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BY ROD MILLER

Special to the UMConnection

After spending eight days in Korea hosted by our sister conference, the South Conference of the Korea Methodist Church, my most lasting impression is of prayer.

On April 1, the Revs. David Argo, Ginger Gaines-Cirelli, J.W. Park and myself, were invited to attend the early morning prayer service at Sun Wha Methodist Church in DaeJeon, a city of 1.5 million people 150 miles south of Seoul. It was our home base for the time we were in Korea.

Sun Wha is served by Rev. Kibok Lee, who is also bishop of the South Conference, which has 550 churches in DaeJeon and the surrounding area. Bishop Lee greeted us when we arrived at 4:45 a.m. and indicated that we would sit in the second pew, just behind some of the church's lay leaders.

In the few minutes before the service started, I looked around. It appeared that the church, which seats approximately 300, was going to be nearly full that morning.

The service started with a call to worship by a lay speaker, followed by a familiar hymn. There was an opening prayer, and then an anthem by the choir which had about 35

people. Our delegation was then invited to come up front to sing. We had been prepared for this and sang "Sanctuary," followed by a bow. The bishop then read the Scripture lesson for the day, Revelation 2:1-7.

Bishop Lee preached his entire sermon, "Return to Your First Love," with a line in English followed by the same line in Korean. It was clear that he had prepared his sermon in English as a way of offering radical hospitality to us.

What was even more astounding was that this day, April 1, was the opening session of their Annual Conference, convening at 10 a.m., at one of the large Methodist churches in the city and Bishop Lee would be presiding.

The theme of the sermon was that the church in Ephesus had grown strong in programs, deeds and perseverance. Yet it had forgotten its first love. The first love refers to when we first came to love Jesus Christ.

Bishop Lee reminded us that without the love of Jesus in our hearts, all of our deeds are empty and would be better not to have been done. He implored the congregation to return to loving Christ and not get caught up in all of the things of "church." It was a powerful message for 5:15 in the morning.

Then the prayer started. Wow! The congregation shouted, "Lord! Lord! Lord!" in unison, the lights flickered and then went dim, and the organ began playing hymns. Bishop Lee prayed from the pulpit into the microphone while everyone else began praying out loud at the same time.

This is a Korean way of praying called Tongsung Kido (see page 445 in the United Methodist Book of Worship).The prayer was loud, in Korean and, I believe, in spiritual tongues also, and lasted for about 10 minutes.

Many people came forward to kneel on the platform in the chancel near the cross. Then the prayer wound down, there was a brief benediction, and everyone practically ran out of the church to go to work and other activities of the day. It left me full and breathless at the same time.

One of the women wrote a letter to me in which she spoke in part about the power of the daily morning prayer.

"I feel the love of God everyday. The Lord understands me best and God understands my weaknesses and accepts me as I am. God prepares very good things for me. I meet the Lord who heals me everyday in the early morning service," she wrote. "The Holy Spirit comes to me as the Spirit of joy. The Spirit puts wonderful thoughts in me. The Holy Spirit supplies me life energy so I can go on living. My spirit is transformed everyday so I can share God's love with others."

Receiving from God - drinking in the presence of Christ and basking in his grace - is opening to what God has for us each day. Andrew Murray in his book, "The Inner Life," calls this the morning watch. This is

simply receiving from God in the morning what God desires to make directly to us. Grace which is all in all.

One of the strengths of this kind of worship, in which everyone prays out loud for an extended period and then heads out to the day's activities, is that the awareness and learnings of the morning are locked in.

This form of prayer is a symbol or a structure which deepens the experience and forwards the action. I wonder what we could be doing in our churches to deepen the experience of worship and lock it into our understanding and action for the day or the week?

I have come back home with the mark of prayer in my life in a profound way. Prayer unites us with each other and with God so that we can move from asking God to help us do our tasks to asking God to help us to be about what God desires each day. It is a time to bring together the separated parts of our lives into an undivided unity of thought and purpose.

And, I am going to be looking for ways to lock in the learnings and the experiences we have with God so that they have the kind of ongoing influence and life-shaping transformation that is possible.

The Rev. Rod Miller is an Adventure Guide and director of Connectional Ministries for the Baltimore-Washington Conference.