Some of you may have read the director’s corner on the home page of House Church Ministries International. In the column, Reverend Chai talked about the internship procedure for house church ministry. When a seminary student, a pastor or a missionary wants to experience the house church system, we will actively help them while they are in SBC so that when they are ready to start their ministry work, they will be prepared and armed with knowledge and experience of house church system.
The only prerequisite of this internship is attendance of house church seminar. There are three kinds of internship; intern church member, intern shepherd and intern village leader. In other words, even though they may not have all the qualifications according to church regulations, we will relax the conditions little bit so that they will have a chance to experience it in a short time period. For example, to become a member of SBC, he needs to be baptized. However, if the intern has a Presbyterian back ground, he will be allowed to be a member without baptism. (We can limit voting rights in such cases.) To be a village leader, the person has to be an ordained shepherd and should have lead more than 4 people to Christ. However, if the intern did not fulfill all these requirements, we will make an exception so that he can experience being a village leader.
As you know, House Church Ministries International will set up the outline only and each church will fill up the details as they see fit. So far, several pastors stayed at SBC as church members then moved on to their places of ministry. Now, based on these guidelines, it would be easier for us to provide internship for them to participate in ministry work so that they will gain more hands-on knowledge and experience.
The first case will be Pastor Sungji Pack and his wife Yuri Choi. They are members of Mekong River house church. They used to serve in single’s ministry in a church in Houston. They resigned their position last December and, after house church training early this year, joined Mekong River house church to learn more about the church system. Their plan was to stay as house church members until he finishes his Ph. D, which would be October of this year.
However, they want to learn more about the house church system, and decided not to accept a calling as a pastor from other church, and decided to concentrate on learning and experiencing house church ministry until God guides them to work in house church ministry. Pastor S. Pack had heart to work on campus ministry, so he works on grafting campus ministry to house church ministry. Currently, number of members of Mekong River house church increased so they are expecting multiplication with mainly single members.
Pastor S. Pack and his wife are already baptized and became church members. Therefore, they can be shepherds without any bending of the rules. However, from now on, they can receive other benefits as interns. If possible, they will have a chance to serve as village leaders and I will give him a chance to preach so that he will be ready for his future ministry work. Someday, they will leave for their place of ministry and it is our sincere desire to provide ample opportunity for them to experience all the sphere of house church ministry so its spirit will be a part of them.
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