Yesterday I experiencing something of how busy Korean Christian's are! I went with my hosts to Kangnam Joongang Baptist church. The first service we went to was at 10 am; one of the many morning services that the church holds. I was greeted at the door and introduced to one of the stewards who gave me a notice sheet, however it was all in Korean language so I couldn't really appreciate it fully. The sanctuary has rows of pews, the front had a high pulpit, communion table, and to one side pews where the robe choir sat. To the right hand side sat the elders of the church; all older men in black suits. There must have been a good 700 people at the service, maybe more, I'm not very good at guessing numbers!
The service started with one of the seven assistant ministers welcoming us to the service and then an introit was sung by the choir. The congregation stood as we prayed and sung our first hymn together, it was Jesus the name high over all. Unfortunately I couldn't recall all the words in English, it is very hard when everyone else is singing a different language. As it has been translated into Korean the tune has been slightly tweaked to fit the words- some of the notes seemed a bit longer than what I remember. We then said the Lord's Prayer together. Then came the notices, and one of the ministers who spoke English kindly gave me an ear piece and someone was speaking into it translating the service into English for me. This was a great help; although it wasn't perfect English it was a great help in understanding the overview of the service. The notices consisted of some of the many activities and special services. I was also welcomed by them as a minister from the UK. We then prayed together and the choir sang a piece, before the senior minister then stood up to read the bible passage from Romans 5. He then spent about 30 mins preaching. The best way I could describe his style would be academic, traditional, Calvinistic (what I could make out was that he was saying that those who hold a general theology of salvation are not real Christian's but the translation might have been wrong). Possibly a style you still might find at Spurgeon's church; Metropolitan Tabernacle in London. The service was closed with a hymn and blessing. The service was just shy of an hour. Everyone then quickly filed out as the next service was about to start and we went down stairs for tea and coffee. It was then that I was ushered into the back offices to the Senior Ministers office. What a room! It was filled with books, a long table, a mounted wall hanging of one of Spurgeon's sermons, and coffee, and fruit laid out on the table. I was invited to sit while the senior minister hosted me. He gave me an enormous amount of food to try, and then talked to me about his visit to Spurgeon's college, and asked whether we were still facing persecution as Baptist's like Spurgeon did in his day; he obviously had read about the history of UK Baptist churches but had not kept update! Then I was quickly ushered out as he got ready for the next service. I was also ushered along to the English service.
The English service was a very different style, was that because it was in English and they wanted to follow our culture, or was it because the minister leading was younger? According to my host it was probably the latter. We sung modern English songs, prayed using images from the PowerPoint presentation, and the style of the preaching was much more familiar to me. After the service they gave me lots of food including Sushi, donuts, and coffee. They were so interested in asking me questions; they had met American's but not English people. They wanted to know was the UK church Calvinist or Arminian, how many people attended, what are the challenges we face, and how did I become a sole minister of a church being both young and a woman. I wanted to stay longer and talk but my hosts were keen to go to a prayer meeting for North Korea and we had to go and have some lunch before the meeting.
So next was lunch at the church in a big canteen; the lunch consisted of Kimchee, rice, bean sprouts, and green beans. After this we went to the prayer meeting about North Korea. Unfortunately I didn't understand most of it, but the missionary who was talking had been working in China with people from North Korea and he established a school where he shared about Jesus with the children.
We then drove out of Seoul to another town to have a meal with friends of my host. There was about 10 people there, and it was good to spend sometime out of Seoul. It was so cool and the air seemed much cleaner. We arrived back after 10 pm after quite a full day. As you can see lots to think about regarding the differences between Korean Christian's and ourselves.
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