I drove around for 5 hours today looking for a church space to rent for our next service. God's been moving so amazingly last couple of weeks that I was waiting for yet another "Wow! I can't believe that just happened" experience. I started out at the outskirts of Raleigh, near RBC center, and followed my "spiritual spidey sense" towards downtown.
I so badly wanted finding a place worship to be another testimony like so many other events that led up to our first worship last Sunday. I don't I fully trust my spiritual judgment so I wonder, if I am really honest with myself, if the events of last two weeks is a case of my "spiritual wishful thinking." I used my GPS on my iPhone like a "God Positioning System." (Get it? GOd Positioning System...never mind). I would type in "church" in the POI (point of interest) and follow the directions on my iPhone like a spiritual guidance system.
One time, a homeless guy called me from across the street. He shouted, "Hey! Do you know where Snow Street is?" I was just coming out of a particular bad experience with a church secretary in a very established Church of Christ in downtown. I shouted back, "I am sorry!" as I shrugged my shoulders. He turned and went about looking for Snow Street. Immediately I felt convicted, "I have a GPS. I should help him," a voice inside my head said. As I resolved to find Snow Street and take him there, I had another thought, "May be this is how God is guiding me." I then got excited about the thought, "What a testimony this would be, an angel in the form of a homeless man. It would be prophetic judgment against the unwelcoming mainline denomination." I immediately jumped into my Hyundai and went looking for my angel in rags. He wasn't there. "What a great layer to the testimony, an angel guides me and then disappears," I thought to myself. So happily I followed my God Positioning System to Snow Street in sunny 65 degree weather. It was around the corner. I drove up and down the very short three blocks that constituted Snow Street looking for a place of worship. I didn't find one. However, I found a bunch of street persons loittering around a building. "This was what my homeless angel was looking for," I thought. As I was observing the modern brick building another homeless angel, this time smoking a cigarette, asked me what I was looking for. I asked him what this place was, he told me it was a homeless shelter. My theological idealism reared its well trained head: "How perfect. For Korean-Americans bent on success to begin worshipping at a homeless shelter. How profoundly prophetic!" I walked into the shelter where the security guard asked me in a slow southern drawl what I was looking for. I asked him with a great expectation if they rented out their space for worship. He simply shook his head again in a slow southern drawl. I was disappointed.
I quickly realized that I was putting God in my box of expectation. I was making him do another divine trick so I can tell another cool story about our journey. It was heretical. From that moment on, I simply prayed, "God open a door for me so it will become clear." I then went onto visit twenty or so churches. I knocked, called, walked, asked, and prayed my way to 15 plus rejections. I learned a lot about churches today. Some people were upset I even stepped my foot in their church, one lady of a large Raleigh church scolded me for looking for a bathroom saying that "you can't wander around the church!" One lady was clearly offended that I was even in her church without permission. Church after church turned me down. Some were more polite, nevertheless, the answer was no. I called and left countless messages, no one returned my call. Not one pastor was in their office. Not one person asked me a single question about the ministry or the congregation. However, almost every church had a "welcome sign" on the door or the entrance of the church. It made me think, "a welcome is not a sign on the church door but a condition of our hearts." Occupational hazard, I know.
After realizing that downtown Raleigh was close to none of the members of our community, except Paul, I took my search to outside 440. I drove around for another 3 hours with the same results. I came home defeated and tired.
As I was reflecting on the events of the day, tired and discouraged, I realized that none of the churches I visited appealed to me: it was too big, too small, too flashy, too suburban, too urban ... but more than the physical attributes of the church, I just couldn't imagine our fledgeling community worshipping in a "church" building. Something about it just didn't fit. We are an organic community that was formed by God's desired to hold the broken, desperate, and lost. Nothing seemed organic about finding a building, paying rent, trying to fit into the culture, and expectations of some suburban congregation. A thought flashed through my mind, perhaps we can meet at Elder Lee's house. After confirming it with my wife, who also thought that it was a good idea, I called Elder Lee and asked. He agreed it was a good idea. After we hung up, Lee Jipsanim called me soon after I hung up with her husband. She told me that that very day the family decided to look for a new house that could hold worship! She asked me to ask an agent to help them find a house near the Triangle Mall. I readily agreed. God had done it again!
We are a community that was formed organically by stepping through the doors God's been opening, and it's been nothing less than amazing. I realized at the end of the day that the principle of organic obedience -- obedience not as submission to prefabricated categories but to the leading of the Holy Spirit -- will have to guide us in finding the church rather than simply creating a structure because we can, a la GBGM.
I so badly wanted finding a place worship to be another testimony like so many other events that led up to our first worship last Sunday. I don't I fully trust my spiritual judgment so I wonder, if I am really honest with myself, if the events of last two weeks is a case of my "spiritual wishful thinking." I used my GPS on my iPhone like a "God Positioning System." (Get it? GOd Positioning System...never mind). I would type in "church" in the POI (point of interest) and follow the directions on my iPhone like a spiritual guidance system.
One time, a homeless guy called me from across the street. He shouted, "Hey! Do you know where Snow Street is?" I was just coming out of a particular bad experience with a church secretary in a very established Church of Christ in downtown. I shouted back, "I am sorry!" as I shrugged my shoulders. He turned and went about looking for Snow Street. Immediately I felt convicted, "I have a GPS. I should help him," a voice inside my head said. As I resolved to find Snow Street and take him there, I had another thought, "May be this is how God is guiding me." I then got excited about the thought, "What a testimony this would be, an angel in the form of a homeless man. It would be prophetic judgment against the unwelcoming mainline denomination." I immediately jumped into my Hyundai and went looking for my angel in rags. He wasn't there. "What a great layer to the testimony, an angel guides me and then disappears," I thought to myself. So happily I followed my God Positioning System to Snow Street in sunny 65 degree weather. It was around the corner. I drove up and down the very short three blocks that constituted Snow Street looking for a place of worship. I didn't find one. However, I found a bunch of street persons loittering around a building. "This was what my homeless angel was looking for," I thought. As I was observing the modern brick building another homeless angel, this time smoking a cigarette, asked me what I was looking for. I asked him what this place was, he told me it was a homeless shelter. My theological idealism reared its well trained head: "How perfect. For Korean-Americans bent on success to begin worshipping at a homeless shelter. How profoundly prophetic!" I walked into the shelter where the security guard asked me in a slow southern drawl what I was looking for. I asked him with a great expectation if they rented out their space for worship. He simply shook his head again in a slow southern drawl. I was disappointed.
I quickly realized that I was putting God in my box of expectation. I was making him do another divine trick so I can tell another cool story about our journey. It was heretical. From that moment on, I simply prayed, "God open a door for me so it will become clear." I then went onto visit twenty or so churches. I knocked, called, walked, asked, and prayed my way to 15 plus rejections. I learned a lot about churches today. Some people were upset I even stepped my foot in their church, one lady of a large Raleigh church scolded me for looking for a bathroom saying that "you can't wander around the church!" One lady was clearly offended that I was even in her church without permission. Church after church turned me down. Some were more polite, nevertheless, the answer was no. I called and left countless messages, no one returned my call. Not one pastor was in their office. Not one person asked me a single question about the ministry or the congregation. However, almost every church had a "welcome sign" on the door or the entrance of the church. It made me think, "a welcome is not a sign on the church door but a condition of our hearts." Occupational hazard, I know.
After realizing that downtown Raleigh was close to none of the members of our community, except Paul, I took my search to outside 440. I drove around for another 3 hours with the same results. I came home defeated and tired.
As I was reflecting on the events of the day, tired and discouraged, I realized that none of the churches I visited appealed to me: it was too big, too small, too flashy, too suburban, too urban ... but more than the physical attributes of the church, I just couldn't imagine our fledgeling community worshipping in a "church" building. Something about it just didn't fit. We are an organic community that was formed by God's desired to hold the broken, desperate, and lost. Nothing seemed organic about finding a building, paying rent, trying to fit into the culture, and expectations of some suburban congregation. A thought flashed through my mind, perhaps we can meet at Elder Lee's house. After confirming it with my wife, who also thought that it was a good idea, I called Elder Lee and asked. He agreed it was a good idea. After we hung up, Lee Jipsanim called me soon after I hung up with her husband. She told me that that very day the family decided to look for a new house that could hold worship! She asked me to ask an agent to help them find a house near the Triangle Mall. I readily agreed. God had done it again!
We are a community that was formed organically by stepping through the doors God's been opening, and it's been nothing less than amazing. I realized at the end of the day that the principle of organic obedience -- obedience not as submission to prefabricated categories but to the leading of the Holy Spirit -- will have to guide us in finding the church rather than simply creating a structure because we can, a la GBGM.
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