Community spirit and student committee meeting

Community spirit is one of the characteristics of UBF. Because of our community spirit, we could form a beautiful coworking relationship and serve pioneering work with one mind and heart. The beautiful coworking of Dr. Samuel Lee and Missionary Sarah Barry became the foundation of UBF gospel work. Dr. Samuel Lee labored hard to heal Koreans' chronic divisiveness. God's work can be done when people form a vessel of the Holy Spirit through being united and coworking with one another. So at the last supper Jesus told his disciples a new command: "Love one another." When the disciples obeyed this command and prayed altogether with one mind and heart and there was a great work of God as shown in Acts. Dr. Samuel Lee emphasized the importance of community spirit on Feb. 5th, 1966: "Koreans lack community spirit. Our country has been divided and did not fight as one body. But now we are brothers and sisters in Christ. When we bear the burden of the cross together, it will become easy for us to carry. We must cry together, pray together, work together and experience real joy in Christ. But when our Christian community is destroyed, God cannot use us or bless our ministry. Therefore, destroying our Christian community is a terrible sin."

The ancestors struggled hard to form a Christian community in UBF. Everybody was required to read Dietrich Bonhoeffer's book "Life Together." We raised up a leader in each college and had prayer meetings. We ate together and played games together. On weekends we played basketball, volleyball and all kinds of games on the green lawns in Yang-rim Dong. Those who came back from their home in the countryside shared the homemade cookies they brought from their home with other students. Indeed UBF military academy was the training ground for community spirit. All student committee members served a duty of living together for a week. On the first day of the week, they elected the trainer and obeyed the trainer absolutely for one week. Every evening they gathered together to reflect on what they had done throughout the day, made new regulations and put them into practice.

Especially student committee members formed a beautiful community, opening their hearts through deep conversation with one another. The nucleus of this community was love for one another as soldiers of Christ Jesus. When Dr. Samuel Lee participated in the Korean War as a student soldier, he saw his fellow soldiers dying from left to right. At that time, he felt deep love toward his fellow soldiers. He said, "Unless you love your fellow soldiers, you cannot win the victory in battle. We must strengthen those who are tired, encourage those who are discouraged, and pray for those who need prayer support. We must love one another, comfort one another, dry tears from one another's eyes and even rescue one another at the cost of our lives. Then we can form a band of soldiers who love one another and win true victory in Christ. We can be good soldiers of Christ Jesus."

Student committee meetings are basically small prayer meetings. The president of this meeting is a student; in this meeting we decided the direction of our ministry, discussed all the important issues and prayed altogether for the pioneering ministry and sheep. The spirit of this meeting was that the work of God was not done by a majority of people but by a few creative people. Therefore student members should not be spectators but stewards of the ministry. The members were those who accepted the gospel and gave the world mission offering. A new member was accepted unanimously. Even if just one person objected, the member could not be accepted. We had a monthly meeting. Even if one person was absent, we did not begin the meeting until that person arrived. If the person did not come, we visited the person and brought him to the meeting. One winter it snowed so much that there was no bus running. Then Daesoo Kim of the college of agriculture of Chun-nam University walked 20 miles in heavy snow and attended the monthly meeting. This was an amazing work of God.

Moreover, because of the spirit of considering one person as precious, the bills at the student leaders’ meeting had to be passed unanimously. Therefore, students discussed everything very sincerely and shared their opinions only after thinking about them deeply, showing respect toward others. Their opinions reflected their view of life and faith. Therefore, we respected one another as God's servants and listened to one another with utmost sincerity and care. But we mainly prayed together. We often spent the whole night in prayer because we prayed so earnestly. We fought against all kinds of elements of division among us with sincere repentance. God accepted our sincere struggle and expanded this small student prayer meeting which began with 5 people into the whole world. Through this community spirit UBF formed a beautiful coworking ministry. Through community spirit all UBF chapters did not serve a chapter-centered ministry but were united as one in order to serve the world mission work.