Author: Eugene Cho

Pastor. Speaker. Christ Follower. President of Bread for the World. Visionary at One Day's Wages. Founder & Former Senior Pastor, Quest Church.
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in memory of pastor ha yong jo

On August 2, 2011 (Korean time), Pastor Ha Yong Jo – founder and senior pastor of Onnuri Church in Seoul, Korea, passed away at the age of 65.

A life well lived…

While 99% of my readers will never have heard of this man. Pastor Ha was not only one of the most influential Christian leaders in Korea and Asia but perhaps (in a quiet and humble way), the entire world.

While many have influenced me, I have always seen and looked to him as my pastor and one of my mentors. It pains me not to be able to go to Korea directly to pay my respects…

하목사님과 대화했던 순간 순간을 떠올리게 된다. 늘 꿈을 꾸시고, 사랑하시고, 열정을 나누셨던 하나님 닮는 삶을 사신 목사님, 사랑합니다.

After my wife informed me of his passing, I just sat there in silence – mourning his passing and yet mindful and amazed by his legacy.  Minhee and I have deep respect for Pastor Ha for many reasons and one of them is simply because he was the pastor that officiated our wedding in 1997. Pastor Ha was also Minhee’s boss through a Christian company he founded called Tyrannus Ministry (Duranno in Korean).

In recent years, Pastor Ha had battled numerous health issues including an ongoing bout with liver cancer. But even despite his illnesses and what has been reported to have been 7 major surgeries in the past couple years, he continued to serve the Lord faithfully.

My Mentor

I first met Pastor Ha in 1994 when I joined his staff – first as an intern and then as one of the 35 full-time pastors (at that time). Pastor Ha – to be blunt – spoke firmly and directly into my life on several occasions. But he also always spoke lovingly.

Oh the stories I have…

Some of our conversations, truthfully, were painful at the time but as I looked back, I have grown to appreciate all of our conversations as I later understood how he was willing to invest and speak into my life.

When I joined the church in 1994, the church was then about 20,000 people. It has since reportedly grown to over 75,000 people.

But beyond numbers, I was always convicted by his passion for the one – both near and far. Continue reading “in memory of pastor ha yong jo”

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the beautiful story of ameneh bahrami

Have you read the story of story of Ameneh Bahrami? If you haven’t, drop whatever you’re doing and read this…and share it.

Whatever word or words one uses, I’m reminded of the word –

beautiful.

Ameneh Bahrami is an Iranian woman who demonstrated to the world the power and beauty of Forgiveness and Grace over Retribution and Law.

She had every right (and law) to exact justice and retribution on a man who robbed her of her beauty by hurling acid on her face some years ago and she decided….not to.

An Iranian woman blinded and disfigured by a man who threw acid into her face stood above her attacker Sunday in a hospital operating room as a doctor was about to put several drops of acid in one of his eyes in court-ordered retribution.

The man waited on his knees and wept. Continue reading “the beautiful story of ameneh bahrami”

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A moral budget: What would Jesus cut?

Update: I’m joining in solidarity with others in expressing deep disappointment and anger over the recent news and decision by the House Agricultural Committee’s decision to cut the SNAP program (formerly food stamps) by more than $35 million over the next 10 years.

While it should not make it past the Senate, I’ve emailed my elected officials to express this disappointment and to take actions. Regardless,  you have to wonder where our priorities are.

I am all for reducing our national deficit. It must be a priority but to do it at the expense of those who need food via this program is morally wrong.

Wrong.

Here’s a brief synopsis from Bread for the World’s blog:

Bread for the World is infuriated by the House Agriculture Committee’s decision today to slash the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly food stamps) by more than $35 billion.

“Cuts to SNAP, particularly at a time of continued high unemployment and unprecedented need for food assistance, are a moral outrage,” said Rev. David Beckmann, president of Bread for the World. “SNAP is working exactly as intended. It has grown to meet increased need and is expected to decrease to pre-recession levels as the economy recovers.”

You can read the full article here or one via Reuters and I encourage you to join Bread for the World’s efforts to advocate for the poor.

WWJC? What would Jesus cut?

I have reasons to both like and dislike Tupac but his words when he was alive still hit the core:

“They have money for war but can’t feed the poor.” – Tupac

Original Blog Entry:

Several weeks ago (right before I left for my sabbatical), I joined with six other pastors from around the country Continue reading “A moral budget: What would Jesus cut?”

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sabbaticals and investing in yourself

It’s been an intense three years.

I can’t even begin to wrap my heart and mind over everything that’s transpired over the past three years. I’m grateful for God’s provision and faithfulness. But I’m also a bit drained which is why I’m so thrilled to share that I officially begin my sabbatical today.

Every three years, I take 3 months off from my work as a pastor at my church.

When my wife and I planted Quest nearly 10 years ago, we had one very important request and that was to take a sabbatical every three years. Typically (for some churches and senior pastors), they take one year off every 7th year. I didn’t want to do that because waiting 7 years would have killed me and being away from a church community for an entire year would have been difficult in light of so many changes that take place in a young church.

Anyway, I’m so grateful to my staff and Quest Church for being so gracious and enabling me to have this gift. I treasure it.

I’ve been receiving a few questions here and there so I thought I’d answer a few: Continue reading “sabbaticals and investing in yourself”

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a tribute to my imperfect wife and best friend

In Asian culture, it’s usually customary not to speak highly of yourself, and even more so, to speak highly of your spouse.

In this case,  I can’t help it. In fact, I have and make no apologies.  I think it’s more than appropriate to celebrate a special person in my life –  my partner, wife, and best friend.  I am amazed and encouraged by my wife, Minhee – even more so after 15 years of marriage – and mutually seeing all of our collective flaws and blemishes.

And there are a lot of flaws and blemishes. More with her than me…but I digress. This is a tribute and not a roast. 😉

This last week, we celebrated Minhee’s graduation from Seattle Pacific University as she completed her graduate school degree in Marriage and Family Therapy. To say that it has been an arduous journey is an understatement but she is finished!

In our marriage and family, people naturally see me because of my visible role in numerous capacities. If I am the face of our family (and not a pretty one at that), she is certainly the heart.

And oh, how she beats…

Not only do I love her but…I know her – and I respect her deeply:

Love.

She left all that was familiar and comfortable in Korea to trek to the United States to begin our new life together – at the difficult adult age of 26.  She left family, friends,  her native language, culture, her job, etc. She left everything out of love and covenant to begin our lives anew in a new and foreign land.   Continue reading “a tribute to my imperfect wife and best friend”

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Thank God that I am a man and not a woman.

It’s likely that some of you will take offense at the title of this post. But if you read through the post, it’ll certainly make more sense in the larger context. But for what it’s worth, I was intending to entitle this post, “Fortunate to Have a P*nis” and maybe I should have but ultimately, I just didn’t want to receive too many rebukes and tense emails. Seriously, who wants emails about genitals?

Seriously, it’s not my intent to be sensational or even controversial but simply to make an important point.

So, what is my point?

I am fortunate to be a man.

Or to put it in other words, I’m fortunate to have a p*nis.

As I recently preached at my church or in another blogpost about the silence of women in the Church, there’s great privilege and power in simply being a man. This is why I contend that the treatment of women is the oldest injustice in human history. We can talk equality and equity all day long and while we can acknowledge how far we’ve come, we still clearly live – even in 2011 – where there’s great advantage in simply being a man.

How fortunate?

Consider this statistic from UNICEF and UN:

Women give birth to 100% of the human population. In addition, women do about 66% of the world’s work, produce 50% of the world’s food, but earn 10% of the world’s income & only own less than 1% of the world’s property. [You can also read more about these statistics from The Global Poverty Project.] Continue reading “Thank God that I am a man and not a woman.”