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Cooperating Pastor
[Church Offices]A cooperating pastor is an ordained pastor who is affiliated with a church or institution and assists the senior pastor in ministry. The title is used mainly in Presbyterian churches, and its conditions of service and standing within the presbytery vary according to each denomination's constitution.
Parable
[Bible]A parable is a form of speech that conveys spiritual truth through comparison with everyday objects or stories familiar to the listener. In the church the term usually refers to the parables of Jesus recorded in the Gospels, which deal chiefly with the kingdom of God.
Sabbatical
[Organization & Polity]A sabbatical is a period during which a pastor or missionary, after serving for a set length of time, steps away from ministry to rest, study, pursue further training, and recharge. The term is taken from the Old Testament ordinances concerning the sabbatical year.
Steward
[Doctrine & Theology]A steward is a person entrusted with managing a master's household and property. In Protestantism, the term refers to the teaching that life, time, talents, and material possessions are entrusted to people by God and are to be used responsibly.
Confession of Faith
[Doctrine & Theology]A confession of faith is the act by which Christians declare what they believe, in speech or in writing, or a document formally adopted by a church that sets out what it believes. A brief summary document of this kind is commonly called a creed.
Pastoral Pension
[Organization & Polity]A pastoral pension is a pension system operated by a denomination or church to support pastors who have retired or can no longer carry out their duties, as well as their surviving families.
Joint Easter Service
[Worship & Rites]A joint Easter service is a worship service held on Easter at which multiple denominations and churches gather together, often at dawn. In Korea, the first such service is reported to have been held in 1947 on Namsan in Seoul.
Praise Gathering
[Christian Life]A praise gathering is a meeting that exalts God primarily through the congregation singing a series of praise songs in succession. In Korea, such gatherings spread widely among young adults under the name "praise and worship."
Pastoral Honorarium
[Organization & Polity]A pastoral honorarium is money that a church pays regularly to its ministers, such as the senior pastor, associate pastors, and evangelists, to support their living. It is often referred to simply as an "honorarium."
Vow
[Christian Life]A vow is a voluntary promise by which a believer pledges to God to do something or to offer something. In Korean Protestant churches, vows commonly take forms such as vow prayers, vow offerings, and vows by parents to dedicate their children to the pastoral ministry.
Hospital Chaplain
[Church Offices]A hospital chaplain is a minister attached to a hospital who carries out pastoral ministry, such as worship services, counseling, and visitation, for patients, their families, and hospital staff.
General Assembly Moderator
[Church Offices]A general assembly moderator is the person who represents and presides over the general assembly, the highest deliberative body of a denomination. The office exists in many denominations, including Presbyterian, Holiness, and Baptist churches, and its term and authority vary from one denomination to another.
Sanctuary (Church Building)
[Worship & Rites]A sanctuary is a building or space in which a congregation gathers for worship. Among a church's facilities, the largest space used for Sunday worship is often called the main sanctuary.
Prayer Retreat Center (Kidowon)
[Christian Life]A prayer retreat center, known in Korean as a kidowon, is a Protestant facility, usually built in the mountains or on the outskirts of a city, where people can devote themselves to prayer and fasting. Equipped with meeting halls and lodging, it is used for individual prayer and group retreats.
Minister Without Charge
[Church Offices]A minister without charge is a title used in Presbyterian constitutions for an ordained minister who retains ministerial standing but has no church or institution in which he or she is assigned to serve.
Korean Immigrant Church
[Denominations]A Korean immigrant church is a Protestant church in which Koreans living abroad gather to worship in Korean. In addition to serving as a community of faith, such churches have long been focal points of Korean immigrant communities.
Pilgrimage to the Holy Land
[Christian Life]A pilgrimage to the Holy Land is a journey made for religious purposes to places where biblical events occurred or to major sites in church history. In Korean Protestant churches, the term chiefly refers to group trips to biblical sites in Israel, Türkiye, Greece, and other countries.
Church Café
[Christian Life]A church café is a coffee shop that a church operates inside its sanctuary building or an auxiliary building. Its main purposes are to foster fellowship among members and to provide a place of contact with local residents.
Romans 8:28
[Bible Verses]A verse declaring that "all things work together for good to them that love God." It is among the passages most widely quoted for comfort in suffering, and discussion centers on what "good" means and whether "all things" includes evil and pain.
Romans 9:20-21
[Bible Verses]A passage asserting the potter's authority over the clay, declaring that the thing formed cannot say to him that formed it, "Why hast thou made me thus?" As the heart of Romans 9, which addresses God's sovereign election, it carries more weight than perhaps any other text in debates over predestination.