When I think that a church member is suffering from a spiritual attack, I ask them into to my office and cast evil spirits out of them. There are various ways to cast out evil spirits. In South America, where evil spirits are very active in people's lives, it's usually confrontational. Ministry leaders challenge evil spirits and command them to leave in a worship environment. Possessed people often shriek, shake their bodies, or faint when evil spirits leave. My personal method is not dramatic. I guide people who are under the influence of evil spirits and help them to cast out demons by their own power. I don't talk to demons and forbid them to ...

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One of our church's unwritten rules is that church members serve both their house churches and the united church, which is Seoul Baptist Church. So most church members, not to mention Shepherds and their spouses, are involved in at least two ministries. A couple years after we started the house church, we had a research organization measure the health of our church. According to them, our church scored highest among Korean-American churches in the U.S. Our scores were uniformly high across areas such as worship, education, and fellowship. Our only low score was in the area of "ministry". But instead of being disappointed by this low score, I was ...

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I recently wrote a column about my forgetfulness. It seems to be getting worse. One morning, I got in my car and was about to leave when I suddenly remembered that I had left something inside the house. I killed the engine and went back inside, but then couldn't remember what I came back for. On another occasion, I called someone, and when he picked up the phone, I couldn't remember whom I was calling. I felt so embarrassed when I had to ask, “Who am I talking to please?" But forgetfulness is not limited only to me. The majority of Christians suffer from the same ailment: they've forgotten why God called them to be Christians. The purpose of the ...

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I once saw maturity defined as "the ability to live with ambiguity." I agree. When we're young, we see everything as black and white. A person is either good or bad. An opinion is either right or wrong. But as we get older, we begin to realize there is a lot of gray. Even good people have some hidden vices in their lives, and even bad people have some commendable virtues. All good advice has some drawbacks and all bad advice has some merit. As we get older, we become more flexible in our judgments of people and situations, and I consider that maturity. The Apostle Paul warned us about making hasty judgments against people. He cites two reasons: ...

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When a pastor's wife is ill, the whole congregation can be emotionally affected. So I asked our deacons to continue to pray for my wife's recovery in private, and not mention her illness when leading congregational prayers. (I also felt sorry for other cancer patients at our church who might not get as much prayer support as my wife.) But since so many people have expressed their concerns and asked about her progress, let me give an update on her condition. She receives chemotherapy every Tuesday. She is injected with an antihistamine first to suppress nausea, followed by two anti-cancer drugs, Taxol and Carboplatin, in succession. She takes a blood ...

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People often ask me why our church doesn't post my Sunday sermons on the church's website the way many other churches do. I have some reservations in doing that. First, I don't want to spend extra money and energy on an effort that primarily helps those who are already Christians. If they were intended for non-believers, I'd be willing to do it, but most non-believers don't watch sermons on the web. People who do watch those sermons are most likely long-time church members who have seen thousands of sermons. When they watch a sermon over the web, they sample a few sentences to decide whether they like it or not and switch to whatever they like. I ...

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When I first came to Seoul Baptist, people were impressed because I called them by their names, even though I had only met them briefly when I was invited as a revival speaker. I was able to remember their names because I made a conscientious effort. When I decided to accept their invitation to become the senior pastor of Seoul Baptist, I asked the church to mail me their monthly newsletter and memorized the names that appeared on it. God knows our names. He loves and values each of us individually. Likewise, I want to know each of our church members and remember their names. But this gets harder as I get older. It takes me about 2 to 3 weeks for ...

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