English Compass - bringing christian fellowship to korean americans

True Christianity, Part 1

Perhaps many of you are waking up in comfortable beds as I write this.  Some of you will eat out today at your favorite restaurant.  Some of you will buy something expensive for yourself or a significant other today.  Most of you will complain about some aspect of your life.  You will worry about a relationship, school, or work.  Me?  I was doing all of those things as a Korean-American young adult just one week ago, but not today.  Today, I am in Bangladesh, and there are those all around me doing their morning devotions and preparing for day two of our mission trip here.  Today, our team will see great courage, purity and simplicity in the people here.  We will witness godliness.

Godliness comes in the form of my translator, who has taken vacation from his job in a hospital in the capital six hours away to come and help.  Money is obviously tight for him, but he is willing to take his vacation because he loves the ministry.  He has helped for the last four years. 

Godliness is shown through Doctor Moskala, a dentist and our long-term missionary on the ground, who has been here 12 years.  He is like a modern day apostle.  His prayers have made a paralytic walk again and brought people back from the brink of death.  He works as a dentist in the capital from Monday to Friday.  Friday afternoon, he takes his mission team, heads out into whatever village that is chosen, sometimes arriving by 10 pm at night.  When he gets there, he sets his projector up and starts preaching, sometimes going until 2 am or later.  The team evangelizes the area for the weekend, and then on Monday he is back at work.  He has started four different schools, two of them in the slums of the capital, where the poorest of the poor live. 

On Sabbath, the children come all dressed in white.  Their rendition of ‘Blessed Sabbath Day’ nearly brings tears to my eyes.  I take a picture with a boy who died from drowning (six hours underwater), but was brought to life again by the prayer of a pastor hoping to win souls to Jesus.  The boy is completely healthy and wants to become a pastor. 

There is godliness here - godliness at a level I have never seen before. 

Is there true godliness within the ranks of Korean-American Adventism today?  What about amongst the young adults?  Where are those who feel a responsibility to Jesus, more so than to their family, friends, or themselves? 

Before anyone accuses me of being too hard-core, or some do-gooder who has no grasp on reality, allow me to say that I have attended secular schools from ninth grade until now.  I attended a Korean church for the first 27 years of my life, with perhaps even more pressure on me than a typical Korean, since I am an only child.

The fact is, Korean-American Adventist young adults have never been more prosperous or educated than today.  Everywhere I look, I see my friends getting better or higher paying jobs, bigger and better cars, and more beautiful houses. 

But everywhere I look, I realize that we have never been more worldly than we are today.  Perhaps the amount of tithe has gone up, but the number of young adults doing short term and long term missions has not.  Evangelism and ministry are catchphrases or simply something for the young people who go to KAYAMM. 

The churches have gotten bigger, with pathfinder groups, Korean schools, and Bible bowls.  But young people continue to hemorrhage from our ranks, with no role models to speak of, no spiritual mentors concerned about them, no true spirituality in those who are older.  The vibrancy of our churches are being provided by either the children (aww, he/she’s sooo cute!), or those high-schoolers who are coming to church because they have to (can’t wait to go to college). 

But as the young professionals have looked to point the finger everywhere else, blaming our parents for raising us a certain way (though we do not seem to mind the money that the education brought), or on a new generation that is not like our own (I wasn’t like that when I was young), the issue perhaps all along has been us.        

In the end, it is pure selfishness that is preventing us Korean-American young adults from having any impact whatsoever on the next generation.  We do not seem to have any concept of Christ-likeness and are instead floating along, swayed by culture and whatever church we are a part of.  Where are the young adults who are standing up for Jesus in everything they do, inside and outside of church?  Where are those who are actively involved in a ministry, any ministry?  Where are the spiritual mentors, or even the desire to be a mentor to the next generation? 

We have neglected the call of 1^st Peter 2:9, which says “But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood…that you may proclaim the praises of him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.”

God calls us to true Christianity - to step up and fulfill His desire for us to become like Him, so that we can draw others to Jesus.  Do we hear that call?  Or are we busy making excuses?

(continued in Part 2)

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Dr. Albert Kim is currently an internal medicine resident at the University of Rochester Medical Center in Rochester, NY.  He looks forward to the day when he can be with Jesus, and hopes others see Jesus in him every day.  His passions are secular campus ministries and overseas evangelism/missions, in addition to piano, sports and photography.  He can be reached at kim.albert.c@gmail.com