a. Pastor Graven explained how policy decisions by Sung Suk Church prevented Global Church from succeeding.
b. Sung Suk Church's official translator made incomplete and inaccurate translations of the explanation.
c. Sung Suk Church turned Pastor Graven out like a stray cat with fleas. Pastor Graven's sermons are still available at this link: click here.Here is what happened:
1) In April, 2008, Pastor Graven and Pastor Chae agreed to an attendance goal of 100 people.
We opened Evangelism through English classes in an effort to attract new members.
We required children who attended language classes to attend Global Church.
Our average attendance reached 80 people in the summer of 2009.
2) In August, 2009, the youth who were attending Global Church went to a "spirit camp".
They got the wrong spirit.
When they came back from camp, they did not come back to Global Church.
Still, the loss of most of our young adults did not damage us much.
We recovered, and continued.
3) Later in 2009, Sung Suk Church opened its very own chapter of AWANA.
Their meetings were the same time as our children's language classes.
So the children wanted to go play games and have parties, and their parents got tired of fighting with them about whether or not they should study.
When the children stopped attending language classes, they also stopped coming for Global Church. So did their parents.
We recovered from that loss too, and continued.
4) In January, 2010, Sung Suk Church stopped its 5:00 p.m. meeting.
They changed the meeting time to 3:00 p.m.
Global Church had to change its meeting time to 1:30 p.m.
Members of all other groups in Sung Suk Church (choirs, for example) had to choose between Global Church and their other group's activities.
No one can be in 2 places at the same time. We lost 60% of our remaining members.
That change killed us.
Every time any group in Sung Suk church had to present a special program in the 3:00 p.m. meeting, they had to practice for it during Global Church's meeting time. They took all of their friends out of Global Church for their activity too, so that the group appeared to be larger than it really was.
October 31, 2010, Global Church started its meeting with a) its 5-member Praise and Worship Team, b) 6 members who are not on the Praise and Worship Team c) and one first-time visitor.
On November 28, 2010, we had 9 people. The rest were obliged to participate in "dedication services" for other groups in Sung Suk Church.
If you still don't understand why Pastor Graven left Global Church, please read the Allegory of the Donkey
Proverbs 1:20-33 might aid your understanding, too.
This is no longer the official website for Global Church.
For information, call 010-8702-6996 (English), or 010-3136-6861 (Korean), or send e-mail to graven@pgrmk.org.