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Christians I Have Met

누가복음서 6:17-26

 Christians I Have Met

  Nice to meet you, brothers and sisters. When the title of ‘Secretary-General of General Assembly’ is introduced in front of my name, it still feels a little heavy and burdensome. But today, as a freshman who entered university and worshiped while sitting somewhere in that place, 40 years later, standing on the pulpit, I feel even more nervous. So, the hospitality of our pastors and your warm expressions are more comforting.

  Until just half a year ago, I was a British missionary sent by the General Assembly. I ministered a Korean church in Bristol, England for 8 and a half years. At the invitation of the 400-year-old United Reformed Church in England, I worked in a multicultural ministry in the Bristol area. Among the members, not only the locals, but also members from various Asian countries such as France, China, Taiwan, and Japan, although a small number, were always with us. Apparently, the most of the congregation were Korean students and expatriates. 

  Some of you may already know the city of Bristol. It is still a small city with a population of 450,000. I think it is about the size of a district in Seoul. Still, it is one of the sixth largest cities in England. Moreover, it is said that it was the second largest city after London at the time of the British Empire. It is located at the same latitude as London, in the southeast of Britain, but in the southwest, about a two-and-a-half hour drive away. If London was closer to continental Europe, Bristol was a bridgehead to the Atlantic Ocean. During the reign of Queen Elizabeth, she took control of the sea and advanced to the sea. As the colonies expanded, many goods and slaves entered the city's ports. There must have been a side of corruption as much as it was rich, and there must have been a side of shame behind the glorious history. Biblically speaking, it is a city full of sin and grace. 

  As expected, the coronavirus is getting more and more serious. Still, on a Sunday morning when the bitter winter cold wave was mild for a while, I read the text about the most noble mission given to us, the witness of the resurrection. This morning, with my brothers and sisters, I would like to share my experience of ministry in Bristol, the Christians I met, and the grace of the Lord that I experienced through them.

The history of Christianity in England goes back 2,000 years. It is also the place where numerous Protestant churches such as the Puritan movement, the Covenanters movement, the Anglican Congregational Church, Methodist Church, and the Salvation Army Presbyterian Church of Scotland began. The UK is the country that has led the century of great missions through the historic missionary church, which has inherited world-class preachers, theologians, and Christian writers.

  But what about the situation in the Church of England today? Even before COVID-19, the believers who worshiped on Sunday were only a fraction of the believers. If you count dozens of cathedrals alone, there are over 10,000 Anglican churches, large and small, across the country, but it is reported that fewer than a million people regularly attend Sunday services. The number of churches belonging to the southwestern synod of the United Reformed Church to which I belonged was about 120, and there were slightly more than 40 pastors at the time of my appointment. However, in the past 10 years, some churches have been closing their doors, but the number of pastors has declined even more steeply. Newly ordained pastors are rare.

  Nevertheless, perhaps thanks to British culture, the characters and events that reveal aspects of Christian history have been well preserved. Not only that, I was able to meet a lot of local believers who practiced the love of Christ through life as a Christian despite the secularization of the world and the increased difficulties of the coronavirus, contemplating the role of the witness community in spite of the aging population.

Fragrant christian

The first Christians I met are fragrant Christians.

Although the Bristol Korean community was small, it was a community where new encounters and partings were frequent. As a result, the saints changed very quickly. Most of the believers and young people stayed for a few weeks or at most less than a year, even if they did not stay for a week or two. If you enter a university and stay together for 3 years, it is considered a long-term stay. This is because there are many international students, language trainees, and short-term business visitors. Nearly 70 percent of the saints and young people each year used to be replaced by new ones. For that reason, welcoming and sending are very important.

  From the first time I took office, I had the feeling that the existing members were not very welcoming to the newcomers as well as myself. I soon found out why. With the exception of a few, it was because most of the members of the congregation had not yet acclimatised and had just come. However, I soon found out that temperance was the reason why even those who had been in the church for a relatively long time did not welcome the newcomers. Since they will be parting soon, they do not express their pleasure to avoid sadness when they have to say good-bye to each other. They are also restrained in their desire to give during their stay. As these hearts gathered, lonely people in a foreign land became even more lonely.

  Knowing that fact, I prepared a slightly different definition of our church and shared it with the members. ‘The church is the ark of salvation, but there is another characteristic of our church here: it is a ‘mountain hut’. A person who seeks and stays in a mountain hut located deep in the mountains, near the summit has a purpose. It's to get to the top of the mountain. It’s only natural for them to take a break to rejuvenate and make up for what they lack, then set off on their next journey.’ Of course, I also did this explanation almost every year. It was because the people who were guarding the mountain hut with me would soon leave. This was also a confession of my pastoral mission.

  However, those with a lot of overseas experience came and started volunteering right away. Among the elders and deacons who have been assigned to the British branch from Korea, and many young people, they want to serve because they do not know when they will leave. Just as the gloomy mood is brightened by the subtle scent of orchids, the dedication and hard work of these people was literally a precious fragrance. However, the importance of fragrance is because it has a value that is subtly left on the tip of the nose. Even in difficult moments, the memories I had with them gave me great strength and comfort, like a scent that never fades.

  However, there was another scent that was truly precious. To put it bluntly, it was a 'fragrant stench'. This is what I learned from a deacon who specializes in dentistry when I was teaching the department of a church school. Among the causes of pain in patients visiting the hospital, there are cases where gas or pus is swollen due to inflammation inside the gums, which presses on nerves. At this time, if you poke the swollen gums with a pointed treatment tool, gas is spurted out and the stench is unbearable even with a medical mask. However, the doctor explained that what made it so fragrant was that the stench was the moment when the patient was relieved of urgent pain and treatment began.

  Among the young people who came to church, there were unbelievers, new believers, discouraged people, and anti-Christians. But there always were ‘tired young people’. They had good faith and ability, but they were just exhausted when they suffered conflicts or wounds while serving. They have several things in common. They all attend the worship service without exception, but they spare their words. I am passive in service. When I ask them anything, they just smile. Then, weeks or months pass, sometimes when it's their time to leave, and they secretly reveal their identity. ‘I was the leader of the praise team in Korea’, ‘I was a church pianist’ and ‘I was the cell leader’. I am grateful that they shared the burden for the rest of the time, but the moment they opened their heart and confess, the fragrant stench emanating from them will be cherished as a gracious and grateful fragrance, a kind of fragrant stench that I will never forget.

Christians going backwards

Second, I have met Christians going backwards.

Bristol is, as you know, a very familiar city to us. There were people who were widely known to us from this city, and there were several people around the city who had a direct and deep connection with the Korean church.

The historic outdoor preaching site for Pastor John Wesley, who was born in Oxford and led the Methodist movement in the 18th century, was nearby. Near the New Room, in the middle of the city, called World Methodist Building No. 1, is the house where Pastor Wesley's younger brother Charles Wesley, who wrote thousands of hymns, lived.

  It was Missionary James Scott Gale who translated the Pilgrim's Progress into Korean and translated Gumongmong Shimcheong into English and introduced it to the world. He was the first pastor of Yeondong Church, and he did his best to promote Korean culture to the world by respecting and loving Korean culture more than anyone else, such as compiling a Bible translation dictionary. After 40 years of ministry, this man also settled in Bath, near Bristol, after his retirement, and his granddaughter still lives in downtown Bristol.

  Pastor George Mueller is known as the ‘miracle of Bristol’ and is familiar to us. He is actually a foreigner from Prussia. He came to England to receive his missionary training, and after battling a disease, he became a pastor. I was moved by many historical figures, but the reason I introduce this pastor may have something to do with the coronavirus situation.

  Built in the mid-19th century, the orphanage is still a solid and large-scale building. Five buildings were built to care for 2,000 orphans at one time. As he was a graduate of Halle University in Germany, his ministry in Diacony was very meticulous and organized. Although it was called an orphanage, it was actually a boarding school. As a father, teacher, and guardian of over 10,000 orphans a year, it is widely known that he operated through 50,000 answers only through prayer without a single request for support.

  However, I discovered a slightly different side of Pastor Mueller, which I discovered in the midst of the coronavirus. That's what I call a 'reverse Christian.'

Pastor George Mueller, who gave up his dream of missionary training due to ill health, meets a lifelong co-worker during his recuperation. He receives pastoral training and together decides to walk the pastoral path in Bristol. However, in 1832, when Pastor started ministering in Bristol, cholera, an endemic disease in Bengal, India, passed through Europe and became a pandemic and landed in Bristol.

  As with the current coronavirus, the victims of cholera were also adults and seniors. Children suffered relatively little damage, and those who lost their parents were suddenly orphaned. Around this time, changes take place in the city. That's when the wealthy moved to the city's hill towns, leaving the polluted, stinky and dangerous port areas where supplies were plentiful and transportation was good, and began to form new housing estates. Even now, if you go to that village, houses that are more than 200 years old are lined up. 

  However, Pastor Mueller, who had been pastoring in the city for several years at this time, is with them precisely at this time. He shifts the center of his ministry to a place that is overflowing with orphans who have lost their parents, around the dirty, polluted and smelly harbor, in an area that is still a bit gloomy. This is how the first orphanage ministry started at 6 Wilson Street downtown. Since then, the number of orphans to be taken care of due to the repeated cholera pandemic has increased from 100 to 200. At that time, five full-scale Mueller Houses were built on Ashley Hill outside the city.

  The Lord appeared before the Apostle Peter, who was trying to escape from Rome to escape the persecution of the Roman emperor Nero. the disciple asks. ‘Quobadis Domine, Lord, where are you going?’ says Jesus, who was crucified outside the gates of Jerusalem. ‘Because you have left my people and are leaving, I am going to Rome to take up the cross once more.’

Leading Christian

The last Christians I will introduce to you are people who go on a different path, people who go ahead.

It is only when they come to Korea that they realize how their co-workers and local saints who were with them in England saved their lives as disciples of Christ and witnesses of the resurrection in the present age. The Christians I met in England are very different from us. First of all, the words are different. All speak English. Yes, that's a joke. However, the Christians I met in England and the Christian traditions in Europe were a little unfamiliar to me. I found out that while European Christianity is somewhat tolerant of the main problem that we have a big problem with, it emphasizes the traditional seven sins: pride, anger, sloth, greed, etc.

  Like our churches, there are people who are passionate about helping neighbors in need, which makes it feel a little closer to the local community. Although prayer meetings are held, unless there is a special case, I have also seen them do it in an orderly manner rather than a general prayer. There was a time when I attended the 150-year-old Keswick Convention, and during the morning prayer meeting, I saw the leader praying in a voice saying, ‘Let’s do it the Korean way this time’.

  However, at the time, it was not a big deal, but when I came to Korea, it became even bigger. Before the 2019 Corona Pandemic, I had a chance to visit Korea with the pastor and elder of the Church of England. After issuing the plane ticket, I was busy checking the itinerary, and they all sat down and did one more thing. When I asked what they do, they said that they had identified and made a donation for a carbon compensation program for the carbon footprint they would leave behind when traveling to and from Korea by air. When I asked if it was compulsory, they said that participation was voluntary, not compulsory. I didn't take it seriously.

  After the appointment of the secretary general, when I was visiting the UK to organize work in the UK, the 26th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Climate Change (COP26) was held in Glasgow, UK. Through various reports and interview documentaries released ahead of the conference, I realized that the Earth was in serious ecological danger. I was reminded of the British brothers and sisters about two years ago, and I also checked with people in airlines and environmental groups. But to my surprise, I found out that neither the airline nor the environmental group in our country had a program for carbon compensation that had been in effect for a long time in Europe and him. So, I donated to an environmental organization the cost of compensating for about 500 kg of carbon that I would emit according to the calculation method provided by European airlines, and the cost of erasing my carbon footprint. This year, our denomination is starting a carbon fast campaign ahead of Lent with Christian environmental groups. We live in an unimaginable world where food, favorite foods, and even carbon are now the targets of fasting.

Dear brothers and sisters, 

The Bible says you are the fragrance of Christ. To all of you who are together in this chapel today or online, I hope that you will become saints who exude a beautiful fragrance like a flower that has a more precious fragrance than its beautiful appearance.

However, I would like to see a community overflowing with a more fragrant stench. I hope that through the meeting of the saints, the history of scalding, binding, and clogging will be resolved. Even if tears and sighs overflow, I hope that you will become a community that passes the history of true recovery and healing through this in the Lord, and let's live for such a world.

  Do not copy the behvior and customs of this world (Romans 12:2). I hope that you will have the grace to live according to the good, pleasing, and perfect will of the Father. Restoration of worship and restoration of the saints during COVID-19 should not be our only prayer topics. We must become saints and churches that pray and act for places where there are hardships, sacrifices, and pain during COVID-19. Where the Father is in his heart, he goes where his eyes are directed. Living as such wtnesses can make us even more lonelier and even more likely to become anxious about going against the majority and the world. 

We are the ones who confess that God created the heavens and the earth. A groaning ecosystem, a disaster caused by climate change has come to life. The decision and practice to participate by sacrificing something due to discomfort was given to Christians in this age.

Who are the Christians you have met? We are all fragrances and letters of Christ. What kind of Christians are you becoming a fragrance and a letter to?

I hope you will be able to walk with the risen Lord for another week.