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Collegedale Korean SDA Church

Culture vs. Church

Justin Kim

Culture vs. Spiritual Calling

In every Adventist church I go to, on every Sabbath, you do the whole good morning, happy Sabbath thing, and only 2 people say it, you gotta do it twice, and then people are annoyed, and it's like happy Sabbath, and you just greet loudly the first time.

Oh, it may seem like a formality to you, but it does, as a speaker, as a guest speaker, it does, I feel the warmth.

And even if you did, I know that you guys are all, many of you, not all of you, are loving.

We're gonna have a message today based on last night's message.

Welcome, welcome, welcome, welcome, welcome.

I did, there was a caveat, a disclaimer that I am Korean.

And this is a Korean church welcoming all non-Koreans, but the message is kind of geared towards Asians.

And I presented this many times before, and many of those who are not Asians have received a lot of blessings, but it's a little bit more work as it's primarily contextualized for the Asian context.

But the principles here actually are needed for every Adventist, especially those on university campuses.

So I'm assuming that many of you, not all of you, but many of you are affiliated with the university nearby in some way, to some degree, and even if you're not, you are part of its momentum and its existence.

Message this morning is entitled Cultural and Spiritual Calling.

And before we actually go in, yes, it is another PowerPoint presentation.

It's just, as I mentioned yesterday, it kind of came off of my thinking and my, I've been involved in campus ministries for about 15 years.

As a pastor of a Korean church, pastor of an American international church.

I lived in Korea as a missionary for a couple years and now I work for General Conference.

And I have, these are thoughts that are still coagulating in my mind and I just shared with some people a couple months ago and some people said, hey, you need to share this at Collinsdale.

If you don't like the message, that's your fault.

I can't do anything about it, and that's your problem.

But we're gonna try to make that this is a grace-filled message as much as possible.

Can I ask, and I know this is a very rude question to some of you, but I don't really care?

People were born in 2001, that's kind of weird.

Just have a demographic, I'm very into sociology.

And then, we'll just do 30 plus, 30 plus.

There's something really cool that I really like about the Asian culture.

I really revere the American culture and an Asian culture.

I mentioned this a little last night, but the Asians really like age.

A lot of times we think the Asians are about shame and dignity and...

No, the Westerners are also just so much about shame and but they're ashamed of age.

So you see a lot of women who are like, oh yeah, I mean they look like they're 90 years old, but like, yeah it's my 30th birthday and they're still reliving their youth.

Whereas in Asia they're like, I am old and I can do whatever I want and I can say whatever I want.

And as I get older I want to be like that person.

And I guess the reason I ask how old you are is, some of you already set in your ways, you've chosen your calling, and there's not much you can do about that.

There's others, you're kind of in that intermediate stage and there's others that are like, I don't know what my calling is, I'm just trying to figure out my major.

So we're just gonna maybe kind of do a bird's eye view on what I believe is the Asian problem and then our role as Adventists.

Now my assumption, all of you here are Seventh-day Adventists.

And I believe it's a biblical message, but this is a burden I have, especially for Koreans and for Adventists, but including everyone.

Is that fair of a disclaimer, just so that everyone's feeling nice and warm and chicken soupy in their stomachs?

There are a lot of Asian American pressures that we have.

If you don't know about them, I want to introduce you to them.

I met him online, and we've developed a nice relationship lately.

And, you know, I was just talking with Sarah up on the pulpit and why is it that every Asian is born with supernatural musical abilities upon birth?

And Asians are very big and I say Asians and I know non-Asians are the same and if you actually look at it culturally many in continental Africa have what we would call an Asian culture, in the same values, many in Eastern Europe.

We had talked to a sister last night, the Romanian Bulgarian, very similar.

Basically the whole world is the same except for America and Europe, okay, and Australia.

But, you know, Asians are very big into music and we, you know, our dads are violent about that.

We're into study, you know, study, study, study, study, study.

For those of you who are Korean, you know, like, you know, how many of you hear it?

And then we're after you're studying, then at a certain point when you turn about 25, your parents don't care about you studying.

Now usually 25 is usually the age where like you're really interested in your doctoral studies and you want to study even more and that's when you're like you need to get married, get married, get married, get married, get married, get married.

That's what they want to say and then they say after after you've you've you've married, if this clicker works, oh, oops, children, children, children, children, children, children, maybe you stop generating meme and start generating grandchildren.

There is a divergence of American and Asian cultures, okay?

Last night we looked at the East versus West.

I'm trying to bring up the more humorous elements to make a little bit more palatable than just give you sociological data.

And my job as a pastor is to say for the, at least the Asian-American culture, this has ramifications in our church.

Culture vs. Spiritual Identity

Gracious Father, we thank you for this venue tonight.

We thank you for the souls who have come out.

And Lord, some of them are here for credit.

But Father, more than a message, more than a fulfilling of righteousness, help us to get something out of time.

So be with the foolishness of the speaker through the medium of preaching, and we ask for a blessing only that the Holy Spirit can give.

Bible says in chapter 3, verse 27, for as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ, there is neither Jew nor Greek.

And if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to promise.

I want to thank the elders of this church, which I think there's only 1 elder, technically, Jacob, but all the other pseudo-elders and people who think you're leaders here, Pastor Kurt and Pastor Kim on the other side of the world, for coming.

I will be presenting this week on a series of messages that are not really sermons.

And so this is the same exact material, So if you're like, oh man, this is the same, duh, I'm giving you the thing here.

And some of this stuff has been weighing upon me very, very heavily.

It started when I was a, It started when I was a pastor of a Korean church.

If you pretend to understand Korean, you can understand it.

Okay, she's offended because she's like, I don't understand it.

Okay, very stereotypical Asians don't respond back.

I was a pastor of the Battle Creek Korean Church, Damik Moksa.

And I was there for, it was very difficult for me.

I was born here in America, New York's, amen?

And Then I pastored an American church, and I say American, it was international, Detroit downtown, we had about 350 members.

Ben Carson's mom was 1 of our members, and then she transferred out because she did.

And then I was involved in campus ministries for many years, still am.

In current my position, I'm working for the General Conference.

I represent the World Church in going out to different areas.

I'm an editor for the Young Adult Collegiate Quarterly, and we're doing away with CQ.

We have a new TV show on Hope Channel and we have a Korean guy, that's me, and then we have a black dude, 2 white people, a Hispanic dude, and We try to get all the colors of the rainbow in there.

But I feel a certain burden for the Korean-American community.

And so I'm saying that as a disclaimer, if that's OK.

Now, this is a Korean church, So I feel comfortable that I can say that.

Now if you're not Korean or of some Korean derivative, I don't want you to feel uncomfortable.

And I'm not trying to stare at you guys now.

But your input or your feedback is just as welcome.

But these are things that apply to the Korean immigrant subgroup, but there are principles that really apply to every cultural group out there.

And I don't know about your experience, but my experience is growing up in a Korean church, I've had elders fight in my parking lot, fist fight, cops had to be called, churches had split, and Korean churches evangelistically grow through church fighting.

Yes, Paul fought with John Mark and 2 groups came out.

And Growing up, I was very embarrassed about being a Korean.

And I thought, growing up, I thought all Sabbath keepers were Korean.

Then I met a Sunday Korean, I'm like, oh, you're Korean and you're keeping the wrong day.

And then I saw a non-Korean Sabbath keeper.

It was, we are very myopic as a Korean American.

So I mean that's not just, That's not calling out Koreans.

You're just a standard Korean like, It is okay to respond.

Okay, if you feel comfortable with nae or amen or amen, whatever you want to do, you're fine with that.

So in different fields I've been in, and I had this burden to share these messages, and I did it at Kohada.

Some of you were there, some of you were blessed.

I said, Lord, if it's your will, open it up for another opportunity.

And then Eli, elder, pseudo-elder Eli said, hey, come and speak at, what church is this?

Okay, My wife is putting the kids to bed so we're here.

And I just want to say like this isn't a very, it's not a very smooth message.

Okay, it's just a informal talk and I want to put that out there and I want to talk from Korean to Korean.

I've lived in Korea for 1 year, did missionary work.

There are some cultural juxtapositions between Korean, Korean, and Korean-American.

Even though I think I'm Korean-American, and I was born in New York, I love American history, I'm all about the judicial system of America, I'm all about, you know, stand up and America, you know, all that stuff.

But just as much, I view very strongly that we should embrace our Korean culture Not for the culture's sake, but for Christ.

Now, some of you are like, I don't know what that means.

Culture vs. Spiritual Church

Father in heaven, Lord, we humbly ask that you bless us this afternoon.

It's tough, I think some of us are gonna fall asleep, and Lord, I might even fall asleep, Lord.

Lord, we ask for not just energy and strength, but help us to really get what you would have us to get.

And if it's a point that I'm not making, Lord, even allow the Holy Spirit to make that in our hearts.

I know I'm the limitation here, Father, so I ask for that blessing.

I ask for forgiveness for my sins, my shortcomings, and upon my brothers and sisters here as well, I pray in Jesus' name, amen.

So in the Asian American church experience, you experience the community.

Many people, and this is not an Adventist thing, this is also upon the Presbyterian, Baptist, and all the other non-denominational churches.

Like it's hard to leave church not because of the doctrines or the Christ experience.

Many feel they can't leave church because of the community.

They're like, oh you know, elder, like oh He babysat me since I was a baby.

Kim, which is like half the Korean Najimas.

Kim, she baked me duck, you don't bake duck, but you bake bread for me.

And what's funny is many who leave the Adventist church, specifically they come to church, but they come to church to pay respects and to say hi to all the elders that they like, and then they just go home afterwards.

I'm here, and then you go, and sometimes you get food, good food in the process.

Some people call it the Korean Art Museum.

Like you're going and you're seeing people, we're like, hello, you're at church, oh hello, you're at church, oh hello, and there's the exhibit, And you're just going around saying hello to everyone.

And that's really not church, although that's a church for some people.

Korean churches are often the headquarters for Korean language school, for fan dancing, for Korean cooking classes, for, you guys don't know what it's called in Korean, I forgot, but like, you know, like the dancing with the long sleeves and then like the whatever thing and like they teach that at church which I get, I get because it's a Korean church and they're but why don't we have a separate cultural center for that?

And what happens is those 2 sometimes get mixed.

And then lastly, you have the pseudo extended family, where you get, I call it the fat syndrome, where everyone in church is related to you.

Yeah, and a lot of Korean churches are like that.

That's my gomul, that's my aunt, that's my samchun, that's my uncle.

And what happens is like, you have to go to church because it's your family reunion every Sabbath, and if you don't go, you're gonna get called, and that's very, very common, and many churches are created or split off due to extended family relations.

By the way, disclaimer, I don't know anything about Collegedale, so if that's true here, I don't know what I'm talking about.

If you were never happy at any church, and you're looking constantly for the perfect church, Don't join it because you will ruin it.

So there's this church, this is a millennial thing, like I'm looking for the perfect church, I'm looking for the perfect church.

You should choose your church not on the basis on how good the pastor is, or how good the facilities are, or how much in debt the church is, your church should be based on where you can do your local ministry.

So if I am a professional in the town of Ulu'toa, and I would want to go to the Ulu'toa church so that with my clientele, if I were to witness to them, I can bring them to a church nearby.

So it should be a church where you feel comfortable in bringing your contacts or your people who are interested in Christ.

If you're going to a church where you're being fulfilled or you're being satisfied, the reality is you'll never actually find that church.

They may be fulfilling in 1 or 2 of these aspects, but the perfect church doesn't exist.

And the fact that you were searching for a perfect church, you are not perfect, so even if there were, you joining it, you would make the church imperfect, so you're the problem.

These things aren't bad, but they are when they become more visible and prominent as the spiritual function of the church.

I'm not going to go into this because a lot of this is kind of redundant.

And I would really say that the millennial generation is sociologically weird because they actually like the older generation.

Walmart, and for those of you guys from former Michigan, Meijer, there's another, some of you are nodding your heads.

They place senior citizens at the front when you come in.

And they found out that a lot of millennials, they come to these big box stores and there's no 1 to greet them.

So they just feel like this is like a this is a corporate enterprise trying to get my money, all these things made in China, you're going to sell this to me.

But then you have an old person there like welcome to Walmart, come here little buddy.

What happens in a lot of Korean Asian churches is they blame a lot of the cultural barrier on the generational barrier.

But when there's good communication back and forth, the older generation really likes talking to the younger generation.

The younger generation will talk to the older generation.

Generation Xers hate really everyone in life.

Very angry generation, a very small generation, just very, very, very, you know, Nevada and punk music.

Millennials are very apathetic and indifferent about everything.

And they've, they lived in such an abusive generation that the majority of the parents are all divorced.

They don't know what it's like to have home-cooked meals.

So they look back towards the golden years of their grandparents.

They look at that as this is real America.

And this is the cards that have been dealt to us.

And then we talked about the cultural barrier.

So then you have post-college, young single adults, young married, older married, older single, families with kids, and we find we're segmenting all of us, right?

So you go to church and we're like, okay, are you married?

Okay, you're married, so you got to go to this section.

Well, young adult is anyone 35 and older who is married, but what if you're 37 and you're not married?

Then are you either in this section or this section?

So then we start specializing and we become unable to minister to really anyone.

And you don't find that in the Bible anywhere.

Language is, because you can't communicate, you have tongues and different things, but culture and age is not, so that's something to be mindful of.

In the West, you have I think, therefore I am.

In the Korean culture you have I am the firstborn son of Elder Suh of California Church, therefore I am.

Then you have, this is kind of a review, you have Asian performance plus American achievement equals workaholics.

You have a lot of young adults who are the most workaholics in American society.

Series

Culture vs. Church

Culture vs. Spiritual Calling

Transcript

Parent Series

Sponsor

Recorded

Plenary Sessions

Education and Redemption Are One

1h 20m

Stephen Bohr: Ready for His Appearing

Reflections on Daniel 11

1h 17m

Creation, Science, Evidence, and Faith

Faith and Science - My Story

1h

Adventist Apologetics: Complex Issues, Adventist Answers

3. The God Under Your Rug: Why the Old Testament God Appears So Mean?

1h

The Secret to Power

40m

GYC 2012 Seminar: A Revolution of Destiny - The Sanctuary Context

Act I: The Sanctuary Revelation In the Old Testament

1h

David Williams: The Racial Divides

The Racial Divides, Part 4

58m

Talking Points 3rd Quarter 2022: In the Crucible with Christ

04 Seeing the Goldsmith’s Face

29m

GYC 2012 Seminar: Christ - The Watchword of the Revolution

The Key to the Promise, Part II

53m

Music and Worship: The Chief Battleground of Satan, Part 2

1h

Rediscovering Adventism’s Golden Shields

1h 18m

Continuing the Reformation

Educational Reform

1h

Sound Doctrine