Prayer Requests
Volume 4-23
THE VINE I am the vine; you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruits, because apart from me you can do nothing. -John 15:5
January 15, 2014 Weekly Sunday Schedule 9:30am 9:40am 10:00am 11:15am 12:00pm
Prayer with Choir Prayer for Worship NHC Worship Lunch Fellowship Choir Practice Adult Sunday School 1:00pm Pastoral Office Hours
Prayer Requests Pray for the loss of loved ones for: Serena’s Family David Yee’s Family Erik Ohm’s family Elder Kyu’s Family Betty Shin’s Family Pray for health for: Gina Nam Mary Ellen’s mother and brother John Park’s sister John Kim’s parents Ray Cha’s Father Oneil’s Father Parag Shiwakotee Susan’s Kim Mother
Upcoming Schedule Jan 10
Annual Report Available
Jan 19
Joint Worship
Jan 24
Youth Mid-Year Open House
Pastoral Musings Tomorrow is Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s 85th birthday. Ever since 1983, schools, post offices, banks have been closed and giving many of us a three day weekend. While it is a welcomed rest, what will we be celebrating? Better yet, do we even celebrate this national holiday? On this holiday weekend, it begs the question why do we have this holiday and who is this man that we are all getting a long weekend out of it? As many critics have noted, false remembrance, cynical responses, and bland narratives on fairness and justice often mar tributes and celebrations. In the end, many see it as a disservice to King’s true work and issues that were prominent to him and his legacy. Let’s first remember him as a Christian, a pastor, of tremendous faith and earthly fire. He was a disciple of Christ who deeply believed and practiced in the divine teaching of Christ can make significant progress in human transformation and society change. His activism and his intellect shone brightly with his courage during one of the darkest time of our nation’s history. Christ centered faith must meet the ills of the society. Racial justice should be as plain as the sky is blue. To say and do otherwise, it would be an affront to his Christian faith and to Christ. Through King’s extraordinary writings, we can begin to see the Christian, the pastor, the man, and the activist. In his “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” he wrote passionately to respond to a hostile and recalcitrant white southern clergy. This letter deserves our reading and attention. King called upon the God given and constitutional right for any individual to be treated with fairness and justice. In this, he argued for the sacredness of the inclusive “beloved community” for all human community. “He stressed notions of love, power, and justice and their relationship to the nature of social existence.” Through this concept of “beloved community,” King articulated and inspired a generation of activists to take up not arms, but peaceful protest against the three great evils of his days: poverty, racism and war. In his response to Vietnam War, he called our government “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today.” That was then. What about now? Our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will estimated at $6 trillion dollars today.
For poverty, he called on the government and community to act against it by breaking the system of injustice that oppressed the poor to stay poor. A year after his death, President Lyndon Johnson will signed his signature legislation on “war against poverty.” Poverty continues to be the cancer to our society that needs greater solution and resolve from all of us. On racism, he reminded the people that the government had given a bad check to the African American community. Our government had defrauded all citizens who were denied of justice and racial equality. Racial injustice is still active and alive today. We may have cut off its arms, but its legs still need slaying. This MLK Jr. Day also comes on the heels of the death of another giant of our time, Nelson Mandela, who is being sanitized by contemporary culture. Praised by all the world's leaders, Mandela in his struggle against apartheid in South Africa, he was no pacifist. Despite tremendous pressure, he refused to condemn the actions of apartheid's opponents — even when those actions included violence. Yet at his funeral, world leaders tried to remake him in the image of their sanitized version of Martin Luther King. “Mandela's funeral was surreal, as he was joyfully praised by leaders of nations who had branded him a terrorist and funded the apartheid system that kept black South Africans in slave-like conditions.” “An understanding of history and what to honor and what to remember is not an empty intellectual enterprise.” As Guardian columnist Gary Younge wrote from the Mandela funeral, "The past has a legacy and the present has consequences: our understanding of how we got here and why is crucial to our decision about where we go from here next and how." Understanding who our heroes really were and what they actually did is, indeed, critical. For me, it is not enough to ask whether to praise King, but to ask why and know why. King’s Christ centered, scripture based, and faith inspired “beloved community” is the vision of Jesus’ kingdom of God on earth. We are invited to join this effort, for the road ahead is still long. Let us remember King’s words, "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere," as wrote in his Birmingham letter. Let us live this message and teach this message to our children.
2
Sarang’s Corner Practicing the Presence of God Genesis 28:10-17 To start off the morning, Pastor Paul Hahm gave us a little index card and asked us to block it off to 3 sections. Then he asked us to draw where we are right now in our lives in the box on the very left, and then to draw where we see ourselves being in 7 years or so in the box on the very right, thereby leaving the middle box empty. (If you have a moment, I encourage you to pause for a minute and do that now. Just on a scrap piece of paper, draw a large rectangle, split it into 3, and draw now on the left, and 7 years from now on the right.) More on that later. This second message was brought to us through the story of Jacob’s ladder. The world knows Jacob’s ladder as a little toy that is held together by ribbon in an arrangement that allows the blocks to change which block its side is hinged with according to the direction of the top block. No doubt, most of you know to what I am referring.
In the dream Jacob saw a stairway or a ladder, or I often pictured is as an escalator, with angels going up and down it. And there God appears to Jacob in a dream and says, “I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go.” Most of us in our lives we are headed in a certain direction. Whether it is towards medical school, sending our kids to college, having a child, or even just going to church; we are headed towards somewhere and we look forward to having God meet us there. But little do we realize that God’s presence is with us in every situation. He is not just with us when we get to our destinations but He is with us throughout the journey. He is with us through the thick and thin. He has vowed to be with us for better or for worse, in sickness and in health, for rich or for poor, not even death will do us part. Remember that index card, or scrap piece of paper you may have drawn on? The moment that we drew on the left box is not us now. It is us 5 minutes ago, 10 minutes ago, or however long ago it was. It’s not been much time but from the box on the left we have already started our journey to the box on the right and God has been with us through this journey from the start. And our life is much more than this small rectangle with three boxes. What if instead of waiting for God to meet us when we get there, we practice the presence of God in our daily lives on our journey to there.
I any case, this stories comes to us in the midst of some turmoil. Jacob had not only taken his brother’s birthright, but he had just taken his brother’s Esau’s blessing from their father Isaac. Esau is enraged and wants to hurt Jacob but will not while their father is alive. And nearing the end of Isaac’s life Rebekah sends Jacob away to escape Esau’s wrath under the guise of finding a suitable mate. And Jacob, on his road to Paddan Aram where Rebekah’s brother Laban lived, slept with a rock as a pillow and had a dream. 3
Announcements Annual Report
Bible Verse of the Week
Please pick up a copy of the annual report starting this Sunday for the Congregational Meeting on February 2.
Joint Worship We will have a joint worship service with the youth group this SUnday.
Pastor David Leave of Absence Pastor David is taking a week of study leave to prepare for the sermon series for the year and another week of break as a result of the cancellation of the Bangladesh Missions Trip.
Lent Devotional
Matthew 3:17 followed In preparing for the Lent Devotional we are looking for people to write devotions of approximately 200 words, by a prayer. If you are able, please contact Sarang for a passage assignment. Blessed Ministry for Women The Blessed Ministry for Women group meets at NHC at 10am on every 1st and 3rd Wednesdays. Contact Jenni Mantey ([email protected]) for any questions or visit their website at http://thebmwgroup.org/.
Youth Mid-Year Open House The Youth Mid-Year Open House will be held on Sunday, Jan 24 at 1PM at the Education Chapel. Parents will have the opportunity to speak with their child’s teacher and discuss their faith lives. We invite all youth parents to this Open House.
Toddler and Pre-K Sunday Program Time Change The Toddler and Pre-K Sunday program will go until 11:45am. We ask all parents to wait outside of the Pre-K building until 11:45 so that the children’s program will not be disturbed.
Morning Prayer Meetings We are continuing Saturday morning prayer meetings every first and third Saturday of the month. The prayer meeting will begin at 8am. Please look for us in the education wing. We will find a classroom to settle in. Come and join us. http://tinyurl.com/av7z74u
Home Group Bible Studies Home group bible studies are ongoing! Contacts are the following: North & East Group: SJ Hong & MeeA Lee South: Kyu Sohn & Linda Alley West: Andy Nam Petra: Bill Meyer & Michael Kim
4
THE VINE I am the vine; you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruits, because apart from me you can do nothing. -John 15:5
January 15, 2014 Weekly Sunday Schedule 9:30am 9:40am 10:00am 11:15am 12:00pm
Prayer with Choir Prayer for Worship NHC Worship Lunch Fellowship Choir Practice Adult Sunday School 1:00pm Pastoral Office Hours
Prayer Requests Pray for the loss of loved ones for: Serena’s Family David Yee’s Family Erik Ohm’s family Elder Kyu’s Family Betty Shin’s Family Pray for health for: Gina Nam Mary Ellen’s mother and brother John Park’s sister John Kim’s parents Ray Cha’s Father Oneil’s Father Parag Shiwakotee Susan’s Kim Mother
Upcoming Schedule Jan 10
Annual Report Available
Jan 19
Joint Worship
Jan 24
Youth Mid-Year Open House
Pastoral Musings Tomorrow is Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s 85th birthday. Ever since 1983, schools, post offices, banks have been closed and giving many of us a three day weekend. While it is a welcomed rest, what will we be celebrating? Better yet, do we even celebrate this national holiday? On this holiday weekend, it begs the question why do we have this holiday and who is this man that we are all getting a long weekend out of it? As many critics have noted, false remembrance, cynical responses, and bland narratives on fairness and justice often mar tributes and celebrations. In the end, many see it as a disservice to King’s true work and issues that were prominent to him and his legacy. Let’s first remember him as a Christian, a pastor, of tremendous faith and earthly fire. He was a disciple of Christ who deeply believed and practiced in the divine teaching of Christ can make significant progress in human transformation and society change. His activism and his intellect shone brightly with his courage during one of the darkest time of our nation’s history. Christ centered faith must meet the ills of the society. Racial justice should be as plain as the sky is blue. To say and do otherwise, it would be an affront to his Christian faith and to Christ. Through King’s extraordinary writings, we can begin to see the Christian, the pastor, the man, and the activist. In his “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” he wrote passionately to respond to a hostile and recalcitrant white southern clergy. This letter deserves our reading and attention. King called upon the God given and constitutional right for any individual to be treated with fairness and justice. In this, he argued for the sacredness of the inclusive “beloved community” for all human community. “He stressed notions of love, power, and justice and their relationship to the nature of social existence.” Through this concept of “beloved community,” King articulated and inspired a generation of activists to take up not arms, but peaceful protest against the three great evils of his days: poverty, racism and war. In his response to Vietnam War, he called our government “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today.” That was then. What about now? Our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will estimated at $6 trillion dollars today.
For poverty, he called on the government and community to act against it by breaking the system of injustice that oppressed the poor to stay poor. A year after his death, President Lyndon Johnson will signed his signature legislation on “war against poverty.” Poverty continues to be the cancer to our society that needs greater solution and resolve from all of us. On racism, he reminded the people that the government had given a bad check to the African American community. Our government had defrauded all citizens who were denied of justice and racial equality. Racial injustice is still active and alive today. We may have cut off its arms, but its legs still need slaying. This MLK Jr. Day also comes on the heels of the death of another giant of our time, Nelson Mandela, who is being sanitized by contemporary culture. Praised by all the world's leaders, Mandela in his struggle against apartheid in South Africa, he was no pacifist. Despite tremendous pressure, he refused to condemn the actions of apartheid's opponents — even when those actions included violence. Yet at his funeral, world leaders tried to remake him in the image of their sanitized version of Martin Luther King. “Mandela's funeral was surreal, as he was joyfully praised by leaders of nations who had branded him a terrorist and funded the apartheid system that kept black South Africans in slave-like conditions.” “An understanding of history and what to honor and what to remember is not an empty intellectual enterprise.” As Guardian columnist Gary Younge wrote from the Mandela funeral, "The past has a legacy and the present has consequences: our understanding of how we got here and why is crucial to our decision about where we go from here next and how." Understanding who our heroes really were and what they actually did is, indeed, critical. For me, it is not enough to ask whether to praise King, but to ask why and know why. King’s Christ centered, scripture based, and faith inspired “beloved community” is the vision of Jesus’ kingdom of God on earth. We are invited to join this effort, for the road ahead is still long. Let us remember King’s words, "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere," as wrote in his Birmingham letter. Let us live this message and teach this message to our children.
2
Sarang’s Corner Practicing the Presence of God Genesis 28:10-17 To start off the morning, Pastor Paul Hahm gave us a little index card and asked us to block it off to 3 sections. Then he asked us to draw where we are right now in our lives in the box on the very left, and then to draw where we see ourselves being in 7 years or so in the box on the very right, thereby leaving the middle box empty. (If you have a moment, I encourage you to pause for a minute and do that now. Just on a scrap piece of paper, draw a large rectangle, split it into 3, and draw now on the left, and 7 years from now on the right.) More on that later. This second message was brought to us through the story of Jacob’s ladder. The world knows Jacob’s ladder as a little toy that is held together by ribbon in an arrangement that allows the blocks to change which block its side is hinged with according to the direction of the top block. No doubt, most of you know to what I am referring.
In the dream Jacob saw a stairway or a ladder, or I often pictured is as an escalator, with angels going up and down it. And there God appears to Jacob in a dream and says, “I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go.” Most of us in our lives we are headed in a certain direction. Whether it is towards medical school, sending our kids to college, having a child, or even just going to church; we are headed towards somewhere and we look forward to having God meet us there. But little do we realize that God’s presence is with us in every situation. He is not just with us when we get to our destinations but He is with us throughout the journey. He is with us through the thick and thin. He has vowed to be with us for better or for worse, in sickness and in health, for rich or for poor, not even death will do us part. Remember that index card, or scrap piece of paper you may have drawn on? The moment that we drew on the left box is not us now. It is us 5 minutes ago, 10 minutes ago, or however long ago it was. It’s not been much time but from the box on the left we have already started our journey to the box on the right and God has been with us through this journey from the start. And our life is much more than this small rectangle with three boxes. What if instead of waiting for God to meet us when we get there, we practice the presence of God in our daily lives on our journey to there.
I any case, this stories comes to us in the midst of some turmoil. Jacob had not only taken his brother’s birthright, but he had just taken his brother’s Esau’s blessing from their father Isaac. Esau is enraged and wants to hurt Jacob but will not while their father is alive. And nearing the end of Isaac’s life Rebekah sends Jacob away to escape Esau’s wrath under the guise of finding a suitable mate. And Jacob, on his road to Paddan Aram where Rebekah’s brother Laban lived, slept with a rock as a pillow and had a dream. 3
Announcements Annual Report
Bible Verse of the Week
Please pick up a copy of the annual report starting this Sunday for the Congregational Meeting on February 2.
Joint Worship We will have a joint worship service with the youth group this SUnday.
Pastor David Leave of Absence Pastor David is taking a week of study leave to prepare for the sermon series for the year and another week of break as a result of the cancellation of the Bangladesh Missions Trip.
Lent Devotional
Matthew 3:17 followed In preparing for the Lent Devotional we are looking for people to write devotions of approximately 200 words, by a prayer. If you are able, please contact Sarang for a passage assignment. Blessed Ministry for Women The Blessed Ministry for Women group meets at NHC at 10am on every 1st and 3rd Wednesdays. Contact Jenni Mantey ([email protected]) for any questions or visit their website at http://thebmwgroup.org/.
Youth Mid-Year Open House The Youth Mid-Year Open House will be held on Sunday, Jan 24 at 1PM at the Education Chapel. Parents will have the opportunity to speak with their child’s teacher and discuss their faith lives. We invite all youth parents to this Open House.
Toddler and Pre-K Sunday Program Time Change The Toddler and Pre-K Sunday program will go until 11:45am. We ask all parents to wait outside of the Pre-K building until 11:45 so that the children’s program will not be disturbed.
Morning Prayer Meetings We are continuing Saturday morning prayer meetings every first and third Saturday of the month. The prayer meeting will begin at 8am. Please look for us in the education wing. We will find a classroom to settle in. Come and join us. http://tinyurl.com/av7z74u
Home Group Bible Studies Home group bible studies are ongoing! Contacts are the following: North & East Group: SJ Hong & MeeA Lee South: Kyu Sohn & Linda Alley West: Andy Nam Petra: Bill Meyer & Michael Kim
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