Today we spent the entire day at Bupyeong Methodist Church.
Painting of Jesus Feeding the Five Thousand in one of the stairwells at the church
The day began with the 5:00 a.m. early morning prayer service. The Rev. Seong Young Jeong delivered a brief message on Proverbs 16:20, “Grace Comes Down to Us as We Listen Carefully.” Rev. Jeong reminded as that part of prayer is listening to God, not just talking. When we listen to God, we need to act on what we hear.
The thirty minutes of prayer that followed was a great joy. What a blessing prayer can be when more than a thousand voices unite.
After breakfast, we took a tour of the church building. The present church was built around 1991. A new sanctuary, dormitory, cafeteria, fellowship hall, meeting rooms, and administration rooms were dedicated in 2003.
Due to the need to maximize space, the church has a two level basement parking garage that can handle about 500 cars. There is also a parking tower that will hold 30 cars and a separate parking area for the staff.
Youth Worship Service
The children come to Sunday School at 9:30 a.m. The youth worship service is held while the younger children are in Sunday School. There were at least 500 youth present for worship.
The adults do not attend Sunday School classes because they are in cell groups which might on Friday evenings. These groups consist of 5 – 10 members and they typically meet in private homes. Each group studies the same Bible lesson in a given week.
One of the children’s Sunday School classes
On Sunday mornings worship services are held at 9:30 and 11:30. The services are the same but a different choir sings at each service.
After our tour we were seated for the 11:30 service. Our group of 40 clergy sang “Blessed Assurance” as a special anthem. We sang the third verse in Korean. Rev. Dan Elmore served as our choir director and he did an excellent job. It was a bit nerve-racking singing in front of more than 2,000 people.
After the service we were served lunch. On Sundays all church volunteers are served a meal after the 11:30 service. So we joined the church volunteers for lunch. After lunch, Rev. Hong’s wife shared her personal testimony with us.
Dining Hall
We had a two hour break in the afternoon, then we were treated to a “Mini-Concert” in the fellowship hall. It was a real treat! For about 75 minutes, we listened to world-class singers and musicians offer their talents. The music was fantastic and we were stunned by the number of musicians Bupyeong Church has produced.
After dinner we attended the Sunday Evening Service which began at 7:30 p.m. We were in for a special treat this night since this service also incorporated the church’s annual choir festival. Six choirs each shared two songs and the concert ended with the combined choirs singing Handel’s “Halleluia” chorus. Just image hearing nearly 1,000 singers joining together to perform that glorious piece of music!
Evening Concert
After the evening service, we attended a reception for the choir directors and some local VIP’s. When it was time to settle in for the night, we were all tired but blessed by all the wonderful worship and music of the day.
