We spent the morning hiking Prayer Mountain and getting a formal tour of the facilities.  Imagine, an entire complex dedicated to prayer as an ever-present reminder that the power we for today and tomorrow resides in God’s hands and not our own.  We do well to have a prayer room in most of our churches in the U.S. and the Kwanglim church built a retreat center just for that.  Evidently, Bishop Kim who was instrumental in building Kwanglim from 150 members to 97,000 made it his practice to come to the retreat center each Saturday in order to pray in his “closet” for God’s anointing on Sunday.  

Afterward we visited a church in the southern part of Seoul and had a tour, lunch and coffee. I said this yesterday and it is just as true today that the people have been great to us. They do like for us to stay on time and we are like herding cats so I’m sure there patience has been tested but they remain just as pleasant. In the afternoon we heard from a small church who is receiving funds and training from the Kwamlin church as part of their S.A.L.T. program. This is a 2-year support of the pastor and congregation culminating with the pastor receiving a trip to London to learn about Methodist history and see how church works outside of South Korea. It’s been challenging personally to see how the churches are working together and not in competition. 

We spent the late afternoon and evening in our first seminar as we looked into how leaders shape communities.  That leads to a real need for leaders to be people who take seriously their own personal growth, intergrity, and self-care.  This has been a good day of reminders for me.  Great to be reminded that talent is not enough.  Winsomness is not enough.  Hard work is not enough.  Leadership must be grounded in a deep and abiding relationship with Christ.

I’m sure tomorrow will be exciting as we head to pray for reunification along the border with North Korea known as the DMZ (de-miliatarized zone).  I’ll try to post pictures if we are able to take them.  Thanks for the continued prayers!