Introduction and Faith Statement

Silicon Valley Christian Assembly ("SVCA"), founded in 1993, is located in Santa Clara,
California. It has grown from a small church of less than 10 families to about 600 regular multi-generational attendees (Chinese and English services) as of the year 2024. The demographics of the church are currently about 65 percent Chinese immigrants and 35 percent American-born Asians, Caucasians, and other ethnicities. The professions of the congregation are diverse, but many are high-tech related. Due to the prosperity of Silicon Valley in the past decade, professionals and their families from all over the world have come to work for tech companies, most of which have their headquarters in the Bay Area. This has affected the compositions of SVCA as well as the nearby community where we desire to reach. It is both an inescapable obligation and a privilege for SVCA to be in the center of this open mission field called Silicon Valley.

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SVCA is been known for its biblically rooted preaching and teachings, as well as its Christ-centered ministries, which continuously draw newcomers to consider this church as their spiritual home. SVCA established an internet mission in 1999 that ministers to Mandarin-speaking churches around the world. Due to an overwhelming response to the website, we started an online theological training school (www.cedartc.org) in 2008 which has over one thousand students from Mandarin-speaking churches around the world.

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SVCA is a young, vibrant, non-denominational church with some traditions, but is not rigid in its ministry. We have little affiliation with historic denominations but we adhere to the core beliefs of Fundamental Protestants and are influenced by the lines of Moravians, Pietism, Open Brethren, and the revivals brought by the evangelical Protestant movement, the 2nd Great Awakening, the movement of indigenous churches in China, the 20th-century Pentecostal movement, global missions, and other works of the Holy Spirit in modern church history. SVCA developed our theology and practices up to today as a non-denomination local assembly for all saints without the intention to follow any of the lineages directly. However, our development has been shaped by some unique characteristics from each of these lineages. We practice believers' baptism to born-again Christians by immersion. SVCA is a cohesive family in God's grace with more than 85% of its members engaged in small groups actively practicing bodily life.

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Besides the biblically rooted preaching/teaching and Christ-centered ministries, one of the distinguishing church practices of SVCA is our weekly observance of the Lord's Table (Breaking-of-Bread). We cherish this worship service very much as it is the only worship instituted and commanded by the Lord Jesus. We believe union with Christ through the renewal in the weekly Breaking-of-Bread (John 6) is essential to our spiritual formation and daily walk.
We also encourage the worshippers, as they encounter Christ at the Table, to unite with one another as parts of the Body and grow in unity as one body (1 Cor. 10:16-17). In the weekly breaking-of-bread, we remember the Lord and examine ourselves as instructed in 1 Corinthians
11.

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The weekly Sunday Worship, in general, is four-fold (Gathering, Table, Word, and Sending), naturally flowing and knitting into one integrated Christ-centered service. It has plenty of room for the Holy Spirit to guide (e.g. open prayer) or to redirect the worship order, in lieu of being liturgical. Our intention is to be simple, genuine, yet rich in God's presence.

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In recent years, God has been calling us to be even more of a church of mission - globally and locally. We are compelled by the urgency of the appeal that "the harvest is plentiful yet the workers are few" while seeing so many spiritually hungry people coming to Silicon Valley from all over the world. We humbly place ourselves into God's hands for His mercy and grace to be a corporate vessel of the Holy Spirit, serving as a local mission body as well as serving afar by sending teams and through internet missions. May God's will on us prevail.

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To know the Vision and Mission of SVCA as a whole, please refer to the article named One Spirit One Course which was shared by the founding pastor, Pastor Hong-Jie Yu, in April of 1997.