What would it look like if every Christian lived according to the Bible? I think that all women would become "ladies" and all men would become "gentlemen". True ladies are warm, considerate, accepting, and encouraging - possessors of fruit of the Spirit. True gentlemen are kind, responsible, humorous, and willing to die for the women they love - possessors of the Spirit. I think that it is not a coincidence that chivalry was born in Christian Europe and that gentlemanship developed in England when Christianity was at its peak. Their spirit came from the Bible. Many contemporary authors and movies ridicule chivalry or gentlemanship as archaic. But ...

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We have a special guest this week: Dong-Jin Baik, Children's Pastor at Global Village (Ji-Gu-Chon) Church in Washington D.C. As you know, our current Children's Pastor, Mrs. Seo, wants to take an early retirement and become a foreign missionary. She wanted to go last year, but her planned successor abruptly decided to leave our church. So she postponed her retirement and we have been praying for a replacement. God seems to have answered our prayer. A while ago, Pastor Baik came to our church as a guest speaker for our children's department volunteers. People were impressed by his expertise and personality. Mrs. Seo arranged for him and his wife to ...

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Churches that people look up to as model churches have one thing in common: their senior pastors have been with them for over 20 years. That's not surprising. It takes 2 to 3 years for church members to get to know a new pastor, 5 to 7 more years to become ministry partners with him, and another 10 to 20 years for particular ministry philosophies to take root. Stagnant churches also have something in common; their pastors have a short tenure. Southern Baptist churches are typically small and their pastors' tenure averages 2 to 3 years, according to one study. I don't have official figures on the average tenure of pastors at Korean speaking congreg...

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A few years ago, Apple introduced a product that became an instant hit: the iPod. As you know, it's a small MP3 player that can store thousands of songs. You see young people everywhere walking or working with iPod headphones in their ears. The product was so popular that it changed the industry - entire product lines opened up around iPod peripherals, and other product lines were rendered obsolete. I think that the iPod became so enormously popular because people, especially young ones, are addicted to noise. They feel uncomfortable when there is no sound. When they drive, they have the car stereo on. When they walk, they listen to their iPods. At ...

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During our last revival, one of our guest speaker's stories stuck with me, about being taken to a Broadway musical. The person who treated him had never been to one himself. So after the first half of the show, when the intermission started, he thought the show was over. Pastor Park knew that it was only intermission, but didn't have the heart to embarrass him by saying so, so he left with him without saying a word. This anecdote shows how gentle and considerate Pastor Park is! I am more or less a straight talker. I have reason for being so. If a nurse tries too hard to not hurt a patient when administering a shot, she will likely hurt the patient ...

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I'd like to recommend a book: "Serving Parents Raise Truly Successful Children". The author, Hye-Sung Jun, has raised truly successful children. One of her sons graduated from Yale and is now Assistant Dean in the Graduate School of Public Health. Another received a Doctorate in Law from Harvard and is Dean of the Yale Law School and a University chair. Her daughter also received an LLD degree from Harvard Law and also holds a University chair at Yale. It's first the time in the history of Yale that a brother and a sister have held University chairs at the same time. Many parents assume that if their children are admitted to a prestigious college, ...

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A Korean church in a big city recently built a new sanctuary. A member of our church visited it and was impressed. He says that the sanctuary is magnificent, with top-notch facilities. They invested $1.5 million on the sound equipment alone. After hearing it, this person seemed to feel that our sound system was inadequate. Occasionally, I hear complaints from our church members: why does a church our size charge money for lunch? Shouldn't our church give away Sunday sermon CDs free of charge when they are intended to be given to non-believers? Shouldn't our church provide meals for people who are at church for almost the entire day for ministry on ...

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