You Are My Hiding Place...

“Where Are You?” (Genesis 3:9b)

"He Hideth My Soul" from Bethel Worship

Greetings to you all in the name of our Lord, Jesus Christ,

We have now quite a blessed season before we begin our new year 2020 with many opportunities to connect with God and each other like the Chili Supper, Commitment Sunday, Thanksgiving Week, Sanctuary decoration for Christmas, Hymn Sing, Christmas Musical, Church wide Advent small group bible study, Salvation Army Ringing Day, and this year’s Charge Conference last week. 

Some of you might not know what it is or never attend before, such as for the Charge Conference. Our churches in the Methodist tradition around the world always gather together to review and plan the ministry of the church once a year. It is a gathering of all professing members of the church to celebrate - how we did the ministry together as a church and how we will do for next year. In other words, it is a series of decision making.

In God’s grace, we had a blessed Charge Conference with Rev. Becky from Borth as we revisited our ministry of this year 2019 as well as looked ahead of 2020. We, especially, had a chance to talk about our purpose and vision of our church - Where are we going together and what kind of church do we want to be? 

I remember some years ago, I read a fancy vision statement of some other churches in America saying, “We want to be a church of being biblically transformed, morally pure, family focused, community connected, financially generous, evangelically bold and compassionately serving!” What a wonderful vision statement! Sounds like a perfect church! We want to be a church like that someday, don’t we?

Actually, our United Methodist Church’s mission is “to make a disciples of Jesus Christ”. So Pastor Becky, the presiding elder of our charge conference, asked us, “How can you do that?” Right away, we heard a very clear answer from our lay leader, “one person at a time!” 

However, there was also a sad moment during our charge conference when we named a few who have been missing from us for over a year. Because our efforts to help them to return to the body of Christ was not very successful because of our shortness. Some of our brothers and sisters in our body of Christ are hiding from us dealing with the challenges in their life, struggling financially, emotionally, relationally, physically and also SPIRITUALLY. 

Our church might not have a fancy statement but one simple statement of “Making disciples of Jesus Christ” so that all those professing members, who decided to follow Christ as a church together, experiences the true joy of worshiping, praying, sharing, giving, serving and witnessing in full thanksgiving without hiding.

In the beginning, when Adam and Eve had to go through their life challenges as they took the forbidden fruit from the Garden of Eden, they hid from the Lord God among the trees. However, God asked, “Where are you?” because God always wanted them to find a freedom to play in the garden of Eden. Even when they sinned against God, He would guide them through that dark valley of fear and shame. There is no hiding place in front of God’s sight because God is the only one true hiding place for us.

“For you are my hiding place; you protect me from trouble. 

You surround me with songs of victory.” (Psalm 32:7, NLT)

“You Are My Hiding Place” by Gospel Invasion Group

Brothers and sisters in Christ, now we are stepping into the new journey with Jesus Christ as we prepare to celebrate the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem, a gift of God’s salvation. Where are you now? And where is our brothers and sisters now? In our new year, we will continue to ask this question to help each other to experience God’s joy fully as a body of Christ together. Join me!

Grace and Peace,

Pastor Kyochul