Recently a member left our church because she was angry at me. When she was in the hospital for an operation I did not visit her, but a pastor from a nearby church did come and prayed over her. She was upset because she felt that her own pastor did not care for her as much as a pastor of another church. Then she heard a testimony at church where the speaker said she was greatly helped by my visit. That was the last straw for her. She felt she was being discriminated against and she moved to the church of the pastor who had come to visit her. He not only visited her but ...

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We rarely hear the term "concubine" these days. But when I was growing up in Korea, quite a few rich men had concubines. One of my friends was actually born to a concubine mother. A concubine's children were usually adopted by their natural father and raised by a stepmother. It must have been hard for them to grow up among their stepbrothers and stepsisters. And it must have been just as hard for the natural sons and daughters to live with someone who shared the same father but had a different mother. I remember reading an article in which the author described the odd ...

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The eighth of the Ten Commandments is "Thou shalt not steal." But many of us Christians are breaking this commandment, perhaps without even realizing it. Soup bowls have been disappearing from the church kitchen. The last inventory check shows that the loss amounts to 200 dollars. One time a large rice cooker disappeared. I do not believe that people actually intended to steal these things. They were probably just borrowing them and forgot to return them. But from the kitchen staff's point of view, they are as good as stolen. A lot of other things are disappearing as ...

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I just returned from the KOSTA (Korean Student Abroad) conference which I attended as a speaker. I shed many tears there because of a brother named Ja-shin Koo. He and his wife were driving with their 3 children to attend KOSTA and serve as intercessory prayers. On the way, they were involved in a serious car accident where their car flipped over several times on the highway. Mr. Koo's foot was seriously injured and his wife suffered a heavy concussion, falling into a coma. But the most severely injured member of the family was his 4 year old son Joseph. He was immedia...

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Some of our church members half-jokingly complain that our church is too demanding. In a way this is true. We insist that people make a commitment to the church on their own. In many churches, visitors become members automatically as soon as they fill out a visitor's card. In our church people need to come forward in order to fill up a commitment card to become a member. To become full members, ones who can vote at church business meetings and become church officials, they must accept Christ as their personal Savior, be baptized, and apply for membership. Their applicat...

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When we implemented the house church system about 10 years ago we started with only 23 house churches. Our church membership was not large either. So at that time, I had the luxury of being able to rotate through the shepherds and having lunch with one of them every other week. Now, as the church has grown, it has become impossible to do that. Our church membership is several times larger, there are now more than 100 shepherds, and I have become much busier. When I have lunch with someone I need to set aside 3 to 4 hours, including driving time. It is impossible to do ...

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Whenever I read the newspaper I can't help but feel sorry for President Bush. All the political cartoons make him look ridiculous. His physical features are exaggerated and they portray him as stupid. No mistake he makes is too small to be the subject of the cartoonists' jokes. Sometimes I wonder how his wife and daughters feel when they see these cartoons. I can say this for sure: I am glad I am not the President. People seem to feel it is OK to ridicule people or be extra critical of them if they are public figures. They have no problems saying something rude about ...

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