Service and Outreach
Luke 4:18-21 tells us about Jesus quoting the prophet Isaiah (61:1-2):
18 “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, 19 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” 20 And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. 21 Then he began to say to them, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”
We take Jesus’ prophetic words very seriously. There are many ways to serve as Christ served, but we believe that God has a special heart for the foreigner, the widowed, the orphaned, the poor, the downcast, and the oppressed (Exodus 22:21-27, Matthew 5:1-12, James 1:22-27). We do not believe this because we are “do good-ers” who want to work for our own righteousness. We take this proclamation seriously as a call of gratefulness and thanks to God who has loved us first through Jesus the Christ.
With this in mind, we serve in many ways. One way in which we serve is through our Korean class. Being unable to speak the language of the majority population can be burdensome and alienating for people. We offer a way forward to increase understanding not only of the language, but the culture as well. We also sponsor a yearly English Camp here at the church for the youth of our church and the surrounding community to provide not only educational opportunities, but opportunities to bear witness to one another that Christ transcends culture.
Many of our members also serve in a multitude of individual ways. Nevertheless, as a church we have begun working with non-profit, non-religious outreach groups here in Seoul to reach out to the desperate and under served here in Seoul. At the moment, we are primarily working with two groups: P.L.U.R. and Angel House Orphanage Service Group Both of these groups have a multitude of service opportunities that you can become informed about through friending them on Facebook. Our congregation, in a small but intentional way, is seeking to partner as much as possible to do outreach with the groups to provide relief as well as a gospel witness that Christ in us calls us to bear witness to.
We have also begun to work with the Samheung school here in Seoul (click here to read an online article). The school was started for the children of North Korean refugees, as well as orphans. We go to the school every third Sunday and interact and play with the children. We have been blessed by the staff of the school with this opportunity, and we pray that God will use us to love the children.
