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Newsong Covenant to Double Space in Relocation
TUSTIN, CA (June 7, 2001) - Newsong Community Church, a southern California church with an average worship attendance of approximately 1,200, is moving into a building twice its current size, thanks to some quick fundraising by the congregation.
About $100,000 was raised within eight days after a plea for funds was made, said Ken Okajima, Newsong's director of operations. The church has been meeting in a 28,000-square-foot building in an industrial park in Tustin. The church plans to move September 1 to a 65,000-square-foot building in Irvine, which is less than five miles from the current meeting site. Okajima said the church will lease the building for at least two years while it seeks to find land for a permanent church home.
Founded in October 1994 by pastor David Gibbons, the new meeting site will be located near the University of California-Irvine, a plus for a congregation with around 300 college age students involved in weekly activities. The church also has 200 college students involved in one of three Sunday worship services, along with a high percentage of singles and individuals in their 20s and 30s - the median age of parishioners is 25. Newsong has many Asian-Americans in its congregation, although the diversity of the church has attracted a variety of ethnic backgrounds.
Creativity is another hallmark of Newsong Community Church, which had more than 2,300 at its Easter services, renting a dinner theater for two services. In its early years, the church had no permanent building and met for worship in hotels, an Elks Lodge and in a park. Okajima recalled one time when Newsong had an unexpected location snafu on a particular Sunday. Some 600 people were moved from one site to another for worship within a three-hour period. "Because we were forced to move, we kept directing people to the web site and directing people to there (the new location). Everyone uses the web site here."
Besides growing by leaps and bounds the past seven years, Newsong Community Church is also helping plant a church in the Silicon Valley area in northern California where David Chae is the pastor. The energy of the congregation and the surprises God has given Newsong has made Gibbons keenly aware of God's control in what sometimes seems like a chaotic chain of events.
"I'm humbled by what has happened," he said. "It's totally a move of God - it's a movement of the Holy Spirit that we deeply sense and acknowledge."
For more information about Newsong Community Church, contact Gibbons by telephone at 714-573-8484 or by email at GibbonsDK@aol.com. The church web site is www.newsong.net
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