Last year, after leading the young adults’ retreats at Hanmaum Church in Frankfurt, Germany and Bethel Church in Irvine, USA, a church in Korea asked me to lead a similar retreat. A young man I had led while I was serving in Korea had become a pastor and is now in charge of the young adults, and he requested that I attend as a speaker for their winter retreat. However, the church were asking that I preach only in the evenings, and didn’t offer to pay for all my expenses, so they weren’t asking me to come to Korea for them; rather, they were asking me to speak if the retreat happened to coincide with my plans to visit Korea. At first, I said it would be difficult, but then I received requests for retreats one after another, so I wondered whether I was refusing God’s calling simply based on the situation. So after a few weeks, I asked if they had found a speaker yet. They said they had not yet found one, so I said I would go, and that was it.
I first met that young man back when I was 30 and was ordained as a pastor while serving in Busan. He is now a middle-aged pastor in his 40s, so there is not much of an age difference(?). I was young when I first took on the young adults at that church, and while serving for a long time, I experienced numerical growth from 20 to 80 people. Since it was a church open to the Holy Spirit, I experienced what it was like to serve under the guidance of the Holy Spirit rather than based on my own plans and will. Thinking back now, I made many mistakes back then because I lacked wisdom, but I gained a lot of experience trying new things. It feels new because my student has now called me to preach for the group he leads. I pray that God will pour his grace over those that he is pastoring.
However, as soon as I arrive Korea, I first need to attend the disciple training seminar for pastors held at the retreat center in Gapyeong. If there had only been a retreat, it would have been harder to reach a decision, but since the disciple training seminar I wanted to attend happened to be held on the same week, it was much easier to decide to fly to Korea. This training is based on a disciple training program that started at Hanmaum Church in Germany, which was based on a programme started by the famous Korean pastor Han-heum Ok, with a few revisions. It has a good track record, and I was even more curious about the nature of the process after hearing a lot about it whilst talking to the pastor of Hanmaum Church last year, so I wanted to experience it at least once.
Disciple training is a very familiar word to me. Since I received discipleship training from two missionary organizations during my university years, no matter which church I pastored, there was always discipleship training where I preached, taught, and nurtured. Although it was not a discipleship training with a lot of homework and check-ins like most discipleship training programmes out there, we always had a weekly meeting to focus on studying the Bible. The cell leader meeting that we have every week at our church and the B2 course are also such meetings. I believe that these could be the major driving force that leads our church. However, as the number of leaders who stay in the church for a long time increases, especially in the case of Wimbledon, the number of young adult groups increases, I now think that a more systematic nurturing system is needed within the church.
As we do not have a church building, there are limitations with holding meetings and training sessions. Even though, God has blessed our church richly. I nevertheless think that a nurturing system needs to be well established in order for the church to become a more solid community in the future. Until now, I didn’t feel like it would be possible on top of the existing ministry and meetings, but I think I will focus on the free time that I now have with the increased number of pastors at our church. Please pray for me again, so that God may bless the retreats and training that I attend. See you when I’m back from Korea!
