We will be having our annual revival from February 12-15. The guest speaker will be Rev. Kim Jung Myung, senior pastor of Yu Soo Full Gospel Church in Korea. He is a pastor I admire greatly, and he lives what he preaches. When I first met him after being invited to speak at his church, he casually mentioned that he only had one kidney. He had donated the other to someone who needed one. He talked about this as if it was nothing special, like he was giving away clothes to someone who needed it. He also introduced a baby to me as his son. I was confused, because he and his wife were past childbearing age. He explained that the baby had been left at ...

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"I feel sorry for some pastors who came to our House Church Seminars because I wonder if they will be able to successfully transform their churches to house churches without help from good lay leaders. We have been successful because of our many good lay leaders. Most pastors do not seem to have mature lay leaders as we do," said a member of our church after a seminar. It is true that we have many mature lay leaders. It is also true that many churches do not. But I believe that much of the blame lies with the pastors themselves. Many pastors simply do not let their church members grow. They treat members like children. So they setup numerous church ...

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My son Danny and his wife Jieun visited from California this Christmas. Since my daughter Christine and her husband Peter live in Houston, we had a nice family reunion. Unlike Korea, the U.S. is so big that it's hard for family members to meet often; it had been a year since we were last together. I've asked them to make it a tradition to spend Christmas in Houston. It's obvious to us that Christine and Danny love and are loved by their spouses. They don't seem to fight as much as we did when my wife and I first got married. This might be because they were raised in Christian families, whereas we became Christians after we got married. Although ...

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In our staff meetings we study a book chosen by a staff member. We are currently studying "Built to Last" by J.C. Collins and J.I. Porras. It examines companies that have been leaders in their respective fields for more than 100 years. The authors try to find principles that made these companies successful for such a long time. One of the common factors for these companies is that they all have core values which are never sacrificed for the sake of profit. Competing companies that have not held values like these become successful for a short time but do not last. Our church seems to be enjoying a golden age. An average of 3 people a week accept ...

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Our church has many Korean-born women who married non-Koreans. They are faithful members of our church, but their husbands are usually nonbelievers. Since their husbands do not provide spiritual protection for their families as spiritual leaders, these families have a great deal of spiritual problems. So I have been praying for a couple who could form and lead a house church for families like these. It's hard to find because because they both need to be able to speak English fluently and be dedicated to the ministry. But my prayers have finally been answered through Fred and Sun Edwards, who are going to be ordained as co-shepherds today. Fred works ...

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As 2003 comes to a close, I can't help but reminisce about the past year. What I am most grateful for is the great number of people who have been saved through our church. An average of 2 to 3 people received Christ and were baptized each week this year. Let me list some significant events for our church in 2003, not necessarily in order of importance. * This year, we added a third Sunday worship service. This evening service is run by younger people for younger people. Although there hasn??t been a rapid growth in attendance, around 100 people come regularly to the service. Many of them are people who previously couldn't attend church because ...

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I am too busy to watch TV. I rarely turn on radio while driving. So Christmas comes and goes without me knowing. I stopped writing Christmas cards several years ago, because by the time I was ready to write the cards, it was usually the day before Christmas - too late to send anything. Christmas is the birthday of our Lord. How can we spend it most meaningfully? One time, to address this question, we bought blankets for the homeless with the money we would have used to buy gifts for our families. The Houston branch of a daily Korean newspaper held a drive to collect blankets for the homeless as a community service and we sent the collected money to ...

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