Indonesian Evangelical Church in Los Angeles, 1983
IEC Los Angeles (also known as IEC Azusa) was started as a small fellowship led by Rev. Kristianto Hosea in March 1983. In about 6 months after that, with God’s continual leading, we began the Sunday service and officially established Indonesian Evangelical Church in Los Angeles and held our first worship service on September 12, 1983. The service was held at the Auditorium of Azusa Pacific University (APU).
God continued to bless the church’s growth all this time. For the next eight years, IEC Los Angeles continued to hold the service at APU Auditorium. In 1991 God provided us with a church building, which we continue to use until now. By God’s grace, our church continues to grow to bring glory to God.
We are actively being involved in reaching out to the children, youths, students, families, adults, and seniors. We welcome everyone to come to our church and join us in worshipping God together every Sunday, whether in Bahasa Indonesia, English, or Mandarin.
Indonesian Evangelical Church (Christian Evangelical Church) in San Francisco, 1985
Rev. Stephen Hosea came from Los Angeles to establish a church in San Francisco, California, on January 15, 1985. After a few months of praying and hard work, the first Sunday Worship was held on April 21, 1985, and IEC San Francisco was officially established. After that, the church continued to grow.
When the church was first established in San Francisco, we rented the meeting place from Chinese Christian Mission. Thanks be to God, that in His timing, God provided a church building for us during Good Friday, April 1, 1994 and our building dedication was held in November 1996. Ever since we had our own church building, we have been expanding the church’s ministries. In the beginning of 1997, we started a Chinese Language School, with the purpose of spreading the Gospel to the neighborhood children. In June, we held Chinese Worship Service, so that we could spread the Gospel and build up the believers spiritually. And we changed the church’s name to Christian Evangelical Church in San Francisco.
We have expanded our church ministries to missions, discipleship, evangelism, caring, and Layman’s Bible Instituted. The church not only has Indonesian Service, but also Chinese Service and English Service have started. There are many ministries that we need to expand; the harvest are waiting for us to gather. May God grant us wisdom and strength to do these ministries.
Thank God that He began His good work in this church and we believe He will finish what He has started until the coming of the Lord.
Indonesian Evangelical Church in San Jose, 1985
IEC San Jose was started as a fellowship of Indonesian Christian community and was called “San Jose Indonesian Christian Fellowship”. As the spiritual need of Indonesian community in San Jose increased, we felt the need to have a clear identity and direction so we could reach our goal to reach out the Indonesian community in San Jose area.
By God’s grace, we were introduced to Rev. Stephen Hosea by Rev. George Ong Sanusi. At that time, Ev. Hosea had started Indonesian Evangelical Church in San Francisco. As he saw the great need in this fellowship, he humbly accepted the request to help this fellowship and started to be regular speaker. In April 1985, after the establishment of IEC San Francisco, Rev. Hosea officially started to lead our fellowship in San Jose. In just a few months, the fellowship grew very fast and we decided to start a church in San Jose.
Through the support of Rev. Moses Yang from Christian Evangelical Mission, in September 22, 1985, IEC San Jose was established. The first service was held in the conference room of San Jose City College, 2100 Moorpark Avenue, and was attended by about 60 people from several nearby cities. The church continues to grow and we continue to hold our vision to reach out to other people and bring glory to God. We have expanded our church ministries to missions, discipleship, evangelism, caring, and Layman’s Bible Instituted. Every year we could see that the Lord has given us new believers. Not only we have Indonesian Worship Service, but we started the English Service, as well.
Throughout the church history we have witnessed God’s wondrous working is clearly manifested in the our church, leading many to salvation, and growing spiritually with steadfastness. Just as the Bible says, “Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us, Unto him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen.” (Ephesians 3:20-21)
Indonesian Evangelical Church in Sacramento, 1993
The Christian Evangelical Churches in West Coast have been blessed throughout these years. Not only were we able to grow internally in the evangelistic ministry, but we were able to grow externally in the mission ministry as well. The Indonesian Evangelical Churches in San Francisco, San Jose, and Los Angeles worked jointly to establish the church in Sacramento in May 1993.
The IEC in Sacramento was started by a few devoted God loving brothers and sisters, and supported by members of IEC in San Francisco and San Jose who had moved to Sacramento area. The members are eager to lead people to Christ, to establish and expand the ministry. Currently, our ministries have expanded to Children Sunday School, Youth Group, Adult Bible Study, Prayer Meeting, and Sunday Service. There are many ministries that we need to expand. May God give us more power and wisdom to fulfill the Commission that God has entrusted us.
Chinese Evangelical Church & Christian Evangelical Chinese School in San Francisco, 1997
When the IEC was established, the targeted group was people from Indonesia. Therefore, the main language used was Indonesian. When the church was moved to the new building in 1996, we found there were many Chinese in the area and no Chinese church there. The Mandarin Bible Study and prayer meeting was started on January 25, 1997 and the first Chinese Worship Service was held on June 15th in the same year.
Christian Evangelical Layman Bible Institute in San Francisco, 2003
Due to the increase in the membership of the five IEC of CEM in West Coast, the growth of people from Indonesia, and the difficulty of finding a biblically sound evangelist, Rev. Moses Yang encouraged Rev. Stephen Hosea to train members of IEC church to go into full time ministry. There is a great need to train its own members and not to look for evangelists from other seminary. So, the CEM in the West Coast started the Layman’s Institute in 2003.
Indonesian Evangelical Church in San Diego, 2009
IEC San Diego was started as prayer meeting and Bible study on April 27, 2008, once a month then twice a month. In March 2009, we rented a space at First United Methodist Church San Diego and began a fellowship weekly.
As God continues to plant burden in our members’ heart to reach out to and disciple the Indonesian community in San Diego, under His guidance and support from Rev. Moses Yang, we established Indonesian Evangelical Church in San Diego in August 2, 2009.
The vision and mission of our church is to reach out our community to reach the world. We pray that God will continue to use our church as channel of blessing to the Indonesian community in San Diego area.