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| Along the Way 9-17-10 |
 I never cease to be amazed at the lengthy shadow of John Wesley. Perhaps we United Methodists associate the Wesleyan influence primarily with the United Kingdom and the United States. Far from it! Today I write about east meeting west in Savannah, Georgia.Yesterday I met a Korean Baptist pastor here to film a documentary on John Wesley. Grillmeister Richard Glendinning was cooking hamburgers for college students on our new church grill and I was trying to figure out how to sneak one for myself when a man walked past us displaying the look of a curious tourist. Offering my help, he said he was a Baptist pastor from Seoul, South Korea, in town to film the story of John Wesley. We chatted for awhile and he suddenly motioned for his film crew (Korean cameraman, Korean script writer and another Korean Baptist pastor) who had been waiting in Calhoun Square. The cameraman photographed the two of us walking down the steps of the church and filmed the inside of our beautiful sanctuary as we reviewed Wesley’s Savannah ministry. We spent a memorable hour together, sons and daughters of John Wesley and brothers in Christ: a Korean Baptist pastor explaining to a transplanted United Methodist Hoosier how he loves British Anglican John Wesley. And well he should…the Korean Christian Church is growing exponentially, based largely on the strength of small groups where Christians grow and pray and sing together…the genius of John Wesley taking root in Asian soil. We exchanged business cards and I pointed my new friends in the direction of Wesley’s statue and parsonage on Reynolds Square and towards Christ Church where Wesley served as priest to the colony. This Korean documentary will never receive the publicity of Robert Redford’s soon-to-be-released Conspirator (where the Espy House is transformed into Ford’s Theatre), but my guess is that God will use the labor of one cameraman, a script writer and two Baptist pastors for greater glory and deeper purpose. I’ll see you this Sunday, where God never fails to surprise! Creede Hinshaw |
