Living Way Community Church, located in Los Angeles, celebrated its 16th anniversary on Sunday with a special worship service.
Living Way began in January of 2000 with just 20 people in the home of Pastor James Yim, who planted the church and currently serves as the co-lead pastor. Today, the church has grown to consist of some 260 members on an average Sunday, with various ministry opportunities and active outreach and missions programs.
"I think I say this every anniversary, but we made it through another year, not because of us, but in spite of us," Yim said. "Because we serve and worship a great and awesome God who is faithful and merciful and gracious."
Hahri Shin, who has been attending Living Way for about a year and a half, became a Christian through the church, and shared through a testimony during the service how the Living Way community has allowed him to grow.
A Philadelphia native, Shin moved to Los Angeles in 2014 and wouldn't have identified himself as being religious at the time. Though Shin's family was religious, he shared that he felt religion was more about how one is perceived by others or how to carry oneself.
As a result, Shin said, he found it easy to distance himself from God, and eventually found himself tangled in issues such as alcholism, drug use, and depression.
"I was pretending to be someone I wasn't because I wanted [people's] love and approval," Shin said. "I would do anything and everything to fill a void in my heart, which I thought could be filled with earthly desires."
"It only took one visit to Living Way for the word of God to grab a hold of my heart," Shin said. "Where there was an emptiness in my heart, it's now overflowing with God's love."
Indeed, Yim affirmed during his sermon that Christ's blood removed the sins of all people, and gives access to the most holy God. As he preached from Hebrews 10, he also emphasized that a community of believers are called to a certain dynamic of community, different from that of the world, as he focused on verses 24 and 25: "And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds. Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another -- and all the more as you see the Day approaching."
"Christ's work on the cross doesn't only radically transform our relationship with God -- Christ's work on the cross radically transforms our relationship with each other," Yim said.
The author of Hebrews encourages Christians to continue to meet together, "because you can't stir someone to love and good deeds in absenture," Yim said.
Not only must believers continue to meet together in community, but they must "seek God for ways to encourage each other" -- it is a responsibility for all Christians according to the text, Yim said.
"Your attendance here, no matter how frequent, does not make you a part of this body -- and I say that lovingly," he continued. "Church is not a gathering of Christians to sit and listen to preaching. Church is a gathering of men and women who have made a covenant with each other, in light of their covenant with Christ, to do life together. That's the church."
