Four of the past six days I have been attending conferences of Korean leaders. These con fences are being led by Rev. Tong Park, a long-time friend and colleague. Five years ago my wife and I accompanied Tong and his wife, Jane, to South Korea. We presented three two-day training seminars, one each in three major cities from north to south. Tong had overseen the translation of my revitalization training materials into Korea, and he served as my translator during the training sessions.
In working within this Korean community the past few days, I have been reminded of my feelings when serving in Korea. I do so much training ando consulting in the Anglo church that I am completely comfortable with and confident in what I’m doing. However, when working in the Korean context, I was not able to rely on the familiar but had to think carefully through every sentence. I found myself being much more dependent on God rather than being dependent on myself.
While comfort and confidence can be appropriate and valuable, there is clearly a danger in becoming too comfortable and too confident. These past few days have challenged me of the need to always serve in the spirit and not in the flesh, even if what you are doing is the right thing.
The old saying is that fmiliarity breeds contempt. I’d like to modify that a bit in the ministry setting – familiarity breeds flesh. Wake up!
