Several years ago, a church in Korea sent young people to Afghanistan to visit and assist a medical doctor the church supported and give medical care to the Afghan people for a few weeks. During their return trip, they were kidnapped by the Taliban and held hostage for several months. Internet posters were harsh when commenting on this incident. Most of them expressed their displeasure by saying things like "They should have known what was coming when they decided to go in violation of government regulations that forbid travel in Afghanistan" (in fact there were no such regulations), or "It's wrong to force people to convert to Christianity" (the ...

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I would dare to say that my life is based on the Bible. My Christian life started with the Bible. My journey in becoming a believer began when an evangelical team member on the street gave me a copy of the New Testament when I was in graduate school. The Bible convinced me that Jesus is the Savior of humankind, and I received Christ. However, reaching the conclusion that the Bible has the actual words of God wasn't easy. I had to go through a long mental process. I had three major questions concerning the Bible. The first was, "Are the Biblical records about Jesus' miracles, such as healing, casting out demons, or calming the sea really true?" I ...

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There are conflicts throughout the world between Muslims and Christians, both physical and cultural. Jesus said that when the gospel was preached to all nations, he would return. So it's imperative to preach the gospel to Muslims and help them receive Jesus. But many Christians don't personally know Muslims. Most people think that all Muslims are alike, the same as the terrorists they see on TV. Carl Medearis, who has ministered to Muslims in Lebanon for years, wrote a book, “Muslims, Christians, and Jesus.” This book helped a lot in my understanding of Muslims. The author says that many Christians are unaware that Muslims are more pious than ...

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It's hard to entertain people who visit Houston because it has no unique tourist attractions. I thought that Houston's history might be interesting to visitors so I decided to study it in books and on the web. I'd like to share some facts about Houston that may interest you. The Korean-American population in Houston is tiny compared to Los Angeles, New York, Atlanta, and Chicago, and is only 1/3 the size of that in Dallas. Because of this, many Koreans think of Houston as a small, rural city. But according to the 2010 national census, Houston is the 4th largest city in the U.S. Many people don't know that Texas was once an independent republic. It ...

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I recently heard about an incident where one of our church members advised a pastor in the Houston area to attend a House Church seminar, which upset him. I understand the member's good intentions but his actions were unwise. We shouldn't expect local pastors to come to our House Church seminars unless they have extraordinarily strong desires to restore the New Testament church. There are many reasons why local pastors can't come, pride being one of them. The member should have realized that he put unnecessary pressure on the pastor by asking him to attend the seminar when he could not or would not want to do so. I urge our church members to not ask ...

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When Jesus envisioned his church, he dreamed about a family-like community. New Testament churches met at homes, because their members were families. They called each other brothers and sisters because they were family members with the same Father: God. A while ago, someone posted on our church website lamenting how a child fell on our church grounds and nobody picked him up. I think people didn't respond because they failed to consider the fallen child their own, instead looking at him as the child of a stranger. If we are brothers and sisters, other church members' sons and daughters are our nephews and nieces. We should love them like our own ...

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I just came back from a 6-month trip. It was longer than usual because it included a trip with the board members of House Church Ministries International. The board members meet once a year, hosted alternately by pastors serving in North America and Korea. This year was the North American board members' turn to host and we decided to take a field trip together and investigate several canyons, including the Great Canyon, that have evidence of the Flood. My wife and I had already taken a similar trip but we still learned a lot from this one. The board members from Korea decided to take an Alaskan cruise afterwards because many of them had reasons to ...

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