422. Retreat Guest Speaker for This Year
The guest speaker for our annual members’ retreat this year is “Pastor Eric”. Those who have attended HC lay leader seminar should be familiar with him. I’ve known him for about 14 years through the house church ministry network, and I’ve always wanted to invite him, but was looking for the best timing. I felt that this year is the time, as I sensed that God is ushering our congregation into a significant change and growth in this season of ministry. I greatly appreciate his sense of humour and candid approach in communication and leadership, which I believe will not only challenge us but awaken us to a new type of “joy” that is available in serving the Lord. I feel very privileged to have him as our guest speaker this year. Please don’t miss out on this opportunity to be blessed through his messages. Here is his bio, quoted from his church’s website.
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Pastor Eric Shin (affectionately known as “PE”) has been serving as the Senior Pastor of New Life Fellowship since its inception in 1997. PE was born and raised in Seoul, S. Korea until he was 13 years old, when he and his family immigrated to the U.S. and settled in New York City. Though he went through tumultuous teenage years while adjusting to life in a new country, he met Christ at the age of 18 at his home church’s fall retreat. After experiencing the joys and challenges of following Christ and serving his local church during his high school and college years, he left behind aspirations of being a lawyer in his adopted hometown of New York City and followed God’s call to Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in South Hamilton, MA.
In the fall of 1994, PE and his wife, Lynette, received God’s call to move their family down to Houston, Texas, where PE served at Seoul Baptist Church of Houston as the youth pastor.
While serving, they responded to God’s prompting and, together with about 20 members and the blessing and loving support of Seoul Baptist Church, founded New Life Fellowship on August 10, 1997. Since then, PE has been experiencing the joy of witnessing the expansion of God’s kingdom through house church ministry.
Over the years at New Life, PE, Lynette and their three now adult sons, Enoch, Caleb and Josiah, had the privilege of trekking through nine countries in Southeast Asia and China and serving in Mexico and Camp Barnabas as a family for missional purposes. PE has also had the honor of serving the Lord in far-flung places like Afghanistan where he has been able to live out his faith and share the gospel with the Muslim world.
Several years ago, PE visited a college house church, where they had a potluck dinner.
That evening, there were five different kinds of chicken served: McDonald’s McNuggets, Church’s Chicken, Popeye’s Chicken, Boston Market Chicken and KFC! PE will never forget that house church meal!
When PE isn’t equipping New Life members to make Christ’s disciples of all nations through their house churches or prayerfully using New Life’s resources to help other churches implement their own house church ministries in the spirit of the New Testament church, he enjoys traveling with Lynette, fishing, sharing good food with good people and drinking senior citizen coffee from McDonald’s. But no matter where he is or what he’s doing, PE tries to live by one of his favorite verses in 2 Corinthians 8:9 because it reminds him of how Christ became poor for our sake, so that through His poverty we might become rich.
