우리들교회

First, he has a passion for one soul.

I have received lots ofgraces from coming to this pastors seminar, the greatest of which is the realization that I need to be changed. I came with the heart that I should change the saints through QTand the program, but I realized that if I dont change, if I dont do QT, if I dont see the sin in me, if I dont have the Redeemer QT flowing in my life, I wont be a pastor in the end. I realized that it takes ten or twenty years for leaders to be built and for the church to be built around those leaders. Two months ago, a pastors seminar was held in Sydney, Australia, with Pastor Yang Jae Kim as the lecturer. Ten years ago, I invited Rev. Kim to the seminar, but he informed me that he was unable to attend, but this time he contacted me first and said, 'You should do it. It doesnt matter if theres only one of you!' So I said, 'This is something that cant be put off, this is something that has to be done!' And I accepted it. For three days, from 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m., until the evening rally, there was amazing grace. And for two days, we took him on a boat ride through Sydney Harbor, which is known as one of the worlds three great harbors, and we had a meal, and we showed him the opera house, which everybody wants to go to, but she wasnt interested in the scenery, she was interested in the story of the redemption, the secular history, and the story of one soul. Your pastor is impacting so many people around the world for good through the word, and you are so blessed.

Second, I am one who recognizes my sin in both success and suffering.

I immigrated to Australia with my parents in 1988 and grew up in the Sydney Full Gospel Church. I studied at a seminary in the United States in 2001, completed my masters and doctoral programs, and returned to Sydney in 2007. In 2009, I was voted in by the congregation to become the senior pastor, serving as an associate pastor, and then as the lead pastor in 2014. By all appearances, I was a successful and blessed pastor, but thats when the struggles began. I was so afraid of not being named after my predecessor that I felt compelled to do a really good job, and the stress was tremendous. When those who had initially supported and applauded me, especially the elders, became divided and criticized and opposed me, the church became divided and quarrels broke out, and I even sent a letter to Yeouido Church in Korea to inform them. I went to the prayer center, fasted, came down, gathered the elders in the church, knelt down and washed their feet one by one, hugged them with tears, and prayed and repented. Although the crisis was over for a while, the problems in the church didnt go away. Eventually, as I watched the disputes and quarrels among the members, I had a panic attack while preparing to preach on Sunday.

'God, am I a failure? What did I do wrong to make this so difficult?' I cried out. My life didnt make sense and I didnt know what to do. After about two months of recuperation in South Korea and the United States, I came back to Sydney and spoke at my first Sunday service entitled Grace Under the Rodem Tree. It was about the prophet Elijah, who fought 850 prophets of Baal and had a tremendous success where fire came down from heaven and defeated the false prophets, but Jezebel refused to give in and threatened to kill him, and the people of Israel, after seeing the tremendous miracles, refused to abandon their idols, refused to return to God, and disobeyed him, broke down and said enough is enough and said they were going to die, and that was me. I had a watershed moment of repentance when I realized that I had been guilty of thinking that I could do better than the pastor before me, that I could please people more, that I could rely on people to do better in ministry. In a word, I was prideful I wanted to please people and I wanted to be praised for doing a good job. God saw my sin and wanted me to be broken.