November 18, 2002
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| KOREANS from the Far East Broadcasting Company's children's choir perform in native attire for the annual meeting of Texas Woman's Missionary Union Nov. 12 in Waco. The choir also performed at the Baptist General Convention of Texas annual session, drawing an enthusiastic and warm response. The choir accompanied Billy Kim, president of the Baptist World Alliance. |
BWA president calls Texas Baptists to pray & unite
___By Mark Wingfield
___Managing Editor
___WACO--When John F. Kennedy was shot in Dallas in 1963, news of his death spread around the world in two hours. But 2,000 years after the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ, half the world still hasn't heard that gospel message, according to Billy Kim, president of the Baptist World Alliance.
___Kim, pastor of Central Baptist Church in Suwon, South Korea, spoke in the opening meeting of the Baptist General Convention of Texas annual session Nov. 11. He called Texas Baptists to pray more diligently, to repent of sin and cooperate in spreading the news of Christ's death and resurrection.
___Americans, he said
, have been blessed by God with freedom and wealth. Yet Americans often fail to see the desperate conditions of other world citizens.
___More than 10,000 people die dof s
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| BWA PRESIDENT BILLY KIM |
tarvation during the course of his sermon, he said. Meanwhile, 78 percent of all the world's insurance is purchased by Americans and 60 percent of world's automobiles are driven by Americans.
___"I often wonder why one part of the world starves to death and another part of the world has so much they don't know what to do with it," Kim said.
___While most of the world's population lives in meager conditions, American Christians wake up on Sunday mornings to make difficult decisions about which clothes to wear and which car to drive to Sunday School, he noted.
___The difference between the living conditions of Americans and others is not due to righteous living or harder work or greater intelligence, Kim said. It is due simply to God's blessing of America's foundation in freedom, he suggested.
___"Yet in spite of all the blessings of God on this country, there is sin on every hand. ... This is the nation that has known nothing but the blessing of God, yet in spite of all this, there is sin on every hand."
___The Korean pastor urged Texas Baptists to "pray that God will bring this nation back to the fold of God."
___"I believe if Baptists come together to pray, God will send revival, God will send healing to this great nation."
___Prayer has been the secret to the success of Korean churches, Kim said, explaining that Korean church members arrive as early as 4:30 every morning for prayer services.
___"We Baptists, we need to come to grips with the life of prayer," he admonished. "Pray without ceasing, pray always, and God will bless ministry."
___After praying, Baptists worldwide should unite in their missions purpose, Kim continued. "We have a lot of work to do."
___For example, he said, there is only one Baptist church in Turkey, and there are only 4,000 Baptists in all of Poland.
___Speaking on Veteran's Day, Kim thanked Americans for fighting for the freedom of Koreans in the 1950s. "Without your help, South Korea today would be under the control of communists. There would be no churches."
___Kim closed by recounting a story from the Japanese occupation of Korea from 1910 to 1945. During that era, the Japanese forced all Korean churches to close.
___However, a small church near where he grew up defied the ban and held a worship service one Sunday, he said. As the congregation sang "Nearer My God to Thee," Japanese police surrounded the building, poured fuel around it and set the building on fire.
___When some broke windows to escape the blaze, the Japanese forces threatened to shoot them, driving them back into the fire.
___The congregation continued to sing "At the Cross," Kim said. As they sang, "Alas and did my Savior bleed, and did my sovereign die," the Christians felt the intensity of the heat and heard the building groan, he said.
___All the worshippers perished in the blaze.
___In 1945, after the war, a monument was erected at the church site. In 1971, a group of Japanese Christians who had visited the monument raised 10 million yen to build a new church and medical clinic.
___At the dedication service in September 1971, as the congregation once again sang "At the Cross," a Japanese delegation stood and asked forgiveness for what had transpired there years before.
___"Only the gospel will bring any enemies of two nations or two groups to come together in Jesus Christ," Kim said. "We Baptists need to come together to reach the world for Jesus Christ."
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