http://www.justbeingthere.org/forgiveness/

Forgiveness might include some sort of forgetting, but forgiveness and “forgetting the past” also should not be used interchangeably. They are two different concepts that do not always go together.

In the cohort class I’m taking, one person shared a story about their abuse in the past. The person said, “I know I should forget…”. Our pastor immediately stopped the person and said, “Who told you to forget? Don’t forget so that the abuse is not repeated.”

I have forgiven my ubf shepherd and all ubf people. But I will not forget the abuse.

By the way, if I had JUST ONE honest, open, public answer or even acknowledgement or even response of any kind from ubf directors or senior leaders, my blogging negatively about ubf would slow down. If I heard a specific apology and specific plans to stop the abuse, I might even consider saying something nice about ubf :)

If I heard even ONE honest testimony reflecting on the mass exodus of UBF leaders or the current crisis in UBF, WITHOUT the “ubf-is-good-so-love-God-and-shut-up” statements, I might even write a “praise God” testimony complete with “one word”! …

So far, only you (Ben) and JoeS. have given me the time of day (among ubf leaders). A couple other leaders engaged in a few polite emails, but in the end I’ve been dismissed almost entirely or invited to a meeting where I would be dismissed entirely.

The trust is gone and that is an issue way beyond forgiveness.

“Forgiveness places us on a boundary between enmity and friendship, between exclusion and embrace. It tears down the wall of hostility that wrongdoing erects, but it doesn’t take us into the territory of friendship. Often, that’s all we can muster the strength to do, and all that offenders will allow us. Yet at its best, forgiveness hopes for more.”

Those who lack understanding will simply say, “Just forgive.” Honestly, no one can “just” forgive, especially if the offense is bad or protracted.

Sometimes we Christians think too simplistically that we can just forgive others, “because the Bible says we should forgive.” Just because the Bible says, “don’t lust” doesn’t mean that we can just stop lusting.

Thus, especially for an “innocent” party (such as a “sheep who was spiritually abused” by their shepherd for many years), forgiving the shepherd or leader is far from easy. It cannot just be said casually, or dismissively or intellectually, “Yeah, I forgave him.” Real forgiveness would involve going through multiple agonies of crucifixion.

This 7 min video by Miroslav Volf sheds some light on the difficulty and complexity of forgiving others: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8fbjzQcTws

And kindness or love does indeed call us to speak out against oppression and misuse of authority. I think that is one reason we former members end up feeling a bit like Martin Luther or William Wilberforce or William Wallace or Dietrich Bonhoeffer. I find solace in the words and actions of such people.

But this verse also teaches another principle: If you see your neighbour Israelite sinning, and do *not* rebuke him, or in the case of a church, see your brother or even “shepherd” sinning, and keep silent, you share in their guilt. You may think you’re doing them a favor, but you’re doing them a disfavor, and you start even sinning yourself by not speaking up.

I agree. I, for one, don’t have the purpose of change, reformation or reform. My purpose is redemption, accountability and healing.

Or to put it another way: I aim to examine, explain and expose. And I’ll accept whatever consequences there are to my online blogging.

I am not saying that error and evil should not be challenged or even continually confronted. But what I am saying is that forcing for something to happen, even if it is something good and bibibical, might be denying the sovereignty of God, who is allowing for sins committed to build up until God’s right time to deal with it in His own way and in His own time.

Love ultimately wins one’s heart. Jesus challenged the sin of the world with love unto death, even like a silent lamb led to the slaughter. That likely had a far greater power of transformation than the 7 woes of Matthew 23.

I am not saying that you or Brian or Vitaly or others should not keep pointing out the “past and present sins of UBF.” But by doing so online, which might be your primary or only recourse, may not necessarily be the most optimal way to promote change, reformation and reform.

I have personally learned more about UBF from you, than from people in UBF. Because of that, I have come to really love you guys, even though I have not met some of you in person.

Whether you realize it or not, what you have written and are writing, is having some impact, but probably not as fast or as much as you would wish. Nonetheless it is promoting a more transparent culture that challenges our longstanding unhealthy clandestine oligarchic culture.

For that I thank God for all of you. God willing, I would like to travel to Germany and Yakaterinburgh someday to meet you and your families in person. If not, we shall meet on the other side of the eschaton.

But then you continue: “I’m not saying that you or others should not try or keep challenging, but to keep pressing may actually work against any person’s repentance.”

I think you should make your mind up clearly here. Should they be challenged or not? I think we all agree they should. Should we *keep* challenging if they don’t listen?

I think Mt 18:15 is clear here. It does not say, “if they will not listen, then leave them alone, don’t mention the problem any more and wait until they repent on their own”. No, the passage says to not only keep on challenging them, but to even let the issue escalate and increase the pressure. And then, as the last step, if even the escalation does not help, Mt 18:15 says we shold separate from such people. This means, if there is a church member who openly sins and refuses to repent for real and obvious sins, the person should be excluded from the church and church community. That’s what the Bible demands. Mt 18:15, 1 Cor 5 and many other passages are very clear about that. I’m really baffled why UBF members who claim to follow only the Bible and take it literally do not follow this very explicit and clear teaching.

What do you think can we learn from the story of Eli and his sons in the OT? Some people think that he failed disciplining his children, so we should discipline them more. But I think that’s not the point here. His sons were already adult *priests* when they sinned. Elis problem was that he did not keep challening them about their sins that they commited in their function as priests, and did not let it escalate. Maybe he had similar thoughts as you have about UBF leaders, but it’s not right and his not taking these problems seriously brought doom about his own house.

We’re not talking about pressing non-believers to repent. This is a different issue. We’re talking about pressing people who claim to be servants of God, to be royal priests, who are themselves pressing others to do a lot of things Jesus never commanded, in the name of Jesus. In such a case, my view is that only the strictest measuremeant can and must be applied here.

As a side node concerning child neglect in UBF: I can witness that the problem really exists, even if some people like Maria may care for their children and have their own minds. I have seen it in my chapter, and in a very extreme form in another chapter. Even the media reported about this. In my chapter, for example, my wife was asked to stop breast-feeding her baby in order to have more time for UBF. Now Maria says, nobody can make you do anything, people have their own minds. That’s simply not true. It’s perfectly possible to manipulate people and make them do what you want. Particularly if you claim to be kind of God’s mediator to that person, “the servant of God” or whatever, and back up your demands with twisted Bible interpretations. This is exactly the thing that most ex UBFers are so angry about, that UBF made them do things that did not correspond with their own conscience. In UBF I was told by a Korean missionary that the concept of conscience does not even exist in the Bible, the only important concept was that of “absolute” obedience. One of SL’s famous words was “with a little training, UBF shepherds can do anything”. I think what he really meant was “with a little training, I can make them do anything”. The sole purpose of his training and the training I got from my shepherds was to break the free and individual will of people and make them obey what they are told without asking questions.

Now I won’t remain silent, and God is changing my “shy, quiet, gentle” nature to have a forehead of flint.

God is making he who had no voice to be a voice. Like Balaam’s donkey, I am sitting down and not moving.

Also, in regards to what moves sinners to repentance, I always think of Paul’s words in Romans 2:4. Personally, I am always convicted by this, realizing how much kindness God has shown me so that I will repent of my sins.

My intent is not to make individual directors repent. I’m not that naive. My intent is to put UBF as an entity on public trial.

At the risk of being misunderstood more than I already am: 2012 marks the beginning of UBF being put on public trial by me. For over 50 years, the problems of UBF have been revealed internally in a myriad of ways: personally, politely, forcefully, angrily, peacefully, and many, many more ways by hundreds of people. After all that, we get the 50th Anniversary self-glorification.

My life is a living stop sign to UBF directors, an end to the UBF ideology.

So far this year, I’ve identified the following “redeemed UBF”:

-Westloop Church
-The Well
-PODIL
-Penn State Church

And we have the first ever public announcement with real data and real communication from the general director:
http://www.ubf.org/content/ubf-international-office-letter-pastor-abraham-kim

I have no idea what UBF should do or what it would look like in the future. I only know that I must speak up.

I’m not saying that you or others should not try or keep challenging, but to keep pressing may actually work against any person’s repentance.

What really causes you and I to truly repent is the weakness, seeming powerlessness and vulnerability of Jesus on the cross. That is the paradox of true inner gospel transformation, reformation and resolution.

Power moves, politicking, clandestine maneuvers, threats and challenges may not necessarily work or rarely ever effect true change. Because even if it does, then man gets the credit. But from a position of weakness, helplessness, powerlessness, and vulnerability, God gets all the credit and the glory if and when transformation occurs.

In the final analysis, whenever or whether or not UBF changes is never any man’s call or evaluation or assessment. God does whatever pleases Himself (Ps 115:3; 135:6), and the Spirit is NEVER predictable (Jn 3:8). God may not necessarily work according to my expectation, zeal, enthusiasm, passion, relentlessness, hope, or desire. Thank God for that!

Leaving ubf helped put me in a place where I could begin to see reality. But unresolved issues remain. I and others need resolution. Perhaps we won’t get it in this lifetime, but I have to try.

In regard to extending grace, I believe Jesus was showing grace to the religious leaders when he pointed out their power and authority abuses. In other words, I believe Jesus showed us at least two sides of grace– a passive side and an aggressive side.

The pattern of ubf leaders up to now has been to take a Buddhist-style punishment, to allow themselves to be a “whipping boy” and then quietly go on the same way afterward.

Such actions are not Christian repentance. I and others are calling the ubf directors out, challenging them to repent publicly.

Again, this is not to justify what was done, but to propose an explanation as to why it happened: Sinners sin even after they become Christians.

Christian men lust and give in to pornography even after a very happy Christian marriage with a lovely loving wife. Christians who were junkies or drunkards relapse from time to time after conversion. Those who are lazy and undisciplined might remain so after becoming Christians. Genuine Christians suffer from profound depression, and on rare occasions, may even commit suicide.

Our missionaries, shepherds and chapter leaders, are also sinners. Their sin is subtle and somewhat culturally conditioned. One of their sins is that their sin should not be pointed out by juniors, and definitely not publicly or by mass email. That’s why some want UBFriends to be removed permanently, and why some “hate” email.

Does it mean they are not genuine Christians? They need grace just as much as a Christian who has committed adultery. Maybe they need even “more grace” because an adulterer’s sin is blatantly obvious, while a Christian’s Pharisee-like sins are usually not blatantly behaviorally obvious, and it is usually subtle, implicit and indirect.

They need grace from Jesus, and even from those they bullied and abused for decades! I’m not saying to cut them any flak, but to give them grace, which is really no different from what Jesus has given us who may have been abused, controlled, manipulated, guilt-tripped and lorded over and bossed over by such UBF leaders in the name of shepherding.

This is not true. Human beings can be persuaded. Guilt, peer pressure, persuasion, influence– all are real issues we all have to deal with.

Exasperation is also real. I gave up many times in ubf and just conformed to what was going on many times just because it was too much hassle to fight back. It wasn’t worth the arguing, the screaming, the fighting, the agony that I saw and heard so much of other people doing in ubf.

Add the Bible into the mix and you’ve got a dangerous cocktail. I really wanted to be a peacemaker, and to be humble and meek. So if something bothered me, why would I make a stand? After a while, I just wanted to be left alone, and the fastest and easiest way to do that in ubf is to just conform outwardly. Usually I could do that without losing my heart. Which is why I was treated far better than most people in ubf, perhaps.

You may think that you always make your own decision, but that is also not true. As Vitaly correctly pointed out, authority figures can and will make decisions for you, and then leave you with only the choice to obey or disobey.

I remember one ubf dictator always asking “do you want high quality or low quality life?” Well what idiot wants “low quality life”? So we had people making stupid decisions in order to have a “high quality” life!

Freedom of choice is a precious gift, I agree on that. If so, then why don’t ubf directors acknowledge this? Will they ever admit it? Will they ever concede power and authority to God?

A fundamental issue here is our choice. Someone like Maria may wonder: If ubf is so bad, why did you choose to stay so long? Why did you let yourself make bad decisions? I’ve wondered these questions myself. In short, such questions blame the person.

I found that part of my reason for staying in ubf for 24 years and part of the reason why I ignored my conscience for so long was because I really, really want to love Jesus and serve God’s mission. Even before ubf I wanted to be a priest. I find that I was blinded by such desire. And such desire was never checked in ubf, but only encouraged. The more good things I gave up, the more praise I got.

I think it goes both ways. Shepherds get a sort of “holy high” when their ubf sheep conform or sacrifice for the sake of ubf heritage. One long-time ubf missionary told me how Koreans and Americans/Russians/Germans/etc. gave each other a mutual high– sort of a yin/yang type escalation of grandiose vision. I am much more happy and peaceful now that the “vision” is gone. I can now see myself and others much more naturally and in a more healthy way.

There are also many reasons why people join controlling groups.

These days, I am personally witnessing up close, your three kids who are serving with me at West Loop. Their presence and spirit are such a joy and delight to me and to everyone else. Since they have been with us in Chicago over the past year, our entire church feels “upgraded,” with their zeal, enthusiasm, and authenticity. Without a doubt, they are the fruit of John’s and your love, faith and joy in the Lord. PTL!

The issue is many UBF shepherds have not used the gift properly. Many have used their gifts to bind people to the UBF heritage. I myself am now being unbound and it is awesome.

Jesus said His followers need to be careful of this binding, Matthew 18:18. Binding people’s lives, especially young students and children, to an ideology is a serious matter. When such binding occurs, it is proper and healthy to point it out, and I will continue to do so.

I’m not sure what I’d want, right now I would say “nothing”. But here is what I didn’t want, but got:

1. A dad, not a pastor– I got an authority figure.

2. Conversation, not sermons– I got conflicting and confusing Confucian teachings.

3. Your interest in their hobbies– I got rebukes for doing anything I ever liked to do.

4. To be studied– I was told “It’s none of your business” after merely raising the possibility of problems.

5. Consistency from you– I got dual-standards continually and was given so many bizarre directions; I realize now that the only point was to train me in obedience to a human authority figure and to be loyal to the heritage.

6. Grace to fail– I got judgment and criticism for succeeding.

7.A single moral standard– I got multiple standards, some moral, some not. For example, attending a family wedding was cause to be publicly called an agent of Satan.

http://www.ubf.org/node/1435

The brief words in this report clearly reveal some of the problems I just posted about:

“Currently, we are studying Romans, which gives us a great challenge to struggle spiritually for sanctification. We are ready and willing to fight against the sin of this generation depending on the power of the Holy Spirit through reciting Romans 8, the whole chapter.”

ubf almost universally teaches the gospel of “change yourself”. Here the reporter says “struggle spiritually for sanctification”. Where is the grace-powered sanctification that John Piper and others correctly teach?

Where is the obedience and leading of the Holy Spirit? The Spirit of God is not some magical power that we “depend on”. The Spirit of God is God–to whom believers ought to be learning to listen to and obey. Is God dead? Why does ubf always act as if Jesus didn’t rise from the dead?

Such things are why good Christian leaders who become indwelt with the Spirit of God by God’s grace will continue to leave ubf or take a louder and bolder stand internally. And it is why I will remain outside of ubf to meet those who leave, as I’ve done dozens of times the past 2 years already.

The other sentence is even worse:

“We are ready and willing to fight against the sin of this generation depending on the power of the Holy Spirit through reciting Romans 8, the whole chapter.”

ubf leaders still think that by reciting the bible, they will find power. Jesus had words against this thinking:

39-40 “You have your heads in your Bibles constantly because you think you’ll find eternal life there. But you miss the forest for the trees. These Scriptures are all about me! And here I am, standing right before you, and you aren’t willing to receive from me the life you say you want.

41-44 “I’m not interested in crowd approval. And do you know why? Because I know you and your crowds. I know that love, especially God’s love, is not on your working agenda. I came with the authority of my Father, and you either dismiss me or avoid me. If another came, acting self-important, you would welcome him with open arms. How do you expect to get anywhere with God when you spend all your time jockeying for position with each other, ranking your rivals and ignoring God?

45-47 “But don’t think I’m going to accuse you before my Father. Moses, in whom you put so much stock, is your accuser. If you believed, really believed, what Moses said, you would believe me. He wrote of me. If you won’t take seriously what he wrote, how can I expect you to take seriously what I speak?” John 5:39-47

Go back and submit all over again to my shepherd? Go back and re-bind my family’s lives to ubf heritage? Go back and put my head in the sand again? Go back and forget all that happened the past two years? Never.

I’ve already stated some required changes I would need to see (elsewhere on this blog) before I would even consider attending a ubf event, let alone returning.

ubf is not a healthy group to join right now. Yes there are a few bright spots of actual change, such as The Well, Westloop and Mr. Armstrong’s involvement. But it will take decades for such small changes to permeate to all the satellite chapters outside of Chicago, USA.

Regardless of any good thing going on in Chicago, the basic issues remain:

1) ubf has not publicly addressed the cult labels and instead seems to view the labels as some sort of badge of honor.

2) ubf continues to allow abusive leaders to be in positions of authority. Some who have been involved in physical, spiritual, emotional, and psychological abuse have not been properly addressed.

3) ubf continues to promote “covenant/covering theology” and maintains that self-appointed shepherds are to have authority over a sheep they choose for the rest of their life.

4) ubf continues to care about and promote passing on “ubf heritage” more than living and sharing the gospel of Jesus, refusing to repent of Confucian concepts in their ideology.

5) ubf continues to ignore the Christian doctrines of grace and Lordship of Jesus, replacing the role of the Holy Spirit with human authority.

More thoughts here:
http://www.priestlynation.com/archives/1478

“For example, a shepherd who had left UBF came back with repentance and shared his testimony with many tears”. May be I should also repent of my caring for children and come back to this precious and healthy ubf ministry with tears?! ))) Brian, what do you think about coming back to ubf?

The obvious examples are the abortions. In one case, a ubf missionary-candidate couple was chosen to go to the USA. But after beginning their missionary ubf training, the wife became pregnant. The order from on-high was to have an abortion in order to continue the missionary training. If she gave birth, they would not be sent as missionaries. Thankfully, that couple had some sense of reality and left ubf.

It would be interesting to know what UBF leaders think about Tit 2:4-5: “train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, … that the word of God may not be reviled.” Isn’t this describing a family-centered life? Strangely, our women missionaries often repented for doing exactly what that verse told them to do.

I believe such odd teachings arise in ubf because of the attempts to reconcile the Bible with Confucianism. This is often an unconscious phenomena that goes on in the mind of a ubf member. They don’t realize it but they are trying to reconcile “hsiao” (family piety) with “chung” (loyalty to ruling authority), all the while hoping to find or create a “junzi” (noble man) to rescue them. Add “li” (etiquette) and “ren” (benevolence) into the mix and you’ll start to undertand the ubf interpretations of the bible and why they emphasize certain passage SO much.

I understand because Jesus did say explicitly and warn about this (Lk 14:26-27). Yet this needs to be understood in the context of loving family relationships (Eph 5:21-6:9). Any skewed teaching or directive, such as, “Don’t be family-centered” is really being unfaithful to the whole teaching/will/counsel of God in the Bible (Acts 20:27).

Also, since UBF is an Asian based ministry, Asians are very communalistic, in contrast to the west who are individualistic. Thus, being family-centered is to put self and family ahead of community and church. Again, such dualistic teachings distorts the beauty of Christ and the gist of biblically based teachings, which embraces both community as well as the individual. Emphasizing either extreme perverts what the Bible teaches.

I find that to learn how to act, talk, and think like Jesus is what is really difficult. ubf life got so easy I became bored. I could whip up a bible study or message in literally 5 minutes! But to learn how to be a husband and a father? Now that is a real challenge.

You asked, “When did the idea come that seeking God and God’s kingdom first is accomplished by prioritizing mission and ministry?” I can tell you one root cause: incorrectly understanding Ephesians 2.

ubf leaders always quote Ephesians 2:10. But they skip over Ephesians 2:1-9. And so verses that explain the gospel, like Ephesians 2:8 get lost. And the amazing truths in Ephesians 2:11-22 get skewed and tainted by verse 10.

Inadvertently? That sounds nice. But we all know that in ubf sacrificing family at the altar of mission is intentional. Not only is such a thing intentional in ubf, it is preached as “godly” and “healthy”, and “biblical”. Such thinking is none of those things, but I let myself believe such nonsense for many years.

One basis for such aberrant teaching is Genesis 22. ubf falsely concludes from Genesis 22 that God wants Christians to sacrifice their “Isaac”. The whole point of those events were that God did not allow Isaac to be sacrificed, which stands in stark contradiction to the evil nature of many people in that generation who literally sacrificed children on a whim to appease their gods.

What is more, ubf entirely misses the amazing teachings from Genesis 22 about Jesus. Instead, that passage becomes the supreme guilt-trip passage to hammer home ubf ideology in order to “help them understand and accept these core values based on the Bible until they are self-motivated to participate in the work of God with their own initiatives.”

Binding the bible text to ubf heritage has always been the “secret sauce” of ubf (thanks for that term Chris!) At least now we have public evidence of such Confucian-based Christianity, as was just proclaimed at the recent self-righteous gathering in Ohio.

The failure of ubf leaders to repent of such teaching, and even to preach it more openly and intensely, indicates to me that ubf has decided to live with the cult label for decades to come.

Personally, I think that the possibility of “idolizing” our family is very unlikely in practice. Parents know that children are difficult to properly raise and instruct. Spouses know that being married requires a lot of deliberate effort to grow in love. The fact that these things are difficult and require denial of self and a decision to love as Jesus loved makes me think that it is very unlikely that they will become an idol in a person’s heart. Rather, we idolize things that gratify our sinful nature, not things that challenge us to grow in the image of God our Heavenly Father.

The problem of course becomes that our family (spouse/children) may inadvertently be sacrificed on the altar of “serving God’s mission” and ministry.

Than as we nobly avoid idolizing our own beloved family, we may end up idolizing our mission and our ministry instead. God, have mercy!

In case any of our readers think this issue is going away, this has been an ongoing discussion for many, many years, such as these public thoughts from 2006.

It also doesn’t help to have agendas like “active integration“:

Basic strategy of Active Integration:
– 2nd gens and shepherds need help equally.
– Priority: Have clear priority whether children or mission come first.
– It is the Holy Spirit who does the work. But the 2nd gens need help in following the guidance of the Holy Spirit: God’s word, spiritual value system, spiritual training

Nor does it help to have teaching material for children with the insane goal to make them “superman”. At least we have some truthful statements from such official teaching slides, like this:

“UBF fishing is an exercise in ruling situations.”

“Another purpose of UBF fishing is to hand down the UBF ministry to children of UBF people.”

“The UBF lifestyle is an endless cycle of work.”

(source)

My self-grade is “F”. I lived 24 years as a ubf-man and never learned how to be a father or a husband. I am just now learning what those roles mean. In ubf I always relegated being a father or a husband as being sinful. Those who focused on learning such things were far less spiritual than me (so I thought). Those who wanted to form a good family were worthless for God’s mission (so I thought)… Now I see how wrong I was. Family is in fact God’s mission. Family responsibility always supersedes ubf heritage/ideology.

Sensational material. I think we are finally opening our eyes to the importance of balancing parenthood and mission work.

I grew up feeling many of the things mentioned in the article. Here’s a bit of my life story – Mom and dad would always be busy with prayer meetings, bible studies, early morning prayers, sunday worship service and so on. Most of the memories I have about my childhood days (age 5-11) are of me and my sister alone at home, bored, afraid and missing our parents. This lasted till me and my sister became old enough to do our own thing whilst they were gone (watching tv, playing computer games etc.)

I believe that even though mission work is truly important, what surpasses the same is taking care of your family as a father or a mother. Not being pastors and spiritual teachers to your kids, but loving, caring and wise parents. I REALLY WISH THAT IF I WENT TO DADDY WITH MY PROBLEMS, THAT HE NOT GIVE ME SPIRITUAL TRUTHS AND SERMONS AND BIBLICAL EXAMPLES, BUT HIS INNER WISDOM THAT HE HIMSELF LEARNT FROM LIFE AND FROM FOLLOWING THE CHRISTIAN PATH.

I feel that even though much awareness has arisen from the collective thoughts of 2nd gens, there is not much being done when it comes to truly learning to be a father and a mother figure within the UBF community. Of course, God’s grace eventually helps parents learn and grow but I believe that UBF has to have a specific ‘community group/convention’ about parenthood by helping UBF workers understand the importance of family over mission work, providing tips and how to’s to deal with their children and providing wisdom on how to integrate faith, love, wisdom into the essence of being a parent.

My mom and dad gave much of their time to their mission work. But all of the members of our family agree that our family was a dysfunctional family. Currently, we have been healed and continue to renew our relationship to each other.

But I believe that I DID NOT HAVE TO GO THROUGH ALL THAT. And that OTHER 2nd GENS DO NOT HAVE TO GO THROUGH ALL THAT. If one is TRULY a man/woman of GOD, I believe that his/her family would be first priority over mission work as he/she realizes the importance of it over evangelisation.

WHAT USE IS EVANGELISM, IF YOU ARE A MISSIONARY/SHEPEHERD, BUT YOUR CHILD FEELS LEFT BEHIND AND RESORTS TO SMOKING AND DRINKING BECAUSE OF ELEMENTS IN HIS LIFE WHICH HE DID NOT HAVE TO GO THROUGH IF MOM AND DAD WERE WISER AND WERE BETTER PARENTS.

EACH UBF BRANCH NEEDS A FUNCTIONING DEPARTMENT SOLELY SPECIALIZING IN TEACHING WISE AND LOVING PARENTHOOD TO IT’S COMMUNITY MEMBERS WHO ARE PARENTS OR EXPECTING TO BE PARENTS.

WE NEED TO BE BETTER THAN THIS. WE ARE EXAMPLES OF GOD. WE ARE GOD’S MESSENGERS.

WHAT MESSAGE ARE WE PREACHING BY PRIORITIZING MISSION WORK OVER PARENTHOOD?

I am not venting, blaming or accusing anybody or the organization.

I am merely stating honestly and truthfully, my thoughts and feelings about how much more we can do and accomplish.