Sunday Service
- Adult 1st Service: 9AM
- Adult 2nd Service: 11AM
- Youth Service: 10:45AM
Why New Life Doesn’t Allow Members to Raise Funds for Mission Trips
Just recently I received four support letters from college students who are not members of New Life. They are all planning to go on a mission trip this summer and they each needed to raise at least $3,000 if not more for their trip. This is a lot of money.
As I was making online contributions for them, various thoughts came to mind in regards to church and missions. Why are they asking for money to go on a mission trip? Why is it that their church is not taking care of them? What will they learn and gain from participating in these mission trips?
Many ...
House Church or Village Outings
New Life has come to a point where we can't just think about our own well-being. There are several churches that are looking to us for direction and guidance. And this is especially true among those churches whose pastors attended house church seminar and are committed to do house church ministry.
In light of this, I would like to ask you to make Sunday corporate worship non-negotiable. When you are on vacation with your family, it is perfectly fine to worship at another church if you are outside of Houston. And if you are camping with your family in a remote place ...
Passion week: The last week of Jesus
This week is Passion week. I want to summarize this week so that you can meditate on the suffering of Jesus and be ready for Good Friday service. For this week, it would be good to keep this pastor’s corner in the Bible and read the daily portion and meditate on it. I used bible verses from Matthew but it will be beneficial to read other books of the Bible also.
Sunday (Matthew 21:1-11) The last week of Jesus started on this day as he entered Jerusalem on Sunday. As it was written by the prophets, Jesus was on a donkey and a large crowd spread their cloaks on the ...
Do not abuse social drinking
We have some members who are alcoholics. Some struggle a lot with alcohol and lose the battle repeatedly. Some, on the other hand, struggle but are making a courageous decision to stay sober each and every day as they rely on the power of the Holy Spirit through prayer and others holding them accountable. It is a beautiful thing!
Due to the fact that we have members who are fighting against alcoholism, my stance on social drinking has been very firm especially for those who are serving in a leadership capacity: no drinking in public period!
However, as I watched and ...
Helping other churches that are trying to do house church
We have many medical school students here at New Life. After four years of studying, they all have to apply and get matched to a residency program to get more practical training to become a full-fledged doctor. Some will stay in Houston but some will leave to go to other places for their residency. This past week, I heard from two members that they got matched to places in California. One is a shepherd and the other one is a core member in our Missions Team. A great loss for Texas but a great gain for California!
From God's perspective, however, this could turn out to ...
Sacrifice makes prayer powerful
During the pastor’s seminar, people often ask when I find time to prepare for sermons since they know that I am occupied with lectures all day long. Then, they add that the sermon was specially blessing when they feel that I don’t have time to prepare it. Such a compliment is a great encouragement to me and refreshes my spirit.
It is true that during the seminar I do not have enough time to prepare for the sermon. I have some time on Wednesday and Friday evening. However, those times I am typically too exhausted to prepare a sermon, so I normally have dinner and ...
Attentive listening is an act of love
Before I became a Christian, one of the concepts I least understood was love. At that time, I vaguely thought that love is a feeling and also a state of falling into certain emotions. However, this definition of love can cause some problems. First of all, human feelings and emotions can easily change. Therefore, if love is a feeling of liking someone, it is very easy to be disappointed and experience deterioration. Because of this misunderstanding of love, we often see on TV or media the word ‘love’ being used in an erroneous way. Someone who failed to perform ...