GERMANY ROCKS WITH THE GOOD NEWS
Korean Christian Cultural Festival draws thousand to famous rock venue
By Dan Wooding
Founder of ASSIST Ministries
OBERHAUSEN, GERMANY (ANS) -- Thousands of Germans, Africans and Russians, attended the first night of a “2004 Korean Christian Cultural Festival” Friday, October 1, in the Arena Oberhausen where rock legends like the Rolling Stones have performed.
The multi-cultural cross-section of present day German life from in and around this town close to Düsseldorf, sang along and danced to worship music provided by the colorful Hallelujah Praise Mission and the Power Worship team from Seoul, South Korea, who had learned all of the songs in German. The meeting began with worship music from the talented Glubensgeneration church. (Pictured: Korean dancers in Germany).
The joy was no surprise to one local pastor who said, “When the spirit calls and when the Holy Ghost is working, you can dance and sing and shout and you raise up your hands and give God the glory. When you watch the people of the world in the discos and the concerts you see how they dance and they open themselves to show the joy, but when Jesus Christ comes into their life, then the joy is deeper and eternal, not only for a few times.” (Pictured: Dr. Lee preaching in Germany).
The three day festival is being led by Dr. Jae-Rock Lee, senior pastor of the 80,000-member Manmin Joong-Ang church in Seoul, South Korea who preached on the theme, “God the Creator?”
Dr. Lee told the audience, “God loves us so much and wants to bless us always, but to be blessed we must first of all know who He is correctly and believe in Him without doubt.”
He then said that God has four main characteristics:
- He is the creator
- He is almighty
- He is “I am who I am”
- The author of the Bible
After speaking for nearly hour (translated into English and German), Dr. Lee challenged people to repent of their sins and then for the sick to receive healing.
“Dr. Lee emphasized the need for the tangible evidences of God through healing as a way to manifest His power because many of the people of Germany are skeptical and so it is important to show the power of God through these evidences,” said Johnny Kim, who director of Manmin World Missions.
After the prayer for healing, many came forward to testify to what had happened to them. They included a seven-year-old boy carrying crutches who said that he had been unable to walk without the crutches since an accident. He then told the thousands there that God had healed him. (Pictured: Young boy testifies to his healing).
Another testifier was a 70-year-old woman who came to the venue in her wheelchair. She had not been able to walk for two decades. But after the prayer, she came forward unaided and walked on stage and then pushed the wheelchair around the platform enjoying her healing.
As with all of their crusades, a medical team from Korea worked with local German medics to check out people before they were prayed for, make a diagnosis and then investigate them medically afterwards, to confirm or otherwise their healing.
The three-day outreach which ends on Sunday, October 3, was being extended by live television coverage by four satellites including across Europe by Classic/Revelation TV based in the UK, RTVA in Spain, TKV, based in St. Petersburg, Russia, covering the former Soviet Union in Russian, and CNL based in Kazakhstan, which has 35 million cable family memberships in 76 countries. (Pictured: TV production at festival).
It was also web cast by Manmin TV in English, French, Korean, Spanish, Russian German, Chinese, Japanese and Tamil.
The Koreans were invited by Alexander Epp, who pastors Glubensgeneration, a Russian German independent Charismatic Church in Duisburg city about 20 minutes from Düsseldorf. The name of the church he ministers is which is composed of mostly Russian Germans.
After the service, Peter Rode, a German pastor from the nearby town of Holzweg said that he was aware that some German pastors had not supported the festival and because of this, he had decided to check the group out for himself.
“I was with the advance team for seven weeks and I been impressed with what I have seen,” he stated. “The preaching tonight by Dr. Lee was absolutely serious and absolutely correct Biblically. My Bible talks about the fact that signs will follow the preaching of God’s Word and that’s what we have seen tonight.”
Another German pastor explained the reluctance of some German leaders to be involved in the Korean outreach. “We Germans are aware that our people were once totally misled by a leader [Hitler] and so are often many are afraid to follow any other leaders. I personally think they are wrong in this instance by not being part of this outreach for souls and healing.”
Johnny Kim said that he had been told by many who attended the first night that they were encouraged to see the Good News proclaimed with such power in the land of the reformation. “We believe that God wants to reform even more lives here in this great country,” he said.