House church members are allowed to switch to another house church only once, during the first 6 months after they join our church. Afterwards, they may not switch. The reason for this is that the house church is a place where people are trained to conform to the image of Christ. People become like Christ through conflict. We change as we work to get along with people whose temperaments are very different from our own or try to love people who hurt us. People usually leave house churches because they can't handle conflict. If everyone is allowed to do so whenever confli...

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Last Thursday I went to the George Brown Convention Center to serve Hurricane Katrina refugees. I helped pack and load portable beds to be sent to other shelters and swept the floor of dining areas. It seems that the refugees at the Astrodome and the Convention Center are receiving enough attention and care. From now on our church will focus our attention on those refugees who are staying at church-run shelters. These shelters don't receive financial distributions from the Red Cross or United Way because they are religious organizations. We will be partnering with the ...

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The damage done by Hurricane Katrina seems to be much more severe than expected. As you know, nearly the entire city of New Orleans is under water. Some say that it is the greatest disaster suffered by an American city since the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. Reportedly, around 200,000 people have taken refuge in Houston. As a person who experienced the Korean War, I think I know how the refugees feel. During the war, our family sought friends and relatives we hadn't seen in decades and begged for a room. I was only 6 years old and didn't understand everything that ...

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On a recent trip to Korea, I watched a Korean movie on the plane. The heroine is a con artist. While getting off of a train, a young man mistakes her bag for his own and takes it with him. When she realizes this, she tracks down the man to a small village. The town people mistake her for being the man's fiancee and she decides to play along, using her con-artist skills (this is the fun part!) until she recovers her bag. Eventually, she falls in love with the man and decides to start a new, straight life in the village. The thing that makes her abandon her past and become ...

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Our shepherds are divided into groups, around 20 in total, called Chowon (meaning pasture), which meet every Sunday after worship services. Each month my wife and I visit each group in turn, where I ask shepherds and their spouses to share two things about their house church ministry: one thing that made them happy and another that made them sad. The things that make them happy are usually trivial. One newly appointed shepherd said that he felt honored when much older house church members starting addressing him as "our shepherd" as soon as he was appointed. A shepherd's ...

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Drinking itself is not a sin. The Scripture admonishes against getting drunk, not drinking itself: "Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery." (Eph. 5:18) Wine and beer are common beverages in Europe. French cuisine tastes better with a glass of wine, and German food goes down well with a mug of beer. Despite this, I still encourage our church members to not drink. I have four reasons for this. First, it's easier to fall into sin when you drink. People who drive while intoxicated may have a car accident, hurting themselves and others. Some lose control of ...

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