OneBody, a non-profit that focuses on Bible reading, held a conference in New York on April 9.
OneBody, a non-profit organization that focuses on Bible reading with headquarters in four continents and offers 'Bible Time,' as a Bible-reading tool in some 20 different countries, held a conference in New York starting 9:30 AM on April 9. The conference took place at Crystal Church of New York.
OneBody, which began in Handong Global University in Korea, is currently receiving much attention as an organization to bring a breakthrough in the postmodernism of the 21st century, and is a useful tool for transmitting a Christian mindset to the next generation.
The conference showed the crisis that the world is facing in terms of maintaining the Christian faith, and organizers showed examples of the ways that OneBody's Bible reading movement has brought transformation to villages, arousing the necessity and importance of Bible reading once again.
The resources of OneBody's programs are not only disseminated and being proved useful in villages of Africa, but are also proving to be easy and effective methods for Korean churches in the United States to actively read the Bible. Particularly, OneBody suggested that its resources could be ways through which Korean immigrant families and churches could pass on their spiritual mindset to the younger generation.
One portion of the conference that left an impression on the attendees is the briefing on the current situation of Europe. In England, 72 percent of the population currently identify themselves as Christians, but when the Christian organizations in the country were surveyed, they responded that only 1.4 percent of the population agree that they attend church, practice their faith, and apply the Bible to their lives.
In 10 to 15 years, 16 million people in London left the Christian faith, and many former churches have been sold to become mosques or bars. The current number of Muslims that attend mosques is four time larger than the number of members of the Anglican Church, the largest Christian denomination in London.
"There needs to be a drastic change in politics, the economy, and society, and the foundation of that change has to be God's word," said Pastor Hyung Suk Park, the president of OneBody.
"Today, sermons are very well-spoken, and ministries are becoming more enhanced, but the sheep are not reading His word," Park continued. "God's word must be built up in the hearts of the congregation, and when they read the Bible, revival will come."
"We can't say that we've successfully delivered a Bible just because someone simply owns one," Park added. "We've discovered that reading of the Bible is necessary. Through Bible Time, a person can read through the entire Bible once in one year," he said as he explained the effectiveness of Bible Time.
The conference also featured an explanation of the ways that Jewish families teach their children. For 4,000 years, Jewish parents have been teaching their children about the Jewish religion, and thus, the discipleship occurring between parents and children have allowed the religion to be inherited and passed on through the generations.
"The first button of discipleship is discipling your own children," Park said. "Before discipling the children of others, one must disciple his or her own children first. We can't just rely on Sunday school. And a teaching that is not shown in a parent's lifestyle will probably not be effective -- we must be parents that are respected by our children."
"Our hope is that, through parental discipleship, the energy of the church as a whole will change for the better."
The leaders and coordinators of OneBody.
