Korean Council Anniversary, Leading the Church Post-COVID & God’s Assurance of Relationship

Celebration surrounded the historic 41st annual meeting of the Council of Korean Southern Baptist Churches in America.

Highlighted by intense prayer, worship and preaching, the event took place June 13-15 at Berendo Street Baptist Church in Koreatown, in conjunction with the 2022 annual meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention in nearby Anaheim.

In 1957, Berendo Street Baptist Church – in the process of changing its name to Saenuri (New Community in English) –was the first Southern Baptist church in the United States to worship in a Korean context.

The Korean Council is made up of 967 churches from across the US.

Hispanic pastors from California, Florida and Texas discussed strategies to lead the church in a post-COVID world during a panel hosted by the CP Stage at the SBC Executive Committee section of the exhibit hall at the 2022 SBC Annual Meeting.

Luis Lopez, executive director of Hispanic relations and mobilization of the Executive Committee, moderated in English the panel formed by Victor Solorzano, Eloy Rodriguez and Tony Miranda.

The pastors answered questions about how the COVID-19 pandemic affected their ministries, how they recovered and how they are moving forward.

Going back to the basics has proved to be a successful strategy for these pastors and their churches. The youth are more involved in ministry as they take on the responsibility of church technology, more people participate in small groups as they become more accessible during the week and people give more now that they can easily do so from their phones.

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A Lifeway Bible study points out that in 1 John 2, John used the word “know” four times. He wrote that Christians can know with certainty they are in a relationship with God.

The assurance of salvation is based on the right conditions. The right conditions for a Christian to have the assurance of his or her relationship with God result from walking daily with God.

Jesus said, “If you love Me, you will keep My commands” (John 14:15). We demonstrate our love for Jesus through our obedience. Therefore, if we lack assurance of salvation, all we need to do is to look at the pattern of obedience in our lives.

Obedience to God’s commands doesn’t save us; we are saved by grace through our faith in Jesus, the One who kept the law perfectly. We obey because we have that relationship. Our obedience reflects our relationship with Christ. It’s true that no Christian obeys God perfectly, but every genuine believer has a desire to obey God. The proof of our love for God is our loyalty and obedience to Him.