As 2003 comes to a close, I can’t help but reminisce about the past year. What I am most grateful for is the great number of people who have been saved through our church. An average of 2 to 3 people received Christ and were baptized each week this year.
Let me list some significant events for our church in 2003, not necessarily in order of importance.
* This year, we added a third Sunday worship service. This evening service is run by younger people for younger people. Although there hasn??t been a rapid growth in attendance, around 100 people come regularly to the service. Many of them are people who previously couldn’t attend church because they had to work on Sunday, and the number of people like these who come is increasing.
* Our church sent out our first missionary couple, Dr. Jun Yoo Taik and his wife Young Ja. They are supported by the International Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention and don’t need our financial help, but we are supporting them with prayer. They became Christians through our church and have become our first missionary couple.
* We launched a missions project to provide clean water for South America Native Indians. A team went to Argentina and was successful in digging a well. The natives are now able to drink clean underground water instead of dirty, unhealthy water from ponds or streams. We left the drilling equipment there so the natives could help other villages nearby. This project will expand to other countries in South America.
* Also in 2003, for the first time, the House Church Seminar for Pastors was held in a place other than Houston, at the Korean Baptist Church of Atlanta. The house church movement is too big to depend on an individual or a single church, and I am glad that we are able to share the responsibility with another church in North America. In Korea, with concentrated effort on my part, there will be several churches able to sponsor the house church seminars in the next few years.
* We adopted the Children Shepherd system. These shepherds, who come mostly from the youth department, lead meetings for the children while their parents have their own house church meetings. This makes both the children and their parents happy. And the children shepherds acquire valuable leadership skills as well.
* Brother Park Kwang Woo was appointed Church Administrator. He is in charge of various administrative tasks, building maintenance, and acts as a liaison for various ministry teams. As a result, our church has been running more smoothly.
* A ministry team was formed to produce video clips for the church announcements. They make great sacrifices by working late on Saturday evenings. Thanks to their work, church announcements have become a fun part of the worship services.
* A project to transfer the entire church??s administration system to computer was begun. This will eliminate all the redundancy in the current system??s rosters for the children’s department and the adults will be eliminated. It will also make it easier to exchange information between different ministry teams.
I want to thank everyone who has worked diligently and faithfully this past year. May God bless you.
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