My Spiritual Biographical Sketch
Peter Y. Woo, 10/18/95
1. My Christian Growth and Ministry.
I was born of Christian parents, in 1940. The next year Japan attacked and occupied Hong Kong. The Lord marvelously preserved us through much dangers and threats of starvation until Japan surrendered in 1945. My father has been a well-known pastor in Hong Kong since the 30's. I have good memories of my childhood at 4 or 5, holding his hand and walking on the streets when he did visitation on Christian and non-Christian families. I was conscious of my sinful nature when my parents were hurt by some of my natural behavior of lying, pride, and selfishness. A Christian neighbor lady died. I was impressed that she saw Jesus coming to receive her, and was quite convinced there is life after death, at an early age. I struggled with my lack of assurance of salvation and my superficial religion and put-up behavior for some years, until a series of basic faith lectures given by my father to the youth fellowship at church helped me to understand that believing in Jesus is not just intellectual acceptance, but also personal acceptance from the heart, as John 1:12 says. So I was 13 when this understanding began to give me peace.
By that time (1953 onwards) there were spiritual revivals among high school youths in Hong Kong. I saw some of my classmates turned to the Lord with tears of repentence and fervent love for God. I longed for that kind of fervency, but I never had a very emotional experience at summer camps. Anyway, I gradually became a leader in my high school Christian fellowship, getting some training from the then mushrooming Interschools Christian Fellowship groups movement. I also enjoyed serving in the evangelism efforts of my church at Chinese New years, and at summer camps. I was often a counsellor after the evangelistic meetings. My church is patterned after the Plymouth Brethren churches, and was quite conservative in its teachings.
In 1959 I entered Hong Kong University where the "InterVarsity" Christian Association helped me to see the vitality of the life of evangelical Christians from other churches, and my faith was firmly grounded through occasional debates, efforts on evangelism, and various books of IVF, especially Archdeacon Temple's book of theology for laymen: "In Understanding Be Men". By graduation I was an avid reader of books by Isobel Kuhn, F.B. Meyer, and missionary stories. I was attracted by the lives of missionaries, as well as heroic stories of Christians suffering in China. The group Bible study methods I learned from the IVF were very helpful for building my faith and Bible interpretation upon a firm basis, and leading Bible study often helped others to know the Lord more, for which I was glad. I met Gloria at HKU, and later on we married in Los Angeles in 1965.
In 1963 I came to USA, studying at Univ. of Southern Calif. till I graduated in 1968 with a Ph.D in mathematics. Then I worked in the computer industry. From 1968 to 71 we were at Los Angeles area. Then we went to San Diego for 2 years, and Santa Barbara for 4 years. In 1978 we came back to settle in Orange county till now. I became a computer consultant, but in 1988 I became an associate professor at Biola University, teaching mathematics and computer science.
While at USC I received much spiritual help from the Church of the Open Door, where sometimes the sense of the presence of the Lord was so real I would linger on after a Sunday meeting, not wanting to leave the auditorium. About 1965 I joined the Chinese Evangelical Free Church of Los Angeles. I promoted group Bible studies there, and some people were blessed by it. I was the Board Chairman for one year in 1970, during which I had some experience in drafting a handbook for the church members.
We moved to San Diego in 1971, where we organized a weekly home Bible study with Chinese Christian friends, and from time to time had a meeting where we invite non-Christian friends. Occasionally I would speak to a Chinese student fellowship at San Diego State Univ. From 1973 to 77 we were at Santa Barbara, where we served in the only Chinese church there, the Chinese Evangelical Free Church. I helped to interpret on the pulpit, Gloria helped to organize the Sunday School, but the greatest experience was leading a Bible Study group once every 2 weeks. The college students were very eager to learn, and eventually I spent some time training some of them to lead Bible study also. I preached on Sundays only a few times. We also attended the Trinity Baptist Church, of the General Baptist Conference, for our own spiritual nurture. We learned much from attending their adult Sunday School, on how to deal with one' s emotions, relationships, and communication.
After we moved to Orange County in 1978, we attended the Huntington Beach Evangelical Free Church for a few years. The Lord blessed us with knowing a group of elderly people, some retired missionaries, that really loved the Lord and loved us. That helped us spiritually to see some of our spiritual weakness. They invited Rex Johnson of Biola to conduct some seminars on marriage relationships, and our marriage got some badly needed nurture from it, as well as from booklets of Norman Wright and Tim LaHayes.
In 1982 we joined the First Chinese Baptist Church at Westminster (now FCBC at Fountain Valley). Gloria taught Cantonese speaking senior adult Sunday School for 12 years. I taught young adult Sunday School, in English, for 7 years. Gloria was chairman of evangelism for 2 years, and I was missions chairman for 1 year. We are grateful that the Lord gave us these opportunities to serve a congregation made up of people from 3 languages and diverse cultural backgrounds. Gloria started a prayer chain ministry which continued for almost 10 years.
Since 1988 I became an Associate Professor at Biola University, teaching mathematics and computer science. The Lord blessed my work there, and students now like me. I have been able to integrate our faith with the history and philosophy of math and science, and was invited once to give a talk on math and our faith, at Master's University.
God allowed us to have some trials. Gloria had a major surgery. We had a tenant suing us. The Lord showed us He is our shepherd and guided and encouraged us through all those days. In 1985 the doctor said I have cancer which already is spreading into the lungs. The church prayed for us, and in the subsequent months I went through more medical tests, which all turned up negative. Meanwhile the X-ray pictures showed the patch shrinking everytime until all was gone in 1 year. After this we thank God for giving us borrowed time. We dedicated ourselves (no formal ceremony) to live the rest of our lives for Him. I got involved with OMF (Overseas Missionary Fellowship) in their prayer conferences and monthly prayer meetings. But I never got into any summer missions trip. I have been much burdened about China and the Church therein. I did visit south China, bringing in 15 Bibles to a house church, for 2 days in 1988, and again for 10 days, in 1994.
Since 1990 I got involved with the Riverside Chinese Alliance Church. Rev. Auyeung resigned soon, and I became a regular preacher once a month on Sundays since then. I went through the whole book of John's Gospel, which turned out to be a good experience for myself. I also taught Sunday School there off and on. My wife remained serving at First Chinese Baptist Church at Westminster. I went to Riverside 2 or 3 Sundays per month. Later on in 1992 I was invited to preach one Sunday each month at Temple City Chinese Alliance Church, now moved to Arcadia. Recently, for the last year, I preach at these two CMA churches for 2 Sundays each month, while ther other 2 Sundays I helped Gloria teach a mid-age Cantonese adult Sunday School class at the FCBC at Fountain Valley. God has been bleassing the ministry, and people seem to be growing in numbers and also spiritually. I was blessed with such opportunities, and the folks at both CMA churches have been very receptive to my sermons, and gave me much encouragement to continue. I do feel the power of the Holy Spirit in many occasions. Sometimes I preached on a passage which I was not confident in, e.g., John 7, but then God worked in a marvelous way so that some folks caught some word or thought that was helpful to them.
My gift, if I may recognize, is in Bible teaching, which I enjoy. I spoke at evangelism meetings only once, with some results of people making decisions for the Lord. For the last 2 years, I felt the Lord gave me a clear burden twice, (I may call that His calling), that I should preach on the kind of messages which caused a revival in Hong Kong during the 50's, namely, call to repentence and yielding to the Holy Spirit. I claimed I am a product of that period of spiritual revival, and I have seen the true work of the Holy Spirit, not in charismatic gifts, but in causing people to repentance and conviction of sin. Healings were common, but we would rather spend our efforts preaching on repentence. I have learned to preach more from the spirit than from the intellect. Time and again some congregation member said the Lord spoke to them through my preaching, sometimes in a way not related to the main idea or my sermon. This is amusing and sobering. I think most of the problems of the typical congregation in America today is to understand how to be a Christian family amidst all the evil influences of the modern media and sense of moral values prevalent in society. Much of the problems of teenagers, of strains in marriage, can be led to the failure of the Christian to recognize the behavior of the old self and the need of yielding it to Christ.
My wife Gloria has been very supportive of my applying for a preaching license. She has been longing for opportunities to serve the Lord in more direct ministries.
2. My own Theological Foundations.
Since I have not had academic theological training, I must say something about my own self education on the subject. I have a few cassette tapes of my teaching and preaching over the last 15 years. I also have various scattered articles which I wrote, which represent the kind of subjects that I was interested in. Such as:
Theological:
Major errors with Jehovah's Witnesses, and Mormons.
Women's Role in Church (I am for women preaching from pulpit).
On tongues speaking (I think most of the prevalent practice are fakes. True tongues must be earthly languages.)
Occasions:
On our silver anniversary.
On the wedding of one of our daughters.
On my recovery from the cancer event.
On the death of Gloria's father (by Gloria).
I was seriously going through "In Understanding Be Men" during 1963, and that cleared up my mind on what are the really basic tenets in our faith. Much of my doctrine on the authority and trustworthiness of the Scriptures was based on J.I. Packer's "Fundamentalism and the Word of God", and (I believe) his introduction to the New Bible Commentary. I was interested in apologetics, because of my training in science and mathematics, so much of my youthful energy was spent in studying about the distinctives of our Biblical faith as distinguished from the Roman Catholic, the Liberal, the 7th Day Adventist, Jehovah's Witnesses, and Mormons.
On the subject of the Holy Spirit, my main zeal is to call Christians into a life of holiness and sanctified living, which is the first step towards a life of walking in the Spirit. I do not like the prevalent practice of spending much time on singing "praise" songs with empty repetitive words, and with upraised arms. Such young people think that is worship. No, I think it is rather an emotional indulgence, and a stealthy substitute of our Christian heritage in hymns singing. Recently there are two extremes in teachings on the Holy Spirit. One is the Vineyard Fellowship's emphasis on miracles and " manifestations", another is the pro-Catholic trend towards disciplines of meditation, as exemplified by Richard Foster's books.
Over the years, I subscribed to Christianity Today magazine as my major channel of knowing what goes on in the Christian world. I treasure my small collection of paperback books by D.L. Moody, F.B. Meyer, Andrew Murray, A.W. Tozer, Amy Carmichael, Isobel Kuhn, J.O. Sanders (of OMF) more than any modern books, which I have to give up for lack of physical space. For my Bible study and sermon preparation I use Young's concordance and the Amplified Bible. Occasionally I have to search for Greek words and their use, via the "Analytic Bible", and an interlinear Bible.
Around 1987 or so some or my young adult Sunday School members challenged the belief of a pre-tribulational Rapture of the church, which is really our " blessed hope". That spurred me on to study more the problem. I may accept the "mid-tribulational" teaching also, that the Church's rapture is described in Rev.7:9ff. But the "blessed hope" is no longer blessed if we have to woefully wait for the Tribulation to come before any hope of the Rapture.
3. My Relationship with the CMA.
My home church in Hong Kong often invited Dr. William Newburn to speak on Sundays or at conferences. He was the famous President of the Alliance Seminary at Cheung Chau Island in Hong Kong, still the most eminent of all seminaries in Hong Kong. The seminary was founded by Robert Jaffray, the " Hudson Taylor of Southeast Asia". I came to know many graduates of that seminary about my age, many of whom are pastors in many Chinese churches in USA and Canada, even Surinam. In our Sunday Schools sometimes we told stories of Newburn or Jaffray or of how A.B. Simpson heard the call to go to China. While in USA I was with the Evangelical Free Church from 1965 till 1977, among Chinese congregations, but our prevalent saying in those days was: The best denomination for a typical evangelical congregation to be affiliated with, is either the CMA or the Evangelical Free. We greatly cherished our friendships with Rev. Paul and Ina Bartel from 1971 till now, and Ruth Hitchcock from 1973 to 1982(?) when she departed to the Lord. Both are CMA missionary giants who have dedicated their lives to the Chinese churches. In Hong Kong, both denominations are equally blessed by the Lord with much growth. My recent association with two Chinese CMA churches have been very edifying to ourselves. I like their emphasis on missions.