I went to Korea at the request of Choi Dabriel and Hyunseon Gong to officiate their wedding, but the time before and after turned out to be deeply meaningful. I boarded the flight to Korea on Sunday evening and landed the next day at Incheon Airport, heading straight to Wooridle Church in Pangyo for the THINK Ministry Seminar. I wanted to visit to see how the church that produces the Daily Bible Study Book GT, which we have used since last year, teaches. Unexpectedly, I witnessed how the entire church dynamically moves with the power of the gospel.

Aside from Pastor Yangjae Kim’s powerful teaching, some participants were shocked by the four live demonstrations and two weekday group meetings in which members boldly confessed their dark pasts in front of others. But to me, it felt like a natural reaction to truly encountering the power of the gospel and was striking that this had formed the culture of the church. Unlike many megachurches that grow by transferring members between churches, Wooridle Church baptises around 500 every year, proving injecting life into the community.

So I took a closer look at the church’s discipleship programme. Unlike traditional programmes where pastors commit over 20 weeks, this church runs a four-stage discipleship process over 10 weeks, with church members leading the entire journey. Through this participation, cell group leaders were naturally raised, a model which I felt would align well with our own church. I wished that I was able to attend the follow-up programme available for pastors who attended the seminar to experience all of this more thoroughly.

I also met Pastor Choongdong Lee, who will be the guest speaker for our church’s Winter Church Retreat in December. He recently returned from the ministry in Japan, leading a smaller-scale version of Onnuri Church’s Love Sonata outreach. He shared how fulfilling that ministry was, and how he came to serve alongside a professional worship team, musical actors, and a major event planning director. We shared the vision that these teams would host camps in Korea for children from multicultural families, the children who will then go on to fill the churches. He was moved and wanted to begin right away, so I connected him with a pastor who has been ministering to the Indonesian community in Korea for many years.

On the day before my return to the UK, I met with the pastor responsible for KOSTA World on Yeongjong Island near Incheon. Over dinner and breakfast, we discussed launching KOSTA in the UK as I proposed how KOSTA could go beyond Korean youths to reach and gather the children of various urban diaspora communities. He shared his recent experience in Houston, USA where he saw an overwhelmingly positive reception from non-Korean youths, reaffirming the way forward.

I’ve long prayed for God to use our church in London, the most influential city in the world, in raising the next generation of missionaries through All Nations. God is faithfully connecting humble, sincere people from different places who are already well-equipped for this kind of work. Like Ruth meeting Boaz, these encounters are happening “by chance” and “at just the right time.” What initially seemed to be vague and uncertain, is becoming clearer and more tangible. “Lord, we will follow, please continue Your work.”