Think Globally

Dan Kimball post:  Things I Learned in S. Korea

Got back from S. Korea and straight into prepping sermon for yesterday's gatherings at Vintage Faith Church. But while my memory is fresh, a few things I learned while in Korea are:

1) God is active and moving in S. Korea. He is active all over the world, but it is always thrilling to stop and see another part of the world and what is happening. I was amazed at how many churches there were 10,000, 20,000, 30,000 people. At the church I spoke at, which is over 20,000 people - I got to see rooms packed with children (hundreds and hundreds) and seeing them learn and worship was quite incredible.


2) The church in S. Korea is facing some of the same things we did in the USA. At least from what I understand from talking to those at the youth conference, there is a shrinking amount of teenagers and young adults in churches. So there is a lot of thinking about how the church must change for future generations, much like we had discussion 10 years ago about this very thing. They had all my books translated into Korean, which I didn't know until I got there. So it was funny seeing different covers for the books and how they were portrayed.

3) There are incredible younger leaders doing innovative things and church planting. I met a church planter who planted a church 3 months ago. They opened a coffeehouse when they planted this church where their offices are and they have smaller meetings there and rent a school for the Sunday meetings. They already have over 200 people in the church and over 50 of them have become Christians over the past 3 months.

4) Prayer is a major part of Korean churches. Even in the younger churches, I learned that they have prayer meetings almost every day of the week. I specifically asked and it is about 20% of the church who goes to the prayer meetings. But still an amazing thing. Every day at 6:30 AM. I also saw in the worship meetings that there would be times when things would stop and give people time to pray and everyone would start praying outloud intensely in this beautiful way.

5) At least in one church, they had this blessing song as a guest speaker starts. When I was being introduced and then walked up a strange thing happened. Everyone there stood up and outstretched their arms towards me and began singing. It was quite uncomfortable as I had no idea what was happening. The translator next to me then told me to put my arms up, so I did. But I found out it was a prayer blessing song that they sing right at you before you speak. It was a beautiful little song, but very different to be up there and suddenly that happens as they all are looking right at you as they sing.


6) The Korean Christians were incredibly kind and overly gracious. I don't think I ever have had as gracious, serving, kind, caring group of people who were looking after the speakers and taking care of everything. Charles Kim and the team who put on the event did a great job finding volunteers from S.Korea who helped out. Even when my laptop had water spilled on it by someone accidentally, they whisked that thing away, had tech people opening it up and blow-drying it within minutes.

7) Although globalization is happening, there are also strong cultural differences. It is weird that in a place like S. Korea music from the USA, movies etc. abounds everywhere. So you walk into a store and Lady Gaga is playing and Avatar is at the movie theaters. So much of the clothing also was from American companies that we wear here. But also I learned that there is no higher suicide rate amongst teens than in S. Korea. There is intense pressure for education and success. In churches I also learned that they barely talk about sex/dating as that isn't seen as something the church should discuss or teach about. And when I mentioned homosexuality in one session, not a single leader said that is ever discussed in their churches. I assume some do, but at least the session I was in no one said they did. Which is another topic of the need to be discussing things so teenagers don't feel they don't feel isolated or alone. But these were some cultural differences I learned about.

7) I learned so much from the other speakers.It was great getting to hang out with Chap Clark, Ralph Winter and Marv Penner. Chap and Marv are veterans of youth ministry. Ralph was fascinating to talk with and I am so glad I got to meet him. We talked a bunch about the hero story in films and some of what "The Power of Myth" by Joseph Campbell is about with films. So as always, even though you go somewhere to speak, you come back having learned so much from others.

8) We do need to think globally more and more. I lived out of the USA for almost 2 years when I was in my 20's. And over the past several years I have got to travel to New Zealand, Singapore, Canada, Mexico and El Salvador on mission or speaking trips. But it is so easy to come back home and only think locally as in USA and I was reminded how we do need to be thinking globally.

9) Don't plan to speak at your church a day after you come back from a trip overseas. I never got to plan my sermon while there, so I stayed up until 5 AM prepping the sermon for Sunday. Why I thought I would have time there to do it, I don't know.

Thank you Charles Kim for setting this up and inviting me. It was a joy to be there with you and you were an incredible host and I came away with so much more than I ever expected.