Hard Conversations

This is Part 2 of "Ryun Does James So That No One Misses Out on Eddie": In this vlog, I assumed the identity of the apostle James, an older brother of John the apostle, to tell his story. Many people know James from the gospel accounts, but not many are aware of what happened to him in the Early Church. After discussing his life, I relate the findings to what my colleague Eddie Kim is currently go...

I recently spent ten entire days at home while studying theology with Dr. Won Kim, a man whom I first met in 1986, who flew in from California for that very purpose. All total, we spent some 80 hours talking about all kinds of theological matters. I interviewed this unique and very intelligent man who is getting ready to serve the Lord as a missionary in the Middle East.

I returned home late last night (June 27) after spending a whole month on the road. Of all the cities I visited during this trip—Los Angeles, Anaheim, San Francisco, El Paso (TX) and Las Cruces (NM), the most significant place has to be Silver City—a small town in eastern New Mexico—that I first visited in 1981, that is, 42 years ago. So why is this city so personally significant to me? Well, that...

Who is this "45"-year old Lead Pastor? Check out the vlog and find out.

AMI Institute is my organization's annual event (for 2 weeks) to expose those pastors and interns who are new to AMI to its spiritual and theological DNA. Since we just finished the first week of the Institute, consider this vlog as a progress report..

This is a compilation of videos and photos of my visit (along with my wife) to Montreal, Canada (May 18-21). Once there, we got to spend some quality time with Pastor Andrew and his wife, Jessie, and the Alive congregation.

Joe Suh is an assistant pastor at the Church of Southland in Anaheim, California. Michael Choi is Professor of Systematic Theology at Torch Trinity Graduate University in South Korea. They do not know each other because they have never met. Nevertheless, they have one thing in common: Pastor Eddie Kim. Through this connection, I am sharing two vital biblical messages these men embody: one, putting...

I have been annually visiting Journey Church of Atlanta since 2011 and have preached and taught there multiple times. In fact, I have many good and lasting memories with several people associated with this church—both past and present. Of course, being a church of young people, there is always an influx of people coming in and out; nevertheless, there are still a handful people in JCA whom I have...

I have been visiting Remnant Church (AMI) in Manhattan (New York) since 2011 quite regularly. Except for a few occasions, I have always taken a bus to get there and then walk to the church upon arriving. This time was no different. Although I talked about the uniqueness of this church before (three services in three languages, every Sunday), this time I captured that in video. The vlog includes li...

Meet Pastor David Son and his wife Grace who came to Taipei four years ago to serve as missionaries. They are a couple who learned well from their mentors before coming here to serve. Their story goes to show that the best preparation to serve the Lord on the mission field is faithfully serving him on the home front. Check out their stories; they will warm your heart. Enjoy.

After I got done teaching in Taiwan, I flew over to Seoul, S. Korea a day before the Easter Sunday to see Pastor Eddie Kim, literally my neighbor who is getting retreatment for his late-stage cancer there. Besides needing to deliver cards and gifts to him from his Canvas congregants, I wanted to pray for him as well as have a conversation about his thoughts on faith, life and death.

Before heading home from my trip to E. Asia, I stopped by Los Angeles to spend a week at Tapestry Church to film twelve teaching videos and also to preach on Sunday (4.16). And after the service, I was greeted by the most significant person in my life (not including my parents and wife); it was a great surprise and joy! I also spoke to Grace Choe, the better half of Pastor Charles as well several...

Pastor Mark is a colleague (AMI) and a good friend. He recently resigned as the Lead Pastor of Radiance Christian Church in San Francisco, a church the Lord allowed him to plant in 2011. The decision to leave was due in part to his health issues. This is a tribute video I prepared in response to the request made by the Radiance leadership. Thank you.

There is something just as bad as racism, if not worse, and has been around a lot longer than racism. How old, then, is racism? What is it that is as bad as racism if not worse?

This is the prayer and benediction by Pastor Eddie Kim of Canvas Church in Philadelphia at the end of yesterday's worship service. This morning he left for Korea to receive treatment for his advanced cancer. May the Lord keep and guard Eddie during this difficult journey that just began.

Do you have dogs? My family has had several dogs over the years, and we have enjoyed them immensely. Today, I am going to talk about two of those dogs because their paths crossed in such a manner that one led to life and the other, in all likelihood, to death. After sharing about important aspects of their lives, I am going to extract one very important spiritual principle from it and then apply i...

If we are honest, and unless we read the Bible without ever mulling over implications of what we read, we must admit that there are accounts in Scripture that should really disturb us. One such story is God commanding Abraham to slaughter his son Isaac as a burnt offering to Him. That’s a problem! We can either gloss over it as if God didn’t really mean it or deal with it head-on, both biblically...

Should we cancel the Christmas service this Sunday since many people won’t be coming? You know, traveling and, maybe, too much partying the night before. A pastor in Boston did just that (not meeting this Sunday) and then wrote an article, which appears in the Gospel Coalition website, that defends his decision. This videoblog is my response to this pastor’s rationale which he believes is firmly r...

More than a week ago in Itaewon, South Korea, what is dubbed as Halloween stampede or crush took the lives of 156 young people. It is an incredibly sad moment and a catastrophic loss of lives, potentials, and possibilities. In this short video, I raise this question: Could it be that the Lord seeks to speak to churches in South Korea through this manmade tragedy? If so, then, what might be His mes...

Did you have a nice Thanksgiving Day? Around this time of the year, the nine Israelis, who failed to thank Jesus for healing them of leprosy, get a lot of flak while the lone Samaritan, who did thank the Lord, gets a ton of praise. Do you really think that the nine didn’t have a thankful thought? Sure, they did, but it wasn’t enough to motivate them to return to Jesus to do what the Samaritan did:...

It is one subject no one wants to talk about, in churches of all places! Death. Sure, it is a morbid topic, but never talking about it certainly does not make death go away, and it leaves us woefully ill-prepared to deal with it when it's our turn to die, sometimes a lot sooner than we had hoped. Not that I myself was interested in the topic but that all changed when I witnessed how my father hand...

Last Sunday I got to preach three sermons at Remnant Church in Manhattan: the first sermon in Korean, the second in English and the last one in Spanish. That was the first time that that ever happened to me. It was a very unique experience, especially because of surprise guests who came to the worship service in Spanish. And the Lord did something very special for these people who are facing great...

We spend most of our time in school or at work with people who do not share our faith and values rooted in the historic Christian faith. Yet, the truth of the matter is that many believers today will say, “So what?” Yes, there is hardly any tension felt by believers who have been co-opted by the mood of our culture that privileges inclusivity, plurality and zero-tolerance of anything resembling in...

Many critics and opponents of Christianity have insisted that the Christian Church, from its inception in the first century, has been anti-woman, now more than ever because of her anti-abortion stance. If this is true, then, no self-respecting woman should ever set foot inside a church; sadly, many people, particularly the young and the educated, have done just that. This videoblog examines, histo...

The winter of 1985 was arguably the most difficult season for me as a Christian thus far. Having become a believer about four years earlier, I was experiencing a very real crisis of faith. This happened while I was temporarily attending a liberal seminary in East Coast, part-time. What I was hearing from my professor in the classroom and the books I was reading, particularly regarding the book of...