With each mission it gave away members and leaders, along with their skills and dollars. But each time new members appeared to refill True Light's pews. And all its planted churches are flourishing. If we had stayed at True Light, we would have stayed at a membership of 350 or 400. That' heady stuff.
Mission is a familiar theme in True Light's history.
After returning from service as a missionary to China, the church's organizer, Ira Condit, served from 1853 to 1876 under the Presbyterian mission board in this country, working among Chinese who came to California looking for gold. Some of these were Christians before coming to America who wanted to reach other Chinese with the gospel. When the gold dream dimmed, the Chinese scattered. Condit and several Chinese laymen visited settlements around the state and formed a gospel mission wherever they found a core of Chinese Christians. In this way Condit organized churches all over California, including True Light's ancestor in Los Angeles.