In November 2003, I shared with you a three-part message series called "Raising Our Children to Become Spiritual Champions." In my last message of the series, I talked about how New Life has come to a point where we need to look for and hire a children's ministry pastor who will minister to our children and parents completely in English because of the vision and the make up of our congregation. At that time, I didn't know where or how to go about searching for this person who will share the vision of New Life and serve the church well together with the existing team leaders. As you probably know already, I am not a kind of person who goes out a ...

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There are many advantages of being a part of a large, growing church like ours. Powerful worship, diverse ministries, intense training program, fun fellowship and friendly atmosphere where you can comfortably bring your unbelieving friends are some of the benefits that I can think of. However, we could also think of several potential drawbacks of being part of a big church. One of them is the rising complexity in operations. The more people you have the more relationships and communication channels you will have. This could mean that we are stuck with a more complicated operational system. This is where policies come in. Policies are there not ...

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In the past six and a half years of New Life history, we have emphasized the importance of Sunday corporate worship, weekly house church gathering, intercessory prayer and missions. There are other essential elements of a local church, such as community outreach and Bible studies, that we need to pay attention to and must develop in order for us to become a biblically fully functioning church, and we will do so when the time comes. But there is a reason why I haven't stressed the significance of Bible studies in New Life all these years. The purpose of studying the Bible is the application of what we have learned from the Bible in our daily life ...

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It truly is amazing how New Life's heart for the world missions has been cultivated over the past few years. Many of us are committed to missions in various ways. Some of us are preparing ourselves to go overseas as long-term missionaries. Others of us are planning to go on short-term mission trips to see and be exposed to what God would have us do with our lives. Still others are committing to missions as senders and intercessors as they are reading books related to world missions or taking the Perspectives course. Since we are right in the middle of everything that has been happening here, we may not feel or realize the missions temperature of ...

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Over the course of a little more than six years of New Life history, I have officiated nine weddings and also have been involved in about a half-dozen other weddings. The usual wedding ceremony lasts for about 30 to 40 minutes, and on the outside, it does not seem to be that difficult to prepare and conduct. What takes place before each wedding ceremony, however, is actually time-consuming and requires quite a bit of my thought and energy. For example, when a couple approaches me with the intention of getting married, I usually invite them over to my house at two different occasions to provide them with informal pre-marital counseling sessions ...

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My greatest desire in life as a pastor is seeing people change to become more like our Lord Jesus. I call it "spiritual transformation," thinking and living like Christ. This is why we are created in the first place. We are placed on this earth to live our life as Jesus would. God made us as his image bearers and Jesus is God's perfect representation, his perfect image bearer. This means the more we become like Jesus, the better God's image bearers we become, fulfilling our life's purpose! Then, what does it mean to live our life like Jesus? How can we think and live like Jesus, God's perfect image bearer? One thing I know for sure is that we ...

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Lately I have been hearing from several house church shepherds that their members are thinking about changing their house churches. We don't allow people to switch their house church, and I have addressed the issue a number of occasions in the past. I feel the need, however, to talk to you again about this. It seems as though we have gotten many new members in the recent months who have never heard about the reasons behind this policy. This is good because it is a sign of growth! First reason why we ask people to stay and remain in their house church is because it teaches them the importance of making and honoring their commitment. And when you ...

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