Body of Christ

Church is described as the body of Christ with Jesus Christ being the head. Church is the extension of the head (Jesus Christ) continuing the work of Jesus Christ the way honors Jesus Christ. As I was saved in our current church in 1991, I have never been a member of any other church, so I don’t know many other things that happen in the life of a church.

I have learned that church is incredibly special. Nothing in the world can say that they are a body of Jesus Christ except the church. Functionally, I have experienced many incredible activities and fruits as God allowed us to participate in His Kingdom work. This participation is not just for me to participate, but the whole or many parts participating together to discern the will of God and doing the will of God with the strength God provides to all. When we get behind a mission effort or outreach to college students or a Bible study, we know there is nothing like a local church when it functions right.

Local church is the hope of the world for truth, wisdom, God’s power, and God’s love. This is where people, especially people who do not know God can experience God. Also, people who are being transformed into the likeness of Jesus Christ can be the agent of blessing and change in the world as we do life in the world. What an incredible invitation and honor be in the body of Christ. We are not perfect, and we do have many flaws.

People (Christians and non-Christians) may have lost hope in the church. This is a huge loss, and the effects will be detrimental for the future. Every church member of any church in all denominations should take this seriously and pray and be changed to have a high view of the church being a BODY OF JESUS CHRIST. This is God’s idea and God’s plan A. There is no plan B and I wish that our church will continue to practice humility and hope in Jesus Christ to be the body Jesus wants to be, doing His will in His way, with the strength He provides for His glory. I wish everyone to participate to experience such a body life. We want to grow that way and we want to grow with more people as well.

Spiritual Family

I see more college students around the town as college students have returned to SLO. We have been doing college ministry from the beginning as we are located near Cal Poly. Most of them are here away from their families and whenever I come across them as I drive around the town or see them gathered in a restaurant or walking around, I always question if they have a spiritual family.

Everyone needs a spiritual family. Without one, we are orphans. God places His children in a local church for them to be cared for, grow, and do ministry together. There are some statistics out there that say a high percentage of first year college students stop going to church. This is so sad. Like sheep, we must go after them and make sure they find a spiritual family while they are here in college.

Every family is not perfect. We are very imperfect, but we are a family. When (not if) difficulties arise, we acknowledge it and run toward it to work through it like a real family. When we work through it, Jesus is glorified as a peacemaker.

We make sacrifices as a family, too. Bible uses words like father, mother, brother, and sisters to describe that we are a spiritual family. In that family without making sacrifices, we will not be able to remain as a family. We learn to sacrifice from Jesus who came down to earth and died on the cross to give life to all.

This is the beginning of the school year and I want to do everything I can to help them find a spiritual family. Either we be their spiritual family or help them to find one so that every person who used to go to church in their high school has a spiritual home so that they can be cared for, grow spiritually, and do ministry. We will pray and continue to work sacrificially to make this happen.

CARING

As a shepherd of this flock I want to care better. As we are doing house church ministries, my main caring is for the shepherds as they are caring for their sheep. That does not mean I only meet up with shepherds, but I mostly meet up with the shepherds for care. I am realizing I need to provide better care for them. We have a total of thirteen house churches (eleven from the English side and two from the Korean side) and God is teaching me that this is one of my areas of growth.

I didn’t realize how much Covid has affected everything and everyone. Locked down at home, worrying from catching covid, on-line school, and the habits we have formed bring challenges in caring for people. Looking back, I did not provide enough help to some of the shepherds during this time, even helping them to start their shepherding.

I see many new parents faced with challenges, too. Kids being sick and training them are hard. It is great to have many children at church and I am looking forward to seeing them grow physically and spiritually. We need to provide some parenting classes. I know they do have this kind of class during the house church conference. I will learn about it and teach it to our shepherds.

Shepherds are like pastors for their house churches. They are not helping me to do my ministry, but they are doing their ministry and I am helping them to do as best as they can. This is fundamentally different from other models of church. As our shepherds are doing ministry, they need help and I must be sensitive enough, prayerful enough, and knowledgeable enough to provide the help they need. I fall short in this area that is why God is teaching me. I had to appropriate the gospel to myself for me to come out of a place of despair to a place of hope where I can rely on God’s fresh power to help one shepherd at a time.

One way to support and care for our shepherds is that I pray for them. I have a prayer journal and record their prayer requests and record how God answers them. As I pray, God fills me with such a gratitude for all of our shepherds that God has placed in our church for us to do ministry together to experience God’s power and grace to accomplish His great commission for the glory of Jesus Christ. I am so grateful that I get to serve here at Journey Christian Fellowship and I pray that to grow to better care for our shepherds.