According to Acts 2:42, it says "all the believers devot4ed themselves to the apostles’ teaching, and to fellowship, and to sharing in meals (including the Lord’s Supper), and to prayer." (NLT). If these were what the early Christians did to worship, why we do not share in meals as part of the worship service today? Why is Lord's Supper not an actual meal today? Julie Hwang challenges Christians today to bring back having a meal together as a regular part of the worship service, remembering what Christ has done for us as we break bread together.  

According to Will Manchini in his new book, Future Church, people come to church because of either People, Programs, Personality, or Place. Pastor Joon Hwang asks, "Why do you attend our church?" He argues that even though people might initially start coming because of one of these four reasons, what keeps them must be that they experience the Presence of God at the church. Continuing the "Let us Grow Up Together" series, Pastor Joon challenges people to grow up in this area that we attend, stay, and commit to the local church because we experience the presence of God.

In Colossians 1:28-29, Paul says, "We proclaim Him, admonishing every person and teaching every person with all wisdom, so that we may present every person complete in Christ. For this purpose, I also labor, striving according to His power which works mightily within me" (NASB).  Paul is striving and laboring in proclaiming Jesus so that people become complete in Christ. "Complete in Christ" can also mean "mature" or "fully trained".  What area(s) are we not complete, mature, or fully trained in Christ? These areas need to be discovered in our lives so that we can continue to work with the Holy Spirit to become more mature in Christ, so that we resemble Him more and more each day. 

What does it mean to grow up as a Christ follower. We can learn from the letter of Hebrews what a mature Christian look like. One of the traits of a mature Christ follower not only know the word of God, but obey what it says so that his/her life is transformed. This ought to be the goal of every Christ follower. 

After learning from Pastors Sam & Pat Boswell, who taught the church for the 10th Anniversary Revival Service last weekend, Pastor Joon Hwang received a vision what God is calling New Life Covenant Church to focus on next 10 years. Even though this message is directly relevant to those who call the New Life Covenant Church their home, but others would also benefit from the message: Challenging the Christ followers to take the ownership of their faith and grow up spiritually.

What is Psalm 27 about? Pastor Joon argues that it is about worshipping God no matter what the circumstances, even when everything seems to fall apart. No matter what is going on in our world, we worship God through prayer and being faithful to Him because we trust that He alone is our refuge and protector. 

On Father's day, Pastor Joon is sharing one of the best advice he learned from Paul Tripp's book, Parenting which stated, "You do not have to fear being exposed as less than perfect because there is nothing that could ever be known or exposed about you as a parent that hasn’t already been covered by the blood of Jesus!” (Tripp, p.40). Pastor Joon shares his story of how he began the journey of healing his relationship with his oldest son by seriously taking the Tripp's advice into action. 

The book of Acts is for today and Pentecost is also for today. God has given the New Life Covenant Church a calling of providing an atmosphere for people to encounter the power of the Holy Spirit when the church began. Pastor Joon Hwang reminds that the calling God has given us continues and we ought to be faithful, especially when we are engaged in many of the outreach opportunities in the summer.