My wife and I just came back from a 5 day vacation in France. My wife has been friends with the wife of renowned conductor Myung Hoon Chung since childhood. She invited us to France so I could help her husband find answers to some of his questions about the Christian faith. He had been asking a lot of spiritual questions lately. Their home is in Povence, in the southern part of France, a 30 minute drive from Marseilles. It was an occasion for us to rest as well as to have discussions on Christian matters. During the time I was there, I saw a good example of someone who handles success gracefully. Mr. Chung is a truly successful man. He is a conduc...

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We ordained two new deacons last Sunday. During the ordination service I couldn't keep myself from crying. I think the reason I was moved was that the new deacons and their wives all came to accept Christ and be baptized by me. Seeing how they had grown spiritually to the point of being ordained deacons made me emotional. Deacon candidates go through many procedures before being ordained. First, they must be recommended by fellow shepherds by vote. Then they need to must receive at least 2/3 of a congregational vote. After that they take written and oral exams. If they pass these, they are then finally ordained as deacons. A few days before ...

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You can find many management books in bookstores, but most of them are for CEO types, managers for big companies. They are not very helpful for people who run small businesses. Practical management principles for small businesses can be given only by people who have been successful in that field. Let me introduce two such people. One is a newly appointed Shepherd. He runs a shoe repair shop. It had been open for four months when I interviewed him to be appointed as a shepherd. He said that in the first month the business was in the red, but the very next month he broke even and since then sales have continued to increase. To me, that is a successful ...

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I've noticed that a lot of young parents do not discipline their children and let them do whatever they want. I don't know why they shun discipline. Perhaps they think that discipline crushes a child's spirit. Maybe they just don't know how to discipline their children. They might also simply be lazy. But regardless of the reason, by not providing discipline parents are harming their children. If children don't learn proper boundaries between the things they can and cannot do, they may become antisocial when they grow up, unable to handle all of society's restrictions. Some may even turn into criminals or live lives isolated from society. I think ...

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Starting next Sunday, we will no longer be serving sandwiches after the first worship service. We will continue to serve food after the second service as usual. More and more people are coming to know Christ through our church. As a result we are experiencing a shortage of parking spaces. The parking problem wouldn't be so severe if the number of people attending each service were more even. Currently, about 100 more people attend the first service than the second one. If 30 to 40 families switched to the second service, there would be many more parking spaces available. The church next to us has graciously allowed us to use 60 to 70 of their ...

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Our church constitution stipulates that the congregation must take a vote of confidence on the senior pastor at the end of the 6th year of service. The senior pastor, if he passes the vote, may take a sabbatical of up to one year. It's time to recharge. Many pastors, when taking sabbaticals, take courses at a theological seminary, serve in a foreign mission field, or simply take time to rest. I took a vote of confidence at the end of my 6th year but I postponed taking a sabbatical because I wasn't tired. Also, I didn't have someone to handle pulpit duties while I was gone. So I reserved the sabbatical for a later time. I will be taking that sabbat...

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Some of our younger members may have never even seen a record player. But I think most of us remember them and how they worked. You put a grooved plastic disk onto a rotating platter. When a needle is placed on the grooves, music comes out. You might also remember that sometimes when there are scratches on the surface of the record, the needle skips on the scratch and stays on the same section of the record, so the same segment of music is played over and over again. Sometimes our minds are like a broken record: the same words play in our heads over and over again. Usually, these are negative words like "I'm ugly", "I'm no good" or "There's no use ...

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