Message for the New Fiscal Year: Experiencing God

Experiencing God

Our confession of faith stems from the basic affirmation that GOD IS. In fact, the very name of God that we have become familiar with through the story of Moses is consistent with this affirmation: Our God is the great I AM (Yahweh). This means that Christian faith is not simply a system of knowledge or a set of ethical norm. Rather, our faith is a Christian-theism, a faith in God who is the Creator and Redeemer. So, Francis Schaeffer titled one of his books, “He is there, and He is not silent.” God is a reality beyond one’s mere religious imagination, and he is the one who speaks intelligibly and, in fact, the one who commands as the covenant Lord.

This affirmation must not remain as an intellectual assent, but it must affect our hearts and minds to a greater desire for experiencing him as our Father and King in our daily living. The Scripture is full of descriptions of the people who lived and breathed with God and were thus given the title, the men and women of faith. Think about Abraham, Moses, David, Ruth, Esther, and Mary. How they walked in faith with a remarkable proximity to the reality of God!

Moses taught us in Deuteronomy that certain conditions tend to heighten our awareness of and dependence on God. He speaks of the experience of the Israelites’ wilderness wondering: “And you shall remember the whole way that the LORD your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness, that he might humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments or not. And he humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD. . . . Know then in your heart that, as a man disciplines his son, the LORD your God disciplines you.” (Deuteronomy 8:2, 3, 5). The people were put into the wilderness for forty years during which they had to rely absolutely on God’s daily provisions. As they were about to end this period of absolute reliance and enter into the promised land, Moses was concerned that they would bounce back to the way they used to live, being forgetful of God’s daily provisions and relying on their own ability to produce resources. That ability, of course, was also a gift from God, yet people were so quick to make gods of themselves. Wanting to be in his own driver’s seat is a common symptom of a fallen man. He finds it extremely uncomfortable to yield the control to God and let Him lead the way. However, in the wilderness – that was God’s training ground for His children – He fed them with daily manna and led them with the very visible presence of the pillar of cloud and fire. There was no denying that they moved, lived and had their being IN and BY God.

The “Great Recession” since 2008 has placed many of us in that mode. People have been experiencing a wilderness journey. The financial future doesn’t seem very much under control. Everyone seems to be finding a small comfort in a wishful thinking that the future will just be better than what it is now, thinking that the best response for now is just to keep low and let the storm pass by. However, in this kind of survival mindset, we may be missing a huge lesson. This is the moment when we can really be growing as God’s children. As a father disciplines his son, the Lord is disciplining us through an uncertain time. This uncertainly may be in the forms of relationship, health, education, career, and finance. Probably, you are facing one of those uncertainties right now. Jubilee as a church is meeting a challenging time as well. There is a constant challenge of building the body of Christ as a spiritually healthy community. There is a challenge of raising a strong leadership all around. There is the challenge of completing what has now begun as Jeffersonville campus building project. I’ve declared through a message a few weeks ago that now we are in a time of trusting God’s daily provision of manna as we seek to complete the construction in the next 6 months.

I believe we are in God’s good hands. He is our Father and He will provide all through the way. The most important thing for us to do is to learn to trust him completely and obey one step at a time. Waking up every morning and beholding the manna flakes hanging on the blades of the grass and saying “Thank you for giving us our daily bread”. . . this is what we have to learn to do. Instead of retreating in fear, wallowing in a feeling of defeat or becoming hostile and bitter towards others, we must look to God and trust his loving hands that provide all our needs. Jesus himself taught us to trust God each day, and “do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself” (Matthew 6:34). Let us acknowledge together, “He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?” (Romans 8:32).

I exhort all of you, brothers and sisters, to continue to walk in faithfulness in the new fiscal year of 2009-2010. At the end, we will have arrived at a place we’ve dreamed of or perhaps at a wonderful place that we dare not expect because our faith was too small. He is good and his love endures forever!!!

Grace and peace,

S. Steve Park,
October 23, 2009

Jubilee at the 11th Anniversary

On June 7th of 1998, Jubilee held its first worship at Westminster Theological Seminary.  It was indeed a new beginning.  I was a young pastor not yet 35 years of age (I would be at the end of June that year), with hopes and fears intersecting somewhere inside my heart.  At the first worship, many visitors came to congratulate a new beginning.  I am sure that there was a lot of excitement in my heart, yet I do distinctly remember that I wasn’t feeling much of anything, probably due to being emotionally overloaded.  It was as if there was a kind of numbness, an overwhelmed kind of numbness. 

For the past couple of weeks, I’ve been thinking a lot of my own leadership, with a deep sense of personal shortcoming.  But God has been so gracious to use me as he has to build up this church.  It is a church that continues to strive to measure success not be the expansion of the institution but by the transformation of persons.  As I look around, churches grow and mature not due to anything strikingly obvious.  Often times, it happens when there is much prayer and dependence.  I must be full of thanks for all those who prayed so much for Jubilee over the years.  I remember saying that a church growth without prayer is a curse rather than a blessing.  I think it rings true even more today in my heart.

Often times, my pride makes me defend the merits of our church rather than taking certain people’s criticisms with an attitude of honest self-reflection and evaluation.  I must get over this state of defensiveness.  I must face up to the shortcomings and areas of weakness and apply the utmost wisdom and sound judgement to make positive differences.  The church of our glorious Jesus Christ has no ceiling of goodness, excellence and beauty.  As glorious the Lord is, the church is glorious, because it reflects its Master, the Head.  Those of us who have the loftly calling of leading the church must never measure success based on our own spiritual and moral limitations.  As we rely completely upon the ever presence grace of our Lord, the blessing that he can endow upon his own church must be endless.  We have to believe this and press on.

Thank you, many of you, for loving Jubilee as I have loved Jubilee.  This church is the hope of the Delaware Valley and beyond.  It is the hope for all of our lives. 

I’m looking forward to another anniversary celebration at PBU tomorrow.  It rained rather heavily today, but I am told that the weather tomorrow will be pleasant.  Thank God for his provisions in every way.

Harvie Conn Center

It was finalized at a meeting yesterday with the administrative cabinet of Westminster Seminary that the study center I’ve been directing would be renamed.  The new name will be “Harvie M. Conn Center for the Study of the Korean Church.” 

Harvie Conn was, in my opinion, the coolest professor who ever taught at Westminster Seminary.  He is admired by many even to this day although he passed away after battling cancer for many years in 1999.  I met him first in 1988 and took many classes under him.  I had many conversations with him regarding many different subject matters.  I was always impressed by his shining intellectu and keen insights.  Also, he was very gracious to me as he never failed to encourage me to pursue my dreams whether it be academic or ministerial.  He was a missionary to Korea for 12 years, and taught 26+ years at WTS following his return from Korea.  His areas of interest changed (or accumulated) over these years.  He taught New Testament at one point; at Westminster, he began his career teaching apologetics and then he moved on to teach missions, with a specific focus on urban missions.  For more details on his life and career, see the bottom of this entry.

As I look at the future development of the center, I am motivated to cultivate the following themes which are keys to understand the mind of Harvie Conn: (1) The passion for the Reformed faith, (2) the passion for contextualization with the aim of arriving at post-Western, missional theology, and (3) the passion for reaching the marginalized people groups with the holistic gospel of the Kingdom of God. 

I hope and pray that Harvie’s legacy will live on and see a revival at Westminister and beyond through the ministry of this center. 

———————————————

Harvie M. Conn was professor of missions at Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia from 1972 until his retirement in 1998. He passed away in August of 1999 after a long battle with cancer.

Dr. Conn was born in Regina, SK, Canada in 1933, and became an American citizen in 1957. He received an AB from Calvin College in 1953, a BD in 1957, and a Th. M in 1958 both from Westminster Theological Seminary. He was awarded a Litt.D. from Geneva College in 1976.

In 1957, Harvie began a church planting ministry in New Jersey. Later, he went to Korea as an itinerant preacher in churches. He also taught New Testament at the General Assembly Theological Seminary in Seoul for ten years, as well as carrying on a ministry of evangelism there among prostitutes and pimps. He came to Westminster in 1972, and began teaching both apologetics and missions. He became an expert in interpreting popular culture and used this ability to regularly review films in a column for Eternity Magazine.

While teaching at Westminster, Harvie took groups of students on missions field trips to India and Uganda. This led him to become a leader in urban evangelism and missions, which has become one of Westminster’s trademarks at degree levels. Harvie also edited the magazine Urban Mission from 1989-1999.

One of Dr. Conn’s former students made the astute observation that “Conn’s most enduring missiological contribution was his concentration on the importance of the city. He wanted the church to focus on the city, not because it was trendy–it was not–but because he read closely both the biblical material and the demographic data, bridging them together on a third horizon: God’s mission to the cities of the world. No longer, Conn argued, could the world be considered a global village. Instead, it is a global city. This is the church’s context, and to be effective the church would need to sort out urban myth from fact. Not only did Conn help to put the city on the evangelical agenda, but he changed the way we think about the city.”

As a result of requests from urban pastors in Philadelphia, the Westminster Ministerial Institute began in 1973 under Conn’s direction. Saturday classes at Westminster later led to the formation of the Center for Urban Theological Studies. (Information for this biographical sketch taken in part from an obituary for Dr. Conn written by Westminster professor Larry Sibley.)

Below is an incomplete bibliography of Harvie Conn’s writings. We are looking into the possibility of this site hosting some of his unpublished or out-of-print writings in the future. Many of Dr. Conn’s in-print books, and even some of his recorded lectures, are available from Westminster Bookstore (www.wtsbooks.com).

MOST INFLUENTIAL WRITINGS

Eternal Word In A Changing World: Theology, Anthropology, and Missions in Trialogue (New Jersey: P&R; 1984)

Evangelism: Doing Justice and Preaching Grace (New Jersey: P&R; 1982)

OTHER BOOKS

Urban Ministry: The Kingdom, the City, & the People of God co-authored by Manny Ortiz (Illinois: IVP; 2001)

Contemporary World Theology: A Layman’s Guide (New Jersey: P&R; 1974)

Studies In The Theology Of The Korean Presbyterian Church (Westminster Seminary Bookstore)

The American City And The Evangelical Church: A Historical Overview (Michigan: Baker Books; 1994)

EDITED VOLUMES

Practical Theology And The Ministry Of The Church 1952-1984:Essays in Honor of Edmund P. Clowney (New Jersey: P&R; 1990)

Planting And Growing Urban Churches: From Dream to Reality (Michigan: Baker Books; 1997)

The Urban Face Of Mission: Ministering the Gospel in a Diverse and Changing World (New Jersey: P&R; 2002)

Inerrancy And Hermeneutic: A Tradition, a Challenge, a Debate (Michigan: Baker Books; 198

Reaching The Unreached: The Old-New Challenge (New Jersey: P&R; 1984)

Theological Perspectives On Church Growth (USA; Dulk Foundation; 1976)

Missions And Theological Education In World Perspective (Gabriel Resources; 1985)

ARTICLES

“Luke’s Theology of Prayer.” Christianity Today, December 22, 1972: pp. 6-8.

“God’s Urban Surprises.” Urban Mission 14:4, June 1997: pp. 3-6.

“Refugees, the City, and Missions.” Urban Mission 15:2, December 1997: pp. 3-6.

“Blaming the Victim?” Urban Mission 15:4, June 1998: pp. 3-6.

“Looking at Some of Africa’s Urban Challenges.” Urban Mission 16:2, December 1998: pp. 3-6.

“Training the Layman for Witness,” Training for Missions, edited by Paul G. Schrotenboer. (Grand Rapids: Reformed Ecumenical Synod, 1977), 74-103.

“Contextualization: Where Do We Begin?” Evangelicals and Liberation, edited by Carl E. Amerding. (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company, 1977) 90-119.

“Contextualization: A New Dimension for Cross-Cultural Hermeneutic,” Evangelical Missions Quarterly 14 (January 1978): 39-46.

“Theologies of Liberation,” Tensions in Contemporary Theology. 3rd Rev. Ed., Stanley Gundry and Alan Johnson, eds. (Chicago: Moody Press, 1979), 327-434.

“Review of ‘Black Theology: A Documentary History, 1966-1979′,” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 25 (June 1982): 238-40.

“The Gospel and Culture,” Gospel in Context 1 (January 1978): 19-21.

UNPUBLISHED WORKS

“The Concept of Reason in the Theology of John Calvin.” Unpublished Th.M. thesis submitted to Westminster Theological Seminary, Philadelphia, 1958.

From Dana Point, CA

Dear Friends,

I’m in Southern California this week, away from the cold of the East-coast winter, enjoying the warm sun and the spring-like breeze.  I think it is about 60 degrees outside, but the ocean wind actually feels a bit chilly.  People were still swimming in the outside heated pool, but they didn’t stay too long once they came out of the water and rushed back into their rooms.

I’m attending a meeting of the Center for Pastoral Refreshment (sounds like a special beverage distributor) which is a ministry of Westminster Seminary in California.  They received a large funding from Lilly Foundation to “promote pastoral excellence.”  In response, they operate these retreat (about 4 times a year) to help re-equip pastors to do better understand the context of their ministry.  I am give a several hours of lecture this week for the pastors and their wives, mostly Korean-American anglophones from California.  I’m also enjoying the time with one of my professors from years past, the president of the seminary, Dr. Bob Godfrey.  I had him as a professor between 1986-88.  It seems like yesterday, and he seems not much older than when we first met, but amazingly decades have gone by.  We laughed a bit talking about the old days.  It is a bit humbling to lecture in front of a former professor of mine, but he is giving me a lot of encouragement. 

By the way, the place where we’re staying is a remarkably beautiful resort called, St. Regis.  I sometimes feel a little awkward, because I’m being over serviced, that is at every corner there is an attendant ready to assist me.  What luxury!  I guess I am too much a commoner in my heart to feel uncomfortable here.  Well, truly, I’ll probably never pay my own money to be in a place like this, but I’m trying to enjoy what I can. 

Hope you are all having a great week!  I’ll do my best to give good and helpful lectures.  I expect that all of you will continue to serve the Lord wherever you are, not despairing nor overconfident, but continually trusting the Lord who gives us the measure of faith.

A Good Summary of the Reformed Faith

Brief and Untechnical Statement of the Reformed Faith

by Benjamin B. Warfield

 

I believe that my one aim in life and death should be to glorify God and enjoy him forever; and that God teaches me how to glorify him in his holy Word, that is, the Bible, which he had given by the infallible inspiration of this Holy Spirit in order that I may certainly know what I am to believe concerning him and what duty he requires of me.

 

I believe that God is a Spirit, infinite, eternal and incomparable in all that he is; one God but three persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, my Creator, my Redeemer, and my Sanctifier; in whose power and wisdom, righteousness, goodness and truth I may safely put my trust.

 

I believe that the heavens and the earth, and all that is in them, are the work of God’s hands; and that all that he has made he directs and governs in all their actions; so that they fulfill the end for which they were created, and I who trust in him shall not be put to shame but may rest securely in the protection of his almighty love.

 

I believe that God created man after his own image, in knowledge, righteousness and holiness, and entered into a covenant of life with him upon the sole condition of the obedience that was his due; so that it was by willfully sinning against God that man fell into the sin and misery in which I have been born.

 

I believe, that, being fallen in Adam, my first father, I am by nature a child of wrath, under the condemnation of God and corrupted in body and soul, prone to evil and liable to eternal death; from which dreadful state I cannot be delivered save through the unmerited grace of God my Savior.

 

I believe that God has not left the world to perish in its sin, but out of the great love wherewith he has loved it, has from all eternity graciously chosen unto himself a multitude which no man can number, to deliver them out of their sin and misery, and of them to build up again in the world his kingdom of righteousness; in which kingdom I may be assured I have my part, if I hold fast to Christ the Lord.

 

I believe that God has redeemed his people unto himself through Jesus Christ our Lord; who, though he was and ever continues to be the eternal Son of God, yet was born of a woman, born under the law, that he might redeem them that are under the law: I believe that he bore the penalty due to my sins in his own body on the tree, and fulfilled in his own person the obedience I owe to the righteousness of God, and now presents me to his Father as his purchased possession, to the praise of the glory of his grace forever; wherefore renouncing all merit of my own, I put all my trust only in the blood and righteousness of Jesus Christ my redeemer.

 

I believe that Jesus Christ my redeemer, who died for my offences was raised again for my justification, and ascended into the heavens, where he sits at the right hand of the Father Almighty, continually making intercession for his people, and governing the whole world as head over all things for his Church; so that I need fear no evil and may surely know that nothing can snatch me out of his hands and nothing can separate me from his love.

 

I believe that the redemption wrought by the Lord Jesus Christ is effectually applied to all his people by the Holy Spirit, who works faith in me and thereby unites me to Christ, renews me in the whole man after the image of God, and enables me more and more to die unto sin and to live unto righteousness; until, this gracious work having been completed in me, I shall be received into glory; in which great hope abiding, I must ever strive to perfect holiness in the fear of God.

 

I believe that God requires of me, under the gospel, first of all, that , out of a true sense of my sin and misery and apprehension of his mercy in Christ, I should turn with grief and hatred away from sin and receive and rest upon Jesus Christ alone for salvation; that, so being united to him, I may receive pardon for my sins and be accepted as righteous in God’s sight only for the righteousness of Christ imputed to me and received by faith alone; and thus and thus only do I believe I may be received into the number and have a right to all the privileges of the sons of God.

 

I believe that, having been pardoned and accepted for Christ’s sake , it is further required of me that I walk in the Spirit whom he has purchased for me, and by whom love is shed abroad in my heart; fulfilling the obedience I owe to Christ my King; faithfully performing all the duties laid upon me by the holy law of God my heavenly Father; and ever reflecting in my life and conduct, the perfect example that has been set me by Christ Jesus my Leader, who has died for me and granted to me his Holy Spirit just that I may do the good works which God has afore prepared that I should walk in them.

 

I believe that God has established his Church in the world and endowed it with the ministry of the Word and the holy ordinances of Baptism, the Lord’s Supper and Prayer; in order that through these as means, the riches of his grace in the gospel may be made known to the world, and, by the blessing of Christ and the working of his Spirit in them that by faith receive them, the benefits of redemption may be communicated to his people; wherefore also it is required of me that I attend on these means of grace with diligence, preparation, and prayer, so that through them I may be instructed and strengthened in faith, and in holiness of life and in love; and that I use my best endeavors to carry this gospel and convey these means of grace to the whole world.

 

I believe that as Jesus Christ has once come in grace, so also is he to come a second time in glory, to judge the world in righteousness and assign to each his eternal award; and I believe that if I die in Christ, my soul shall be at death made perfect in holiness and go home to the Lord; and when he shall return to his majesty I shall be raised in glory and made perfectly blessed in the full enjoyment of God to all eternity: encouraged by which blessed hope it is required of me willingly to take my part in suffering hardship here as a good soldier of Christ Jesus, being assured that if I die with him I shall also live with him, if I endure, I shall also reign with him. And to Him, my Redeemer, with the Father, and the Holy Spirit, Three Persons, one God, be glory forever, world without end, Amen, and Amen.