Soldier Spirit

When we mention the UBF spirit, we cannot omit solider spirit. This soldier spirit is deeply embedded in the heart of UBF movement. For example, in the UBF statements of oath, the phrase, “I am a soldier of the Lord Christ Jesus” appear twice. In other words, a UBF man is a soldier of the Lord Christ Jesus who fights the battle of Bible Korea and world mission for the glory of God. This battle is not against flesh and blood but against Satan and against the power of sin in us. The ultimate goal of this battle is to establish a kingdom of God through preaching the gospel to all nations. Dr. Samuel Lee emphasized soldier spirit everyday: "Now soldiers are fighting in Vietnam. You also must fight everyday to save people of South-Asia who are living in darkness. As college students, you must fulfill all the requirements to graduate. Likewise as members of the UBF student committee, you must receive the necessary trainings. In other words, as soldiers do not get involved in civilian affairs, we--spiritual soldiers--must be loyal to Jesus, our commanding officer. We must equip ourselves with the power of the Risen Christ and plant Jesus' love in the calloused hearts of students. We must fight until this nation possesses true freedom in Jesus."

From the beginning our ministry had a clear identity as the army of the cross of Jesus. We received painful trainings with joy in order to be a good soldier of Christ Jesus. On July, 1966, we established a spiritual military academy. On July 21th, it was written, “UBF military academy is to raise up spiritual generals. Please fulfill all the requirements and training in the hope of becoming spiritual generals.”

The spiritual military academy had a tight schedule. The shepherd who was in charge of training others called himself a general. He called for a generals’ meeting, discussed the following day’s training and prayed altogether.

We also used military terms such as ‘training,’ ‘battle,’ and ‘conquering’ frequently. There were many kinds of training: Daily Bread training, message training, testimony writing training, common life training; there were also many kinds of battles: battle with the word, prayer battle, testimony writing battle and one-to-one battle. When we prayed for pioneering ministries, we prayed persistently for conquering campuses, and conquering South Asia.

At the beginning Dr. Samuel Lee fought against Korean people’s chronic sicknesses of a beggars’ mentality, selfishness, divisiveness, inferiority of being a small and poor nation, fatalism, defeatism, despair and so on. As a result, God changed Korea from a receiving nation to a giving nation and a nation of vision and prayer for the whole world.

Today our missionaries in the USA and Europe fight against strong Satan of materialism, hedonism and selfishness. At the beginning of American campus pioneering, Satan attacked us through deprogrammers. But when we fought against Satan to the end, persevering through trials, the work of the gospel advanced and American shepherds became strong in Jesus. On the other hand, the deprogrammers who hindered the gospel work bankrupt and disappeared. God himself did away with them and gave us a victory. Dr. Samuel Lee called himself a sergeant who trains spiritual generals and shepherds without ceasing. Through these strong spiritual trainings, God raised up UBF staff shepherds and missionaries. For this reason, Dr. Samuel Lee wore soldiers’ clothes, shoes and hat, drove a jeep and led the world mission work as its frontline field general. For the pioneering work of 233 nations, we must succeed this soldier spirit, love training, and become spiritually stronger as soldiers of Jesus Christ. We must become filled with a fighting spirit and always win victories in spiritual warfares as good soldiers of Christ Jesus.