Victory Community Baptist Church used to meet in Cabramatta, but recently moved to co-locate with another church in a more suitable building. Whilst in a lot of ways this was a good move for the church, it left a longing amongst the team and congregation that their direct connection to the local community had been lost.
The pastoral team saw a need to open a church back in Cabramatta and the senior pastor asked Ken and his wife Tho if they would consider planting a church there. After few months of prayer, they felt that God was calling them into this ministry. With their house only a 5-minute walk from the main street of Cabramatta, their home has played a central role in this new church plant.
By converting their double garage, Ken and Tho set up a space in their house that is a dedicated home for New Creation Life Church. The church started with a congregation of fifteen, and has steadily grown over the past year, including with fruit of weekly outreach in the main street. Now with 30-40 attending each Sunday afternoon, their church space often overflows into the Van’s living room.
On 11 August, New Creation Life Church celebrated its first birthday.
The church is an example of the diversity that can be found in one of our Culturally and Linguistically Diverse (CALD) churches. Most of the congregation can understand and speak both Vietnamese and English to some degree. But a few of them only speak Vietnamese, while another small group only speaks English. This makes their times of worship powerfully bilingual, as they unite in singing praises to God in their different heart languages.
Ken has always sought to share ownership and shepherd-ship of the church with others. From the start he cast a vision amongst his small leadership team of this being as much “their church” as it was his. Ken invests in his leaders and sees that they’re gaining the skills to plant and pastor their own church in the future. With this small but strong leadership team, Ken has travelled overseas three times since the church was planted a year ago.
“A lot of people in our church need healing and deliverance,” explains Ken, “we have a strong emphasis on the work of the Holy Spirit”.
Last month, Anh, a lady in her late sixties, had increasing pain in her knee. She was waiting to hear from doctors on what her treatment would be, and she was afraid. Anh lost the ability to walk and called Tho terrified. As soon as Ken came home from work and heard the message, he drove to Anh’s house. Ken prayed for her, and soon she could walk, though still with pain. Ken encouraged Anh to let go of her fear and exercise her faith.
Two hours later, Anh was well enough to join the church at the weekly prayer night and shared her story of deliverance.
Reflecting on his ministry, Ken says “Our God is amazing, he doesn’t change. It’s about whether we have faith and dare to believe. It’s easy to fall into the trap of following the routine and doing the programs. But we must dare to allow God to move”.
Another lady, Lan met one of Ken’s congregation members when he came to fix her broken TV. Lan told him about her difficulty seeing, explaining that she’d be cursed with witchcraft. Lan explained that she’d travelled to Vietnam and Thailand, visiting Buddhist temples and seeing doctors, but no one had been able to help her.
When Ken met with Lan, he simply said, “I can’t help you. But Jesus can help. And I can pray for you in Jesus’ name”.
After praying, Lan’s vision improved significantly, and the appearance of her eye had noticeably improved too. Lan was delighted, and although she had never come to church before, she has now joined their Sunday gathering.
These days, New Creation Life Church is thriving with weekly Monday night prayer meetings, Thursday evening worship rehearsals, Friday night Vietnamese Bible classes, Saturday night outreach on the main street, Sunday afternoon church services, and Sunday evening English Bible classes. Apart from the Saturday outreach, all these activities and groups happen in Ken’s home.
Moving into their second year of ministry, Ken is planning to take his church on a short-term mission trip to Laos and possibly Thailand.
“It’s all a work of God,” says Ken, “where God wants us to go, he will open the door”.
