I wish I could improve my delivery

I was just finished watching my taped-message last month. I was afraid to watch it right afterward. So far, it was good enough for my audience and for my formerly-ESL self. But there are much more rooms for improvement on the delivery:

• My diction needs improvement - sometimes I couldn't even understand what I was saying. May be going slower to start. Good pronounciation would help.
• Watch the movement - I found an advice on public-speaking today that “whatever you do, do it on purpose.” A step here and a step there on stage defeated that maxim. Another article suggested that if the speaker need to move, move at least 3 steps in the same direction for a certain purpose.
• My expressive hand-gestures was a bit much. Less would be more in this case.
• I am so grateful that I preach with PowerPoint - most of the time, the hearers' focus would be about the text on the slides, and not so much on me. I would be distracted even watching myself.
• My pitch needs to be lower.

Alright, I will be preaching again next week - time to focus on these minor improvements... I am glad that I am not a secular public speaker. There is so much power in the Word of God which changes lives to rely on (rather than some limited human invention for pursuasive speech). All I need to do is to make sure that less of me (the messenger) interfering with God's message for his people.

I feel lost examining foot prints in the desert of church philosophy

I am just finishing two days of haphazardly planning for next year with An. We were thinking out loud with each others, confessing our fears and our weaknesses and dreaming about being faithful with what God entrusted us with.

The two persons who read this blog regularly will probably pick up that most of the time I am dazed and confused by the many voices I learned from. Often I hold opposite views in my mind at the same time while weighting their worth by Scripture – and the views themselves always came standard with Scripture support – which made my job of discerning harder than ever.

But what often got left out from most views presented are the contexts.

In the economy of God, if the messenger is as important as the message, then why are we discounting the context of the views?

I have heard of the “emerging church” for a while, but lately I have been studying the “purpose-driven-church” view from Tony Morgan and his peers as well. Both views are equally convinced.

The critical question is what’s our context? Will the Vietnamese American context fit with the EC or the PDC view?

A local American pastor has been training many Vietnamese church leaders around here on PDC for the last 6 months. The last two Vietnamese World Christian Fellowship leadership conferences was focus on PDC too.

But no Vietnamese church (in any known denomination) has reported any progress made with the PDC philosophy yet. Could the following quote from an EC blog point out the contextual problem:

Virtually all of those who are attracted to the relevant service were raised in church or are currently going to another church -- they are not the never-churched

In short: Vietnamese people are not quite evangelized yet as a whole.

But by the same token, the EC direction will offer nothing for us too. “Postmodern” church has a premise that you can return to the “ancient future” of the church. But Vietnamese is not even modernistic (theologically) in their thinking yet, so there would be nothing for us to return to.

Except for Scripture.

And on that basis, church is messy, church is dysfunctional, church is to figuring where’s the Spirit is moving and move with Him. Church is a family for you after your family disowns you. Church is your friends and peers. Church is where you are loved. Church is where you invest your future. Church is your sweat and blood. Church is where the Power was seen. Church is where the Living Word was heard.

We are the representatives of God, we are the aliens in the strange land, we are each other’s family, we will keep moving from views to views, EC is fine, PDC is fine. Wherever the Presence setting down we will encamp, and whenever the fiery clouds take off we will go.

We have no idea of where we are going as a church. We don’t have a road map, but we can read foot prints from other, and we have a compass...

Church sizes and preaching pastoring leaders

Over in the UK Finland, Lorna was discussing about church sizes. And this is what I chimed in:

I don't like big church setting - but I also need to be careful that my desire for a more intimate setting wouldn't just shut people out from knowing God through our community. There is always the tension between preaching and pastoring. In preaching, proclaiming to a great crowd is more desirable. But in pastoring, shepherding to a smaller group is more desireable. Many churches compensate this by calling their pastors "small group leaders". What do you think?

My bilical conviction is that church pastors will always need to both. In Acts 6 you found Peter empowered the deacons so that the Apostles can be more focus on the ministry of "Prayer and the Word". Many have used that as the precedent for preaching-only. But a few chapters later, we also Peter came and visited Docas, so he did some pastoral care too.

But what should be the ratio? If I must shepherd a church all by myself, then 50/50 ratio is a statistically baseline. As we build up more leaders, the pastoral functions could be shifted to other leaders, but ultimately the pastor should not end up in preaching-only position. He would need to commit to personal pastoral care time so that he would be close to the flock, know them well and can address their needs. It also challenges him to live out his faith daily as well.

O, how I am so afraid of the work in pastoral care. It's hard and painful. But I know that Christ wouldn't have it differently for me.

Would a pastor be better off coming from within the congrgation?

It's kind of interesting to "hire from within". I've known An since he was 19 back in 1996. When he first came then, I suggested that he joined me in the ministry team for the college fellowship group, and his reply was "I am still young so I want to have some fun first..." As he grew in the faith, eventually he came on board a year later, get the ministry experience for three years with the college ministry and and was sent to lead the High School ministry for another two years after that. Then he was moved to get a master in theology in Canada. After 2.5 years of schooling, he had been back for a year now, slowly adjusting to life after the mountain top...

Now, when he was sitting across from me as we discuss our intent to call him to pastor our group, he raised the questions of our policy on vacation, noting that "I am still young so I want to have time for fun..." I remembered the same line he said back then... Sure, God will eventually has His way on the people who submit to Him. May be it was just my prayer for him.

But reflect upon the decision to "hire from within", I cannot help but thinking of the difference would it made if we were to "hire from the outside". I think we would be more hopeful from an outsiders, we would be easily more impressed with their first take, then we would also need to adjust with the honeymoon effects wearing off. With An, we know his gifts as well as his quirks. We should be able to be more realistically help him grow and he would know how to help us grow too.

What do you think? Would a pastor be better off coming from within the congrgation?

Meet up with another blogger...

It’s almost 9pm on a strange night. Usually I am not free on 9pm Saturday. That would be the time when our group finishing up the weekly fellowship meeting and start getting ready for dinner. But tonight, both the High School group and the College group went out after having dinner earlier at 7pm. The church was empty by 8:30pm. Very strange in deed. DJ Chuang dropped by for a visit today. Friend I made over the Internet from the blogging world. He was out here for GodBlogCon, a conference on blogging, meeting with other blogging friends that he has never met before, including me. Very strange in deed. How do you build Christian community in cyberspace? I’ve wrestled with that question since 1997 - somedays I will share my thoughts on it, but not tonight. For now, I can chalk up that I actually meet more percentage of my blogroll compare to others. Call me old fashioned, but I prefer a few rather the many...

Pastor as head of church board

I am working on building a governance structure for our congregation. One of the interesting things to consider is 1 Tim. 5:17-22 - There, wouldn't you see the local church pastors as among the elders too? They are the head-elders of the board of elders (double honor)

The elders who direct the affairs of the church well are worthy of double honor, especially those whose work is preaching and teaching. For the Scripture says, “Do not muzzle the ox while it is treading out the grain,” and “The worker deserves his wages.” Do not entertain an accusation against an elder unless it is brought by two or three witnesses. Those who sin are to be rebuked publicly, so that the others may take warning. I charge you, in the sight of God and Christ Jesus and the elect angels, to keep these instructions without partiality, and to do nothing out of favoritism. Do not be hasty in the laying on of hands, and do not share in the sins of others. Keep yourself pure.

Then there's some good observation...

A church is not a clinic in which a faceless and interchangeable staff services the clientele by showing up and handing out pills. The staff of a church is a living, breathing family. We may wrestle at times. We may injure one another sometimes and rescue each other at others. But we’re in it together and need one another. — Bruce Larson [Bruce Larson, Paul Anderson and Doug Self, Mastering Pastoral Care, Series Statement from Jacket., Mastering ministry (Portland, Or.; Carol Stream, IL: Multnomah Press; Christianity Today, 1990), 56.]