It’s been more than four months since I could not attend the church offline worship since last June this year. As time passes by, we are getting more accustomed to online worship services. When I was proposed to be a speaker for the simultaneous evangelistic meeting in the South-East Korean Conference, I doubted if we could have an offline meeting. My worry was getting more extensive when the church did not accept my suggestion to have an offline revival meeting. Instead of having an offline revival meeting, I could only visit via zoom on a Friday evening, November 10, 2021. However, from the darkness, I was able to see a gleam of light from that revival meeting. Church members who attended the church service were anxious about the message of God.
Furthermore, I was able to see the online and offline combined meeting was well organized and properly operated. I shared the themes of my sermon and asked the church members to prepare more earnestly in prayer and invite friends and neighbors. We all agreed that the success of the evangelistic meeting lies in the intercession of the Holy Spirit.
The evangelistic meeting was convened from October 19, Tuesday, till the Sabbath. At first, I was disappointed a bit because the church did not dare to start from Monday so that I was given only five times of sermons. However, in the end, the church requested me to speak one more time on the Sabbath morning instead of having a Sabbath School lesson. Consequently, I spoke six times though the days I was preaching were five days. The main title of my sermon was "The Bible – Answers to Our Life Problems." I tried to choose the most relevant topic for the people who had little chance to be acquainted with the Bible. I wanted to talk about some common topics to all people regardless of their religions. I enjoyed preaching, and I hoped that all the listeners also enjoyed the message.
The first day’s title was "Who am I?" I emphasized that we are not the product by chance but the purposedly created children of God. The second day, I talked about our future with the message titled "Will the era without coronavirus come?" Bible prophecies were introduced, and Jesus’ second coming was introduced as when we don’t have many bad things, including the coronavirus, that we experience in this world. The third-day sermon’s title was "What does the life insurance guarantee?" I talked about the state of the dead and introduced the real life-giver, Jesus Christ. On Friday evening, I spoke about baptism with the title of "How can we re-start our life?" On the Sabbath morning, I briefly mentioned the salvation by Jesus Christ, and on the divine worship time, I spoke about Jesus’ Second Coming with the title of "Do we still have hope?" I believe that the seeds of the gospel that were sown during the evangelistic meeting will be sprout out here and there because it should be confirmed that "I planted the seed, Apollos (Alpha City pastor and church members) watered it, but God made it grow." (1 Corinthians 3:6)
It is true that we are facing a lot of barriers and obstacles in our path before us. However, we cannot stop going forward because the obstacles are not allowed for us to stop there, but to give us time to pray to God for his way earnestly. This should be the time to cooperate with our God, who is the Great Helper. In this sense, the evangelistic meeting at Alpha City Church was a special experience of collaborating with God to me. If some souls gave their hearts to God by this evangelistic meeting, I could not help confessing that it’s been done "not by might nor by power, but by (the Holy) Spirit" (Zachariah 4:6).
SunHwan Kim, NSD Associate Secretary
