the gospel is free

i read an interesting verse in the Bible today. in 1 Cornithians 9:18 Paul says, "What then is my reward? Just this: that in preaching the gospel I may offer it free of charge, and so not make use of my rights in preaching it."

some well-known preachers use ticketmaster.com in order to charge people money to come and hear them preach. i wonder what the apostle paul would say to that?

i don't think there will ever be a day when masses of people will be anxious to purchase tickets in order to hear me preach. but if i did become that influential, i would find a way to get the message to the people for free.

but it is hard to know where to draw the line. i don't think it's wrong to charge money for sermons on mp3 or cd. & i don't think it's wrong for pastors to receive honorariums for preaching.

staff retreat

we just had a pastoral staff retreat for our church. mostly to plan the schedule for the whole year. about 20 of us were present. we're blessed to have such a diverse staff. these days i rarely shed tears, but i cried twice during the retreat. on the first night during worship/prayer we sang the hymn, "The Old Rugged Cross". the message of the hymn hit me like a brick; it was so powerful. i'm definitely going to sing that hymn more when i lead worship. then when the retreat was over, a church member hosted us for dinner. after dinner we sang on the no-rae-bang/karaoke machine. during one of the korean songs, our youth director (pat nam) picked up a plate and started doing a traditional korean fan dance with the plate. i laughed so hard that i was literally crying.

happy thoughts...

happiness

a few days ago i watched the tv show 20/20 & they showed an interesting piece on the subject of happiness. a psych professor wrote a book which states that 50% of our happiness is genetic, 10% is shaped by our life-circumstances, & 40% is in our control (attitude, approach to life, etc).

i think gideon will inherit a lot of happy-genes, because suhee & her family are some of the happiest people i know, esp her dad.

tony campolo is coming

last night we met w/other church leaders to plan a multi-ethnic & multi-denominational worship service that will take place at our church this coming may. i was thrilled to hear that tony campolo will be the guest speaker. ever since i was a teenager, tony campolo has been one of my favorite Christian communicators. it's going to be awesome to meet him & to see him at our church.

this whole week we have special morning worship services, in which our senior pastor is giving all the sermons. it's been hard getting up for the 5:30am service every day. but God has been blessing us w/record-setting warm temperatures. i think it hit 70 degrees a few days ago. the turnout has been great; every morning there has been about 300 people.

strange car accident

yesterday i was driving back to church after lunch. my car (the subaru) was full w/four of our church staff. we were on highway 80 & it was really windy. the car in front of us ran over what looked like a huge piece of cardboard, which was kicked up into the air & landed right onto my windshield. whatever it was that hit us was very heavy & very hard. it cracked the whole front windshield & glass fragments were all over us in the front seat. but luckily the cracked windshield held up & did not cave in on us. later one of the pastors who was sitting in the back said that the sound was so loud that he thought it was a gunshot. when i got out of the car to see the damage, it was even worse than i expected. the front bumper was smashed, one of the lights was hanging by its wires, the hood was dented, even the roof was dented, & the top of the trunk was scratched up. everyone kept saying that we were lucky that no one died. we are lucky that no one got hurt. it was our senior pastor who was sitting in the passenger seat. i really do believe that God protected us. as i saw the accident happening i kept saying to myself, "don't swerve & don't jam the brakes". obviously that would have caused an even bigger accident.

when i called 911 to ask them to clear the highway, they had the state police call me back. both 911 & the state police kept referring to that large & heavy-filled piece of cardboard as "debris". how can they call it "debris" when i explained that it was half the size of my car. anyways i'm obviously bummed that my car is smashed up for no reason. but i am grateful that no one got hurt. it's strange when things like this happen, you can never settle on a good explanation of why.

warning: when it's windy, be careful of large flying pieces of "debris"

on a serious note, it is sad that people die every winter from pieces of of ice flying off of cars on the highway.

it's already 2008

on Christmas day, Gideon was baptized along w/15 other infants at our church. i can't believe that he is already 7 months old. at the Christmas service, i prayed in korean & english. suhee helped me translate the prayer into korean & i practiced it for the service. after i prayed, our senior pastor made me laugh because he said that my prayer reminded him of the american missionaries who went to korea & tried to speak in korean.

after Christmas, i had the chance to speak for a youth retreat (joongbu church in ny). in the summer of 2001 i spoke for their high school retreat. that was 6.5 years ago. some of the retreat counselors remembered me from the summer of 2001, back when they were in high school. it was very meaningful for me to do this retreat again after so many years. & it was at the same retreat center (america's keswick). deja vu. it made me reflect on the last 6.5 years of my life, & how much i have changed.

yesterday we took suhee's sister & cousin & cousin's son into the city. we did some of the typical touristy things (fao schwarz, top of the rock, katz deli, soho). it was awesome because i was able to find free parking on the street all day. top of the rock was pretty nice; i can see why people say it's better than going up the empire state building. we also got to meet an old friend, daniel yu. he lost about 30lbs since we last saw him & he was looking a lot more stylish. & we got to meet his girlfriend. crazy world. but it was really good to see him. then i got reminiscent w/him talking about how i met him 6 years ago in korea, & how much our lives have changed since then.