I have no interest in persuading anyone to leave or to stay in UBF. My prayer is that people think for themselves and seek to re-center their theology on the grace of God and basic Christian doctrine.

Yes, all churches have problems. But one thing to keep in mind is that not all churches have off-center theology. And in my observation, any Christian church has some way of addressing corruption. Almost no Christian church would allow corruption to continue.

I do not deny your observation on ubf.. Sadly, most of them are true, but personally, I made a decision to stay in this church not because of some pressure from certain group of people, but because it seemed more proper to remain, praying for the work of the Holy Spirit for the purification of this body of Christ. After all, God saved me through the labor of people belonging to this church and I think we, humans are prone to corrupt and become political without unceasing repentance before God.. so not just ubf, but also any other churches too..

However, I seriously doubt your statement “none of things you’ve mentioned in your articles hasn’t happened yet.” Have you actually read my articles? What things are you referring to?

There are likely some reasons for your good experience:

– Perhaps you are in a house church in NY with only a few members?

– UBF is a network of many independent groups. While the UBF “flavor” is evident in all of them, each group has been given “absolute freedom” to do any kind of ministry they want, as long as a few basic requirements are kept (such as sending money and numbers to the main headquarters and not infringing on someone else’s chapter).

– NY UBF leaders may have rejected or modified the hardcore UBF heritage. This is entirely possible because I know some of them there and they have made significant progress in becoming a healthy group. One of the leaders in particular has been a good and Godly influence there.

– Some problems won’t ever be experienced by “second gen” coworkers (I’m guessing you are one?). You are the “hope” of UBF leadership, especially if you are a Korean second gen. You will be given more and more freedom and blessing. UBF leaders have already determined to skip over the American or other native leaders in my generation. Leadership will be handed over to 2nd gens in the coming decade, with perhaps a few native leaders appointed for publicity sake. This is documented in the “blue book”.

So it is indeed somewhat difficult to generalize UBF characteristics these days. However, some issues are very clear in all UBF:

1. The official doctrine of UBF as published in the “blue book” is not centered on the grace of God and needs major revamping. If you are in UBF, you need to know what this book says. Perhaps like most, you can just ignore it.

2. The dictator style leadership structure centered on exclusive Korean leadership is still in place. It is changing but will take many years to become healthy. NY UBF is connected to UBF only by one person officially.

3. UBF remains a private church. The only way to be a member is to be invited and assigned a shepherd to study with. If you attend a Sunday service in UBF, you won’t last long unless you submit to one-to-one study. Many chapters now have a university outreach with another name, such as your NYUseed. Those ministries really have nothing to do with mainline UBF, other than association by name and a few members attending from UBF.

4. UBF remains centered on an elitist, ideological foundation: to make 100,000 missionaries in the next 29 years (by 2041) and to make all nations to be UBF nations (i.e. priestly nations). The sacrifice needed to produce 100,000 missionaries out of the 8,000 or so members currently is just unfathomable. If you are in UBF, you are part of this effort.

So yes, as you experienced, changes are happening, for the better I think (such as The Well), but it will take years to produce fruit, unless a miraculous repentance happens.

In His Grace,
Hannah Blessing

I’ve been thinking a lot these days about Jesus’ yoke of grace.