Recently, someone made a post on our church chat room with the title "A Depressing Morning". It was written by a medical doctor who became a follower of Christ through our church when he came from Korea to Houston for training. He wrote about his feelings as he watched the bombing of Baghdad on TV. He was confused about how President Bush, who is very public about being a born again Christian, can invade a country. For those of you who might have similar questions, let me share my personal opinions about this issue. Many people, including Koreans, firmly believe that this war is about oil. But I don't believe this to be President Bush's primary ...

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When we have revival meetings we ask for volunteers to host the guest speaker. We put a sign-up sheet on the board in the fellowship hall and ask members to sign up for the day they can take him out for a meal. We do this to give as many people as possible the opportunity to receive God's blessings. As the Lord said: "Anyone who receives a prophet will receive a prophet's reward, and anyone who receives a righteous man will receive a righteous man's reward." We've slightly changed the procedure with Pastor Chun, who will be leading our upcoming revival. We're still asking members to volunteer, but the sign-ups won't be for individual meals. We ...

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"I'm sure you don't remember me but..." Sometimes when people call me they start the conversation like this, assuming I don't remember them. They are surprised when they see that I remember not only their names but something personal about them as well. I know almost all of our church members' names because I pray for them every morning. I pray over their family prayer requests, which are collected at the beginning of the year. I also pray over any special prayer requests, which are submitted every week. One of the reasons church members liked me when I first came to Seoul Baptist was that I remembered their names so well. But remembering names ...

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It has been over ten years since we started the house church system and we have made a lot of progress during this time. We started with 23 house churches and now we have more than 100. We have also held many seminars on the house church to help those who are interested. The House Church Seminar for Pastors that we will be hosting in a couple of weeks is our 15th. Hosting a seminar is a lot of work for the church. So when we started, we decided to keep holding two seminars a year only as long as attendance continued to go up. When attendance started to decline, we would move to having just one seminar annually. But attendance has consistently grown ...

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During Sunday morning worship services, I sometimes pray for members with illnesses. I ask them to stand and place their hands on the areas that hurt and I pray for them. I don't pray these prayers just on a whim. I do it when I get a "sense" that God is going to heal. That's why some weeks I pray only in one service and not the other - I only get the "sense" that I should pray in one of the services. When I obey this prompting from God, a lot of healing occurs. But I often don't hear about the healings until someone else tells me. I ask those who have been healed to call me or let people know through the chat room on our church's website, but most ...

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A church growth expert once stated that out of over 3,000 Korean churches in the United States, more than 2,500 of them started as a result of division from another church. Why are there so many church divisions? I believe that it happens because church members are childish. And why are members so childish? Because their pastors make them that way. When pastors hear of marital conflicts, they immediately rush to help them. When members skip church, pastors beg them to come back. They often don't even mention the word "serving", fearing that members may feel pressured and consequently leave the church. With this sort of coddling attitude, many church ...

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When people visit our church, I usually write them a personal letter to welcome them. I also include a questionnaire asking them about their first impressions of our church, things that appealed to them, and things that they felt needed to be improved. Recently, a visitor who had just moved here from out of state responded to the questionnaire with the following comments: "I read two of your books about the house church and I visited with high expectations. But when we came, nobody welcomed or guided us. It seemed that the church was already too full and only those already connected with a House Church could get in. People like us who were visiting ...

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