new English pastor and his wife after service this Sunday to discuss it. Last week they got a bass player to substitute and it felt like he was playing only one chord the entire time. I'm a bit rusty on guitar but hopefully something is better than nothing. It will be weird standing on the same stage after 10+ years of absence.

Little Horns

Look at the top of his helmet. I saw this on the way to church.

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Speaking of church, the worship today was led by Uriah Park. I think they ran out of guitar players so they went with her on keys, the pastor's wife on piano, and Elim on the cajón. I tried to record the service using my Samsung phone but the audio was too loud and was distorted in the recording. The phone only records at 720x480, not HD, and the 15 minute recording was ~380MB.

Just as service was about to begin, Paul grabbed me and asked if I can type. It turns out that there is a deaf person in the congregations. Whenever she is there, they need someone to transcribe live on a laptop computer so she can read and know what's being said. The sermon ended up being about 4 pages of text.


Last week's service. There were a few more people in the worship team.

K-pop Semi-close Encounter

I visited my old church today since my friend John was the guest speaker. Due to traffic on the 405 and getting lost on a "short-cut" (I ended up on the Vincent Thomas Bridge for some reason), I was a bit late and arrived when the worship started. There are a lot of new people at the church, especially the worship team. There were unfamiliar people all around, including the keyboard player. After service, Elim told me that the keyboard player was Uriah Park, who is the sister of Lena Park. Cool. I saw Lena in concert during the 2009 KMF and knew she also had a concert in June of 2009. I found a video on YouTube and Uriah sang with Lena on stage.


Unexpected Friends - Lena & Uriah Park [20090619]

Wow, such awesome voices. I also found out that CCCSB had special musical guests Friday night and I knew most of them since they're mainly from Newsong Irvine. As expected, the younger kids loved it but the older people thought it was too loud. :)

Calvary Church

A couple of weeks ago Tim invited me to his church. He attends Calvary Church of Santa Ana. I think I went there for a Twila Paris concert a long time ago but have never visited for Sunday service.

Calvary is a large church... kind of reminds me of Saddleback Church. They have many services on Sunday, even one in Mandarin. We went to the contemporary service and I knew most of the songs during worship. Tim did warn me that it was loud. We sat near the back and it really was LOUD. I'm a sound guy so I've received past complaints about mixing too loud; Calvary must have a great sound system to generate that much volume is such a large auditorium.

I enjoyed the service and the sermon was good, but I feel uncomfortable at these mega-churches. Every time I visit Saddleback, it feels like I'm attending a show. Even at NewSong Irvine, I felt like I was at a concert, even more so when I started helping out. It's weird walking around after service, surrounded by thousands of people, and not know anyone.


Like most churches, there were a lot of empty seats at the start of service. I think the pastor even made a comment about it.


Senior pastor and worship pastor(?). There was a special song at the end where they painted all over him.


Lobby after service. Most of the churches I've attended can fit their entire congregation in Calvary's lobby.


Special song and painting. I only caught the last part of the song on video.

River 47

On moving day, a neighbor out for a run stopped by to talk to me and my dad. He said he was a naval officer (just spent 2 years in Iraq) but he was also the pastor of a local church called River 47 in Orange. I haven't found a church since leaving NewSong so I thought I'd check it out this morning.

Coincidentally, River 47 is also an Evangelical Covenant church, like NewSong, but the congregation is very different. I was basically the only Asian in the entire building which is a huge change from all the churches I've attended. NewSong is probably 95% Asian and the name of my first church (Chinese Community Church of South Bay) requires no further explanations. I did see a ~4 year old Asian girl but she was surrounded by white people (parents/grandparents) so I'm guessing she was adopted. There was ~300 people at the beginning; when they let the kids go (<3rd grade), it was down to ~200... lots of kids.



The service was an hour and 15 minutes with the sermon being only 30 minutes long. The worship was contemporary but a bit slower than NewSong. The team consisted of three vocalists, an acoustic guitar, bass, keys, and drums. There was also a VBS presentation/song at the beginning. I think the theme ocean/cruse based so some of the helpers were dressing in Sailor Moon like costumes/uniforms... very weird. The pastor saw me and came over to greet me before the service. He said I looked familiar but he couldn't remember so I told him about our 3 minute conversation back in January. The sermon was the beginning of a new series on the book of Romans. He is basically going through verse by verse which is very different from NewSong.

I'm not sure yet if I'll go visit again. I left NewSong because they focused way too much on feelings and social justice, plus everyone was so young. River 47 seems to be more family-types but I felt a bit conspicuous being the only Asian in the congregation.

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Here is a 14 second video clip from my iPod nano. I wasn't really trying to record anything specific... it was more of a camera test.


Resolution: 640x480
Video: 2.67Mb/sec H.264
Audio: AAC 44.1kHz
FPS: 29.97
Length: 14 sec
Size: ~4.6MB

NewSong NOC Scandal?

I haven't attended church at NewSong NOC since last December, other than helping out with sound during Easter weekend. I had an issue with the sermon/guest speaker during one of the services prior to the presidential election last year. It gave me a strong impression that NewSong was supportive of illegal immigration, since we should be "compassionate" to those less fortunate. I totally disagree. The guest speaker was basically an immigration activist and he gave out a lot of misleading information that went unchallenged. After several email exchanges with the lead pastor, I gave up and left NewSong since he never addressed my concerns ("call me" is not an answer). I was more upset that after helping them run the sound system for four years, sometimes working 14+ hours each weekend, I thought that I was part of the community and deserved a bit more consideration. Oh well.

Even though I've been gone, I'm still on their general email list and the more specific CAM (Creative Arts Ministry) list. I just found out that the lead pastor is stepping down because he "violated his marriage vows." I'm not sure what that means exactly and I don't have more details. He is married and has two young children. I hope it's not a Mark Sanford type meltdown and things work out between him and his family.

Hwangbo in LA

I just saw this on a blog. Evidently Hwangbo is going to visit some churches In LA and DC as part of some charity work. From the comments, she will be at the Cerritos Presbyterian Church this Sunday morning. In her Cyworld page, it says she will be there all three services so she's probably speaking; too bad it's all the Korean services and not English. The church is about 15 minutes from where I live... I'm tempted to drop by to see if I can spot her. :)


Heh, first time I can tag a blog post with "Church" and "K-pop" at the same time.