And having grown up in UBF, I really have no comparison. I guess it’s convenient to just group all my church/religious activities under “UBF,” but at the same time we have many members who go to other churches. While non-UBF members have been invited and come to UBF, to my knowledge they’ve never been asked to actually join. One did for a while before she joined a local church because the center was inconveniently located and she wanted a more college-focused ministry (which I thought was ironic since that’s what UBF is supposed to be, but then I had to agree with her assessment too). She currently serves as the president of the club.

My sense is that it started the way you described – a modernized fishing tool, but then it turned into its own thing.

The larger UBF chapters in the USA have these para-church groups, and they seem to function more of a front-group (used to glean the most loyal seed people into UBF church) than a separate para-church.

In your case, do you think the para-church style was helpful?

As for the Seed Club:

When I said a “de facto” UBF organization, I meant while there are no official ties to UBF and is officially a campus club/organization, many of the members, including pretty much all the leaders, attend UBF. And while we don’t directly invite anyone to UBF, we encourage everyone to attend a church (which we should be doing) with UBF being first on the list (which is more or less understandable since most of us go there). But as far as club activities go, UBF itself is far from our minds.

That isn’t to say that UBF doesn’t have a strong influence (again, understandable since the leaders attend UBF). In fact, we’ve been studying Genesis the past school year. And one of the main pillars of the club is the “mentorship program,” i.e. one-to-one Bible study, (which itself can be a very positive thing).

Just want to clarify for everyone…The Seed groups (campus Bible study groups) are not the same as the “seed bank accounts” mentioned in the 50th Anniversary book.

Thanks for sharing, but I don’t follow your logic: You are saying that one of the Seed groups is not tied to UBF, but it is a UBF organization? What does that mean?

Do you mean that the Seed groups are supported by UBF but do not propagate the UBF spiritual heritage or disagree with typical UBF ideas?

Would you explain further? Thanks!

“Do you mean that a UBF member is supporting the ministry in special ways with his/her money–e.g. offering donations to put up a business?”

>>> Perhaps there would be special offerings, but not likely. What I mean by self-support is that the money never flows through the offering. In other words, a UBF member would setup their own business with their own money, but willingly use it for UBF purposes, such as getting visas for more UBF missionaries. I am familiar with this because I have always wanted to setup my own business (and have succeeded). A UBF Korean explained to me once how I could use my business for “God’s glory” and help bring UBF missionaries to the US. I never pursued this.

“But wouldn’t that be considered a special offering?”
>>> If the money went through the offering system, yes. But normally such “business mission” is done outside of offering, which of course removes any hint of accountability.

“And if members do put up seed offerings to establish a business, are they then part owners? or does only the leader reap the profits??”
>>> The members would not be owners most likely and would receive no benefit most likely. Only the member who started the business would be an owner. I see no evidence that the director or leader reaps any profits. UBF Koreans are not hungry for money. They only want money as a means of “making priestly nations”. They normally live rather poorly.

However, a recent trend is for older UBF Koreans to become rather well off. They are not “fancy” by American standards, but they are becoming very well-secured. In fact UBF itself has stored up $12 million. UBF Koreans are not greedy, so they don’t normally want this money.

I’m not sure who you are or where you are from, but you seem to think like an American :)

1) The self-supporting work means volunteering (time, money, house, car, etc). To set up a tutoring business from scratch would indeed likely cost what you suggest. But you are thinking like an American. For a UBF Korean, the cost would be near zero. How? Well you have a willing, volunteer workforce. So the tutors are other UBF people who volunteer their time willingly (or out of gratitude). Also in the case of the NJ tutoring business, the business was already established. UBF just created a branch of the franchise, which probably has just a low fee requirement. The only cost would be books and materials, which would be charged back to the students.

Look at the address of the NJ tutoring business. It is in the same apartment complex as where several UBF people live. Probably someone started up the tutoring in their own apartment. As more students pay money, more could be done.

2) As an American I never heard the exact term “stepping-seed bank book”. A quick google search brings me back to my own blog, so it is really not a proper term people use. It seems like a welfare benefit plan, which in the US would be called a “419 Welfare Benefit Plan”. Such plans would be tricky to setup legally and could have tax implications. It sounds kindof like what parents did in the 60’s and 70’s by putting money in a special bank account when kids are 1 or 2 years old. Then the rather good interest rate compounds over their life, and family can add to it at life events, such as graduations. The kids cannot take money out until they get to be a certain age, usually 18. I looked into setting up such an acct for my kids a while ago, but such acct’s don’t seem to exist or have just a 0.5% rate instead of the much higher rate that used to exist.

My big concern with all this is just as you say. Why should this kind of bank business be part of our Christian mission? Perhaps churches should have a welfare operation but it seems like that should be left to specific welfare organizations like “My Father’s Business”. One church can’t do it all.

Also a huge concern of mine would be the requirements put on the “seed bank” account. In other words, who would get the money? When would they get the money? And what would they have to do to get the money? It seems like a major way to control people, especially with the potential to coerce children of UBF missionaries to conform to UBF ideals, if any of those would be required to get the welfare money.

I doubt this seed-bank idea would or could be done in America. It probably would be started in other nations with relaxed tax laws:

http://employment-law.freeadvice.com/employment-law/pensions_benefits/big-problems-with-419-welfare-benefit-plans-funded-by-life-insurance.htm

“Two big issues surrounding 419 schemes

There are two big issues surrounding 419 schemes, according to Burgess – paying taxes on the plan and finding out that individuals and companies no longer have any rights in the policy. He explained each issue:

Paying taxes. Although somebody has spent a great deal of money to set this thing up, the IRS tells them, ‘No, this doesn’t work.’ They now have to report the money they put into the policy as income and they owe the taxes on it. However, the policy’s got a big surrender charge on it and you can’t just take the money out of the policy to pay the taxes because there’s not enough available to you. That’s a very big issue.

No rights. The other issue is that once people get into these plans, they find out that the trust that was set up actually owns the policy, not the individual and not the corporation, and they no longer have any rights in that policy. So, they have to wait years and years and years to get anything back out.”

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