the worst thing is more suicides can happen, when we can’t learn from the past, people don’t know what to avoid/where to get help;

diagnosis: mentally ill organization, unable to heal itself

treatment: offer help; check everything with God thru prayer/’gut feeling’ (accept nothing on face value)

“For example, a mission report posted last week on ubf.org included a blanket criticism of American Christianity for having “big talk, but small action.”

That report deserves some reality checks. I am highly disturbed by his words.

Mike writes:

“The question people always ask me in America or in Russia is, “Why have you come to Russia?”

He should probably answer this question honestly. It sounds like he and his children need to have some honest talks and much therapy. His wife passed away. Escaping to Russia is not exactly a healthy way to deal with his wife’s suicide. Suicide is not the unpardonable sin. It doesn’t mean the person gets a oneway ticket to hell. It means people need to take an honest, hard look at reality. All this information is publicly available. We should be discussing things like this openly instead of cowardly hiding the facts.

“I went to oppose the trend of American Christendom which has big talk, but small action. I prayed a long time and realized that it would be a sin to terry or wait any longer. One word came to me from Joshua 1:9 “ Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous.”

This is a classic example of the ubf method of “helping someone”. Mike and his family have had to deal with a traumatic situation the past 7 or 8 years. Yet his mind has been bound to “ubf mission” and bible verses that express commands. And his mind is turned against American Christianity.

“So, the message from the God of Russian was, “Welcome!” but on the other hand, the devil seemed to be making life very difficult due to persecution form rebellious pupils and especially from Charles Thompson. So God was calling me in but the devil was shouting me out! Who do you think I listened to?”

Is he saying that his own son Charles is persecuting him? Does he view his own son’s words as the devil’s attack?

Personally, I don’t agree with that quote no matter who wrote it and in which context it was written. And I don’t really see in Revelation 2-3 how Christ “celebrated her accomplishments far more enthusiastically than he lament her faults”.

I think the R-group was not thinking of separation from UBF and was not ready for starting new organization. They just wanted to fix some wrong things in UBF. Mark Hong tried hard to solve the conflict between SL and Korean shepherds in 2000/2001. They had no choice but leaving.

The main concern for R-group at that time was SL’s abusive, unbiblical and authoritarian practices.

Korea CMI became more like local churches now. Most chapters follow presbyterian church system. It’s not campus mission focused any more. CMI is collage group in their own church. Most of them has their own unique church name.

Anyway, UBF still needs to give official answers to the questions that ESF and CMI leaders had brought to UBF leaders. If not, there will be another divisions or loosing faithful members.

I also remember how sad the 2nd gens were about the division. They used to have youth conferences together and so they knew each other. But after the split, they all became separated.

that is the only real solution: so from now on, anything else will be totally disregarded as what it is, speaking in the wind..

hey, now there’s the answer, reduce the flow of $ in, & the power wanes, & their felt need to repent increases; i knew there was some lesson in the reversing of the flow of the chicago river:)
let’s put it another way, i’m a plumber’s son so i know that a basement bathroom usually needs pit/pump to send the sewage ‘hi’ (high) enough to gravity flow out of the building: but i also studied psychology so i know that when people elevate themselves above us, dropping their ‘waste’ on us, all we have to do is pump it back up on top of their own heads to share the effect before it flows out of the building where it belongs; the gig is up, HALLELUJAH!
that’s a time tested method of the ages: when people can no longer take oppressive government (recent ‘springs’) or runaway religion (Luther,etc),
just find a way to boomerang oppression upon the oppressors:))))))))))))
they may learn real fast who not to ‘dump’ their waste on..they may even be forced to de-elevate themselves to avoid retroactive ‘soiling’ of their own heads; oh the joys of reality..
maybe i should write a book: ‘the psychology of plumbing’, or ‘the plumbing of psychology’:)

That would be the day when UBF begins to celebrate the accomplishments of churches outside of their control, rather than pointing out their faults and lauding themselves for having “God’s best ways” and criticizing all who leave.

It’s precisely because we exUBFers love the church–the UBF branch of it especially so–that we so loudly voice our laments about the faults we see that continuously go unchecked, nay, lauded and espoused as “God’s best ways.” Inviting some thousand people to a conference is not an accomplishment to be lauded. Rather, corporate repentance, humility, contrition, and brokenness of heart for the errors perpetrated by its members–that’s an accomplishment that is worthy of recognition, and an accomplishment that truly reveals the work of Christ within His church, and not the pressure-cooker tactics of a man-made system. Show that accomplishment and I’ll give glory and laud and honor to Christ, who alone is worthy to be praised.

* interacting with us, or
* engaging us in a two way dialogue, or
* responding to specific questions that are asked of you.

The fact that CMI and UBF are so similar reinforces how unnecessary the split was. It was not about the organization’s doctrine or mission. It was about political power and authority: whether SL could do as he wished and extract absolute obedience from everyone under him.

James Kim, can you please then explain me why these people have been expelled from UBF?

what really matters is that honor-seeking destroys individual psyches (purposely making dependent on praise/money/benefits), damages families by being distracted with fantasized ‘greatness’ pursuits, & corrodes community by competitive oneupmanship;

oh Lord save us/set us free from all the evils of man, for You Alone are Worthy
Amen. Hallelujah!

Like Ben, he recently celebrated his 32 years of wedding anniversary. As I understand, most of the main members of CMI are now full or part time pastors of different denominations. The common ground between CMI and UBF is very similar, focusing on campus mission and world mission.

If there are any brave missionaries out there, perhaps they would like to try that here in Detroit.

At some point someone just has to realize there are parts of ubf (many parts in my opinion) that are just out of control. No one believes us though because they see the glorious performance and don’t take action.

Slow change should continue, but swift justice is needed badly. Yeah it’s one of those Eminem nights…..

We had several workshops and seminaries. Most workshops covered issues which were neglected in UBF, like spirituality, Holy spirit, family life etc. I lead a workshop about the history and problems of the shepherding/discipling movement. Unfortunately, only the usual suspects attended, not those who should really learn about these things. They wanted to have something new without really understanding what was wrong with the old style, and preferred to attend the “spiritualy” seminaries instead.

Overall the atmosphere was very free and happy, like chains had fallen of from people. The 2nd gens contributed with great musical and other performances. But there were also some things that worried me, like the fact that there were no more workshops processing the UBF past and the problems of UBF heritage. Also, I was often addressed as “shepherd” even though most understood that the usage of such titles should stop. Paul Laska preached one of the main messages. The text was from Ez 37, the key verse was “This is what the Sovereign Lord says to these bones: I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life. I will attach tendons to you and make flesh come upon you and cover you with skin; I will put breath in you, and you will come to life.” It was clear that UBF heritage was the dry bones in this parable, and the hope was that God would bring new life to CMI/UBF, but as usual in UBF, everything was said only between the lines. So some didn’t even understand that simple parable – I remember how one of the “prayer servants” who prayed after the message obviously understood the dry bones to mean the students on the campus, and not UBF/CMI itself. Peter Chang from Columbus was there and gave a lecture on Bible interpretation, which was good. James and Rebecca Kim from Houston (former Toledo) were also there. Rebecca was introduced on the stage as “this is the coworker of James Kim”. I remember how Rebecca protested and clarified that she was the “wife, not the coworker” of James Kim. That was one of my highlights ;-) There was also a lecture on the meaning of “fruit” in the Bible, given by a guest speaker. He clarified what fruit really means, namely love etc. and not how many shepherds you have raised. At the end of the lecture, one senior missionary asked “but fruit could also mean sheep, right?” It was obvious how difficult it was for them to get rid of the old paradigms. As usual, they also collected money as offering. But then a discussion arose how that money should be used. For the first time, this was discussed openly. I was also amazed how much money was acutally collected at such occasions. I had never thought about that before. In UBF conferences, we were never told how much money was collected and for which purposes it was used.

In my understanding CMI is pretty much the same as UBF, but without most of the pressure and authoritarianism. That’s also the explanation why CMI is smaller. As I claimed earlier, UBF mostly works via fear and pressure. If you remove fear and pressure, most people will leave. If CMI had really reformed themselves, processed the past, and clearly repented of their former authoritarianism, they would be much more attractive and probably much larger today.

Anyway, CMI is still there after 12 years. And as far as I know, even ESF which originated from the 1st UBF reform movement in 1976, is still there after 37 years. In 2001, our chapter director told us “Wait 3 years and see if Reform UBF is still there. I predict that they will not be there any more, and this will show that they were not from God.” Apart from this being a completely flawed argumentation, he was obviously wrong. CMI is still there. But I never heared that a UBFer considered this as a proof that they should rethink their stance towards reform. Similarly, SL claimed in 2001 that only God was able to correct him and He would punish him if he did anything wrong. One year later he died through a fire in his house. If you follow SL’s reasoning (I don’t do that!), who often preached that bad luck, bad health and accidents were a result of disobeying God, and only God was allowed to punish and correct him, he was obviously punished by God. Still nobody in UBF took this as a warning that something was flawed in their view of SL and reform.

Good questions:

“How could you tell that you were no longer at a UBF event?”

You would just need to look and listen. Do people call each other by “shepherd”? Do you see 90% Koreans? Do the people serving look sad and exhasperated? Do the messengers all say “I have the mooost beauutiful wife in the world”? Are there lectures that all say “do world mission”?

“And if you couldn’t tell that you were no longer at a UBF event, what does it suggest about the split that occurred in UBF twelve years ago?”

If you couldn’t tell the difference, it might mean it is possible to make the ubf-style programs work in spite of their builtin contradictions. It might mean CMI is just a clone of UBF with no real difference. It might mean you aren’t looking hard enough or at the right things that make up the difference. I think we need more information to make any conclusion on these things though. We would need to know what the CMI folks did with the heritage and ideology? Maybe they just kept the framework and not the ideology behind it?

If you couldn’t tell the difference between CMI and UBF, it does tell us at least one concrete thing. We would know for certain that the CMI folks were not burdened or upset by the ubf program istelf, but were burdened by something else. What was it? What did they change if CMI looks like UBF? I’d like to hear from CMI people what the difference is. I suspect it all has to do with authority and control, but maybe not.

Still it is nice to hear that some bad ubf practicies are left behind in cmi. The best news I see in the article is that Paul Laska is the president. Hopefully he is not a “puppet” ubf-kind leader who just obeys his Korean rabbis.

I saw and experienced personally that when you leave ubf, ubf directors challenge you, “Instead of critisizing ubf do your own thing your own way better than we do, and we will see who is better”(according to the number of your “church” members). They don’t want to hear anything because their “methods work”. I like the way Brian put it when he wrote about ubf shepherds’ following the heritage too well. ubf directors have this in their minds always, “See, they left and they can’t show us anything better than ubf, we are right and we will stand faithful and loyal to the heritage! It came from God!”. That’s why even at the ISBC there was something about an Ukrainian shepherd running and shouting in training. The old good methods work even today in our “post-modern” time in ubf! Why changing?! Why repenting?! All those who “ran away” just missed the train of the number one Bible student movement in the world! “Those losers are like Barnaba who left Paul and God blessed Paul and did the world mission through him!”

The ubf directors’ challenge is satanic because it tempts people to follow wrong motives and to try to show someone unrepentant that you can reach some “number” of followers and prove right. It is better to listen to Jesus the Lord and follow him in life and serve others in love. At the same time I believe that God blesses right motives and truly saves many people through sincere Christians. God “shows up” in many non-ubf events and churches. (Thanks, Joe, for your link to the Tractor movie of Francis Chan in the “0.3%” article. Since that first time I heard Francis I regularly listen to his sermons and admire his walk with the Lord and his Bible study. Let him and such(or better the Holy Spirit working in freedom) be an example for ubf directors to show them they are “worse” and much worse. After his sermons to read a ubf report from the same locations where Korean missionaries say they are living in a spiritual desert with no sheep for more than 20 years and no Christians anywhere around in California (all those megachurches don’t count) and pass the directorship from father-Korean to the son-Korean for there is no native leader there.)

And I remember someone wanted to contact the former ubfer who is working at a center helping former cult-members (don’t remember his name). What about him? Any news? ANd looking forward for Paul Laska’s article.

past ‘religious’ experiences make me cautious in general, however sure looks worth a closer look..