The Right Gospel Certainly Produces the Healthy Church
– Sisa Magazine(June, 2011)
The grace of the Gospel leads the former junior-high school teacher to walk the way of ministry…Gospel is the life itself, and the reason of the life
Hanmaum (HMU) church is very special for the most remarkable achievement in the school missions in less than 25 years since the pastor Sung-row Kim, the former junior high school teacher, developed this church. With no incidental support or materials, this church, where the testimonies of members are alive, is proving the power of the resurrection only with the prayers and words of God.
A school teacher believes in Jesus and experienced the grace of salvation. This is the beginning of the restoration. He didn’t mean to be a pastor at first, but his burning faith for spreading God’s kingdom with the love for souls was leading him to walk the way of ministry. He became a believer of Jesus Christ when he was 31 years old. Then a few years later, he began a campus ministry in KangWon University while he still worked as a school teacher. His ministry began with the campus bible study with 6 students of the university. He didn’t mean to be a pastor at the first time but his great conviction and passions that the gospel is the only key to make change of the times brought him to be a ministry.
This generation is stained with numbness against how valuable the life is and how the human nature is wrecked. The various social issues including suicide and game addiction gets this generation to sink down to a deep morass of incurable despairs. There are lots of voices to point out this problem, but there are not many who show the solution and consistently follow the way. Pastor Kim presents the gospel for the solution of this generation. He is assured that gospel can make change the major trend culture and values of the generation as well as one single individual’s life. Whatever he is asked, his only answer is the gospel. Gospel is the life itself and the reason of life for him. He said with great conviction that gospel is the fundamental solution not only for every trouble of one’s life but for all the social problems.
The church building converted from cattle shed reminds the Early Church 2000 years ago
HMU church is placed in a small rural town in Choonchun, Korea, has opened on 20 Aug, 1990. The former cattle shed is remodeled to be a church building, where now around 1,200 members are coming for worship. As you may guess, the exterior of this cattle shed converted church is just shabby.
Professor Park YongChul, a world authority on Cell Church, from Korea Baptist Theological University witnessed, “I have searched over the world for a church like the Early Church. I have never seen a church like HMU church in ChoonChun before. HMU church is a model for a church in the New Testament times that rarely found in this era. This church presents desirable characters for churches in today.” The pastor Kim said, “Essence of the mission from God to the church, the body of Jesus Christ, is to make disciples for every nation as in Matthew 28:18~20. As the Early Church community arisen by the gospel carried out the world mission, HMU church has the vision of the world mission as well with the community standing firm on the gospel. Currently, the young people including university students cover 40% of total attendance, and 90% of the members are under 50 years old. Most of the members are young, this is impressive as well.
So-Youn Ji, national women’s soccer team player, is the fruit of the gospel,
“Only gospel can make change people”
Recently, HMU church has been a blaze of various media publicity for the attendance of the national women’s soccer team player, So-Youn Ji. According to the pastor Kim, the gospel is testified to from one player to another player, and the small church arose in the team. In the 2010 U20 national soccer team, 11 of 23 players are now attending HMU church including SoYoun Ji, HyunYoung Lee and NaRae Kim. The small church could arise, beginning with HyunSook Seo, the captain of the team, who continued to testify to the gospel.
On Saturday evening, the most exciting time in the world, people from everywhere in the nation including Seoul, KyungGi, ChungNam, and KangWon-do are coming to church for Saturday’s praise worship beginning at 8 pm. People don’t leave until noon praying to God. Sunday worship actually starts from Saturday’s praise worship and prayer. According to the pastor Kim, the spiritual power of HMU church is mostly brought out from this prayer. He said, “the change of one single individual is followed by the change for his or her whole community he or she belongs to, so only the gospel is the key for this era.”
HMU church is putting all of its efforts to nurture the worker of gospel and the worker of the church, focusing on secondary schools and campus ministry. In the part of this ministry, 15 training dorms for young people are operated by HMU church. As Jesus lived and worked together with his disciples, the young people study together, live together and get trained to be disciples of Jesus Christ.
More than 120 members of this church are working as school teacher, who are nurturing their students with the gospel. In case that extracurricular program is approved for Christian contents in the school, the trained workers from HMU church enter to the school as instructor to testify to the gospel and to nurture the students. Besides, HMU church is contributing to make Korean society more healthy with various activities such as suicide prevention seminars (for various institutions including secondary school and university) and game addiction testimony (aired on <Rejoice Everyday> from CTS, 28 Feb 2011). In this way, HMU church is making its effort for both spiritual restoration and the social innovation, that’s to say, social restoration.
The early members are still together with the pastor Kim for 22 years
One of the most remarkable fruits of the HMU church is this: Gospel is spread beyond the boarder to USA, Canada, Indonesia, and Germany. The greatest pleasure for a pastor is probably to see the true change of a man by the power of the gospel. Gospel has the power to make change those who killed Jesus to martyr who lay down the life for Jesus. This true change can be seen in the ministry site on 21 century, which is the greatest joy for the pastor. Gospel has the power to unify the different people with various backgrounds and nature as one family, as the word of Ephesians 3:6 This mystery is that through the gospel the Gentiles are heirs together with Israel, members together of one body, and sharers together in the promise in Christ Jesus.
The true gospel unifies each one as one body with the head of Jesus Christ. The early members the pastor Kim firstly evangelized and nurtured are still together until now for 22 years. Pastor Kim said, “I am so happy to have many fellow workers who can share the life.”
Those who repent the sin and surrender to Jesus Christ are true Christians
Though we can see many churches anywhere in Korea, it’s not easy to find a spiritually healthy church around us among them. We have asked to Pastor Kim how to be a true Christian.
Pastor Kim has agonized for long time to find the reason why people don’t change no matter how much trained. Then, HMU church is experiencing the restoration by the power of true Lordship firmly based on the word of resurrection on 2001, and true repentance and the sin of John 16:9 on 2006. “True Christian is whose heart is changed by repenting the sin of being his own master to believe in Jesus as his Lord, surrendering to Jesus Christ”, Pastor Kim said. The one who believes in Jesus as his Lord is the true Christian, and the community of them is the healthy church. True Lordship only comes from the repentance of the sin. Without true repentance and Lordship, the healthy church cannot be expected. Only when people repent the sin of being their own master and surrender to Jesus Christ, believing Jesus as the Lord, the healthy church could arise. With the gospel founded, the prayer should come with it. Most of the HMU church members come to the dawn prayer from 5 to 7 am. After the prayer, they have breakfast together and go out to each one’s work place. When prayer is consistently fired with the gospel founded, the healthy church could arise.
Young and active church, restoration comes along with the living testimonies of the members
There is no artificial program or organization for the evangelism in HMU church. A senior pastor alone is leading more than 1,000 members. This is possible because this church consists of many small churches led by the lay believers. Every believer starts small church wherever they belong to including schools, work places and neighborhoods. And these small churches scattered all around come to HMU churches every weekend for Saturday praise worship and Sunday worship. So, HMU church is young and active. One of the most remarkable points of HMU church is ‘every believer ministry’. That’s to say, this church is lay believer-oriented. This is distinguished from the traditional authoritarian ministry. This is one of the reasons that HMU church can be recommended as a good role model for desirable church.
More than 700 testimonies come out every week, which is a significant key to lead this community
The worker for every small church is approved by the community, through the training such as prayer, evangelizing, and testimonies. For HMU church to arise as a healthy church, testimonies play the key role. Most of the members keep writing the testimonies, which close to more than 700 pieces in a week. The sermons are not one-sided. Instead, they are all interactive sermons, for the testimonies supporting the sermon are proclaimed together with the pastor’s preachment. This interactive type of sermon is very exceptional, leading every service incredibly alive and active. In HMU church, workers of ability are raised through these testimonies training. And the true change is made in real life by applying words. These testimonies are not just an impression note, but they are used as a significant key to lead the whole community. These testimonies are chronically filed as more than hundred books of testimonies for many decades. The interactive community could arise by these testimonies. Normally as the numbers of people increase, the interactive communication seems not easy inside the church. But the testimonies written based on the pastor’s sermon could be a way to communicate with the pastor and each member. Besides, the testimonies preached out in sermons, accordingly the fellowship among the members could come with it. The sermon in HMU church is not one-sided at all by the pastor alone. Rather, it’s interactive with all members. Probably, this makes the worship of HMU church so active and alive.
The true gospel should bring out the healthy church
Pastor Kim said, “Normally, many ministries may want to make his church grow up bigger. However, the healthy church should focus on ‘one person’ as Jesus did so”. To raise each member with the gospel and to nurture him until Christ is formed in him, this is what church should do. The true gospel should bring out the healthy church. According to the pastor Kim, the gospel should be founded first to solve any issues occurred in the church. The true gospel is same as the one that Jesus has preached out and the apostles had proclaimed in the early church. In addition, he said, “the fruit of the ministry belongs to God. God will make the most beautiful fruit of healthy church, if only we defend the true gospel. The only thing we have to do is defending and testifying to the original gospel untouched as Jesus accomplished.”
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