Missionfest, Day 2

The Yoido Full Gospel Church has 850,000 church members. Members. I think at t3c, we have maybe 30% of the congregation who are actual members. I'm not even a member! Dr. David Yonggi Cho is a pioneer of the cell/small group church concept. Most of his members have joined his church via the cells. If you don't know what I'm talking about, read Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren.

Today Cho spoke about the power of faith. "Because you have so little faith. I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there' and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you." Matthew 17:20. Cho gave an example about how he brought some mustard seeds to show his congregation, and they were so small that people complained they couldn't see. And one lady came right up to them and couldn't see them, and she came so close that she accidentally blew them away from her breath. Mustard seeds are so small that they can be fluttered away by exhaling -- and yet Jesus used this example to show that our faith doesn't need to be any larger than this seed, in order to move mountains.

Cho taught us that there are two types of prayer, one is the fellowship prayer, which uses many rhetoric words, words of praise, etc. But the other is task prayers, and these often should be straight forward, like "Lord, heal my wounds." There's nothing like "Lord, thank you for this wonderful day. I know that you are all powerful and sovereign, and that you can do (blah blah blah)." Task prayers should be plain and simple. You don't have to explain yourself because God already knows what you are thinking. He just wants to hear your words, because the fact that you are asking for these things proves your faith, and that is all He is looking for.

Another lesson, was activating one's faith by believing that what we pray for God will grant us, and has granted us already. "Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see." Hebrews 11:1 Cho talked about visualizing (and receiving visions of) the things he asked God for, and eventually his prayers were answered. And he talked about being very specific about what we ask God for. Specifically from his testimony he said he prayed for a table, chair and bicycle, and his prayers were not answered until he asked God specifically for a special kind of table, and "mitsubishi" chair, and an american brand name bicycle. Only then were his prayers answered.

One funny story he told us relates to the wife/husband shopping list I referred to in my last post. Cho met a woman who had been praying for a husband for 10 years and was still unmarried. So Cho sat down with her and asked her what kind of man she wanted, and they made a long list of things she wanted. Every day from then on she would read over the list and pray for that kind of husband, and within a few months she was married to her ideal husband. The list was very specific, like skin color, height, career, interests. Amazing..

Well, I've been praying for a few months now for a wife. Perhaps it's time I made a list.. :P

Finally Cho teaches to confess your sins before asking God for things. He made a point to confess with your mouth, as though we should confess our sins out loud. I'm not sure why but I suppose it is probably more difficult to confess since out loud than just thinking of them in your mind. Again, confessing sins professes the fact that you believe He is capable of forgiveness, once again making use of your faith in Him.

All in all I am grateful for having volunteered for Missionfest so that I had a chance to hear Dr. Cho's message. Kenric and I ran into a woman at Mitchell's couple of weeks ago and she was the one who suggested we volunteer so we could get in for free. I probably would not have heard him speak otherwise, because of the rumors satan has been spreading through the local church communities of his "occult teachings". I'm grateful that I signed up to hear God's message to me about faith. I've lost my upper octaves again because I was singing so loudly during worship the last two days, but it was worth it.

By the way, I bought mercyme's other album "Almost Home" and the men's devotional book "Wild At Heart" yesterday, and then purchased Nichole Nordeman's "Woven & Spun" today.