Church guide

"As I have loved you, so you must love one another." John 13:34niv

What a weekend family! We're so grateful for our three powerful preachers who closed out The Greatest Story series! Rewatch the messages now on the Fellowship App, The Fellowship Podcast, or visit madeforfellowship.com/sermons. What was your favorite part of the weekend?

And all the earth will shout Your praise// our hearts will cry, these bones will sing// Great are You Lord! ___ Who else is still singing? Sunday's Night of Worship was a night to remember. Show some love in the comments to the @fellowshipmusic team and thanks to everyone who joined us!

We’re just around the corner from another incredible Sunday! Join us at the 9 or 11 at your campus! And don’t forget to join us for Worship Night going down TONIGHT @ 5:30PM at HDC! See you soon family! — Campus Locations: Monrovia High 845 W Colorado Blvd. Monrovia, CA 91016 Huntington Drive 401 E Huntington Drive Monrovia, CA 91016 John Muir High Auditorium 🎉 1905 Lincoln Avenue Pasadena, CA

WE'VE GOT NEWS! Pasadena Campus is officially moving into our new space 👏🏼THIS 👏🏼SUNDAY! Check out this message from pastor @michaelhurleyfield and a big THANK YOU to every single volunteer who help to make Fellowship Pasadena happen every single Sunday! Drop 🙌🏼in the comments and a give a hug to your favorite super star Pasadena team member when you see them! Also be sure to share this with someone who needs to know! #madeforfellowship

Fellowship fam! This Sunday you’re invited to join us at 6PM at our Huntington Drive Campus for an extended time of worship and an opportunity to soak in the presence of God as He washes, cleanses, and refreshes our bodies and souls. Space is extremely limited and a seat reservation is required. To reserve a seat, fill out the form at madeforfellowship.com/nightofworship. #NightofWorship

Reflections on Day 3 of the Asian American Civil Rights Tour: Day 3 – Berkeley, Oakland and Alameda VOICE We are at the half way point in our trip, and thus far I am struck by one main theme: the importance of voice and its power to transform communities. Stories live in each and every one of us. In 1988, vocalist Bobby McFerrin released a single entitled “Don’t Worry Be Happy.” The song became the first a cappella song to reach number one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. What made the song so popular and unique was the fact that the entire song was done through McFerrin’s voice. Linda Goldstein, the song’s producer, described McFerrin’s as a man of infinite, unfathomable, boundless voices and everything he has ever heard has gone into his brain. I love that description and believe that all of us have that ability within. An interesting dynamic occurred in all three locations. As we sat and listened each person’s story, I noticed the joy and healthy pride swell up as each of them told their story. And that is the point, as we allow others to tell their own story we, by actively listening to them, affirm the dignity of each story teller. I especially noticed this at the Asian Prison Support Committee (APSC). We listened to three ex-prisoners tell their story of how they were transformed because this wonderful organization spent the time to get to know them and listen to their stories to help them re-integrate into their respective communities. They spoke honestly of how the educational, employment and criminal justice systems conspired against them and how their own poor choices contributed to their incarceration. Additionally, they talked about how the stereotypes of the model minority and the importance of not shaming one’s family name has made it difficult to re-integrate. Non-Asians don’t often get to hear how the model minority narrative negatively impacts the Asian American community. Within these communities anything negative must be repressed and not spoken of within the family and definitely not shared with outsiders. Likewise, often times this narrative is used as a sword against the Latinx and Black communities and consequently they are not interested in hearing Asian American stories for fear of being criticized for not being like the stereotypical model minority. Finally, the APSC panelist talked about how prison sentence terms are disproportionately longer against black and brown inmates. We also listened to a panel discussion on the Yellow Power Movement at the historic Eastwind Bookstore in Berkeley. The first panelist was Steven Wong, who one of the founders of the Asian American Student movement at UC Berkeley in the mid 1960’s. He told us about the challenges and successes his organization and many minority groups experienced. He also powerfully tied together the issues they faced back in the 1960’s with the current issues facing our country. We also heard from Michael Yoshii and how his faith and his father’s time in Manzanar, a Japanese Concentration Camp, helped shape and form his voice and his work to speak for and empower those marginalized Asian Americans and all Americans who are disenfranchised. Pastor Yoshii’s story reminded me of a passage in Kathy Khang’s book, Raise Your Voice: Why We Remain Silent and How to Speak Up: “In some communities, certain voices are amplified and elevated while others are erased and suppressed. It can be hard to speak up…Power dynamics keep us silent and marginalized, especially when race, ethnicity and gender are factors. Because God created us in our ethnicity and gender, our voice is uniquely expressed through the totality of who we are. We are created to speak, and we can both speak up for ourselves and speak out on behalf of others. I will leave you with a final quote from Kathy Khang’s book. Khang challenges her readers with the following questions: what is voice, how do you own it, and how do you use it? She answers the questions thusly: “You have a voice. And you have God’s permission to use it.” Historically, the narrative of most Asian American communities has been the model minority, a community that keeps its head down and works hard. But the stories we heard today cuts against these stereotypes in both positive and negative ways. More importantly, though, we were granted the privilege of hearing stories of inspiration, fierce resistance and hard fought victories. My challenge for you today is to talk with someone and ask them to tell their story. By doing so you are creating space to allow someone to obey God’s permission to raise their voice, and you are helping to unleash the infinite, unfathomable, and boundless voices that need to be heard. - John Williams

What a Sunday! 🙌🏽 if you were blessed by the message and the worship this weekend! Start your week off right and listen to this weekends message from Pastor @alberttate now up on the Fellowship App, The Fellowship Podcast or by visiting madeforfellowship.com/sermons

"You cannot move forward if you're constantly looking backwards." - Tiana Spencer —— We can't wait to spend the weekend with you as we continue in our series The Greatest Story! See you at church family!

As we celebrate the independence of our nation, we also acknowledge those who've experienced captivity and oppression even to this day, and give praise and thanksgiving to the One who gave His life for us all to be free. Who the Son sets free is free indeed! Happy 4th of July Fellowship! ▪️ ▪️ ▪️ 📷: Stephen Somerstein, Montgomery, 1965

The cross has spoken, I am forgiven The King of Kings calls me His own Beautiful Savior, I’m Yours forever Jesus Christ, my living hope —— 🎶Living Hope | @bethelmusic

Day One Reflections from John Williams: Lamentations 5:7 states that “our ancestors have sinned, but they are dead, and we are left to pay for their sins.” This passage was part of our scripture reading today. The verse so appropriately describes our day. On the first day of our civil rights tour we visited the Whitney Plantation in Wallace, Louisiana. The Whitney Plantation is one of the only plantations in the South that attempts to look at slavery from the enslaved Africans’ perspective. This is my third time visiting this site and it never gets any less emotional. Nor do I ever get tired of coming to this sacred place. Theologian and Professor Jennifer Harvey once wrote, “reconciliation can [only] be accomplished through specific and careful documentation, naming, hearing, and responding to as many dimensions of such atrocity and violence as possible, [which] is the source of our difference if we take the construction of race seriously. This is precisely the work required to humanize relationships between perpetrators or unjust beneficiaries and victims. Only on this basis is reconciliation remotely possible.” After the Whitney Plantation, we listened to Dr. Ashley Howard a professor of African-American Studies at Loyola University in New Orleans. She talked about the on-going harm of framing the institution of slavery and those who were enslaved from a single narrative. She said the mechanism of the slave trade has historically been described as “the transatlantic slave trade.” This description of what happened to millions and millions of Africans distills it to mere economic transactions which wildly understates the horrific atrocity of chattel slavery. At the end of Dr. Howard’s talk, she challenged us with three questions as we continue our week long journey: 1. What images of slavery are required to change for a cultural shift on race and the legacy of slavery to take place? 2. How do we create historical empathy while not victimizing the subject? 3. What happens when we get trapped in narratives of racial trauma? As you are praying for us, I ask that you also think about and ponder Dr. Howard’s questions. Finally, since we have inherited the racial sins of our forefathers, we cannot “accept without very much question, the assumptions we are given,” as James Baldwin once said. In our debrief we talked about challenging our assumptions and the necessity of listening to our bodies when viewing and talking about our country’s racial history. If we don’t listen to our bodies we genuflect to our racialized narratives that keep us trapped and look for ways to dispute the single narrative told to us. I challenged our team to lean into these hard truths, rather than resist and constrict which leads us to reject what they are learning. See you tomorrow! -John Williams

If you missed Sunday’s messages they are definitely a must-watch, head over to the Fellowship App, The Fellowship Podcast, or visit madeforfellowship.com/sermons.

What happens when 22 people that don't look alike, vote alike, or live alike travel together through the American South in pursuit of reconciliation? That answer is at the heart of the Civil Rights Tour. As members of our Fellowship Family spend the next 7 days traveling from city to city having the hard conversations about race, our history, and the gospel, join us in praying as they embark on this journey.

Church was so good this weekend! A special thank you to our preachers Michael Lee, @tianamspencer and @michaelhurleyfield who kicked off our new series The Greatest Story! Drop a 👏and the campus you were at in the comments if you were blessed by the messages this morning!

Check out the full message now on the Fellowship App, The Fellowship Podcast and at madeforfellowship.com/sermons.

Summer camp is in full swing Fellowship fam! Because of you over 100 local kids will get to experience fun, friendship and Jesus this week at Monrovia Kids Day Camp! And there’s still 4 more Kids & Youth camp weeks coming up! To sign up, find out more or to check out all the fun follow @fellowshipcamps and visit madeforfellowship.com/camps #fellowshipcamps #powerup

It’s Father’s Day Sunday so here are some of our favorite dads from around Fellowship! Help us say Thank You Dad by dropping ❤️ in the comments or tagging an awesome dad you know! #happyfathersday

"The Holy Spirit lights the way back to where God is calling you to live." -Pastor Michael Field

"As I have loved you, so you must love one another." John 13:34niv

WE'VE GOT NEWS! Pasadena Campus is officially moving into our new space 👏🏼THIS 👏🏼SUNDAY! Check out this message from pastor @michaelhurleyfield and a big THANK YOU to every single volunteer who help to make Fellowship Pasadena happen every single Sunday! Drop 🙌🏼in the comments and a give a hug to your favorite super star Pasadena team member when you see them! Also be sure to share this with someone who needs to know! #madeforfellowship

"You cannot move forward if you're constantly looking backwards." - Tiana Spencer —— We can't wait to spend the weekend with you as we continue in our series The Greatest Story! See you at church family!

Check out the full message now on the Fellowship App, The Fellowship Podcast and at madeforfellowship.com/sermons.

"The Holy Spirit lights the way back to where God is calling you to live." -Pastor Michael Field

Fellowship family share this word from our very own Tiana Spencer with somebody and let them know we've got work to do! ____ Watch the full message on the Fellowship App, or by visiting madeforfellowship.com/sermons

Where are you at?

What's your next faithful step?

Stop asking IF God is going to do it and start asking HOW.