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October 15, 2009

Announcements - Oct. 8.

Greetings, brothers and sisters in Christ!

Here are the announcements for the week of 10/8:

• TIME CHANGE! Please join us for our Sunday worship service at 1:15 p.m. Afterward, there will be snacks and refreshments provided downstairs in the Fellowship Hall.

• This Friday will be Growth Group fellowship night! Come join us for dinner and a movie (Where the Wild Things Are?). Please arrive at Salem no later than 7:30 p.m. If you plan on arriving late or have any suggestions, please call or text Daewoo at 312-259-3250.

• Downtown Bible study meets the first Thursday of every month. Our next meeting will be on 11/5 at Holly's place.

• Don’t forget! Please contribute to the Wayside fund – only $1 a week – so that we may continue to provide fresh fruit and meals to the homeless.

• A new Korean class for adults is being offered at Schaumburg Korean Language School. It will be held from 12 p.m. to 1 p.m. every Saturday. The tuition is $120 ($150 for non-Salem members). If you are interested, please contact Pastor TJ.

• Looking to serve? AfterCall is a wonderful opportunity to grow closer to one another as we prepare snacks for our congregation. Please sign-up outside the sanctuary or downstairs in the Fellowship Hall.

• Please continue to keep the following in prayer: Roy and Matt, who are serving in the military forces, Daniel, who is studying in Boston, Kyungsu, who is studying at Garrett, and Ann, who is leaving her job after 21 years (!) to venture new horizons, and the building project.

If you have any more announcements, or joys and concerns to share with the community, please contact salemcommchurch@gmail.com.

Posted by salemem05 at 08:27 AM |

Rev. Theddeus J. (TJ) Kim

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Pastor TJ Kim has been leading Salem Community since 2004.  His dream is to nurture a faith community that allows and empowers its people to fully enjoy the abundance of God’s grace. Christian life begins with restoring wholeness to a broken life through God’s grace.  Once restored and nurtured to live a life like “a tree planted by the water” (Jeremiah 17:8), Christian community, then, should be able to share the abundance of God’s grace with the rest of the world, “enlarging the boundaries of God’s love.”As part of this dream, he has pushed for faith-nurturing Bible study programs and been on five short-term mission/vision trips to Mexico, Russia and North Korea in the past five years.  In the future, he would like to see a family counseling center to be established to help struggling families.  He would also like to see a senior-citizen’s apartment and a group home for mentally and physically challenged minority people built near the church, so the church can minister to them directly.  Ultimately, he would like to see the church’s oversea mission work expanded to North Korea and build a church there someday.

Another dream of Pastor TJ is to build a faith community that provides new opportunities to the underprivileged.  Being enlightened by Gladwell’s book “Outliers,” Pastor TJ wants to build a church that helps those people, especially children, who otherwise would not have the opportunities necessary for them to grow to have a meaningful and fruitful life.  To this end he has been working hard to start and continue the summer program and the weekend Korean school for children and also to build an educational building adjacent to the present church building.  In the future, he would like to establish a scholarship foundation and an afterschool program as well.

When he is not consumed by these dreams, he enjoys playing guitar, Korean drum, singing, fishing, and recently walking his family dog Bruno.  But more than anything he finds joy in being with his wife, Wendi and their four children, JD, Jocelynn, Jemi and Joshua.  Currently, he is leading both Korean and English congregation at Salem Church.

Rev. Theddeus J. (TJ) Kim

1988  Graduated from the University of Illinois, Urbana, BA in Philosophy
1992  Graduated from Princeton Theological Seminary, M.Div.
1994  Ordained (Deacon), The United Methodist Church
1994  Director of Korean American Campus Ministry, Chicago, Illinois
1998  Associate Pastor, English Ministry, Korean Church of Atlanta, Georgia
2001  Ordained (Elder), The United Methodist Church
2001  Sr. Pastor, Warren United Methodist Church, Warren, Illinois
2004  Sr. Pastor, Salem Korean United Methodist Church

 


 

Posted by salemem05 at 08:15 AM |

October 14, 2009

Whatever Happened to the Good Old Class?

When John Wesley began the Methodist movement in 1740s, one of the cleverest things he did was organizing small groups.  He called them “Classes”.  Each Class consisted of 12 people, led by a leader who was required to visit each member at least once a week.  They met weekly for the purpose of fellowship, support and discipleship.  The attendance to the Class meeting was so emphasized that the members were issued a membership card every three months to verify their active participation, without which they could not participate in the weekly Class meeting and the quarterly Love Feast.

 

The success of the Methodist movement was credited to the structure of the Classes which organized tens of thousands Methodist into a system where the continual care and support were possible.  The Class system existed for about 100 years in the Methodist Church and slowly died out around 1850s.

 

However, the Class meetings, called “Sok” in Korean, are alive and well in the Korean Methodist churches.  Presently our KM is organized into 7 different “Sok”, which meet once a month, usually on the first weekend of the month.  The Class is led by a class leader, called “Sok-Jang”, whose ministry is to care for his or her Class members, by calling them and visiting them.  They attend the monthly Class leaders’ meeting on the last Saturday of the month and are asked to come to at least once a week to a morning prayer meeting to pray for their Class members.

 

Sometimes we also have a class teacher, who is gifted in teaching and assists the Class leader in the monthly Class by leading the Bible study portion of the meeting.  The monthly gathering begins with a simple meal, after which they gather for a time of worship, which include Bible study.  We use the inductive Bible study method, in order to encourage the members’ participation.  The Class meeting also includes a time of intercessory prayer and offering.  The offering collected during the Class is used for the mission project that the Class has decided to support.  We are hoping to have more frequent Class meetings, at least every other week, but this hasn’t come true yet. 

 

As you have heard many times, the small group meeting has become very prominent in today’s church ministry.  It is because the small group meeting is the most effective setting for nurturing and life-changing transformation,  If you look at the Methodist Class meeting, you’ll find that there are all five elements of the church’s ministry, namely worship, fellowship, discipleship (Bible study), mission (offering)  and service (providing meal).  Therefore, whatever that needs to and should happen at church can happen in the Class, only at a more intimate and personal level.  Because they happen at the more personal and intimate level, its effectiveness is augmented.

 

I know that the EM has been trying to establish healthy small group ministries, yet has not seen that happen to our satisfaction.  May it be that re-establishing the “good old” system of the Class might prove to be helpful for us?

 TJ Kim, Pastor


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Posted by salemem05 at 08:34 PM |


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