What is 헌신예배?
헌신예배
I do not know how to call this official name. some calls it as the worship of devotion or of dedication. 헌신 means devotion, consecration or dedication. However, any combination of such names with service does not exist in the Reformed Presbyterian church services in the world. Actually, there are several names which define actual, specific services: we do dedication service when a new baby is baptized and its parents devote their life to raise their child for the covenant people of God’s kingdom. Devotion service is usually performed in the Baptist churches when they arrive at the Sunday worship. They prepare for the worship service and dedicate them by their confessional prayers and praises. But, such are not of Korean 헌신예배. Most closet expression for this 헌신예배 will be devotionals. Devotional is what an individual or a group reads the Scripture and pray for their devotion to the life of Christian according to the Word. However, such devotional is private, not of church’s worship event. In the book of order of Presbyterian churches, there finds a similar kind of “special service” for the discipleship, stewardship and church offerings (consecration). But, we do not call special service because such service is not found regularly in the church service calendar.
So, I think that 헌신예배 can be called the worship of devotional at a closest meaning of Presbyterian church tradition. This worship of devotional is unique in the world and, also, does not have any record of its origin. What we know is oral tradition from Korean church tradition. Korean church tradition does not have long history: it only has 100 years. The gospel was delivered to Koreans by foreign missionaries, mostly American Presbyterian missionaries. They were very young and passionate for loving Jesus Christ and our Koreans. They devoted their live for our Korean church fathers by giving benefits of Western advanced knowledge such as schools and hospitals. They even did not fear the persecution of Japanese Imperial government who were the most fearful in the early and mid-1900s. Many of them died because of Korean local diseases and tortures of Japanese police, including ignorant Korean government officials. Those who believed in Jesus were treated as ones who were possessed by Western demons. Including many Korean Christian fathers of your family, my personal family history of Christianity is also the same. My grandfather was the first believer of Jesus and casted out from their home and community due to this belief. He had to live his own life by his feet. Without a missionary’s help, his survival might be impossible.
The passion for the gospel at that time was simple as it was: They believed in Jesus, and was persecuted, oppressed by their community and casted out. The missionaries were also their fellow victims. They were friends and family. Their love for the gospel of Christ was their reason for survival: it was what they call devotion. The missionaries also understood this type of devotion, because their ancestors were the Puritans and had the similar persecution and survival history in their past time.
I assume that such notion of devotion + passion has settled in the Korean church tradition. When the Korean church grew vigorously, the missionaries and Korean churches had to suffer from Japanese shrine policy, which is the same scene as Daniel’s three friends had to go through in Persia (You may have heard the story: their survival from fierily furnace and the lion’s den). Countless Christian martyrs had to die before Japanese police before the witnesses of Korean churches. Consequently, their devotion and passion became purified and mature more and more.
After liberation from Japan, the church once again suffered from North Korean communists. Their first target in the south Korean towns were always the Christians, because the Korean churches did not surrender to communist’s belief that “there is not God,” which the founder and dictator of North Korea, Kim Il Seong himself proclaimed before his army by shooting his gun to the sky. Church became devastated by their arsons, and the Korean Christians had to fee to the Southern Korean regions. Many says that more than half population of the Christians in Seoul are actually North Korean Christians. What I hear from many witnesses who survived in those times is that the passionate prayers and praises with tears did not stop in the Korean worship at those times. And, that is why many Korean praises have such mellow tones. They would not forget this history and their martyrs who died for them. That is Korean type of Christian devotion and passion.
I assume that the beginning of ‘the worship of devotional’ probably happened after Korean’s liberation from Japanese Empire (around 19450~1950 AD) or after Koran War (1953 AD). For us, Korean Christians descendants, ‘the devotion of worship’ is The Way to remember our own Korean church founders and to dedicate to keep the purity of devotion and passion in the Word of God.
I do not know when this devotion divided into many departments’ worships of devotion. There is no such record for it in the history of Korean church (That is shame… So, you guys have to have records for your church history for your future sake.) What we know is when a church began to have a certain department’s worship of devotion, other churches and departments also followed.
I also put an additional thought on this. The Reformed church actually has its own tradition to devo
“Cor meum tibi offero, Domine, prompte et sincere”
(My heart I offer, Lord, promptly and sincerely.)
The Presbyterian lifestyle is a life to devote his/her heart to his/her Lord while living in this earth.
We do not just live for ourselves. We do not make a motto which is glitter superficially, while we do seek our own interest all the time. We Christians already dead before Christ’s cross and have received a second life from Him.
We do seek interests (profits, knowledge, benefits….), but we do not want to live on them. We only live on the Word of God and serve this world for our Lord. When this world attempts to vain our faith, we do not seek our own live by abandoning our Lord. We live only on Him.
