I greet you this morning from a fresh night's sleep in Korea. I stayed up later last night which enabled me to sleep for 8 hours uninterrupted. It is going to be a good day. This most likely will be my last entry in my blog till i'm back since we are moving to Prayer Mountain tonight and they do not have internet access.
Yesterday was a great day of worship. We went to Kwang Lim Methodist Church . They have worship services at 7,9,11,2:30 and 5pm. What a day. Imagine preaching four services. That would wear me out. We went to their Sunday school. We were broken up into groups of four to the kids classes. Nolan, Susanna, Gordon, John Stockle (a PHD student) and myself went to the middle school sunday school. It was an experience! They basically have a 1 hour worship service with an hour meeting in small groups. The worship service was attended by about 100 middle schoolers. It was loud. The worship leader liked to scream into the mike. It was something that I will remember for a while (if you catch my drift).
The service reminded me that kids are kids. We sat in the back and saw kids not listening, talking to each other, etc. The adults, like in most american circles, stood on the side of the service and functioned more like crowd control. WHen they broke up into groups, I was surprized to see a pizza delivery man bringing a pizza to one class and a box of Krispe Kremes in another. I guess some things are universal.
The worship service was very formal at Kwang Lim. About 4000 were in the 11am worship service. We wore headphones for the translator. They had 160 in the choir and they were awesome. They had a full orchestra and it was like being at a cultural event. The preaching was good. Rev. Kim was a powerful preacher. While at times I had difficultly understanding, I knew he was preaching his heart out.
They hosted a nice spread for lunch for us. The fruit was great. Pears were unique and out of this world. I am not a big fan of Kimche (Sp.?). I had some two days ago and decided to not venture out again.
We then piled in the van for another worship service. This was at Yoido Full Gospel Church. They are the largest church in the world with 750,000 members and 21 sancutaries. We went to their youth worship service and it was by far the highlight for me of the trip. It had about 10,000 in worship. What impressed me is that they were going for it in worship. The music was fantastic! They used american worship songs and korean. It actually reminded me of Holy Trinity Brompton Church in London in terms of their spirit, depth, and energy. They had a dance team dancing to the music all choreographed. I had goosebumps several times.
The preacher for me was hard to follow but I got through it. They closed with communion. It was real wine, a little shock. We closed with worship again. It was a fantastic experience!
When I was in San Jose last week, Neil Cole said that many church planters are told the most important things to have with a church is two things: clean bathrooms and parking spaces. Neither one of those were present at Yoido. In fact the mens bathroom was worse than a subway bathroom. I couldn't breathe. The most important thing is to have Jesus at your church and I know Jesus was a Yoido.
Today we head off for prayer mountain. I will be back on Wednesday at 2:05 pm in Lexington. If I have a chance to email, I will. Please keep me in your prayers.
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