Servant Church: Refreshing the Heart of God

Servant Church is about the Values of the Church of Philippi, which is located in one of the cities of greater Baltimore and Washington metropolitan area. This book is primarily about the church's Ten Values, which are not to be compromised, along with its mission, vision, strategies, structures, and programs related to the values. The Ten Values are only (through redemption of) Jesus, servanthood, precious one, shepherding first, process centered, lay ministry oriented, harmonizing of message and system, small-group accented, walking the talks, and all encompassing grace. Started as a Korean diaspora faith community, Church of Philippi held its inaugural service in a leased warehouse building on October 31, 1993, in Columbia, Maryland, USA. Back then, not many of the Korean immigrant population took residences there. Yet the Lord made the church grow both in lives transformed and in size enlarged for last twenty-two years. Reflection on church expansion histories (early Jerusalem church, Antioch's Jewish diaspora churches, Moravians church in the eighteenth century, American and English churches during the great awakening movements in nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and churches of Latin America, Africa, and Asia in recent decades) teaches reflectioners valuable lessons in that they see the wisdom and power of well-thought-out values of the message, the church, and the culture that they were in. Of course what has been done was by the wisdom and power of the Holy Spirit. Yet the Bible teaches us that the wisdom that the Holy Spirit demonstrated is written in it so that we, who came later, may be able to learn from the teachings and then follow after the Holy Spirit. If they were not followed, the church was not able to accomplish the great commission of the Lord as was desired. If followed, the church always prevailed against the power of the gate of Hades. For thirty some years, the author has been a reflectioner and an agonizer over the present plight of the powerless church in the postmodern world and its values. With the invaluable learnings from the Bible and histories of the churches, along with their surrounding cultures, he was able to establish the Ten Values that can unleash the power of a prevailing church. May all the readers of the book find a road map that leads an unprepared church planter, like the author once was, to build a church that prevails against the power of the gate of the Hades (Matt. 16:18). ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it" (Matt. 16:18, Holy Bible, English Standard Version (2001), Wheaton: Standard Bible Society).

Rev. Young S. Song, a.k.a. Jonathan Song, was born in February 1951, at the height of Korean War in the city of Busan, a southern major city of the Republic of Korea. He lost his father at the age of six and became a Christian when he was a senior in a high school in Seoul, Korea. After earning a BA degree majoring in business administration, he joined the Korean Air Force as an officer. It was during this military service that he came to understand the predicament of human conditions and that the meaningful way to serve God and people is to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ, which he believes gives this world hope and love. With this conviction, he applied for the admission to Talbot School of Theology of Biola University in La Mirada, California, and moved to United States of America. He graduated from the school with the master of divinity and master of theology degrees. During the years of his theological trainings, he served as college director of YoungNak Presbyterian church in Los Angeles, California, one of the mega churches in Southern California. He confesses that this experience with college people transformed his whole outlook of the world stricken with poverty, disease, wars, and disunity and full of despair. With the able group of his college people, he initiated early Korean American students’ missionary movement to help ease the pains of this world and sent them around the world as short- or long-term career missionaries. He then moved to the east coast in 1988 to serve as director of discipleship training at a church in the state of Maryland. In the spring of 1993, after serving the church for five years, he planted the Church of Philippi in Columbia, Maryland, with the vision of ＂bridging heaven to earth.＂ Since the start of the church, he followed his conviction of reaching out the world with the Christ’s gospel, bridging the gap between people and God as well as people and peoples. He was one of the Korean American pastors who initiated the reconciliation between African American and Korean American communities, of which peoples suffered greatly because of their lack of understanding of one another’s cultures and histories. Along with other African and Korean American pastors, he mobilized peoples who shared his ideas with him and exchanged visits on African American cultural heritage sites and museums, as well as took the community leaders and pastors of African American communities to the Republic of Korea (South Korea) to further the mutual understandings of one another’s culture. This initiation greatly helped ease the rifts and tensions that both communities suffered. He also helped organize Korean American Students here in the Unites States (KOSTA) to produce leaders as well as to promote the gospel of Jesus Christ among the students so that they might be properly equipped to be the leaders for both in the United States and around the world. This movement has been tremendously successful in producing well-qualified leaders around the world. This movement helped to produce pastors, missionaries, community leaders, and even political leaders in Korea. Some of them became government ministers after they returned back to Korea. It holds annual conferences both in America, attracting almost 2,500 students annually from the entire United States. Rev. Song served as the chairman of the board of the movement for several years. He also served as the chairman the board of Global Missionary Fellowship North America (GMFNA), of which mission is to recruit, train, and send missionaries around the world. By the grace of God, the Church of Philippi has grown significantly, still being steady and faithful in its mission of ＂bridging heaven to earth,＂ with the resources of a thousand strong congregations. He authored several books, including Servant Church, The Secret of Living and Loving, and The Authenticity and Unity of the Book of Daniel.