100 Things I Love About Korea: #93 - Annual Report 2008

Preparing the Foundations

My first time to attend an annual meeting as a pastor, I forgot that I was supposed to give an annual report.  I had only been a lead pastor for about two months.  Near the end of the meeting, Cathy Williams asked if I had a report to share, and I said something profound like, “Uh, not really.”  Every year since then, I've tried to spend some time thinking of an analogy or a story that will help us put the year in perspective.  I've talked about zits and puberty, giant flies, Julius Caesar crossing the Rubicon, and how God answered a prayer I prayed while walking across a basketball court.

This year, I want to tell a story about some of the times I've worked with my Uncle John.  If you think I'm crazy, you should meet my Uncle John!  One year for Christmas, the women wanted to have a nice formal dinner, so they asked the men in the family to “dress up” and to put on some “nice clothes.”  My Dad and Uncle John disappeared into the bedroom and came out looking like this.  (silly picture)  I distinctly remember them saying, “What?!  We're wearing ties!  What else do you want?”  (They also had the nice 80's afros going, too.)

Uncle John is also an expert concrete worker.  Sometimes during the summers or when I had free time in college, I would work with him doing the concrete work for new houses.  The concrete truck drivers said Uncle John was so good that he could do jobs by himself that usually took 10 people to finish.  When I helped Uncle John, I usually got all the jobs he didn't want – shoveling rocks, carrying steel, drilling into old concrete.  But I also learned a little about what it takes to make a good foundation for a house.

Step 1:  Clear and Level the Land.  Before you can do anything else, you have to get rid of all the trees and junk, and you have to make the ground fairly smooth and level.  No, I never got to drive one of those cool little bulldozers.  

100 Things I Love About Korea: #91 - Annual Report 2007

Ladies Retreat 2007

Tonight our focus is on telling stories, so I want to start by telling a story.  This story begins a few years ago.  During my first year here, we said goodbye to leader after leader, as people moved back to their home countries.  After about a year, I began to realize that we need more stability, and I also began to realize that stability was only going to come by having more Korean leaders involved in our church.  

I remember praying one day when I was walking home.  I was thinking and praying about this problem of rotating leaders in our church.  I thanked God for Dr. Cho.  (Some of you might not remember Dr. Cho.  He no longer attends here because he is preaching regularly in the Sunday evening service of another church.)  I prayed, “God please give us 25 people like Dr. Cho.  Give us 25 committed and passionate Korean leaders.”  I figured that would be enough to give us a stable core group, year in and year out.   

This year, we have seen this prayer begin to be answered.  This year more than 60% of the Advisory Council was Korean.  We celebrated this with great joy, and rightly so.  It is right for an international church to have international leadership.  Also, this was a great answer to our prayers and a great step of progress toward becoming a stable, enduring church.

Well, like they say, be careful what you pray for.  Sometimes God answers our prayers in ways we don’t expect.  And sometimes God’s answers bring their own challenges.

After we elected the 2006-2007 Advisory Council, I felt like we were “off to the races.”  Our Vision Team had just finished establishing our mission and vision statements.  Our people seemed to agree that this is what God was calling us to do and to be.   I felt like everything was finally coming together.  

Within the first few months of the 2006-2007 year, we decided to become an official Church of the Nazarene on the Korea National District.  We also welcomed our first official church members, and we went on a Work and Witness Trip to Indonesia.  And as a great surprise to me, the Korea National District worked out the details for me to be ordained here in Korea.  We were also experiencing our highest attendance ever, with an all-time high of 139.

I was ready for our church to explode with growth and momentum.  I was pumped and read to go.  But I was probably a little too pumped.  

100 Things I Love About Korea: #86 - 2005 Annual Report

Congratulations are in order for you church.  You have done well on several counts.

First, I feel like you need to be congratulated on surviving my rookie year as a senior pastor.  I came to you fresh out of seminary with lots of enthusiasm and not much experience.  You have been gracious to me and to my family.  You have welcomed us with open arms and open hearts, and I thank you.

Second, I want to congratulate you on gaining a better self-understanding.  In the spring of 2005, the Advisory Council set out to find answers to the question: “Who are we?”  We wanted to know who we are as a community.  

Jean Johnson and Patricia Clark studied our church history.  Two trends are clear in our history.  First is the trend of increasing size.  We have steadily grown from about 15 people (10 years ago) to over 60 people now.  The second trend is increasing organization.  In the beginning, what is now our church was more like a home Bible study.  However, as our numbers grew, our need for organization also grew.  In 2002, we established the Advisory Council and wrote a congregational constitution.  Now, as our numbers continue to grow, we are also continuing the trend of increasing organization.

Part of our new self-understanding as a church is expressed in our new name: KNU International English Church.  This is not just a name.  It is a statement of who we are.  

KNU: Not only are we located on the campus of KNU, but about 40% of our people are also employed by KNU or its sister institutions.

International:  Sometimes I hear people refer to us as a 외국 church.  That really frustrates me.  About half of us are Korean almost every Sunday.  We are not a weigook church, and we are certainly not an American church.  Our people come from all around the world.  We are an international church.  

English:  We are an English speaking church.  We have two common bonds.  We are all seeking God, and we all speak English.  English and God bring us together.

Church: We have outgrown some old labels like: “English Service,” “English Chapel,” “Worship Service,” and “Congregation.”  We are more like a church than ever before.  So it is time to claim our name and to expect us to live like a church. 

100 Things I Love About Korea: #77 - 2004 Annual Report (or Lack Thereof)

About a month after we arrived in Korea, it was time for the annual meeting.  I knew all about the nominations for the church board (or in our case Advisory Council), and I had that covered.

After we did the voting and reports from each outgoing board member, I was just about to close the meeting with prayer.  Then, Cathy Williams (bless her heart) said, "Um, Josh, aren't you going to give a pastoral report."
I said, "Oh, am I supposed to do that?"
"Well, traditionally speaking ..."
"Um ... well ... I just got here, so I don't know much of what happened over the past year, but I'll try to do better next year."

Vision Sunday 2012

Today, we are celebrating our vision as a church.  We are celebrating what God has been doing among us over the past year, and we are looking forward to how God will do more and more next year.  To help us understand this on more personal terms, three separate people will come up at different times and share how God has been working in their lives.  Each person will tell how God has made one part of our vision real for them this year.

Vision Story #1 - Renewed by God’s Love:  Sarah Bean

I’ve been a Christian all my life.  My parents were pastors.  The church has always been my home.  I have grown up knowing that God loves me.  That is not a new thing for me.  But this year, I have begun to experience God’s love in a new way. 

For those of you who know me well, you know that I’ve had a rough time this past year.  I’ve been under a lot of stress at school.  I’ve been homesick for my family.  I have struggled with doubts.  You know those kind of unanswerable questions of faith – Why do bad things happen to good people?  If God is taking care of me, why do I feel uncared for?  If God can do anything, why doesn’t he step in to help me?  Is God even listening to my prayers?  What does God want from me?  I think that every person who believes - at some point or another - will have seasons of struggle, where you feel silence, where you feel alone, where you feel lost.

Again for those of you who know me well, you know that I’m a bit of a perfectionist.  I pride myself on being good.  And I’m good at being good.  I’m responsible.  I do what I am supposed to.  I do the right thing.  I want to make my parents proud.  I want to please people.  I want to please God.  I want him to be proud of me.

Part of my crisis this past year has been the reality that even though I’m doing all the right things, I still feel lost.  Even my best effort falls short of perfect.  Sometimes the best you can do just isn’t good enough.  We are all a bit broken – and we can’t fix ourselves up.

In the midst of this struggle, I have experienced a beautiful truth that I have always known.  God loves me.  God doesn’t just love the things I can do – God loves ME.  Broken, messed up, doubting, lost little me.  And there is nothing I can do to make God love me more. He already loves me to the max.  He loved me to the cross.  He loved me before I was even capable of loving him back.

With all of my failures and all of my fears and all of my weaknesses – He sees me with my faults, he knows me for the mess that I am – and he still loves me!  He calls my name, and says, “Daughter, you belong to me, and I am proud of you.”  He doesn’t ask me to be perfect.  He doesn’t ask me to fix myself.  All he asks of me is to fall into his hands as broken as I am.  

I think we all know God loves us.  But this year I have come to experience that truth.  Not just on an intellectual level, but deep in my core.  And I am thankful beyond what any words can say.  I am thankful even for the painful journey that brought me to this place.  I don’t know where you are right now, what doubts you may be wrestling with, what pain you may be experiencing – But hang on…because God loves you!  He loves you to the max!  There is nothing we can do to make God love us more!  Even in desert places of dark and silence, he is there – waiting for us to experience in a fresh way the renewal of his love.