Summing up elder’s house church one more time

Rumors have been going around regarding a daytime house church for the elders, so I feel the need to clarify. There are roughly 3 groups of elders in our church. The first group consists of elderly people who have moved to the U.S. at an older age with their children. Most of them don’t drive and live in elderly housing, and there are 3 house churches serving them. Except for shepherd Heui-Gu Kang’s house church, those house church members attend 1st service and hold house church meetings during 2nd service at church. Then they have lunch together after 2nd service and leave for home.

The second group consists of people who have lived in the U.S. for a long time, been members of a house church for a long time, and grown old in our church. Most of them can drive, but since they are old it’s hard to drive at night time and take turns in hosting house church at home. This group can consult with their shepherd and join the Sunday’s house church for the elders if they’d like. At first, I was looking into creating a house church group that meets during the weekdays and provides lunch like we do on Sundays since there were no more rooms available on Sundays. But it would be better for that group to attend 2nd service and hold house church during 3rd service after having lunch since the rooms would be available by then.

For this type of house church, it would be better for each individual to form his/her own group that fits the individual’s own needs instead of the church doing so. If you submit a form requesting a house church to be formed consisting of such members, we will appoint a shepherd to serve and assign a room. If there are no candidates to serve as shepherd for that group, we will recruit a volunteer. Only those who are over the age of 70 can join either group mentioned above, and exceptions can be made for those who cannot join such groups due to health or other reasons.

The last group consists of people who drive and can take turns hosting house church at their homes but have difficulty driving at nighttime. I see people over the age of 60 tend to be in this group. I recommend these people to form a group as well and hold daytime house church meetings. In this case as well, if you form a group, we will appoint a shepherd, and if no one’s readily available, we will recruit. And for people in these age groups, you can consult with your shepherd at any time and move to such house churches freely in the future. However, in order to not to lose energy in house church, continue to focus your effort on saving souls.

This type of issue is unique in our church. We have an approximately equal amount of people in each generation from their 20’s to their 80’s. We are blessed to have such diversity in age, and I hope that those who have been serving in house church for the past 20 years will cultivate a house church culture geared towards serving and saving souls suitable to their own age without much difficulties.