Praise be to God for all great things are possible through the Lord. We at Crystal Springs UMC, San Mateo welcome our new pastor, Pastor Kata’i’i Tapa with welcome arms and a filled heart. We hope and pray that your ministry in our church will be fulfilling and enriched by God’s love and blessing. Pastor Tapa joins us from Sacramento, as she leaves her 12 year tenure at First Tongan Taulangu UMC. We are enthused to create a enthusiastic collaboration with Pastor Tapa for the present and future of CSUMC.
Korean United Methodists Appeal for Prayer
The peace committee of The Korean United Methodist Church is asking for prayers for the upcoming U.S.-North Korea Summit on June 12 in Singapore. The National Christian Council in Korea also will initiate the prayer campaign in South Korea before and during the summit and have written a prayer.
The relationship between the United States and North Korea has been a hostile one since 1948, when North Korea declared its independence as a nation. However, the summit has shaken the foundation of Korean Americans’ thoughts, theology, and philosophy. Korean Christians, once expressing hatred and anger toward North Korea, now express hope for peace.
“The foundation of Korean-American Christians’ theology and philosophy has been drastically shaken since the U.S. and North Korea began their talks,” said the Rev. TJ Kim, pastor of Salem Korean United Methodist Church in Schaumburg, Illinois. “The talks weren’t imagined ever before … now it has become reality.”
Kim is known as an outspoken leader of conservative Korean churches in Northern Illinois, but the summit challenged him deeply.
“Is there any bigger issue than the nuclear bomb of North Korea in The United Methodist Church?” Kim asked. “Is there any more serious difference in the church than the difference between America and North Korea?”
The summit gives him hope that other divides can be overcome. “Now that Mr. Trump going to meet Kim Jong Un, then why can’t we live and embrace … in the church over the issue of human sexuality?”
Kim asks the church to pray for peace and reconciliation in the Korean peninsula. “The Hebrew people marched around the city of Jericho once a day for six days, and nothing happened,” he said. “The seventh day they marched around the city once, twice, six times but still nothing happened. But after the seventh round of the seventh day, the Jericho wall collapsed.
“Prayer sometimes works like that. The day comes suddenly like thieves. The change in the Korean peninsula comes like that. … So we have to pray constantly and faithfully.”
The Rev. Jae Lew, pastor of Valley Korean United Methodist Church in Granada Hills, California, is the newly elected president of the Korean United Methodist Churches’ Association.
He leads his church to pray for peace in the Korean peninsula every Sunday, and nowadays he encourages his church to pray for the successful summit between Trump and Kim Jong Un. He was one of the Korean pastors who wrote an adopted resolution to the California Pacific Annual Conference.
The resolution urges “the U.S. government to take a step further for bilateral diplomatic and human contacts between the United States and North Korea.” It also encourages the California-Pacific Conference to “promote the awareness and prayerful engagement for peace in the Korean Peninsula and for reunification between the two Koreas.”
The Rev. James Chongho Kim, pastor of Flushing First United Methodist Church in New York, has been a leader in the peace and democratic movement in the Korean American church and community.
“I want to serve a church in North Korea,” said Kim. “The reunification between South and North Koreas may not happen in the near future. However, if the summit is held successfully, North Korea will soon be open, and there will be a great missional opportunity for Korean churches and a tremendous missional energy in Korean-American churches.
“It is better to pay a peace cost than to pay a cost for a war. Peace is not a just political language, but biblical because it is of Jesus’ teaching,” Kim said.
The 1988 United Methodist General Conference adopted and passed a resolution calling for peace and reconciliation of the Koreas. The denomination has also supported North Koreans through the “Five Loaves and Two Fish” mission of the Korean United Methodist Churches’ Association for the past 25 years to feed hungry North Korean children and provide other humanitarian materials.
The Rev. We Hyun Chang, the chair of the association’s peace committee, welcomes the talks.
“Peace is a human right,” he said. “Everyone has right to live without any threat or fear of a war.”
Noting that “poverty is inhumane,” Chang said he hopes the summit will produce peace and cause economic sanctions on North Korea to be lifted. “Economic sanctions kill children and old people in North Korea,” he added.
Bishop Hee-Soo Jung was born and raised in Kwang Hwa Do in South Korea, which is near the border between two Koreas. When he was eight years old, his friend died while swimming in the sea because of a landmine that had drifted into the water.
Jung said the summit is not only a political matter but also a personal matter, a process of normalizing, healing, and restoring his spirit and mind.
The normalization of the U.S.-North Korea diplomatic relationship is very crucial for the mission of the church, Jung said. With peace, talks and meetings with the Chosun Christian Association, the official North Korean Christian Organization, are possible. It is even possible that they could be a mission partner, and a window for mission in North Korea opens, he added.
Jung emphasized that the church is called to be a peacemaker that works for reconciling and healing in a church and among nations and peoples.
Finally, he also appealed for prayer from all United Methodists for the summit.
“The meeting between the leaders of two Koreas was because of prayers. Now is the time to pray for the summit between the U.S. and North Korea. Prayer works for all the time for all purposes,” he said.
Kim is director of Korean and Asian news at United Methodist Communications. Contact him at 615-742-5470 or newsdesk@umcom.org. To read more United Methodist news, subscribe to the free Daily or Weekly Digests.
World Stands Together to Pray for Peace on Korean Peninsula
As people in Seoul held a candlelight vigil on 7 June to pray for peace on the Korean Peninsula, they were joined by the World Council of Churches (WCC) in Geneva, the National Council of Churches of Christ in the USA (NCC), and hundreds of others across the world.
In downtown Seoul, the Presbyterian Church in the Republic of Korea and the National Council of Churches in Korea (NCCK) co-led a candlelight prayer service for the success of the coming Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK)-USA summit scheduled for 12 June.
The service began near Seoul City Hall with prayers, singing, readings, and a message given by Rev. Han Ki-yang, who discussed the need for the world to follow Koreans as they seek to bridge the divide of the conflict through respectful dialogue and mutual assurances of security.
Ki-yang noted that some are seeking to block such efforts through accusations and condemnation of the other, and encouraged people to courageously share a message about the need to drop hostile threats and persuade national leaders to seek peace through building mutual trust.
The prayer service in Seoul concluded with a candlelight prayer march from City Hall to the front of the US Embassy near Gyeongbokgung Palace. The NCCK asked its partners to continue praying in solidarity for a successful outcome of the DPRK-US summit.
Simultaneously, in Geneva, Switzerland, staff and friends of the WCC gathered in the Ecumenical Centre chapel in prayerful solidarity at noon to express solidarity with their sisters and brothers in Korea.
In Geneva, prayer cards were distributed with a design, drawn from the flag used in the Pyungchang Olympic games, to symbolize a unified Korea.
In the USA, the NCC also drew people together the same day in Washington, DC for prayer and reflection.
“Today we gather for peace and diplomacy,” said Christine Ashley, field secretary for the Friends Committee on National Legislation. “Thank you, National Council of Churches in Korea, for the worldwide leadership that our friends in Korea are now showing us in these times.”
Rev. Dr Maidstone Mulenga, director of Communications for the Council of Bishops of the United Methodist Church, said: “Today as we offer prayers for peace on the Korean Peninsula, those of us in the United Methodist Church stand with the rest of the world in praying for peace.”
The effort for peace in Korea goes back decades, reflected Jim Winkler, NCC president and general secretary. “The churches in this country, along with those in Korea and all over the world have been active presences in this cause,” he said. “We have prayed simply – and some would say idealistically – for peace but we have also worked at the sophisticated levels in developing proposals for peace, in holding conferences, in meeting with governments, in refusing to demonize ‘the other.’ ”
Standing with Immigrant Children
Immigrant children have been separated from their mothers and families for years under our broken immigration policies. Some of us still recall seeing them detained in McAllen, Texas in a repurposed factory in 2014. The place was frigid cold and children as little as 3 years old were being held in cages. We saw them at Port Hueneme, California, more than 300 of them as unaccompanied children came from Central America. An educational company was being paid big bucks to hold these children prisoners. We were told not to speak to the children. And now we see them in Tornillo, Texas being detained in tents. I cannot help but remember the Tent City of former Sheriff Joe Arpaio in Phoenix, Arizona, a cruel anti-immigrant power monger who bragged about his “Concentration Camp.” Immigrant children have died in the desert of our Southern border, in the Rio Grande River, and crossing border streets into this country. They are also dying in the places from which they flee in the arms of their mothers and fathers.
Our broken immigration policies and even more, our immoral response to immigrant children in perilous danger are disgraceful reflections of a nation that has lost a part of its soul. Political leaders starting with the President of this country have failed us. Trump isn’t the only President to fail. The line of Presidents who have been unable to move beyond political expediency, and who have not had the inner justice conviction to inspire and demand necessary change in the way we treat immigrants, is long. Trump, however, has proven himself the cruelest among them. As a United Methodist, I am also ashamed of the fact that Attorney General Jeff Sessions is a United Methodist and either never learned the truths taught in our holy scripture or now is willing to sacrifice his faith for his political position.
Separating children from their parent at the border as they seek asylum runs counter to our country’s laws as well as moral understanding of justice. A call from the Executive branch for a Zero Tolerance Policy that allows the abuse of children to send a political message to immigrants is unconscionable! If President Trump and Attorney General Sessions do not have the capacity to understand this or the will to turn from their evil ways, Congress will need to step up.
I pray that people of good will and faith will also step up all across this country. I know that many of us are feeling overwhelmed and at a loss of knowing what else to do. Many of us have been persevering advocates for humane and just treatment of immigrants and refugees for decades. Let us keep our work in perspective – no one has struggled more or lost more than our immigrant and refugee brothers and sisters. In this dark hour, let us keep raising our voices for justice, especially for immigrant and refugee children.
This coming week, let us take time to pray with immigrant and refugee families. Share a meal with them. Let them know they are not alone, and that they are not wrong for seeking life for themselves and for their children.
Bishop Minerva G. Carcaño
Vacation Bible School 7/9/2018 to 7/13/2018
Please join us for Vacation Bible School at Crystal Springs United Methodist Church. The theme will be AMPED.
Who: Open to youth 3 years old to 12 years old.
When: Monday, July 9th to Friday, July 13th from 10:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.
Where: 2145 Bunker Hill Dr., San Mateo, CA 94402.
For registration or for more details: call (650)345-2381 or email crystalspringsumc@gmail.com
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