Repentance for Others

The only exercise I get consists of three 30-minute walks each week on a treadmill a church member installed in my office. Walking for 30 minutes is boring and I made various excuses for skipping it. But after Pastor Lee bought a DVD player for me, and his wife started renting Korean dramas for me to watch while I exercise, I rarely skip it because I'm so anxious to see what comes next in the drama. I'm currently watching "Beethoven Virus", a drama that got high ratings in Korea. It's about musicians who lead ordinary lives as policemen, housewives, grandfathers, and ...

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A Pastor’s Worst Nightmare

My ministry here at New Life has been fulfilling and joyful. There were no major issues or problems that were detrimental to me or to the church the past ten plus years. And even if there were, God has been very gracious to me and has protected New Life from all of them. As I look back, however, I realize there is a group of people that has worried me and drained energy out of me. They are those who have grown up in church ever since they were young or who used to attend and serve at different churches for some time before joining New Life, but for one reason or ...

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Common Traits in Successful People

The 5th House Church Conference for Shepherds will be held in July at the Sheraton Hotel. We're able to host this conference at the luxurious Sheraton because its owner, Brother Kyu-Sik Cho, gave us a deep discount. He is not a member of our church, but he is an enthusiastic supporter of the house church. I feel a little uneasy writing about a specific person in a Pastor's Corner but I'm going to write about him anyway. His primary business is a janitorial company, of which he's the president. He started it 20 years ago in New Orleans, where his first customer was a local ...

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Signs of the End Times

The entire world is in recession. It started in the U.S. as the result of greedy people ignoring huge risks and has spread all over the world. I think that this crisis might be a preview of what will happen when the end time comes. Human history will eventually come to an end. We humans don't know when and how the end will come. But God, the main actor in human history, foretold through His prophets what will happen in the end times. There are many different interpretations of the Biblical passages concerning the end times. Let me describe what I think is the most likely ...

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The House Church Movement in Spring 2009

Let me share the current status of the house church movement for those who prayed for me during my one-month trip, especially the 333 Prayer partners. The House Church is spreading from the U.S. to Korea on to other countries. The number of missionaries attending house church seminars has increased dramatically. During my trip, I gave a special talk on the House Church to Korean Baptist missionaries. Their response was enthusiastic. Leaders of the Korean Baptist mission organizations said that they would seriously consider having future missionaries attend house church ...

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Playground vs. Battleground

I do believe some parents do live out their unfulfilled childhood dreams through their children. My childhood dream was to be a Kung Fu fighter, but I was never able to fulfill that dream; so, now I am living that dream out through my son. Hudson, started Tae Kwon Do last week, and I was more excited than Hudson. I took him to the Tae Kwon Do class, and we met the master and got a free uniform. Hudson couldn’t wait to put on the uniform at home and act like a great fighter. I immediately started to stretch his legs and told him that he needed to be able to do a split ...

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Don’t Be Duped

I caught a TV show while visiting Korea last year called, "One Thousand People". The producer surveyed a thousand people on different topics and invited experts to talk about the results. The show's survey that day concerned shamanism, and the guest for that show was a spiritualist. He said he was born to a shaman family and worked for 10 years as a fortuneteller after going through the ritual of "receiving the spirit". He said that fortunetelling was nothing more than a business, and advised against buying talismans and paying for rituals to cast out evil spirits or ...

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