Oliver, so sorry!! Please forgive me!! I really was planning to go & share my experiences. Sorry if I made the night hard for you!
I've already prepared my sharing, so I'll posted it online.
Below is my sharing that failed to be delivered on Wed prayer meeting. Whoops! :S
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Last Sunday, Rev Justin Tan preached about the downfall of numbers for Chinese theological
students and Chinese churches around the world, except China. During my Korea trip experience, we learned about why the Chinese churches are so lacking behind as well. He said they still do not understand why the interest level has dropped for theological students’ intake, however, he already has the answer, perhaps he didn’t realise it? For his 1st sermon point, that’s already one of the answers: there’re no good role models in the current church to learn from.A lot of Chinese pastors are lacking behind in terms of theological knowledge, administration skills, desire for God, level of faith, experience of the Holy Spirit, etc. Young Chinese theological students these days are also not taking theological courses because it’s God’s calling, rather it’s more of a parents’ calling. I’ve heard some people say to their kids, “your studies are not good, hard to earn a living next time, go be a pastor. At least you can support yourself”. So, obviously, these types of theological students wouldn’t be very impressive pastors in the future hence causing other members to lose interest of becoming a pastor in the future.
Let’s look at the Korean churches. They have serious unemployment rate in the pastoral field. Each year, they have on average 500 graduates from theological college but only have about 100 vacancies to fill. So, that’s like 400 unemployed graduates from theological college each year alone! They have to study 3 or 4 years of degree in University first, then another 3 years of theological studies, then 2 years of internship (either establish a new church themselves or do missionary works for 2 years overseas), and then 2 years as a pastor before becoming a Reverend. It’s almost 11 years of proper training before being ordained as minister.
Korean pastors generally are more intellectuals, humble, always improving themselves, have experience the power of the Holy Spirit personally, has very consistent & strong prayer life, etc. Korean pastors have higher society status as well. They are almost as equal to lawyers or doctors in their society. Korean churches do not have pastor assignment system as CMCA. Each pastors are to “gain” a position in a church ministry by proving they are capable of bring glory to God in the highest level. With pastors with such attitudes, they are excellent role models in their church. Most members are encouraged to study theology by looking at their pastor. This is also relate to Rev Justin Tan’s 2nd sermon point (Pastors’ salary package is not as attractive to other professions). The Senior Pastor of Bu Pyeong Methodist Church, Rev Hung also told me that the respects from members need to be earned, not gained. It’s hard and it’ll take a long time to earn it.
Let’s now look at the individual side of things. We have heard news or legends that Korean Christians are prayer addicts! Their dawn prayer meeting at 5am is 365 days a year without a miss! Their dawn prayer meeting is a lot simpler compared to ours. They sing a hymn in the beginning, and then followed by 15 minutes sharing by a Reverend. After which, they sing a hymn, then shout “Lord, Lord, Lord!”, their prayer session starts with music in background. It lasts for 30 minutes. The strange thing is, nobody is there telling people what to pray about. The even stranger thing is, they can pray easily 30 minutes non stop! How long can we pray without being told of prayer items for the night? Maybe 5 minutes for most of us, maybe a bit longer for Rev Loi. Don’t forget, that’s once a week and we struggle to pray for things. They meet every single day and pray without being told of prayer items for 30 minutes each day. Now, that’s what I called the Holy Spirit intercedes and tells you what to pray. During the first day, I was waiting for prayer items to pray about but I get none. So I started to pray for Holy Spirit to come, and I can pray for 30 minutes non stop! Prayer items just flooded me! So, for the near 2 weeks there, I’ve been experiencing that power of Holy Spirit who guides me in prayer! I pray for church, Rev Loi, Uncle John, LCEC, church members, Sunday service, Melbourne, my parents, my wife, etc. For those who follow my blogs, you can also see how God answers my prayers in very short time as well. Thank God for that. By the way, their singings of hymns are also very energetic. They have more old people than us but their hymns are more energetic than us singing songs from SOP.
Now that we know Korean Christians are great prayer warriors, let’s see what made them great Christians. There’re a few reasons for it. One of them is because they have experience God personally. They are not like us who claims we experienced God but in reality, we are not sure whether we truly experience God or not. We experienced God when God help us pass our exams, get a job, etc. They experienced God when their lives are on the line, when they are living the day not knowing what will happen tomorrow, etc. Hence their grip on God is very strong. Their attitude towards God is like a song that we always sing, “When we see treasures, we hold it strong and not wanting to lose it”. For us, we took it for granted; it’s not as precious as it is to us when compared to what the world has to offer.
Second reason is they receive vision from God. God tells them what God wants them to do, either directly or via their pastors. For example, when Bu Pyeong Methodist Church was going to buy a new building, next to their old building, it was a school land. In other words, it’s impossible for the land to be sold even to a church. However, the whole church sees the vision that the land will be theirs, almost like the land of milk & honey (Canaan). So, they prayed earnestly, walk round the land, shaking the gates of the school (some get too carried away), etc. Finally, the school closed down and the land was sold to the church. I can’t remember how long it took but it wasn’t a very long time. At times when their church was lacking of fund to pay for the new buildings (costs about USD 15 million or 150 Million or USD 1.5 Billion, forgot), God speaks to every one of them, telling them what to do. Some are given specific tasks like donate USD 10,000 or USD 100,000, sell your land & donate everything, etc. They all just obey and submit before God. Their whole building was wholly funded within 3-5 years. They started with no money in the bank but a bank full of faith.
Third reason is they give faithfully.
They practise great hospitality not only to us as special VIP guests but to the whole community. Their 1/10 offering is a minimum, not a maximum. Each time they come to church, they would be a minimum 1 cup of rice to be donated into a “ricebox”, where it’ll be distributed to the poor. Some even borrowed money from the banks to give offering because they don’t have cash on hand. They are willing to give it back because they experienced how God gave it to them when they are poor. In fact, most of them are only average Koreans, not too rich. Their great hospitality practise has enabled them to achieve a much higher “standard” of spiritual lives. They actually live out their beliefs, not just knowing in the mind but nothing in actions.There’re many more reasons why we should learn from the Korean Christians however, due to time constraints, I can only share as much.
As a conclusion, let me share what Rev Hung has said. About 30 years ago, he saw a vision from God calling him to do spread the gospel to the Chinese. He saw God’s hand wrote “中国传教” (China, Mission). He has been praying for this for over 30 years. He said one of the reasons Korean Churches exists is to assist the Chinese Churches, not to be big brother of Chinese Churches though they are much stronger than us at the moment. He also urge strongly for Chinese Churches to wake up from their sleep and catch the gospel baton which is passed to us, Chinese people now.
So, what are you going to do about it? Satan is doing his thing at the moment, he’s trying to be more pro-active than us. He’s causing us to be “asleep”, to be greedy, to be selfish, etc. He’ll make us failed in not getting the gospel baton. Sit there & wait for others to run the race? Want to be a spectator? A “kay leh fei”? Or do you want to wake up & run the race?====================================================================
I guess Satan really succeeded in causing me to over slept on Wed evening! :P
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