I started coming to this church in July when my mom and I wanted to start going to church and socialize with more Koreans. I currently live in Guelph, where there are no Korean churches and a small Korean population. I was excited to come to church in Waterloo because I used to live in KW for 9 years, before moving to Guelph for University three years ago. I’m glad I can come visit my hometown for church and look forward to every week. Currently, both my mom and I are members of the 커넥트 목장, which we started attending at the beginning of September.
So, as you can tell, I am a new member of the house church system and this church. But how did I end up going to the seminar all the way in Houston for lay leaders? In August, 사모님 told me there was this house church seminar in Houston and that there were still some spots left and asked me if I was interested. Although I was very new, I wanted to get a better sense of what house church was all about and wanted to learn how it all worked. So, in August I registered for the seminar and bought my flight ticket.
After all the travel preparation and eventually getting to Houston, I was able to attend the first day of the seminar. The seminar is split between English-speaking and Korean-speaking participants. I, of course, went to the English-speaking seminar, where there were almost 100 other participants from all over the US and also members from one church in Australia! During lunch, each church went up to introduce their church and all their members, but what stood out to me was that everyone’s intention of coming to the seminar was relatively similar, we all had this desire to learn more about the purpose of house church and go back to our home churches with inspiration and purpose. Even though I was new to house church, I found that I had the same intention as the shepherds who had been leading their own house churches for a while, and that was very encouraging.
Pastor Eric Shin taught at the English-speaking seminar. He is the head pastor at New Life Fellowship and continues the work of helping start new house churches through education. He actually did a virtual sermon for us in July, he is very passionate and has a very cool Korean/Texan accent.
One of the purposes of house church is to help new VIPs (or nonbelievers) find God. And Pastor Eric was saying that if our church only welcomes other believers, our church is not in fact growing, but getting fat. If we want true growth, we should be finding and inviting nonbelievers into our church and house churches to have real growth. One metaphor he used to help explain this was that of fishing. If you are fishing and come home with a bunch of fish that you caught from the lake you would be successful. However, if you are fishing and do not catch anything from the lake but instead get some already caught fish from another fisherman, that may seem like you’ve succeeded in bringing home fish, but if you are getting fish from another fisherman, you may as well just buy some fish at the store, already processed and filleted.
Another purpose of house church that really stuck with me is that being vulnerable and open with your house church members may feel difficult, but that is where the real inner healing starts. Even though I am new to house church, I have already felt the support and love my fellow house church members share. And when I heard this purpose of house church at the seminar, it gave me a lot of hope as I continue getting to know my house church members. I am looking forward to healing alongside them and praying for them as they go through tough situations in their life. (to be continued next week)
– Katherine Lee (Connect) –