Meanwhile, enjoy this first comment from Ben (which is the 2nd comment ever on ubfriends!)

Ben Toh (2010-06-25 16:17:39)
“Hi Joe, You Be Friends is cute”

If you have ideas for the what and how and why of ubfriends, please let us know!  Thank you and have a burden-free weekend!

What? You thought this website would stay the same forever? We must protect our heritage!

Ok on a slightly more serious note, we have created a large volume of comments and articles in just over 5 years. I made an ebook of all ubfriends articles and comments–and discovered the book is over 4,700 pages long! If we published the ubfriends ebook, it would be nearly 10,000 printed pages.

How big is that? Well the Encyclopædia Britannica, short edition, is 12 volumes of about a thousand pages each–12,000 pages. That means our little-blog-that-could nearly generated an entire encyclopedia of information.

So here it is, the encyclopedia edition of ubfriends. Grab a cup of coffee, sit back and enjoy!

http://www.ubfriends.org/ubfriends-blogbook.pdf

I found this blogbook format to be useful for reading and very helpful for searching for keywords and phrases.

While we make some technology and content changes here, please share anything you would like us to know in the comments. Have our articles impacted you in a positive or negative way? What topics would you like to discuss? Do we need to continue providing an outlet for people to process the UBF lifestyle?

Per the question about membership, it probably goes without saying that the most important membership we have is in the body of Christ. While it may be obvious, it is the starting point of any Christian church’s legitimacy and must be mentioned. Our fundamental identity comes from our relationship with God through Christ, not from an organization. By God’s grace in Jesus Christ we are part of the larger, invisible church of God (Eph 4:25, 1 Cor 12) that spans human organizations and carries out his will in the world. The head of that church is Christ himself (Col 1:18, Eph 1:22-23). The benefits of this membership are numerous. The Holy Spirit lives within us, we have been given diverse spiritual gifts to use for God’s glory, we are part of a supportive community, we can grow through being accountable to each other, and we have a context through which we can serve the Lord to bring the gospel to the ends of earth, among many other things. Our responsibility towards each other is to do everything in love (1 Cor 16:14, John 13:34) and to seek peace and reconciliation (Rom 12:18, Mt 5:23-24). Communion is a symbol of our corporate fellowship with Christ, based on his broken body and the shedding of his blood for our sins. As we examine ourselves and repent of sins before taking communion (1 Cor 12:27-33), so we have the responsibility to continually be cleansed of sin in our lives and grow as Christ’s unblemished bride (Ephesians 5:25-27). Any Christian organization or church, including UBF, is subject first and foremost to the expectations of behavior for a member of the Body of Christ.

The church is greatly beloved of Christ and is a glorious manifestation of his love and purpose in the world, but it is not without its issues. Christ knows the good deeds of the church (Rev 2:2-3, 2:9-10, 2:13, 2:19, 3:8, 3:13), but he is also critical of her (Rev 2:4, 2:16, 2:20, 3:1-2, 3;15). He says to one of the churches in Revelation, “Those who I love I rebuke and discipline. So be earnest and repent.” (Rev 3:19) In the same way, while we may love the church we are realistic about it. She should not be an idol. We don’t serve an organization or a church in a vacuum; we serve the Lord himself through the church. We acknowledge that while our Lord is perfect, his church may have blemishes and stains that require cleansing and redemption.

UBF is one small part of the body of Christ. Samuel Lee was not the founder of UBF. He started the organization along with Sarah Barry in 1961. In fact, it is almost impossible to imagine UBF ministry without both Samuel Lee and Sarah Barry. Ultimately it is God who started a ministry through UBF. God has mysteriously chosen to use fragile human beings, who have both good points and sins, in his work.

I knew Samuel Lee for more than two decades and for most of those years I was around him at least 3-4 times per week. God taught me a lot of good things through him. Overall my experiences with him and my observations of him were and still are mostly positive, though not all of it was positive and some of it was odd.

Of the 17 bullet points Joe listed related to Samuel Lee, I personally witnessed or experienced 7 of them at some point in time, though they may not have applied to everyone all of the time as you implied for a few of them. I heard about the other 10 items you mentioned happening to people. I can’t independently verify that those 10 items actually happened, but am reasonably certain that they did happen though they may not have applied to everyone all of the time as you implied for a few of them.

What do you think of getting blasted by a high pressure water hose for punishment, being forced to spend hours crawling on your knees in cold water, carrying heavy loads, and going without sleep and food for extended periods of time all the while someone is yelling at you at the top of his lungs? It sounds pretty abusive if you don’t know the context. But this is exactly what they do in the training for the Special Forces in the Navy (the SEALs), and all of those men voluntarily go through this training in order to prepare to be leaders and prepared for the harshness of real combat. One of the more inspiring videos I have seen is the 2014 Commencement Address at the University of Texas by Admiral William H. McRaven, who headed up the US Special Forces Command at one time. If you haven’t seen the video and have a spare 20 minutes, please check it out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pxBQLFLei70.

What do you think of being required to take a vow of poverty, chastity and obedience to the hierarchy in order to serve the Lord Jesus? This also sounds pretty restrictive, legalistic, tough and contradictory to the love and grace of Jesus, but it is exactly what they do in the Jesuit Order of the Catholic Church, from which Pope Francis came. Jesuits are trained rigorously in many ways and can’t even own the shirt on their back, but they voluntarily submit to these to grow in their faith, and to mold their character to be more humble and obedient to the Lord.

For Lee and the people who went through the things you mentioned (and more), they had a similar motivation as those who go through the training in the above examples. I think that Samuel Lee wanted UBF to be something like a Christian Special Forces and a Jesuit-type organization. Since he and Sarah Barry took the Great Commission very seriously, the driving force was their zeal to spread the gospel to the ends of the earth and to make disciples in Christ’s name. Lots of people met Christ through their Bible teaching. Many were moved by the Holy Spirit to voluntarily go through various kinds of trainings at Lee’s direction in order to learn to rely on God, to be strong in harsh circumstances and to overcome in order to be Christ’s witness. It was good training for them, and many vigorously testify to that to this day. Many voluntarily became missionaries. God used them and is still using them to share his word and his love, and to in turn make more disciples of Jesus.

But Lee’s approach was not good for everyone. The Navy SEALs give each person the option of “ringing the bell” to quit at any time. The Jesuits also provide a path out if that is not God’s call in a person’s life. In UBF, Lee and others sometimes did not present a clear way to opt out. It was his way or the proverbial highway to hell sometimes. Some did not voluntarily sign up for “training” or were not ready for it but got that treatment anyway, and this caused unnecessary problems that look like abuse. Lee was given and exerted a great deal of control over the lives of a number of people. His zeal for God, genuine compassion for people, love of the Bible, wit and insight were remarkable. These qualities made him a benevolent dictator for many he was around for the vast majority of the time. But Lee had his shortcomings, as we all do, that had amplified effects because of his position of power. A dose of Confucian cultural norms, a pinch of Korean nationalism and a smidgen of Machiavellian turpitude made Lee’s mostly unchecked power problematic at times.

The strong emphasis on mission in UBF is a wonderful thing, but when misapplied it creates some knotty issues. For example, some people may not have met Christ deeply before earnestly participating in mission work. Thus, it could have come across that a message of salvation by works was being preached rather than salvation by faith in Christ alone, and it could have been inferred that service to the church or people in the church was most imperative. In other cases, mission was put above families, causing hurt, neglect and dysfunction. Only the Lord himself deserves first place in our lives, not an organization. And putting the Lord first is not inconsistent with loving our families and being a responsible person in the world. While our church and the students on the campus are important, our families, jobs, friendships and even our enemies are an integral part of our mission of making disciples of Jesus as well as of our witness for Christ.

The good qualities that Lee possessed and practiced consistently are elements that any ministry would want to maintain. We thank God for those positive legacies in our UBF ministry, and the work of the Holy Spirit through them. However, while it is necessary to have strong leaders, there has been work to remedy and redeem continuing authoritarianism in the ministry and its consequences. Leaders are being referred to more as “Pastor” rather than “Director”. More local chapters have bodies of elders so as to provide more shared leadership, and servant leadership is being emphasized more in staff interactions. There has been a gradual transition from Korean missionary leadership to native leadership. In parallel, I am aware of UBF reaching out to several people and families who have been adversely affected by ministry practices to apologize and promote reconciliation, and I foresee the possibility of this happening on a larger scale. The time frame for all of this is now and on a continuous basis going forward. Any attempt to address everything in one fell swoop at a particular point in time with one action or with one document would be a spurious exercise.

Having said the above, it is clear that any initiative or response in any amount of time is not good enough. A lot of the issues should have been dealt with long ago, or never even should have been allowed to happen in the first place. Many of us just may not fully understand yet about how we negatively impacted some people. We are all on our own spiritual journeys, dealing with our own personal issues, wounds and sins, and are still trying to process what God has been teaching us, but there are opportunities for frank and respectful interaction in many types of forums and contexts going forward. There is room for contrition, listening to narratives that may not be to our liking, and embracing people we misunderstood, disrespected, hurt and damaged in the past. Perhaps through this process God may help us to learn more and bring healing and blessing to those who have left, as well as to those who are in UBF.

As an additional note, there are numerous other ways we may not fully understand what we have done. I know some people who worked very hard to share Bible studies and sacrificed much to help others but are discouraged because they feel that they have little or nothing to show for their efforts. I’ve seen despair over what some consider to be “fruitless” ministry. But oftentimes our work in ministry cannot be accurately measured by numbers of people in a meeting, nor any other conventional metric. Some have come to faith in Christ through Bible study in the ministry and then have gone on to serve the Lord in other ways outside of UBF. Some may not have grown to be disciples in the sense UBF understands it but have been greatly encouraged by the Bible studies and the amazing acts of kindness by our missionaries and shepherds at critical times. The faithful everyday lives of God’s people in the world are a wonderful influence and testimony. God often works in ways we do not expect. I am blown away by the reaction of the “righteous” people in the parable of the sheep and the goats (Mt 25:31-46). They were surprised to hear that they had done anything of note, but the King saw it quite differently (Mt 12:40).

I am thankful for the work of the Holy Spirit through UBF as one small part of the body of Christ and pray that God may have mercy on us to repent where necessary and do what is right in his sight. Evangelism and discipleship is only strengthened, not hurt, when we are honest about our shortcomings in the process of striving to be even more authentic disciples of Jesus Christ.

The following is an open letter to Dr. Augustine Sohn, President of University Bible Fellowship, from Joseph L. Schafer, dated March 2, 2015.

Dear Augustine:

Thank you for contacting me yesterday about my status in University Bible Fellowship.

For approximately two years now, the only messages I have received from your organization were requests to attend various meetings and reminders to submit annual chapter reports. I decided to ignore those requests because, for more than five years now, leaders of UBF have been unresponsive to my repeated pleas for dialogue about important matters that affect the health of the organization and the credibility of its gospel witness. My nonresponse was not retaliation. It was an indication that I had no clue how to proceed in our relationship, because my pleas went unheeded and sometimes were not even acknowledged. Perhaps you have heard the humorous saying: “Oh, I’m sorry. I forgot that I only exist when you need something.” I am sorry to say this, but that line accurately conveys my feelings toward UBF and its leaders right now.

By your message, I am once again being asked for something that UBF needs to continue its work, and nothing is being offered to me in return. We cannot continue in this fashion. The time has come to define our relationship.

You asked me to answer two questions:

1. Do you still regard yourself a member of UBF and an International Advisory Member?

2. If so, would you like to participate in voting for the next General Director?

Before I am able to answer these questions, I need you to clarify what you are asking, and I need to know the organization’s stance on several important matters. Therefore I now ask you, in your capacity as President, to answer four questions in an honest and straightforward manner. These answers may be as brief or as long as you wish, but I need to receive them in a timely fashion.

This letter to you is an open letter. I am publishing it on a public website, because I want it to be part of the public record. Many others been asking similar questions, and your answers will be of great interest to them. To promote honesty, openness and transparency, I will accept your response as an official statement by UBF and it will become part of the public record. As soon as I receive it, I will publish it in full, without editing, on the same public website.

The meaning of a question depends heavily on its context. For each of my four questions, I will explain the context so that you will know precisely what I mean.

Context for Question 1. Augustine, you asked if I regard myself as a member of UBF. The organization has a body called Members, a group of approximately 70 persons who meet annually in Chicago. I declined invitations to join that group, so I have never been a Member of UBF in that sense, and I assume you already know that. In my 30+ years of interacting with the organization, I never applied for membership or signed a membership pledge. In most organizations, the meaning of membership is explicit. It is a social contract between the individual and the group in which the person pledges to abide by certain rules and perform certain duties (for example, by paying annual dues). In return, the organization’s leaders grant him rights of membership, providing him with meaningful resources and services, representing his interests and becoming responsive to his concerns. Augustine, because you used the term member, you must have in mind some category of person or some condition of good standing with respect to the organization. I am not being coy when I say, I honestly do not know what you mean by member.

Question 1: What does it mean to be a member of UBF? If there is such a thing as being a member, please explain the duties, responsibilities, and rules of conduct expected of members, and describe what the organization and its leaders provide in return. Also explain whether leaders are obligated to make good-faith efforts to respond to members’ serious concerns in a timely fashion.

Context for Question 2. Before someone can rationally decide whether or not to join an organization, he needs to know whether the organization’s interests align with his own.  This requires the organization to state its positions on important matters within its spheres of activity. UBF presents itself as an organization dedicated to making disciples of Jesus, so the methods by which it teaches and trains disciples should be clarified. When I first became involved in UBF more that thirty years ago, I experienced the leadership of the late Samuel Lee, the organization’s founder and General Secretary. Lee was described as an exemplary disciplemaker, a role model for others to follow, and his influence on organizational culture was profound. Here are some of Lee’s activities that I observed firsthand or heard about through the testimony of credible witnesses.

• Lee reserved the right to change the name of anyone at any time. He reserved the right to name your children.
• Lee reserved the right to tell you to quit your job at a moment’s notice.
• Lee reserved the right to tell you at any time to change your clothing or hairstyle.
• No one could marry without his specific approval. He chose whom you could marry, and the wedding would be at a time and place of his choosing.
• In some cases, the length of time between when Lee introduced people to each other and the actual wedding was less than one week.
• When Lee married couples, he made up the wedding vows himself, frequently inserting promises that had nothing to do with marriage (e.g. promises by the couple that they would to go as missionaries to Russia). These vows were not agreed upon by the couple ahead of time.
• If you turned down a marriage candidate that Lee chose for you, you could be severely rebuked and trained for it.
• No one could miss a Monday night meeting or a Friday night meeting or Sunday worship service. If you missed a meeting without what Lee considered to be a valid excuse, you would get rebuked and trained.
• Lee would impose quotas on fellowship leaders to bring a certain number of people to weekly services and to conferences. Those who failed to do so would be shamed or punished in various ways.
• If Lee thought you did not offer enough money at the annual Christmas worship service, he might rebuke you in front of everyone.
• Sometimes Lee told missionaries and shepherds whose families were well off to ask their parents to give large sums of money to the organization.
• When Lee denounced or rebuked people, he often did so harshly, without warning, standing before the congregation. During these denunciations, some of the things that Lee said had little or no basis in fact.
• No one in Chicago who was considered a shepherd or missionary could travel outside the Chicago area for any reason without Lee’s approval. If you did travel, it was understood that you needed to be back in town for the next Sunday worship service, otherwise you could be rebuked and trained.
• If you lived outside of Chicago and you were selected to go on a “journey team” to Korea or elsewhere, you were told to buy an airline ticket to Chicago with an open return date, which could be very expensive. The reason for the open return date was that, once you were in Chicago, Lee reserved the right to keep you there indefinitely for training activities of his own choosing.
• Lee prescribe unorthodox diets and medical treatments and, in some cases, surgical procedures, and the doctors and nurses in Chicago would carry them out.
• If you objected to any of Lee’s practices, missionaries and shepherds would immediately counsel you to obey Lee because he was God’s servant. Failure to obey even in a small matter could result in training, monetary fines, public shaming and shunning.
• Lee sometimes urged missionaries to send their infant children back to Korea to be cared for by relatives so that the missionaries could focus on their ministry activities. In at least one case, he told a missionary couple to give one of their children to another couple who were childless.

Augustine, you and many UBF elders lived under Lee’s leadership; you had ample opportunity to witness his activities and hear about what he was doing.  If these statements are true, I believe UBF’s credibility as a disciplemaking ministry is deeply tarnished and will remain so until (a) the organization acknowledges that they happened and (b) takes a stand on whether these activities are appropriate. If they are inappropriate, leaders must then decide whether and how the organization’s culture can be rehabilitated, making a long-term commitment to identifying and rooting out residual forms of these practices that are present in varying degrees at UBF chapters worldwide.

Question 2. Do you confirm or deny that Samuel Lee, the founder of UBF, engaged in practices similar to those I listed above? If you confirm, does UBF regard these as appropriate methods of Christian discipleship? If  UBF does not consider them appropriate, will the organization issue a mea culpa, apologizing to everyone who received this kind of treatment from Lee and from other UBF leaders who did similar things, and will UBF take publicly visible, measurable and determined steps to root these practices out from its organizational culture? If so, give a timeline for these measures.

Background for Question 3. In recent years, I have heard multiple allegations of UBF members (however that is defined), shepherds and missionaries becoming aware of or being involved in the following:  domestic violence against women and children, sexual molestation, inappropriate physical contact between staff and disciples, and regrettably (in one prominent example) incest. In cases where laws may have been broken, no one made reports to law enforcement officials even when minors were involved. Training and policies on abuse, with mandatory reporting of allegations involving minors, are commonplace in American churches and campus ministries. As far as I can tell, UBF has no policies and does not train its staff on how to handle incidents like these, and the organization appears ill equipped to develop them on their own.

Question 3. Does UBF have any official policies or training on violence and sexual abuse? If not, what will the organization plan to do about this? Do your plans involve external consultants, and when will this be carried out? Give a timeline.

Background for Question 4. Augustine, you asked whether I consider myself to be an Intenational Advisory Member (IAM) and whether I will be voting for the next General Director. In most organizations, elections are a process by which voters select leaders from a pool of multiple candidates. To help voters make rational and informed choices, candidates will state their qualifications and accomplishments, describe their beliefs and lay out a vision for what they intend to do if they are elected. However, it is my understanding that, in the election of the next General Director, IAMs will be given one preselected candidate and will be asked to vote “Yes” or “No.” I find this confusing. I do not know what “Yes” or “No” means in an election with one candidate. Does the organization want my input to help it make a choice, or does it merely want my vote to lend an appearance of choice to a decision that has already been made? And whatever it means to vote “Yes” or “No,” I have no clue how to make an informed decision without knowing what the candidate stands for, what his beliefs are, and what he plans to do if he becomes General Director. I have heard through the grapevine that the preselection committee is now deciding between two candidates. I know one of these candidates well; I understand his values and his leadership style. But I have many questions about the other candidate; although we have been acquainted for many years, I lack an overall sense of what he believes and how he leads. One week ago, on February 25, I was surprised when this man used social media (his personal blog and his Facebook timeline) to promote an article from the website of an organization named The Berean Call (http://www.thebereancall.org/). I applaud this man’s use of social media; I have no qualms about that whatsoever. But I had never heard of this organization, and so I decided to poke around their website to see what they are about. What I found was astonishing: pages and pages filled with extreme views that bear no resemblance to my beliefs or those I heard preached in my 30+ years of involvement with UBF. That organization, which claims to promote discernment, declares that the Roman Catholic Church is a cult; the theory of evolution is demonic; the field of psychology is evil; so-called Christian psychology is godless humanism; the Alpha Course is unbiblical; World Vision and Rick Warren are helping to build the kingdom of the Antichrist; and The Message paraphrase of the Bible is wicked. I am not exaggerating one iota here; if you doubt me, visit the website and see for yourself. This set off sirens of alarm. Do the views of this candidate for General Director resemble the views I read on this website? The link from his personal blog and his Facebook timeline suggest there is some agreement and tacit endorsement going on. I bring this to your attention not only because it is disturbing, but to illustrate how uncomfortable it is for me to be asked to vote in an election with no understanding of what I might be voting for or against.

Question 4: In the upcoming election for General Director, what does it mean to vote “Yes” or “No” when there is one candidate who has been preselected? And what information am I expected to use to make a rational choice in this matter?

Thank you for contacting me and asking these timely questions. I will send you my answers soon after I receive yours. If you cannot respond within one week, please explain why, and tell me when the answers will come.

Very sincerely,

Joseph L. Schafer

P.S. I have copied this response to members of the Ethics Committee, so that they may be aware of this open conversation.

Here are some ideas so far:

1. Forests list of topics
2. Joe’s Roland paper and the responses he got
3. The James and Rebecca Kim open letter series
4. The 50th Anniversary blue book lectures

Thoughts? What do our silent readers want to read?

Consistent Readership

A big THANK YOU to all our readers and contributors in 2014. We appreciate your time to listen to us. And we enjoy seeing people submit articles on a  regular basis this year. We regularly had an average of 225 readers each day in 2014. This makes us a small community, but one with material that people are interested in.

Global Participation

Greetings to all our friends around the world! Did you find the translator plugin helpful at all? Should we keep the translator in 2015?

Top Viewed Articles

For 2014, these are the articles our readership was most interested in.

How do I know if ubfriends.org is down?

You can click this link and find out if we are down or up or if it is just your computer (Then click the Check button)

How can I keep up with all those 14,000+ comments?

One of the best ways to read comments en-masse is to use our RSS content feed.

How can I get notified of new articles automatically?

Just enter your email in the Subscribe to ubfriends via Email  field above, in the right-hand side, under our Purpose statement and click Subscribe.

Also, when you comment here, you can check the following boxes to get notified via email whenever someone comments on an article you are interested in:

-Notify me of follow-up comments by email.
-Notify me of new posts by email.

The New UBF Heritage saving website

Here is it:   http://history.ubfservice.com/

Factual history?

Will this new website contain any factual ubf history? Will it include the reform events of 1976, 1989, 2000 and 2011? Will there be any mention of Ben’s Westloop chapter?

The Purpose

“Our mission is to promote and facilitate the publication of UBF history. We have chosen Luke 1:1-4 as our guide. History is classified in various ways. For example, it is classified by age, geography, nation or topics such as politics and economics. We classify our history by four areas: reports, chapters, people and heritage. Reports are written documents on current events. Those become part of history as years pass. Chapter history is about its birth, growth and development. It is the building block for regional, national and world history. It includes evaluation of the past for future. People history is the biography of individual. Heritage is what happened in the past, remains today and shapes our future.”

The Heritage

If you don’t know the ubf heritage or wonder what ubf Koreans are doing, study this website.

“During the last half-century UBF has built its own heritage. It is well summarized by our mottoes – known as Samuel Lee’s Spiritual Legacy. For example, writing and sharing testimony have been unique to our church, since no other churches practice it as much as we do. When Samuel Lee ministered students, he helped them to write what they have learned from the Bible and his manuscripts on the Bible, and share it with others. It took time for them to pray, meditate and write testimonies, but they grew spiritually through writing and sharing testimonies. Many of us not only have witnessed its power, but also practiced it”

Good intentions?

“As time passes, we face new challenges in passing our heritage to next generation. For example, some do not view the testimony as effective and useful as before. What is worse, some view it as a means to oppress their life and suppress their critical and creative thoughts. It is quite the opposite to its original intention – to nurture their spiritual life, shape their thought world godly, and lead them to enjoy true freedom in Christ. In resolving unwanted conflicts, some prefer to use the word “reflection” to restore the original purpose and spur its practice. So it is worthwhile to have open discussion on its purpose and method.”

Fresh thought and critical review?

“We have accumulated wonderful heritage. But making it useful and effective in our ministry requires sometimes fresh thought and critical review. We would like to collect materials related our heritage and share them through our web site so that they are useful in guarding our heritage.”

Here is my critical review… I will explain more in my second book, but this shepherding ideology is dangerous and harmful. My further thoughts on the ubf heritage are on my personal blog.

My heritage summary:

Dear Readers:

We, the administrators of UBFriends, were deeply moved by this morning’s Daily Bread passage and accompanying commentary that appeared on ubf.org. Because of our laziness, pride and poor spiritual conditions, we had given up writing our Daily Bread reflections for a very long time. But today we repented because the DB page was so excellent! It seemed so  fresh, so relevant, as though the author was personally writing it for us and for all our readers! So we decided to reproduce the DB page here. And we invite you, as the Spirit leads, to share your thoughts and reflections in the Comments section below. Please meditate deeply on this and write about how it applies to you. We look forward to hearing from you.

THE ASSYRIAN ARMY THREATENS JERUSALEM

2 Kings 18:17-37

Key Verse: 18:36

But the people remained silent and said nothing in reply, because the king had commanded, “Do not answer him.”

Prayer: Lord, thank you for leaders who encourage us to stand strong in our faith. Help me to keep my faith when the devil is planting fear and tempting me to take the easy way.

One Word: Do not talk to the devil

Stats

We have had over 12,000 comments from 319 people in 4 years, stemming from over 400 articles. Comments have come from both former and current ubf people, and from dozens of countries around the world.

…And no Ben you don’t get credit for being #1 this time :)

Here is the break down of the top 10 commenters.

If anyone would like to see other stats, please make a request and I’ll post more.

Here is  a list of ubfriends contributors of articles. Are all of these people former ubf people? Are they just spreading rumors? This time you get the #1 spot Ben as the most prolific author here!

If you are interested in learning more about the history of Lent, and how and why it can be beneficial, take a look at this series of short articles by Mark Roberts.

As part of my observance of Lent this year, I have decided to go silent with respect to UBFriends. From tomorrow until Easter Sunday, I will refrain from reading or posting anything on this website.

This is going to be difficult for me because UBFriends is essentially my fifth child.  Since 2010, I have invested a great deal of time and energy to help create this website and keep it going. For better or worse, it has touched the lives of many. It has certainly changed me. UBFriends has been a source of fellowship, challenge, encouragement, rebuke and growth. Visiting this website each day has become part of my routine, something that would be difficult for me to live without.

Which is precisely why I am going to stay away. By going silent on UBFriends for the next 40 days, I hope to draw nearer to God so that he may work to clarify and sanctify my relationships.

The administrators of this website (Brian, Ben and I) have discussed the idea of shutting this website down during Lent, but we have not made any firm decision on that. It is possible that Brian might take the website down for a period of time to perform maintenance. If he decides to take UBFriends offline, it’s fine with me. On the other hand, I believe that how one chooses to observe Lent is a deeply personal matter, and I don’t want to forcibly impose my own decision of non-participation on anyone else.

Although I have decided to stop visiting UBFriends during Lent, others might want to make a Lenten practice of coming to UBFriends more often. Some people who find this website inconvenient, irritating, or infuriating. If anyone has anything negative to say about their organization, they would rather not hear about it. If so, then perhaps they might consider dropping their defenses, browsing through the articles and comments with an open mind and willingness to listen, as an act of loving their enemies as Jesus commanded.

Most liked:

The most likes we got on any article was 29 likes:

http://www.ubfriends.org/2013/08/21/ubf-at-the-crossroads/

There was a tie for the most liked comment, each with 16 likes:

http://www.ubfriends.org/2013/07/29/new-life-the-growing-family/#comment-9538

http://www.ubfriends.org/2013/08/09/how-to-improve-our-ubf-messages/#comment-9719

http://www.ubfriends.org/2013/08/21/ubf-at-the-crossroads/#comment-10046

Most disliked:

The most dislikes we got on any article was 11 dislikes:

http://www.ubfriends.org/2013/08/31/wheres-the-hope/

The most dislikes we got on any comment was 9 dislikes:

http://www.ubfriends.org/2013/08/19/praise-god-who-blessed-the-2013-isbc/#comment-9999

What do these statistics mean?

What do you think this says about our community here? How could we use this feedback to faciliate more dialogue? What patterns or insights can you discern here? Any thoughts on where you would like to see the dialogues go?

As I shared here previously, I attended the 2013 Global Leadership Summit. I made an offer to share these videos with any UBF chapter or person who wanted to invite me to view and discuss them afterward. That offer still stands. Now I’d like to expand this offer using Skype. So here is my announcement and expanded offer.

Skype Me

So starting tomorrow, Sunday 9/22/2013, my Skype is an open mic. Please see the steps below to chat with me on Skype about anything you want. I am willing to share the GLS videos for you or a group of people to see. And I’ll gladly talk about anything you want to talk about. The first video is 29 minutes.

I received the first video from the 2013 WCA GLS. It is a bonus video that didn’t happen at the GLS. The video shows Patrick Lencioni interviewd by a lead pastor from St. Catherines Canada, Jeff Lockyear. Jeff is the head pastor at Southridge Community Church. In this interview, Jeff asks pointed questions to Patrick about how to apply some of Patrick’s leadership teachings in the church realm. The interview is based around Patrick’s book, The Advantage. Here is an excerpt from a review on Amazon:

“While too many leaders are still limiting their search for advantage to conventional and largely exhausted areas like marketing, strategy, and technology, Lencioni demonstrates that there is an untapped gold mine sitting right beneath them. Instead of trying to become smarter, he asserts that leaders and organizations need to shift their focus to becoming healthier, allowing them to tap into the more-than-sufficient intelligence and expertise they already have. The author of numerous best-selling business fables including The Five Dysfunctions of a Team and Death by Meeting, Lencioni here draws upon his twenty years of writing, field research, and executive consulting to some of the world’s leading organizations. He combines real-world stories and anecdotes with practical, actionable advice to create a work that is at once a great read and an invaluable, hands-on tool. The result is, without a doubt, Lencioni’s most comprehensive, significant, and essential work to date.”

How to Skype

1. Download and install the Skype client for your phone, PC, Mac or just about any device. Call or email me if you have technical questions about doing this. (My tech support is free :)

2. Search for my Skype ID or send me yours and I’ll call you. Just search in Skype contacts for “briankarcher” and you will find me (don’t type the quotes, just briankarcher). This is completely free for you, no matter how long we talk.

3. That’s it. There is no cost to you. I am paying the yearly subscription, so I can host a group chat, a group video call or a group screenshare.

My Promises

Although I may not always follow policies and I may not be able to carry out what I plan to do, I will always keep a promise I make. Whether you agree with me (many don’t) or not, you should know by now that I won’t knowingly break a promise I make. I will make every effort to keep my promises. You may not like my approaches or actions the last two years, but at least you should be able to see that I will do what I say.

a. I will not share any content of what we discuss. Your conversations with me on Skype will be private and confidential. I will never post any conversation in any form on this blog nor on my blog nor on any public social media, including Facebook.

b. I will not reveal your identity. Even if someone asks me who is talking on Skype with me, I will not tell. You are free to share as much or as little of your identity with me, but rest assured I won’t share who you are or where you are from with anyone.

c. I will not bring up UBF unless you do. If you want to talk about UBF related topics, fine. You know my stance already. But I will never bring up the subject of UBF. I will not pick the topics or video. You will choose the topics and the video(s). Right now of course there is only one video choice until the rest arrive in late October :) If you want me to share with a group of people, let me know your guidelines in advance, and I will honor those guidelines. If I disagree with your guidelines, then I’ll tell you and either modify them or not do the presentation. I will not bash UBF on these calls and will never initiate a comparison of the teachings from the videos with UBF teachings.  I would only do so if you bring up the subject of UBF. If you don’t talk about UBF, I won’t either.

An Example Video

Here is a sample of the kind of thing you’ll hear in these videos. This is a clip from Andy Stanley’s introduction of Bill Hybles as he was about to speak at the 15th anniversary celebration of North Point Community Church on September 20,2010.

 
For August 1st to August 3rd, South Korea has the most visits from a country (apart from USA which is always number 1 on the stats).
 

Share your thoughts here if you want. Do you like the like button? Do you dislike the dislike button? Should we add a “die heretic” button? (just kidding…)

What are the overall stats for the first 5 months of 2013?

What countries spend the most time reading here?

What does a map of our readership look like?

Who makes the most visits here?

What cities in Korea read our blog?

Here are some word clouds generated free by the Wordle website.

This cloud and the one above both show a small snapshot of the last 5 articles:

Any observations on what we’ve been talking about?

Here is a word cloud based on the last 100 articles on ubfriends:

Here is a word cloud based on the last 100 comments here:

The admin team here at UBFriends wants to thank everyone who has contributed articles, made comments or read along silently! We are hopeful that this website can continue to encourage dialogue and edification across human boundaries (even though it is sometimes painful and ugly :)  We will be performing some behind-the-scenes maintenance over the next two weeks. So there will be some downtime, and sometime this weekend I will freeze the articles/comments so that the maintenance can be performed smoothly.

I think we might all agree that some downtime is needed anyway. I especially need to follow Bonhoeffer’s advice and learn to be silent more often :)

Every once in a while a company is so deeply impacted and shaped by a single leader that this person becomes the very identity of the entire organization. There can be no doubt that such has been the case with Apple and the recently deceased Steve Jobs. Newspaper headlines were overflowing with discussions on how Apple will continue without their charismatic genius and their most creative brain. There was one article in particular, published in the New York Times, which I found very interesting and relevant. One must not stretch analogies too far but I immediately had to wonder whether there are parallels between how to run a company and a church. The question is: can churches be (functional) one-man shows as it had been the case with Apple and Steve Jobs or Microsoft and Bill Gates? And the answer to that question is a very emphatic “yes”.

The Church account is full of charismatic leaders. It always has been so and, as it seems, it always will be. Their names are acknowledged and revered by Christians all over the world: Augustine, Luther, Calvin, Wesley, Whitefield, Moody, and the list goes on and on… At any given point of Christian history there have been leaders who possessed an extra-portion of the Holy Spirit’s anointing and who were thus used by God in a unique and remarkable way. And like Steve Jobs they often possessed the ability to hit the nerve of their culture so precisely, or better let me rephrase this, they were always years ahead of their contemporary fellows that almost everything they tackled ended up having a noticeable and sometimes even lasting impact. There is certainly nothing wrong with this. It is how God, in his infinite wisdom, has chosen to work at times. But the question is what to do if the leader passes away. Will the church continue to thrive and do well? Will the movement sustain its dynamic and power?

Unfortunately, in many cases the church did not continue well. Collin Hansen, in an excellent piece on pastoral succession, mentioned one negative example among so many. Charles Spurgeon, the gifted man of God in the 19^th century, is one of my all-time favorite preachers. He not only preached more than 3,000 different sermons and led thousands of people to Christ but he also trained young men as pastors. Several men had the privilege to learn from the “prince of preachers”. Yet, the death of this great man of God caused a gap and damage in his own church congregation that remained irreparable. When I visited London several years ago I was eager to see the great Metropolitan Tabernacle, the place, which regularly drew thousands of people Sunday after Sunday to his powerful voice. To my disappointment, only the front facade of this former mega-church seemed to have survived the two fires and the bomb drop during World War II. It was even sadder for me to see that the damage, which the loss of Spurgeon himself had caused, was even greater, as also pointed out by Hansen.

Let me come back to the news article. I think there are some very insightful and valuable lessons one can learn from this piece. Steve Jobs’ successor at Apple is Timothy Cook. Relatively soon after Job’s death was announced he wrote an email to his employees reassuring them that Apple is not going to change. As the article points out, this can certainly be good or bad. There is a very fine balance to strike. Even more intriguingly, the author speaks about the legacy of Steve Jobs becoming a trap. To illustrate his point, he talks about the Walt Disney Company. Let me cite:

“In the years after the death in 1966 of the entertainment company’s founder, the executives strived to stay true to Walt Disney’s spirit. For years, Mr. Disney’s old office was preserved like an untouched museum. Its executives often praised corporate decision-making by saying, “Walt would have liked it.” But by the late 1970s, Disney was struggling after a string of box-office flops and was the subject of a hostile takeover attempt.”

Somehow, these lines sounded too familiar in my ears; uncomfortably familiar.

What are the lessons to be learned? First, sticking to a legacy of a single person can stifle and choke the church. What is true for business, such as the above-mentioned Disney Company or Apple is also true to some extent for the church. Simply asking the question whether the deceased leader would have liked something is not enough. Even worse, it is a sure ‘recipe for problems’. This kind of attitude is very likely to kill every new initiative and idea simply by stating: “This is not how XYZ would have done it” or “We never did this under his/her leadership.” It is one of the surest ways to slowly kill a church.

Second, change is a necessary must. Walt Disney’s company had to radically change to return to success. Apple will have to change to adapt to a superfast, evolving culture. And every church has to change to keep up with God’s guidance imparted through his living, dynamic Holy Spirit.  There can be no way around it. A musician from my all-time favorite orchestra, the more than 125-year old Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, once said: “Everything that does not change is dead.” And if you think of how protective all of the orchestra members are when it comes to their own traditions and historical legacy, it is a remarkable sentence. As paradoxical as it may sound, it is by means of change and adaptation of how they are preserving and retaining and reliving their traditions. I am not saying that every change within the body of Christ is good. But change is certainly a sign that there is life in the church even after having lost a powerful, able leader.

Third, the article talks about maintaining the “heart” of Apple. And what the author means by this are the creativity and the enthusiasm of Steve Jobs. In our church we probably wouldn’t call it “heart” but rather “spirit” (small “s” as opposed to the Holy Spirit). The spirit of a leader has to continue. It is crucial to understand that the spirit is not just methodology or knowledge. It goes far beyond that. It cannot be captured accurately in a few bullet points.

What is the spirit of UBF? What is the spirit that the generation to come should inherit and take over? I am in no position to write about this. It will take the wisest people of us and the help of outside counselors to answer this question well. Most of all, it will require us to honestly re-examine our history and the life of the founder of our ministry: the many good, as well as the painfully bad. And even though I argued that this sentence should no longer count as an all-decisive argument, let me finish by saying: “I think our founder would have wanted us to do so.”

In loving memory of Dr. Lee on the occasion of Founder’s Day.

(Artwork used with kind permission from: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/images/view_photog.php?photogid=809)

That has happened. God has blessed us with lots of interesting articles and lively discussion. Even during the recent holiday period, when our pace of publishing slowed down to less than one new article per week, we were still averaging about 50 site visits per day by readers from all over the world.

But one aspect of UBFriends has been gnawing at my conscience: the overwhelming majority of posts and comments have been written by males.

At present, we have some nice articles in the queue witing to be published. The articles are thoughtful, interesting, and provocative. But they were authored by men. When they appear on UBFriends, I suspect that they will generate lots of lively comments by our male readers but not by women. This is one reason why I am hesitating to press the “Publish” button. I don’t want to do anything that will unwittingly reinforce our image as an all-boys club.

What has happened to the fairer sex?

Perhaps women have become disinterested because the content of the articles does not appeal to them. Perhaps UBFriends articles have become overly abstract. I have learned from experience that when conversations turn to ideas, doctrines, and principles, women start to yawn and bow out. That’s a huge oversimplification, of course. I don’t want to be guilty of stereotyping. But there are significant differences between men and women in how they think. I have heard from reliable sources — and seen by personal observation — that men fall in love with principles much more readily than women do, whereas women tend to be focused on relationships and people. When discussing a problematic issue in ministry, men are likely to wonder, “If we do such-and-such, what kind of message are we sending to our members, and what kind of precedent are we setting?” But women are likely to wonder, “If we do such-and-such, what impact will it have on the significant persons in my life?” (Both of these perspectives are important. Men and women truly need each other.)

Or perhaps the style of our communication is subconsciously hushing women up. I have seen how this happens. I have sat through meetings where most of the people sitting around the conference table are men, except for one or two women. If those women are not accustomed to working in a predominantly male environment and have not adapted themselves to male styles of verbal and nonverbal communication, they tend to just sit by and watch. Similarly, I have attended meetings where I am the only male surrounded by females. In those settings, I feel out of place and tend to just keep quiet and listen. It’s hard to pinpoint how the ethos of a male-dominated forum differs from a female-dominated one. But these differences are real and instinctively felt.

It is interesting to speculate about why UBFriends has become male-dominated.

But it is more important to ask: What should we do about it?

One solution is to publish more articles authored by women. That is something we would love to do. If any women would like to contribute articles to UBFriends, please email them to us (admin@ubfriends.org) and we will put them at the head of the queue. If you are unsure about your ability to write and express yourself, please don’t worry. We can help you to revise or edit your piece as needed.

Another solution is for the men who are contributing to UBFriends to become more attuned to how their content and style is perceived by women. If you have the urge to write something, perhaps you can show it to your wife, daughter, sister, etc. and ask them what they think. Consider co-authoring a piece with them.

If you have any suggestions on how to make UBFriends a more welcoming place for women, please let us know.

Over the last few weeks, some of you have tried to leave comments and experienced difficulty. Without our realizing it, commenting privileges were restricted to subscribers only, and then all comments were being held for moderation.

We believe the problem has now been fixed.

If you tried to leave a comment on UBFriends and were unsuccessful, please accept our apologies. This website is dedicated to open discussion, and we don’t want to exclude anyone who is willing to join in. If you continue to experience any difficulties, please send a note to admin@ubfriends.org

Thank you.

Is UBFriends having an impact? You bet it is.

One way to measure impact is to examine the traffic flow. Our webmaster, Mary J., installed a nifty counter that records the number of times each page has been viewed. Each of our articles has read by hundreds of people. One of them has been viewed nearly 800 times.

And as of today, our readers have contributed more than 360 comments. Many comments are lengthy and detailed, showing a level of interest, depth of thought, and heartfelt conviction that is rarely seen on a public website. Genuine communication is taking place here. People are learning from one another. They getting to know one another, and friendships are forming across boundaries of distance, age and culture.

As this website was starting, some UBF members expressed concern that it might become a forum for complaining, arguing, and uncivil behavior. To guard against that, we developed a commenting policy and have been closely monitoring the website to make sure that the rules are being followed. In our first three months, not a single comment has ever had to be removed from UBFriends. Let me say that again: Not a single comment has ever had to be removed from UBFriends. This speaks volumes about the quality of our articles and character of our readers. You have demonstrated a level of charity and maturity that is rarely found on public blogs. Our authors do not expect everyone to agree with what they write. Dissenting views are welcome on UBFriends. We encourage people to disagree in gentleness and respect, so that we may truly learn from one another.

In our first three months, we have posted 25 substantive articles by 13 different authors. Two or three new pieces have been appearing each week.

But you may have noticed that last week, we did not post any new articles. What happened?

We ran out of material to publish.

Some of you sensed this and responded by sending us new articles. So we now have three new pieces in our queue, which will keep us going until the end of next week. But after that, the well is going to run dry again, and we may have to pause until new material comes in.

If UBFriends has intrigued, blessed, or edified you in any way — if we have made you think, smile, frown, or pray — and if you would like to see this website prosper, grow, and bless people, then please help us.

What can you do to help UBFriends?

First of all, you can pray for us. Our administrators, editors, authors, and commenters are not profiting from this effort in any way. We are paying for the material costs (the subscription fee for the domain name, the server space, purchasing stock photos, etc.) out of our own pockets. We are happy to donate our time and money to this project because it is truly a labor of love, borne of sincere desire to bless the members of the Body of Christ. We are not asking you for money, but for something much more valuable: your sincere prayers that God will inspire all who contribute to UBFriends and continue to bless and use this website.

Second, you can leave a comment. The majority of you who have been reading UBFriends have never left a single comment. Why not? Perhaps you don’t feel confident enough to express yourself. Perhaps you are wary of being seen as “endorsing” or “supporting” the content of this website. If that’s the case, please remember this: Our contributors hold diverse views on all sorts of issues. UBFriends is not an organization, and it takes no official positions on anything. All views expressed here belong solely to the individuals who make them. We are not promoting causes; we are fostering friendship and open discussion. If you have been reading, why should you be ashamed or afraid to let other people know it?

If you are an occasional or regular reader of UBFriends but have never left a comment, please leave a comment now, just to let us know that you are out there. If you don’t know what to say, then just say “Hi.” Please do this as a small gesture to encourage our authors and editors, to let us know that you appreciate our efforts. We are human beings, after all, and we need some affirmation and encouragement. By leaving a comment now, you will send a strong signal to potential contributors that their efforts will not go unnoticed.

Third, you can contribute your own material to UBFriends. We are willing to publish just about anything that satisfies our guidelines. It doesn’t need to be sophisticated or even well written; our editors can help to revise and improve it.

Thanks for stopping by UBFriends. Come back soon!

Please tell your buddies about UBFriends.org so that this online community will continue to thrive. And please send your creative work to us so that we can schedule it for publication.