The Council of Christ Reformed Church unanimously voted to extend a pastoral call to Mr. Yi Wang, to serve as associate minister of Word and Sacrament with the specific purpose of laboring as a Church Planter-Pastor. The decision of the council to call and ordain Mr. Yi Wang must be ratified by a vote of the congregation. The council also unanimously approved funds from the earnings on our investments to financially assist this new church plant, which also requires ratification by a congregational vote.
Yi Wang was born in China and by God’s providence came to Christ while an architectural student in Italy. When he was introduced to Reformed worship and teaching in Milan Italy, he was urged to study for the ministry at Westminster Seminary California (WSC) where he graduated in May 2018.
Christ Reformed Church took Yi Wang on as a pastoral intern after graduating from WSC to teach our adult Sunday School class. He passed his Candidacy for the Ministry examination at Classis Southwest in March 2019. As the church’s pastoral intern, Yi conducted Mandarin-speaking Bible studies in his home in Rowland Heights on Saturday evenings. And he organized several conferences on distinctive Reformed doctrines in Orange County. He and his co-laborer, Luke Lu, have made good use of the internet to reach out to Mandarin-speaking believers in the U.S. as well as other countries and have translated and published several Reformed books in Mandarin.
Since its inception over a year ago, the Bible study group outgrew Yi’s living room and so in July of 2019, Christ Reformed Church invited the Bible study group to meet in our rented facilities in Anaheim on Sunday mornings. Yi has been conducting Mandarin-speaking worship services concurrently with our own English-speaking worship services at Christ Reformed Church without administering the Sacraments of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper. Yi has also been instructing the group on the Heidelberg Catechism as well as the requirements for membership at Christ Reformed Church.
Please pray for this fledgling ministry and please plan on attending the congregational meeting to ratify the Council’s decision to call Yi Wang as a church planter-pastor.
