by Sam | Oct 9, 2017 | Testimony
We are entering into a new season! We are excited for what’s to come, but are also extremely grateful for what God did this past summer. We believe there is power in testimony! Testimonies not only give praise to God and highlight what He has done, but it also creates a sense of expectancy for Him to do it again and to do it even greater. That’s what it means when the Bible says that the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy (Revelation 19:10)! Testimonies prophesy into what He is able and willing to do in our lives. We overcome the enemy by the blood of the Lamb and the word of our testimony (Revelation 12:11)! With that being said, here are some testimonies from the ministries we visited and partnered with in the summer of 2017. Thank you to these leaders for taking time to share with us, and to everyone who partnered with us in prayer! ALL GLORY TO GOD! “We were blessed to have Pastor Sam as our guest speaker for the summer retreat. He delivered God’s messages and His heart for our youth with clarity, profound insights, and affection. I didn’t know what to expect because I didn’t know him personally and had not heard his sermons prior to the retreat. But from the first message I could sense that God was speaking to me as well as our students. He tried to serve them as best as he could, and he really poured out his heart on our students as he spent time with them and talked during meals and free time....
by Sam | Sep 12, 2017 | Reflection
Like most people in NYC, I have a go to spot for my daily needs. There’s the one coffee shop I go to every morning. There’s the nearby deli where I get all my sandwiches. And last but not least, there’s a small window storefront that I go to for my sodas. I can’t help it, but I am a soda addict. Anyways, I go there so much that the owner and I recognize one another instantly. He knows what I want before I even say a word. We usually have small talk here and there, but nothing beyond that. This is New York City after all. Everything is about quickness and efficiency. So most times we see each other, and without a word, he grabs a Diet Coke, and I put the money out, we say thanks and go on with our days. But this one afternoon, I came to the window and saw the owner moving some things around. He then looked at me and started sharing how he’s getting older and about his bad knees. He went on to share how he needed to get some work done on both knees, but couldn’t because no one would take care of his store. In that moment I wrestled with whether or not I should pray for him right there. But I didn’t. I told him I was sorry, and I walked away thinking maybe God will give me another opportunity at the right time. As I kept thinking about it, I felt discouraged and muttered to myself that I was nothing but a coward. Wait, what? Where...
by Sam | Aug 28, 2017 | Guest Blogger, Testimony
Written by Brian Lee (originally posted here) From Aug 13th-16th, I had the opportunity to serve as leader at a youth church retreat. However, I want to share a story – a story of someone who will be called Mark. Upon getting on the bus to go to the retreat center, I knew Mark was different. Unlike the other kids who all gave up their phones, he refused to give up his. He also didn’t want anyone to sit next to him, regardless of the bus being full. I eventually forced myself into the seat beside him, exclaiming that by the end of the bus ride we would be best friends. He responded by saying he hated me; I don’t necessarily blame him. I probably freaked the kid out and was “extra” someway or another. Quickly, I found out we both shared lots of similarities. We both went to Murchison Middle School, we both watched Naruto, and we both liked sports. And then, he started to share more. Little did I know that Mark moved from place to place, school to school, difficulty to difficulty. Mark’s step-father was in the army, which caused his family to move often. Instead of going to one elementary school, Mark went to five. He described for 1.5 hours how he struggled with friends, loneliness, and an unstable family life. Later, I found out that Mark’s biological father passed away when Mark was starting elementary school. That night, we had our first worship service of the retreat. After a couple of songs, I looked to my side and I noticed Mark. I saw Mark...
by Sam | Aug 11, 2017 | Guest Blogger, Reflection
by Natalie Walker Our wedding was in two days. It was ten o’clock at night, and we had a million things left to do on our checklist. Yet, my fiancé and I found ourselves standing in an aisle at Home Depot debating how much we should spend on a plastic tarp, dishwashing soap, and a garden hose. The need, of course, was urgent. We were picking up supplies to create a slip and slide at our rehearsal dinner. I’ll be honest, I wasn’t entirely confident in our plan. The wedding funds had been spent, and the details for the weekend had all been arranged. My bride’s mind began to play out every worst-case scenario that could possibly go wrong: injuries, scrapes, scratches. I could picture myself walking down the aisle to my groom, only to be met with some kind of freak facial injury because we just had to have that slip and slide. Right about the time I was encouraging my future husband to drop the soap and make a beeline for the door, I stopped to remind myself why we were doing this in the first place. We knew that the ceremony would be sacred, and that the reception would be memorable. But, we also knew that this weekend was our first chance to make a statement about who we were, and who we wanted to be, as a married unit. And, we wanted to be fun. During our engagement, my husband and I came up with a list of five core values that we hoped to prioritize and embody, one of which was fun. It’s not...
by Sam | Jul 18, 2017 | Guest Blogger, Inspiration
by Jason Voong A few years ago I was having a conversation with a friend of mine. I was telling him a dream that I had to one day preach at a specific church. He responded, “Who do you think you are?” and “What makes you think they would even let you?” The combination of that conversation, struggles I had, and events that had occurred up to that point – led me to a place where I began to lay that dream down – and other dreams with it. I thought I was disqualified. I thought that maybe I wasn’t the right guy for the job. Because if I was, shouldn’t everyone be on board and everything line up exactly the way I want them to? We buy into lies like that all the time don’t we? As a result, many of us have laid down dreams that we were never meant to lay down. There’s a guy in the Bible named Peter. In the very beginning of the Gospels, Peter is sitting in a boat and fishing. Jesus comes and calls Peter out of the boat. He gives him an invitation to not fish for fish, but to become a fisher of men. This is Jesus inviting Peter into a dream. And not just any dream, but a dream that’s bigger than himself. God’s dreams are always bigger and better than anything we could ever imagine. God’s dreams are always bigger and better than anything we could ever imagine. Click To Tweet A little bit later, Jesus blows the dream up (in a good way), and says, “Oh...
by Sam | Jul 5, 2017 | Reflection
written by Josh Kim HEALING ROOM ORIGINS Just two months ago in May, Pursuit NYC launched and hosted our very first Healing Room service where we worshiped in His presence and went after physical, spiritual, emotional, and relational healing. It was an amazing time of worshiping and contending for God’s healing in people’s lives. For us as a team, it was a very special moment because we were finally seeing one of our dreams come to life. When our team was dreaming about Pursuit NYC back in 2013, and everything God wants to do in this region, one of the things on our list of dreams was contending for healing, especially physical healing. We wanted to be passionate about God’s healing because we simply believe that God is Healer (“…for I am the LORD, who heals you.” – Exodus 15:26) and He wants to heal people today. That is the heart behind the Healing Room services – nothing more and nothing less. We believe that God is who He says He is, good and powerful, and He’ll do what He says He’ll do. We believe that God is who He says He is, good & powerful, and He’ll do what He says He’ll do Click To Tweet GOD IS WILLING TO HEAL TODAY There are many people in our lives and in our world who are suffering from all types of diseases, illnesses, and injuries. I, myself, grew up with and still deal with sun-allergies. As I was growing up with this skin condition of being allergic to the sun, I questioned the nature and character of God, particularly...
by Sam | Jun 20, 2017 | Guest Blogger, Testimony
Testimony by David Yi, Youth & Children’s Pastor at DKUMC Sam was our guest speaker for our youth revival in May. Our theme was “Victory” and so the goal was obvious – to get our youth group to have a shift in mentality towards the battles they face in life. As we prayed together, we both felt the sense that God wanted to really encounter the students and attendees of our event. If you saw in Sam’s recent video blog, he came with his mentee, Danny, and their weekend in Delaware began with God’s healing power in the middle of a restaurant! So, it’s no surprise that the healing power of God broke out through our revival. The kids were timid to approach the front to receive prayer for healing but by the end of the evening, the front of the sanctuary was full of students and overflowing into the center aisle. Kids were all on their knees earnestly seeking the love of God and it was a beautiful sight. The two major topics of healing were for knees/ankles and family. As time passed, I had the chance to talk to some of the kids about what happened. A lot of them actually experienced partial healing in the knees and ankles and several of them commented about how God really changed a struggling family dynamic! So I decided to keep pressing in. We asked God to continue to heal the students and I was surprised to see that they were instantly completely healed! We went one step further. I prayed that they would all receive the gift of healing. ...
by Sam | Jun 13, 2017 | Inspiration, Reflection
One Sunday morning at church, I saw a friend whom I hadn’t seen in a quite a bit. All of a sudden, I was overcome with deep compassion for him. I, of course, loved him as a friend and a brother in Christ, but this was unique. As I pressed into what that was, God started speaking to me about him and opening passages from Scripture to describe where he was. Now I had no idea if these verses were relevant or not. I wasn’t sure what was going on in his life, but I decided to just share with him all of these things in faith. As I shared this with him, he had tears well up in his eyes. He responded by saying how spot on everything was and that those Scriptures were ones he had actually been thinking about recently in the past week! We were both in awe of God, and I was tremendously encouraged and thankful to be used by Him in that way. My friend continued and said this moment showed him just how much God loved him, that he wasn’t alone, and that I definitely knew how to hear from the Father. Yet when it comes to my own life and the unknowns that come with it, there are times I feel as though I’ve never heard God before. At all… That I just don’t even know how. How do I even start hearing from God? How do I even know it’s God? Do I really know how to hear from Him? And the questions and doubts go on and on. And...
by Sam | May 31, 2017 | Inspiration, Reflection, Testimony
The other week I had the tremendous honor of preaching at a youth revival in Delaware. It would be my first time doing ministry there and I was really looking forward to it. As the date approached closer, I took some time to seek God on how I could prepare myself for the weekend. Should I spend some time in extended prayer? Should I even fast? That’s when I felt like God said, “No, I don’t want you to fast. I want you to feast.” At first I wondered if that was really God speaking or my own flesh! Because of course, eating is easier than fasting. But a part of me wanted to fast because that was more “spiritual”, which meant a better outcome in ministry (or so I thought). Yet the best thing we can do is obey. So with that in mind, I did what anyone would do in that scenario. I went straight to my iPhone and opened up the app, Yelp! Being totally new to the area, I was hoping to find a spot that would represent “feasting” the best. I stumbled upon a BBQ place deemed the best in all of Delaware according to the Travel Channel. Also the name was so unique, I had to see for myself. Once there, my mentee, Danny, and I asked the owner what we needed to try, and she ordered for us. It was ribs, brisket, kebabs, and more. Truly a feast! As we were enjoying the meal, we started talking to the owner about the restaurant and how they began the business. From there God started...
by Sam | May 2, 2017 | Inspiration, Reflection
“Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.” — Mark Twain Recently I was catching up with a regional leader on what was next. I had recently transitioned out of my home church into a new season. He asked me what I learned the most while being there. As I tried to think about the last three and a half years, I knew I learned so much, but couldn’t pinpoint one particular thing. That’s when I realized that I wasn’t leaving with just more information or knowledge, but as a fuller version of who God envisioned me to be. I shared that more than what I gained or acquired, I was walking away empowered in my identity and purpose. That my time there was more about who I became than what I learned. This was in stark contrast to my previous experience, which was probably one of the worst times of my life. I saw the dark side of leadership where people’s own agendas and insecurities negatively affect everyone. It was indeed a difficult season, but not a wasted one because I did learn so much. I learned how to submit and to honor. In retrospect, I can honestly say that it were the bad leaders who taught me the most about leadership. They taught me what not to do, whereas great leaders didn’t necessarily teach me how to be a better leader, instead they helped me become my best self. Isn’t that what true leadership should be about?...
