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Forgiveness

Kwangju 3 UBF held their Summer Bible Conference at Mt. Sunwoon youth hostel in Gochang, Jeonbuk from July 23rd to 26th. The theme of the conference was 'Forgiveness'. The motivation of choosing this theme was to restore broken relationships and build a community of love through God's love. This theme was crucial since this generation suffers from lack of forgiveness and division in the family, work places and churches. In total 116 people (Ulsan UBF 9 and Jinju UBF 9) attended the conference and among them 40 were sheep.

1. Conference Preparation

We spent one month having prayer meetings at 7:30 pm every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. For the prayer meetings, six messengers were raised and each served two messages: Youngmin Lee (Repent), Sumgim Ku (Spiritual Desire), Abraham Jo (Evangelism), LivingStone Kang (Coworking), Jeremiaih Park (Holy Spirit), Chiyoung Park (Restoration). And through the prayer meetings, we experienced God's deep grace as though we had already been attending the conference. Therefore, the leaders could support the invitation work with a clear direction.

First, the conference workers chose the motto 'Serve following the Holy Spirit!' based on Gal 5:16 after receiving inspiration through the fishing seminar by M. David Kim at COD ministry. And we also found four spiritual directions to serve the conference better: 'Be creative, flexible, persistent and joyful.' To encourage people, we offered icecream and gift cards by raffle to the first 30 people who arrived at the meeting. Sh. Changkyu Oh offered one hundreds color pens with the UBF logo on them for fishing ministry and Sh. Jooeh Yang contributed an idea of having a stretching time to better concentrate on the messages the during the conference.

Second, Sh. David Park suggested the spiritual direction that we should cry out to God in the early morning and in the evening, expecting God's secret and great work based on Je 33:2-3. And also he asked for corporate prayer at each house church and common life house. So many shepherds gathered at the third floor hall at 10 pm with tears and sincere hearst. Some shepherdesses even climbed Mt. Moodeung to pray.

Third, we struggled to meditate on and practice the conference theme 'forgiveness'. Sh. Abraham Jo presented a symposium on why we should forgive the ones who hurt us. This helped us to understand why we need forgiveness and what happens when we forgive each other. And also through two weeks of testimony writing on forgiveness, we experienced freedom and joy when we forgave those who hurt us.

2. Conference

First, God's forgiving love was clearly revealed through God's words. There were seven heart moving messages: opening message 'Jesus who gives the true rest' (Hyunsoo Park), main message 1 'How can't I treasure them?' (Caleb Moon), main message 2 'Father's unconditional love' (General Sohn), main message 3 'Father, forgive them' (Abraham Suh), main message 4 'Love each other' (Changkyu Oh), morning message 'the one who owes ten thounsand telents' (Hojin Yoon) and main message 5 'I am a witness' (Moses Jang).

Second, the leaders and sheep wrote deep testimonies. We decided to have the message of the cross on the evening of the second day and chose the third day morning as a testimony writing time. Therefore, all of us could focus on writing a testimony with a clear mind and we wrote deep and sincere testimonies. Many shared their testimony with tears to their team. Among them, M. Hannah Jung from Bangladesh confessed that she wanted to give up her medical mission because of the poor situation and inconvenience. But she could redecide to go through the way of suffering, following Jesus.

Third, God blessed us through the conference praise. Our worship team worked hard, encouraged by S. David Park who said God would bless the conference through praise. The 'praise and prayer night' team including S. Byunchul Kim prepared the program with deep repentance and tearful prayer. Through this, God anointed 'praise and prayer night' with the Spirit of repentance and prayer. Many praised and prayed to God with tears and they decided to forgive and love those who hurt them.

Fourth , we had joyful fellowship through special programs. On the first day, we watched a movie 'Love like an atomic bomb' that portrays P. Yangwon Sohn who adopted the communist who murdered his two sons. S. Vision Lee led a recreation program with various creative games. This was a great icebreaking time. Third day, we had a skit drama for the first time ever in our ministry. During this program we made an impromptu drama based on main message 5. For this, we split the story part by part, wrote story lines for each part and even made stage props. This revealed the hidden talent and creativity of our shepherds and the Biblical message was also well portrayed.

On the last day of conference, we moved to Mandol sandbank in Gochang. The attendees forgot how tired they were after the conference and they enjoyed picking shells and playing various games. After coming back to the UBF center, we had a personal prayer time from 1-3 pm to remember and hold on to God's grace given through the conference. Also, every Saturday we began a topical Bible study and a Bible reading program for the spiritual development of the student group. On August 1st and 2nd, 21 shepherds and sheep had a vision tour with S David Park entitled 'Back to the root of faith in our hometown'.

Thank God who listened to our prayer, accepted our five-loaves-and-two-fish-like hearts and blessed the summer Bible conference. May we live a life of forgiveness in our church, work places, families and society.

One word: Forgiveness is love and blessing.