People are sensitive to titles. When I visited Korea last May a friend of mine took me to a hotel spa, treating me to a massage. During the massage the masseuse addressed me by a title reserved for CEOs of large companies. Apparently, people are so sensitive to how they are addressed that he played it safe by using the most honorable title possible. Unfortunately, this penchant for honorable titles seems to be creeping into our church. Some of our newer members who moved here from other areas seem to feel offended when they are addressed as "Brother" or "Sister". They would rather be addressed as Elders, Deacons, or Deaconesses. They also embarrass ...

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Our teenaged sons and daughters are under attack. A sexual attack. When they open their email images of copulating men and women attack them. Hidden messages saying that it is all right to have sex outside of marriage attack them through the TV shows they watch. And many parents are oblivious to this. Recent surveys indicate that most teens lose their virginity before they graduate from high school. Many more have intimate sexual experiences such as oral sex even if they do not have actual sexual intercourse. These are not just non-Christian teens; they also come from Christian families. We must realize that our own children are not immune from the ...

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I get up 4:20 AM every day, including Saturdays and Sundays, and get to church at around 5 AM. I spend the next 3 hours praying, mostly for church members, and for breakfast I eat a fruit and vegetable smoothie lovingly prepared for me by my wife. I spend the rest of the day at church. Thursday is the only day I get up late as it's my day off. Sunday is the busiest day of the week for a pastor. But business does not stop at the end of Sunday. I attend various meetings on Monday evenings, such as monthly meetings with shepherds or events for some of the Bible study groups. On Tuesday evenings I lead an introductory Bible class. On Wednesday evenings ...

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I have been preaching on the book of Matthew for over a year. People have asked me which book of the Bible I plan to preach on next. I actually have an ambitious goal. I plan to preach through every book of the Bible over the next few years. I got this idea from Chuck Smith, a well known preacher from Calvary Chapel. In one of his seminar tapes he mentioned that he covered five chapters from the books of the Old Testament and one chapter from the books of the New Testament so that he could preach through the entire Bible every few years. If I follow this system I may be able to finish the entire Bible before I retire. Even now, when I cover only ...

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We will be starting a third weekly Sunday worship service, beginning August 17th. It will be held in the evening at 7:45 PM. This service will be staffed entirely by young singles. So far the young people in our church have only been taken care of. I hope this service gives them an opportunity to serve themselves and become equals with our older members of the church as servants of God. Brother Soo-Kwan Lee will be in charge of this service. He has a heart and a dream for the lost young adults in Houston. In them, he sees the potential for future leaders. He will be responsible for recruiting workers, designing and leading the worship, and minist...

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Recently a member left our church because she was angry at me. When she was in the hospital for an operation I did not visit her, but a pastor from a nearby church did come and prayed over her. She was upset because she felt that her own pastor did not care for her as much as a pastor of another church. Then she heard a testimony at church where the speaker said she was greatly helped by my visit. That was the last straw for her. She felt she was being discriminated against and she moved to the church of the pastor who had come to visit her. He not only visited her but led a Bible study afterward with her alone. It's been a rule of mine to visit ...

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We rarely hear the term "concubine" these days. But when I was growing up in Korea, quite a few rich men had concubines. One of my friends was actually born to a concubine mother. A concubine's children were usually adopted by their natural father and raised by a stepmother. It must have been hard for them to grow up among their stepbrothers and stepsisters. And it must have been just as hard for the natural sons and daughters to live with someone who shared the same father but had a different mother. I remember reading an article in which the author described the odd feelings he felt when he first heard someone call his own father "Dad". I had ...

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