My Testimony to God's Grace, Mercy and Faithfulness

Last week, the campus pastor asked me to give my testimony at the weekly faculty chapel service that was held this morning.  I thought it best to write out my story in order to keep the telling of it under the twenty-five minutes I had been allotted. Here is what I said:

My parents were devout Lutherans. So, shortly after my birth, they had me baptized in their home congregation, Immanuel Lutheran Church in Boonville, Missouri. I was confirmed in the Lutheran faith at age 13 and expressed an interest in studying for the ministry at that time. Although I had an “academic” understanding of the person of Christ through my upbringing in the church and even an inclination to pursue the ministry, it was not until my freshman year of high school that I came to personal faith in the Lord Jesus.

My algebra teacher spoke with me one day after class and asked me if I was saved. He also pointed me to a number of Bible passages that spoke about a personal relationship with God through the Lord Jesus Christ. He encouraged me not only to read God’s Word, but also to study it seriously. I began to attend Bible studies at my teacher’s home on a weekly basis and also during my lunch break from school in the basement of a Baptist church across the street from the high school. I developed friendships with believers from a variety of evangelical and reformed churches. After about one year of study, I came to place my trust in Christ’s work alone for my salvation.

At this point in my life I began to study the Scriptures with an even greater intensity and seriousness. I attended St. Paul’s College High, a Lutheran school located in Concordia, Missouri, for my remaining two years of high school. My direction, though, changed from ministerial training to Christian education, and I made a decision to resign my membership in the Lutheran church in order to fellowship with a small group of believers who met as an assembly of Plymouth Brethren. My decision to leave the Lutheran church was extremely hard on my father whose family had been Lutheran for generations. I did not, however, realize the extent of his disappointment at the time.

Instead, I was being significantly influenced by my reading of the biographies of both George Mueller and Jim Elliot. In addition, while attending a church youth retreat in St. Louis at the South Side Bible Chapel, I met the young lady, Sandy White, who would later become my wife. Throughout this formative period in my life, my parents continued to support me and gave their blessing for both my upcoming marriage to Sandy and our decision to go into full-time ministry as a school teacher with Victory Christian School operated by South Side Bible Chapel, the Plymouth Brethren assembly where Sandy had grown-up and where we would be members.

In August of 1978, Sandy and I were married at South Side and in that same month, the church ordained me to full-time ministry as a teacher at Victory even though I had not yet completed my undergraduate education. I continued to take classes at local colleges during my two years of teaching middle school students at Victory. During these years of teaching, I developed a particular interest in the many legal issues facing Christian schools and ministries, as well as parents who were seeking to home school their children.

After consulting with a number of older brothers and my parents, my wife and I decided to move to South Carolina where I enrolled in Bob Jones University in order to pursue a pre-law course of studies. I believed that the Lord was now leading me to serve others through becoming a lawyer. So, Sandy and I and our 7-month old son, Caleb, traveled over 700 miles to a new place away from our families for the first time.

We spent three years in South Carolina. In addition to my studies at university and working a full-time job, we were actively involved in our local church another Plymouth Brethren assembly -- where I served in both the preaching and teaching of the Word. Upon graduation, and the growth of our family to three children, we returned to St. Louis in the summer of 1983.

We renewed our fellowship with the believers at South Side, and I entered law school at Saint Louis University. During my three years in law school, I continued to serve my church through preaching and teaching. My ministries also expanded to working with college-aged young people. At law school, I assisted with the establishment of a local chapter of the Christian Legal Society and led Bible studies on campus.

After graduating from law school in May 1986 and passing the bar later that summer, I joined a large firm in downtown St. Louis to provide for my wife and now family of four children – our youngest, Justin Mark, had been born in the middle of my second year at law school. I had started the professional stage of my life journey. Still believing that God has called me to use my profession to serve others, I attempted to develop a practice in the area of First Amendment law. I found, however, that the demands and restrictions of being an associate in one of the largest law firms in St. Louis did not complement my pursuits.

Instead, I became distracted by the wiles of “big firm” practice, and after about six years, I was nearly consumed by the world. All the while, though, I continued outwardly to serve in my local church. I was drawing near to God with my lips, but my heart was growing farther and farther away from him. Through a series of challenging circumstances over the next three years of my law practice, I began to experience deeper and deeper bouts of depression largely due to my leading a duplicitous life.

At one point, I remember distinctly driving my car into the parking garage of the office building where I was working, and as I drove down into the garage, I felt as if darkness itself was completely enveloping me. It was my Psalm 88:18 experience. Do you know that verse? I think it must be one of the saddest verses in the Bible. Heman the Erzahite sighs and says to God: “You have caused my beloved and my friend to shun me; my companions have become darkness.” I turned my car around, drove straight back to the big two-story colonial house I had had built to show all my friends how successful a lawyer I had become, got out of my car, went into the house and went back to bed.

Sandy was concerned that I was ill, but I told that I didn’t know what was wrong with me. I didn’t want to do anything; I didn’t want to talk to anyone; I just wanted to go back to bed. She left me there for several hours, but later she came back to the bedroom and said to me: “I don’t know what is wrong with you. I only know that you need to get back to doing what you used to do.” By that, she meant, I needed to get back to reading God’s Word on a daily basis and journaling my thoughts and ideas, my prayers and concerns. A few days later, by the grace of God, I started back to doing what I had been taught to do in the early years of my walk with Lord.

I was restored in my faith through meditation upon Scripture, prayer and the discipline of journaling. Within the next few months, I ended up leaving that large law firm I had been working for the past nine years, and  joining a small firm of Christian lawyers. In January, 1995, my family and I also decided to move our church fellowship to a small gathering of believers who met at place providentially called Grace Bible Chapel.

This transfer out of “law” and into “grace” was accompanied by my desire and interest to return to full-time ministry. The elders at Grace Bible Chapel invited me to spend a year praying with them about an opportunity for me to serve in a pastoral-teaching ministry within the church. That year turned into 18 months, after which the church ordained me in May 1996. Having now left behind the practice of law, yet another stage in my journey had begun. Over the next four years, I committed myself to ministry in the local church. My elders also encouraged me to start theological studies at Covenant Seminary, and I continued there as a part-time student for the next seven years.

During that same time period, I also started teaching on a part-time basis at Missouri Baptist University as a lecturer in law. In January, 2000, the University offered me a full-time appointment to its faculty as an assistant professor. This marked a new stage in my journey. The course of my life over 25 years to that point had been marked by my respective callings to teaching, law and ministry. These three strands were brought together in the opportunity to serve on the faculty of Missouri Baptist. I began teaching as an assistant professor of Interdisciplinary Studies. Later, I was appointed Chair of the Division of Social & Behavioral Sciences and then, Associate Academic Dean of Undergraduate Studies.

The high-light of my years of teaching at Missouri Baptist was the opportunity I was given to develop a senior seminar focusing students on critical thinking and analytical writing skills. The course required the students to read broadly and to consider what it meant to live an examined, an integrated and an offered life according to one’s calling. The theme of this course became the challenge I would use to conclude every class session of every course I have taught from then until now: Question Everything! Hold on to the Good!

In the fall of 2003, I had the privilege of meeting two professors from Handong while presenting a paper at an academic conference in Florida. Those two were Professor Hee Eun Lee and Professor Guk Woon “Kuyper” Lee. They told me about a young university in Korea called Handong, and they invited me to apply for a summer visiting professorship.

The next summer, after completing my seminary studies at Covenant, I traveled here to Korea for the first time and taught a course on Antitrust Law at Handong International Law School. Upon my return to St. Louis that fall, I continued to serve on the faculty at Missouri Baptist until August, 2005 when I began teaching as a part-time lecturer at Fontbonne University and also started my PhD studies in Theology & Culture at Concordia Seminary.

For the next two years while teaching and studying, I also served as a chaplain to the legal community in St. Louis, Missouri through the Christian Legal Society’s Spirit of St. Louis Pilot Project in Marketplace Discipleship. In conjunction with this ministry, I was ordained as a pastor of discipleship by my current home church, West Hills Community Church.

After completing that project, I continued to teach part-time as a Senior Lecturer at Fontbonne University as well as study in the Theology & Culture PhD program at Concordia Seminary. Last summer, I received an invitation to come back here to Handong as a visiting professor of American Law in the undergraduate School of Law’s U.S. and International Law program.

God has led me on a long journey. It has taken many turns -- from my Lutheran family upbringing, through the Plymouth Brethren to now serving at a Baptist church. Along the way I have been a student at a Fundamentalist University – Bob Jones, a Jesuit Law School – Saint Louis University, both a Presbyterian and Lutheran Seminary – Covenant and Concordia. I’ve taught at a Southern Baptist and a Catholic University – Missouri Baptist and Fontbonne – and now, for this academic year – I teaching here at Handong.

All in all, as I look back over my nearly 51 years upon this earth, I realize anew that it has only been the grace, mercy and faithfulness of God through Christ Jesus that has brought me through. I continue to look forward to the opportunities for service that the Lord has yet ahead of me as I continue to seek, by His grace and strength, to fulfill both His calling to teach and His purpose through serving others in this my generation. I can confidently say, as I know you too will confess, that it is only: “By the grace of God [that] I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain.”

If the LORD had not been my help,
my soul would soon have lived in the land of silence.
When I thought, “My foot slips,”
your steadfast love, O LORD, held me up.
When the cares of my heart are many,
your consolations cheer my soul.
Psalm 94: 17-19

The Ministry of Holding One's Tongue

Brother Bonhoeffer taught the importance of speaking fewer words, especially when the more words spoken would tend to tear down others rather than build them up. In his chapter from Life Together devoted to the "ministry" we owe one another in community, he places the "ministry of holding one's tongue" as the first.

Bonhoeffer counsels us to practice these ministries in order to guard against the natural tendency toward ascendancy and control that arises in every human community. This grasping for power is frequently accompanied by condemning and judging others in the struggle of the natural man for self-justification.

In response, Bonhoeffer writes: "Often we combat our evil thoughts most effectively if we absolutely refuse to allow them to be expressed in words. It is certain that the spirit of self-justification can be overcome only by the Spirit of grace; nevertheless, isolated thoughts of judgment can be curbed and smothered by never allowing them the right to be uttered, except as a confession of sin . . . . "He who holds his tongue in check controls both mind and body" (James 3:2ff). Thus, it must be a decisive rule of every Christian fellowship that each individual is prohibited from saying much that occurs to him."
. . . .
"Where this discipline of the tongue is practiced right from the beginning, each individual will make a matchless discovery. He will be able to cease from constantly scrutinizing the other person, judging him, condemning him, putting him in his particular place where he can gain ascendancy over him and thus doing violence to him as a person. Now he can allow the brother to exist as a completely free person, as God made him to be. His view expands and, to his amazement, for the first time he sees, shining above his brethren, the richness of God's creative glory."

Through my on-going experiences with students, colleagues and administrators up to this very day, I continue to learn the wisdom of Brother Bonhoeffer's words that affirm, in nearly every context and circumstance, the adage: Fewer words are best.

A Teacher's Dilemma

One of my students recently posed a question that prompted me to pause and think.  The student attends my Tuesday and Friday morning class on Legal Argumentation.  The purpose of this course is to sharpen both the students' analytical thinking and their legal writing and speaking skills. I had given the class their first writing assignment -- a research memorandum.  I emphasized the importance of their writing in a clear, concise and convincing manner. 

I also stressed to the class the importance of choosing the right words in arguing the position they had determined was correct. Finally, I charged them to observe the wisdom of the Chinese proverb that you see written at right. It reads: "Fewer words are best." I'd been told that it may also be translated: "Fewer words are beautiful." It was this last bit of writing advice that confused my student and gave rise to her question.  

"I thought you were supposed to be teaching us to write like lawyers. Why do you say that we should use fewer words? I thought lawyers always used a lot of words." 

I had to admit that her understanding of lawyers -- and American lawyers, in particular -- was indeed correct. Lawyers are professionals who use words -- lots of words -- to make their point and advance their clients' interests. In fact, I have often admitted to my students that as a recovering lawyer, I suffer from a professional disability -- I talk too much. In a meager attempt at self-justification, I offer the weak excuse that after ten years of a law practice where I essentially got paid by the word, I developed the nasty habit. 

But, my student's question presented me with a dilemma. To teach effective writing and speaking skills, I have to use words. But the more words I use, I am actually doing the very thing I'm trying to teach my students to avoid. If I use fewer words, I fear my teaching will be ineffective; if I use more words, though, I won't be able to demonstrate the principal lesson of the course. What's a teacher to do? 

Is it possible to teach, write and speak effectively with fewer words? The wisdom of that Chinese proverb is consistent with the teaching of Scripture.  James admonishes us to be "quick to hear, slow to speak." (James 1:19) Solomon, too, teaches us:  "Be not rash with your mouth, nor let your heart be hasty to utter a word before God, for God is in heaven and you are on earth. Therefore let your words be few. For a dream comes with much business, and a fool's voice with many words." (Ecclesiastes 5:2-3).  And finally, Jesus himself warns us that "on the day of judgment people will give account for every careless word they speak." (Matthew 12:36)

If I am to follow these instructions, I will need to slow down and choose my words with care.  Yes, it is possible to be an effective communicator with fewer words, but it takes time.  In fact, it takes more time to compose an argument in a clear, concise and convincing manner than it does to come up with one twice as long.  Thus, I must be slow, not hasty, to speak a few careful, not careless, words.

I don't know if my student realized how telling her question was.  It prompted me to remember to practice first before I seek to teach.

Tell Me All Your Thoughts On God

On Wednesday this week, I gave the talk in our student English Chapel.  I had been asked to address the question: Why to Christians believe in the Trinity?  Here's what I had to say.

Cordell P. Schulten at HGU Wednesday Chapel Mar. 31, 2010 from younghoon Mok on Vimeo.

Counter in Every Culture

One of Mark Twain's most thought-provoking and critical commentaries on life in his day was the delightful novel "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court." In many ways these days, I feel as though I may very well be living the tale of "A Missouri Boarder on President Kim's Campus." (Folks, like me, from Missouri are neither "Yankees" nor "Rebels" since ours was a "border" state). For, even after nearly six months of attempted assimilation, I still find myself often "at odds" with the expectations and practices of my new surrounding culture.

Many of the practices and behaviors that I'm told are "cultural," though, seem to be in actuality characteristic of human nature in every culture. What might appear to be a rude, assertive pushing to the head of the line is really not so much a manifestation of a cultural tendency as it is an evidence of a self-focus that is common to humanity as a whole -- and, that whole clearly includes me. The splinters that I've so meticulously identified in the many dark eyes about me are truly fragments of the burgeoning beam protruding from my own. 

What I'm coming to understand, however, is that a life seeking to be lived according to the teachings and practices of Christ will, in very many respects, be counter in every culture that it encounters. I believe this is true because so much of what we defend and even attempt to protect as "culture" is all too often an institutionalization of human behaviors that are, by their very nature, at odds with the life we humans were originally designed and created to live with one another. 

Behaviors that are frequently accommodated by playing the "culture card" are in reality the very ones that should instead be targeted for transformation.  Instead of asserting ourselves to positions of higher recognition, we are called to "associate with the lowly." Rather than striving for authority and control over others, we are commanded by Jesus to "love one another as I have loved you." In the place of retaliation and anger when harmed or offended, we are charged to forgive and "bless those who persecute you." 

Jesus was the ultimate counter to his culture in both his teaching and example.  And so his followers should be in theirs.

A dispute also arose among them, as to which of them was to be regarded as the greatest. And he said to them, “The kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship over them, and those in authority over them are called benefactors. But not so with you. Rather, let the greatest among you become as the youngest, and the leader as one who serves. For who is the greater, one who reclines at table or one who serves? Is it not the one who reclines at table? But I am among you as the one who serves.  ~ (Luke 22:24-27)

Souls Refreshed in Seoul

We just returned from the most delightful weekend trip visiting friends, Kurt and his wife J.Sun, in the soul (Yongsan) of Seoul. We made the trip on the KTX bullet train that speeds cross-country in less than two hours.  Here are a few photo's from our travels.

Geunjeongjeon at Gyeongbokgung Palace

A Gapsa Guard protecting the Palace Gate

The King's Throne in Geunjeongjeon

On the steps in front of Jibokjae (a reception hall for foreign envoys).

A study within Cheonchujeon next to Sajeongjeon -- "Hall where the king should thnk deeply before deciding what is right or wrong."

Mr. Park, a gentleman who volunteered to serve as our guide throughout the grounds of Gyeongbokgung.

Changing of the Gate Guard Ceremony

The viewof Seoul from Kurt & J.Sun's apartment on the 22nd floor of their building.

J.Sun, Sandy and Kurt in the gardens outside the Dragon Hill Lodge on Yongsan Base. Kurt is a Captain in the U.S. Army and the son of good friends from back in St. Louis.

Korean War Memorial Museum

Sunday afternoon shopping along the streets in the heart of Seoul.

A Sunny Day at Sunrise Park

We hesitated to step out of our apartment Saturday morning.  It was too good to be true.  The morning skies looked sunny. The temperature might actually have risen. After just a bit of hesitation, we ventured out. Our weak faith in Pohang's March weather was strengthened!  Yes!  Yes!  It is truly warm. There's not a trace of clouds in the sky. Those are birds we hear singing out their calls.  That is a fragrance of cherry blossoms in the air!  Let's pack a picnic and head out to the bus stop.  We're on our way to the park!

For those of you who know St. Louis, you know that Forest Park is the crown jewel of the many public parks spread throughout both city and county.  For Pohang, Sunrise Park is their Forest Park. It is situated on the eastern side of the city along the natural bay that makes Pohang one of the principal port cities of Korea.  A short 15-minute bus ride from Handong's campus brings us to the southeastern entrance of Sunrise Park.

Across the street from the park rises a series of apartment towers forming one of the many typical housings complexes found throughout the city of Pohang. If you visit nearly any sizeable city in Korea, you will see similar apartment buildings. There are countless numbers of them.

Under a beautiful blue sky, we enjoyed a wonderful walk up the hillsides and through the park's gardens with their lovely arrangements of enormous granite rocks, both hardwood and fruit trees as well as shrubberies and flowers.  The trees are just starting to bud and the flowers are almost in bloom.  The warm sunshine and the calm sea breezes made for delightful temperatures through the morning and into the early afternoon.

Sandy and I enjoyed our picnic lunch on the steps of the amphitheater that overlooks the sea, and then, having been recharged, we ventured back along the trials up and over the hills toward the new museum of steelworks that will shortly be opening. (Did I mention in previous posts that Pohang is the steel capital of Korea?  Pohang is to Korea what Pittsburg is to the U.S. and what Sheffield and Birmingham are to England.)

After a quick bit of shopping at the local Lee Plus (like your neighborhood Walgreens without the pharmacy), we hopped on the next Handong bus back to campus and enjoyed a well-earned late afternoon nap.  Our delightful day at Sunrise Park convinced us that Pohang truly is a sunny place!