Church Officer Training – 5 Basics
Don’t just listen to the Word, but apply it as your own. Of course if there’s a sprout that grows when you water it, but it’s different when you apply it to your life. Last week we went over the five basics. We’re going to review the five basics once again.
Mark’s Upper Room
It seems like a place where people just gathered, but that’s not true; people gather in many rooms. We’re talking about the meeting that contains what God desires. That’s Christ, the answer to all problems. When you have this, you relay it, so it’s not just a problem of the meaning, but this must be contained within the meaning. You must know the spiritual state and meditation behind this. Of course, the other person’s words are a problem, but you must first be able to see the spiritual problem behind it.
What does it mean to receive field training? There’s a difference between receiving the message and confirming it in the field. Those who confirm this in the field know the answer and relay it, so when we talk about the field, we talk about the people. The most important thing is the spiritual state that cannot be seen. But each individual has problems, but they don’t know why they have the problem. So, they need to have Christ and you need to relay the answer of Christ.
Unbelievers are separated from God, under sin and Satan’s control. They may have many visible problems, and that’s the time schedule. At that time, you must relay the spiritual answer that is, Christ. Knowing the field means you need to be able to know their state. In the Upper Room, you must have this answer.
Time, Place
You need to assign a time and place. Without this, you cannot do your ministry because you only know yourself. When you open an Upper Room, you need to know there’s a plan to save the region. Because there are people destined to receive the gospel in that region, you have faith and open this. Then, you must assign a specific time and place to gather, so other people know, “They meet at this time and place,” so there will be different leaders. The leader who embraces the field and the messenger who possesses this content, and relays the answer with the Bible.
The members who gather together relay their prayer topics, and even though it’s once a week, the leader holds onto the prayer topics and prays for the individuals so they have no choice but to receive answers. When you see it this way, the leaders must stand. You must always pray for the region and the members who gather, this is Acts 1:14. You must come together and pray continuously.
You gather and it differs depending on who the leader is. It may seem like you’re relaying the Word once, but the leader is monitoring everything in the background. People typically have a messenger who relays the Word and assigns the leader based on the person in the region, but the leader must also have this faith. The Upper Room meeting is important and you must follow the leader. You’re not a leader just because it’s your house, but you have the responsibility of prayer.
The leader knows the region. If they only stay in their house without knowing the region, they must go out and research. Would God desire that or not? The leader must embrace the field and the one who is able to relay this answer is the messenger. So, there’s the leader and messenger who work together to embrace the field and pray together, and these are the roles they must fill. The leader prays for all the recipients of evangelism every single day, then the forces of darkness will be broken and answers will come. But people who gather without this will just relay the Word in the Upper Room and miss a lot of things. They need to hold onto the thing that will surely be fulfilled, but they hold onto something else and it’s only half fulfilled.
Team Ministry
This was formed for people who couldn’t meet every week, helping people to be established in the church. But some people do the Team Ministry and yet cannot do anything in Mark’s Upper Room. This is the work of the devil. The Upper Room gathers to pray for the region, and Team Ministry helps people get connected to that Upper Room. It’s the same for the church. Our words are not important.
Mission Home – Family (Lifestyle) – Healing
We live our lives irrelevant to the Word of God. For example, if your children are getting married, they must receive healing. If they marry without the Word, they must receive healing. What if they’re marrying just for love? That’s what unbelievers say. “I marry them because I love them,” that’s correct, but God’s covenant must align for them to develop feelings and like each other. Lots of things are contained within this, even studies.
Studies, Habits
In college, students think about how to live and survive because it’s that age. So, you must heal them from thinking, “I need to study and live, you must give them the words so you can do world evangelization,” There are also our life habits. Do this in your family, otherwise, they will end up like their parents.
Disciple
You can evangelize through your children. For example, when my daughter was in elementary school, we met Jordania and she was an evangelism target. One time, she drew a drawing and it was a demon behind her bed. We told her to draw it because it was hard to communicate with her, but on her birthday, my wife and daughter went to her house and that’s when they relayed the gospel to her. How can my wife know Jordania? It was through my daughter, and she asked my daughter, “Do any of your friends experience this?”
You can’t just evangelize like this. One time, we invited her to our house, and she invited us to their house, and that’s how evangelism took place. In the beginning when she first came, she was so shy she couldn’t even talk, but her expression has changed so much since COVID. She comes every Saturday to prayer school and Saturday Mission School. At first, in the beginning, when we had the children’s choir, she was just hunched over, but when I saw her this year, I was so shocked. My wife called her every week and did Upper Room ministry with her. That’s how she grew from elementary school.
Mission Home is such an important way to raise disciples.
Specialized Church – Specialty (Mentality)
Because people work together, they have similar characteristics, but without knowing this environment, you cannot touch them. Doctors and nurses have similar characteristics, and you must touch this to heal them. That’s what you do in your job. One time, Deaconess Park told me about the hospital on 3rd and Alvarado, and the hospital disappeared but the nurses were afflicted and afraid because of demons. But can the nurse say this to the patients? No, they shared this amongst themselves. Nurses experience death every day, and we might see this once or twice a year, but this nurse was so afraid of turning on the light because she might see the demon. How can we see that?
Regional Church – Idol (Religion)
The evangelist went to Yeongdo and by the water, it’s an island so there were many fishermen and divers, and they invited fortune tellers to do rituals to ward off evil spirits. This region was captured by shamans. There was a famous group of shamans who went everywhere to heal people, so how could you save this island? Give them the answer for them to be healed. It was not a problem of healing their physical body, but this was the prayer topic they held onto the change the spiritual field.
Because there were demon shamans, the message was connected to that and the field was restored. If you do regional church, you will know this. These are the five basics of life, and only Christ must become the center of all these things. You must know the field to correctly relay Jesus Christ to them. We live our daily lives within this, but for others, Christ is not the center; they are self-centered.
That’s why you must carefully pick your region. How do you choose the region? Choose with faith. “I live in this house in this region, I’ll pick my house and die here.” When I first started the church, I was going crazy because no one in the church wanted to start an Upper Room. Inside, I thought, “Are these people not interested in starting an Upper Room?” Later on, I understood because they had listened to the message so much that they were worn out by it, and I was the only one who was desperate for it.
When I had my Lexus, I would drive around the region. I sectioned off a region with Washington/Alvarado/First Street/Crenshaw and pray for the region because nobody else wanted to. I said, “I would go evangelize in the field,” and no one wanted to follow. The Assistant Pastors did not want to go. We met Jihyea in the field and other Assistant Pastors joined. Later on, Deacon Jo joined and was fired from his job, so his house was the first home that was established as the Upper Room ministry.
They worked Monday through Friday so we met Saturday. We received the message and relayed the message door-to-door. We went to every single house, and someone else would join and we would open an Upper Room in their house. At Deacon Jo’s house, we visited all the houses around the block. We had no response from the church officers, but now that I think about it, I wondered if God was pleased with that because I did everything I could to fulfill this.
When I was doing camp in Koreatown as an assistant pastor, we went to all these buildings, then we hit the apartments. But there were only two people who gave a good response at a laundromat and nothing really happened. It seemed like there was no fruit, but we went to each region and prayed and God was pleased with that.
When we went to each field, the people on 4th and New Hampshire were the nicest people I’d met. But you’ll see later on, I learned so many things in the field, I evangelized to the Hispanic field and we needed a Spanish speaker, so Senior Deaconess Song came. When you pray, God will surely react and give an answer. When I was an Assistant Pastor, there wasn’t evangelism taking place, so I said, “God, give me a child and I will raise them to be an evangelist.”
When you go to the field and interact with people, you’ll receive God’s prayer topics. We received many answers although they did not come right away. Our vessel grew and God attached people. If I actually knew what it meant to start a church as a PK, I wouldn’t have done it. But being from an unbeliever family, I was just told to do it. But everyone probably thought we needed a church, so it’s not easy for a church to do this. You don’t have this kind of heart, but when the church is unstable and Satan works to break down the church, the church members have no choice but to think, “Should I leave the church?”
Some people came to me and told me they were going to go somewhere else. I’m not saying they don’t have faith, but I’m saying it’s not easy because so many things were unstable and Satan had so many channels to work. By God’s grace we have come this far. No one just comes to church so it’s not about the numbers, Satan hinders the church so much. We started the church in 2009, so it’s the 13th year this year. But up until the 8th and 9th year, every single holiday season, someone would say, “I’m going to leave the church,” but God was slowly raising the church, year by year.
People who were not rooted in the Word had no choice but to fall, but people are becoming rooted in the gospel and healed, so the church became stable. Originally church members don’t go out boldly to share the gospel, but they were forced to go out as I was the first one to go out to evangelize. It’s not easy to raise the church, starting with the pastor and church members.
So many churches are closing or being raised up every day. There was a census conducted, and even in Korea, there are only 1-2 churches that actually succeed, especially among the immigrants, there’s nothing to say about that. If a pastor goes into an already established church with a firm foundation, it will naturally grow, but if you start a new church, it’s a state of chaos even if you have believing members in that church.
Imagine if you’re dating for a long time and you want to establish a family, but there are so many factors even though you’ve been dating. It’s the same for the church. I have things to say for seminary students. I know what it means to start a new church, and it’s not about the numbers. In the very beginning, God is doing everything to raise the pastor. Everything is centered on the pastor, so the Word is correctly relayed.
Starting from me, we’ve all become more stable than before, so we know each other very well. You know how the pastor is changing, and this is the church. Even if you make a mistake or misunderstanding, we know each other’s hearts. So, I heard some church members, “Our pastor is okay with money,” because in other churches, pastors would be sketchy about the money, but I was like this as an unbeliever. Even though we had no money, I didn’t live with money concerns. I have no thirst or greed for money.
All the church members know I’m not someone who will cause problems because of money. If anything, I’m the one who gives the most for offering. I think I said this in 2020, and ever since 2021, there’s been an increase in offering, and I was saying, “How could the businesspeople not give more offering than the pastor?” For 10 years, I didn’t look at the offering because I didn’t want to be tested, but I needed to look at the state of our missions and accounts and their financial status.
I saw the church members were receiving so much income and no offering and I couldn’t understand. I just save whatever I’m given. I always give offering no matter what, so don’t establish your plans to do something by saving your money; that won’t be fulfilled. I’m not able to give the offering my mom tries to send me, because there are so many complications with Korea and their auditing. Ever since 2021, even though there is an increase in offering, I’m still in the top 10.
Why am I doing this? It’s because I know grace. My priorities have changed but most people say, “If I have money then, I’ll give offering,” so they have no choice but to be enslaved to money. You don’t give money because you have money, but because you just give it, you have nothing to rely on, you have no savings. You don’t need savings to change your car or house, because if you have that, you just give it to God because God will completely take responsibility of you and give you more.
Isn’t it the same for your business? It’s the same, God will provide and will allow you to do it, so there are no problems. Even for Temple Construction, it’s not just useless faith, but it’s actual faith that God will establish a temple to do world evangelization. What can anyone do? Whoever is within this will receive answers so I don’t have any worries. I don’t worry or strategize about anything. “If I pay $500, I can get a diamond,” and Americans strategize like this.
God says He will fulfill it, just follow it. What are you going to do with one or two diamonds? That’s why the Crystal Cathedral filed for bankruptcy, because whoever gave offering would have an engraved stone on the floor with their name, “I will have my name engraved by giving offering,” so they were doing their entire ministry that way. Rather than faith in God, they were trying to entice people with something else, so they were within a process that had no choice but to fail.
Don’t do what God hates; if it’s not God’s plan, it won’t be fulfilled. Before Rev. Ryu wouldn’t talk about Church Construction, because that broke down many churches, but now the environment has changed so we’re talking about it. In the old lectures, he would say, “The old buildings are bound to crumble.” The age was like that before, but we must leave behind something for the remnants.
Physically it may seem like nothing but we are the temple and there’s an important content. The building can’t even get to heaven, it’s nothing, but if it’s used for world evangelization, it’s something precious, so that’s how we go forth in faith. We try to research and strategize, you’ll go bald and be tested, “There’s this many people at church but only these people are giving offering,” but God said He would do the evangelism movement and raise the people, so we just follow that.
It’s the same for our businesses, His works are the same. If you’re so focused on yourself, “How many people are buying my product? How well is my business going?” but if you have God’s heart, every customer is precious, and if you don’t, you’ll get mad at your customers for not buying enough. It’s the same, everyone is the same.
Regional Church, we talk about the regional evangelization, and these are the five basics.
Prayer
God, we thank You. May You work upon us with the Holy /Spirit and help us to change the field with the five basics. in the name of Jesus Christ we pray, amen.