Tuesday, August 05, 2008

Blessing Guam

The last couple days Joyce and I, and PIBC, have been part of the Blessing Guam Celebration Festival. The celebration was sponsored by the Onnuri Church (Korean) of Guam with the purpose of bringing together churches and ministries with different ethnic backgrounds. As Pastor Lee of the Onnuri Church said, "the purpose is to let the immigrant churches know they are not alone." The participants included pastors and churches from Korea, China, Taiwan, Philippines, Japan, Guam, USA and of course our multi-cultural PIBC Guam campus. Here you see a picture of most of the 2nd night participants.

The first day was a celebration of the multi-ethnicity of the churches of Guam. Several musical and dance teams performed and the invited pastors gave brief challenges to the audience for unity among the churches of Guam. I preached a brief sermon on Ephesians 2.13-14. Here I am after I spoke between Pastor Lee and the translator. We enjoyed getting to meet Christians from other parts of the world that we had no idea were living on Guam. I especially enjoyed meeting Pastor Wu from the Chinese church who gave a very energetic and demonstrative sermon. He is planning to take some English classes at PIBC this Fall. To make things even better we finished off the evening with a fellowship dinner with plenty of kim chee and bulgogi.





The second night celebration was held at the Onnuri Church. They seated us at tables and provided sandwiches, fruit and drinks which made for a very friendly atmosphere. Each pastor gave a bit longer speech about how we could have unity among the churches on the island. The PIBC students sang (beautifully) a couple songs and I was able to preach a little on breaking down the barriers that keep us apart. The whole celebration was really an encouragement to me. I just wish more of the local Guam churches were involved. I believe that we will really begin to see reformation and revival in the Guam church when the local churches begin to love each other and truly work together. Hopefully this was a small first step toward that.

1 comment:

Moses Girl said...

Dr. Owen: I was at this beautiful gathering of the Saints of all shades, shapes and sizes (and that's spiritually speaking!). Christ's Bride is gorgeous and pleasing to behold when she is filled with jubilation and exhortation of NT Love, summed up by Pastor Ken's "I Love You"'s. I was uniquely edified hearing God's Words spoken in many tongues! "Oh, for a Thousand Tongues to Sing my Great Redeemer's Praise!".

A true slice of Heaven! Count me in for the next gathering and I will bring seekers of God with me!