I would like to let you know that our church will be hosting the General Convention of Korean Baptist Churches belonging to Southern Baptist Convention. Southern Baptist Convention is the largest protestant denomination in the world. It was founded in 1845. According to 2011 survey, there are approximately 45,000 churches within the convention and there are about 6 million of Sunday worship attendants. Southern Baptist is passionate about mission work and IMB (International Missionary Board), its missionary org sent out about 10,000 missionaries to 160 countries. Domestic mission is lead by NAMB (North American Mission Board) to help with church ...

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Recently, a new “anti-discrimination bill” became an issue in Korea. 66 Congressmen drafted and proposed this bill, and their intention was to protect the rights of the minorities. It sounds very good, but in fact it includes some serious issues. For example, this bill defines discrimination as any inequitable treatment based on religion, philosophy, sexual orientation, gender identity, or any other reasons. So, if a church refuses to hire a homosexual pastor or staff, or if a church teaches that homosexual behavior is a sin, it can be punished under this bill. The bill specifies that violators of the law will be punished with a fine up to ...

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Someone encountered following happening recently. The company where he was working hired a Jewish employee recently. This person claimed that he could not work on Saturdays because it was a Sabbath. So he thought to himself, “It will not work here. There will be no way they will allow this.” This is because when he started to work there and told them that he could not work on Sunday because he was a Christian, he was told, “I don’t care.” He thought the Jewish employee would be treated same but the same manager told others that this new employee should be allowed to take off Saturdays since his religion forbade working on that day. As ...

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There are only two days left until House Church Seminar for Pastors. Countless pastors had attended this seminar since our church and other churches held it for a decade. And for our 99th seminar this year, as always, lots of pastors are coming from all around the world. In total, 153 pastors have registered for this year’s House Church Seminar for Pastors (134 pastors for Korean-spoken seminar and 19 pastors for English-spoken seminar in NLF). And this year, we have more pastors coming from overseas; our attendees come from total of 20 countries including Korea. Some come from New Zealand, Ecuador, and Ukraine. That we still have this many ...

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사무장 Kwang-Woo Park is preparing to retire from his position. As you already know, he is 75 years old. He was a vice president in charge of procurement at Arco Oil Company but took early retirement to serve as a personal secretary for Pastor Young-Gi Chai. Then, from 2003 and on, he took on the role of 사무장 and has worked at this church for 10 years without pay. In fact, he could have retired last August when Pastor Chai retired but served 1 more years for me to minimize any transition shock for this church. Mr. Park does an incredible amount of work for this church. He takes care of the overall operation ...

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Shortly before the US presidential election in 2012, a reference to Mormonism as a cult was scrubbed from the website for Evangelist Billy Graham, citing that religious debate should not become politicized during the campaign. And many Christians supported Mitt Romney, who was a Mormon, in the last election. I am not in the position to say anything about the presidential election choices since it is an individual's choice in voting, however, I have a concern that people might mistakenly understand Mormonism as a Christian Religion. Furthermore, a well-known megachurch pastor has claimed that Mormonism is a Christian Religion since Mormons believe ...

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As I grow older, I sometimes feel ashamed of myself of younger days for being overconfident. For I now realized that my overconfidence and occasional looking down on people very often came from not having been in their shoes. For example, generally speaking, a person is mostly devoted to God as a single. When you are a single, you feel like you can do anything and everything for God, and in fact, it is mostly young singles that make a commitment for missionary service. Perhaps not so unnaturally, they often look down on the older generation and criticize their lack of commitment to God. However, when they get married, these same young people soon feel ...

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