Crossing Bridges To Form a Church: Rev. Tiffany Fan (MDiv 2021) – Alum Profile
December 6, 2023
Few were eager to serve on the church planting team sent by Grace Christian Church (GCC) in Bayside, Queens to the Bronx. For one, the commute wasn’t easy. For team member Tiffany Fan, the 45-minute drive meant crossing the busy Whitestone Bridge across the East River. Second, the audience for this church plant was tough. This particular Bronx neighborhood had a very diverse population, as well as a group of medical professionals who weren’t particularly receptive to Good News that couldn’t be proven in a lab.
But over time, a faithful group responded to God’s call. Starting in 2008, people attended a Bible study on the campus of Albert Einstein College of Medicine led by the senior pastor of GCC. They even bused to Queens for Sunday worship. However, the group needed a local church home. In 2017, the Reformed Church in America’s Classis of New York allowed this GCC church plant to use their beautiful 1936 building. This new worshipping community called themselves GCC Bronx, offering services each week in Mandarin and English.
Having immigrated from Taiwan when she was 16, Tiffany is bilingual, so she took her turn in the preaching rotation. As a fulltime Chinese-English-as-a-New-Language teacher at a middle school, she was not looking for a career change; for her, church involvement was volunteer work.
One concern holding Tiffany back from embracing a ministerial call was her gender. She had not seen many women pastors in her Asian culture. Tiffany wrestled with the Lord for a year before enrolling in the MDiv Program at NBTS, where she studied under women professors and alongside women seminarians. Increasingly, she could accept herself becoming a Minister of Word and Sacrament.
On June 25, 2023, Rev. Tiffany Fan was, in fact, ordained and installed as the pastor of GCC Bronx. One thing Tiffany loves about this body of believers is their multicultural identity. The English service is attended by people from a variety of ethnic backgrounds—Filipino, Jewish, African American, Chinese, and more. Once a month, on communion Sunday, attendees of the English and Mandarin services meet together to worship and share a meal.
Tiffany’s ministry involves bridging not only cultural boundaries, but also generational. She sees a lot of opposition in the world to Christianity, especially from young people: “It is no longer hip to be a Christian.” Her vision is that their church would be a community of God’s people who are prayerful, accountable, transparent, and humble.
“This is my faith journey, and I need God’s help,” Tiffany acknowledged. Her prayer is that, in the Spirit’s power, GCC Bronx will increasingly become a Christian community that reflects the glory of Jesus Christ.