110th Birthday Celebration
News Article
Arcadia Community Church celebrated it's 110th Birthday on May 19, 2024. A special video was shown in the service, which you can see here: https://youtu.be/Zosu6Lanbmk
Following the service the church celebrated with a church picnic including a chili cookoff and a dessert bakeoff. The picnic was also attended by Arcadia City Council members Eileen Wang and Paul Cheng who share a proclamation from the city and a declaration of May 19, 2024 being Arcadia Community Church day!
After lunch the elders unveiled the new church name and logo.
A letter sent to the congregation earlier by Pastor John which has been reprinted below:
One of the wonderful traditions of God’s people in the Old Testament was to see the future through the past. Most of their religious holidays rotated around some historical event that had taken place in the past. A primary example would be the redemption of God’s people from slavery in Egypt. For example, each element of the Passover meal is a reminder of how God had taken care of His people. The point of this remembrance was to remind people that the God who was with them in the past is also with them now and in the future.
The Apostle Paul speaks to this fact in Hebrews 12:1, “Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witness surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us.”
The “cloud of witness” Paul is referring too is the Christians who have gone before us. There is an unbroken chain that links all of God’s people through time from the beginning of history to its end. Each one of those people playing a crucial part in the unfolding of God’s plan of salvation. Each one experiencing God’s grace, mercy and power to accomplish what they have been called to do as a foundation for the next generation of God’s people. And as each generation takes its place in their time they must not be entangles or encumbered in things that will detract from the mission. We can “run with endurance the race that is set before us” because that great cloud of people from the past witnesses to the fact that God will be faithful to us, as he was to them.
On Sunday, May 19th Arcadia Community Church will be celebrating its 110th birthday. Over these many years there has been a great cloud of witnesses to which we are linked. They give testimony to God’s grace, mercy, and power. Let me share with you just the beginning of this wonderful story. The story begins in 1914, with 24 of those witnesses starting the church in an abandoned storeroom on First Avenue just north of the Santa Fe Railroad tracks. They called their first pastor, Dr. Henry Gage, and by 1916 they had bought four lots and an old packing shed at Huntington and Santa Anite, where the Windmill Denny’s now stands. The congregation continued to grow, and after what they described as “10 difficult years,” the church reached some “spiritual and financial strength.” In 1935, and now with 700 members, the church moved to its present site on First and Alice. From 1948 through the 1980’s the church’s ministry and influence continued to grow with several pastors giving extraordinary leadership to the congregation; Rev. Dr. Nathan Milo Fiske, Rev. Dr. J. Davis Barnard, of whom we have named one of our two chapels, and Rev. Dr. James W. Hagelganz.
On May 19th, Pentecost Sunday, a day we celebrate the sending of the Holy Spirit to the Church, we will celebrate with a worship service and church picnic. The focus will be how God was faithful to those first saints who started Arcadia Community Church. There will be a wonderful worship service and a picnic with tasty food and fun games. The Mayor will be here to share a proclamation from the City. And we will unveil a new and exciting way to live out our mission into the future. I will be sharing a message from Isaiah 43:9 “Behold, I will do something new, Now it will spring forth; Will you not be aware of it? I will make a roadway in the wilderness, Rivers in the desert.”
It’s going to be a fun celebration of running “with endurance the race that is set before us” because that great cloud of people, from the last 110 years, witnesses to the fact that God will be just as faithful to us, as he was to them.
In Gratitude,
Pastor John