We receive frequent requests for our statement of faith from individuals interested in contributing financially. Since Seoul USA is a member of the International Christian Organization along with all the other Voice of the Martyrs chapters, we actually have a shared statement of faith.

But as true as that statement is about us, I've never liked it nearly as much as I do the Nicene Creed.

Memorizing the Nicene Creed is what Christians across the broadest expanse of time and geography and denomination and language did (and in some places still do) in preparation for their baptism. Notes Thomas Oden in the introduction to magnificent Ancient Christian Doctrine series on the Nicene Creed:

During times of persecution the baptismal confession typically was memorized, not only because it was unsafe to write it down, but also because written texts made other innocent people more susceptible to charges under civil authorities. More reliable was the quiet tradition faithfully passed on verbally through the episkopoi from the apostles. The bishops' primary task was to maintain accurate apostolic teaching without addition or subtraction.

In other words, it's not only Christian nonprofit organizations that ought to have a statement of faith. Every individual believer should as well-and that statement of faith should be the Creed which encapsulates the teaching of the apostles, nothing more and nothing less. Continues Oden:

The first article of the Nicene Creed presupposes that there is an objective body of teaching that Christians are expected to confess as their faith. This idea seems normal and natural to us, but it was a novelty in the ancient world. Neither Judaism nor any pagan religion or philosophy could claim to have a closely defined set of beliefs that everyone adhering to it was expected to publicly profess and defend against all comers.

Sadly, the idea of a defined set of beliefs that every Christian has memorized and can publicly profess and defend is a novelty in contemporary Christianity.

Fred Sanders makes this point in his book, The Deep Things of God: How the Trinity Changes Everything:

People who grew up under the influence of reductionist evangelicalism suffer, understandably, from some pretty perplexing disorientation. They are raised on "Bible, cross, conversion, and heaven" as the whole Christian message, and they sense that there must be more than that... Inside of reductionist evangelicalism, everything you hear is right, but somehow it comes out all wrong.

That is because when emphatic evangelicalism degenerates into reductionist evangelicalism, it still has the emphasis right but has been reduced to nothing but emphasis. When a message is all emphasis, everything is equally important and you are always shouting... The other problem is that a gospel reduced to four points ceases to make sense unless its broader context can be intuited. "The Bible says Jesus died so you can get saved and go to heaven" is a good start, the right emphasis, and a recognizable statement of the gospel-provided that it is securely lodged in the host of other truths that support and explain it.

That host of other truths? It's the Nicene Creed. And if we're going to be people of robust faith who value, preserve, embody, and impart the fullness of what we received in our baptism, we'd better be able to recite it-and not just some proprietary statement of faith-from memory, in the marketplace and not just in the marketing materials of our ministries.

We believe in one God,
the Father, the Almighty,
maker of heaven and earth,
of all that is, seen and unseen... 

On the other hand, it is possible to overdue the threat assessment and worry about the susceptibility to any possible threat. This approach takes a lot of money and a lot of resources. And did I mention a lot of money? Trying to protect against any possible risk is just as unrealistic as thinking that we might be secure against these risks.

So what do we do?

It's called Risk Assessment. In a proper risk assessment, we evaluate the probability of each risk against the consequence if that risk event happens and the cost to reduce (notice that I used the word "reduce" not eliminate) the risk event from occurring.

What does this look like in practice? Let's consider your personal computer, and we'll assume that you use it online for surfing, email, social networking, the normal stuff computers are used for these days.

The risks that we all are aware of are malware, viruses, worms, and hacking. As we look at these risks, it is important to identify what it is that people want to achieve by attacking our computer with these programs? It is likely that most of these programs are being sent at you to either 1) just mess up your computer, or 2) to get money from you. Because these are sent out in mass attacks against the general computer setup, it is easy and not that costly to defend against these. A proper firewall, virus checker, malware cleaner and keeping good passwords will help you avoid most of these invading programs.

However, what if someone really wants to get something valuable on your computer and either destroy it or steal it. Maybe something from work you keep on your computer or proprietary information that you have saved, then do the standard firewall's and malware cleaners work? Well, they still work, but you would want to consider that additional processes may be necessary to protect your information. There are tools that can encrypt data on your computer so that even if someone steals it, it isn't readable to them.

And, if we are really protecting valuable information, we might consider how we go online. There are various ways to obscure your online identity, surf privately, and avoid linking your activity with your computer's IP address. It is also possible to store data in various places that make it more difficult to see where you keep things. Going after someone's hardrive might not be that difficult. Finding their 16 GB flash drive or their cloud-computing storage provider (and then accessing this) would be much more difficult.

But in the end, nothing we do will make any of our data invulnerable to a purposeful attack. Recently, we've seen successful attacks and hacks on leading Al Qaida websites, and the most recent attack that many thought could not be accomplished - the Stuxnet worm - set back Iran's nuclear program a couple of years and set a new level of sophistication for intelligence in malware. All this despite the significant security measures taken by Iran and associated countries to prevent unauthorized access and  do everything possible to protect their nuclear systems development.

So remember, nothing is really secure. It is relative. Don't get paranoid though. Determine any actual risks, determine the reasonable potential risks, and do your best to design your systems - all systems; computers, resources, projects - around the risks that are most likely to occur and that will have the most impact on your work if they do occur.

Ask the Lord to protect and save North Korean refugees in China who were sacrificed by the NK government and to make them His people.

"So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand." [Isaiah 41:10]

The following shows the sorrow and pain of one young lady: "I cannot believe my fate to be born to be a sex tool, before I even get to know what is love and marriage. My life is like animals which have to keep searching for food. It seems to be cursed."

Fortunately, many refugees meet God's Word and are trained in Truth. We should try to feel the pain and sorrow together. Let us pray that God heals the wounded hearts and turns them into people to be used worthily for His kingdom.

This prayer request is from Day 7 (on Politics and the Military) of our 30 Day NK Prayer Guide, written with the NK church. To purchase a copy, email super-intern Brett.

The map above was created by WikiTravel.org user, Cacahuate, and is available here.  Click on map to view in higher resolution.