Extravagant Worship by Darlene Zschech

Everyone in town knew her as a sinful woman, but her selfless display of extravagant worship changed how everyone remembers her now. Jesus was in Bethany, reclining at the table in the home of a man known as Simon the Leper. “When [she] learned that Jesus was eating at the Pharisee’s house, she brought an alabaster jar of perfume, and as she stood behind him at his feet weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears. Then she wiped them with her hair, kissed them and poured perfume on them” (Luke 7:37-38).

Imagine the depth of this woman’s tears being enough to clean the dusty feet of Jesus! Imagine the gratitude that moved her to boldly display her devotion and adoration of the Man reclining at the table. She had heard Him teach of the kingdom of heaven. She had understood the heart of the Lord. She had seen the miracles He had done. She had been delivered from her old way of life through His loving acceptance of her.

With tears flowing from a sobbing heart, she washed the Lord’s feet and wiped away the soil with the tresses of her hair. Then she perfumed His feet with oil from her alabaster jar that was valued at a year’s wages. Her love for Jesus knew no bounds. When the others voiced their disapproval of her extravagance, Jesus said, “Leave her alone. She has done a beautiful thing to me.”

Oh, for the opportunity to kiss the feet of Jesus …

As the year 2000 approached, I felt the Holy Spirit had given me the phrase “Extravagant Worshipers” to use a banner over our department. As part of our weekly rehearsals at Hillsong, we attend teaching nights, and everything that was taught during that year was on this central theme. Our hunger for more of God had fueled the year in a magnificent way, and by the end of that first year I was excited at what 2001 would bring.

Then one quiet moment in prayer, the Lord gently whispered in my ear, Daughter, you’re not an extravagant worshiper yet. When one hears God say something like that, one humbly listens! So I realized I am not there yet; our team is not there yet; and if we are to continue to call ourselves “extravagant worshiper,” I understand that we have a long way to go.

So what does it mean to be an extravagant worshiper?

Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary defines the word extravagant as “2 a: exceeding the limits of reason b: lacking in moderation, balance, and restraint (praise) c: extremely or excessively elaborate 3 a: spending much more than necessary b: profuse, lavish.” The Holy Spirit is calling us to excessive worship. We’re to be overgenerous in our praises to God. Extravagant worship means to be elaborate in our offering of admiration to Him; our worship is to be over and above reasonable limits previously established.

The cause of Christ pumping away in our veins should cause extraordinary praise to the Father. I long to worship Jesus as did the woman with the alabaster jar of perfume! Excessive, abundant, expensive, superfluous, lavish, costly, precious, rich, priceless, valuable …

Jesus knew the woman who anointed Him with her precious perfume fully understood that she had been forgiven for terrible sins. Jesus explained this love she had for Him to Simon the Leper, telling him a parable about two servants who were forgiven for debts by their Master. One owed him a little: the other owed him much. Jesus continued the story:

“Neither of them had the money to pay him back, so he canceled the debts of both.
Now which of them will love him more?”
Simon replied, “I suppose the one who had bigger debt cancelled.”
”You have judged correctly,” Jesus said.

Then he turned toward the woman and said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? I came into your house. You did not give me any water for my feet, but she wet my feet with her tears, and wiped them with her hair. You did not give me a kiss, but this woman, from the time I entered, has not stopped kissing my feet. You did not put oil on my head, but she has poured perfume on my feet. Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven—for she loved much. But he who has been forgiven little loves little.”

Then Jesus said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.
”The other guests began to say among themselves, “Who is this who even forgive sins?”Jesus said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you; go in peace”
(Luke 7:42-50)

When we stand before the Lord to worship Him, we are to worship Him in truth. To do so, we must ask ourselves, “How big are the debts Jesus canceled for me? How generous was He toward me when considering the pain my sins inflicted upon Him? How much thanks do I owe Him for canceling the consequences of my past? Am I overgenerous with my worship? Do I exceed reasonable limits when praising Him? Or am I merely doing what is required, merely fulfilling the basic level of commitment? Am I simply trying to earn my right of passage? If our worship is spiritual and truthful, we will search our souls and appraise the value we place on His love for us. What can we bring to the altar that represents extravagance?

I have had the honor of meeting some extravagant worshipers during my lifetime:

Among them is a young couple in our church who lost their young daughter through sickness, yet they worshiped their King through overwhelming grief and are sill doing so today.

A young man who was left paralyzed form his waist down through an accident was quickly back in our church services. With tears running down his face, his arms stretched heavenward, and his heart loving Jesus, he worshiped His Savior with extravagant thanksgiving.

A friend of mine, a young married other of four little ones, whose husband is in our worship team, is always in church, always early, always full of joy, and always found full of extravagant praise for her Lord.

The Oxford English Dictionary describes extravagant as “wasteful.” This word particularly grabbed my attention, for one of the most beautiful accounts of extravagant worship in the Bible is the story of how the gift of perfume from the sinful woman was considered “wasteful” by those around her. But as she poured out her costly perfume from the alabaster jar, she must have wished she had even more to give Him. As she poured out her tears in offering, He washed away her brokenness. As she loved extravagantly, He forgave extravagantly. Her action of elaborate love toward her Lord is a powerful example of true, heartfelt worship. Her act of worship had nothing to do with music or song, but it had all to do with being extravagant in devotion to her Savior.

What is worship, and what are we doing when we worship? True worship, the kind of worship that God seeks, is described in John 4:23-24: “Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth.”

I have meditated on that Scripture for many hours. I understand true worship to be when one’s spirit adores and connects with the Spirit of God, when the very core of one’s being is found loving Him, lost in Him. True worship is not about the songs being sung; it is not about the size of the band; it is not about the size of the choir. Although music is a wonderful expression of worship, it is not in itself the essence of it. The core of worship is when one’s heart and soul, and all that is within, adores and connects with the Spirit of God. In fact, regardless of how magnificent the musical moments are, unless one’s heart is fully engaged in the worship being expressed, it is still only music. The song of pure heart that is yearning for more of God and less of one-self is the music that hold the key to many victories and delights the heart of our King.

Created to Worship

Isaiah 43:7 says that God created us for His glory. “ ‘You are my witnesses,’ declares the Lord, ‘and my servant whom I have chosen, so that you may know and believe me and understand that I am he. Before me no god was formed, nor will there be one after me. I, even I, am the Lord, and apart from me there is no savior’” (Isaiah 43:10-11). First Chronicles 16:28-29 says, “Ascribe to the Lord, O families of nations, ascribe to the Lord glory and strength ascribe to the Lord the glory due his name. Bring an offering and come before him; worship the Lord in the splendor of his holiness.”

Our worship pleases the Lord. There is real strength when believers bring a corporate offering of praise to God in the church, I love the sense of storming heaven with our praise when we unify in faith, I love when we, the body of Christ, can just be together in His magnificent presence. God’s Word encourages believers to continue meeting together saying, “And let us consider and give attentive, continuous care to watching over one another, studying how we may stir up (stimulate and incite) to love and helpful deeds and noble activities. Not forsaking or neglecting to assemble together [as believers], as is the habit of some people, but admonishing (warning, urging, and encouraging) one another and all the more as you see the day approaching” (Hebrews 10:24-25 AMP).

But also we must each worship our King in that secret place, that intimate time, one-on-one, as lover of Christ. There should be times of worship that only you and the Lord will ever know about. Even if you are part of a worship team, your most glorious moments of worship should be off the platform when you are alone with God. Heartfelt intimacy is private, and your most precious time with your best friend is not in the public moments. Moments alone with God should be revered.

When Jesus came to the village where Martha lives, she opened her home to Him. Her sister Mary (the same on who later anointed Jesus with perfume) sat at the Lord’s feet, listening to what he said. But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. Eventually she came to Jesus and asked, “ ‘ Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!’ ‘Martha, Martha,’ the Lord answered, ‘you are worried and upset about many things but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her’” (Luke 10:40-42).

We can understand Martha’s concern. She was asking, “Lord, don’t you care? Don’t you love me for all that I am doing for you?” Of course God cares-and He cares that we learn the only service to Him that is needed. Mary chose to be in the presence of God; she chose to sit at His feet, to spend time in the Word of God. Mary chose what is most necessary.

There is no substitute for time spent alone with God; no substitute for a relationship with Christ. Singing lovely songs about the Lord is fantastic, but it is not enough. To worship is to speak to the Lord with words full of adoration. To worship God is to bow down to Him, to revere Him, and to hold in awe His beauty. I see worship as a kiss toward heaven.

Worship is a verb, defined as “regard with great or extravagant respect, honor, or devotion.” It is an active expression of our love toward God. It is vibrant and visible by our deeds and not only by the words we speak. Worship involves the giving of ourselves totally to the Lord. Worship is neither a ritualistic activity nor a musical emotion. It embodies and reflects the selfless generosity of Christ. Worship is a movement of our heats, our thoughts, and our wills toward God’s heart, thoughts, and will.

But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should show forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.
(1 Peter 2:9 KJV)

Facedown by Matt Redman

Otherness of God

Worship thrives on wonder. We can admire, appreciate and perhaps even adore someone without a sense of wonder. But we cannot worship without wonder. For worship to be worship, it must contain something of the otherness of God.

I’ve come to love that word –“otherness.” It’s such a great worship word. A sense that God is so pure, matchless and unique that no one else and nothing else even comes close. He is altogether glorious—unequalled in splendor and unrivalled in power. He is beyond the grasp of human reason—far above the reach of even the loftiest scientific mind. Inexhaustible, immeasurable and unfathomable—eternal, immortal and invisible. The highest mountain peaks and the deepest canyon depths are just tiny echoes of His proclaimed greatness. And the blazing stars above, the faintest emblems of the full measure of His glory.

Otherness gives us a sense that God is so pure, matchelss and unique that no one else and nothing else even comes close.

Many music critics know that the skill of songwriter Bruce Springsteen lies in his ability to take the everyday, the ordinary, and make it sound extraordinary. Sometimes in Church we find ourselves doing the total opposite—we take the extraordinary revelation of God and somehow manage to make him sound completely ordinary! We fail to communicate the sense of God’s otherness. As A. W. Tozer puts it, “Left to ourselves we tend immediately to reduce God to manageable terms.”

Time after time the book of Isaiah reminds us of the uniqueness of God: “I will not give my glory to another” (42:8). “I am the first and I am the last: apart from me there is no God” (44:6). “To whom will you compare me or count me equal?” (46:5). “I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me” (46:9). In light of Scriptures like these, I’m becoming more and more wary of worship songs that seem to make God merely sound like our equal. Once or twice people have shown me a worship song and said, “This is great. The lyrics are so down to Earth that you wouldn’t even know you’re singing to God—it could be normal pop song or a love song.” Now, I guess the point to make, but there is higher value in worship than cultural relevance. It is the glory of God.

God will not be diluted, dumbed down or patronized. He rebukes worshippers in Psalm 50:

You thought I was altogether like you (v.21)

But He is not like one of us. He is utterly incomparable—beyond the furthest horizon of our imaginations. He is off the scale of our comprehension. We have merely known the shallows of the mighty deep.

A while back I bought my daughter a couple of little goldfish. I’ve never really been one for keeping pets, but I figured that these tiny creatures were probably quieter and tamer than the most. So there they swam, up on the mantelpiece, apparently forgetting everything every one and a half times around the bowl. They very next day I found myself watching a documentary about creatures of the deep sea. Right down in the depths of the ocean, the camera was capturing the most fascinating images of wild fish and other strange sea creatures. I sat glued to the screen—so many varieties, so much untamed beauty. And there in the background were Maisey’s tame little goldfish, doing yet another lap of the bowl.

Sometimes in the Church, I worry that we’ve settled for “goldfish bowl” worship. We convey a tame and domesticated God, and then find ourselves stuck in the endless pursuit of the ordinary. But the call is to venture out into the ocean, to encounter the extraordinary and to explore the mighty depths of God. And though our earthly gather worship times may never fully sound the depths of His glory, beware of those that don’t even attempt to do so.

Back to Psalm 50 and we discover that God doesn’t even need our worship:

If I were hungry I would not tell you, for the world is mine, and all that is in it (v. 12).

Do we detect a harsh tone in the voice of God here? Yes, we most certainly do. This is the voice of the all-sufficient King of the universe. He does not need to be sustained, supported or sponsored. He is not in urgent need of our offerings, like a TV charity fund-raiser, urgently appealing for as many contributions as possible. Charles Spurgeon writes:

Do men fancy that the Lord needs banners and music, and incense, and fine linen? If He did, the stars would emblazon His standard, the winds and the waves become His orchestra, ten thousand time ten thousand flowers would breathe forth perfume.

The apostle Paul echoes the same truth in his speech to the men of Athens:

He is not served by human hands, as if He needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else (Acts 17:25).

The plain truth is this: God has absolutely no need of our offerings. In fact, every single thing our open hands bring to Him—whether a good deed, a tithe or a simple act of compassion—came to us first from His hand. We cannot even offer a simple song of praise without using the breath of God first gave to us.

The book of Romans hammers this point home: “Who has first given to Him that it might be paid back to him again?” (Romans 11:35). One of the biggest mistakes a person can make in life is to think that God owes him or her something. It destroys faith and insults the sovereignty of God. There are some incredibly painful struggles in this life, and hard questions to which we may never fully know the answer. Yet even in these dark hours, we must accept that God is God, and as such, He never owes us an answer. As the hymn writer William Cowper puts it, “God is His own interpreter.” We cannot work Him out of force Him to fit into our way of thinking. He is high above our human understanding—high enough to see things that we could never see.

But the picture of God’s otherness is only really complete when we add to the mix the reality of His outrageous grace. It’s true that God does not need our worship. But there is a crowning beauty that completes this truth—God loves our worship. God delights in an honest and heartfelt offering of worship. Dwell on that mystery for a moment. Here is the all-sufficient Creator of the universe who could get along just fine without our little contributions. And yet He rejoices and delights in every adoring response to Him. It is the joy of a doting Father over a cherished child. It is the pleasure of a mighty King over a faithful and treasured servant. Just as we cannot begin to imagine the heights and depths of His great glory, so too we cannot begin to fathom the infinite measures of His fatherly love and grace.

Not only does God reveive with delight gifts that belconged to him in the first place, but He also pays the costliest of prices for their delivery.

And as the ultimate affirmation of this heart of welcome, God has even paid the price for us to draw near to Him in worship. We’ve seen that everything we could ever offer to God in worship has been provided by Him in the first place. But even forgetting the gifts themselves, the very means of our access into His presence is all of His own provision. It is a gifted response. We could never enter by own efforts. We come to the Father on the merit of what Jesus has done. In light of the cross, the resurrection and the ascension, we come through Jesus, in Jesus and with Jesus. And we come too in the in the power of the Holy Spirit.

So not only does God receive with delight gifts that belonged to Him in the first place, but He also pays the costliest of prices for their delivery. In human terms, this seems a little strange. How can that be a meaningful gift? Surely the giver must pay the full price? But we cannot measure god by our human standards. This extravagant act of grace is yet another reminder of His incredible uniqueness. His ways and His thoughts are way higher than we could ever imagine.

The more we delve into the otherness of God, the more we grasp the truth that worship is quite simply “all about Him”—a phase we may have sung many time. But do we realize just how true it is for every aspect of this life? The whole of our existence—our creation, our salvation and our sanctification—is first and foremost all about God. Another journey to the book of Isaiah and we get the message, loud and clear:

Everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory (43:7)

The people I formed for myself that they may proclaim my praise (43:21)

I, even I, am he who blots out your transgressions, for my own sake (43:25)

I have refined you… for my own sake, for my own sake, I do this (48:10-11)

The Lord God Almighty, maker of heaven and Earth, stands set apart from all others. We are the created, and He is the uncreated. Around Him revolves and unfolds the story of His great and eternal glory. And, yes, right through the very heart of this epic narrative runs a beautiful thread of grace—He is the steadfast God of love—and there is mercy to be found on every page. Time after time we find ourselves amazed by the blessing he lavishes on us. Yet let’s not be fooled into thinking that this story is all about us. It never has been, and it never will be. God is very passionate about His own glory.

Some of us might find this a little hard to compute at first. Every day we see mere humans making claims to fame and boasts of their glory. And this can make it all the harder to get our head around the face that God must care about His own glory. But we must not confuse displays of earthly arrogance with God’s declaration of His glory. It is not at all the same as boxer Muhammad Ali in his prime, ranting and raving around the ring screaming, “I am the greatest! I am the greatest!” and self-proclaiming his name and title. For sure, he had his time as a champion, but like all other mere men, he could not hold on to his crown. The boasts of men are motivated by pride and pure arrogance. They are empty temporary and shallow. The claims of God flow from glory and pure holiness. And they are powerful, eternal and true. For God to be God, he must care about His own glory. God must prize Himself above all else, for to prize anything or anyone else more highly than Himself would compromise His worth—and therefore imply that He is not God after all J. I. Packer puts it:

If it is right for man to have the glory of God as his goal, can it be wrong for God to have the same goal? If man can have no higher purpose than God’s glory, how can God? … The reason it cannot be right for man to live for himself, as if he were God, is because he is not God. However, it cannot be wrong for God to seek His own glory, simply because He is God.

In the book of Isaiah, the Lord declares, “How can I let myself be defamed? I will not yield my glory to another” (48:11). He will never give up His title or yield His supremacy. He is untouchable, invincible, and eternally glorious. In our celebrity-obsessed culture, fame rises up and then fades away—one minute someone has it, the next minute he or she is nowhere to be seen, and then someone else enjoys or ensures their fifteen minutes of fame. God, on the other hand, will never allow Himself to be defamed, nor will He let His glory pass on to another. He is the undisputed heavyweight King of all glory.

In Psalm 66, the writer cries out:

Sing the glory of his name; make his praise glorious! (v. 2)

In recent times, the Church has been inspired to make the praises of God more passionate and more intimate. And this is all vital ground for the singing Church to recover. Yet there’s also call to make sure His praise is glorious. One of the biggest challenges facing a lead worshipper these days is to somehow help the people of God find a voice to respond to His otherness. We need poetry, rhythms, visuals and melodies that will help us to sing the glory of His name, offerings that make it clear we are approaching the One who is above all others.

One beautiful way of conveying this is to offer to God that which we do not spend on any other. I love the lead-up to Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem, when He sends His disciples to certain house to fetch a “colt that has never been ridden” (Luke 19:30). It speaks of the otherness of the Son of God—the means by which He will be ushered into the city has been reserved for Him and Him alone. We must make sure that we do the same in our congregational worship—find ways of responding to God, which we’ve reserved for Him only.

In the Old Testament, God gives the people instructions on how to make up a special anointing oil for use in the Tabernacle. He makes it clear that this oil is only to be used for worship—it must not be used for cooking or any other purpose. ”It is sacred, and you are to consider it sacred” (Exodus 30:32). We too must make room for the sacred in our congregational worship—responses that we use exclusively for God and no other. Take, for example, the act of bowing facedown. As we saw in the last chapter, this is a thoroughly biblical response in worship. And in our western culture at least, bowing facedown is a physical gesture that we do not offer to any other, which makes it a fantastic response to the “set apartness” of God—an act of reverence reserved for His praises only.

This principle must go far beyond our church gatherings and seep into the very fabric of our everyday lives—to treasure words, thoughts and deeds we will only ever use in response to the Lord. In the past I’ve wondered whether the face that we have words in Scripture, which are no longer in common usage, might be a big hindrance to cultural relevance. I’m starting to think, however, that used well, they might also be a great strength. Take the word “holy” for example—a word that conveys the notion of one who is “set apart.” The very fact that we only ever use it in the context of God and His Church is very appropriate thing. Now obviously there’s a balance to be found—too many uncommon words and we start presenting a barrier to the uninitiated. But, accompanied names and descriptions of God might actually be powerful tools. Our culture is making up new words all the time—how fantastic if the worshipping Church were to recapture a few old ones as yet another way of conveying the uniqueness of God.

Out of reverence for Yahweh, the Jewish people would not even inscribe the vowels when writing down His Holy name—a way in which, even in their writings, they conveyed something of the otherness of God. A while back I decided that every time I type or write a word that refers to God (“Him,” “His,” “He,” etc.), I would use a capital letter. It’s just one tiny way in which I can reflect something of the otherness of God. By doing this, every time I sit down to write a song—or any sentence to or about God—I’m reminded of His holy otherness. Reverence for God must find its way into even the smallest details of our lives.

It’s time for the singing Church to once again encounter the beautiful otherness of God. But we cannot sing of that which we have not seen. In yet more wise words from A. W. Tozer:

What the church needs today is restoration of the vision of the Most High God.

Spoken nearly half a century ago, this insight seems just as relevant to us today.

East Asia Vision Trips

Myanmar & Vietnam

“All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
Matthew 28:18-20

Shalom my brothers and sisters in Christ!

My name is John Jowoon Lee and I’m currently attending All Nations Church. I serve as a student leader and praise leader in the College Group. After much praying and meditating on God’s word, I’ve made a commitment to serve the Lord overseas this summer. Not only will I be part of the Myanmar mission trip, but also through God’s amazing grace, I’ve been offered an opportunity to join a research team dedicated to scoping educational conditions for developing a Christian-value school in Southeast Asia.
I believe this is truly God’s answer to my prayer and I’m in faith asking you to partner with me as I go share the Gospel of Jesus Christ! I’ve been desiring for God to show and direct me to a country where I can serve the Lord overseas as a long-term missionary. This is an opportunistic time for me to explore and see a glimpse of what God has in store for me and for His nations. All of your prayer and support are greatly needed as I go to the following two countries this summer:

Myanmar July 21-28

This summer I will be going to Myanmar along with a team of eight, led by Pastor David Lee (College Group Pastor). We will be sharing in the gospel to encourage the current church leaders and the youth. Personally I will be sharing my testimony of how I came to receive Jesus as my Lord and Savior, partaking in a team skit based on surrendering the idols in our lives, and performing body worship to encourage with the Burmese people. While researching on and praying for the country of Myanmar, God has allowed me to become aware of and care for the needs and desires of the people.

Vietnam July 28 - August 4

After my Myanmar Trip, I have the honor of going to Vietnam for another vision trip. The past few months I’ve been praying for God to show me potential places where I can serve as a lifetime missionary. As I waited patiently on the Lord, He further developed in me a greater passion for the lost. This will be my first trip to Southeast Asia. However, I have been specifically praying to go to somewhere within the 10/40 window, so I believe God has truly heard my prayers and is allowing me to see and experience Him in a more tangible way.
After my team returns home, I will be staying in Vietnam for 7 more days. I will be actively researching in preparation for the vision to establish a top-tier school found on the basis of Christian values. In Vietnam where such educational offerings are rare, we pray that God would use this school to naturally introduce students to the Lord while providing a quality education. Pastor Abraham Chung (ANC Christian Education Department Pastor) will be heading this initiative with other Christian leaders to build an international school, “Harvard Ivy School,” in Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam.
This is not only a vision trip, but also a full-time commitment offered to me as a professional position. I’ve been entrusted with assessing the current educational systems in these countries and studying how we can effectively incorporate Christian values with improved teaching. This a huge responsibility, and I truly need your personal prayers and support.

How you can help
While I will be receiving a stipend for my travel expenses overseas, I would need additional financial support to cover my living expenses. Your help will free me up to focus my time and energy on the above mentioned task. We cannot bring this vision to fruition without prayer and gifts from the body of Christ. I pray that, in your love for the lost, you would extend yourself to the people of Myanmar & Vietnam in this way.

If you would like to make a contribution please make a check out to “Jo Woon Lee” by Monday, July 20.

Please commit to praying for me regularly.
If you would like to receive prayer updates via email, please let me know.

Prayer Request for Myanmar:

• That our team can love and encourage the Myanmar church leadership.
• That I share and get to know the people from the youth camp with humility and love.
• That our team would be united as we work for God’s Kingdom.
• For significant breakthroughs in the Burmese people whose majority is strongly entrenched by Buddhism, and where only 5% know Christ.
• For God to remove any potential restrictions on fellowship with Christians from other regions.

Prayer Request for Vietnam:

• For God to protect me as I travel to different places.
• That I wouldn’t think of this trip only as work but as a ministry. Where God is sending me to make Him known.
• That things would work out smoothly as I go and visit schools and interview teachers and school officials.
• That God would use Pastor Abraham through this whole process as I’m supporting.
• That God would be most glorified in all the work I’m doing.

With Christ love,
John Jowoon Lee
473 N. Los Robles Ave. #101
Pasadena, CA 91101
jowoonlee@gmail.com