2009: Hope to the Hopeless

2009 started 26 days ago, so this entry is very overdue. In this entry, I want to lay out the theme and main goals of 2009 for our church. We--the church--prayed for a month in 2008 and felt that the theme for 2009 would be "Hope to the Hopeless." It is a phrase from Chris Tomlin's song "God of the City." The message of hope would have largely two dimensions: First, God is our hope. We will find our hope of our hearts in Jesus Christ. Many find hopeless situations, whether with their jobs, marriage, addictions, etc., but we will find hope in hopeless situations in Jesus Christ. Second, once we find unfailing hope for our own hearts, we will be able to give hope to the hopeless, whether in Wall Street, or the Streets of poverty-and-AIDS-ravaged Zimbabwe. That is the gist.

I have set five bullet points goals for our church for 2009.
1. Continue to build what God has started. We do not abandon what God began to build to pursue novel goals. We continue to build. So we build intimacy in our hearts through Marveling Place or Morning Prayer. We build community through TLC, serving hearts through ministries, knowledge through New Life Institute and compassion for the poor through various mission involvement.
2. Hope Center. Our church has worked to build the house of the Lord, which would be the Hope Center, for a couple of years. We will continue the work, and Lord willing, find a place this year. Many have given sacrificially for the purpose of building a house for the Lord. We will continue this work joyfully. If the Lord prompts your heart (Exodus 25:2), I urge you to give and make pledges.
3. Hope for the Poor. Our church has been involved me missions from the beginning. At the end of last year, we reviewed our mission involvement and decided to bring focus and concentration on a couple of mission fields. We will continue our mission support to some 30 missionaries all around the globe, but focus our church's effort on 2-3 areas. We chose the places to be Paterson and Zimbabwe. We feel especially called to bring the whole gospel to the poor both preaching of the gospel and the need to meet the needs of the poor. We feel that the needs of Paterson and Zimbabwe fit what God has given us--not only finance but the professional knowledge in many fields. We are in the process of developing plans to connect the haves (us) and the have-nots (Paterson and Zimbabwe). We will make at least one more trip to Zimbabwe (projected date, August; please inquire Melanie Kim, hmelaniekim@gmail.com, especially if you are in medical, IT or education field), and are looking for right ways to connect more deeply with the community in Paterson.
4. Third Site in Manhattan (?). When we started the second worship site in Edgewater, we believed that God gave a paradigm shift. Instead of trying to build a mega-church, we will build churches wherever concentrations of Asian-Americans exist. The first such place was Edgewater. When we began the service in Sept 2007, we already planned to start the third site in the fall of 2009. I have had a couple of unexpected and unsolicited prophetic counsel that has led me to think Manhattan as the third site. This was completely unexpected for me, because NYC is not a place I would think of starting a service, and I thought the third site would be in the west, like Parsippany. However, after receiving the counsel, NYC makes much sense with its many young professionals and college students. Although great churches like Redeemer or Time Square Church exist, community-based, Asian-American churches like ours do not. The launching of the third site would not be as exhausting as launching Edgewater; we are mainly duplicating what we already have--same service, TLC ministries, and pastoral care. However, we will need core people to start this new work. If you are interested, please contact me @ dannyhan@joychurch.com. If the Lord confirms this is right--by sending the right people to start the work--the preparation work will begin in March.
5. Recovery Program. One of the most hopeless experiences is addiction whether , gambling, , etc. For several years we have watched our brothers and sisters struggle with addiction without being able to help them effectively. We have begun the research about church-based addiction recovery program (thanks largely to a couple of our church members whom I would not name here, but thanks). We will explore more, and hope to launch a recovery program that will give hope to the hopeless this fall.

That's the gist of it. If you are interested, please contact me (thrid site) or Melanie (Zimbabwe).