Korea and the awesome move of God

But now, this is what the Lord says-- he who created you... He who formed you..."Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have summoned you by name; you are mine."  Isaiah 43:1

How to describe Korea? For those who have never been there, you may not give the country much thought. Yes, we know they make good appliances and you may have heard of their spicy cabbage called kimchi. And yes, a war was fought there, though the details are a bit fuzzy as it rarely garners much interest or instruction time in America's high schools.

But for those who have been to Korea, you will never leave the same. At least I didn't. Our family was stationed there for two years, from 2006 until 2008. After those two, all too short, years, I left that country fully convinced that God is alive and well in Korea, and doing incredible things through its people, both in their own country and throughout the world!

Korea has, unfortunately, had a 2,000-year history of frequent invasions and interference from surrounding nations. In the recent past, the Japanese occupation (1910-1945), the Russian-engineered division of Korea (1945-48) and the devastating Korean War (1950-53) have molded the attitudes and politics of Koreans. They have been mistreated horribly by others (Korean "comfort women" for the Japanese soldiers during WWII, current starvation and horrific slaughter of people in North Korea) and have seen their country almost destroyed following the Korean War.

"The South Korea that Ed Faltin (U.S. military member who fought in the Korean War) left behind in 1952 was a bleak place. 'I left the front lines and went across the country to Pusan and Seoul and there was nothing there,' he said. 'That country was bombed out rubble. No trees. It was just so pulverized by artillery and mortars. There was nothing left.'

(Upon his return to South Korea in 2002), Faltin was surprised by what he saw. In place of rubble, he saw what looked like New York City, complete with high-rise buildings. 'It's unbelievable what they did,' he said. 'They're the largest ship-makers in the world, (the 11th largest economy) and the people are so gracious.'"

South Korea has indeed climbed out of the rubble a strong, committed Christian nation. In Asia, which is primarily Hindu, Buddhist and Muslim, Korea's Christianity stands out, like the red crosses you see on so many buildings throughout the Seoul city skyline. The first Protestant church was planted in 1884. By 1984 there were over 30,000 churches, and by 2000 over 60,000. The 2005 census of South Korea showed 29.2 percent of the population as Christian, up from 26.3 percent ten years previously.

The Korean Church grew strong through early morning prayer meetings, prayer mountains for seeking God (to read more on this go to Prayer-It begins and ends there), church-based Bible study, evangelism programs, fellowship in home meetings and at Sunday meals.

Surveys have shown that South Korean Christians are very active. Seoul contains eleven of the world's twelve largest Christian congregations. I've been to the largest Protestant Church in the world, Yoido Full Gospel Church, and it is incredible! To be amongst thousands upon thousands of Christians, all singing praises to God...it gave me just a small idea of what Heaven will be like...worshipping the Lord with brothers and sisters from around the world.

Praise God for the unique Korean Church! It was founded on sound indigenous principles, blessed with a succession of revivals, refined by persecution and is now one of the foremost in the world for missions vision. South Korea provides the world's second largest number of Christian missionaries, surpassed only by the United States. South Korean missionaries are particularly prevalent in 10/40 Window nations that are hostile to Westerners. In 1979, the official figure for Korean missionaries was 93, yet by 2009, that number had grown incredibly to more than 16,000 South Korean missionaries in 168 countries!

"Koreans have a fervent passion to proclaim the Gospel, a family-centered lifestyle and are highly educated. Korean missionaries are often well received by unreached people in the Chinese, Muslim and Buddhist blocks due to their relative cultural proximity. Increasing numbers of marketplace missionaries are able to enter restricted access countries where ordained missionaries cannot go," (Chul Ho Han, Director of Mission Korea.

One important contributing factor to South Korea being the second largest mission sending country in the world, has been the mission movement among college students led by Mission Korea, a coalition of 11 campus ministries and 24 overseas mission agencies working together for the common goal of mobilizing students into cross-cultural missions. Mission Korea's conference, which was first held in 1988, has grown to be the largest mission-focused conference in Asia, attracting over 5,000 students every two years.

This incredible missional movement among young people was very visible at the church we attended while living in Seoul. Jubilee Church was like no other church I have ever attended! The sense of the Holy Spirit's presence was so strong there that even my father commented on it after attending church with us one Sunday. After only four years of existence, their heart for missions is incredible. The church, mostly young professionals and students in their 20s, envisions itself as a mission-sending and mission-supporting church, with a heart especially for North Korea and China. It was amazing to be part of them. Our family still speaks of them fondly and prays that the Lord will lead us back to Seoul to once again worship and serve with them.

There is so much more I could say about Korea, yet I know that my words can not do justice to what God is doing in this country through its incredible people. No matter hold strong of a hold Satan may have on Asia, God is breaking that hold and He is using the people of Korea on the front lines!

Hungary living

He said to them,

 "Go into all the world 

and preach the good news to all creation."

Mark 16:15

As our family's move to Hungary gets closer, the Lord has been speaking to my heart about some aspects of it. I share this as insight but also as prayer points for our family. If you read this, please lift these areas up in prayer for us. We will be eternally grateful for your prayers.  

I have lived overseas twice before and am anticipating a third move overseas in the next few months. I would like to do things differently this third time around, especially based on the Brewster’s advice. 

I spent 1 1/2 years on Okinawa, Japan and another 2 years in Seoul, South Korea. In both locations, I lived on a U.S. military base...little America. While I did not stay cloistered on the base but got out into the community for recreation and, in the case of Seoul, for church, the vast majority of my time was spent with other Americans. I rarely took public transportation, my shopping was usually at the base commissary and I learned very little of the language. 

Despite my lack of immersion into the culture, God did develop within me a great love and affection for both the Okinawans and Koreans. I did have one close Okinawan friend who introduced me to some aspects of her culture and had several Korean friends who did the same. One of the most rewarding experiences of my time in Korea was worshipping Christ with fellow Korean believers. 

Since returning to the U.S., my desire has been that we would do things differently next time we live overseas. God has now given us another chance as He has called us, via the U.S. Air Force, to a small town named Papa, in the country of Hungary. This time things will be a bit different from the outset. There is no U.S. military base nearby. We will live, shop, eat and play within the local community. There are few English speakers so our family will, of necessity, need to learn the Hungarian language...which we are already doing.

My desire is to become bi-cultural; to maintain my first culture but become bonded to other Hungarians in my new culture. My plan is that we would immerse ourselves in the culture immediately. While the temptation will be there to rent a house near other military members and associate with them, I am asking the Lord to lead us to a home where we can form relationships with the local Hungarians instead. 

I also plan to follow some of the Brewster’s advice: limit our personal belongings, use public transportation or walk as much as possible, shop in the local markets and begin to use the products that the Hungarians use (rather than stocking up at the U.S. military commissary 7 hours away in Italy) and recreate with the local population. I also want myself and my family to really carry out language learning with the people around us. 

I am also praying for opportunities for us to share the love and Gospel of Christ with those we meet. We will have the unique opportunity to not only meet Hungarians, but military members and their families, who will be stationed with us, from ten other countries: Bulgaria, Estonia, Finland, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Romania, Slovenia, and Sweden. Prior to our departure in January, and while we are there, we will be learning, as part of our homeschool, about these countries and the countries that border Hungary. My desire is that, just like with Koreans and Okinawans, God would grow a love in myself, my husband, and our children for Hungarians, as well as the people from the other nations we will be meeting. 

This desire and mindset needs to be nurtured in us from the very beginning. Our first few weeks and months in Hungary need to be deliberate. I am asking the Lord to help us do all we can to immerse ourselves in the Hungarian lives around us, and build strong bonds within the community of Papa. 

“Newcomers need to be encouraged to totally immerse themselves in the life of the new community from day one...A bi-cultural person is developing a new outlet for his or her God-given personality...For the Christian missionary, the process of becoming bi-cultural begins with the recognition that God in His sovereignty does not make mistakes in creating us within our first culture; yet in His sovereignty He taps some of us on the shoulder and calls us to belong to people of a different culture so that we can be good news to them,” (pg. 469).  

We are excited and thankful for this new opportunity to go out into the world and share the love of Christ with others. 

What is revival?

Therefore tell the people: This is what the Lord Almighty says: 
'Return to me,' declares the Lord Almighty, 
'and I will return to you,' says the Lord Almighty.
Zechariah 1:3

Praying for revival...it sounds like a good thing. Many of us have been in churches where the pastor prayed for revival. We might have asked for it ourselves. But do we really know what it is we are asking for? It's not something that just happens magically, all of a sudden. It won't be ushered in by the great words of some preacher or the passionate words of a song. Instead, it will come when we get rid of all the extra things within the Christian religion and desire God alone.

Revival is basically, a "return to God." People begin to desire God alone. A vital and fervent relationship with God is restored or ignited in the hearts of many. Suddenly, the cares of yesterday are not as important because people have, in mass, turned their attention to God.



One can identify six major "Awakenings" or revivals in the church worldwide — from 1727, 1792, 1830, 1857, 1882 and 1904. More recently there were the revivals of 1906 Azusa Street, 1930s Balokole, and the 1970s Jesus movement, which spread in the Americas, Africa, and Asia among Protestants and Catholics.

I'd like to highlight one of these revivals which Jim Cymbala talks about in his book Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire. Try to imagine what it must have been like to be a part of this.

"Revivals have never been dominated by eloquent or clever preaching. If you had timed the meetings with a stopwatch, you would have found far more minutes give to prayer, weeping, and repentance than to sermons. In the 'Prayer Meeting Revival' of 1857-59 there was virtually no preaching at all. Yet it apparently produced the greatest harvest of any spiritual awakening in American history: estimates run to 1,000,000 converts across the United States, out of a national population at that time of only 30,000,000. That would be proportionate to 9,000,000 Americans today falling on their knees in repentance!

How did this happen? A quiet businessman named Jeremiah Lanphier started a Wednesday noon
prayer meeting in a Dutch Reformed church here in New York City, no more than a quarter mile from Wall Street. The first week, six people showed up. The next week, twenty came. The next week, forty...and they decided to have daily meetings instead.

'There was no fanaticism, no hysteria, just an incredible movement of people to pray,' reports J. Edwin Orr. 'The services were not given over to preaching. Instead, anyone was free to pray.'

During the fourth week, the financial Panic of 1857 hit; the bond market crashed, and the first banks failed. (Within a month more than 1,400 banks had collapsed.) People began calling out to God more seriously than ever. Lanphier's church started having three noontime prayer meetings in different rooms.
John Street Methodist Church, a few doors east of Broadway, was packed out as well. Soon Burton's Theater on Chambers Street was jammed with 3,000 people each noon.

The scene was soon replicated in Boston, New Haven, Philadelphia, Washington and the South. By the next spring 2,000 Chicagoans were gathering each day in the Metropolitan Theater to pray. A young 21-year-old in those meetings, newly arrived in the city, felt his first call to do Christian work...Dwight L. Moody.

Does anyone really think that America today is lacking preachers, books, Bible translations, and neat doctrinal statements? What we really lack is the passion to call upon the Lord until He opens the heavens and shows Himself powerful."  

It began with and will begin with prayer.

Prayer - it begins and ends there

"You do not have because
You do not ask God."
James 4:2

It's Monday. What was yesterday morning like for you? When you went to church, did you walk away thinking about the cleverness of the sermon,  or about the things you needed to get done during the rest of the day or did you walk away thinking about God Himself? Unfortunately, in America today, I think a lot of us walk away with one of the first two thoughts. If so, we are missing the mark.

God has so much power that He wants to give to His Church but we don't have it because we don't ask for it. We are content with a sermon that makes us feel good or gets us to agree with the pastor about some point. We go home and maybe discuss a few points of the sermon.

We are content with a few moments of feeling close to Him as we sing the worship songs. We agree with others that the praise and worship was great today, but that's all.

God is standing with arms open wide and so desires to fill us with His presence. He has power to give, mercy to bestow, His own special presence to be felt, but we don't ask.

"When we get serious about drawing upon God's power, remarkable things will happen. Even if we grow listless and lukewarm, still Christ says, 'Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come and eat with him, and he with Me...He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches' (Revelation 3:20-22).

Those gentle words, quoted often by evangelists to those who do not know Christ, were addressed to the Laodicean Christians whom Jesus had just scolded. Although He was grieved by their lethargy, He nevertheless offered His renewing love and power to any who would open the door. Will we?" (Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire by Jim Cymbala).

"Come near to God and He will come near to you." James 4:8

"Over the last 30 years, more books have been written about marriage than all the preceding 2,000 years of church history. But ask any pastor in America if there aren't proportionally more troubled marriages today than in any other era. We have all the how-to's, but homes are still falling apart.

The couple that prays together stays together. I don't mean to be simplistic; there will be difficult moments in any union. But God's Word is true when it says, 'Call upon Me, and I will help you. Just give me a chance.'

The same holds true for parenting. We may own stacks of good books on child rearing and spending 'quality time' with our children. Yet we have more problems per 100 young people in the church today than at any previous time. This is not because we lack knowledge or how-to; it is because we have not cried out for the power and grace of God.

What if, in the last 25 years, we had invested only half the time and energy in writing, publishing, reading and discussing books on the Christian family...and put the other half into praying for our marriages and our children? I am certain we would be in far better shape today.

That is why the writer of Hebrews nails down the most central activity of all for Christians: 'Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need' (Heb. 4:16). It doesn't say, 'Let us come to the sermon.' We in America have made the sermon the centerpiece of the church, something God never intended. Preachers who are really doing their job get people to come to the throne of grace. That's the true source of grace and mercy.

To every preacher and every singer, God will someday ask, 'Did you bring people to where the action could be found...at the throne of grace? If you just entertained them, if you just tickled their ears and gave them a warm, fuzzy moment, woe unto you. At the throne of grace, I could have changed their lives. Jim Cymbala, did you just dazzle people with your cleverness, or did you make them hungry to come to me?'

If a meeting doesn't end with people touching God, what kind of a meeting is it? We haven't really encountered God. We haven't met with the only One powerful and loving enough to change our lives.

God has chosen prayer as His channel of blessing. He has spread a table for us with every kind of wisdom, grace, and strength because He knows exactly what we need. But the only way we can get it is to pull up to the table and taste and see that the Lord is good.

God says to us, 'Pray because I have all kinds of things for you; and when you ask, you will receive. I have all this grace, and you live with scarcity. Come unto Me, all you who labor. Why are you so rushed? Where are you running now? Everything you need, I have.'

If the times are indeed as bad as we say they are...if the darkness in our world is growing heavier by the moment...if we are facing spiritual battles right in our own homes and churches...then we are foolish not to turn to the One who supplies unlimited grace and power. He is our only source. We are crazy to ignore Him." (Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire by Jim Cymbala)

Korea - following the Korean War it was devastated. According to reports, there was not one tree standing in the entire country. Yet today, 60 years later, it is a thriving nation with influence felt internationally and with one of the strongest missionary-sending mentalities of any country. How did this happen?

Early America - Plymouth and Salem faced huge loss of life (over half in each settlement died the first couple of years). Yet from austerity were forged the beginnings of the most prosperous nation in the world. How did this happen?

PRAYER

"Prayer Mountain is a Christian retreat in South Korea, operated by the Yoido Full Gospel Church, Korea's largest church. It is located in Jori-myeon, Paju, in northern Gyeonggi province near the Demilitarized Zone. It has facilities for 10,000 people.

The Prayer Mountain Movement in Korea sprang from a practice of the pioneering Christians during the latter days of the Korean church in the 1800s. Faced by strong opposition from the home religions and philosophies, i.e. Buddhism and Confucianism, as well as the mandatory practice of Shinto imposed by the invading forces from Japan, many Christians who resisted the imposition on their freedom of worship were persecuted and even killed.

In desperation, the Christians who could not practice their faith openly adopted the practice of waking up as early as four in the morning to ascend the nearby mountains where they could freely pray until the first ray of sunrise. At the end of the day, before going home, the Christians would again ascend the mountains to pray and fast and ask God to intervene on their behalf.

It is said that anyone who passed by those mountains would hear the cries and weeping of the men and women who were storming heaven with their sad plight and asking God to change their situation. From then on, prayer and fasting have been the hallmarks of the strong South Korean Church." (Prayer Mountain)

Of their landing, Governor William Bradford wrote:

"Being thus arrived in a good harbor, and brought safe to land, they
fell upon their knees and blessed the God of Heaven who had brought
them over the vast and furious ocean, and delivered them from all the perils
and miseries thereof, again to set their feet on the firm and stable earth."

In Plymouth and in Salem, following death and near starvation, the people didn't turn to their pastors for wonderful sermons or to their choirs for beautiful songs. No, they fell on their faces before God and with prayer and fasting, asked Him what to do, asked Him for His help, for His protection, asked Him for conviction of sin. And they did this time and time again.

Our churches used to be houses of prayer, first and foremost. But are they today? Think about it...how much time in a typical service is spent in prayer? How many people attend your church's weekly prayer service...if your church even has one? Is prayer the priority, you communicating with God, coming to His throne of grace or are the pastor's words, the eloquence of his speech, the priority? Do you feel closer to God when you walk out of your church or are your thoughts focused on your pastor, for good or bad?

Prayer is missing in our church and thus in our nation.

Following 9/11, President Bush said: 

"America was targeted...because we're the brightest beacon for

freedom and opportunity in the world...I ask for your prayers for all

those who grieve...I pray they will be comforted by a power greater

than any of us spoken through the ages in Psalm 23: 

'Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear

no evil for you are with me.'" 

On September 13, 2001, President Bush stated: 

"Scripture says: 'Blessed are those who mourn for they shall be

comforted.' I call on every American...to observe a National Day of

Prayer and Remembrance...In the face of all this evil,
we remain strong and united, 'One Nation Under God.'"

But what happened after that? Did 9/11 bring us back to the Lord? Yes, but only for a short time. There must be sustained prayer once again, the way the church in America used to pray, the way the church in Korea still prays today, at places like Prayer Mountain, and it must begin in our lives, our homes and our churches.

Brazilian Sending

Brazilians marching to show their support of Israel

Jesus said, "Peace be with you! 

As the Father has sent me, 

I am sending you."

John 20:21

Yesterday, I spoke about the sending of God and what that means for the believer. Over the next couple of days, I will share God's sending of His people in many different parts of the world. A few months back, I spoke of God's movement in Africa in African Sending. Today, I would like to highlight Brazil. 

"That the evangelical and pentecostal churches in Brazil are strong is immediately evident to any visitor. Compared to other Latin American countries where non-Catholic congregations are often small, hidden away on back streets and decidedly not influential, the church in Brazil is almost brazen in its visibility and self-promotion. 

From one or more churches on every block in some sectors of Rio de Janeiro to billboards for a Christian bookstore overlooking downtown Sao Paulo’s popular central square; from numerous radio and television stations broadcasting fiery sermons around the clock to two teenaged sisters unashamedly singing Christian hymns and choruses on an extended bus trip; from glaring neon signs proclaiming “Assemblies of God” atop the largest buildings in some rural towns to evangelicals in the president’s cabinet and a strong evangelical bloc in the nation’s congress, Brazilians are filling churches as fast as they can open and sharing their faith in a way that would put fellow believers in other countries to shame. 

“There are 40 churches opening in Rio every week,” says Roberto Inacio, the Director of an Assemblies of God Bible institute in Rio de Janeiro and writer of Sunday school material used throughout the country. “In particular, there has been an explosion of pentecostalism in the country in the past decade,” he says. 

While the pentecostal expression of faith is most obvious, other evangelical churches are experiencing rapid growth as well. “The Presbyterian church in the central area of the country is growing,” says missionary Alan Mullins who has served in the country for 30 years. “The churches are very alive, the churches are full and the people are excited about what is going on in the church.” 

While Alan says that Presbyterian growth has slowed in large cities such as Sao Paulo, with its metropolitan population pushing 20 million, Baptists are encouraged by their 900 congregations in Sao Paulo state. And, while this denomination has traditionally worked with lower and middle class groups, it is now reaching out to more affluent, harder-to reach residents of the big cities. But, such a ministry takes time says Danny Rollins, a Southern Baptist missionary in Sao Paulo. “You don’t just set up the Jesus film on the street corner like you do in a poor community and think that they’ll come, because they won’t,” he explains. 

Even youth in Brazil are openly active in witnessing to their faith. In Campinas, a city of one million people located an hour and a half west of Sao Paulo, the teenage youth group from a 3,000 member-strong charismatic Nazarene church spends every Saturday giving concerts, plays and puppet shows in city parks. “Our goal is to lead one-thousand people to make professions of faith for Christ this year,” says Beth Kinas, the group’s adult leader."  (Kenneth D. MacHarg, Former LAM Missionary)

It is encouraging to see the explosive growth of the church in Brazil! With that growth has been an accompanying growth in missions. "The number of evangelical missionaries from Brazil has increased significantly since the 1970s. There were 595 missionaries in 1972; 791 missionaries in 1980; 2,040 missionaries in 1988; 2,755 missionaries in 1992; and 4,754 missionaries in 2,000. Today, Brazilian missionaries are working on every continent," (Bertil Ekstrom, Exec. Dir. of the Mission Commission of World Evangelical Alliance). 

God is doing great things in South America (from 1900 to 2000, evagelicals grew from about 700,000 to over 55 million) and in particular, Brazil!