These days when I meet with elderly members, they will sometimes express what they are expecting from the church. I have discovered that some expectations are beyond what our church can reach. Some expect for our church to provide “Elder College” similar to what is being offered by one of the local Korean churches, while others expect the church to buy burial plots to be used in the future for them when they pass away. The image of church that these members are thinking of is a church working more like a community center. In the early days of America, a church was built first when a town was founded. Naturally the church became the center of ...

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Man: “Let’s break up…” Woman: (almost crying) “Why should we?” Man: Just think. If we get married, we need to live on my paltry salary. Out of that meager amount, we pay rent, utility, etc., which means that we live on debt. Every month. There’s no hope. I don’t want that life. Let’s just break up.” On the other day when I got home, my wife said she really pity young people in Korea. They must feel quite crushed, she said. She quoted the above conversation from a soap opera when I asked why she thought so. And I could totally understand what she meant. They must feel really hopeless. House prices are exorbitantly high, income is ...

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I have cable TV that shows Korean channels. I installed it a few years ago because one day my wife told me that she feels out of touch with reality since she lives in the US with vision problem, so she wanted to hear Korean news and cultural programs. Since then, I have sometimes watched Korean programs too when I get off from work. One of the programs that has caught my attention is a program called, ‘Person of Nature’ I never watched it to the end, so I do not know all the details, but the program is about visiting some people who live alone in the wilderness and spending a few days with them to capture their daily routines with some intervie...

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I have cable TV that shows Korean channels. I installed it a few years ago because one day my wife told me that she feels out of touch with reality since she lives in the US with vision problem, so she wanted to hear Korean news and cultural programs. Since then, I have sometimes watched Korean programs too when I get off from work. One of the programs that has caught my attention is a program called, 'Person of Nature' I never watched it to the end, so I do not know all the details, but the program is about visiting some people who live alone in the wilderness and spending a few days with them to capture their daily routines with some interviews. ...

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One of the favorite things we do is to call ourselves “One Stubborn person” proudly. This phrase means that I have an opinion, a point of view, and that I know exactly what I want and is used with good intentions. It may not be wrong to say this. If you examine many successful people, they tend to have strong opinions. No matter what others say, they are not shaken in their belief and pushes through when they think they are right to obtain the results. They are not tempted to try this and that but stubbornly concentrate on one thing to become successful. In comparison, someone that is influenced easily here and there by others is in danger ...

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One of the great things about our church is that our congregation has wide a range of age groups. Right now there are about 200 young people in our Single's house churches. And throughout our 175 other house churches, we also have singles, recently married couples, and middle-aged people. Lastly, there are about 150 elderly people who are 65 years or older. Our church is truly diverse in age. The spirit of house church mostly comes from choice and delegation. Accordingly, it is totally up to an individual which house church he or she wants to belong to. Singles who belong to Single’s house churches are good example. They are there because they want ...

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Our church has many remarkable cultures. One of them is a fine web board culture. It’s hard to find a web board that is better disciplined and warmer than our own in this world. Everyone writes their posts in their real names, shares writings of encouragement and regards one another. Even though it’s not controlled by a membership, we hardly get odd postings. It has become like this mainly because Pastor Chai put in a lot of effort into shaping that kind of web culture. Pastor Chai had a strong belief that the internet could contribute to cultivating the gracious culture of the church and put in a lot of his own time into it. He did not restrict ...

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