Let me introduce to you my coworkers in the house church movement. They are pastors of churches where I led house church seminars or preached. You will hear about them more often in the future.
Pastor Oh Myoung-kyo pastors The Bright Church in Namyang-ju, Korea. For many years, he pastored several churches on small islands in the Southern Sea off of the Korean peninsula. (That is where he met and married the sister of Pastor Koo Ji-Hong, who was a member of our church for 3 years while he was wrote his D.Min dissertation at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.) He then moved near Seoul to start The Bright Church. After starting the church, he employed every outreach program available, but had little fruit to show. Later, he came across my book on the house church and implemented the concepts there. However, his church did not produce the kind of fruit promised for the house church. So he finally attended a house church seminar for pastors and applied the principles he learned at the seminar to his church. Now his church shows fruit, so much so that they themselves just offered a house church seminar for lay leaders. He is small of build and his health is not great, but he is full of passion. His lecture was so convincing that he reminded me of Peter Jung’s mom, whom I nicknamed “The Agitator” because of the way she excited people when she talked.
Lee Moon-Sik is pastoring San-wool Church in Bundang, Korea. He is a man whose theology is well balanced between evangelism and social consciousness. Years ago he started a church for factory workers and fought for their rights. He was disappointed when he discovered that they were just as selfish as rich people. So he started to minister to foreign laborers and formed a charity organization that provides medical treatment at half the normal price. The number of members who receive these benefits by paying only 6 dollars a month is now more than 10,000. He started 6 ethnic churches for foreign workers. He also started a monthly magazine “Gospel and Culture” with the purpose of changing society with the Gospel. The magazine just published its 200th issue.
10 years ago he started a traditional church. His church steadily grew in numbers, but its primary source of growth was not the conversion of new believers but believers who came from other churches. This bothered him. After he attended a seminar on the house church, he successfully converted his traditional church to the house church. I have a feeling that his church will become a model for Presbyterian pastors who want to similarly convert their traditional churches to house churches.
Pastor Park Chang-hwan recently changed the name of his church from a long, tongue twisting name to Dreaming Church. The churches that sponsor seminars or conferences on the house churches are all Presbyterian except for one one. His is the first Baptist church that will sponsor a seminar next year, for lay people. He is well respected by his fellow Baptist pastors and will be instrumental in helping Baptist churches implement the house church.
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