Vaccination Against Church Split

I think that what we did yesterday as I preached this message on 1 Cor. 3

Good advice for self

I couldn't bring myself to draft the message for this Sunday. It's always a struggle. So, I went and seek encouragement and found some from John Newton (the author of "Amazing Grace"). Everything was verbatim except the reformatting and some upgrade to [old English words]:

The Gift of Preaching--Advice to a Young Preacher

by John Newton

---

July 25, 1772.

Dear Sir,

I am glad to hear you are accommodated at D___ where I hope your best endeavours will not be wanting to make yourself agreeable, by a humble, inoffensive, and [guarded] behaviour.

I greatly approve of your speaking from one of the lessons in the afternoon: you will find it a great help to bring you gradually to that habit and readiness of expression which you desire; and you will, perhaps, find it make more impression upon your hearers, than what you read to them from the pulpit. However, I would not discourage or dissuade you from reading your sermons for a time. The chief inconvenience respecting yourself is that which you mention. A written sermon is something to lean upon; but it is best for a preacher to lean wholly upon the Lord. But set off gradually; the Lord will not despise the day of small things: pray heartily, that your spirit may be right with Him, and then all the rest will be well. And keep on writing: if you compose one sermon, and should find your heart enlarged to preach another, still your labour in writing will not be lost. If your conscience bears you witness, that you desire to serve the Lord, His promise (now He has brought you into the ministry) of a sufficiency and ability for the work, belongs to you as much as to another.

Your borrowing help from others may arise from a [timidity] of yourself, which is not blameable, but it may arise, in part, likewise from a [timidity] of the Lord, which is hurtful. I wish you may get encouragement from that word, Exodus iv. 11, 12 [The Lord said to him, “Who gave man his mouth? Who makes him deaf or mute? Who gives him sight or makes him blind? Is it not I, the Lord? Now go; I will help you speak and will teach you what to say.”]. It was a great encouragement to me. While I would press you to diligence in every rational means for the improvement of your stock in knowledge, and your ability of utterance, I would have you remember, that preaching is a gift. It cannot be learned by [hard work] and imitation only, as a man may learn to make a chair or a table: it comes from above; and if you patiently wait upon God, He will bestow this gift upon you, and increase it in you. It will grow by exercise. "To him that hath shall be given, and he shall have more abundantly." And be chiefly solicitous to obtain an unction upon what you do say. Perhaps those sermons in which you feel yourself most deficient, may be made most useful to others. I hope you will endeavour likewise to be plain and familiar in your language and manner, though not low or vulgar, so as to suit yourself as much as possible to the apprehensions of the most ignorant people. There are in all congregations some persons exceedingly ignorant: yet they have precious souls, and the Lord often calls such. I pray the Lord to make you wise to win souls. I hope He will.

You cannot be too jealous of your own heart; but let no such instances as Mr ___ discourage you. Cry to Him who is able to hold you up, that you may be safe, and you shall not cry in vain. It is indeed an alarming thought, that a man may pray and preach, be useful and acceptable for a time, and yet be nothing. But still the foundation of God standeth sure.

I have a good hope, that I shall never have cause to repent the part I have taken in your concerns. While you keep in the path of duty, you will find it the path of safety. Be punctual in waiting upon God in secret. This is the life of everything, the only way, and the sure way, of maintaining and renewing your strength.

I am, &c.

On Shock-and-Awe Preaching...

I have been wrestling with the message delivery mechanism lately. It started as I read the article "Is Your Message Memorable?" from CreatingPassionateUsers. There are chemical in the brain that enable or disable people’s ability to remember a message. And emotional stimulant is a great way to sneak by the brain-cap. The same message was reinforced last Saturday as I attended the Children Ministry Magazine workshop. In active learning, we create emotion accompany the message so that the kids will remember.

So how is it that I am going to create a memorable message in my own preaching?

This Sunday I am going to preach on 1 Corinthians 3 about division in the church. If I want to create an emotional stimulant for the audience to remember the message, I would use a video clip from “Thirteen” about a girl cutting herself in the locked bathroom and tie it in with the message of “church division is like cutting up our own body, the body of Christ!” The clip is very graphics, and no doubt that it would brand that memory well.

But is it what I should do?

I discussed the matter with An, he suggested that I should not do it. “There is always more than one way to communicate.” He reminded me of what he learned from Regent. We agree that the clip would be a bit too “over-the-top”; it would even create an emotional “overdose” and cause back slash as well.

But that’s the problem with communicating in this culture which already has too many emotional stimulants for communication. Advertising and marketing firms are constantly pumping out these emotional stimulants to people. As a result, the noise to signal ratio is very high, and the message of the Truth easily get lost in this sea of noises.

So, how are we supposed to compete and “getting pass the brain-cap filter”?

CreatingPassionateUsers also documented the second method of doing so: repetition. And this is the healthy alternative for people to avoid high dosage of emotional stimulants. In Scripture we have this cyclical pattern of Sabbath, of annual feasts. The church has its weekly meetings for teaching and worship. Memory of the truth is branded by consistency practice over time, and not depends on high emotional dosage.

After all, Paul said that, "My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, so that your faith might not rest on men’s wisdom, but on God’s power." [1Cor.2:4-5, NIV]

Don’t take me wrong. I will continue to work hard to make sure that the message creative and relevant to the hearers. But creativity and relevancy is only the communication channel to deliver the content. If the content is without substance, the channel will ends up delivering junks. I am thinking of IV in blood-transfusion. Focus on getting a channel into the patient vein will only helpful if we have the life-saving blood to deliver. Otherwise, it could be detrimental.

O God! How much I count on Your power to be at work so that our faith will rest on Your power, and not on men’s wisdom!

Reflection on Children Ministry Magazine Live 2005 training: "Out of the Box"

Hi there,

That was a good training today; good and solid. They focused on a few things and hit them well. Here are some of my reflections as I processing this stuff through.

- In session 1, we were exposed to four different stations for worship/prayer experience. I found myself thinking, "What is worship/prayer?" The church through out history used objects to mediate/aide people in their worship/prayer. (The Eastern Orthodox had their icons, the Roman Catholics had their statues, even the ancient Jews had their altars and the ark.) But as the author of Hebrews point out: all of these objects were only heavenly foreshadows, or "props" if we could say it. Therefore, if the "props" were without substantial contents, then they are useless. (Perhaps this is why the ancient Israel was not supposed to fashion graven images for worship). We should encourage our people to be more creative and experiential in worship, but we should also need to make sure that those creativity and activities won’t take the center stage of worship.

How could we help the staff process this some more? I would suggest that we allow them to process “How do you like/dislike the worship/prayer stations experience?” Then we need to ask ourselves again “What is worship/prayer?” And finally ask “Should we use some of this concept in our own worship? How?”

For me, I would like the worship time better if it was less people, and with more time. Worship and prayer for me is a place that I want to linger on. But once again, I am much older and slower than the kids. I think the ultimate goal is to fashion a people who could instinctively worship God through any objects and surrounding in which they are exposed to. They could be standing in the sun with their eyes closed and feel the warmth on their skin and praise the God who put the sun at just the right distance to give us the seasons and weather, grain and food, etc. In fact, we will need to constantly remind ourselves to “see beyond” the “props” to God in our worship. The minute that our focus is on the “props” themselves, we would commit idolatry. What do you think?

- Also in session 1 we learned about the issue of brokenness. While it is true that brokenness can be used by God, is it also true that “we will be stronger in the broken places?” Is it Biblical to conclude that "God's light shines through those broken cracks of our lives"? If so, and if we feel comfortable in our brokenness, how would we answer the question of, "Is Christians supposed to be more like Christ?" While it is true that God used people with a broken past in our ministry, it’s not necessarily true that we would want the kids to grow up and be broken just like us.

How could we help the staff process this some more? I would suggest that we raise the questions so that they can probe it a bit more in depth. And then perhaps we should introduce them about the preventive and prescriptive aspects of ministry. You see, in the medical profession there is no simple answer for “What are you given for disease X?” They give a medication Y for X in preventive vaccination, but they give a medication Z for X in prescriptive treatment. I could be off my rocker here, but I see Law as preventive measure and Grace as prescriptive measure. This is why we would teach kids not to marry non-Christians, but if some older adults made the wrong choices, we would continue to embrace them and care for them too (even though we would be sad, and they might got hurt too).

For me, this is convolute to kids to understand, so we wouldn’t teach children that. But your staff should be able to start grappling with this for the sake of our future. I would also suggest that the staff should ask the tougher question of “What are the issues (brokenness) that kids bring in to their class time?” Please jot them all down and feed them back to me so that I could present it to the pastoral staff. Some of these issues should be work on at the congregational level.

- Session 3 was the most challenging session for me. As I evaluate the topic of family ministry in our church I see a lot of inadequacy.

First of all, the problem was ingrained in the way I think and work. For example, when Christine asked me “Why didn’t ba Muc Su Son come?” I began to realize that I’ve failed to communicate this training event to her, to C. Thuy, or even the Sunday-School’s staff. Growing up as “pioneering youth leader” for the English Ministry frontier, that had robbed me of the intergenerational-thinking mindset. I often just think far enough for English Ministry, but not big enough to include the other segment of the church. This should be something you guys can help keep me improve.

The second problem was documented there in the handout: There is a big gap between parents and the church. We simply didn’t do a very good job of coaching adults on biblical parenting. Before today workshop, my limited vision assigned that coaching job to the Senior Pastor. But after thinking it through at the workshop, I am thinking that we can start taking some of that work on ourselves, at least in what we can do in English. A simple quarterly newsletter will improve that communication with the parents a lot. And we can coach them with relevant articles collected as well. I could build most of those contents for the newsletter. And one of your staff could play with the layout if they want, and you should do the final review to release it. We will leave white space filler if we cannot fill a page, but at least it will be a start.

The third problem turns into strength by itself. At first, I looked at [the other] church and drooled at the ratio of adults they had coming to this workshop. From our church, it was all college people running around. As I “spied” on their group during lunch, they made me even more depressed because they were planning for a retreat. But then as I lamented about it with Jenney, she gave a great insight, “O, the reason the parents were more involved because a lot of their college people left the church so they had to take care most of it!” And so I grabbed Tiffany, “Hey do you think it would be better if the parents be more involved like get into Children Ministry and teach?” “No! They should be involved, but indirectly. Kids wouldn’t want their parents there – especially the older kids.” So we have some strength because of our college people cares, but it can be improved more to have more support from parents.

You may want to discuss the family-relation issue with the staff a bit. Is it true that we can teach the kids more effectively that their parents (or are they just liking us because we are more lenient than their parents?) How would we be able to create a roster and know the parents from the bottom up? What would they want to help with the newsletter? How can we provide opportunity for the parents to serve more?

- The last session 4 on Active Learning was very interesting too. This is the same concept that businesses had been exploiting for years: you have to create emotion to reinforce memory. The whole advertising/marketing/entertainment industry lives and dies on this. They created powerful emotion to brand recognition for their products. (See the whole science of it here) And more and more will be on the way.

It is about time that the church understands these psychological mechanics to reinforce what matters most to kids. Active learning requires more creativity, more preparation and it shows that we care for the kids and give them the best we have.

However, we should not neglect the important role of content. Active learning is only a communication channel to deliver contents. And without a solid content, we won’t communicate much. Therefore we need to encourage the staff to spent adequate time for the “What” before they dwell on the “How”. Otherwise we will create only shallow and temporal satisfactions. It’s like Krispy Kreme ministry:

When I was a kid in the summer my family would venture off to the shores of South Carolina for a family vacation at the beach. Right down the boardwalk from the hotel was a Krispy Kreme Donut shop. Dad would give my older brother a few bucks and soon he would return with a dozen or two of hot freshly made Krispy Kreme donuts. The donuts would actually melt in my mouth and I would wash them down with ice-cold whole milk. My brothers and I would boast as to how many donuts we could eat. Once I ate four donuts and thought I was king.

Each donut is about 210 calories. Four donuts and a cup of milk are about 1,000 calories—empty calories.

As a child I thought I could live off of Krispy Kreme donuts but as you know, sugar-glazed donuts and whole milk are not very nutritious, and ultimately not very filling.

Just because one is consuming massive quantities of Krispy Kreme donuts doesn’t mean he is healthy.

I think there are many folks who are being fed sugar-glazed [teachings] and they leave the building with a sugar rush having consumed 1,000 calories of bad [teachings] thinking they have been fed when in realty they are just buzzing from the sugar.

After a half-hour nap they are hungry again. Many go back to the donut shop not realizing that they are being fed white flour and sugar, or that they cannot get healthy off the white flour and sugar regardless of how much you eat.

They have the Krispy Kreme tee-shirt,
the Krispy Kreme Study Bible,
the Krispy Kreme Praise CD,
the Krispy Kreme Small Group
but no one is getting healthy.

Folks get addicted to the sugar buzz rather than God.

And when the sugar buzz diminishes they think God has gone some where and so they create a new version of the same donut. It’s still white flour and sugar no matter how you serve it.

That’s the problem, eventually folks wake-up sick and in great need of spiritual food.[1]

For your staff, perhaps read the parable above and discuss about, “How do we know if we feeding people healthy stuff and not just temporal satisfaction?”

- Session 3 on discipline the kids are fairly solid. Review it together and work out some more reinforcement details would be good.

Well, that’s it for now. It might be overwhelmed for you as well as your staff. So, get a pen and underline what important to cover, and spread it out over a few staff meeting. Or trash it all (because I may not assess things right either).

Think about this: “What is the next step for your ministry?”

Pray about it.

You can talk to me some more, too.

May God works in you so His work will be shown through you.

Bumble

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[1]http://newlifeemerging.blogspot.com/2005/07/krispy-kreme-church.html

Gravitas.

Gravitas.

You just cannot be ordained without it.

Gravitas is a condition of the soul that has developed enough spiritual mass to attract other souls. It makes the soul appear old, but gravitas has nothing to do with age. It has everything to do with scars that have healed well, failures that have been redeemed, sins that have been forgiven, and thorns that have settled into the flesh.

It all expands the soul until it is larger than the body that contains it, large enough to hold the truth of the Word of God. And, like gravity, it pulls others not to the pastor but to the holy work that has occurred within the pastor's soul.

This gravity isn't a commodity that can be purchased with seminary tuition payments. It certainly isn't found in a library. A weighty soul has to be developed the hard way.

The early church found gravitas through persecution. The desert fathers and monks found it by abandoning comfort and entering a vocation of prayer. Most of the reformers found it in prison. The slaves found it by singing spirituals under the baking sun in the cotton fields. And pastors find gravitas in the congregation.

Wow!

Imagination v. Inspiration

The simplicity that is in Christ. [2 Cor. 11:3, KJV]

Simplicity is the secret of seeing things clearly. A [matured Christian] does not think clearly for a long while, but a [matured Christian] ought to see clearly without any difficulty. You cannot think a spiritual muddle clear, you have to obey it clear. In intellectual matters you can think things out, but in spiritual matters you will think yourself into cotton wool. If there is something upon which God has put His pressure, obey in that matter, bring your imagination into captivity to the obedience of Christ with regard to it and everything will become as clear as daylight. The reasoning capacity comes afterwards, but we never see along that line, we see like children; when we try to be wise we see nothing (Matthew 11:25.)

The tiniest thing we allow in our lives that is not under the control of the Holy Spirit is quite sufficient to account for spiritual muddle, and all the thinking we like to spend on it will never make it clear. Spiritual muddle is only made plain by obedience. Immediately we obey, we discern. This is humiliating, because when we are muddled we know the reason is in the temper of our mind. When the natural power of vision is devoted to the Holy Spirit, it becomes the power of perceiving God’s will and the whole life is kept in simplicity.

[From Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest Selections for the Year (Grand Rapids, MI: Discovery House Publishers, 1993, c1935), September 14.]

This morning I encountered that reading above - I like it so much that I posted it here. It rings so true in my life. Without obedience there would be no divine inspiration but instead human imagination. A case in point is Robert Funk and the Jesus Seminar which Mark wrote about.

Back in 2002 when I was considering seminary, one of the three options I considered was Claremont Theological Seminary (and they had more financial scholarships available compared to Talbot and Fuller). But as I spent an afternoon in Borders Books and Music, reading his book "The Five Gospels: What did Jesus really say?", I found the book was just so lousy that I scratched Claremont off my option list. All because Funk was a Professor Emeritus there.

Because I like the heady stuff, I need to heed Paul's advice closely: "Watch your life and doctrine closely. Persevere in them, because if you do, you will save both yourself and your hearers." [1Tim.4:16] Without obedience, it's all imagination and not inspiration.

Sometimes I long for death

Don't take me wrong; I am not a person who obsesses with death and dying.  I prefer living than dying.  But sometimes I am looking forward to a day when everything is over, when I've finished my own journey and get to be home with my God. 

I want to report to Him, "I've completed the work You've entrusted me with".  And I want to hear from Him, "Well done, my faithful servant!"

Muc Su Thach told me that in the Middle Age, people took the view that living is to prepare to die well.  That view, and perhaps my longing too, was shaped by people like Paul, who wrote:

For to me, living is Christ and dying is gain. If I am to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me; and I do not know which I prefer. I am hard pressed between the two: my desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better; but to remain in the flesh is more necessary for you. [Phil. 1:21-24, RSV]

For Paul, death is better for himself, but life is better for the people around him.  So he chose to live, for others.  On the other hand, most of us afraid of death and prefer life because we want to live for ourselves.  Keep that up and as each day passing by, we would be terrified more and more as we move closer to the grave.

Christ Jesus, since I am remaining on this earth anyway, makes my life counts for others.

On other stuffs:

• Last Saturday I had a chance to squeeze a few hours into Intervarsity IGNITE 05 conference.  Doug Schaupp (who used to be Gary's UCLA IV boss), was very good.  Read his report on some of his work here.  He was speaking in the morning session on Mark 4:26-29 and challenge some of my thinking about scattering the seeds wider, about watching and waiting, about discerning the growth and about putting in the sickle.  Then after so other errants, I caught a great bible study from Ryan about following up new believers based on Acts 9.  From what he show me, I think there are a lot more we need to improve in that area.  Ryan promised to email me some more training materials on it.  Then many of us get together and discuss some more about the postmodern context of our world today and its implication to communicate the good news of God to people.  Fascinate discussion, especially the underlining point about vulverability and Doug's pondering about following Jesus when his life become much more "complicated" with family, 3 kids, mortgage and the other mundance things.  I wish I could get together with Doug to compare our notes as we hack through life issues in following Jesus.
• There were tons of people at our fellowship group last Saturday - I had to get more grocery for Jenney in the middle of the meeting.  But then on Sunday we didn't see a lot of people there.  Any explaination?
• Church board meeting was long.  There were way too much administrative issues to deal with, and they meet only once a month...  Pray for us to figure out the leadership mechanic as our English Worship becoming a "church" without all of the unproductive overhead of the "institution".  We just want to become a community of people who share the same vision of faith.
• Last week someone donate a large amount to our English Ministry.  Please pray for that seed would become fruitful and advance the work of God among us.

Are we HisDominion?

When Israel went out from Egypt, the house of Jacob from a people of strange language,
Judah became God's sanctuary, Israel his dominion.
The sea looked and fled; Jordan turned back.
The mountains skipped like rams, the hills like lambs.
Why is it, O sea, that you flee? O Jordan, that you turn back?
O mountains, that you skip like rams? O hills, like lambs?
Tremble, O earth, at the presence of the LORD, at the presence of the God of Jacob,
who turns the rock into a pool of water, the flint into a spring of water.
[Psalm 114]

The song above described the exodus experience of the ancient Israel as they depart from Egypt and heading toward the promised land.  It mentioned a few supernatural interventions from God, the parting of the Red Sea and the Jordan river; earthquakes; getting water from a rock, etc.  The author asked "Why is it?" to underscore an important point, the Israelites became "God's sanctuary" and "His dominion".

In my life I often desire to see the supernatural displays of God's power.  And I got to see quite a few.  From the dramatic routing of the pirate boats when I escaped out from Vietnam, to rain-stopping prayer, to demon-casting.  I have seen God's power.  The question that I often had is "Why can't I glimpse more of that supernatural world?"  According to the author here, the answer was fairly simple: we would need to be more of God's dwelling and God's subject.

The first concept about God's dwelling were understandable. It's the second concept of "God's dominion" - becoming God's subject is what I am picking up today.  At first, I thought the word was kind of strange - why use "God's dominion" and not "God's people" or "God's country".  So I look up my Hebrew dictionary and began to realize that the underscore idea of the word used there was ruling, controlling, reigning over.  It's the idea of we become obedience to God's ruling.

And most of the time, I want to see the display of God's power without willing to submit myself under God's control.  Our faith community won't see God's visible intervention if we are not willing to abide in His reign.

O God my ruler, reign over my life; guide me in the path of simplicity and fidelity.

On some other random notes... 

• I pray that Jen will also experience God in the way Psalm 114 described here when she's back to RI.  Godspeed Jen!  It was such a blessing to know you and have some awesome conversation with you, including this one.
• Our church dug deep for the Katrina's Relief; I will post the results as soon as I find out.  I haven't post anything on it because concrete actions are more needed than reflection in this case. Besides, I had work through this issue of "Where was God when this happened?" back in the wake of the Asian Tsunami through a study from John 11.
• This strong-language secular blog spoke out very well on the issue, as well John Piper's defense for God.  If you want to continue to track front line relief effort, you can follow this Intervarsity blog.