It was wonderful to have in-person service at our 11 AM service this Sunday. With thankful hearts, we will continue to wait with vigilance for God to open more doors for us. In the meantime, we will celebrate each other’s presence keeping 6-feet apart with masks on, humming hymns rather than singing out loud. By [...]
I spent this Fourth of July morning looking for one of my hearing aids that had suddenly gone missing. A good two hours of GPS tracking was to no avail. Then my two daughters, who are currently staying at home, joined the search with the metal detector they got me for Father’s Day last year. [...]
Our Reopening Task Force is currently working hard to make sure that the upcoming reopening of our worship hall will be safe and well-organized. In-person worship service will resume after we receive the approval and certifications by the District and Conference offices. In the meantime, we start with a 40-day 24-hour Nehemiah Prayer Relay, beginning [...]
The Council of Korean-American Churches of Greater New York is hosting a 3-day webinar (June 22-24) to share thoughts on how to prepare for a world post-pandemic. I will be giving a talk on “Post-Pandemic Ministry: Opportunity to Renew the Essentials,” through which I hope to encourage the audience that crisis can be transformed into [...]
I read a piece by Heekyung Ahn, a Korean-American journalist for The Kyunghyang Shinmun, in which seven scholars across various fields weighed in on the socio-economic implications of the coronavirus pandemic. One topic that stood out was the accelerated shift to a more sustainable green economy. The pandemic forces us to rethink hyper-globalization in favor [...]
Thefts and robberies were not uncommon when my mother ran a dry cleaning business some twenty years ago in Chicago. It was almost like an annual event. Paying to replace the stolen garments was no small loss for the business. More serious damage was the trauma after being held at gunpoint during the robbery. After [...]
“I can’t breathe.” These were the agonizing words of George Floyd, shortly before he died last Monday after a police officer knelt on his neck to hold him down on the ground. Pain and anger over Floyd’s death has ignited intensifying protests in Minneapolis, spilling over into multiple cities across the country. This Sunday is [...]
Two days ago, President Trump declared churches and other houses of worship as “essential” and called on governors nationwide to let them reopen this weekend. “In America, we need more prayer, not less,” he stated. United Methodist Bishops immediately voiced concerns following Trump’s announcement. The official response of the NY Annual Conference is that “the [...]