Ask Charles Chang or Peter Wang about the church that their faith community moved into late last year, and they echo a point that many in their congregation make: It’s big.
Huge, even, with an industrial kitchen and plenty of classrooms for child care and Sunday school. A sanctuary that seats 300 essentially triples their previous worship capacity.
And that, in turn, means “a lot of growth potential,” Mr. Chang said.
Mr. Chang, 55, and Mr. Wang, 65, have each worshiped for decades at the Toledo Chinese Alliance Church. In that time they’ve seen their ranks grow from a modest Bible study that met in the basement of another church to a thriving family-oriented faith community.
A new pastor and a new worship space have continued that positive momentum in recent months, as was evident on Sunday, when church members piled potluck plates and chased after little ones after a bilingual service in the new sanctuary.
“It’s exciting to see it come to today’s size,” Mr. Wang said, speaking over his own lunch plate. “And it’s even more exciting to see the future, the potential that we can continue to grow.”
The Toledo Chinese Alliance Church traces its roots to 1986, when its three founding families began a Bible study in the basement of Westgate Chapel. Attendance began to pick up at what they were then calling the Chinese Gospel Chapel, and they installed their first full-time pastor and formally established themselves as the Toledo Chinese Alliance Church in 1988.
They purchased and began renovations on a former nursing home the next year. That address, 2500 Central Ave., would see them through decades of pastoral transitions and periods of more and less congregational engagement, until just this past year, when a newly installed pastor brought new energy to a years-long discussion on the need for a new church.
While many a new pastor might prefer to take a year or two to settle in, Pastor William Fu was pondering a new space even before the interview process had wrapped up.
He had pastored a Mandarin-language church in Cleveland before he and his wife, a physician, relocated to Toledo. The couple had looked up the Toledo Chinese Alliance Church before they moved. Coincidentally, the first service they attended here bade farewell to the retiring Pastor Terry Chen.
Pastor Fu put his name in for the newly open position, and was was ultimately selected for it out of a pool of applicants. He was installed in April, and, in less than a year, he was leading the dedication service for their new location, 5509 Dorr St., on Nov. 18.
He and others said the new space is a better fit for several reasons: In addition to a more traditionally steepled church appearance, it’s a more central location for a community that resides largely in Perrysburg and Sylvania. It also offers increased square footage for a growing community; that in turn makes it better suited to an essentially dual congregation that worships in both English and Mandarin.
“One of the advantages to this church is that it has two sanctuaries, essentially,” said Assistant Pastor Tim Miller, who leads the English-language services that are generally geared toward the church’s younger generation. The second sanctuary is upstairs. “So we can have two services at the same time. It helps navigate the complications of having two different languages.”
Language tends to be a matter of preference over comprehension, although sometimes “deeper matters of the heart” can be difficult to translate to a second language, according to the pastors and others. While the average teen or preteen could probably comprehend most or all of what’s being preached in Mandarin on Sunday, it’s often more comfortable to hear it in English.
Likewise for their older counterparts who listen in Mandarin; they’re also typically bilingual.
Signs around the church are written in both English and Mandarin. Pastors and elders lead Sunday school sessions in English and Mandarin. And at the fellowship-oriented potluck meals that wrap up a Sunday at the Toledo Chinese Alliance Church, it’s easy to pick up snippets of both.
One Sunday each month, there’s a bilingual service: Mandarin with in-time English translations.
On Central Avenue, Pastor Miller said, the English- and Mandarin-preferring congregations essentially flip-flopped on Sundays, one holding a service in the sanctuary while the other gathered for Sunday school in the hallway. To be able to hold simultaneous services is a plus.
“It was chaotic, really,” Pastor Miller said. “It’s much easier now.”
Elder Long Cheng connected with the Toledo Chinese Alliance Church in 2008, when he was new to the area from California. Already a Christian, he prioritized finding a church community.
He estimated that the church has more than doubled in size in the decade since he arrived. Today it counts 40 to 50 families, Pastor Fu said.
In reflecting on their community’s growth in recent years, Elder Cheng, Pastor Fu, and others attribute several factors. Some are directly related to their efforts, like the relationships they’ve built through in-home fellowships, while others are largely out of their control, like an increasing number of Chinese families moving into the area.
While the church for many years focused on outreach to university students, and continues to welcome them, Mr. Wang and Mr. Chang said they particularly saw the church begin to grow as it shifted toward a focus on families; families have turned into anchors for the faith community.
Mr. Wang and Mr. Chang are each married with children who have grown up at the church.
The relational side is also important: For years, church members have gathered in fellowship in Sylvania, Perrysburg, and Waterville, locations that have tended to be more convenient than commuting to the church in Toledo; pastors said they might look into new ministries or ways to utilize the church during the weekday now that it’s more centrally located for many members.
Fellowships contribute to a sense of family within the church, with participants enjoying traditional food as well as each other’s company. Often these gatherings are a soft introduction to individuals who might later become members, who might or might not already have a relationship with Christianity.
“I think usually that is the best strategy for a church to grow,” Pastor Fu said.
And, of course, there’s also credit due to God.
“God,” Elder Cheng said, “is leading people to the church.”
First Published January 12, 2019, 2:00 p.m.
