pinakidion.*

She had made me an album about our relationship some time ago. It had pictures of her as a child, our first date, our date in Chiacgo, a bunch of things like that. At the time, it had very little about me because she didn’t have access to pictures of me. So, I filled in the gaps. The last page was a page with a big heart and a velvet bag. A string was tied to the ring inside the bag. When she asked about the string, I asked her to pull it.

She said “yes”. She doesn’t remember exactly what I said after she saw the ring. I did too, actually.

I started looking at xfe today. In my quest to build a simple linux distro, this looks like an attractive file manager so far.

More later this weekend.

I promise that no smurfs(R) were slandered or otherwise harmed in the cogitation and writing of this article.

An interesting article that talks about media fragmentation made me think about a few things; before moving on, reread the article and substitute the word ICC for the word linux.

My thoughts in no particular order:

1. Every former ICC seems to be a part of one conference or another over the past few months.
2. Although news sources are no longer controlled, we may or may not choose to go outside official news sources. This pertains to the Ex-ICC folks as well.
3. Those that consider themselves progressive may also engage in this willful ignorance.

Mutual Appreciation Societies
We love to hear the news that a bunch of churches got together and wonder of wonders, there was no open fighting or shouting of people off the stage. I’m not being totally cynical here, I like to hear that folks are meeting together. The past three that I’ve looked at had reasonable costs and two of them provided their messages for free over the internet. It didn’t cost me any money to keep in touch with what different folks are doing in the former ICC congregations. As someone that is very interested in what others are doing, this was a welcome change from previous years. I’m looking for ideas and being able to access what others are saying goes a long way to help smaller congregations like mine that can’t go to all these places. Some messages were quite enjoyable and I have kept them.

It’s not that Doug said it, but I do not hear as many ‘great things’ from these conferences as reported by others. I hear the messages and pick up a few common points:

• We survived 2003! (t-shirts available at the book table)
• We’re still here.
• God still loves you.
• Let’s be nice to each other.
• Some intense exposition of a book of the Bible.
• I feel restored again.

An exception to this was the message Steve Staten delivered about so-called-discipling. I say exception, because I am more interested in what we can change going forward. These types of messages are rare these days. I guess that’s why I look forward to the conference in Chicago. (I am hoping that the missions discussions will lead folks to attend a conference right here in Nebraska.) I look forward to the groups where we can compare notes and really create change instead of theorize.

However, it would seem that the present is filled with a lot of reassurance that ‘we’ are doing well and really short on actual change. It continues to amaze me that with all the radical(tm) change demanded in the past, that gradual change has become the ‘biblical’ norm. Actually, I suspect that leaders in other chruches are waiting for permission to make some changes and they are waiting for the Chicago conference to get it. I can relate to this feeling, I’ve done it in my own life. However, that doesn’t make it any more acceptable. I wept bitterly when I realized that the only reason I hadn’t proposed to Laryssa was that I was waiting for someone to give me permission. I get upset now that little seems to change despite all kinds of letters, sermons, speeches, conferences and the like. In addition, it’s really frustrating that it wasn’t vogue to talk about it until a big church had a conference about it. Thank goodness Chicago did something, but good grief, doesn’t anyone in this joint have a mind of their own? Isn’t there someone unafraid to stick out or are we all doomed to repeat the groupthink mentality we are trying to escape from? It reminds me of a Japanese proverb that says, “The nail that sticks out is the one that is hammered.” I prefer to think of this saying:

Good will come to him who is generous and lends freely,
who conducts his affairs with justice.
Surely he will never be shaken;
a righteous man will be remembered forever.
He will have no fear of bad news;
his heart is steadfast, trusting in the LORD .
His heart is secure, he will have no fear;
in the end he will look in triumph on his foes.
He has scattered abroad his gifts to the poor,
his righteousness endures forever;
his horn will be lifted high in honor.

– Psalm 112:5-8

All the News That’s Fit to Print

I remember when KNN Reloaded first appeared, the following statement was made

Our focus going forward will be to provide a faithful perspective of kingdom events — both good and bad. We also see a great need for more teaching from more sources than has been previously available.

The good news is that new folks like Joseph Dubowski have a teaching article. It’s also good that needs in Haiti and other places are also being shared. However, there still isn’t really any bad news. I’m not a sadist that delights in bad news or being sorrowful, but there are things going on with serious reprocussions that no one is talking about. Mo Adame publicly implied that he was fired for speaking in Portland (and Thomas repeated it on his website). A former member is pursuing legal action against the Nashville church for fraud. At least one small church is about to close its doors, but there are probably more. This isn’t an attempt to live a soap opera lifestyle, but these are examples of larger issues that still need to be addressed:

There is still an “US vs. THEM” mentality within our churches.
There is still large-scale mistrust in regards to financial issues.
Small churches have big problems, too.

Instead we talk about ‘getting back to missions’ as if that’s the only issue worth talking about. Many of us still talk and behave as if our sole purpose is to seek and save the lost. That’s why my church talks about our six purposes instead of the one. There is more to Christianity than evangelism. (Over all issues is the bond of love. Love is what is most important, not our so-called purpose.) When will we talk about what’s really going on?

On the other side of the coin, we have the ICCDF folks. When asked the question, are there any healthy ICC congregations, the answers were typical. I’m certain that there’s at least one, but who in their right mind is going to say so? I’m tempted to do an experiment by saying that mine is healthy. I expect it to go something like this:

Me: My church isn’t perfect, but I think we’re becoming more healthy, especially in teaching the Bible and focusing on a set of balanced purposes instead of one. Members can share anything and are continually encouraged to do so.

EX1: Did they give you a full financial report and disclose all staff salaries? I bet they didn’t. Heh, some healthy place. No thanks.

EX2: They said that in my former church, but it turned out to be nothing. I bet it’s nothing where you are, too. All ICC people are the same. Nothing ever changes. Ho hum.

EX3: You have a link to Kip’s church on your website. I bet you and your church are still affiliated with him. You signed that agreement, so you are still LEGALLY bound to him. Who are you trying to fool?

EX4: I know you well enough to know you are being sincere. However, I don’t think you know the whole story. Have you really talked to the leaders? Have you asked about the money, the lies, the control? How many in your church are waiting for Kip to call out a remnant? How many of them are leaders? I don’t think you know the whole story, so as much as I want to believe you, I’m afraid that you are misinformed.

EX5: [Quote of Micah 7, the entire chapter, preceding comment] All the powers that are continue to consolidate and gather power. No ICC church can be healthy because God is trying them at the very root. You should get out while you still can. (much more exposition of Micah 7 follows).

EX6: That sounds like a good start, but that’s not even scratching the surface.

It’s not that I can blame anyone for being skeptical, but the issue is still the same. There is only one acceptable viewpoint. In the ICC crowd, the only accepted view is “We are hurt, but healing. Negativity will destroy us, so focus on the positive and get on-board.” With the ICCDF crowd, the only accepted view is “The ICC is inherently evil. It will never change. It is of Satan and should be utterly destroyed.” There is no room for reasoned discourse on either side. There is no large variance of opinion. There is nothing below the surface of the shallow-reasones, knee-jerk pat answers and opinions. I don’t care if I am wrong, but I do care that so few really think on their own. Even the ICCDF has its own groupthink now.

The Sadducees
The Sadducees provided a sharp contrast ot the Pharisees. Whereas the Pharisees believed in only obeying the books of Moses and were conservative about many things, the Sadducees were quite liberal. So liberal, in fact, that they didn’t believe in the resurrection.

Reading a review of Turbolinux 10F Desktop, I picked up on the comment that “much of it is already out of date”.

Out of Date? Let’s take a look

Kernel 2.6.0-7 : Oct 8, 2003
Xfree86 4.3.0 : Feb 26, 2003 (Used by many due to license changes in 4.4)
glibc 2.3.2 : March 20, 2003 (latest stable release)
gcc 3.3.1 : August 8, 2003
KDE 3.1.5 : Jan 14, 2004
Gnome 2.4 : (can you say ‘non-spatial mode’? I knew you could.)
OpenOffice.org 1.1 : October 1, 2003
CyberLink PowerDVD for Linux : November 30, 2003? (5.0 for Windows release date)
Real Player 8 : (Helix Player is pretty new)
Apple iPod support : ( gtkpod - four releases since October 2003)

It seems that anything 9 or 10 months old is outdated. Granted, OpenOffice 1.1.2 has fixed some annoyances in 1.1.0 and the Helix Player seems to work better than the old Real 8 player. That’s not the point, though. The point is that if a given piece of software works well and suits its purpose, there is no need for the newest version. In fact, Andrew Morton has said that

… he did not believe that Linux would ever necessarily change to a 3.0 kernel. As the project moves forward, the need for major changes decreases, and thus the need to change the major version number from 2 to 3 drops.

Here at work, over half our computers are still on Windows 95. Yes, Windows 95. In fact, there’s still a lot of computers worldwide still running Windows 95. We still have it because it doesn’t cost anything upfront and it still works. (Personally, if I ever get Gnome to work the way I want it, I never plan on upgrading it to 2.8, unless there’s a major change. Even then, I’ll wait a few months for the bugs to get worked out.) Its true that we don’t have much money, but Win 95 really does still work. In fact, some of the software that teachers use will not work on anything else. The companies that made this software either no longer make it, or have never bothered to update it.

In short, I resent this American attitude that everything is disposable. Old versions of software? toss ‘em, the new version will have bugfixes and other blah, blah, blah. The question is whether or not it serves its function, not how new is it? I figure that if a sysadmin strives to automate as much of his/her job as possible, then an end-users’ goal to simplify their computing life is equivalent. End-users don’t care about new features because using a computer is not their number one joy in life. They use a computer to perform a task. If the software doesn’t accomplish the task, then get rid of it. If it does accomplish the task, then leave it alone and let it work.

All that said, I still believe in the need for innovation. When Gimp 2.0 came along, I was one of the first in line. I loved 1.1, but had a hard time with it. Once 2.0 rolled out, I use it all the time. (Install the Background Window plug-in and you’re all set.) However, I really don’t see anything amazingly revolutionary between KDE 3.1.5 and 3.2.3. I still use OpenOffice 1.0 on my Win95 machine at work. It works. It’s great. It allows me to do my job and write my long-winded essays about God, country, and the linux kernel universal.

What about Turbolinux 10F? The reviewer was right on with the sloppiness of the menu layout. He was also right about installation being more bothersome than it was worth. Even Fedora Core 3 - test doesn’t have as many issues. TurboLinux 10F just isn’t thought out at all and that’s a shame. The DVD software alone is worth the price.

Apparently, HOPE Worldwide has been able to send thousands of metric tons of Non-Fat Dry Milk to Nigeria and the Philippines. Now, I’ve sent frieght to Nigeria before. It was about one metric ton of books. I even got a letter from Mike Talliferro of thanks.

According to their bill, they sent it for about $179 per metric ton, so the particular bill in the link cost $77,686. Assuming the same rate for the total orders for 2003, they would have spent $304,300 over the course of 2003. I don’t know the rate for the Phillipines, at $179 a ton, it would be $358,000. Not a bad deal, really. The governemt buys a bunch of milk to keep the cost low, and then you can buy it for free to donate overseas. Not just HOPE, but a lot of folks did it, including the Catholic Church in 2002 (Baltimore Diocese). The World Food Program, Project Concern International, and Food for the Poor also shipped milk in 2003. (Side note, you should look at Food for the Poor’s 990 Forms. They handle 10 times as much money and materials, they only have 30 guys making over 50,000, but their top 5 get paid about 20% more. Amazing.)

Why do I mention this at all? Sometimes, food does go to folks from HOPE. Do I still have issues? Yup. But I also want to be fair. If they do something good, I want to demonstrate it. Now this doesn’t show up on the 2003 itemized list of things they did for Nigeria that I could find, but hey, milk got sent overseas.

Now, there’s other links that raise eyebrows, but that’s more from the source than HOPE Worldwide employees. I would think it a bit unfair to carry the headline “HOPE declares Taliban good people.”

Anywho, all for now.

DRAFT ONE - NOT FINISHED
This may be the last time I write anything on Thomas. Most of it has to do with the fact that I am not as interested in his doings anymore. I have too many other things to do. The amount of energy that I could spend writing other things might actually get me closer to finishing a novel, or at least a set of stories. I hope to be married this year. There’s the whole teaching ministry at my church that I want to work on as well. Broadening a bit, there’s always Jazz on the Green, Shakespeare, and a host of other things going on. In short, there’s more to life than ‘a man and his website’(tm) and I want to enjoy my life outside of my present and/or former church affiliation. Another main reason to avoid the topic is that it is becoming too painful to watch. It’s an unraveling and it is not pretty. No matter how much I may not like the things a person does, I don’t delight in the disintegration of a person’s mind or soul. I used to be scared of this man an his influence. Now, I am trying to get off the sick rollercoaster of his destruction. So, this may be the last one for me on this topic.

Folks have been talking to Thomas for a while. I know because his writings are almost always in defense. Many of them quote the writings of Douglas Jacoby or Gordon Ferguson. Recently, he has been responding to messages that we aren’t seeing. Otherwise, he wouldn’t say:

It has become necessary to write one more essay in the series, The Mandate of God for World Evangelism.

or

It is very concerning when leaders are in error because they do not know the Scriptures or the power of God.

I expected the latter message to come eventually, but the former was a bit surprising. The need to write chapter 9 of this saga had to be prompted by something, and I believe it is contact with other so-called leaders of the ICC. He mentioned meeting with folks from Chicago in a sermon on July 4. I also know that Sam Laing has spoken to him as well. I’m sure that Al Baird and Roger Lamb have spoken to him as well, but outside of that would be a guess. I feel like he is responding to things said to him by these and other folks. He has already stated that he feels betrayed by the former WSLs, and I imagine he is now feeling betrayed by those he considered friends once upon a time.

I can tell you from personal experience that being left alone by those you considered friends is like having a frayed sweater. It erodes slowly at first, but then falls apart in large pieces. Something that is not pretty is going on, because he is now grasping for things. Consider this statement:

This indirectly was Jesus’ explicit command to the faithful eleven, “Go to all the nations and baptize them!” Inferred, the apostles were to accomplish this task through the multiplication of disciples in their lifetime.

Indirectly explicitly commanded by an inference.

I saw that the ABSCAM article is missing a large part of it. I wrote it on the spot, so there is no backup copy to work from. I’ll work on correcting it.

For now, here’s the link to ABSCAM letters. Notice how there are supporters of the defendants, supporters of the investigating agents, calls for deeper investigation, and calls for agents to work on “something more important”. There are even a few people that were torn between the truth of the investigation and the damage it caused to people’s faith in government.

In my quest for good analogies to describe what has happened in my life, these series of letters provided another opportunity to make comparisons. Some defend the major leaders, some cheer on Henry and others, and there are calls for more investigations (just look at the IRS threads and Jack Pelham’s efforts). Some people want to ‘move on’ and others still don’t know exactly what to think, they just want to trust in leaders again at some point.

I’ll post the rest soon.

It’s been 553 days. At this point you can usually tell whether or not something is going to happen. Take the Segeway, for example; the first one was delivered on March 3, 2003, a scant 29 days afters Henry’s letter.

A more parallel event, though, also occured on Feb 2, but it happened 23 years earlier. On Feb 2, 1980, the FBI released details of ABSCAM, an effort to uncover corruption in Congress. More than a few congressman were expelled or resigned. One was even videotaped stuffing 25,000 dollars in his pockets. (This congressman is the only one to overturn his conviction).

Shortly after the release of the ABSCAM documents, the FBI received quite a few letters expressing every imaginable reaction.

Here’s one:

Dear Director (William Webster):

Just a note to let you know that the FBI’s Abscam efforts are appreciated by the general public. These tactics should be used again with Members of Congress, the Executive Branch, and the Courts. Moreover, they should be extended to other levels of government and to private sector activities where appropriate.

I have no sympathy whatsoever for those Congressmen who have been implicated, although it is unfortunate that the information was released as soon as it was. I am very disappointed in the actions of the House Judicary Committee in its criticism of the FBI’s efforts in this area.

Keep up the good work.

My favorite is this one:

Dear Sir:

My friends, associates, and relatives seem to be quite concerned over the recent revelations of the ABSCAM scandal involving various members of Congress being compromised through bribery. Since I have been out of town for the past several months while this scandal was being hatched, would you kindly bring me up to date as to which members of Congress are involved and details thereof. (sic)

Of course, there were supporters of the eventually convicted men: (This is reproduced verbatim. The grammar difficulities belong to the author. I have enough of my own to contend with to take credit for someone elses.)

Gentlemen

Following story seems logical and possibly true however, the names were not changed in order to protect the innocent.
It’s not hard to visualize how Abscam started, one day a top FBI executive, dedicated to his job, came to work one morning and saw a few crime investigators (CI’s) loafing around on tax dollars and he asked, “Don’t you have anything to do?” and the CI’s replied “No”, and as quick as the crack of a whip the top executive said “Well then find something.”, so the CI’s saw there was plenty of money in the budget and decided they would try to entrap and rot a few shiny-apple-congressmen take bad money (and of course, who is to say they didn’t get a little for themselves).

To make a long story short:

The Abscam deal leaked out and one of the shining-apple-congressmen (Richard Kelly) had a really crazy excuse for why he went along with Abscam. He said, “I was doing my own investigation…”

He (a congressman of our great nation) wanted to find out who was behind such a criminal offense to our great country.

Well, if you do not know Richard Kelly you would probably think he was crazed and out of his mind, but if you know Richard Kelly you would know he is about the only congressman that still believes in “the impossible dream”, that he takes care of his people (Floridians), that he means what he says, and says what he means (it’s a wonder Chrysler didn’t have him bumped off).

Certainly doesn’t seem fair that Abscam didn’t last a little longer so congressman Kelly could complete his investigation and indict the FBI for bribing congressmen.

I can hear the FBI’s reply to the indictment now… “We were doing our own investigation….”

My friend and I have taken the first step into going into business. Yes, we want to make computers, but a very niche computer useful at rental condos. If you spend $4000 on a week vacation, someone is going to want to surf the net at some point.

We’ve scoped out a lot of things, but like I said, this is only the first step.

We have purchased www.clerry.com. My Dad is working on marketing materials and the prototype should be due in September. I’ll keep you posted.

In short, this computer is going to perform five basic functions well. Everything else will come later.

Loking back, it strikes me as funny that a church that stressed so much about relationships produced such weird ones between members of the opposite sex. We had to go out on dates every week, so you could hardly just walk up to a woman and say ‘hey’ without her expecting to be asked on a date. Of course, she wasn’t allowed to say ‘no’, if you were asking her on a date, so sometimes you could never talk to some female members at all. In my old church, going dutch to anything was not illegal, but frowned upon. This brought up endless lectures about how to go on a date with little or no money. I think I swung on every swing-set in Raleigh, Carrboro, Chapel Hill, Durham, and even Bahama over the course of six summers. Aside from the rules, though, there was this need for permission. Until recently, I thought I was free from needing permission from anyone to live my life.

DRAFT 2 - Much less tired and yes, I’ve had coffee -

When I think about a paradigm to discuss what my old church structure, I look for a lot of different things. The UBF is quite parallel, but not necessarily accessible. After all, not everyone has had any experience with abusive church cultures. Some have made the comparison with abusive parents, but that is not quite correct. Children fear abusive parents, they do not fight with their brothers and sisters to fawn over them. Some have made a comparison to medieval court behavior where the nobilty fawn over each other and their king. This is a closer comparison because those in power usually had money and privilege. There’s more to that, but it doesn’t quite cover the unspoken law of conformity. In the old church system, all members were expected to conform to some unstated standard, usually the personality and energy of the evangelist. Then Thursday night, it occured to me that the most accessible analogy is the culture of being a smurf.

Consider the smurf village: everyone looks the same and wears the same things except Papa Smurf, Smurfette, and Baby. Everyone else is given a standard issue a white smurfy hat, a white smurfy pair of pants, and sometimes an extra-smurfy white shirt of some kind. (Painter Smurf got an exception to wear a red vest. Since Papa Smurf also wears red, conspiracy theories abound as to the possible connection.) In short, there is little diversity. However, not everyone is entirely the same. They are usually classified according to their talent and named for their talent. There’s Handy that builds things, Hefty that is strong, Farmer that grows food, etc. Some are named for their passion despite the fact that their passion is not the same as their talent. Consider Harmony Smurf who loves instruments despite the fact that he can’t play any of them. Others are named for their faults and are expected to do nothing but become worse. Clumsy Smurf is well-loved, but everyone demands his help in physical tasks when he obviously has a problem. Lazy Smurf sleeps constantly and Grouchy Smurf, in general, doesn’t want to be as smurfy as everyone else. Taking all of smurf village as a whole one thing is clear, everyone has a clearly defined role and they do not deviate from it.

The undisputed leader is Papa Smurf. He is obeyed almost without question. He is presumed to not make any mistakes and he is generally serious. However, he’s not a bad guy, he loves babies and children, he always talks about his care and concern for ‘his little smurflings’. He does a lot of work to take care of their needs. He has even been known to chuckle from time to time. However, he has a frequent need to go speak to other powerful wizards all over the world, or to go on some personal quest. To that end, in all his wisdom, he always leaves Brainy Smurf in charge when he’s gone. Everyone hates Brainy Smurf, because he is going to spend the entire time talking about how great he is and saying “Papa Smurf ALWAYS says….” and generally meddling in everyone’s lives.

Brainy loves to tell people how important he is and looks for every opportunity to demonstrate that. His only true friend is Clumsy who he is constantly trying to reform. For some reason, Papa Smurf always puts Brainy in charge. When things invariably go wrong, he chides the rest of the smurfs when it is really Brainy’s fault. Brainy escapes with a mild admonition to be more smurfy and then Papa Smurf expounds on his vision of true smurfiness. In the end, nothing ever changes and Smurf Village goes back to normal. It’s always the heirarachy of Papa Smurf - Brainy Smurf - Smurfette - everyone else.

Consider the critic, Grouchy Smurf. When everyone is happily playing ’smurfball’, he hates smurfball. When everyone is working on the smurfberry festival, he hates festivals. More importantly, when Brainy Smurf opines, he hates Briany Smurf’s Wise Sayings(TM). He doesn’t hate Papa Smurf, but he’s not really fond of anyone or anything except Baby. For that reason, I tend to think of Grouchy as the only sane member of this strange group, but he goes along with everything because he doesn’t know where else to go. I mean, he hates smurf hats, but sitll wears one. In some ways, I would consider myself a Grouchy Smurf.

Aside from their culture, they had their own lingo. ‘Smurf’ as a word could fulfil almost every part of speech (except a conjunction). In any given conversation, this all purpose word could be substituted for any other word. The meaning would be derived by context only. ‘Smurfy’ was a subjective standard for model behavior. Every smurf wanted to be smurfy. (Oceania has always been at war with East Asia.) It was the goal of every smurf to be as smurfy as possible, even if no one really knew what that meant. In practice, it meant to be happy, sing the theme song, love Papa Smurf, and be like everyone else.

Don’t get me wrong, I loved the show as a child and I still like it. The whole purpose of this is to provide a metaphor for life in the church. Enough has been said about the Smurf Village, let’s move on to some practical examples. The following three incidents occurred throughout my life in the church. First, it will be presented in English, and then in Smurfese. Anyone that has been a part of the church should recognize the smurfese fairly quickly. Forgive me if relaying these incidents creates triggers for you:

In English: Leader says that coffeehouses are not good places to hang out because of their atmosphere. I disagree.
“Bro,” someone would say to me, “that wasn’t very humble.”
“Really?” I said mock-aghast, “All I said was that I didn’t agree with him about coffee-shops being a sinful place to hangout.”
“The Bible says that we should make a leader’s job a joy. I don’t see how arguing with him accomplishes that. Just don’t go to coffeehouses.“

In Smurfese
“Hey Smurf, that wasn’t very smurfy.”
“All I said was that coffee-shops are a very smurfy place to smurf.”
“But Papa Smurf always says to make your leaders job a joy. I love Papa Smurf. The leader says that coffe-shops aren’t smurfy, so I won’t go.“

I hate Wimpy Smurf.

In English: Leader comments about complaints about too many meetings.
“Okay guys,” weekly meeting speaker would say, “I’ve noticed that there’s a lot of attitude around here. You know, we freed-up your Sunday afternoons - the Sabbath is a day of rest, Amen? - but there is a lot of complaining about time going on. Frankly, your attitude is stinking up the joint and it needs to stop. Paul talked about how he OFTEN went without sleep and here we complain about seeing each other too much. Don’t you know that it is an AWESOME thing to spend time with each other?”

In Smurfese
“Okay smurfs, Papa Smurf says there’s a lot of unsmurfiness around here. You know, He gave you the afternoon off from the Smurfberry picking- but there is a lot of unsmurfiness going on. Like Papa Smurf ALWAYS says, ‘to err is human, to smurf, divine’. Isn’t it great to be smurfs and to be smurfy with each other?”

I hate Fired Up Smurf.

In English: Leader rebukes group for lack of baptisms or visitors. Declares Unilateral Fasting Day.
“We should be so ASHAMED about our STINKIN’ SIN!!!! Like Achan, it is running through the camp. We have become LAZY! We are sitting around the HOUSE instead of outside meeting people! Primetime is from 7 to 9 pm AND NO ONE IS ALLOWED TO BE HOME AT THAT TIME UNLESS I SAY SO!!!! WE DID THIS TO GOD and OURSELVES. Let’s repent! Let’s GET OUT THERE!!! Let’s BE TRUE DISCIPLES(HTDM!)!!!! In order to get us started on the right foot, we are going to fast starting RIGHT NOW!”

In Smurfese
“You should be ashamed about how UNSMURFY you smurfs are right now. The Smurfberry Festival is in two days and NOTHING HAS BEEN DONE. Well my little smurflings, we’re going to have to WORK THROUGH the NIGHT. Now, now, I don’t want to hear any complaining. You did this to yourselves and you’re going to have to work your way out of it. No special smurfberry surprise until we are done.”

I hate Radical Smurf.

Being smurfy had something to do with the five tenets of discipleship: good attitude, humility, heart, obedience, and hating sin. If someone wanted to preach a good sermon, the only requirement was a message on one of these five topics. These sermons were always awesome(htdm) or convicting(htdm). Though the principles were always mutable and changing, but these sermons were perceived as getting back to the basics. Specifically, we were always trying to be good disciples(htdm). Since everyday discipleship was vague, when someone preached about these five basic tenets, we heard it as a fundamental building block. Depending on the whim of the speaker that day, everyday discipleship could mean things like not watching the news at all, or watching two hours of it. Sometimes discipleship involved wearing trendy outfits (being sharp) and other times it was being thrifty. No wonder that members had trouble reconciling sometimes contradictary commands. Sometimes humility was being a doormat, sometimes is defining as confronting sin in others. The definition of sin, outside Gal 5, was always different from person to person. To some, it was a sin to go to any R rated movie, others struggled with PG-13 movies, still others saw any movie they watned. To some, beer was a sin, but wine wasn’t. To others, all alcohol was a sin. Even more telling, some smoked cigars once a month(cigar club) or on special occasions while telling others that smoking was a sin. If nothing else, the ‘group’ always had an attitude of one kind or another. The attitude was usually linked to not totally obeying your leaders.

Above all, there was this unstated expectation that you were always happy, or least you should be. I’ve heard it said that it was a sin to be sad. I’ve lived the experience of only being allowed to express so-called positive emotions and it is not healthy. Ever wonder why we had a backlash in large churches? We weren’t allowed to feel anything, even if we were allowed to do everything. Now that it is okay to feel hurt and angry, the old paradigm of ‘be happy or else’ doesn’t make the pain go away. Sometimes it seems as if some just sing the Smurf Theme aloud hoping to force the bad feelings out. I’m sure that the leader of a large church would love to see hundreds of happy, smiling faces again.

In any case, consider what would happen if a smurf was able to live outside his defined role. There was an episode where Clumsy was ‘cured’. It destroyed the social fabric of Smurf Village, so he went back to being clumsy to ’save’ the village. It’s amazing how uncomfortable change can be, even if it is for the better. In the midst of so much change, it’s no wonder that there is a desire to go back to the old peace we once shared. I miss being in a group of thousands singing happy songs to God. I want peace and I pray for it to happen in my lifetime. However, I have no interest in becoming broken again for the sake of the social fabric of old church. It’s too easy to simply be quiet and sing happy songs like nothing happened.

That’s what being a part of this church had been like for me for so many years. If it’s not a useful analogy, then throw it out. For the record, though, I have to say:

I hate Papa Smurf.

It had been so good coming back to Jerusalem 3 weeks ago, after being away for 3 weeks. I missed home so much. There is something about this country, that though it has some violence, and though it is economically struggling, and the driving in it can be too crazy ;). I can’t find myself to want to live in other place. There is something about this place that God had chosen to be the Promised Land. Something pulls me to it and makes me love it through all its craziness.

My trip to NY and LA was so great. I am so grateful to the disciples and churches I met over there. I have received so much of encouragement and love; I was overwhelmed by the Love. I was so honored to preach in NY and LA to different regions. I preached about
the spiritual war we all have in our lives. Ephesians 6:10—–
We all live in spiritual war. I found that it is easier to see the spiritual war for my life in Jerusalem and Bethlehem than in the USA. The reason is that Satan uses the blessings of God to tempt us. I said that I see people that fight comfort and easy living to become Christians as my hero’s in faith, it is in some ways harder than living poor and being persecuted openly by others. You know it is Satan when others persecute you. But it is harder to see how Satan uses comfort and materialism to persecute the Christians. I struggled with things such as play station and cable TV. I don’t have these things back home. I saw my heart pursuing comfort instead of reading
my Bible. It is not easy to fight that.

After that I went to Turkey for the Middle East Leaders Conference. I always long patiently to meet the disciples from the Middle East. With some of them I can’t even be in touch, and I look forward to know their news and fellowship with them. We had a great time of encouraging and helping one another. There were great teaching classes on marriage relationships, on counseling, on raising kids, and on purity; and yes being there as a single was a bit weird for me;), I had to remind myself of Jesus and Paul being singles. It was so good to learn and bring back these lessons to Jerusalem and Bethlehem.

As for the Churches here,

The Bethlehem Church is doing great as different people keep studying the Bible there, and as the members are maturing in their relationship with God. Last Wednesday we had a celebration as Farah (his name means JOY) made his decision to become a disciple. Farah is 20 years old
studying Laboratory Medicine. He came for the first time about 5 months ago. He said he was just waiting for someone to direct him to God and to help him understand Christianity. PLEASE KEEP PRAYING FOR THE MISSION HERE.

2 weeks ago Bernard from Jerusalem asked Chaika from Tel Aviv to marry him. It is so awesome to see how people that are originally from completely different countries, can meet and get married here, even though the church is only relatively small.

As for Jerusalem, we are passing through some hard times right now. The Church had lost many people that moved out in the last 2 years. The start of Bethlehem was encouraging but left a hole that is hard to fill as many disciples lost their best friends through these transitions. This month we had one more person moving out to England although Greg is seriously considering coming back in September. This makes the Church really feel down. In the same time though we still
try to keep our focus right and our faith in the unseen instead of building it on what is seen. Right now there are only 8 disciples in Jerusalem and 12 disciples in Bethlehem.

I would like to issue an open invitation to the disciples around the world to consider visiting the Church here. It will be so encouraging for us. And for those that have more time, we hope to have next summer from the 20th of June to the 15th of August a mission group that would be willing to come and help the Church here in evangelism, hope work, and maturing. More information will come in future news-letters. Or email us at info@jerusalemchurchofchrist.org
If you are a Jewish disciple we definitely invite you to move to here as the government right now does a lot of programs to encourage Jews to move to Israel. This includes the possibility of free access to the Hebrew University for 3 years. The Hebrew University is one of the best schools in the Middle East and well respected in the world.

But first and foremost we ask for your support through prayers.

If you want to receive updates about Jerusalem Church, email us at info@jerusalemchurchofchrist.org

Jerusalem Church of Christ
Israel Jerusalem Po Box 989 Central Post Office
23 Jaffa St, zip code 91000
972547472355

You know, if you haven’t seen the movie, then DO NOT READ FURTHER.

In the last scene, MJ says something that Laryssa has said to me before, “Isn’t it time that somebody saves you?”

Yes it is.

I only wish that she would go see this movie with me.

Good night true believers. Excelsior!

Sun-Tzu has said:

The general who is skilled in defense hides in the most secret recesses of the earth;
he who is skilled in attack flashes forth from the topmost heights of heaven.
Thus on the one hand we have ability to protect ourselves;
on the other, a victory that is complete.

It is no secret that a Christian faces battles in everyday life. Like my friend has commented, there are times when I have chosen to not fight at all, call in sick for two days and never leave my room; being a passionate person has its ups and downs. I know that my enemy is not flesh and blood, so please don’t mistake this as a “me vs. Thomas” line of thought. The enemy is within. James 1:13-16 explains the procession from temptation to desire to sin. For me, the temptation is to abandon myself to my emotions and withdraw from everything.

In short, what is a more secret recess than an obscure greek word domain name? On the other, how easy is it to fight when I can access this website from almost anywhere in the world? It’s true that I write on this site to talk about church issues and other things. I hope that I can keep an accurate record and maybe even encourage some along the way. I also hope to have a little fun, especially because I like the fantasy genre, and more specifically, role-playing games. However, I also write on this site to protect myself and to claim victory.

Is it vanity? I don’t know. How vain is it to have myname.com and post a lot of things that you write? Seriously, though, I do enjoy writing and I’m glad to have a place to do it. I

I don’t have dreams of building a killer Linux box…

Ok, I do, but who can afford to build the Operton AMD 64 with 2GB of memory and an nVidia whatever max card they put out this week and Slack 10 and an actual working version of Wine…

I figured in the meantime, I could make a little side cash by building simple systems to perform simple functions. A basic PC that allows you to check email, surf the net, play CDs and DVDs, play a few games, and use Office type functions. I also wanted to add a restore button that makes fixing it very simple.

Interesting to say the least. I figure with a good install of Slack without any choices for office, or players, that it would be a pretty straightforward system to use. In other words:

Xine to play CDs and DVDs
OpenOfiice 1.1.2
Galeon (I’m mad at Firefox right now and Mozilla is way more than needed)
Calypso for email
Frozen Bubble and all kinds of games…

A tower can be built for about $200. a really small box can be built for about $425. Neither one of these includes a monitor, though.

Anywho, random thoughts today going through my head. I’m not disconnected from yesterday’s post at all, I wrote a private journal on some other things, but I’ll have something to say about all that later tonight.

‘Tis midnight and I cannot sleep. I’ve been an insomniac since I was a teenager. Sometimes its worse than others. Tonight, though, I should be okay in a little bit.

Just a follow up the this morning’s post, I can feel like that, but still act differently. It scares some I know that I can separate my emotions completely from what I’m doing - I think that’s what made me a good disciple(htdm) for so long. Believe me, Laryssa is helping me to stop doing that. For my own mental and spiritual health, I want to stop doing that. All it really does is buy me some time to function while I’m extremely stressed. You see, the cost of separating my feelings like that is that it manifests itself physically. Sometimes with severe acne, sometimes back pain, sinus headaches, always with no sleep. One time I even managed to jet my jaw stuck from grinding my teeth at night.

In short, I don’t feel anything lightly. My emotions have to come out. If I surpress it, it will manifest physically until I do. It’s actually one of the main reasons I started writing in the first place - my own emotional and mental health. Anyway, you’ll hear some sadness from time to time, thus I have a categories just for hurts. By writing it, I can deal with it much better and it doesn’t create physical side-effects.

Tonight’s message reminded me of why I stick around. I feel family at my church and I am willing to fight for it. We have a tremendous opportunity to undo so much, and it is already happening. Having deacons is scary, but I don’t think that the old leadership paradigm is anywhere in sight.

The day started this morning with a beautiful thunderstorm. Everytime there is a storm, I remember Mike Barnes. He used to say that thunderstorms made him think of “God walking around atop the clouds.” It reminded him of the tremendous power of God. To me, it’s not just because of the loud thunder, but also the restraint. Most storms produce a rainbow as a promise that the Lord of Heaven will not destroy the earth again by water. I imagine some day, that is not an easy promise to keep.

My thoughts are darker this morning: it’s a Romans 7 kind of day. I want to do what is right, but find myself doing everything else. I mention this first, because I’m sure that it impacts the rest of my thought process.

You ever have a day where you wake up and hope that the past season was all a dream and everything is going to be okay for this episode? For those that pay attention to the Magical PayneCo Phrase-O-Matic device (lovingly called Jabberwocky), this is called the Bobby Ewing Effect(tm).

It’s not the meeting I was a part of last night. That meeting actually encouraged me more than anything. It reassured me that I’m not crazy and that I’m not some raging libertine that is destroying orthodox christianity. Really, my minister and I are reading the same things about Thomas and have some of the same questions. I look forward to talking to him soon.

Seriously, though, today I wish that I would have woken up and I was never a part of the ICC and lived on the beach in my childhood home. I want to wake up on the beach and watch the waves for an hour. I want to have the relationships with my family that I may never have. I want to think about God and not think about church. For that matter, I don’t want to think about churches.

I’m tired. I get worn out with all these emotional gymnastics, but I decide everyday that I will feel something. I figure that if I stop feeling, I stop being human and I stop being a believer. Still, why won’t certain people just GO AWAY? But even if they do, there’s so much rebuilding that needs to be done that it could take 100 people 100 lifetimes to finish. On days like today, it feels like there aren’t 100 that what to try - maybe 10? maybe 5? maybe none? I won’t vent about specific things today mainly because more things than usual are getting to me. (For example, I still think Tony Stewart needs to be fined or something.)

Anywho, I began my time with God today crying that I don’t want to fight anymore. I feel so hopeless. I read from Thomas, or DisciplesToday or even Doug Jacoby and I just sigh. It’s like “why do I bother? I will never be happy to be associated with any of these people. There is just too much pain.”

Now Doug has been nothing but kind to me and helpful to my minister, so I know it’s not him. Roger and I have also exchanged kind words as well. I guess it’s a certain frame of reference that the three of us share that I react to. We share this bittersweet history and even in my own thoughts I just want to hear something different.

I used to love going to conferences, but now I dread the basic questions. The basic questions used to be:

“What church are you from?”
“How long have you been a disciple(htdm)?”
“Are you in campus or singles?”
“Wasn’t the last message awesome?”

Now the questions are:

“What church are you from?”
“How is your church doing?”
“How many left?”
“How many staff resigned or were fired?”
“How did you guys react to HKL?”
“What do you think about _ _ _ in Portland and what he’s doing?”

Of course, I want to ask the same questions, so I can’t complain.

I guess that I am sad today and just want to escape. I’ll be glad to see my friends tonight, especially my best friend, Laryssa. I’ll be glad to be home tonight and still. I won’t pray or read or think, these things just upset me. No, I will pretend the internet doesn’t exist and just be still. That will be nice.

The following is a message by Samuel Lee given at a UBF staff meeting in Chicago as a “New Year’s Address.” It includes a sweeping statement of condemnation of reformers as “rebels” wanting to destroy the glorious ministry of UBF, which is portrayed as the summit of God’s salvation ministry to the world. Most parenthetical remarks are added by the webmaster of ubf-info.de with a couple from me. You can visit UBF’s site at the webpage of their world headquarters Samuel Lee passed away in 2002.

Dr. Samuel Lee, UBF Director

February 2, 2001 New Year’s Address
YOU ARE A CHOSEN PEOPLE

Key Verse: 2:9

1 Peter 2:1-10

“But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light”

May the love of God be with you. May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. May the Holy Spirit, who works in our souls, work powerfully and be with you. At this national staff meeting I want to share with you what God is doing in America and around the world.

I. God’s plan for world salvation

After the Fall, God did not abandon his rebellious people. Out of his love, God wanted to make his people a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. This conception is clearly mentioned for the first time after the Exodus from captivity in Egypt. Exodus 19:3-7 says, “Then Moses went up to God, and the Lord called to him from the mountain and said, ‘This is what you are to say to the house of Jacob and what you are to tell the people of Israel: “You yourselves have seen what I did to Egypt, and how I carried you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself. Now if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations you will be my treasured possession. Although the whole earth is mine, you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.” These are the words you are to speak to the Israelites.’ So Moses went back and summoned the elders of the people and set before them all the words the Lord had commanded him to speak.”

After the Exodus, God said to his people, “You are a chosen people out of all nations. You will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.” Even though they had been a slave people for 430 years under the Egyptian Empire, God had faith in them that they were a chosen people and a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. In other words, these people would be the servants of God’s word for the world. This idea is more clearly revealed in 1 Peter 2:9. It says, “But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.” It was the time the early Christians were overjoyed by believing in the blood of Jesus. They thought they would be happy in this world forever. But suddenly, persecution from the Roman Empire came to them on the grounds that they did not worship Jupiter god. Another persecution came from their own people, that they did not keep Jewish tradition but taught Jesus’ death and resurrection. The Jewish persecution was indeed intensive. It was because if the Jews believed in the death and resurrection of Jesus, they had to become Christians, abandoning all their traditions and racial superiority. The Jews thought that only Jewish people were God’s chosen people. All other people were thought to be living animals or the Gentiles. So when the long-awaited Messiah came, their own people rejected him (Jn 1:11). If the Jews had believed in Jesus’ death and glorious resurrection, they would not have to shed the blood of Arabian people because of the territory of the Jerusalem Temple. But they did not believe Jesus’ death and resurrection. So they had to fight against Arabians for many centuries and shed much blood. In the future the same phenomena is going to be permanent.

The first Christians who accepted Jesus Christ for a short time were very happy in the grace of Jesus. But because of the persecution they had to scatter as strangers in that world throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia simply because they were Christians.

It was God’s purpose to scatter his people allover the world even though they had to suffer much. It was because God wanted them to be a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. In short, God wanted his people to be the Bible teachers of all peoples of all nations.

St. Peter did not say, “I am sorry for you that you lose your families and scatter all over the world.” But he said in 1 Peter 2:9, “…you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.” Under the leadership of St. Peter, the early Christians scattered allover the world of the time and preached the gospel. Some people accepted and many were persecuted and killed. After awhile, St. Peter and St. Paul came to Rome. At first, St. Paul was in a “house arrest” situation. So he invited immigrant Jews to Rome and made one-to-one Bible study appointments. A few people came. But most of them didn’t come. In the past and present, one-to-one Bible study is always difficult. But when Jewish immigrants didn’t come, Paul kept one-to-one Bible study with prison guards. Most of them accepted Jesus as their Savior.

In reality, God’s plan of world salvation started with Abraham. God looked around to find good Bible student candidates. But there were none. Finally God chose one man called Abram who was 75 years old, and whose wife was barren. God took care of him for 25 years through one-to-one Bible study. Finally Abram, a noble father, became Abraham, father of many nations. The same was true of Abraham’s wife Sarah.

When we study the Bible, the most distinctive character is God’s plan to raise his people as a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. Through Isaiah the prophet, he described a fantastic vision. Isaiah 2:3 says, “‘Come, let us go up to the mountain of the lord, to the house of the God of Jacob. He will teach us his ways, so that we may walk in his paths.’ The law will go out from Zion, the word of the lord from Jerusalem.” God’s fantastic vision had been realized after Jesus’ death and resurrection. The early Christians in the midst of severe persecutions scattered all around the world and preached the gospel. Some went to Rome and lived in the underground graveyard called the catacombs. They finally conquered the Roman Empire. It is indeed fantastic that the early Christians conquered the mightiest Roman Empire with the gospel of Jesus Christ.

II. The gospel of Jesus spread from Jerusalem to Rome

When we study world history, the gospel mainly spread to the Roman Empire. There was God’s precise plan. Paul wanted to evangelize Asian countries, where so many Satan worshipers were stomping and people were bound by the power of evil spirits. But God led Paul through the Macedonian’s calling Paul to go to European countries first (Ac 16:9). So St. Paul was sent from the Antioch church to Philippi. Later, by the help of a powerful woman, he was able to go to evangelize European countries and finally reached Rome. It was because God wanted to conquer the mightiest country, and through Roman roads he wanted to evangelize the whole world of the times.

Therefore we can say the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ came from Jerusalem first to Rome, next to England, and next to America. There were many people who bled for owning the land. But there were also many dedicated Christians who went to many countries as missionaries. According to the encyclopedia, the number of American missionaries to the world was one million all together. I know one missionary to Korea. He was invited to dinner by a Korean Christian family. He was treated with a boiled hen. The hen was boiled from its crest to the toenail. The missionary wanted to please the family. He ate some of the boiled hen. Then he went home and died of cultural shock.

The first generation of American missionaries to Korea was very exemplary. They taught how to pray in the early morning from 5:00 a.m. every morning at the church. On Sunday from 9:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. they stayed at the church and studied the Bible. From 11:00 a.m. to 12:00 noon they had a worship service. After lunch they visited sick and needy people and came back. Again they had a revival meeting with Bible study and came back home. That was a great joy to Koreans who were under the Japanese occupation. We in UBF are pretty much influenced and imitate their way of worshiping God.

III. The Korean Church

The Korean Church was started in Pyongyang, the capital city of North Korea. Pyongyang was known to the world as the Jerusalem of Asian countries. There were 600 church steeples. There were many who were martyred after not worshiping the Japanese Emperor. When the Korean Church was persecuted, it grew and grew. Three days before World War II was over, Japanese soldiers wanted to kill all the Christians in Korea. It was August 1945. But God had great mercy on Korean Christians and saved their lives from massacre. Now it is a different story. There was one Presbyterian Church. But it was divided by the influence of American missionaries. Once they were divided, the Presbyterian Church was divided. Now there are 63 denominations of the Presbyterian Church. (The UBF’s history comes from the Presbyterian Church.)

In 1961 in Kwangju, Korean UBF was established. I was an unordained pastor. Mother Barry was a country evangelist. We got together and began student work. At that time there was a work of the Holy Spirit. Students’ endeavor to pray could hardly be extinguished. Whenever they studied the end of the Synoptic Gospels, they heard the world mission command from the Risen Christ. I, as the leader, really wondered how to obey the world mission command in the Korean situation, where passport control was thorough so that no contact could be made with North Koreans. Kwangju UBF students prayed for six years day and night to obey the world mission command of Jesus. But no sign in the sky appeared. Before coming up to Seoul, I pioneered Chun Ju and Tae Jeon and served many students from many provinces. In 1967 Mother Barry and I went up to Seoul to make UBF nationwide. It was done in three years.

In establishing UBF and expanding UBF the potent weapon was intensive one-to-one Bible study, strict discipleship training and planting the world mission vision. This came from the spirit of gospel faith. Where there is a spirit, nothing is matchless. We could overcome ourselves. We could dedicate ourselves. We could endure any kinds of sufferings without any pain. In this way, God blessed Korean UBF.

When UBF grew strong, well-disciplined leaders grew strong. They sent me as a missionary to Chicago, where there were several aide nurses and doctors. (Nobody sent Lee or could have sent him. He was the one who decided who was sent. He chose Chicago himself to make it the new headquarters.) Chicago UBF began to work hard. (Lee liked to emphasize how the UBF missionaries in America were only sluggardly sitting around and as his first measure he had to whip them into shape.) Then many American students began to come to our Bible study group or worship service.

IV. American ministry

At the beginning, American ministry was genuine. Those thirsty Americans came to study the Bible. Around thirty Americans came at first. Next, around fifty Americans came to Chicago UBF. And the students grew in the word of God and began to see the word of God as God’s word. Then their parents thought that their children do not obey them, but they obey UBF people. Then American parents’ pride was offended. They called professional deprogrammers and kidnapped their children one by one. But the power of the gospel could not be stopped. More American students came to study the Bible the more deprogrammers targeted UBF as their prey. But there formed American parents’ fellowship under deprogrammers. The focus of their attack was Dr. Samuel Lee (referring to himself in the third person, his dubious doctor title inclusive, was not unusual for Lee). Kidnapped students were all deprogrammed until they became enemies of UBF. It continued for nineteen years and three months. I don’t know how UBF survived. I don’t know how I was not weakened, but rather became stronger.

V. Korean UBF

Since I left Korean UBF in June 1977, Dr. John Jun took over my position. In the past, always one-to-one was sternly emphasized and discipleship training kept on. But since he took over my position, he directed UBF according to his character. He has never given anybody Biblical divine discipline except for his wife. As a result, in Korean UBF Biblical divine discipline was gone. As for the Bible study, he always made a topic Bible study whenever he had a staff meeting or staff conference. (Topical Bible studies are actually taboo in UBF. The Bible may be only studied passage based, in order to prevent any attempt of systematic teaching.) As a result, his authority and his spiritual leadership has been weakened. On the other hand, he does not like to write. So he never wrote me a report. (Reports about membership numbers and collected offering moneys have normally to be sent to the headquarters every week.) As a result, the mutual communication or relationship was distanced. The same is true among Korean staff members. Dr. Jun is very gentle humanly. But he is very fixed spiritually. So in the conversations between he and Korean staff members, they didn’t communicate. Nevertheless, I laid the firm foundation in Korea. It spread and pioneered allover the universities. But these days they are in tension because of the split.

First, what was the cause of the split? Caleb Chung in Tae Gu has always been my brother with a different mother. He was always on my opponent’s side in his mind. In order to melt his heart, I bore with him for the last 30 years. But it didn’t work. He became the leader of rebellion.

Second, how they persuaded so many coworkers in their group. Matthew Byun of Chun Ju has always been one who crept in. He is a friend of Caleb Chung. Matthew Byun planted easy-going mentality to so many junior shepherds. He said to them that we don’t have to do one-to-one Bible study and that we don’t need discipleship training; we must all separate and make a church system and have a general assembly meeting every two years (sounds like Unity Conference to me). Those who are lazy-minded were all persuaded very quickly.

As you know, people call America a “melting pot.” Why do they call America a melting pot? Why were they not afraid of Communism of any kind? For example, Chinese students came to Chicago. They rode their bicycles as their identity and diligence. But after one month they were driving very expensive cars. Those who came from China work hard to remain in America because America offers them an easygoing lifestyle.

Third, they call themselves the “reform group.” If they are a reform group, they should be better than before. But in order to overthrow UBF as a whole, they have tried with all their means and ends. Still it didn’t work at all. It is obvious that UBF has 40 years of roots. They cannot dig it out in a short time. So they began to set a fire in every area. And they bragged that they were very smart and efficient people. But I don’t think they are smart and efficient people. (Compare with ’super-apostles…’ in recent articles.) As we know well, building a house is very difficult. But setting fire to burn it down is so easy. They set the fire and burned down many things. They brag about their boldness. It is very foolish. Setting a fire or attacking others and slandering cannot be the acts of a reform group. Their activity thus far reminds me of Romans 2:8-9. It says, “But for those who are self-seeking and who reject the truth and follow evil, there will be wrath and anger. There will trouble and distress for every human being who does evil; first for the Jew, then for the Gentile.”

We can see the exemplary reformation in St. Paul’s life. St. Paul was born as a Jew. He was short and aggressive. Someday he wanted to be a leading figure in his community . One day he was on the way to Damascus to persecute the early Christians. The Risen Christ called him, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” “Who are you Lord?” Saul asked. “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting,” he replied (Ac 9:4-5). At the moment he saw the Risen Christ, he was blinded and fell down from the horse to the muddy ground. The Risen Christ forgave all his sins by referring to his new attitude. The Risen Christ also wanted to use his wisdom and power for God’s world mission purpose. So he said to Ananias in 9:15-16, “Go! This man is my chosen instrument to carry my name before the Gentiles and their kings and before the people of Israel. I will show him how much he must suffer for my name.” From that time on Saul changed his name from Saul, “the greatest one,” to Paul, “the smallest one.” (More exactly: Saul means “asked of God,” whereas Paul means “the little one.”) There are many parents who name their sons Paul. But they must know that Paul means “a small one.”

We can see a true outlook of reform in St. Augustine. St. Augustine was basically a wanderer even though he was a professor of oratory at the Roman Senatorial Academy. His quest for meaning of life seemed to be in vain. But he heard Ambrose’ message based on Romans 13:13,14. It says, “Let us behave decently, as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and debauchery, not in dissension and jealousy. Rather, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the sinful nature.” After the worship service, he was going to his house. One of his prostitute friends was coming from the opposite direction. He turned around and ran away. True reform starts from one’s heart, as we see in St. Augustine.

The rebel group’s motto was good. But there was no way to justify themselves. So they kept what they were doing from students and graduates. Finally students and graduates came to know what they were doing. Students and graduates became very rebellious, as they are rebellious, to their leaders. In the rebels’ chapters many are running away every week (“to run away” is a UBF term for “leaving UBF” compare to the phrase “fall away”). Among the members in the rebel’s groups, there are divisions. We learn that rebellion begets rebellion. True reformation produces good fruit. Therefore, we cannot recognize them as a reform group, but as those who destroyed the spiritual order and planted rebellious minds in all the rebels’ chapters. Now they ask my help. (Lee probably refers to the reformers’ attempted talk with him about the problems of UBF in January 2001.) But I have to prepare the 2001 UBF Bible Conference, International. I have no time to help them.

Fourth, future UBF world mission. Generally, missionaries in the front line are very upset because the rebel group refuses one-to-one Bible study and discipleship training. It is because to the frontline missionaries, if they stop one-to-one Bible study and discipleship training, they have nothing to do.

Since I left Korea, I visited Korea every year and visited each chapter. Each time I went to Korea, so many missionaries were sent. When I talked about Russian pioneering while the Soviet Union was still behind the Iron Curtain, students responded and smuggled themselves into Russia through Hungary UBF. And Russian UBF was started as soon as Gorbachev opened the gate to Russia. In 1985, at the Korean World Mission Report, we prayed to pioneer the Soviet Union within ten years, by 1995. God opened the door to Russia five years earlier. So we could have the first conference in 1990 in St. Petersburg.

Conclusion: I only thank God. I only praise God. Korea is a small hermit country in the corner of Asia. It has been ruled by China. And for 35 years it was under Japanese occupation. When we look back on 1,500 years of Korean history, it was nothing but the succession of political intrigue and bloodshed. But God raised UBF. For the last 40 years, we experienced “Koinonia,” spiritual order (UBF term for the UBF internal hierarchy), true brotherhood in Jesus Christ and absolute obedience to the world mission. God has been indeed showering his blessing upon South Korea, especially upon UBF people. So I only praise God in my soul. Even the rebels are very cute because of God’s grace upon UBF for the last 40 years.

America is the only world power nation. America is obliged to take over the world mission command allover again. And we must pray that another one million missionaries might be sent out from America. God hears our prayer. When we prayed for American girls to attend the Sunday worship service, many girls attended the Chicago UBF Sunday worship service. Many boys were very shy to look at them. (reminds me of a certain shower reference) Likewise, when we pray for the USA to be responsible for world mission, God will surely hear our prayer and pour his grace upon us. May God make us a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. May God use Americans as the most devoted Christians in obedience to the world mission command.

So I went to a They Might Be Giants concert and just got back. More on them in a bit, first, a note about the opening acts.

Common Rotation is a great band. Their shows are fun. They really have a way of getting the crowd to have a good time, even though they know that few in the auidence knows their songs. Have a listen to their song Indie Rockin’.

Okay, so then Cornball comes on stage and does his ‘act’. Let me help you out here by saying that he is not fun. If you like obessions with sex screeched to an accordian, I still wouldn’t recommend it. Just say NO. The only time he was good to listen to was when he did covers of Freebird and We Are the Champions.

So then TMBG comes on stage and I have to say that they are much more rockin’ live than I would have thought. I love their songs, they are fun and quirky. They rocked for three hours. I’ll write more later, but I have to work tomorrow.

This is the outline used in my OT Survey Class. Let me know what you think:

Overview of the Class

Week 1 Overview of the Old Testament

Week 2 The Law

Week 3 The Historical Books

Week 4 The Prophetical Books

Week 5 Poetical Books

Week 6 The Apocrypha

Week 7 Old Testament Topics

Format
The class this time will be more lecture-oriented than discussion based. However, the end of class each day will have about ten minutes for questions. In addition to this, the last class will cover any topics that the class wishes to cover. I may not be presenting a given topic; it may be one of you, if you feel so inclined! A syllabus is included and I will work hard to stay close to it

Goals
This class can only hope to provide a sketch of the Old Testament and not go in-depth into any particular book, unless we choose to do so in Week 7. The goals are to present information and provide tools to help in understanding the Old Testament. I am not trying to be the expert as much as I am trying to be a part-time tour guide.

Sources
Much of the material from this course comes from Douglas Stuart, one of the co-authors of How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth. He has taught a class similar to this in a short form (like this one) and a longer form with 20 hours of lectures. I have access to both courses. Other material comes from various commentaries and an excellent book, The Old Testament Story by Don C. Benjamin.

Week 1 Overview of the Old Testament

Week 2 Old Testament Law

Week 3 The Historical Books

Week 4 The Prophetical Books

Week 5 The Poetical Books

Week 6 The Apocrypha