Established Date: 1968
In 1968, Rev. Moses Yang rented a second floor apartment at 10 Mott St. in Chinatown, NY. and started the "Fellowship of Life". This was the very first Bible Study started by Rev. Moses Yang. Then in 1970, it became the Chinese Evengelical Church in Chinatown. Rev. Moses Yang always mentioned the eight college students who started the "Life" family. Later, additional people joined the group. Many brothers and sisters got married and the "Life" grew in size. In 1974, after relocating two times, the church finally, by faith, bought a three-story building at 253 Centre St., NY, NY.
For the past years, the memers of C.E.C. of Chinatown are composed of American- born Chinese. A few members can understand Cantonese, yet many are English-speaking. In the past, they usually use July 4th to hold annual Summer Evangelistic Conferences to reach out to unbelievers. Many of the young people got saved duing these conferences and have become members of the church. That's why this church was always very young and alive. The church has a great burden for the young people. Aside from the Sunday Service, Sunday School, and Friday Bible Study, the church holds Saturday outreach program such POP (Pathseekers Outreach Program) from 10:00AM to 4:00PM. The young people have Bible lessons, tutorial services, playing ping-pong, and computer games. Currently, aside from reaching out to the young people, the church has a burden to reach out to their parents, too. By providing dinners in a relaxed atmposphere, they share the gospel with their parents.
C.E.C of Chinatown was the first church established by Rev. Yang. Therefore, Rev. Yang holds a special feeling for the church, alike the love for the "first-born" child who gets a "special love" from the father. Rev. Yang likes to joke and say that when Noah and his family, consisting of eight people, left the ark, they started a "new world". There are "eight" young people who assisted Rev. Yang to start this ministry. So "eight" is a good number. Therefore, Rev. Yang decided to celebrate the anniversary on August 8th in memory of the start of the C.E.M. ministry