Korean congregation returns God’s blessings

By Barbara Denman
June 6, 2008

MELBOURNE (FBC)—With pen in hand, David Lee writes a check each month to the Cooperative Program and remembers how the cooperation of Florida Baptists helped turn his life around. He hopes his church’s participation in the unified giving program will have a life-changing impact on others.

“We believe in the tithe,” said Lee, treasurer of Melbourne’s First Korean Baptist Church. “No matter what we receive, we tithe ten percent to the Cooperative Program and give five percent to the association.”

His congregation is an advocate for the Cooperative Program, he said, because “It is the most effective way we have found to do outreach. We were supported by the Florida Baptist Convention when we started and we are expressing our thanks to them and our commitment to the Great Commission.”

Lee knows first hand the life-changing affect of the Cooperative Program. He was led to Christ by the church’s former pastor in 1991, when First Korean was a fledgling congregation, receiving Cooperative Program support for its existence.

The Korean-born Lee immigrated to the United States in 1969 after receiving a physics scholarship to attend the University of Maryland. Two degrees later and with a PhD in mathematics from Florida State University, Lee was employed as an engineer by Northrop Grumman in Melbourne.

After moving to area, his wife met the pastor’s wife who invited the newcomers to church. It was a life-changing experience for the family.

“I was saved in the church and baptized in the church,” said Lee. “My whole life changed, my outlook on life, my perspectives were turned totally upside down. It was as if I had stopped, looked and turned around to go in another direction.”

Lee said he believed the Lord is blessing the church because they have faithful in their giving.

Spawn in the 1987 as a mission of First Baptist Church of Satellite Beach to reach Korean-born military wives and their families, the congregation purchased land four years later and built their own building. Now nearly 100 persons worship in two services—one in the Korean language and one in English—each week.

The church received a $68,000 grant to purchase the property through the Maguire State Mission Offering and a loan from the North America Mission Board. They have since paid off the loan—never missing a single payment, Lee said proudly. Now the church is debt-free.

When the church called Bok Man Han as pastor in 1999, he found a group of believers supportive of the Cooperative Program. He stipulated, however, that the congregation must give a tithe through Southern Baptists’ unified giving enterprise.

“I tithe to the church so we tithe to the Cooperative Program,” said Han, “to support the training of pastors and the work of missionaries.”

Han, too, is a beneficiary of the Southern Baptists’ generosity through the Cooperative Program. After arriving in the U.S. in 1989, the pastor was educated at Southern Baptist colleges and seminaries. Without that type of support, he said he may not be serving this church today.

“When compared to other seminaries owned by other denominations, Southern Baptists seminaries are more reasonable. We have a good system for persons who have a heart for ministry. We don’t have to worry about money because of the Cooperative Program.”

Han knows Korean pastors planting new churches in Florida who receive Cooperative Program support and otherwise could not support their families. “There are certain things we cannot do on our own. Our church cannot support many missionaries and train many pastors, but when we work together we can do more.”

Now every time Lee pens his name to that check, he is assured that the church’s ten percent is furthering God’s Kingdom in Florida and throughout the world.