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Mission Sunday
[Christian Life]Mission Sunday is a Sunday set apart by a church to remember home and foreign missions, to pray for missionaries and mission fields, and to receive a missions offering. Its date and frequency vary by denomination and congregation.
Kindergarten Department
[Christian Life]The kindergarten department is the division of a church school that serves preschool children of roughly four to six years of age, offering faith education centered on worship, play, and storytelling.
Elementary Department
[Christian Life]The elementary department is the division of a church school (Sunday school) responsible for children of elementary school age. Also called the children's department, it provides worship and Bible instruction suited to children's level of understanding.
Romans 15:13
[Bible Verses]A prayer-wish that Paul addressed to the church in Rome, asking that "the God of hope" fill believers with all joy and peace in believing and make them abound in hope through the power of the Holy Spirit. The verse is widely quoted as a short word of blessing.
Acts 6
[Bible]Acts 6 is the chapter that recounts how the Jerusalem church chose seven men to oversee the daily distribution to the needy after complaints arose over it, and how one of them, Stephen, was accused before the council.
Acts 13
[Bible]Acts 13 is the chapter in which the church at Antioch sends out Barnabas and Saul as missionaries, beginning Paul's first missionary journey. It recounts the mission on Cyprus, Paul's sermon in the synagogue at Antioch in Pisidia, and the declaration that the apostles would turn to the Gentiles.
Philippians 2
[Bible]Philippians 2 is the chapter in which Paul urges the church at Philippi to unity and humility. He presents as their example Christ, who emptied himself and was obedient unto death on the cross, and he announces his plans to send Timothy and Epaphroditus.
1 Corinthians 5
[Bible]1 Corinthians 5 addresses a case of sexual immorality in the church at Corinth. Paul instructs the church to remove the offender from the community and uses the images of leaven and the Passover to stress the church's purity.
2 Corinthians 1
[Bible]2 Corinthians 1 opens with Paul's greeting to the church at Corinth and a doxology praising God for the comfort He gives in tribulation. Paul then explains why he changed his plans to visit Corinth.
1 Thessalonians 4
[Bible]1 Thessalonians 4 is the chapter in which Paul urges the church at Thessalonica to live holy lives, to love one another as brethren, and to work diligently, and teaches them to comfort one another with the hope that believers who have died will rise again at the coming of the Lord.
Sarah Barry
[People]Sarah Barry (born 1930) is a missionary of the Presbyterian Church in the United States (PCUS, the Southern Presbyterian Church). In 1961 she co-founded University Bible Fellowship (UBF) in Gwangju, South Korea, with Samuel Lee (Lee Chang-woo), and in 2002 she became the second general director of UBF worldwide.
Senior Pastor
[Church Offices]A senior pastor is the minister who holds responsibility for a local church and oversees its preaching, sacraments, pastoral care, and administration. The procedures for appointment and the status of the office vary according to each denomination's form of church government.
Exhorter (Kwonsa)
[Church Offices]The exhorter (kwonsa) is a lay office in Korean Protestant churches whose holders exhort church members and care for them through pastoral visitation and prayer. The office originated in the Methodist tradition, and its qualifications and role vary by denomination.
New Believer
[Church Offices]A new believer is a person who has recently begun attending and registered with a church, or a church member who has only recently come to faith. Korean Protestant churches also use the terms "new family member" and "new fellow member" for such persons.
Priest
[Church Offices]A priest is one of the three holy orders in Anglicanism, alongside bishop and deacon, and is an ordained minister who presides at the Eucharist and cares for the church. Priests are commonly addressed as "Father," and unlike Roman Catholic priests, who observe celibacy, Anglican priests may marry.
District Worship Meeting
[Worship & Rites]A district worship meeting is a small worship service and gathering held in homes by church members organized into geographical units, or districts, according to where they live. The practice is widespread in Korean Protestant churches, where it is known as guyeok yebae; in Methodist churches, a gathering of the same kind is called a class meeting (sokhoe).
Memorial Service (Chudo Yebae)
[Worship & Rites]A memorial service is a worship service in which bereaved family members and fellow church members gather, usually on the anniversary of a death or on a major holiday, to remember a person who has died. In Korean Protestantism it became established as a rite that takes the place of Confucian ancestral rites; it is also known as a remembrance service (chumo yebae).
Special Dawn Prayer Meeting
[Feasts & Seasons]A special dawn prayer meeting (teuksae) is a dawn prayer gathering that a church holds for a set period and around a chosen theme, with greater intensity than its regular dawn prayer meetings. The practice grew out of the dawn prayer tradition of Korean Protestantism.
Henry Appenzeller
[People]Henry Appenzeller (1858–1902) was an American missionary of the Methodist Episcopal Church (North) who arrived in Korea, then the Joseon kingdom, in 1885. He founded Paichai Hakdang and Chungdong First Methodist Church and took part in Bible translation. He died in 1902 in a shipwreck off Eocheongdo Island.
Heresy Designation
[Heresies & Cults]A heresy designation is a formal determination by a denominational general assembly or an interdenominational church body, made after investigating the teachings of a particular individual or group, that those teachings have departed from orthodox doctrine. Because each denomination makes its own determinations, conclusions and their severity can differ from one denomination to another.