I12know

I am still here

2007-12-17T10:47:00.000-08:00

04/05/2006: Just blogging a lot on Xanga. Eventually I will move both this and Xanga blogging to WordPress or something! My new site is at: http://I12know.that1.name [Update 12/17/07] (Well the site crashed last year and I haven't have time to rebuild it yet, go here instead: http://www.xanga.com/i12know )

Torch: what's the world is coming to...

2006-01-17T09:59:00.000-08:00

First day of school is today. (For those who don't know much about me, I am a network/software-development manager for a local community college in my day job. I have been working there for over 15 years now).

As I was walking across the campus today, I couldn't believe what I see on the cover of our college's magazine Torch: a stripper! And a subtitle for the lead article: "Not Your Mom's Part-Time Job: students strip to pay for school" (racy cover picture coming up soon - I forgot my webcam at home today).

Now this is too much!

I've been a very tolerable person at work. Our diversity officer is an open homosexual person - she brought the subject up in our diversity/sexual-harassment training here at work. When they invited gays and lesbians on campus to talk about diversity and discrimination, I attended - voluntarily - so that I could learn more about what's going on. And the diversity officer generally has been doing a good job in making sure that swimsuit calendars are removed from cubicles, that offensive jokes won't be told in the classroom, that racial remarks will be deal with swiftly.

And now this?

We are living in a world where relativism reigns - "What's right for you is OK for you! But don't impose your standards on me!" Even church goers believe that as well.

In the most recent communication about tolerance, TV came up with a show named "The Book of Daniel". The show focuses on a drug-addicted Episcopal priest who has a wife who downs mid-day martinis, a 23-year-old son who is a homosexual Republican, a 16-year-old daughter who sells marijuana and a 16-year-old adopted son who is having sexual relations with the bishop’s daughter. The show, produced by a homosexual ex-Catholic, also includes a figure called “Jesus,” who wears a white robe and beard and casually converses with the main character.

The main character in the show, Daniel Webster, laid out an overly tolerant theology during the show’s premiere, saying temptation is not really a bad thing because if not for sin there would be no need for redemption. Furthermore, a person who has sinned should not ask forgiveness of anyone until he has first forgiven himself, Webster said.

And sadly, instead of what many might expect, some leaders of the Episcopal Church are not offended by the portrayal of their denomination broadcast every Friday night on most NBC stations. Instead, they embrace “The Book of Daniel,” as R. Albert Mohler noted in a recent commentary when he wrote Jan. 13 on albertmohler.com. (Mohler is the president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky. a conservative denomination, while the Episcopals in the US are the most liberal - they are even ordaining homosexual bishop in the name of love and progress last year.)

And an official at All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena, Calif., where the show’s first episode was filmed, said she was enthusiastic about the series because she thinks “it’s a realistic portrayal of a faithful man facing 21st century challenges.” She even expects it to attract new members to the denomination.

So, as the world begins to degenerate into incoherent chaos because of its rejection for moral absolute, what are we supposed to do as people who follow Christ? We are supposed to take on the persecution for our belief. But in the local sense, what am I supposed to do to counter the blatant wrongs I see display on my college's magazine here? How am I to engage all this?

I had an idea about what I would be doing; but I am waiting for some of your comments first...

Reason to be Strong and Courageous: The Lord YOUR God Will Be With YOU

2006-01-02T12:11:00.000-08:00

“Be strong and courageous, for you shall give this people possession of the land which I swore to their fathers to give them. Only be strong and very courageous; be careful to do according to all the law which Moses My servant commanded you; do not turn from it to the right or to the left, so that you may have success wherever you go. This book of the law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it; for then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have success. Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous! Do not tremble or be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.” Joshua 1:6-9, NASB It is strange that the phrase “be strong and courageous” was repeated here three times in these four verses while it didn’t appear at all in the previous verses yesterday. Why is it that they need to “be strong and courageous”? It is not to cross of the Jordan River, and it is not because of the “place on which the sole of your foot treads”. The first “be strong and courageous” refer to the responsibility we have: “for you shall give this people possession of the land which I swore to their fathers to give them.” Why me, you may wonder. Through out history, God has always chosen to work with people and through people, especially the ordinary and weak people. God is personal. To know Him is to personally get involved with Him. Let’s get more personal with God, shall we? Please fill-in the blanks below with your name and re-read the passages: “Be strong and courageous, for ____________ shall give this people possession of the land which I swore to their fathers to give them.” Oh my – what a responsibility and privilege! How shall we fulfill such a role? Re read what God spoke and imagine that it was directed to you personally and not just Joshua: “Only be strong and very courageous; be careful to do according to all the law which Moses My servant commanded YOU; do not turn from it to the right or to the left, so that YOU may have success wherever YOU go. This book of the law shall not depart from YOUR mouth, but YOU shall meditate on it day and night, so that YOU may be careful to do according to all that is written in it; for then YOU will make YOUR way prosperous, and then YOU will have success.” No matter how much we wish for a miraculous short-cut to answer all issues of life, Godly men and women pointed us back to the basic nutritional law from God: We are to read God’s Word (the text said “not depart from mouth”), we are to ponder about it (“meditate day and night”), and we are to take action (“be careful to do”) according to that Word. Think back on all the problems (not persecutions) you’ve encountered in your life, school, work, in your family or your church. There is no way you could say, “I/we have carefully read, studied, and followed what the Bible said, yet the problems were unavoidable.” We instinctively know the good standard, yet our natural tendency is to drift away from the Word of God. This is why God said, be “very courageous” when it comes to the renewal of our obedience to God. But then there is more than just your effort to follow God’s law. We can never attain righteousness by our own effort. God invites us to yet another level of being “strong and courageous!” He encourages us, saying, “Do not tremble or be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.” God wants to travel with us on the journey, strengthen us to follow His way. God is with us – Immanuel. Will you trust Him enough to follow His way in every personal aspect of your life? Is the Lord your God? Fill out the final blanks with your name here: “Be strong and courageous! Do not tremble or be dismayed, for the Lord _______’s God is with _______ wherever _______ goes.” Godspeed!

Stepping Up

2005-12-01T20:09:00.000-08:00

“Moses My servant is dead; now therefore arise, cross this Jordan, you and all this people, to the land which I am giving to them, to the sons of Israel. 3Every place on which the sole of your foot treads, I have given it to you, just as I spoke to Moses. 4From the wilderness and this Lebanon, even as far as the great river, the river Euphrates, all the land of the Hittites, and as far as the Great Sea toward the setting of the sun will be your territory. 5No man will be able to stand before you all the days of your life. Just as I have been with Moses, I will be with you; I will not fail you or forsake you.”

Joshua 1:2-5, NASB

The exact phrase from God was proclaimed by Moses previously, “Every place on which the sole of your foot treads, I have given it to you” (in his sermon from Deuteronomy 11:24). But the original promise went back four-hundred years from God to Abraham, “Arise, walk about the land through its length and breadth; for I will give it to you” (Genesis 13:17).

But why walk at all? Isn’t the God of heaven and earth incapable of teleporting His people over the Jordan, beaming them through the wall of Jericho, and scattering them all over the land? If He could inflict deadly plagues on the Egyptians (and the Israelites later when they sin against Him); why then wouldn’t He do so for this Canaanite conquest?

Isn’t this the same miracle we hoping for in our modern days? Many of us came up this mountain seeking for an amazing encounter with God; the one encounter which would set us straight forever; the one where God would take away our ability to sin. The one which will be better than all of our mountaintop experiences in the past.

And we forgot that God is not only of the extraordinary, but also of the ordinary as well. He’s not just the Supreme Being over the entire universe, but he’s also the frail baby in the foul-smelling manger. The same Jesus walk on water was the same Jesus who could not carry his own cross.

“Every place on which the sole of your foot treads, I have given it to you.” Ordinary mean to achieve the extraordinary end. The natural works in order to receive supernatural inheritance.

Spiritual growth often not achieved by leaps and bounds, but through step-by-step, week in and week out. Revival preaching and camps might stir your soul a bit, but Bible reading and prayer will anchor your soul deep.

It might seem mundane but mundane walking will lead to ultimate experiences with God. Didn’t the Israelites experience the wondrous parting of the Jordan River just by walking straight down the river? Didn’t they see the walls of Jericho crumbled just by walking around the city? (Read chapters 3 and 6 for yourselves and see.)

And when not one, not ten, but ten of thousands people walk with God - simply step-by-step, week in and week out - the result will be miraculous: “From the wilderness and this Lebanon, even as far as the great river, the river Euphrates, all the land of the Hittites, and as far as the Great Sea toward the setting of the sun will be your territory.”

If you will do the walking, God will do the conquering. So, the question is “How is your walk?” Spend the next few minutes in prayer or write a letter to God.

Write down 3-5 small steps you could take regularly to be in the land God promised to you.
Why God would wants to grow our spiritual life this way instead of miracle growth?
What miracles have you experienced? What extraordinary things do you see God working in the ordinary living of your life?

Through out the rest of the day, find time to reflect on what God is addressing you here.

After the death... the Lord spoke

2005-11-30T20:08:00.000-08:00

1Now it came about after the death of Moses the servant of the Lord, that the Lord spoke to Joshua the son of Nun, Moses’ servant, saying, 2“Moses My servant is dead; now therefore arise, cross this Jordan, you and all this people, to the land which I am giving to them, to the sons of Israel.”
Joshua 1:1-2

Forty years before this, Moses started the liberation and led the Israelites slaves out of Egypt. They were on their way to the Promised Land. Forty years, which seems to be a whole life time of nomadic wandering. Finally they were getting close to the end. Finally they had a glimpse of the other side of the Jordan River, peering into the land of milk and honey. Anticipations built, dreams accumulated, joy was about to burst forth.

But suddenly all that anticipation ended when “Moses… is dead”. Moses, who always knew “where are we going?” Moses, who was “the servant of the Lord”.

And so what’s next now?

Have you ever felt that way? Lost. Confused. Fragmented.

Enroll in college with “Undecided” as major. Wander the lonely streets when the whole city asleep. Click through the Internet looking for nothing. Chanel surf to the wee hours on a fried-brain. Or wake up with a hangover, ashamed and depressed.

“Now it came about after the death… that the Lord spoke” – God is there, even in our lost and confused fragments.

Worse, have you ever felt the servants of the Lord dead in your soul?

What to do when Christians turn out to be mean people. What to do when the church overlooks us; when even our family seems to forget us. The Christian brother who is in an illicit relationship. The youth leader who is cheating in school. The small group member who is gossiping. The elder who is abusing his kid. The leader and even pastor who is disappointing us deeply.

“Now it came about after the death of Moses the servant of the Lord that the Lord spoke” – God is there, even in our most angry, frustrated and dishearten times.

He spoke. No excuses or apologies. He simply confirmed the fact, “Moses - My servant - is dead.”

God is always here, and He spoke. The question is “Are we listening?” Spend the next few minutes in prayer with God. (You can write your prayer out on the back of this page too, that way you will be reminded later on). You can pray and…

- Presenting to God about the situations of where you are coming from. What are your lost, setbacks, disappointments and issues? Are they distracting you from hearing God’s directives for your lives?

- Asking God to addressing your situations. What would He want you to do: How are you to “arise”? What is the “Jordan” that you must cross? Who should be by your side? Where is God leading you?

Through out the rest of the day, find time to reflect on what God is addressing you here.

Growing your church with stocks or bonds?

2005-11-29T21:55:00.000-08:00

Tony Morgan, the pastor of "Administrative Services" of a mega church recently post an interesting question, which solicited many comments from burnt-out volunteers, and sparked my brain in the process.

I have wrestled with church stuff for a while now, being pulled between many directions: the PDC, the Emergent camp, etc.

It was fascinating to watch the PDC mega-churches grow at the double-digits rate annually, especially with all the latest innovation to lust about.

But then now I realized this cross-polination: Unlike businesses, church should grow by its equity, not by its liability - by stocks and not bonds, using business speak.

While I was in the MBA program, it was surprising for me to learn that the preferred way to finance a company is through issue bonds, not stocks. Bond was considered "other people's money", it's called "leverage". It's the borrow capitals you get from lenders, not your reinvest-earning or saving.

Consider Home Depot - it was surprising for me to learn that this giant was borrowing money up the wazoo from some 30-years bond in order to have enough capitals to keep building big boxes fast enough to saturate the market.

On the other spectrum, there is In-N-Out burger, an excellent fast food chain which is limited to the four states on the Western U.S. because they didn't want to incur debt for expansion. They just want to grow in accordance to their equity growth.

Now let's talk churches.

Technically we could embrace rapid expansion (numerical growth) by borrowing (using what we don't have). Put people into ministry so that they get involved and grow more and keep the church running in the process (which in turn will draw more new people to different programs and services the church has to offer).

Or we could grow the church (even numerically) by reinvest-earning (using what we have). Wait until people matured and reap the fruit of Christian service from them. But this would take way longer.

But there will be less burnt-out, more sustainable, and it would be healthier, and the experience with God would be more enjoyable.

What do you think?

Thoughts about myself and "The Making of a Movement"

2005-11-28T09:02:00.000-08:00

My adopted Net mentor Keith Drury passed on his recipe of The Making of a Movement, in which he discussed the components of... (verbs in [] are mine)

Initiating Leader
[Planning] Sacred Gathering
[Committing to] Worthy Cause
[Maintaining] Frequent Contact
[Creating] Abundant “appurtenances”
[Raising] Economic Resources
[Establishing] Multiplying levels

But first here's my check list against his first component on leaders... (italicizes are my reflection)

Anointed by God—the leader senses a “chosen-ness” for leadership. Strength - I think I had no choice on this matter when it came to this role in Midway.
Chance-Taker—not fearing failure. Weakness - I am very pragmatic, just want to do "what works".
Change-Agent—dissatisfaction with the present; compelled to change things. Strength - but only somewhat since I don't want to break anything either.
Commitment—eat, sleep, walk, talk, and dream about THE GOAL. Strength - commiment: definitetly yes; but what goal?
Concentration—singleness of purpose; "This one thing I do." Strength - May be I am just lazy and don't want to do too many things.
Conviction—unswerving in living according to own standards. Strength - I hope others would perceive me that way though.
Destiny- sense that you have come to the kingdom for this. Strength - yes, my role is to bridge the gap for the next generation.
Drive—working harder and longer than most others. Strength - but in working longer, I don't think I work as hard.
Enthusiasm—so excited that others are attracted to follow. Weakness - I am too boring, analytical and introvert.
Generous—the flow of leadership is to the people not the leader. Huh? I don't get this one.
Goal-Driven—arranging day-to-day activities to achieve long range goals. Weakness - I have a day job to keep.
Imaginative—not limited by conformity; drawn to new ways to do things. Strength - I try to be creative.
Initiator—starts things, “initiates initiatives.” Weakness - I don't start things enough.
Passionate—really cares about the cause; spins like a “small sprocket”. Strength - I do, but limited to my local church mostly.
People-Person--regardless of my natural temperament. Weakness - I need to work on this.
Persistent—just won’t stop even when coming up against barriers. Strength - Did I say that I stayed at this longer than most?
Persuasive—you motivate, inspire, and challenge other people to action. Not sure about this - may be strength because I see more people growing to leadership in my church than other churches.
Positive--insist on seeing the brighter side of all situations. Weakness - I am forever pessimisstic.
Standing Alone—able to withstand the loneliness of leadership. Strength - Did I say that I am an introvert?
Vision—seeing what God wants to accomplish through your leadership. Weakness - most of the time I have no clue where I am going...

What is your strengths and weaknesses based on this?

Butt-ugly Church

2005-11-22T08:27:00.000-08:00

Did you ever see that handsome guy every girl on campus wanted show up at the alumni banquet with a real dog of a wife? You say under your breath, “how did she get him? That’s how I used to feel about Jesus and the church. Why would He select such a dog? Face it, the church is no hottie. I saw her warts, her limp, her scars and the open running sores on her face. “Seems like Jesus could do better.” Yet He chose the church to be His bride. He loved her enough to die for her. He died to make her holy, purifying her so that she will be “without spot or wrinkle” in eternity. She’s may appear drab and uncomely to me but to Jesus she’s a beauty. If anything proved the adage, “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder” it is this choice of His. Here’s what I’ve found through life. The older I’ve got the better I’m able to see the church like He does—as a thing of beauty. Maybe it is just a change that comes with aging. When I was a kid-preacher I wanted the church to be delectable sexy model of perfection in order to be worthy of Christ (and worthy of me too). But as I’ve gotten older I have come to see the church more like Christ must see her. I no longer compare the church to some air-brushed fantasy that doesn’t exist. Christ loves her “as is” and has tremendous hope for her. I suppose if you wrestled me to the ground I’d have to admit she is not very pretty—but I’ve decided she is a beauty for one reason—He thinks she’s beautiful.

-Keith Drury

Would you still value what you didn't pay a high price for?

2005-11-14T08:55:00.000-08:00

I am still thinking about baptism. It was something amazing.

Many brought their friends, family and relatives. Tons of people. No doubt most came from different belief background. Not all was very approving of the decision of following Christ from our friends. I know of disapproval from as close as a spouse, who wasn't there. But there are many other friends and family who were there to support, even they might question the whole thing...

Amazed by these bold public statement of faith, I couldn’t help but wonder: would the Gospel be perceived as less valuable to us – the one who grew up in a supportive Christian environment – because we didn’t have to pay a high cost for it?

One manager friend at my work place is tetering the edge of a divorce because his wife against his decision to follow Christ...

Top Ten Mistakes Good Leaders Tend to Make

2005-11-12T11:45:00.000-08:00

Muc Su Thach shared with me a handout he picked up from his recent summit in Atlanta. These things MIGHT BE applicable to all of us.

1. Success without Successors This is the #1 leadership shortfalls for people... Think team and start planning your departure the day you begin.

2. Lone-Ranger Leadership (a lack of letting go) This is the #2 leadership shortfall for people... You are not superman (or superwoman), so stop trying to fly by yourself. Network, connect, and get others involved!

3. Visionless Leadership (no direction) Why is your group doing what it's doing... [Your] ministry have limited resources and you have limited time, make the most of it!

4. Trying to Do Too Much Focus on process-oriented, momentum building issues ONLY... then, run hard after the best ideas and implement them well.

5. Communication Chaos The larger and more spread out the group, the more attention must be given to communication... communication should be a passionate obsession for effective leaders.

6. No Room for Up-and-Comers Many people ignore, or are even afraid of up-and-comers... DON'T BE! If they're big horses, invite them to join you in plowing.

7. Passionless Duty Effective people must be leaders who lead, not managers who maintain... this is leadership, not duty.

8. Winging It Winging might be accepted on your home turf because of relationships and trust, but you will never have the same level of relationships or trust at the [upper] level... winging it just won't fly.

9. Misinterpreting the Corporate Culture [Upper] structures can be even more "corporate" than many churches... be a "politically savvy" leader; learn to respect your [upper] corporate culture and make changes from within.

10. Worrying about who's NOT Involved (instead of focusing on who IS involved) Design events to serve well the churches already involved (including YOUR church), then invite others to join you... if you build it (and build it well), they will come.

So what do you think? The reason I wrote that, "these things MIGHT BE applicable to all of us" because we should "evaluate all things, then hold on to what is good" - what if these are just conventional management wisdom and not Biblical? I will be doing some more thinking on these items in the next few days and post them here, feel free to do some thinking of your own too so we can sharpen one another...

Short update Nov.05

2005-11-11T23:43:00.000-08:00

Dave Gibbons is now blogging from NewSongBangkok - how exciting! One more to glean from... (ht: djchuang) Tod has something profound to say about Christian community: that we would be known by how we fight and confront one another but without destroying each other.

On another note, Timmy turned 6 yesterday. I had to work last night but I made up to him this morning by taking him to see Chicken Little. Don't see that movie if you don't have a good relationship with your dad.

In regard to church, we will baptize 16 people from our English Congregation this Sunday, 6 of them didn't have blood relation to anyone else in church. Awesome!

The call of our church...

2005-11-02T08:11:00.000-08:00

Mariners children ctr.Sometimes I lust after other churches.

After watching the videos from Andy Stanley's Drive Conference 05 (free on-line thanks to their generosity and the power of the Internet), my gut was swollen with desires: "Wouldn't it be great if the environment of our church would be as appealing as their, so that we could create an attractive place for people to come to Christ?"

My cousin Josh recently visited a few other mega churches in the region: Mariners, Saddleback and came back raving about how plush is their campus, and how prominent is their children ministry center. And I felt my gut swolen again.

Even my neighboring Vietnamese church down the freeway from us is doing a big building drive to add a gym onto their campus as they focus on the next generation at their church. I was drooling after the floor plan: "Nice!"

And here in our ghetto church, we sit - sometimes lusting after other churches.

If church was like business, the other churches would be our competitors, going after the same market for souls.

If church was like business, you want to differentiate yourself in the highend target audience and be the Nordstroms and Sak Fifth of the churches, where you could attract wealthy clients so that you could have better profit margin and more stable growth no matter if the economy was up or down.

If church was like business, you would draw more clients by give them what they ask for and pay attention to their needs, providing excellent experience according to what they are willing to pay for.

But church is not like business.

The body of Christ is here on earth to do the work of Christ. Some parts of the body seems to be highly esteem, and some parts seems to be lowly. But regardless of their different perceptions, all the parts would work together to serve a common purpose, directed by the head - Christ. Each church has its call to fulfill. Mariners church were surrounded by multi-million-dollars home; give it a ghetto's look and no one from those neighborhood would step through its door. In contrast, the previous owner of our church property wanted to expand the church to take up the whole block, complete with underground parking - and that plan was met with much resistance from the neighbors living around.

In our planning session a week ago between An and I, we realized that we won't be a "successful" church (in the 3B term of buildings, bodies and bucks). Have you noticed the recurring theme of people who God brought into our church? People who were broken and hurt, and people who were seeking hard after God.

I asked Hai last night in our career small group about why did he leave Mariner; after all it has everything a parents would want for their kids: top of the line children ministry complete with its own Disneyland style theme rooms. On top of that, they have great teaching and preaching and multitude of other programs and activities too.

And he said that God was leading him on his quest to serve Him in a community focus environment, and that's why he came back to our church.

We won't be big and we won't be plush. Somehow it pleases God to have us continue to be a community that care for one another and minister to the broken world around us. That's our calling even though it may not be an exciting vision.

Sometimes I lust after other churches. But that's not right.

I pray that God will help us grow in our faithfulness to our church own calling. At least until He call us to somewhere else.

People of God from this world form the next world

2005-11-01T12:04:00.000-08:00

Recently I felt lost examining footprints in the desert of church philosophy. But perhaps I forgot about our own strength in the Vietnamese Church tradition.

Pastor Brad Hightower in Artesia lamented about the crisis among the American church where "the church is in a crisis because the limited role church plays in the life of the believer in North America." This crisis was big enough to set off the Emergent Church movement where people long to "do church" differently, namely by "do life together" more.

I believe that this modern crisis was brought about because modern progress. Generally, our society spins faster and faster. People are constantly on the move, especially for the metropolitans. A few decades ago we can count on the fact that people will stick around in the same community so that we can "do life" together. But today global economy made it harder to maintain relationship, let alone some deeper relationship. People moved to study, moved to get a better job. Constant movements produce shallower root in the community, especially in the community of faith.

In that fast pace and constant movement of the most progressive country in the world, the Vietnamese church was planted here 30 years ago from its background of a third world backward small country. And because of that tradition, our churches really known for its community aspect (and perhaps the same way with other immigrant churches). We are church-of-the-ghetto (using the original meaning of "ghetto" as describing Jewish quarters in Europe a couple hundred years ago).

Church for us become even closer than family.

I and my younger brother live in the same city. I live on the east end and he live on the west end, separated by ten freeway exits. We haven't seen each others since our cousin's wedding six months ago. He serve at a church different than mine; and at this point we would be closer to other people in church rather than our own brother.

If the church were to be a community that "do life together", it will requires more time than just the weekend service. It also requires us to cut out some other social activities to make time for "life together". The hyperactive life style of SoCal subculture and the pursuit of multiple extra-curricular activities for the sake of University preference would be harmful to healthy relationship with the community.

Interestingly the American churches was once like our communal ethnic churches (Keith Drury wrote that the traditional church community was actually like that). What happened? They got spinned by the culture around them out of balance, to the point that some American churches are focusing on "The Weekend Experience" for the people, and many other American churches are relying on Small Groups to build a version of community for the people.

The other day An and I was discussed about the concept of community. The plain concept of community involved geographical proximity: people live around a place, have the same school, like the same food, and celebrate the same festival. The concept of community in the American Christian circle has more commuting aspect rather than geographical proximity, they gathered together by common purpose rather than common place. And the ethnic churches like ours would be a blend of the two. We would be able to understand the common purpose aspects as well as the common proximity aspects.

In time our churches will probably lose its unique communal aspects as we get assimilate more and more with the spinning culture around us. Some would lament the loss of "the true community atmosphere". But many others wouldn't careless because they could not lose what they did not have (just like the average consumers could not know that the chicken they consumed at the local supermarket would not taste comparable to a traditional "ga di bo" farm raised/roam-around chickens). But on the other hand, new aspects of community will begin to emerge (like church website forums and xanga and blogs).

No matter what are the forms, the principles from Scripture would be the same: community is about the people gathered by God in this eon to prepare for the next eon; from this world to form the next world.

I wish I could improve my delivery

2005-10-29T09:55:00.000-07:00

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

2005-10-26T22:03:00.000-07:00

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

2005-10-24T16:07:00.000-07:00

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?

2005-10-24T15:29:00.000-07:00

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...

2005-10-15T22:26:00.000-07:00

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

2005-10-13T19:50:00.000-07:00

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.]

Vaccination Against Church Split

2005-09-26T13:47:00.000-07:00

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

Good advice for self

2005-09-22T08:39:00.000-07:00

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...

2005-09-19T10:35:00.000-07:00

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"

2005-09-17T16:45:00.000-07:00

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

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

Gravitas.

2005-09-16T22:48:00.000-07:00

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

2005-09-16T10:43:00.000-07:00

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

2005-09-13T09:51:00.000-07:00

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?

2005-09-07T17:04:00.000-07:00

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.

Learning from Song of Solomon #2

2005-08-27T07:47:00.000-07:00

Girl:

⁵Dark am I, yet lovely, O daughters of Jerusalem, dark like the tents of Kedar, like the tent curtains of Solomon.
⁶Do not stare at me because I am dark, because I am darkened by the sun. My mother’s sons were angry with me and made me take care of the vineyards; my own vineyard I have neglected.
[Song of Solomon 1:5-6, NIV]

Women are always very conscientious about their looks. Even the girl knows that herself is lovely (in reality she was beautiful enough as the love of King Solomon,) she is more focus about the inadequacy of her skin tone. David A. Hubbard said that, “Her song of self-description points to her modesty at best – ‘who am I to deserve such an attractive and admirable man?’ - and her self-deprecation at worst – ‘I am so unworthy of him that I don’t want you, my Jerusalemite friends, to remind me of it.’” Whatever the case, she concerns about her look.

The reason that she didn’t look good was that she was a working girl (her brothers made her caretaker of the vineyard), and so she have neglected herself. There’s a lesson here to learn. This girl is not just out caring for physical self, but she is willing to submit to her family’s authority. She works hard as well. What a woman.

Application: Strengthen your mate’s beauty. A psychiatrist pastor friend of mine suggested:

First, look at your wife’s beauty. Get her beauty clearly in your mind—let it become the primary visual effect she has on you.

Second, find a way to convince her of her beauty; do this at least a couple of times each day. Sincerity is important (refer to the first bit of advice). It is important that you mean what you say and it is even more important that she be convinced that you mean it. (This morning I mentioned my wife’s ability to select clothes that compliment her beauty as she dressed for work….)

Third, at some point your appreciation of her beauty and her joyful response to your love will allow the reintegration of the rib to its proper place near your heart (Gen. 2:21 and related verses).

I still having problem complimenting my wife on her beauty more. Someone had suggested that I would write to her.

O God, help me to affirm my love one of her beauty more.

Learning from Song of Songs #1

2005-08-18T11:29:00.000-07:00

I am starting my meditation on Song of Solomon to ascertain some misperceptions I had on love and relationship. The Song was written like dialogs in a musical, and this is how it started out…

Girl:

2 Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth - For your love is more delightful than wine. 3 Pleasing is the fragrance of your perfumes; Your name is like perfume poured out. No wonder the maidens love you! 4 Take me away with you - let us hurry! Let the king bring me into his chambers.

Maidens:

We rejoice and delight in you; We will praise your love more than wine.

Girl:

How right they are to adore you! [Song of Solomon 1:2-4, NIV]

Who would have thought you found reference to French kiss right in the middle of the Bible here. The girl started out with a song of yearning. Her lover wasn’t there; that’s why she referred to "him" at first. But then her mind starts daydream, and the "him" become "you". In her imagination, he was right there with her.

Women have deep longing. They are more emotionally wired; and they are delighted to be love. But love must be concreted. It was a specific action that she long for: affections shown by showering of kisses. The physical aspect of her lover matters too, his smell and his physique. His character is solid and held in high repute ("Your name…"). And she is proud of the fact that he was loved by her girlfriends, the maidens. The end of this opening climatic at the point where the girl daydreams about being whisked away – run and not walk – into his bedroom for passionate love-making.

Sizzle! Wow, this is hot.

Application: Often I think too much and don’t love as much. There are quite a few Puritanical misconceptions that I have about love and relationship. Women have their desires. They may not be anti-sexual like many people made them out to be. It’s also a fallacy to believe that women don’t care about how men look and just focus on their characters. They both matter. It is also a fallacy to believe that women don’t want sex. They do.

Dear God – Perhaps I am sexually repressive. Please help me to correct my wrong perceptions and align my belief toward the reality You have constructed.
PS: One more thing I learn: it is important to make her proud about you when she's in conversations with her friends too.

On Purposed-Driven-Church Methodology and "Repent and Believe"

2005-08-18T07:55:00.000-07:00

Recently, there were quite a few things messing with my head and made me rethink a bit about the Seeker-Sensitive Church Movement. So far, I have always been on the look out for waterdown-the-Gospel but I read dilligently about stuff from both the proponent and the opponent sides. Here're some recent dialogs I had... (The first few are some backgrounds, my major thinking is the last item). 1) Peter Bogert linked to an article entitled The Gospel According to Rick Warren on his site. After I read the article, I took it out on Peter:

I am not a Warren's fan, so hear me out on this. The other day when preaching on Samson, I had to change the way I talked about "mixed-marriage". Realizing the significant percentage of seekers in the audience made me explaining to THEM why Christians are so "strict" in that regard. Without them there, I would exhort the same point differently to the church kids. I think Warren's message might be misunderstood because the lack of the surrounding context. Like instructions given to 3-years-old would be different to 17-years-old.

Graciously he replied:

Bumble: Thanks for your comment. The point of quoting the article about Warren was not to bash him, but to point out two very common aspects of evangelicalism's approach to evangelism. The first is that Christ solves your problems and that's why you need Him. Dealing with sinfulness becomes incidental to that larger point. The second is that repeating a prayer nets eternal life.

I then sent him my appology:

You are right. The "sinner prayer" is not very biblical. And you didn't bash Warren in your posr at all. I should have direct my comment to Slice of Laodicea instead. I guess I was chicken to do that and posted my comment here instead...

2) The same day as above, I started looking at the notes Tony Morgan offered at his Strategic Growth workshop for the churches. It feel a bit strange. (I downloaded a copy of the notes for further analysis if I have time later on in life).

3) Then last week Rick linked to an 11-parts short story of "Jesus Outed in Megachurch". After I read through the whole thing, I feel sorry for the PDC people. Implicate that Jesus was gagged and tied-up by PDC today are just plain mean!

4) After that, reading Tony Morgan linked to "Buzzmarketing" and I went off again:

So, do you agree that "Tony markets his church just like we market our products and services"?
How about his statement of "I’m a business speaker, inspiring and teaching. He delivers a sermon, inspring and teaching. Both Tony and I are on a mission to spread the word about spreading the word (in my case Buzzmarketing, in his case religion)"?
I am not saying that marketing is bad, but if the gospel can truly be advanced by just marketing appeal, then where is then the power of the Gospel? How are we really depending on God?
What then can we make of the following words from Paul: "Hasn’t God exposed [the world's wisdom] all as pretentious nonsense? Since the world in all its fancy wisdom never had a clue when it came to knowing God, God in his wisdom took delight in using what the world considered dumb—preaching, of all things!—to bring those who trust him into the way of salvation.While Jews clamor for miraculous demonstrations and Greeks go in for philosophical wisdom, we go right on proclaiming Christ, the Crucified. Jews treat this like an anti-miracle—and Greeks pass it off as absurd. But to us who are personally called by God himself—both Jews and Greeks—Christ is God’s ultimate miracle and wisdom all wrapped up in one. Human wisdom is so tinny, so impotent, next to the seeming absurdity of God." (The Message's rough equivalence of 1 Cor.1:18-25)
Please hear me out - I am not one of those who against mega-church. I read your blog daily because there are much to learn from your ministry. I just want to hammer out some of "in the world but not of the world" practicalities here.

And Tony clarified the matter right away...

Bumble, Bumble, Bumble... You don't really think I believe it's all about a slick marketing campaign, do you? Marketing can't transform lives. Only Jesus can transform lives. Where Mark and I are in agreement, though, is that we can help influence the dialogue people are having about our ministry. Remember, 75% of the people who show up for the first time are coming because of the invitation of a friend. We can call that "evangelism." Mark calls it "buzzmarketing." All I'm suggesting is that I learned some principles from Mark's book that might help our ministry remain relevant in today's media intensive culture. And, not to be arrogant, but I think the business world has the chance to learn some best practices from the church. So, I'm glad Mark was willing to point others to WiredChurches.com even though a couple of his facts weren't exactly accurate. For example, I don't do sermons...outside of my blog. :-)

And I acknowledged it immediately.

Phew! Thanks for the clarification...

I must have a case of recursive thinking, I read something from somewhere else, carried it in my head for some times, thene brought it up and argued about it with people who is not even related in the original context.

5) And now, to continue the processing in my head. I am reading N.T. Wright's "The Challenge of Jesus: Rediscovering Who Jesus Was and Is" and D. Martin Lloyd-Jones's "Out of the Depths: Restoring Fellowship With God".

N. T. Wright in his book, The Challenge of Jesus, talks about our understanding of the words "repent and believe", and the first century’s understanding of the words repent and believe. We often understand "repent and believe" as renounce sins and take up religion. But it was not how the words was understood originally. Wright makes this case by talking about the Jewish historian, Josephus. Before Josephus became a historian, he was a military officer. He was sent to Galilee, the same place that Jesus’ questions come from. Josephus is sent to Galilee to quiet down a rebel group that is trying to stir up the populace against Rome. Josephus says to that rebel group, “Repent, and believe in me.” Translated what he is saying is, “Give up your agenda of bringing war against Rome, and follow my directions.” When Jesus says “Repent, and believe in me,” what he is saying to all who will hear him is, “Give up your agenda and accept my agenda, and follow me.”

And the topic of "repent and believe" was the topic of discussion in my last three Sunday Schools as well as the last few weekly Believers' lunch I had at work. In all of these discussions, we discussed "repent and believe" as how 21st century people understand it, and not as what N.T. Wright wrote about.

So this threw me in for a loop: "Did I misunderstood 'repent and believe' all along? Is dealing with sins a more recent theological construct?" Only a few days before, I was being critical of the the modern tendency for an "easy-believism" (believe without repentance). But now, I am not even sure about what does it mean by "repent and believe" any more.

Reading the second book from D. Martin Lloyd-Jones worked my brain the other way. The book was actuall four expository sermons on Psalm 51. It is about sin. It is about repentance from sin.

Then I came to the realization that both of them were talking about the same thing. Repentance of sin is a subset of the bigger "Give up your agenda" concept. Wright is not contradicting the historical theological interpretation of "Repent and Believe", he was just showing us a larger picture (for most of us, we will repent our wrong doings and keep on living according to our own agenda).

And if so, what if the PDC methodology was just reversing the process of "repent and then believe" to "believe and then repent"? If the ultimate goal was life change in Jesus, then does it matter if we get people to believe in Jesus first and then start renouncing their sinful lifestyle eventually? Wright made a startling remark that the church had never been this relevant to daily life as it is right now. Quite a different view on the good-ol-day isn't it?

To cap it off, since Jesus didn't say "repent then believe" and just mention the two components side by side, the PDC methodology may has some freedom in rearranging the order of the process. Even Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones wrote in the book, "We must be very careful that we do not insist upon various steps and stages [...] happening in a particular chronological order. There are some people who are always anxious to standardize everything and I am not here to contend for that. What I am saying is that in every case of conversion, in every case of repentance, there are certain common elements. There is a common pattern, but in some cases one thing comes first and the other follows, in other cases the second thing comes first and the first follows. I do not say it must happen in a standard manner, but I do say that in the absence of a certain things we have never repented, and without repentance we are not Christian." (p.45) So as long as a PDChurch didn't neglect the aspect of repentance, rearraging the order of the process perhaps plausible.

What do you think?

Blog Publishing problems fixed...

2005-08-18T07:00:00.000-07:00

Since the start of July, somehow I could not publish my blog from Blogger at all. All I got is a "550 Permission Denied" error. But I was too busy to look at the problem until today. As the result, there are plenty of posts are being surfaced up as the system catching up...

God could Grant Perceptions

2005-08-16T11:03:00.000-07:00

"Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, "Who do people say that the Son of Man is?" And they said, "Some say John the Baptist, but others Elijah, and still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets." He said to them, "But who do you say that I am?" Simon Peter answered, "You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God." And Jesus answered him, "Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven." Matthew 16:13-20

The question Jesus asked is about perception. What are the perceptions of people about Him, and what is the perception of the disciple about Him. Reality is who Jesus is. Perception is who we think He is. Perception is the avenues which could lead to knowledge of reality. Jesus understood that human limitation and He probed their perceptions of Him for our benefits.

There are a few more things I learned about perceptions. First is that the God’s role in revealing reality to us. There are things that flesh and blood can perceive, and there are things that they can’t. So God has a definite role to play in the opening of the minds. Recently I learned about God’s role in molding our will: human could initiate willfulness, but only God could initiate willingness. (And so we pray God to help us wanting to do the right thing). In the same manner, we should pray that God will lead us to have an accurate perception of reality. (This is one of the recurring fights I had all the time with people: what version of reality is there, how do I know for real, how do you know for real...)

The second thing I learned is that the most important reality is the reality about Jesus. He didn’t ask about their perceptions about who they are, where they come from, and where they are going. The only reality that matters eternally is our perception of the reality of Jesus. Was Jesus real? Is He really present today? Does He really listen to my prayer or is it just my psychobabble? Does He really care about what’s going on today, in my world? If these beliefs are real enough, then it will start affecting my behaviors and my world. True belief will be married to consistent and persistent actions.

The third thing I learned about perception is that even if we thought that we get an accurate perception, there’s still no guarantee that we got the true reality. Peter got an affirmation from Jesus. He even got promoted into “the Rock”. But the following passage revealed that Peter immediately got the wrong idea about who Jesus really is when He started predicting His death.

So, the point to all this was that reality is something we often got it wrong all the time (if we follow the throngs of people around), that God can and will lead us into the knowledge of reality of Christ, and even then there are still much growing that need to be done. Understand this perhaps will humble us more, as this poem I just got yesterday:

>Subject: Shocked in Heaven
>Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2005 22:01:42 +0800
>
> I was shocked, confused, bewildered
> as I entered Heaven's door,
> Not by the beauty of it all,
> by the lights or its decor.
> But it was the folks in Heaven
> who made me sputter and gasp--
> the thieves, the liars, the sinners,
> the alcoholics, the trash.
>
> There stood the kid from seventh grade
> who swiped my lunch money twice.
> Next to him was my old neighbor
> who never said anything nice.
>
> Herb, who I always thought
> was rotting away in hell,
> was sitting pretty on cloud nine,
> looking incredibly well.
>
> I nudged Jesus, "What's the deal?
> I would love to hear Your take.
> How'd all these sinners get up here?
> God must've made a mistake.
>
> And why's everyone so quiet,
> so somber? Give me a clue."
> "Hush, child," said He. "They're all in shock.
> No one thought they'd see you."

O God, I don’t really know anything! Please help align my perception toward your ultimate reality.

Foreknowledge of Rejection

2005-08-10T09:26:00.000-07:00

I ask, then, has God rejected his people? By no means! I myself am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, a member of the tribe of Benjamin. God has not rejected his people whom he foreknew. Do you not know what the scripture says of Elijah, how he pleads with God against Israel? for the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. Just as you were once disobedient to God but have now received mercy because of their disobedience, so they have now been disobedient in order that, by the mercy shown to you, they too may now receive mercy. For God has imprisoned all in disobedience so that he may be merciful to all.

[Romans 11:1-2a, 29-32]

"For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable" even though the Israelites in Paul's time were rejecting Jesus. They were called to obedience so that God's glory might be revealed; but they rejected their calling. However, God's calling on them were irrevocable, and He accomplished His purpose even through their disobedience. And amazingly, God has not rejected them. The mystery is that He foreknew this in advance, that the text even implicate Him for "imprisoning all in disobedience so that He may be merciful to all." If so, then God had already foreknew not just the disobedience, but the response to His mercy from the people in advance! That response to mercy would be the determining factor of who is "His people".

Like all, I am also imprisoned in disobedience. But also to all, God shows His mercy to people including me. Am I His people? Am I the one God didn't reject? It's all boiled down in my rejection to His mercy.

Lord God, thank you for Your mercy shown to me; even in today, the day of my disobedience. I will receive your mercy. I will walk in accordance to your calling and gifts. Make me your people and fulfill Your purpose through my obedience.

Prerequisite for GIGO

2005-08-08T07:36:00.000-07:00

Then he called the crowd to him and said to them, "Listen and understand: it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but it is what comes out of the mouth that defiles." Then the disciples approached and said to him, "Do you know that the Pharisees took offense when they heard what you said?" He answered, "Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be uprooted. Let them alone; they are blind guides of the blind. And if one blind person guides another, both will fall into a pit." But Peter said to him, "Explain this parable to us." Then he said, "Are you also still without understanding? Do you not see that whatever goes into the mouth enters the stomach, and goes out into the sewer? But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this is what defiles. For out of the heart come evil intentions, murder, adultery, fornication, theft, false witness, slander. These are what defile a person, but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile." [Mat.15:10-20]

Religious people are very much into behavioral-control and sin-management. Some how, we believe the GIGO rule: Garbage-In=Garbage-Out. It is true to a certain extent: without the bad inputs, the bad outputs certainly will be lowered. If you hang out with friends who curse all the time, chances are you would be more likely to curse.

But it is more than that. When Jesus said, "it is what comes out of the mouth that defiles" ; it is not really about offensive words. It is about actions from the heart: "what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this is what defiles. For out of the heart come evil intentions, murder, adultery, fornication, theft, false witness, slander."

What Jesus is saying is that our internal engine is already geared to produce bad outputs. Even if you can guard the bad inputs from enter into the heart. Even if you can cut down the amount of bad outputs. The engine had already been malfunctioned, and therefore GIGO principle would not help redeeming the heart much.

Most of the time we try so hard to prevent GIGO (Garbage In Garbage Out), but that would be useless if the heart was not changed first. Without the changing of the heart, all the religiousity would not lead anywhere at all. We will remain like the Pharisee who Jesus condemned: "Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be uprooted. Let them alone; they are blind guides of the blind. And if one blind person guides another, both will fall into a pit."

The plant might be there, it might look just like the other plant which the Father planted. The actions of a religious person could be as righteous as a heart-changed person. But at the end they will be uprooted. The problem is that the distinguishness will only happened "at the end", for the mean time God "let them be". So how would I know that I myself is not a blind person, that I don't have an ungenerated heart, that I won't lead others down the pit? Wouldn't it be too late to find out "at the end"?

In the previous parable 2 chapters prior to this one about "The Weeds and The Wheats" [Mat.13:24-30] The owner of the field commanded his servants to "let them be" until the last day. It is because in God's economy, no one are slotted prematurely. Weeds can turn to wheats. And so, even if I might not have any confident that I am not blind like the Pharisee, I could count on the grace of God, even now, to change my heart toward Him, rather than confidently judging myself based on GIGO principle.

Change my heart O God, make it ever true...

Handouts from Jim Burns on "Keeping Your Ministry and Marriage Healthy"

2005-08-06T07:10:00.000-07:00

[Note: things in square brackets are my comments, not in the handouts ] Page 1: Your Marriage and Ministry

Your greatest ministry is your marriage
Over-commitment and fatigue; the number one problem in youth ministry marriage [Jim has the practice of having your wife approve his schedule; Dave Liverpool has another couple over see their schedule].
Spouse involvement? [in the ministry with you, not in ministry, in another ministry]
Communication [this is why date night is important]
Sex!
Finances, ministry and marriage
Growing spiritually in your marriage
What about children?

Page 2: 10 Traits for a Healthy Ministry family

The Power of Being There: Your children regard your very presence as a sign of caring and connectedness
Express Affirmation, Warmth and Encouragement: Parents who practice AWE-based parenting, as opposed to shame-based parenting, will create a home where children and spouses feel more secure.
Build Healthy Morals and Values: The decision kids make today will often affect them for the rest of their lives.
Discipline with Consistency: Clearly expressed expectations and consistent follow-through produce responsible kids.
Ruthlessly Eliminate Stress: The unbalanced life will not be kind to the areas we neglect.
Communication is the Key: Posititive communication is the language of love for our children
Play is Necessary for a Close-Knit Family: There is nothing like play to bring about family togetherness and communication.
Love Your Spouse: A loving marriage brings hope and security to the children.
The Best Things in Life are not Things: Healthy stewardship and sound financial decisions produce positive family priorities.
Energize Your Family's Spiritual Growth: Your greatest calling in life is to leave a spiritual legacy for your children.

Page 3: Communication Questions and Issues [probably a list use to make sure you cover everything in communication with your spouse]

A. Issues
Goals... Thoughts... Worries... Hopes... Dreams
Our Relationship
The Ministry
Spiritual
Sex
Family:
-- Children
-- In-laws
-- Other
Financial
Education
Physical
Spouse's Needs
Fears
Other Issues
B. Complete These Sentences
Sometimes I becomed blocked in our relationship when...
Sometimes I feel angry when...
Sometimes when I am happy, I ...
One of the things I wish you knew more about me is...
If I could be sure no one would laugh at me...
Ever since I was a child...

Page 4: His Needs / her Needs [Probably going down this list and mark "his" or "her"]

Sexual Fulfillment
Recreational Companionship
An Attractive Spouse
Domestic Support
Admiration
Affection
Conversation
Honesty and Openness
Financial Support
Family Commitment

Page 5:

The Five Languages of Love:

Words of Affirmation
Quality Time
Receiving Gifts
Acts of Service
Physical Touch

What are your two primary languages of love? ______________ and ____________
What are your spouse's two primary languages of love? ____________ and __________

Making Love Last Forever

Be sure you are making more "deposits" into the well-being of your spouse/children than "withdrawals". (A "deposit" is anything positive and security-producing that gives your spouse/children energy. A "withdrawal" is anything sad or negative that drains energy from your spouse/children.
What are ways you can make more deposits in your spouse's/children's account?
What deposits do you wish you could receive from your spouse/children?
Identify ways you are making withdrwals from your spouse/children account.

Page 6: Jim & Cathy Weekly Meeting [sample list of stuff they discuss about]

Devotional time for the week
Greatest joy of the week
Greatest struggles
An affirmation
A wish or hope
Physical goals
Prayer
Book of the month

[Beside this, remember this from Urbana 90's seminar on Ministry and Marriage: "Ministry is God's call for a certain time, marriage is God's call for the whole life time."]

Taking Heat

2005-08-05T20:38:00.000-07:00

He knelt with his back straight up, refused to bow. His mother, brothers and sisters all bowed in rhythm with the chanting and the drumming. The smell of incense filled the air. And the coffin containing his dad was lowering down onto the ditch. Many of his relatives were looking in disgust and disbelief. “Do con bat hieu!” You could hear them mumble about what a dishonorable son he was. I still remember that vivid scene from A. Nhieu’s dad funeral. As the only believer in a devout Buddhist family, A. Nhieu took a lot of heat for not bowing to worship his ancestor, in this case his own dad at the funeral. And it was not an easy decision to come to. “No, this is not worship; this is just paying respect to your own dad!” His family was trying to persuade him before the ceremony. You can hear that even from a few well-meaning Christians today. But A. Nhieu stood by his conviction. You see, in the Vietnamese language, ancestor worship was called “Tho lay ong ba”. “Tho” meant worship, “lay” meant bow down. To bow to the ground was to worship. And A. Nhieu had the gut to practice what the Bible teaches, “Judge for yourselves whether it is right in God’s sight to obey men rather than God?” [Acts.4:19] And it wasn’t easy to follow through afterward either. A. Nhieu became a black sheep in the family after that. His mom and his family resented his decision so much that the wound is still there today. Any opportunity they had, A. Nhieu and Becky would spent time with his family. But it still hurts a lot. That was eight years ago. Sometimes I wonder if A. Nhieu would look back on that incident and regret, “Why would I do that for? What good had come out from it?” Last week one of our guys talked to me. He said that his non believing parents had arranged for him to go to Vietnam to marry his long distant cousin, so that she could come over here to the US on a fiancé visa. The marriage will exist only on paper and after a few years they would file a divorce so that each could go on with their lives. Wanting to honor his father and mother, our friend went a long with the plan. So the arrangement were made, the news were announced, and plane tickets might have been already been bought. Until a few weeks recently when he realized that his desire to honor his parents will dishonor God. They were in a home group, and the men there recounted to him the decision that A. Nhieu made at the funeral. That challenges him a great deal. So he told me that he had made the decision to call everything off at the last minute. That he would take on the heat to do the right thing and obeying God rather than men. That he would risk alienating his own parents to the gospel so that he won’t misrepresent what the gospel is all about. But most important of all, he told me that he needs prayer support from us. Please pray for Huy.

Not Everything I Speak should be Heard

2005-08-04T09:40:00.000-07:00

Seek the LORD and his strength; seek his presence continually. Remember the wonderful works he has done, his miracles, and the judgments he uttered, O offspring of his servant Abraham, children of Jacob, his chosen ones. When he summoned famine against the land, and broke every staff of bread, he had sent a man ahead of them, Joseph, who was sold as a slave. His feet were hurt with fetters, his neck was put in a collar of iron; until what he had said came to pass, the word of the LORD kept testing him. The king sent and released him; the ruler of the peoples set him free. He made him lord of his house, and ruler of all his possessions, to instruct his officials at his pleasure, and to teach his elders wisdom. [Psalm 105:4-6,16-22]

The Psalm about was a song retelling the story of Joseph, a Dream Maker and a Dream Keeper I was studied not so long ago.

While some people read Genesis 37 and see Joseph's bragging about his dreams as a carnal action, the author of this Psalm said that Joseph faced difficulties "until what he had said came to pass, the word of the LORD kept testing him..." [v.19] So according to the poet, 1) What Joseph proclaimed was the word of the Lord. He was indeed a prophet, albeit an immature one - but at 17 years old, he was just acting his age. 2) It's not the Lord who kept testing him, but "the word of the Lord" kept testing him.

The implication of the above two things were this: The modern spokemen for God sometimes might have spoken immaturely also. I know I did that many times. The word is indeed from the Lord, but it might be for me, and not for others. And the word might be delivered for me so that I will be tested myself.

It's easy to always think that because you are the messenger, your message was for others. But it's important to remember that the Word often have to come to me first, before it goes through me to others.

And why do we need to focus on ourselves first? I had breakfast with a mentor yesterday and he told about the words overheard from some leaders recently. Just as John Ortberg said in his sermon a few weeks ago, "it’s just in casual, unguarded moments that when you speak, the state of your soul will be revealed." And so the leaders leaked out their toxin unintentionally to the people around them. Being a leader will just put you in higher-traffic areas of life, and if the Word won't refine yourself first, then you will leak more toxin eventually.

May God help me to be faithful in learning your Word, for myself, and to refine myself.

Brain dump

2005-07-29T07:24:00.000-07:00

http://www.xanga.com/home.aspx?user=TYG_Boston http://www.xanga.com/home.aspx?user=JOHNAZN16 - from Philly. Emerging Hope by Jimmy Long 1. Overview: From Modern to Emerging Culture 2. Leadership: From Individual to Community 3. Witness: Belonging Before Believing 4. Communication: Word and Image 5. Context: From Tribalism to God's Kingdom Story 6. Implications: Transitioning to an Emerging Ministry

"Only if I know what God's will for my life is..."

2005-07-20T13:51:00.000-07:00

More than once I heard that line. As if it will solve all your problems. High School grads wondered if God's will for them are in a certain majors, schools, or profession ("I wondered if God's will is for me to finish Med school...") Lonely singles wondered if God's will for them involved a certain persons as their future mates ("I wondered if God's will that we would be married...")

Jesus knew God's will explicitly from His birth ("you shall call Him Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins"). Jeremiah knew his prophetic destination from his childhood; David was annointed King even a few decades before his actual coronation...

Wouldn't it be great if God let us know the blue print of our lives so that we wouldn't be so restless about our future?

Wouldn't it?

Sorry - I couldn't disclose the biblical answers at this point. Come to my church this Sunday. Paul and I will discuss that issue in our 10am morning worship gathering... (read the transcript here)

It's Worth It to Love to Death

2005-07-13T17:44:00.000-07:00

I just came back from the 30th Aniversary Annual Conference of the Vietnamese District of the CM&A (“Hoi Dong Giao Hat Bac My, Dac Biet Ky Niem 30 Nam”). This year we reached another important milestone for English Speaking Ministry for our churches (read it here). For the rest of the time, even though I went there since Saturday morning through Tuesday night, I was hanging out with the English Speaking groups most of the time and not the Vietnamese programs. Except for a few hours Monday night; but it was worth it.

Monday night was the missionary night. This year, they tracked down and invited over 30 ex-missionary from the CMA to Vietnam and honored them for bring the Gospel to Vietnam. The most powerful moment came from listening to their testimonies about their work in Vietnam.

One of the old woman retold the story of her capture by the North Vietnamese during Tet Mau Than. She was walked by her captors all the way from Ban Me Thuoc to Ha Noi (about 1000 miles), lost 50 pounds, and retold about her many attempts to witness to Mr. Khoi, her captor. Her husband was also captured on the same day, but they took him on a different route, and she has never seen him since.

I listened to Dr. Thomas Stebbins interviewed Mrs. Zimmerman, who witnessed her husband was shot by machine gun during Tet Mau Than as he surrendered with his hands above his head. A nurse named Ruth rushed to his side to only to be gunned down by machine gun. Another one rushed into a shelter and the shelter was blown up by grenades. Inside the shelter were the brother and sister-in-law of Mr. Thomas Stebbins. Both of them died during the Tet Mau Than.

Dr. Thomas Stebbins stayed on as missionary for fifteen-years in Vietnam and left Saigon on April 29, 1975. He recalled persuading Muc Su Doan Van Mieng to leave with him but the old man shook his head, “I need to stay with the flock”.

One of the old missionaries now is still working with the Vietnamese in Cambodia, and he was pleading with us to do something to stop the sex-trafficking of kindergarten-aged children in the region he works with. Other missionaries retold many stories of love and compassion from God for the Vietnamese people.

And I never forget the tearful conclusion of the speaker for the night, after describing all the hardship they have been through, that “it was all worth it!”

O God, such a sacrifice from your Son brought such a sacrifice from your children. Help me to live a life that worth the price they have paid to make You known!

Why is it that God always cutting it too close?

2005-07-06T11:43:00.000-07:00

Here's another thing that i12know: Why is it that God always cutting it too close to the last minute. The volunteer youth director at my church, my close friend, is also a technical businessman. He is a design engineer by trade and owned his own company before he came to Christ a few years ago. After committing his life to Christ, issues in business practice began to flare up between him and his long time partner (they were best friends). So after much praying and soul-searching, he decided to sell his share of the company to his partner, and step out in faith with a new venture. For the last two three years it had been particularly hard on him. After getting married for a few months, his daughter passed away as 8-months still born (and that was my first funeral). His new business was bleeding non-stop, money keep coming out without any end in sight. His new family surfered under the pressure. Yet he's still hanging in there and serving faithfully in the youth ministry even though more than once I suggested him to let go of it. The last few months he was approaching the last few pennies of his fund and start dipping into life saving as well as contemplating selling the house. Finally the product was finished with much turmoil and hardship. He was aiming for a trade show coming up this weekend. He told me that this product launch will make or break his company, because frankly he had only one bullet left in his asernal. The problem is, they have no booth at the trade show. Due to some problems outside of his control, everything was booked and his company was number 3 on the waiting list. My stomach tied up in knotts as I observed my friend being cornered into his last breath. We prayed and prayed and prayed for a couple of months now, and things have not been improving. Last week, in the last ditch due-or-die effort, he decided to ship four 500 pounds crates of equipment to the show despite the fact that he has no booth there. He also bought the ticket to fly out there anyway this Friday for the show. Last night in our small group, we prayed again for him. But I myself is an eternal skeptic, so I start wondering about what to do for damage control when everything fall apart. This morning, he sent out an Email letting us know that there was a spot open up, and his booth will be right at the entrance of the show! Praise God (and shame on me for having little faith). God, in His typical fashion, somehow like to keep it down so close to the wire, answering our prayer just 2 days before the show open. And that was just typical of God. He didn't rescue Daniel's friends until they had already been thrown in the fire. Jesus didn't come to Mary and Martha's aide until Lazarus had already been buried. He was just always too close for comfort... Why is that? I am such a chicken and I hate having heartburns over the way God works and His style; but somehow I think it will help strengthen our hearts over time... Please keep my friend and his work in prayer for the next few days. May we witness a great example of God's reward to people who faithful to him...

Faith Meltdown #1

2005-06-30T08:55:00.000-07:00

A childhood friend of mine is going through a faith meltdown period. He was the president of our youth group back when I was in Vietnam. Recently we all hooked up via emails and after a few round of conversations, he told us that he gave up on faith recently. I mean the guy is over 40 now and have been a churchgoer forever. He is still going to church now with his wife and children. But deep down inside, he said "My faith in God, in Jesus, in the Bible is virtually nothing now. I still believe that there was a Creator, but that's about it. No heaven, no hell, no proof that there was any concern from that Creator..."

He's not alone. Another woman in our former youth group on the same mailing list expressed the same attitude.

After we asked him why, he explained that he was not satisfied with the answers he got so far. Then we asked what his questions were, and he responded with some specific issues he had. That's when it dawns on me about the cause of his meltdown.

Of course, one of the factors will always be his own responsibility. We are responsible for our own growth in the faith. If your church prevented you to grow, then by all mean find some other churches! Then beyond the churches, there are plenty of other sources to strengthen your faith. There are books and videos which discuss the matters of faith at length. They are now can even be ordered from the net. There are courses that you can audit, even free of charge, around the clock on the net. If you are dissatisfied, go and seek for bread, don't just sit there and die.

But there's also another very sad factor. It's the inadequacy of the Vietnamese churches. Someone said that if God is our father, then the church is like our mother. The church, not the building but the community of God's people, was supposed to be the nurturing environment to help people grow in the faith. And we are not doing a very good job of it. My friend's questions were common one, but they prevented his growth because (it's my guess that) he couldn't get them covered in the church environment he was in.

But isn't that the same thing in your churches and my church too? We are often encouraged to believe without questioning. But that's baloney. If the matters of faith have the utmost importance with eternal consequences, wouldn't we need to do everything we could to ensure we are on the right track? I mean, what if Jesus Christ is not God but just a crazy dude who lived two thousand years ago? My eternal life or eternal damnation is riding on that question. And there are many questions like it which constitutes into my beliefs and affects my behaviors.

Granted, not everyone is like me or my friends. Their faith requires fewer examinations; bless their souls (for faith, or the ability to believe is a gift from God). But to people like us, who demands a bit more data before we can make decision, I think that the typical Vietnamese churches had failed to provide adequate answers. May be some of your churches are luckier to have leaders who willing to look into your doubts without condemnation. Much most places, you would be looked down upon if you raise any questions. And that, I think, is what contributes to my friend's faith meltdown.

I have been patiently participating in the whimsical conversations with my former-youth-group friends for almost a month now. We are at a point where I can start addressing some of my friend's questions without making them look like condemnations. Pray for us, pray for my friends (just called them "the King" and "the Queen" for now)...

Even big church splits better than small church

2005-06-29T16:39:00.000-07:00

Okay, that was a satirical title for this post. What I meant is that we, the Vietnamese churches have much to learn, even in the painful church split cancers around here.

I wrote a few weeks ago about Pastor Mike Farabez's church splitting. (And I was wrong in thinking that PastorMike.com was the web site of his new church. No, he has PastorMike.com for a while now, and in the process of building the new church website, he was just host the staging pages there. Not a wise thing in my opinion, but not as egotistical as I billed him to be. But hey, take it with a grain of salt, I am just a web surfer who happened to stumble upon the whole thing. I don't even know the guy. Just read his book and pick up a few things here and there from it. That's all.)

Now to another big church split. Pastor Mike's church was about 1,200 people with less structure. First Presbyterian Church of Hollywood was about 2,800 people with more structure. I learned more about the split today from Tod's blog, especially the valuable Presbytery document for official committee members, and the moving analysis from a former elder. It was an amazing split (if one could use that term).

To asking the question of "which one splits better?" is like asking "would a semi stumble better than a minivan in off-the-cliff crash?" Splits are as painful as crash. But at least the support structure may be able to absorb a lot of shock, pain, and reduce fatality. No doubt that in the case of Hollywood, since the matter got dragged out over a long time, through multiple layers of organizational structures, a lot of negative energies were spent and absorbed in a lot of places. People will get hurt and bruised. But fatality? I am not so sure.

Now enter the Vietnamese churches. In the last few years the cancerous church splits caused damages here too. Just in this region, you can count a few terrible splits. If Hollywood was a semi, Pacific Coast was a minivan, we are like motorcycles. We have no structures, no fighting rules. People won't just get hurt and bruised. They died!

So, learn from the crashes of the big churches and try to figure out what support structure will need to be in place today...

More on Christless Preaching...

2005-06-27T21:36:00.000-07:00

Peter Bogert and I spoke more about Expositional/Christ-Centered Preaching in the last few posts at his site. This is really good foundational stuff for me to hash through.

I guess what I have problem with are a few minor details with Michael Spencer's "On Christless Preaching" article. First, let me state that I agree with his general direction that we should preach Christ. What I disagree is his blanket condemnation of sermons in which he deems "Christless": (1) "Sermons based entirely on Old Testament stories", (2) "Sermons that teach lessons and principles", (3) "Sermons dominated by personal narratives", (4) "Sermons about moral and cultural problems", (5) "Sermons that talk about a vague and undefined 'God'", and (6) "Sermons in which Jesus is a minor character".

Here is the thesis of my argument: Since M.Spencer have stated that...

"Scholars have long recognized the difference between "kerygma" and "didache" (proclamation and teaching) in the New Testament, but they also ecognized that Jesus was essential to both. The Gospel message--everywhere it occurs--is a proclamation/application of who Jesus is and a proclamation/application of what he did for us. Didache and kerygma are both the application of the Lordship of Jesus to the Christian, the church, family and society."

Therefore, I would propose that atleast the sermons of type (1) "Sermons based entirely on Old Testament stories", (2) "Sermons that teach lessons and principles", and (4) "Sermons about moral and cultural problems" could be valid "didache", especially when you take into the context that the sermon's audience was the people who are already committed to the Lordship of Christ. Unless you can evaluate the greater context of how a church balance its "kerygma" and "didache" on its sermon diet over a course of time, you won't be able to evaluate "if your pastor preaches a Christless sermon" or not. Knowing the make-up of the audience also helps in the evaluation.

Now, let's back it up with Scripture. Paul instructed Titus about teaching his church this way:

"But as for you, teach what accords with sound doctrine. Older men are to be sober-minded, dignified, self-controlled, sound in faith, in love, and in steadfastness. Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good, and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled. Likewise, urge the younger men to be self-controlled. Show yourself in all respects to be a model of good works, and in your teaching show integrity, dignity, and sound speech that cannot be condemned, so that an opponent may be put to shame, having nothing evil to say about us. Slaves are to be submissive to their own masters in everything; they are to be well-pleasing, not argumentative, not pilfering, but showing all good faith, so that in everything they may adorn the doctrine of God our Savior. For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people..." (Titus 2:1-11, ESV)

According to that, wouldn't Titus instruction to the older men, older women, younger women and younger men be anything but type (2) sermons? Wouldn't his specific concerns to the slaves be type (4) sermons? And since the New Testament wasn't fully completed at this time, wouldn't his basis for instruction on "the word of God" be type (1) sermons too?

What I see is this. Christ is the cornerstone of all our preaching and teaching. Even if we won't mention Christ name in a sermon, or if we didn't talk about salvation in a particular text, our teaching still can be "in accordance with sound doctrine". As they say in exegesis, "the context determine the meaning."

Pastor Peter Bogert offered me his series on Wisdom for analysis. I read through them and I think he preached solid Christ-Centered sermons, even though he offered plenty of "life principles" suitable even for a synagogue. Here's what I see...

January 2, 2005: 1 Samuel 17 - The Kid Who Saw Things Clearly It's about David seeing God clearly in his battle with Goliath, introducing the topic of wisdom. It's a type (1) sermon with no mention of Christ, and the final exhortation for the Christian community to seek wisdom could be used equally to a Jewish audience.
January 9, 2005: Proverbs 1 - Where Wisdom Begins It expounds on the "fear of the Lord" as the source of wisdom. The Gospel was presented at the end of the message when pastor Peter tied in Christ as the widom of God but the foolishness to the Gentile.
January 16, 2005 - Proverbs 2 - You've Got To Want It It's about we need to take ownership in our pursuit of wisdom. It's a type (2) sermon with no mention of Christ, and the exhortation for the Christian community to in the Word at the end could be used equally to a Jewish audience.
January 30, 2005 - Proverbs 3:5-6 - The Wisdom Of Well-Placed Trust It's about wisdom come from "trust in the Lord with all your heart". The Gospel was presented since it concluded with our need to trust in Christ.
February 6, 2005: Proverbs 4:20-23 - The Wisdom Of A Heart Under Guard It's about the importance to guard our heart. Even though it's a type (4) sermon which adressed a lot of cultural and moral problems, it was back-up with Jesus teaching on the subject of the heart.
February 13, 2005: Proverbs 5 - The Benefits Of Misplaced Passion This is my favorite sermon in the whole series because of its satirical nature. The Gospel was presented at the conclusion with the offer of forgiveness from Christ to those who had fallen to temptation, especially in sexual sins.
February 20, 2005: Proverbs 6:16-19 - God Hates?? This sermon speaks about who God is and the sins He hates. The sermon mentioned Christ in the conclusion as "if you follow Christ, then get rid of these".
February 27, 2005: Proverbs 8 - Rewinding And Playing It Again This message on the Lady of Wisdom repeated a few key themes before in the series: Trust God, Stay in the Word, etc. It concluded with invitation to trust God's greatest wisdom: Christ.
March 6, 2005: Proverbs 9 - In The End, It's Up To You It's the conclusion of the whole series in which several calls for responses were made. The Gospel was presented in the invitation made to seekers to receive Christ.

There you have it - from the whole series above, one can examine the context and determine that Peter Bogert was teaching life-principles for his congregation to follow God. Sometimes Christ was mentioned, sometimes not. Sometimes the Gospel was presented, sometimes not. Sometimes the message even applicable to a Jewish/Judaism context, most of the time not. But the over all thrust was clearly there: "so that in everything [the community of the people of God] may adorn the doctrine of God our Savior. For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people..."

Once again, when we are through with the dialetic approach from different angles, I think Peter and I are talking about the samething, the same coin with different sides.

What do you think?

[Update]

Poor Peter who got pestered by me. He left me this concise answer:

"One of the the keys to making it a Christ-centered sermon is talking about the person's relationship with God as the basis for their behavior."

Ahah! That made a lot of sense.

On books...

2005-06-25T07:43:00.000-07:00

I was tagged by the Artesian pastor Brad Hightower from 21st Century Reformation about books. Wow, I feel like a real Blogger now. People actually cue me in! So here it goes...

1. Total number of books I own or have owned:

I actually did some actual counting to estimate the answer for this question. My home office has 17 occupied shelves of about 600 books. Roughly 250 of them are business and computer books, relating to my work, the rest are relating to faith, less than 10 are fictions. At work, I have about another 150 computer/business related books.

But here's the kicker. The books on the shelves were not really my library. My library consists of 678 books in the Logos/Libronix Digital Library on my Tablet PC. I have been pouring money to keep accumulate more books on it, so it had become very valuable to me. And I actually read them as book and not just use them as reference tools. Every night, when I am putting my son to sleep, I am holding the 3 pounds Tablet PC and just go through the titles I had in Logos.

(By the way, if you want to buy Logos, check with your local seminary first, they may be able to give you a deep discount first...)

2. Last book(s) I bought:

When we came up to Seattle last month, I found a Christian outlet book store (the first of its kind for me). There, I bought "Preaching that Changes Lives" by Michael Farabez for $4.00 - please don't feel bad if you are the author of the book. I also picked up "Show Time: Living Down Hypocrisy By Living Out The Faith" from my professor there on a deep discount too.

I am such a cheapskate. If I can read from the net, I will do that first; if I can read for free, I will do it next. I will only buy if it's a bargain, or if I must absolutely needs it.

3. Last book I read:

"The Dead Sea Scrolls & Modern Translations of the Old Testament" by Harold Scanlin (from my Logos system). This is a fascinating read for me since as a proponent of expositional study of the Bible, I had always wrestled with the issue of "How reliable is every single word of the Bible, especially since we don't have the original?"

The book might be a bit technical but basically after examine all the evidences, one will have to conclude: “The textual evidence of the Dead Sea Scrolls, in fact, confirms the general reliability and stability of the text of the Old Testament as we have it today” (p.140).

4. Five books that mean a lot to me:

* "What They don't Teach You in Seminary". Actually, this is not a real title, but what I called the collection of resources I picked up from Logos. It includes the 8 volumes of "The Pastor's Soul", the the 12 volumes "Mastering Ministry" and 20 volumes of "The Leadership Library" from Christianity Today including "The Contemplative Pastor". These books were written by pastors for pastors so you learn a lot from their experiences, from the obvious things about preaching, to the not so obvious things about the occupational hazards. I've read and re-read them on a regular basis.

* Bill Hull's "The Disciple-Making Church" as well as any other books by him. Since I am committed in the SonLife philosophy, as adopted by our Vietnamese Alliance Youth, I am sold on the Disciple-Making framework in ministry as well as in personal life. This will probably become my operating philosophy instead of Purpose-Driven-Church.

* Richard Foster's "Celebration of Discipline". Recently, I began to realized that "Spiritual knowledge is not the same as spiritual life!" That realization prompted me to ask, "and then how can I nurture a spiritual life?" This class book is the the answer which helps me to anchor my soul in God.

* Dallas Willard's "Divine Conspiracy". Honestly I haven't finished this one yet, but even from the few chapters that I read so far, it had affected my thinking a great deal in pointing the problem with viewing the Christian faith as something for later (eternal life) and not for the now (transformation).

* That's it for now - I don't have the fifth entry yet. It's embarassing to admit, but I am not widely read. Most of the books above I read out of "obedience" (from schoolwork, from someone recommended to me, or my mentors wanted me to read...)

5. Two major books when I was a kid:

The first was "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea" by Jules Verne (in Vietnamese translation). I was six-year-old at the time, and my aunt started reading the book to me but she didn't have time to continue one. As a result, I read the whole book myself. Captain Nemo became a kind of hero for me. Cold, isolated, smart. I just want to be like him when I grow up. In a way, he messed up my personality big time for my rebellious teen years later on.

The second one was "Jonathan Livingston Seagull" by Richard Bach (also in Vietnamese translation). I was preteen at the time I read the book. I like the seagul character so much that I wrote a sequel for it back when I was in seventh grade. The book fueled my teen's attitude even more. Since I came to the US, I even watched the motion picture based on the book as well.

Well, that's it about me and the books I read. I guess the adage "you are what you eat" would also applicable here. But before you think I am all work and no play, let me add that I also enjoy reading murder-mystery fictions; but I am limited to murder-mystery short-stories only (long novels just take too much time...)

What do you read? You can also answer the same 5 questions here:

1. Total number of books I own or have owned
2. Last book(s) I bought
3. Last book I read
4. Five books that mean a lot to me
5. Two major books when I was a kid

You don't have to even be detailed on your answers. People I want to tag to answer this same book meme are...

- Sir Knights Bridge, he usually has good conversation.
- Susanio, since she will be a "professional readers" starting this Fall- she should have something to answer.
- ShorteeVi, may be she had read something new since Dan Brown's.
- Drewbie82, I hope he would have some times to answer.
- Faith604, a friend I mmade because she visited our church website. Finally Jenney and I met her in real life last May in Vancouver.
- Shrek_azn, I think this Xangan would have something to say too.
- And finally, Steve Stanley from Seneca South Carolina, whom I have never met.

On Christless Preaching...

2005-06-24T10:19:00.000-07:00

I was extremely challenged by a long article about "Christless Preaching" by Michael Spencer. It has many good a solid points, but I think the author is also bias against the church growth leaders like Rick Warren too. (I am still on my usual wimpy position, couldn't make up my mind on one side or the other but rather learning from all sources).

But the article made me wondered if I had faithfully expounded the Word of God, especially in the last two sermons on Joseph, which it carried a distinctive life-principles-preaching flare to it. If true expository preaching is "preaching what the author intended", then I don't think squeezing every passage to make it point to Christ would be expositional either.

Yes, Michael is right about a sermon not centered on Christ would work even in a Jewish synagogue, but aren't they still the people of God? Aren't we going to worship God in the heavenly new Jerusalem with many Jews too?

Hhm, what do you think about this whole spectrum of "Christ-centered-preaching" and "Christless-preaching" here?

Tonight, I got this take from a "seasoned" preacher:

I think "preaching Christ" is our ONLY job. But I must hasten to add that I doubt whether the afore-mentioned author and I would agree in our definitions of what constitutes that kind of preaching. I guess the finest preacher ever to "preach Christ" was, well...Christ! And His model of preaching at times fits the Rick Warren model, at other times He is more didactic, at still other times He is something akin to Billy Graham. You notice how Jesus uses real-life as an entree to truth? You see how He speaks about the things that matter to the "man on the street"? It's all a part of the story of Jesus. And He wasn't always talking about Himself. Mostly He was talking about His Father's love for people. Yes, preach the Blood; yes, identify and denounce sin; yes, preach sound doctrine (although the word 'doctrine' is able to make strong men blanch in terror!). But also "make the message clear and plain, Christ receiveth sinful [people]"...loves them, in fact! And His way is the way life was intended to be lived. So tell them how to live it. The second-best preacher of Christ was, in my opinion, the Apostle Paul. Does he not get into day-to-day life issues? Is his every word concerned with the cross? No, though admittedly he does make much of the cross...as will every Bible preacher. To my mind, the notion that every service has to have an altar call and be preached to contrive a person's response to that altar call is a thing alien to the larger history of the church and of recent innovation (mid-to-late 1800's). I am not opposed to such services, don't get me wrong. I merely believe that we have been unbalanced in that regard. Too much focus on conversion, too little on discipleship and a life of worship. I "hear" what the author is saying. I understand his concern. But I also think he may be saddling up to go to war over an exaggerated view of the situation. Look, not even every book of the Bible mentions God. Are we to look with suspicion and a jaundiced eye upon such writings merely because they have no overt and bare-faced reference to God? Life is not lived at the same force and volume in all of its seasons and events. Worship that preaches Christ assumes many forms. I like the saying that is attributed to St. Francis of Assisi: "Preach Christ (or, sometimes it is, "Preach the Gospel"): If necessary, use words." Of course, it IS sometimes necessary to use explicit words as I have mentioned above. But sometimes our mouths may whisper Christ while our lives SHOUT Him.
Or that's the way it looks from my cage...

Soul Cry

2005-06-22T21:40:00.000-07:00

How long, O LORD? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me?
How long must I bear pain in my soul, and have sorrow in my heart all day long? How long shall my enemy be exalted over me?
Consider and answer me, O LORD my God! Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep the sleep of death,
and my enemy will say, "I have prevailed"; my foes will rejoice because I am shaken.
But I trusted in your steadfast love; my heart shall rejoice in your salvation.
I will sing to the LORD, because he has dealt bountifully with me.
(Psalm 13)

This is the cry of my heart... not to just follow God, but to be held by God.

Sometimes I feel so defeated, and so desperated. Sometimes it is dishearten with all the stuff I see (and with the thought that I haven't seen nothing yet).

"Consider and answer me, O Lord my God." Here we pray, even in pain and despair, in expectation that God will intervene, that the supernatural will intersect the natural. There's always a danger of seperating the two, to live and think that God is not interested in this mundance lives of ours, and to escape in the the eternal perspective of fate.

But I trusted in your hesed. I trusted that your love is constant and faithful, in that my heart can rejoice, admidst the enduring trial.

Prayer for a friend

2005-06-15T23:22:00.000-07:00

I just took a late night break from writing this week's sermon and read a Xanga entry of one of my used-to-be-members. (He left our church to explore others' but so far haven't settle down anywhere yet.) In his post, he wrote an R.I.P to his dear friend T.J. and at the end of the post, he identified T.J. as "Thanks Jesus". Is this a spiritual suicide note? I don't know, but I feel distress! O God, please have mercy on our souls. We are young and naive. We thought that we are alive but we are dead; and mistook religious philosophy with spiritual life. Have mercy on us, and revive our life!

Conversations on Stinking Sermons

2005-06-14T13:44:00.000-07:00

Recently Peter Bogert, (a pastor of Faith Community Church in Roslyn, PA) had a post on his blog on "Stinking Sermons", sermons which did not communicate the author's intention. He wrote:

Ramesh Richard, who teaches preaching at Dallas Seminary, has authored a book entitled Preparing Expository Sermons that is quite good. He talks, as do most other books on preaching, about paying attention to the author's intent. Then he shares an example of a sermon he heard where this was totally ignored. It would be humorous if it was just facetious, but it is sad knowing that someone spent time preparing this and felt it was acceptable to preach.
Luke 19:29-40 - Jesus & The Donkey
You are like the donkey (29-30)

You are tied to someone other than the owner to whom you really belong.

You are still young - no one has sat on you.

Jesus commands you to be set free (30c)

He sets you free through his disciples. (31-32)

There will be objections when you are being freed to serve Christ. (33)

But he has need of you. (34)

Are you Christ's donkey? (35-40)

Is he riding you?

Are you bringing praise to him?

A couple of thoughts.
1. Someone probably worked hard, did some study, prayed about it, and came up with this. But effort alone does not make good preaching.
2. There are biblical principles reflected in this sermon. But principles separated from context is not good preaching.
3. People probably "got something" from this message. But the fact that someone was challenged does not make this good preaching.

Obviously these are factors that enter into a good sermon. But without being rooted in the intent of the author (and Author), the Bible becomes fodder for anyone's seemingly sanctified ideas - even mine. I try to continually ask myself "Is this what the author had in mind?" That at least provides me with a foundation to begin good preaching.

And I started pushing the envelope a bit, commenting...

But God could use our stinking stuff eventhough it shouldn't be an excuse to produce them...
I also observe that in personal devotion, we could be benefit from all sorts of angles...
One more thing.
Assume that you are preaching under the lectionary tradition, you are bound to hit this story once every year (or the Lukan angle once every three years). So what are you going to do (assume that breaking away from the denominational/church's lectionary tradition is not an option)? Wouldn't the minor angles be allowable if you stated clearly that it's a minor angle of the text? Wouldn't it be allowable if scripture elsewhere could be brought in to reinforce the point? I think sometimes we exalt the historical/grammatical method of study Scripture a bit too much to the point that it becomes the ONLY method.
What do you think?

Peter graciously responded...

Bumble:
I understand the dilema, but in the final analysis the meaning of the text has to come from what it says, not what I think it means. It may be hard to come up with something unique each year, but I can't sacrifice the integrity of sound interpretive skills on the altar of what MIGHT end up simply being a lack of working hard to present the text in a different manner. I guess that I feel strongly enough about this that if I were in the "you have to preach this text each year" mode, and I couldn't come up with a legitimate alternative approach, I'd use the same sermon. Quite honestly, in our day, most people wouldn't remember the original anyway. But I'd rather they get something that came from valid interpretation repeated to them than branch out to the point where my supposed insights becomes the interpretive rule rather than the original meaning of the author.
Thanks for your comments.

I am a bit more stubborn and wouldn't want to take his explaination for an answer:

Well said, Peter. Wish I could be that consistent. I strive to preach the intention of the author; but sometimes I believe that I strive to preach the intention of The Author instead. (Especially when I had a hard time second guess what's the author's intention - like when I run into obscured places in the OT with the contradictory takes from my trusted commentaries...)

At this point, I think Peter misunderstood what I meant by "obscure", so he wrote:

Bumble, I understand. But I can't see that it is more in tune with the Spirit to derive something obscure from the text or something that is not there. You might find the book The Modern Preacher and the Ancient Text by Greidanus of interest.

So I tried to clarify what I meant by "obscure":

Peter, thank you for your understanding, and please forgive my stubborness. I didn't mean that we should get an "obscure meaning" out of the text; just that it may be impossible to derive the author's intention out of some "obscure text".
Let's take the case of Esther marrying to the king. Would it be possible to determine the author's intended application? At the book level, it's a call to observe Purim, which Christian won't do; so we talk about God's providence. But at the chapter/segment level, did the author intended to portray Esther as a positive example, or negative example?
So what do I do? I take a look at the current onslaught from the culture on the people of God. And I brought in the fact that the king was a pagan, the fact that the beauty was just focusing on physical attributes, then I enlisted other Scriptures against those behaviors to build a case against it.Or I could study a different set of commentaries, discuss it with a different set of people/tradition, and come up with the opposite intention...
This is more true for the OT than the NT. (And I think that's why people preached more NT).

At this point, Peter understood what I meant (I think), so he want to think some more on it:

Bumble: I understand (and sympathize!!) I would have to think for a bit on how I would handle that specific situation!

Three days later, Peter clarified his thought on why that sermon was a stinker on a follow-up post:

A few posts ago I used an illustration from Ramesh Richard's book Preparing Expository Sermons. On page 22 he provides a sermon outline that apparently was something he actually witnessed. The sermon involves nothing about the original meaning of the text, how the author would have intended it to be understood, or how the original readers would have understood it. Richard states that it is simply moralistic preaching, disconnected from any textual authority.
I don't believe that this kind of treatment of Scripture is that uncommon. Especially in devotional-type preaching or speaking, we are inclined to look for "deeper" insights. Such insights often convey good moral lessons, even ones that sound very spiritual. But as Richard points out, they lack textual authority.
So what's the problem? Doesn't the fact that a message emphasizes a good spiritual point - the lordship of Christ in our lives - justify the approach?
There are a number of reasons why this kind of interpretation/application of a passage is problematic. Some of them are technical, but let me note one thing in particular that we need to keep in mind when we preach or teach: We model how to read the Bible to our people.
If this is the approach we use for a text, what are we teaching them? We are modeling a highly suspect subjective approach to Scripture that makes "what I think it says" or "what it says to me" or even the highly pious-sounding but still dubious "what the Spirit led me to think" the authority rather than the text itself. How can we encourage our people to deal with the objective truth of Scripture when we model subjectivity?
Some may protest that it is the right of the Holy Spirit to reveal these "insights" to us. Right? Sure, I'll go along with that. But I don't think he uses that right. Despite what our "every promise in the book is mine" individual-American mind thinks, the Bible is not a personal love letter from God. It is a book written to a community, teaching the same thing to every individual of the community. Certainly there are applications to a passage that strike us differently, but let's realize that what we are reading is already the product of the Holy Spirit. Frankly there is enough there to hold us accountable and guide our lives and thinking without having to bend the meaning of the text to "get something personal" out of it.

Then this time I responded with avery long winded comment - probably the result of just finishing the reviews for the WBC's Ruth/Esther Commentary and the book "The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Modern Translations of the Old Testament" by Harold Scanlin:

Thank you, Peter, for pursuing this topic some more.
But before I go on, I need to qualify my position that I am wholeheartedly agree with your statement that as preacher, we need to preach what the text mean, and not what we think what the text mean.
But I want to expound some more that it's not easy to know what the author's intention for the text. I often study between 20-30 hours for a typical Sunday's sermon. And I mean I studied: going through the text, combing through various nuances of the original languages, comparing the various readings from the extant manuscripts, reading all I can on the historical backgrounds, how that passage was interpreted through out the history of the church, etc.
And the minute that you engage in serious study of the text, you realize right away that it's not easy to determine the meaning of the text because that result depends greatly on our understanding of the textual evidence in its historical context, and both items in themselves could be interpreted very differently. (My homiletic professor once said that my problem was that I studied too much. And may be that's why it's harder for me to deal with this issue).
But back to the point of wrestling to find the author's meaning of the text. With the myriad of variants we are presented with in the course of studies, eventually we have to trust that God is leading us to discern rightly in our preparation, and so when we preach of "This is what the text means", what we really mean is: "This is what I think the text means, according to the leading of God's Spirit, after consulting the community of God's people, who are also committed to the authority of God's Word."
As our understanding of God's Word changed over time, our conclusion of "What's the author intention" will also change over time. Otherwise, preaching will become static. Granted the major themes of Scripture will be solidified over time, like the Redemption of the Lord Jesus, but many of the minor issues will be working out as the people of God wrestled to answer the questions of "What did the text means in its context?" and "What does it mean to us now?" (Like the church had worked through the theology of slavery a few hundred years, but it's no longer an issue to our theology now).
Perhaps, it's time for some clarification as well. I would suggest that the sermon must not only answer the question of "What did the text mean?" (The author's original intention to the original readers, to the best of our study, and to the maximum of discernment as allowed by God). The sermon must also answer the question of "What does it mean to me?" (Not in term of individualistic thinking of "getting something personal" out of it, but in term of what the Scripture's demand of my practical life)Honestly, I don't think that we are differing in our opinions at all; I think I was just clarifying the nuances of your general big statement: Expository preaching must preach what the text intended to do! To that, I said "Amen!" and offered a brief prayer, "And help us Lord, to discern what the text intended to do!"

At that, I think Peter finally got my convoluted logic, (or he was just worn out) and said:

Bumble:I think we do agree in the main. And please be assured that you were not a target in the post. It was kind of a natural followup.
I wholeheartedly agree that we need to move beyond the meaning of the text to its application. But, as I am sure you would agree, even that is governed by what the text says.
Have a great night! My Phillies are on their way to Oakland in a few nights - have your California team treat them nice, ok?

This is a great dialetic conversations - I love to be able to think things through with the people who has the same heart and mind and the high regard for the Word of God

But just now, my mind was brewing on another question for Peter...

Who said following God is beneficial?

2005-06-13T14:16:00.000-07:00

The reading of this week's text...

It is for your sake that I have borne reproach, that shame has covered my face. I have become a stranger to my kindred, an alien to my mother's children. It is zeal for your house that has consumed me; the insults of those who insult you have fallen on me. When I humbled my soul with fasting, they insulted me for doing so. When I made sackcloth my clothing, I became a byword to them. I am the subject of gossip for those who sit in the gate, and the drunkards make songs about me. But as for me, my prayer is to you, O LORD. At an acceptable time, O God, in the abundance of your steadfast love, answer me. With your faithful help rescue me from sinking in the mire; let me be delivered from my enemies and from the deep waters. Do not let the flood sweep over me, or the deep swallow me up, or the Pit close its mouth over me. Answer me, O LORD, for your steadfast love is good; according to your abundant mercy, turn to me. Do not hide your face from your servant, for I am in distress--make haste to answer me. Draw near to me, redeem me, set me free because of my enemies. (Psalm 69:7-16)

Who said that following God will be beneficial to you?

It might not be that beneficial in a common sense of how everyone think as benefits. Often, when we think of benefits, we think of something added to your life. Many people easily think that Christ is a benefit added to our life. We've already have this, and this, and this; so believe in Jesus Christ so we will have more: blessings, peace, joy, happy marriage, sucessful life, etc. And eternal salvation too!

But that's the biggest misconception.

Following God is not an added benefit. It's a trade off according to the Bible. In Matthew 14, a man sold all of his lands to purchase the field with the great treasure hidden in it. In letter to the Phillipians, Paul stacked all of his human accomplishment on one side and said that he considered everything in his life as trash in compare to the possession of Christ Jesus.

There are many people today following God as an added benefit. The problem is that when God begins to take away these benefits, when their life ended up in a shamble pit, God will not be as attractive as they thought He would be. And by then, I don't think they can sing this Psalm like what the Psalmist did.

O God, open my eyes so I can see you, more than just the benefits that you bring!

Preaching Apllication

2005-06-08T14:40:00.000-07:00

Preaching application is hard. On the one hand, if you just state the general principles, then the audience may not know how to apply it. Take this story...

In our American frontier days, there was a settlement in the West whose citizens were engaged in the lumber business. The town felt they wanted a church. They built a building and called a minister. The preacher moved into the settlement and initially was well received. Then one afternoon he happened to see some of his parishioners dragging some logs, which had been floated down the river from another village upstream, onto the bank. Each log was marked with the owner's stamp on one end. To his great distress, the minister saw his members pulling in the logs and sawing off the end where the telltale stamp appeared.
The following Sunday he preached a strong sermon on the commandment "Thou shalt not steal." At the close of the service, his people lined up and offered enthusiastic congratulations: "Wonderful message, Pastor." "Mighty fine preaching."
The response bothered him a great deal. So he went home to prepare his sermon for the following Sunday. He preached the same sermon but gave it a different ending: "And thou shalt not cut off the end of thy neighbor's logs." When he got through, the congregation ran him out of town.

On the otherhand, we all see bad examples of abuse where the preacher grinding an ax on his pulpit.

I am very aware of the power of the Word preached, therefore I am also very careful to wield it so I won’t misuse its power. There are two articles which under-gird my reservations which I sent you here: The first is “My Words in Your Mouth” by Ken Ulmer and the second is “The Heresy of Application” by Haddon Robinson. (Both are from CT site - if they are no longer accessible, Email me I could send you my cache!)

In Small Group Bible Study, application is not easily going wrong because of the interactive nature of the discussion as well as the equality of all the participants. In preaching, it’s a one way communication, if the preacher went wrong, there’s no corrective mechanism available to clue the audience in. Worse, the audience was trained to hear the preacher’s words as God’s Word, so the potential for damage is even more. There's even another full article on "The Danger of Practical Preaching".

So as I wrestled with how to apply a text for the sermon in the balance of both extremes, I found the following classifications helpful from Michael Fabarez’s book (not cut-and-pasteable from the Internet, so I typed it in here to help me internalize as well):

1. Application that is Certain: Some applications of a given passage should be preached with all the force and authority that come from God Himself.
The certainty of the application stems from careful exegetical and hermeneutical principles…
- [Case example from 2 Tim. 2:15] Paul’s instruction to Timothy regarding the study and handling of God’s Word: The forceful application to modern pastors is to give the study of Scripture high priority, and to work hard at it as faithful men of God
* In this case a certain application has been made, so full authority and force should accompany it. If one disregards this application he does not disregard a man and his opinion, but God and His Word.
2. Application that is Probable: [Some applications could be made by inference.]
Other passages may be enlisted to strengthen this application, and a logical case may be made as well, but one should be cautious as how he states such an application.
- [Same case example of 2Tim.2:15] the application may be made that pastors ought to give a large percentage of their weekly schedule to the study of God’s Word. [Notice that it’s now specific].
* It might be wise to frame the application in the following terms: “It makes sense then that we would give a large percentage of our weekly schedules to the study of God’s Word.”
3. Application that is Possible: Some applications might possibly be inferred from the context of the text and the rest of Scripture]
Disregarding this “application” would not constitute disobedience to God, and therefore should be carefully distinguished from other applications in its tone and force when it is offered.
- [Same case example of 2Tim.2:15] In an attempt to be more specific, an even more specific “application” could be that pastors should spend more time in study of Scripture than in any other duty of the pastorate.
* It might best be presented as: “It may be that most of us would be wise to schedule more time for the study of God’s Word than for any other duty of the pastorate.”
4. Application that is Improbable-but-Possibly-Helpful: Some applications may be useful guideline for some who are hearing the sermon, but it cannot be presented with the same force or authority as application that is certain.
This kind of “application” must be most carefully framed – if it is offered at all. Those who miss your disclaimers will leave thinking you said the Bible teaches this certain way. If you determine that such specificity is needed to prime the pump and get the people thinking in concrete terms, then it is better to present more than one option.
- [Same case example of 2Tim.2:15] Hoping to be helpful, a preacher may offer an application from the passage that suggests that pastors schedule twenty hours of study in the course of their weekly ministry.
* The instance above should be presented with more than one option as: “I have found it very helpful to schedule twenty hours per week for the study of God’s Word. Others have suggested that fifteen hours of study is adequate. Whatever the case, we must be sure to make the study of Scripture a high priority in our pastoral duties and work diligently at it.”
5. Application that is improbable: There are, of course, applications that will not help anyone but will afford you an opportunity to slip in that story that you’ve always wanted to share.
6. Application that is impossible: Worse, you may be tempted to provide an “application” which the text could in no way imply, simply to serve the purpose of some church program or project.
Resist these temptations (of #5 and #6)! When these gimmicks creep into your sermons, your credibility and your pulpit authority will begin to erode.

(Michael Fabarez’s “Preaching That Changes Lives”, p.138-139 with some structural rearragement to make it easier to read...)

Kindergarten Memories

2005-05-31T23:55:00.000-07:00

Dear Timmy,

It's only two more weeks and your first year in Kindergarten will be over. I still remember a year ago, how we nervously took you in to see Ms. Wassins for the test because you were too young for the class. We worried for nothing, because you passed with flying color. In some areas like math, you even equaled kids at 6 years old level. Not bad for a 4 years-old. Your grandma would be really proud of you since she taught you to count. We were proud of you too.

Then you started school. We often had lunch together for a few weeks, until I began to worry if that would make you not independent enough. Your mom used to make lunch for both of us. And I drove over your school for lunch break at upper-playground. It was good having lunch with you every time. I still remember that first lunch we had together. I was so surprised that the first day of school, and the whole class had already know how to line up waiting for lunch, chanting "Rock, jock, Jay-hodge, Go K U!" Your teacher, Ms. Shears were the best Kindergarten teacher in the whole world!

Then the schoolwork. I never realized that there were that much work for Kindergarteners. Remember the first celebration project we did together? We were supposed to make a space pack. I didn't put enough effort on it with you, so we had a rather plain space pack. When we got to school the next day with your mom, she was sad because many of your classmates had really nice and elaborate space packs. And God used your mom to remind me that I should put more energy in to be a good dad. Your teacher taught me well too. I remember in one of those lunches I was about to squash a bug under my feet, only to be reminded by Ms. Shearers that we were supposed to respect all God's creatures. I knew then that it was worth it to invest in your childhood at a Christian School.

For the whole school year, we were worried a lot. We didn't know if you could keep up with your class or not, because you were younger than everyone else a year. We also weren't sure how would you relate with other people. After all, you were the kid who got a principal's report home within the first three weeks of school for biting your classmate "because he was trying to hug" you. And then toward mid year you threw a rock at Jeremy? I am glad that your mom discipline you by taking all your piano’s allowance money to buy him a peace offering gift back. Then remember that you had problem finishing your work in class in the first quarter? I am so glad that you've corrected it and finished the work everyday now. You are awesome.

For the whole year, you are surrounded in love. Your mom called to talk to you everyday when you get out of school. She specifically pack the right kind of snack for you every night when you asleep, and prepare breakfast for you every morning before you wake up. May anh may chi at church also loved you a lot. Cyndi, Hoa, Quynh, David, Chelsea, Roselyne, Niki, and many others had all been to your classes. Some had lunches with you, some helped teach you, some went with you to parks and field trips. We all loved you and wanted you to experience love so you will love others well in life.

Everyday as I dropped you off and picked you up, I really enjoyed talking to you about what’s going on, who was flipping the color cards, and listening to many of your stories. The best thing that your mom and I so proud of you this year was the time you had to retract your timeline story. You told your friends that you were six, because you don’t want them to know that you were only five. But after we discussed with each other about it, we’ve got Mrs. Shearers’ permission to retell your timeline story truthfully. God must be proud of you too.

There are just so much more memories about this year that I want to remember them all. The time that you threw-up and they tried to get a hold of us, the line “I am good – but not that good” from Ms. Shearers, our family travel to Japan and Canada, being your teacher’s teacher, the Deep Ocean’s musical, your desire to stay back in “daycare”, how you learned so much about God at school, the library books we read together almost every night, etc. These are all wonderful memories I thank God for.

Eventually you will grow up and have your very own life to live; and I will grow old into eternity. But then that day we meet in heaven, when I’ve finished my race and you’ve finished yours; may we look back to these days and thank God that we have lived fully in the blessing God had entrusted us with the lives of each other.

Your dad.

Stumble on Split...

2005-05-26T22:49:00.000-07:00

I picked up the book “Preaching that Changes Lives” from Michael Fabarez this last weekend. I like the book a lot that I wants to check out the church to study more from his sermon. His church is only an hour south from me, in the same town with my homiletic professor’s church. I heard that pastor Mike grew his church from 100 to 1200 congregants over the past 15 years.

And you know what I found? By the time I got to the church’s website, pastor Mike was no longer there, but there were a “transitioning team” in place. So where did he go? Did he fell away in disgrace? Or did he move on to even bigger place? Some more digging and I found a painful situation. Pastor Mike’s church is going through a church-split. He spoke the last message there at the church in late March, only two months ago. Apparently he wanted to fire an Associate Pastor of his, and the whole administrative conflict boiled to a big explosion, ending in his departure. Pastor Mike is heading up a new church and it will open for its first service two weeks from today.

Who’s right and who’s wrong? I don’t know because I am just a web surfer stumbled upon the whole thing. My speculation is that parts of the problem would be on his shoulder. He was just too gifted, with many ministries, and a lot of success: perfect environment for a collapse. After all, why would anyone like to have a PastorMike.com for a web site for a church? But hey, this is purely speculative judgmental from an outside web surfer any way. It’s sad for the insiders though...

2005-05-19T07:10:00.000-07:00

Tod B. was talking about pastor and church split over on his blog. I want to raise the question of "How far does the Shepherd be from the flock if he was to lead them?" We know that he shouldn't push the flock, but leading too far off and the flock will lose sight of him, and too close won't get anything moving either... Yesterday, I finally met Elijah over lunch, what a delight!

I can do Nothing

2005-04-25T10:08:00.000-07:00

Abide in me as I abide in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. John 15:4

I have been wrestling a lot to prepare the messages for the Compelling Love retreat. I need to be reminded that eventhough flowers precede fruits, just having the confidence of creating flowers doesn't mean that you can bear fruits. All that glitters are not necessarily gold.

As I wrestled with the message, it became clear that I could prepare and persuade, draft and deliver; but I have no clue of how to bring transformation to the lives of the hearers. No one else have the clues either on producing spiritual fruits.

Great orators could build rapports, could make people laugh, could move them to tears, could even have a throngs of people lining up for decision. But it's all the floweries. Flower could precede fruit; it almost always does. But flower is not fruit.

It requires more. Only life can beget life. And this life is "abide".

"Abide" is a command - because it's in our nature to stray off. When we am weak, we desparately cling on to the Lord and He came through for us. But when we got a hang of it, we ventured off by ourselves, and that's when we are prone to perish.

The problem is that if we are so use to watch for the flowers as the indicators of how well we do, we can easily deceive ourselves. Hearers may continue to laugh at our jokes, cry at our stories, and line-up at our calls for responses, but they all may not be the fruits. Or worse, the fruits may be there, but it's the work of God despite our disconnectness with God. (See how God responded when Moses disobeyed and struck the rock, water still came out, but Moses loss his portion in the promise land).

"Abide" is a continual state - because it's in our nature to flicker. I found that it's easier to stay closer when I was put on a mission. May be this is why "Purpose Driven Life" was selling so well. When you have an end results in mind (in this case, bear fruits), then you will orient your whole life in order to make it happen.

So in a way, if a person wanted to stay close to God, they must have a fruitful vision of what their life could be in mind. Every Christian must have a holy ambition to "bear much fruits"; they must imagine how would their fruits look like; they must dream about what could God accomplish with their flimsy lives. And only in doing so, they will begin to cultivate their state of abiding in Christ all the time in order for God to realize that vision in their lives.

Lord Jesus, help my life to be bound up in your life.

How to Avoid Shame

2005-04-19T08:51:00.000-07:00

In you, O LORD, I seek refuge; do not let me ever be put to shame; in your righteousness deliver me. Psalm 31:1

What a fitting Psalm for my own state of being. I need to remind myself that only "in God" is where I can have my refuge. If I don't want to be "put to shame", I need to make sure that I am "in your righteousness".

Many people may take the sentence above in a different angle. But for me this morning, I am thinking of the righteousness of God as the pious living according to His Word.

So many times we see people ended up in shame for something they did. A hidden sin were uncovered, questionable conducts surfaced up, bad deed in the past caught up in the presence. And at those times, what can we do to escape shameful consequence?

When we live according to God's Word, we seek to live in integrity so that we won't open up any stronghold for the enemies to be able to use to shame us later on. Paul urged his leaders to live "beyond reproach". Only in that lifestyle we can have full confidence that God's justice will be served and He will deliver us because we have been following His standard.

But note that the Word said, "in your righteousness" and not "in my righteousness". Even as we strive to follow God's standard in righteous living, it is clear that it's not easily achievable. God is holy, and we are not. So it's futiled for us to think that we have arrived, and it's equally foolish for us to lament about the fact that we could not ever get it. So we all making baby steps toward holiness, knowing that we are making headway, but we still a long way off. It's not how much ground you've covered in the journey, it's the increasing strength from the daily exercise of keep on moving.

How about this paraphrasing imagery: When we keep on moving toward your righteousness, we are also a moving target and it will also keeping the enemies from splaterring us with shame. The more we stay in sins, the more easily we will be put in shame.

In His Presence

2005-04-11T08:41:00.000-07:00

The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures; he leads me beside still waters; he restores my soul. He leads me in right paths for his name's sake. Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I fear no evil; for you are with me; your rod and your staff-- they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the LORD my whole life long.

I haven't been here since a while.

As a sheep, I haven't been gazing on the grass and resting at the still water.

Too much running around, too much hustling with the flock...

Thank you for "making" me lie down. Thank you for "restoring" my soul.

Would the "still waters" be on the "right paths" (paths of righteousness), as I follow your lead, living according for your name's sake? And if so, your "right paths" may even lead me through "the darkest valley" but I won't fear nor fret, "for you are with me".

O God, without your presence, the sense of "for you are with me", there will be no way I could survive. Moses didn't want to lead without Your Presence. And Jesus promised His Presence for me (I will be with you always til the end of the age). Help me to be more aware of your presence in my life, help me to see your presence in the work I do, help me to follow you, all the day of my life...

Weakness

2005-04-04T08:36:00.000-07:00

Yesterday Jenney asked me why the church couldn't attract enough people who were seeking. I gave her my opinion, and now I found something else on it...

Outsiders often look at the church, full of muddle and sin and shame and half-heartedness and back-biting, and clergy who don’t know what they are talking about and laity who go wandering off the point, and they say, “Well, if that’s what you’ve got to say about that wonderful message you talk about, you really are a muddled lot. How can you possibly be the body of Christ, the temple of the living God, as you say you are called to be?”
The answer comes again and again in 2 Corinthians. The glory of Christ is not revealed in spectacular show of success, in people who get everything right all the time. People like that, as we know, can sometimes be a pain in the neck. The church reveals the glory of Christ through suffering and shame as much as through what the world counts as success.
The way this happens is often enough that the church is called to be where the world is in pain, at the place where the world is suffering and in a state of shame and sorrow. The church is there as the presence of the suffering Christ in the world.
—N. T. Wright, Reflecting the Glory, p. 19

Reflection on His Passion

2005-03-25T08:31:00.000-08:00

Last night I and a few of my friends, we gathered and winessed the Passion of the the Christ all over again. It was dark and quiet. And each of us pursued own own reflection as we saw the horrific crime that we committed against our God over again.

Each of us chose our own moment to identify with Christ by taking the communion. My own moment for this year was this line from the OT, which Mel Gibson had Jesus say:

"I am your servant, the son of your handmaid."

Handmaid is the female maid servant. Here the Psalmist (and MG) said that the Christ stooped so low, lower than a servant. Paul said...

"[Christ] made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.

And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death– even death on a cross!"

And this was our prayer last night as we took the communion...

Jesus, on that night you broke the bread:

“This is my body, broken for you”

Afterward you lifted the cup:

“This is my blood, God’s new covenant,

poured out for you”

Jesus, this we do to remember…

It was our sins that did that to you,

That ripped and tore and crushed you, our sins!

You took the punishment,

and that made us whole.

Through your bruises we get healed.

God has piled all our sins, everything we’ve done wrong, on you, on you.

So, when we see His steps, we couldn't help but be confronted of where would our steps be. Beyond the cross were the joy of glory! The author of Hebrews wrote that Jesus "for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God."

Lord God, make me a servant, like your sevant.

breaking my fast

2005-03-23T18:58:00.000-08:00

I broke the fast yesterday. It was an accident. We had a business lunch yesterday at Thai's BBQ. When ordered the food, I asked for a Thai's ice coffee as the usual habit. Not until a few minutes later I realized that I was on my coffee fast for Lent. Thoughts raced through my mind. Should I called off the order, or should I just went on with it? I decided that I shouldn't be too legalistic about it. Humble pie is good for the soul too anyway. So, I went on with it. This Sunday I will break the fast with a Starbucks hot venti mocha mint soy easy mocha. It will be intentional. What a joy! This is the first time ever I fast for Lent. Growing up as non-liturgical Vietnamese Christians, we often thought that fast and Lent are Catholic things. Not until I am studying a bit about various spiritual disciplines, and having conversations with other Christians here in the US, then I realize that it's not a bad thing, then I decided to try it out. So far, it neither help or hurt my existing relationship with God or my life style either... May be next time I need to try something more essential to me...

Introduction to "Wimpy Theology"

2005-03-19T16:58:00.000-08:00

My friend Rick lamented that "theology is boring" because it's all knowledge and lacks heart and soul. I would agree, but I think the problem was the terminology we used. So I replied...

"Theology is boring!" Saying that and you will receive plenty of "Amen." But what if you replace the word "Theology" with "Knowing God". Would knowing God be boring? I doubt it. The problem here is the semantic. We are conditioned to yawn when we hear the word theology. Therefore I am extremely cautious to use the word around anyone. I prefer the second term instead: Knowing God. (But not the kind of Knowing God as described in the book with the same title from J.I.Packer - I could not bring myself to complete the book). And so I think about God, and want to know about God; through Bible study and devotion and baring the souls to the brethen, and start exploring the limitation of what I know about God. Eventually each one of us start to have our own personal "theology", which is the ground for our action. I called that, "wimpy theology". And that is not boring at all...

Road Map for the Future Viet Church - Part 1

2005-03-17T13:01:00.000-08:00

I had a brainstorming session with Muc Su Thach yesterday in which he sketched a draft of the road map for the future Vietnamese church oversea (I will call it FVC for now). For the sake of clarity, I will try to articulate what he said in the next few weeks. (It's too bad the man himself didn't write any book). But first, the disclaimer: What you are reading in this series are still mumbo jumbo by the few individuals, it could even be misrepresented by my own prejudice and interpretation. So take everything with a grain of salt and think things through. But first, let's do an opening exercise question: Take a look of an old picture of your church group about 5 years ago. How many people was in the picture? How many are still living out their faith today? What is the percentage? Then leave me a comment below. That's it - I will wait for some responses from my friends on Xanga before we get started.

Random Nuggets

2005-03-17T12:58:00.000-08:00

1. A week ago I had an interesting conversation with Jenney. She thought that we should be faster in everything we do because we should "making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil" [Ephesians 5:16]. I was arguing on the oposite that we should be slower because the Bible said, "Be still, and know that I am God" [Psalm 46:10a]. So which one is right? Should we be more rush or should we be more mellow? After some discussion, we came to the conclusion that we should rush through life faster so that we can spend time with God leisurely slower. And why was that? Here is some interesting thoughts. We often rush for this moment in order to catch up to the next moment. But when we come to the presence of God, we are finally arrived! In the presence of God is the final destination for our soul. And therefore why should we rush, but instead we should be still there in His presence and bask ourselves in the sweetness of His glory. Next time, when we feel the urge of rushing through the sacrament of communion, or through worship, or though any other components of the spiritual life: slow down. The rest of the time, you can rush. 2. Last Sunday we were studying Acts 17 with Gary. What struck me (and totally unrelated to Gary's study) was that Paul had a boss. No, I am not talking about the divine directions he got from the Holy Spirit. I am talking about Paul had human bosses, who tell even the head-honcho-Apostle of what to do and where to go. Don't believe me? Check out Acts 17:10 when Paul was facing persecution at Thessalonica, "(Person removed) sent Paul and Silas away to Berea". And then when things heated up there, "(The same person removed) immediately sent Paul to the coast, but Silas and Timothy stayed at Berea." [Acts 17:14] I am leaving Paul's bosses out of the text for now just to keep you wondered . But the nugget I learned was this: even Paul the head-honcho had human bosses (even from the crowd of new believers there in these two cities). So, who are we to not taking order from them? I will get back on this topic for the next time... (May be...)

Plan B

2005-03-02T07:27:00.000-08:00

The LORD said to Samuel, "How long will you grieve over Saul? I have rejected him from being king over Israel. Fill your horn with oil and set out; I will send you to Jesse the Bethlehemite, for I have provided for myself a king among his sons." Samuel said, "How can I go? If Saul hears of it, he will kill me." And the LORD said, "Take a heifer with you, and say, 'I have come to sacrifice to the LORD.' Invite Jesse to the sacrifice, and I will show you what you shall do; and you shall anoint for me the one whom I name to you." Samuel did what the LORD commanded, and came to Bethlehem. The elders of the city came to meet him trembling, and said, "Do you come peaceably?" He said, "Peaceably; I have come to sacrifice to the LORD; sanctify yourselves and come with me to the sacrifice." And he sanctified Jesse and his sons and invited them to the sacrifice. When they came, he looked on Eliab and thought, "Surely the Lord's anointed is now before the LORD." But the LORD said to Samuel, "Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him; for the LORD does not see as mortals see; they look on the outward appearance, but the LORD looks on the heart." Then Jesse called Abinadab, and made him pass before Samuel. He said, "Neither has the LORD chosen this one." Then Jesse made Shammah pass by. And he said, "Neither has the LORD chosen this one." Jesse made seven of his sons pass before Samuel, and Samuel said to Jesse, "The LORD has not chosen any of these." Samuel said to Jesse, "Are all your sons here?" And he said, "There remains yet the youngest, but he is keeping the sheep." And Samuel said to Jesse, "Send and bring him; for we will not sit down until he comes here." He sent and brought him in. Now he was ruddy, and had beautiful eyes, and was handsome. The LORD said, "Rise and anoint him; for this is the one." Then Samuel took the horn of oil, and anointed him in the presence of his brothers; and the spirit of the LORD came mightily upon David from that day forward. Samuel then set out and went to Ramah. [1 Samuel 16:1-13]

God has a plan. God has a plan to rectify what went wrong. It's not that His plan went wrong and he had to now fix it. But his accomodation to the our human inclination allow rooms for things went wrong in His plan.

Saul's reign went wrong, your job derailed, I bombed my class. Was that all in God's plan? Both yes and no. He often accomodated our weaknesses in His plan A, but He has other plans: B, A prime, Beta, etc. in reserve.

God has a plan. God has a plan but He required a human to set it off. That human wil need to overcome grief and regret, fear and prejudice, in other to set God's plan in motion.

Samuel was the human agent. We are called to be the human agent. God wants His agents to overcome their own grief and regret (sometimes they take too much credits for their contributions in what went wrong). God wants His agents to overcome their own fear and prejudice (sometimes they don't give enough credits for God, who know what He is doing, and who can certaintly carry the plan out one way or another).

God has a plan. God has a plan but it often required a gradual growth from the human to fit into His plan. His plan won't bear fruit the next day; even the next ten years. God's plan often accomplished when people believe in His plan and continue to move forward, a bit at a time, closer and closer to reality.

David didn't become king the next day, or even ten years later for that matter. He grew into kingship, through sweat and blood. Most Christians grew into God's potential gradually too. Faith keep them inching toward what they don't see, a bit at a time, obedience over a long period of time.

O Lord my God, thank you for accomodate my weakness and continue to work with me. Please allow me to be a faithful servant, who gradually inch toward the goal you had set forth for my life.

Without Faith, Suffering won't turn to Hope

2005-02-22T09:31:00.000-08:00

Before the Riverside retreat, this is how I often felt Two weeks ago, I went on a 4 days retreat with Muc Su Thach and a couple of friends to Riverside and refuged ourselves away from the storm rains. For a few days, we were immersed ourselves in the depth of the Word and enjoyed the 1st letter of Peter. It was wonderful to step a way from all the busyness, from the down pour rains, and to take it slow through the magnificent Word. And in that unhurried meditation, the Spirit of God started working on my soul, started removing the haunting nightmare burried deepdown in my human psyche. One of the major themes of 1st Peter is about suffering of the mundane life and the faith to sustain us through all of that. The last day of the retreat, I came across these words: "do not fear their intimidation, and do not be troubled" You see, I have always see myself as the captain of the walker-robot fleet in Matrix Reloaded. In desperation, he pulled everything he got in the last stance against the invincible sentinels approaching. In the same way, I often felt like fighting a suicidal battle to keep my faith and the next generation's faith suviving the onslaught of the secular world. Here Peter wrote, in the middle of the intense suffering and persecution of his day: "do not fear their intimidation, and do not be troubled" And Paul wrote about the hope that he had, on the same circumstance:

Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us. [Romans 5:1-5]

Back at the retreat, after meditating 1st Peter slowly; I started realizing that suffering happened to everyone. But when the people-of-faith went through suffering; it's the faith that would turn desperation into hope. It is the faith in God that help them to endure what they've been through. It is the faith that effected their attitude during endurance and produce character. And once chracters were forged in faith, hope will emerged. I also daydreamed when I was listening to the rain and was meditating on the Word that weekend. (Or perhaps I should spiritualize it and said that, "I had a vision"). In my dream, I saw another desperation. This time from Simba, who was cornered by his enemies. In desperation, he pulled everything he got in the last stance against the invincible hyhenas approaching. He tried his hardest to roar. Surprisingly the roar was powerful and sending shock and awe through his enemies. And as the camera zoomed out, you can see the source of victory, the Lion King was standing right behind his son. Desperation in itself wasn't bad. People like me got desperate because we thought it's up to us to fight the battle. And it is true. Jesus intentionally left so that it is up to us to complete His work. But when everything is said and done, there is absolutely nothing can be invincible besides the Invincible One. And the faith in Him will be what turn desperation into hope. After that retreat, this is how I have been feeling

Harden Hearts Could Produce Heartfelt Worship Too...

2005-02-16T16:19:00.000-08:00

O come, let us sing to the LORD; let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation! Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving; let us make a joyful noise to him with songs of praise! For the LORD is a great God, and a great King above all gods. In his hand are the depths of the earth; the heights of the mountains are his also. The sea is his, for he made it, and the dry land, which his hands have formed. O come, let us worship and bow down, let us kneel before the LORD, our Maker! For he is our God, and we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand. O that today you would listen to his voice! Do not harden your hearts, as at Meribah, as on the day at Massah in the wilderness, when your ancestors tested me, and put me to the proof, though they had seen my work. For forty years I loathed that generation and said, "They are a people whose hearts go astray, and they do not regard my ways." Therefore in my anger I swore, "They shall not enter my rest." (Psalm 95:1-11)

Interesting contrast here: in the first part, the Psalmist put forth a call to worship (from v.1-7, the green part) but then in the 2nd part (v.8-11 in brown) the voices changed, and you have the voice of God, who gave a stern warning to the worshipers not to harden their hearts. Implication: people could worship with great fervent and sincerety, yet their hearts are still harden. So, even if we sing your hearts out at a worship service, don't be surprised when God shook His head and wouldn't take any of it...

In my reading last night, E.H.P touched my soul when he shared...

How can I keep from settling into the salary and benefits of a checkout clerk in a store for religious consumers? How can I avoid a metamorphosis from the holy vocation of pastor into a promising career in religious sales? ... I want to speak the Word of God that is Scripture in the language and rhythms of the people I live with. I am given an honored and protected time each week to do that. The pulpit is a great gift, and I want to use it well.
I have no interest in "delivering sermons," challenging people to face the needs of the day or giving bright, inspirational messages. With the help provided by scholars and editors, I can prepare a fairly respectable sermon of either sort in a few hours each week, a sermon that will pass muster with most congregations. They might not think it the greatest sermon, but they would accept it.
But what I want to do can’t be done that way. I need a drenching in Scripture; I require an immersion in biblical studies. I need reflective hours over the pages of Scripture as well as personal struggles with the meaning of Scripture. That takes far more time than it takes to prepare a sermon.
I want the people who come to worship in my congregation each Sunday to hear the Word of God preached in such a way that they hear its distinctive note of authority as God’s Word, and to know that their own lives are being addressed on their home territory. A sound outline and snappy illustrations don’t make that happen...

There you have it, the cry for the harden hearts behind all the production of worship services. We need to enter God's rest and allow Him to soften our hearts.

O Lord, save me from hiding my harden heart behind the veneer of worship and service.

The four Selah of recovery from sin

2005-02-12T08:29:00.000-08:00

1 Happy are those whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. 2 Happy are those to whom the LORD imputes no iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit. 3 While I kept silence, my body wasted away through my groaning all day long. 4 For day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer. Selah 5 Then I acknowledged my sin to you, and I did not hide my iniquity; I said, "I will confess my transgressions to the LORD," and you forgave the guilt of my sin. Selah 6 Therefore let all who are faithful offer prayer to you; at a time of distress, the rush of mighty waters shall not reach them. 7 You are a hiding place for me; you preserve me from trouble; you surround me with glad cries of deliverance. Selah 8 I will instruct you and teach you the way you should go; I will counsel you with my eye upon you. 9 Do not be like a horse or a mule, without understanding, whose temper must be curbed with bit and bridle, else it will not stay near you. 10 Many are the torments of the wicked, but steadfast love surrounds those who trust in the LORD. 11 Be glad in the LORD and rejoice, O righteous, and shout for joy, all you upright in heart. Psalm 32:1-11
O God, have mercy on me, a sinner

I've never notice the Selahs in this Psalm before. I think it outlines the stages of recovery well: 1) First it indicates the natural provision for sins, the consequence of coming to God or to hold back from him. 2) Then the Psalmist moved to a definite action of confessing his sins to God and receiving forgiveness from him. 3) Then there are a refuge period when he was still coping with his trouble. 4) And finally the praise and the renewal to God. And so there is a transitional stage 3 which may linger through before our faith are fully establish. I hope that I am there in that stage. I can only hope, because I am not so certain of where I am in this anymore...

O God, have mercy on me, a sinner.

What do you see?

2005-02-10T09:14:00.000-08:00

Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and his brother John and led them up a high mountain, by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became dazzling white. Suddenly there appeared to them Moses and Elijah, talking with him. Then Peter said to Jesus, "Lord, it is good for us to be here; if you wish, I will make three dwellings here, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah." While he was still speaking, suddenly a bright cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud a voice said, "This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him!" When the disciples heard this, they fell to the ground and were overcome by fear. But Jesus came and touched them, saying, "Get up and do not be afraid." And when they looked up, they saw no one except Jesus himself alone. [Mat.17:1-8]

Here's my allegorical take on this passage central around the question of "What do you see?" First the disciples saw that they were by themselves with Jesus ascending the mountain. They could see themselves as beyond the pack of other disciples. When I compare myself with others, I could see myself as far ahead of them. Then the disciples saw Jesus transfigured; and I saw Jesus differently, no longer the same familiar figure I was raised to know. Third the disciples see Moses and Elijah, the living figures from the Law and Prophets; and I was mesmerized by the Word of God came a life to me. But then God came down in a cloud and affirming Jesus, the disciples were struck with fear. At this point in my life I have yet experience a powerful fear-struck encounter with God yet. But I know what would be next; Jesus will come and sustain me. "And when they looked up, they saw no one except Jesus himself alone."

Oh Lord God, give me a pure heart so I can see God.

Entering Lent

2005-02-09T09:04:00.000-08:00

Today is the start of Lent, a 40 day period of spiritual focus that is leading up to Easter. First, some background...

The season of Lent foretold the celebration of Holy Week [for the people of God]. Holy Week consisted of the seven days leading up to Easter Sunday, beginning with Palm Sunday, passing through Maundy Thursday and Good Friday. The forty days leading up to Easter Sunday constituted Lent. In the earliest days of Christianity (we’re talking the first three hundred or so years), Lent was a time of preparation for unbaptized converts, to Christianity. During Lent, the elders of the local church instructed [them] in the basics of the Apostolic Faith. On Easter Sunday, [they] would be baptized as the sun rose in the morning. As they were baptized, they would face eastwards and renounce the darkness. Too bad we don’t do things like that anymore. Lent is commonly associated with fasting and repentance. Fasting over a period of forty days is something that occurs with great regularity in Scripture. Moses did it when he ascended Mount Sinai to receive the Law. Jesus did it as well. Fasting is a much-neglected spiritual discipline in our modern world of fast food and instant gratification, and we would do well to start practicing it once again. Of course, fasting is very tightly bound to repentance. The focus of Lent is repentance. Again, many of us are confused about repentance. Some of us think of it as “penance,” that is, atoning for our sins with acts of contrition. But that is not repentance. We can’t atone for what we have done and need not try. Jesus’ work on the cross is our atonement. Some of us think of repentance as sorrow and shame for what we have done, but that is also inaccurate. Repentance is literally to “change your mind.” In the famous words of Dallas Willard, “To reconsider your strategy for living based on the news of God’s Kingdom that is available in Jesus.” And that is what Lent is for, to reconsider your strategy for living. To begin a new process of deep consideration and reflection about your life. To reconsider what it means to follow Jesus, to plumb the mystery of Good Friday and Easter Sunday. To reconsider what your strategy for living should be, based on this good news. And it all begins with this: Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return. You are not an angel. You are not a mere soul or disembodied spirit. You are human, you are mortal, you are deeply dependent on the God who formed your body from the humus of the earth and breathed life into you with his kiss. God has come to you, in Jesus, O Creature, and called you to have life eternal with him [1][2].

For Lent, I decided to forego all the slide backgrounds for our worship PowerPoint slides for the next 7 weeks, sort of a corporate fast. Personally, I am going join my boss at work this year (he’s a devout Catholics) in giving up coffee and to reflect on my strategy for living instead. Let’s see how it is... [1][2] From my prof. http://bolsinger.blogs.com/weblog/2005/02/dirty_foreheads_1.html and his friend http://dulciusexasperis.com/2005/02/02/forget-40-days-of-purpose-try-lent-instead

Presence of the Word, not Rules of the Word

2005-02-07T09:05:00.000-08:00

Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. He fasted forty days and forty nights, and afterwards he was famished. The tempter came and said to him, "If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread." But he answered, "It is written, 'One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.'" Then the devil took him to the holy city and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple, saying to him, "If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down; for it is written, 'He will command his angels concerning you,' and 'On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.'" Jesus said to him, "Again it is written, 'Do not put the Lord your God to the test.'" Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor; and he said to him, "All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me." Jesus said to him, "Away with you, Satan! for it is written, 'Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.'" [Mat.4:1-11]

Our Christian lives are full of temptations; because now we can discern according to God's standard. "Temptation is often in the guise of something good not bad, and what is good is often in the form of what might appear dull, boring or even bad itself."[1] The question for me is how would you be able to discern that they are indeed temptations, and not something we should do? In many instances, the temptations had even biblical supports as well. The model Jesus presented here is for us to be grounded in the Word of God; so any tendencies which lead away from the path of God should be considered as advances from the tempter. But there is a deeper truth beyond the seemingly simple principle above. Being grounded in the Word of God is more than just knowing what the commandment is all about. From the story of the first temptation of Eve [Gen. 3:1-7], let's not forget that Eve was able to recite what God had commanded in regard to the forbidden tree. Here we see that, "relationships are not governed by rules but by presence"[2]. It's the Presence that made sense of the rules.

One thing I still need to work on is my abiding in the Word. As simplistic as it sounds, Jesus simply pointed to the Word of God as the only weapon used to fight against temptations. Oh Lord, teach me how to cope with temptations just like You did.

[1] http://tabletalk.typepad.com/tabletalk/2005/01/mystery.html [2] http://tabletalk.typepad.com/tabletalk/2005/01/making_room_for.html

Giants

2005-02-04T09:07:00.000-08:00

According to one of my accountability partners, a Physic professor once said this:

There are people who have their heads in the cloud, and have amazing foresight, but they can't get anywhere in real life, because their feet are not firmly planted on the ground.
And then there are others, whose feet are on the ground, very practical in real life but cannot get anywhere far either for the lack of foresight...
But then there are a few, whose feet are in the ground, but their head are in the cloud!
We call them giants, people who impact the world...

Don't forget that in growth, God is often stretching us in both directions.

Don't forget that in stretching, it's done slowly over time, sometimes painful a bit too.

[Three days later...]

I am still thinking about the post above...

The question is, "Where do you start? With the head first or with the feet first?" And as I pondering the question, I ran into Paul, and this is what he said, "Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you." [Rom.12:3] And so I think the more natural way would be start with the feet and grow from there...

When seeing God is not enough

2005-01-31T10:48:00.000-08:00

One of my friends was reading Exodus 24:9-11: "Moses and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and the seventy elders of Israel went up and saw the God of Israel. Under his feet was something like a pavement made of sapphire, clear as the sky itself. But God did not raise his hand against these leaders of the Israelites; they saw God, and they ate and drank." And she just realized that human being can see God Himself. (She thought that no one can see God, or they will be struck dead). I pointed out the significant of the preceding verse 8 of the important of redemption/forgiveness before approaching God: "Moses then took the blood, sprinkled it on the people and said, 'This is the blood of the covenant that the LORD has made with you in accordance with all these words.'". (Jesus also stated, "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God" - unfortunately there are no one could be perfect enough on their own to see God by their own perfection, that's why we depend on the blood of Jesus to cover all our sin...)

Then interesting enough, the lectionary calendar for this week points me to the next part of Exodus 24. Verse 12 said that, "The LORD said to Moses, 'Come up to me on the mountain, and wait there; and I will give you the tablets of stone, with the law and the commandment, which I have written for their instruction.'"

What I am seeing here is the link between the redemption/forgiveness in verse 8, the fellowship with God and with each other in verse 9-11, and the Instruction of God given here in verse 12.

First, note the order of redemption/forgiveness --> fellowship with God and others, and --> following God's instruction in life. Without believing, there will be no belonging; and without belonging, there will be no becoming.

And many times we stop short too prematurely in our growth in God. Some thought that if our sin are forgiven, that was enough, salvation is just a "get out of hell card". Others thought that if we find ourselves in fellowship with other believers and with God, that was enough, blessing is just "spiritual happiness". But here, God bid Moses to move on to receive "the law and the commandment, which [God] have written for [our] instruction!" The important matter is to continue follow God in this present life, in the present world. Jesus emphasized plainly that if a person love Him, that person must obey what He commanded (John 14:15,21,23,24). And so, we need to move on to actually follow God's instruction in life, and not just stoping short prematurely.

Being grounded in the Word are crucial for us to know what to do in life.

In the recent weeks, I was studying from Daniel in our small group. In the last study, this scenario played out: A death squad of the Nazis descended upon a Jewish ghetto to carry out their destructive order. And they met the first guy on the block: You. What would you do?

Daniel was in that scenario, and this is what recorded of him, "When Arioch, the commander of the king’s guard, had gone out to put to death the wise men of Babylon, Daniel spoke to him with wisdom and tact" [Dan.2:14]. That word "tact" is an intersting word, the PCS has the following insight on it:

"[that word] is variously rendered in the Old Testament. It is related to the Hebrew verb meaning 'to taste' (taam). Here it conveys those spiritual instincts of judgment, discernment, and what we might call a sense of the realities of the situation. Daniel's wisdom was a well-developed sense of spiritual 'taste.'
We speak about people having a highly developed taste in many spheres. What we mean is that they are able to tell the difference between foods or drinks or even clothes that seem to the rest of us virtually indistinguishable. Taste is a mysterious sense and one which experience can develop to a very high degree. There are people who can tell the year of a certain wine or the origin of the leaves for a cup of tea. In some ways, spiritual wisdom is just like that. It is a highly developed sense of God's ways, learned through obedience to God's Word. It is a sensitive awareness of the kind of behavior that is appropriate to the child of God in different circumstances. It does not necessarily come with age but with understanding of the Lord's Word and ways..."

So, in the midst of our everyday life, God invited us to take on His instruction and His word so that we would be able to live effectively in our everyday life, admist all the problems and crises we will encounter.

Lord God, help me to not only just be forgiven, but also can overcome sins; help me not only just have the fellowship, but also have the followship; and help me not only just know Your Word, but also obey them as well.

The road of the masters

2005-01-27T10:51:00.000-08:00

Last Saturday there was an anonynous email came to the district, accusing one of my mentor of adultery. The implication? Twenty years from now, I might be in the receiving end of things like that too. Didn't JC say, "If they do this to me, they will do this to you also." So, what will I do to prepare for that day when it comes?

How could anyone mock the Tsunami victims?

2005-01-26T09:21:00.000-08:00

I got this from Nancy...

Friends,
I got an email today from a friend, notifying me of a "Tsunami Song" played on a popular hip hop station, Hot 97, and the notorious conversation amongst 2 hosts on the show towards an Asian woman who voiced her complaints about this song. This just happened on 1/21/05. I didn't think much of it until I actually went on the website & read up on it & listened to it myself. It broke my heart with anger & sadness as I listened on. Anyways, I'm not much for petitioning against things but this was something that I feel strongly speaking out against. If interested, check it out yourselves: http://www.petitiononline.com/endhate/petition.html http://www.hiphopmusic.com/archives/000760.html (Click on one of the MP3 links to hear the radio conversation & song) Reminds me of a fallen world in which we've lost love & even respect for those who are different, especially ethnically & racially. One of things that I've learned in InterVarsity Christian Fellowship during my college years, was that Race Matters, and the need to deal with it as we are a part of multi-ethnic communities, else we will tear one another apart. We haven't gone too far aways from Racism. May the power of Jesus on the Cross break down walls of racial hostility & bring about reconciliation & healing. Education may cure Ignorance. But the message of the Cross restores & rebuilds People's relationships with their Creator...and with each other. Praying for the power of the Cross in each of our lives...

Snippets from the website:

On January 21st, 2005, an offensive song/skit containing openly derogatory and racist overtones reached millions of listeners in New York City when it was broadcast on Hot 97's "Miss Jones in the Morning" radio show. While the radio show has a history of recording and playing such spoofs on a regular basis, the infamous "Tsunami Song" mocks not only the victims of the unfortunate recent natural disaster in Southeast Asia, but also all members of the Asian race in general with the racial slurs "chink" and "Chinamen." Choice lyrics included: - "All at once you could hear the screaming ch*nks and no one was safe from the wave there were africans drowning, little chinamen swept away you could hear god laughing, 'swim you b*tches swim'" - "So now you're screwed, it's the Tsunami, you better run or kiss your ass away, go find your mommy, I just saw her float by, a tree went through her head, and now the children will be sold to child slavery..." On this tape you hear them introducing the "Tsunami Song," then Miss Jones and co-host Todd Lynn launching into an abusive tirade against Miss Info when she voices her objection to it. Miss Jones finally tells Info she's only complaining because "you feel superior, probably because you're Asian."Then, after Miss Info has said the song is offensive to Asians, co-host Todd Lynn informs her: "I'm gonna start shooting Asians." Yes, he really says that."

One of my friend at google put in some research time and came up with some additional information:

Here's a link to the song. Be warned, its pretty offensive, and i'm a person who can usually take things in stride but this was just pure mockery of a tragic event. Its not satirical or even remotely funny. [Note: As of today, the site was down. Basically, any site who put up the MP3 file will be under the traffic flood of the entire Internet to get the actual fact, therefore it might be hard to get a piece of this. But if you want it hard enough, my friend at google can get it for you...]
http://www.hot97.com has the official statement slash "apology". Its a pretty crappy, lame, and generic apology if you ask me.
http://www.hiphopmusic.com/archives/000759.html for a discussion about it from a very reputeable hip hop site.
"We demand that the FCC take some kind of action. If they can impose hundreds of thousands of dollars, or millions of dollars, in penalties for a wardrobe malfunction, thjey can certainly take some kind of action with regard to this," said Queens Councilman John Liu.

For the latest news on this, click this Google's News Update! But as of 1/26/05: Hot 97 Announces Suspension, Details Unclear So Far

Spectrums of the Spiritual Journey

2005-01-25T09:24:00.000-08:00

Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled. Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God. Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness’ sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. (Mat.5:3-10) Oh God, you are full of mercy. Remember me, a sinner.
This is so familiar to many of us, me included that sometimes we can no longer hear what it meant. Especially when you seems to have your Christian life "together". But when you are broken by sins, in the struggle and failures of everyday living, when you feel like you cannot get anywhere in this spiritual journey, these words become so comforting: "blessed are the poor in spirit, those who mourn, the meek, those who hunger and thirst for righteousness..." Those words cleanses my soul deep down this morning. O Lord have mercy on me, a sinner. But then there's sometimes we seems to be in other end of the spectrum of the Christian life; when we are making progress, when we live out the faith, when we have a taste of victory over sins, etc. Then these words continue to encourage us, "blessed are the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers, and who are persecuted for righteousness' sake." I see these words as gears in a cyclical engine of faith. We started out somewhere with being needy, being desperate, and through repentance and faith in Jesus, we move toward maturity in righteousness, living out the faith toward other people, to the point that we could be persecuted for doing the right things. But don't take me wrong, I don't think these gears are static (once you got through a certain level, you are ready for the next one); I see these as very small, and continuous cycles in our lives as we living out the faith. (Some thing I wrote about about in the cyclical pattern of faith). It's also interesting that the words "bless" here can be translated as "happy" as well. If so, this is the secret to "a happy life", but not the kind of happiness which the Time magazine special issues "The Science of Happiness" discussed about. This is the kind of biblical happiness which Mark Robert discussed about in his theology of happiness. For me this morning, I am starting from the broken end and trusting that God will take me to the wholistic end of the Beattitude soon.

Not Sadness vs. Joy, but Sadness & Joy

2005-01-24T11:51:00.000-08:00

Sometimes, I wrote stuff and buried them deep somewhere. And then other sometimes I ran into similar situations which old writing were describing exactly how I feel, and I dig old stuff up to soak in my old thinking and to figure out some new light. One of the recurring problem I often encountered is spiritual casualty. It's what happened when people back slide or die spiritually. More than a year ago, I wrote this in private...

Oct. 28, 2003
Last Saturday I found my high school pastor[1] playing the piano in the corner of an empty room in the dark. She was crying. I sat down with her and found out what was wrong. One of her top student leader was just finish talking to her, stating the intention of back slide out of church. All a long, the student was doing great, leading small group, facilitating bible studies, participating regularly in the leadership discipleship group... And now this, making a consciencious decision to drop out of church, stop following Christ. We still wonder why... But my pastor was heart-broken. She invested so much time into this particular student (and she was the girl's mentor). She regreted "If only I saw the signs early on...", and sobbed. I tried to comfort her. I reminded her about the Ultimate Shepherd, who were ultimately supposed to look after the sheep. We remembered another tragic casualty of another leader who left our leadership team just to date a non-Christian bachelor. We talked about the time Jesus allowing Lazarus to die before He making him live again... But words seem to be so inadequated in situation like this...

Now, the same feeling is flooding through again. Like a doctor witnessing a patient died, I think anyone who serve in ministry sooner or later will encountered spiritual casualty sooner or later.

In those times, part of you wanna cry, "It would be great that I wouldn't care so that I won't feel hurt so much." But that's part of the package. Love is Inherently Tragic![2] When we chose to love, we chose the possibility to be rejected. When we chose to marry, or to have kids, we chose the possibility that we could bury them someday, as part of the package. In the same way, when we chose to minister to people, we will also chose the pain that go with it as well.

Once we understand this, then we also understand the question of, "Why would God created humankind, while He knows fully that they are capable of betraying Him?" Once we understand this, then we could understand how is it that Jesus could be "the Lamb that was slain from the creation of the world." [Rev.13:8]

But we, the people of God are not called to be depressing people! One of my recent personal reading was from Isaiah 9:1-4, where Isaiah toldforth...

But there will be no gloom for those who were in anguish. In the former time he brought into contempt the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, but in the latter time he will make glorious the way of the sea, the land beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the nations. The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness on them light has shined. You have multiplied the nation, you have increased its joy; they rejoice before you as with joy at the harvest, as people exult when dividing plunder. For the yoke of their burden, and the bar across their shoulders, the rod of their oppressor, you have broken as on the day of Midian.

And so, when Jesus was found walking the sea of Galilee [in Mat.4:12-17], the author of the Gospel, realized this is the beginning of the great joy of God, poured out to humankind (the gentile).

I have the tendency to be too serious, sober and depressed. And the lesson I need to learn is to cross over from sadness to joy. Recently, I have been studied (yep, study) about hapiness. Mark Robert, a friend of my professor had this long (11-parts) post about the theology of happiness, which I finally finished reading. And somehow I think that sadness and suffering is also an inherent part of joy as well. Does it make any sense?

Lord Jesus, help us to understand the life you had in mind for us, so that we can live like what you want us to live.

The day after the storm

2005-01-18T11:33:00.000-08:00

I shall see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living...

I am drawn to Psalm 27 this week in the lectionary. It's probably because of God spoke into my being through this passage.

Last night, we got into an argument. She slammed the door on me, and I took off into the night in anger. Thank God for the prayer support I must have received at that precise time. I took a short trip, then turned around and went home. Around 1am we were actually talking again as sane people. Eventhough there were nothing concrete came out yet, but atleast I know where to work on now.

Ps.27:9: Do not hide your face from me. Do not turn your servant away in anger, you who have been my help. Do not cast me off, do not forsake me, O God of my salvation!

Does God really ever hide His face from us, or turn us away in anger? Hardly, but it could seem that way to us. And during those times, I will need to stand firm in what I believe about God:

Ps.27:10: If my father and mother forsake me, the LORD will take me up.

Ps.27:11 encourages me to do the right thing: "Teach me your way, O LORD, and lead me on a level path because of my enemies."

Last night, there were many wrong places I could ended up as the result of my anger. And it was not easy to come home right away (it's more dramatic to stay out longer to stress her out; and it's losing face to crawl home and admit, 'I was out of line, I am sorry') But didn't I commit to do the right thing and follow God's way? So I came home, and made peace with God and myself first, then to my wife later.

As we talked later that night, one comment from my wife concerned me a lot: 'It seems like the more ministry you are doing, the worse you are at home!' I was surprised, for I thought that I was a much better husband now than who I was supposed to be. After all, if I am closer to God now than before, how could I be worse as a husband. If she thinks I am getting worse, and I think I am getting better, who would be right? How can we accurately assess this situation?

After discussing some more about 'How could you see that I am worse' (with a sane and civilized discussion), she mentioned some profound insight: 'Perhaps we might have the same vision so we are driven in the same direction. But is there any love left?'

Wow. This is as Tommy Nelson said about 'A maid living with a butler', they could function well and serve one another - but is it love?

I suggested that perhaps we will need to put a "date night" schedule into practice. We heard a lot about it but we've never applied before. She didn't answer my suggestion (perhaps she was tired of all my promises as usual).

But well, at least I know which way to go now. And I appreciate your prayers:

Ps.27:13-14: I believe that I shall see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living. Wait for the LORD; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the LORD!

A husband trying to be a pastor.

Downer's Music

2005-01-10T09:47:00.000-08:00

At Winter Conference, two guys wrote a song on the last night of praise and testimony.It was a melancholic song with the crying refrain, "Save me!Save me!"And I remember the author had to introduce the downer's song with an insight that Psalm 40 also was a kind of downer's Psalm, in which the Psalmist chose to praise God even in the midst of his pain and anguish.

Lady and Gentlemen, here’s the first 11 verses of Psalm 40:

I waited patiently for the LORD; he inclined to me and heard my cry. He drew me up from the desolate pit, out of the miry bog, and set my feet upon a rock, making my steps secure. He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God. Many will see and fear, and put their trust in the LORD. Happy are those who make the LORD their trust, who do not turn to the proud, to those who go astray after false gods. You have multiplied, O LORD my God, your wondrous deeds and your thoughts toward us; none can compare with you. Were I to proclaim and tell of them, they would be more than can be counted. Sacrifice and offering you do not desire, but you have given me an open ear. Burnt offering and sin offering you have not required. Then I said, "Here I am; in the scroll of the book it is written of me. I delight to do your will, O my God; your law is within my heart." I have told the glad news of deliverance in the great congregation; see, I have not restrained my lips, as you know, O LORD. I have not hidden your saving help within my heart, I have spoken of your faithfulness and your salvation; I have not concealed your steadfast love and your faithfulness from the great congregation. Do not, O LORD, withhold your mercy from me; let your steadfast love and your faithfulness keep me safe forever.

There you have it. Even people who steadfastly following God like King David didn't escape from the mundane troubles of life. It is a fallacy to follow God so that you can be successful in your career, have a happy marriage, or receive blessings and prosperity. No, you follow God because He will be with you through out all of the ups and downs of life.

In the bible, Hebrews 10:5-7 ascribed this passage to Jesus:

Therefore, when Christ came into the world, he said: “Sacrifice and offering you did not desire, but a body you prepared for me; with burnt offerings and sin offerings you were not pleased. Then I said, ‘Here I am - it is written about me in the scroll - I have come to do your will, O God.’”

In that line of thought, I am wondering if that if we the people of God also need to embrace the similar attitude when we come to face the mundane troubles of life: If Jesus attitude was that the Bible prescribed the will of God for Him, could we follow that same attitude and search the Word to live our life according to God’s will too. This also means that we would also embrace the mundane trouble allotted for us with the faith that through our obedience and faith in the trouble times, God will be exalted, and that "Many will see and fear, and put their trust in the LORD".

This may be a tough lesson for us all to learn, but after all anyone could trust in God when God blessed them and with the things they wanted in life. But the true worshipers of God are the one who could worship Him and give Him praise in any circumstances of life.

O God, help us to go beyond just seeing you as a tool to manipulate for our own prosperity and happiness; help us to truly follow the footstep of your Son Jesus, in trusting you and live accordingly to your will, even through the mundane troubles of life.

Politically Incorrect: God is not Helpless

2005-01-04T09:52:00.000-08:00

This morning, my lectionary reading calendar lead me to Psalm 29. It was so "political incorrect"...

Ascribe to the LORD, O heavenly beings, ascribe to the LORD glory and strength. Ascribe to the LORD the glory of his name; worship the LORD in holy splendor. The voice of the LORD is over the waters; the God of glory thunders, the LORD, over mighty waters. The voice of the LORD is powerful; the voice of the LORD is full of majesty. The voice of the LORD breaks the cedars; the LORD breaks the cedars of Lebanon. He makes Lebanon skip like a calf, and Sirion like a young wild ox. The voice of the LORD flashes forth flames of fire. The voice of the LORD shakes the wilderness; the LORD shakes the wilderness of Kadesh. The voice of the LORD causes the oaks to whirl, and strips the forest bare; and in his temple all say, "Glory!" The LORD sits enthroned over the flood; the LORD sits enthroned as king forever. May the LORD give strength to his people! May the LORD bless his people with peace!

If it were any other year, this lectionary Psalm would have been fine for reading and studying and preaching. But I doubt if anyone would have the gut to use this Psalm this week, in the aftermath of the tsunami tragedy. The Psalmist called us to ascribe to the Lord, to give Him glory, to worship Him, to acknowledge His strength, power, and masjesty. No doubt that the Psalmist was not in the same circumstance, not wrestling with a devastating tsunami. But would that make any difference? Why is that we can only acknowledge that God "sits enthroned over the flood; the LORD sits enthroned as king forever" when there were no images of the oceanic destruction on CNN? So many of us scrambled to defend that "Our God is not like that!", to the point that we are willing to reduce God into a helpless weakling, who could not bear to see tragedy hits His children? I am not saying that God is sadistic, who cause all this to happen. But I wouldn't say that God is so powerless to prevent this from happen either. What we have here is a paradox of the nature of God which displayed even when Jesus was here in John 11 (the resurrection of Lazarus). On the one hand, it seems like Jesus knew what was going on and didn't prevent tragedy from happening in delaying to come to Lazarus' help. On the other hand, He was moved to tears at the loss of his friend Lazarus when he passed away. How could both actions genuinely be happening in the same event? It's a paradox which I am will have to explore further in my study for next week. But at this moment, I am accepting the paradox of God. At this moment, I will also need to remind myself that while God is compasionate, He is not a weakling either. The last verse in the Psalm should be our prayers:

May the LORD give strength to his people (to trust in Him)! May the LORD bless his people with peace (while they may not understand Him)!

Hope for My Restless Soul

2004-12-28T23:45:00.000-08:00

Too much anxiety that I couldn't sleep. So I come downstair and check the Word for comfort. And this is what I found...

Arise, shine; for your light has come, and the glory of the LORD has risen upon you. For darkness shall cover the earth, and thick darkness the peoples; but the LORD will arise upon you, and his glory will appear over you. Nations shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn. Lift up your eyes and look around; they all gather together, they come to you; your sons shall come from far away, and your daughters shall be carried on their nurses' arms. Then you shall see and be radiant; your heart shall thrill and rejoice, because the abundance of the sea shall be brought to you, the wealth of the nations shall come to you. A multitude of camels shall cover you, the young camels of Midian and Ephah; all those from Sheba shall come. They shall bring gold and frankincense, and shall proclaim the praise of the LORD. (Isaiah 60:1-6)

Isn't that neat?

This text was the prophecy accompanying the fact that the wise men saw the star and came and worship Jesus with gold, frankincense and myrh. But this text also brought a lot of hope for my soul.

Yes, indeed darkness is covering the earth and thick darkness is covering the people. From the physical death and proverty of the asian tsunami there to the spiritual death and proverty of the soul tsunami here. It's something God knew about, "for darkness shall cover..." But the command of God is "arise, and shine" because "your light has come" and "the glory of the LORD has risen upon you".

If Jesus, the light of the world, had shine a light into our life, then we will need to respond by arise and shine to reflect His light to the darkness around us. We are going to take a special offering for tsunami relief at the conference this weekend. That's for the physical problem there. And for the spiritual problem here, the Word of God continue to promise the eternal hope for our generation: "Nations shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn."

Nations! That includes the Vietnamese, who grow-up and live in the US. Kings! That includes the next generations of leaders who will go forth from them.

And God reminded me, "Lift up your eyes and look around; they all gather together, they come to you; your sons shall come from far away, and your daughters shall be carried on their nurses' arms." The problem is the failure to see. If I was to believe that the surrounding world was in darkness, then what's there to see? What's there to look around? But with the eyes of faith in God, that "[His] light has come, and the glory of the LORD has risen upon [me]" then there will be a motive to look and to see.

If the faith above couples with obedience to "arise, and shine" then the result will be eminent in God's timing. Right now, all I can see is that "they all gather together, they come to [Christ]"; but in the future, there will be the whole generation of sons and daughters will arise out of the gathering. The following future-tense verses describe the glorious and joyful scene of that promised reality; that "[they] shall proclaim the praise of the LORD".

Yes Lord, fulfill your promise soon! Come quickly!

The Nightmare of Christmas

2004-12-20T09:10:00.000-08:00

"When Herod saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, he was infuriated, and he sent and killed all the children in and around Bethlehem who were two years old or under, according to the time that he had learned from the wise men." Matthew 2:16

Bloody Christmas. When we think about Christmas, we rarely recall passages such as these. To many of us, Christmas brought back sweet childhood memories, about wishful dreams of "peace on earth among all people, and glory to God in the highest." We wear the Christmas colors of red and green, but we wouldn't make any connection between the Christmas red with the bloody red of the infants and babies were massacred at the first Christmas. In Hollywood, Tim Burton dreamed of "The Nightmare before Christmas"; but in biblical reality, there was a "Nightmare after Christmas"! How could we justify something as evil as this slaughtering of children during the wonderful time of Christmas? Innocent kids died because of the Lord of Life? Terror reigned when the King of Peace arrive? The Almighty fled and escaped with His life? Welcome to our real world, oh God Almighty. Incarnation, the Word became Flesh: this is no walk in the park. This is where evil lurked deceitfully around every corner. ("Oh yes, seek Him and report to me when you have found Him, so that I may worship Him too", Herod said). The rules of engagement don't applied here. Trust no one, we have been told. People who claim to be your friends would betray you... You know all this, and yet you still decided to come anyway? To bring Christmas into the land of ghoulies like us? Wow! That must be some love! So now, what is it that we should do? To walk in your footstep of love incarnated is too accept humiliation, to get dirty in the evil world, to look beyond the temporal setback, and to trust in God beyond any man or manmade circumstances. The “full implications of the Incarnation” is not “comprehended” until the doctrine is both affirmed and lived out, both believed and expressed, everyday in our daily life. [1] Lord Jesus, my God who enfleshed to be in this world; thank you for your love and your willingness to become one of us, so that you can show us how to be more like you, even in the midst of the evil world we are in. Help us to be willing to follow you in love, even loving through pain and suffering; help us to follow you in faith, and trust God who designed the master plan...

"Think of the Lord's birth, wherein the Word became Flesh, not as a past even which we recall, but as a present reality upon which we gaze." St. Leo, AD 440 [2]

Savior of My Sins

2004-12-13T09:16:00.000-08:00

He will save his people from their sins.... Mat.1:21

Yesterday my pastor asked the question of "What's the purpose of Christ coming?" And he quoted Mat.1:21 as the answer: "Save his people from their sins."

In thinking about the ramification of Christmas, I realized that we often focus on Christ coming in the past, and may be Christ coming in the future, but we often don't see it as Christ coming in the presence much.

We pointed to the sacrifice of Christ on the cross as the ultimate redemption of sin, and His coming to reign over creation as the ultimate eradication of evil; but we often didn't look at the presence liberation of "his people from their sins" (the plural sin often denoted the practical wrong doing we encountered on the daily basis).

How will we be liberated over our own daily sins? The text here spoke of "his people", not just any people. Therefore reconciliation with God (in repentance as we read from John the Baptist earlier) must be a prerequisite.

The second key is the realization that "God is with us". It is one thing to believe that Jesus paid for the price of my sins, and that one day I will be with Him in sinlessness. But it's quite another thing to live my daily life and dealing with my sins in the mindset of "God is with us".

It is also interesting to note the plurality of "us" there. Sanctification (the technical term for overcome sins in daily present life) happened in community. It take a bunch of us to see God, and to see God is with us. That's why we encourage people to stay with the community of God on their road to sanctification.

So today, when I think of Christmas; I want to think about not only when Christ came in the manger, and not only when He come in the cloud. But I want to also think about the immaculate conception of Christ in my heart. Somehow, by the ex-nihilo/out-of-nothing creation of the Holy Spirit of God, Christ was formed in my heart, branded me and be with me. And so, he will save me from my daily struggle with sins.

Lord Jesus, sanctify my life as what you came to my heart to do...

When King Works as Road Paver

2004-12-09T08:42:00.000-08:00

When John heard in prison what Christ was doing, he sent his disciples to ask him, “Are you the one who was to come, or should we expect someone else?” Mat.11:2-3

Discouragement set in.

Sometimes in the course of ministry, when we found ourselves ended up in the prison of loneliness, misunderstand, hardship, and even despair; we asked ourselves, "Is this it? Is there any more than this? I thought it was supposed to be more than this."

We went out and preached about repentance, bridged the hearts of the sons toward the Father, stood up against immorality and injustice, proclaimed that the coming of God was at hand. For a season, we stirred up history and people gathered and revival seemed to be underway.

For another season, we sat in the pit of dark prison of the soul, looking back and wondered if we have done the right thing, if we have fulfilled the call, if anything matters at all.

Welcome to the John the Baptist's lair in his last day, where we see him questioning Jesus about God's plan.

Jesus simply pointed to the work His ministry among the lives of the people. He added "blessed is anyone to takes no offense at me."

John the Baptist, the greatest of all prophets, yet he took offense at Christ, and wondered, and was losing heart, etc.

Aaah, I am in the great company of many other pioneers of the faith.

We all have our limitations. Even since birth, and growing up as a Nazarite, John (and many of us) studied all about God's Word. Yet, we still have limited vision about what is God supposed to be doing. Jesus answered John with Scripture, the same Word of God he studied but may have yet comprehend, and illuminate his understanding about God's purpose and plan.

And even with our own limitation, God send us as his messengers, who prepare the way before Him. Road worker may not understand the whole intricacies of the architect's plan. But that's OK; as long as we are faithful doing what He sent us to do. We may not see the whole vision of the highway system He had in mind, but we know about the pothole right in front of us, and we know that it's not right, it's not in the plan, and it will need to be fix.

The problem is, like John, when you spent your whole life prepare for the way of the King, you work so much with potholes, preparing and repairing, and you will start losing heart. "All I see are potholes, a life time of preparing and repairing. Is there really a King will travel down this road?"

Jesus answers, "Yes. There is really a King indeed travel down that road. In fact, He's already here. But He's also preparing and repairing the potholes of people's lives too. That's why you didn't recognize Him."

Oh Lord my King, open my eyes so I can see you.

Tattoo

2004-11-08T10:57:00.000-08:00

"Finally, let no one cause me trouble, for I bear on my body the marks of Jesus." Gal.6:17

"So, what do you think about tattooing? Is it a sin? Some of my friends said it's like defacing the temple of God. (Our body is like the temple of God), right?" She asked, after our Basic Christianity class, when we had our Starbucks as usual.

"Hhmm, and how about eating high-fat? How about laziness not exercising? Wouldn't those be damaging to our body, the temple of God too?" I answered.

"That's true."

"Usually what I do is I would be more interested in the motives behind the actions. Jesus did that when He talked about 'if you lust after someone, you committed the sin of adultery; if you hate, you committed the sin of murder.' It's the motive that defining the sin."

She was quiet so I went on. "Have you seen some people in our church with tattoos on them, some of them had it before they became Christian, but some really like it (they see it as art) and they have it done after they became Christian too. But then if they want to have a tattoo because all their friends have it, because they want to fit in; then the issue is no longer about the physical body, but about their self-image, about peer-pressure, etc. You got my drift?"

She nodded.

"So, are you thinking about getting a tattoo?"

"No," she said sheepishly, "I already had one. Last week I went and I got my first tattoo ever. It hurts so much, but I think it's worth it. I got a cross tattooed on my body."

"Wow."

"I just want to mark this period in my life, where I have been experiencing God a lot. So I wanted to get a mark of God, to remind myself, and to be protected by Him. And I have been feeling this Presence with me all the time."

She continued, "Except for halfway through the process, my friends told me that it was a sin."

I laughed with her, "It wasn't."

I still couldn't believe what I was hearing, "It's so cool what you have done. It's an action expressing your belief; similar to the ritual of baptism in the church. I think the church would scare people off with tattooing for baptism, so they settled for dunking people in cold water instead..."

That was so cool.

Hey, you - There is this verse for you for the occasion: "Finally, let no one cause me trouble, for I bear on my body the marks of Jesus." - from the Apostle Paul.

Companion for a Troublesome Journey

2004-10-27T13:07:00.000-07:00

I woke up depressed this morning. It started with a troubling dream I had last night. I dreamed in two segments, (segment 1 about dismissing off an invitation to a small young congregation because it was just too far from me; segment 2 about suggesting a stranger to take care of it); and from both I derived the meaning behind the dream that I am just too casual and irreverent about ministry. (And I am not even starting in fulltime ministry yet!) On top of that, the drive to LAX and what I was watching along the way was just wearing me out. I picked my mom from the airport after a month traveling in Australia, sharing about her ministry to the blinds in Vietnam. She connected back to some of my long time friends (back 20 years ago when we were still teens from the same youth group). One of them, Trang, went through a divorce and a surgery and now on the second marriage. Another one, Thanh-Kieu, had been married three times and now a single mom trying to raise a small kid. Then A. Le Kinh Luan, who I was staying with through out my refugee camp period, he is now also hanging in there, ministering to a small group, holding down a job, raising his kid and trying to support his sick wife. And the churches there were fragmenting beyond repair. After dropping my mom off at home, I decided to get some breakfast, and asked Muc Su Thach to accompany me. I was hoping that I will be able to off-load some burdens. But not really; he pointed me to the harsh reality and to prepare for it; as if he believes that I could get some where in the future. He really believe that we should operate on the wholistic-framework of faith in relation to the body and the soul; to the thinking, the feeling, and the deciding; and the social-setting we are living in (these concepts are from Dallas Willard). As we grew up in the American culture, the university is excellent in cultivating intellectual people, and perhaps very good at making business decision; but we have no clue how to handle our emotions, our body and its desires, let alone our souls, and therefore our roles in our social-settings (of a student, a father, a husband, a friend, a worker, etc.) are completely fragmented. However, he gave me an insight about what we should do in the college fellowship group. He pointed to the standard maneuvering of sport coaches when they start losing: make sure the team goes back to the basic. What's the basic of the 6 components in the wholistic-framework? I asked. He wrote this down on a piece of napkin, and said: All movements in the past will die if any of the following four would be missing from them...

Vigorous thinking
Deep devotion to God
Sacrificial service
Constant contact with the lost

Is there any evidence of these four in our life right now? How do we know that we are thinking vigorously? (Most of the time we are too lazy to think through stuff). How's the Word shape and wrestle with our thinking? Is our devotion to God deep enough? (The funny thing is that you will not be easily spot deep-rooted stuff, while shallow flowers are more pretty). If our devotions to God are not taking root into our very, very personal aspects, then it's still shallow. As for services, sacrificial services are not convenient ones, sometimes not even rewarding. If we are tired from serving because we don't get anything out of it, or because we don't see any fruits from it, we need to watch out for the spirit of "charity work". The last item will need no explanation, all we need to do is to count the relationship around us and see if we are still in-touch or not.

The problem for me, as Muc Su Thach pointed out to me, is that I am panicking too much [1]. Rest on the Word, he said. My Psalm for this week said:

You are righteous, O LORD, and your judgments are right. You have appointed your decrees in righteousness and in all faithfulness. My zeal consumes me because my foes forget your words. Your promise is well tried, and your servant loves it. I am small and despised, yet I do not forget your precepts. Your righteousness is an everlasting righteousness, and your law is the truth. Trouble and anguish have come upon me, but your commandments are my delight. Your decrees are righteous forever; give me understanding that I may live. Psalm 119:137-144

Muc Su Thach was zealous because many of us, including me, have not been steadfast in the Word of God. We know the Word, yet we too often forgot as we got freaked out by the environment around us. God's Word (His "promise") is well tried, and weathered a lot of ups and downs and it still remains true today. Even though we may be nothing in the scheme of things ("small and despised"), but we should not forget His Word ("precepts"). Trouble and anguish will come in the future, and what I need to do is learn how to draw my strength and delight from His Word ("your commandments"). God's Word ("decrees") will give me understanding so that I will live, not just surviving the future, but live fully.

Oh God of the Word, this is my prayer, that the Word masters me so that I can master the words.

How could we make the place more comfortable for our friends? May be we should start at the hearts.

2004-10-24T08:12:00.000-07:00

Sunday morning, 30 minutes left before heading to worship at church. I hope will see Jen again this morning. She's a friend of Jess, who just start coming to our English Speaking worship for the past few weeks. She joined my class for Basic Christianity with three others. It was just wonderfull to be able to spend 30 minutes every week to show her the basic stuff she was seeking for. ("How do we know that there's a creator God, without the Bible?", "What do Christians believe?" "How do we know the Bible is the Word of God?"...) I prayed that I will see her again today. After the class, we often went to Starbucks, then chitchat for another hour or so. Just pure delight.

Jen was moved when "Christian people" like Jess and Will prayed for her. She wants to bring some of her friends over and worship with us. I was impressed, very impressed at the fact that she would want to do that, even though that she were "being new and don't know anybody". And I have been thinking a lot about what Jen said about being new at church...

Recently, this is what I read from the Bible...

Jesus told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and regarded others with contempt: "Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee, standing by himself, was praying thus, 'God, I thank you that I am not like other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give a tenth of all my income.' But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even look up to heaven, but was beating his breast and saying, 'God, be merciful to me, a sinner!' I tell you, this man went down to his home justified rather than the other; for all who exalt themselves will be humbled, but all who humble themselves will be exalted." Luke 18:9-14

As I read this, I was thinking a lot about the similarity to the modern church situation...

My first observation is that at least the tax collector could enter the temple to pray. How open are our churches toward the people who doesn't feel belong there? We all making sure that the church is accessible to all people, but some how the people who need to be at church just won't go to church. Why did the tax collector go to the temple? "To pray", the text said. But what drove him to that point? Devout Jewish men were expected to go to the temple three times daily to pray (or so, I remember). But it's unreasonable to think that this tax collector was devoted. Perhaps he was there on business (recent scholars suggested that the Sanhedrin were the central tax collection point before they hand it over to the Romans). Or perhaps he was somehow in trouble and just want to pray to get out of it; the typical crisis prayer. From time to time I would see people popped up at our church. People who backslided in ages; sometime a complete stranger. Then the week after they disappear, and I forgot about them. "O well, those flaky people", I thought. As if they intended to stick around in the first place. For the tax collector, I am sure that he wouldn't come to the temple to pray if the doctrine of "God dwells in His temple" were drilled into his mind since his Jewish childhood. He was clearly feeling out of place, "standing far off, would not even look up". If he was in our worship service, he would be sure sitting among the back row, or may be standding in the foyer, and ready to slip out even before the service over. (Note to self: talk to the ushering team about this passage). The Pharisee, on another hand, were at home in the temple. He feel very comfortable there; he may be even grew up there all his life. He knew all about God's requirements, the scripture, the spiritual disciplines, the fast, the tithe, etc. He was set out to live an exemplified life in the midst of corruption, be "the lights of the world and salts of the earth". What interesting in this passage is that the two men never come into direct contact with one another. They both were just praying, directly to God, then leave. There were no hand shakes among the congregation, no introduction of new comers. (Perhaps if there were, things would be even worse). And in this direct relationship with God, the core issues of where they are with God came out in their view of where they are with men. Jesus had nothing to against the religious people who want to be salt and light and even rub the hurtful salt into the wounds of society. (He did that too). What He was against is the attitude of "trusting in themselves that they were righteous, and regarded others with contempt". So, even if we got the church open and accessible to all, even if we got the tax-collectors to come, even if we can get the Pharisee to shut-up from their malice disguised as prayer, even if we can get the congregation genuinely shake hands with the strangers, we still won't get no where if our attitudes were, "O, how pity! We've got to help those sinners!" No, the way Jesus wanted us to do is to realize that they really don't want to be in church in the first place (if it wasn't for God's dwelling), that they were there because God some how drove them there; and most importantly, that we should welcome them as fellow sinners as we gathered together at the foot of the cross. O God, help me to spot all the barriers in church which preventing others to come to you, whether it's environmental or spiritual. Help me to see your work in bringing people home, no matter how far they stand. And help me to lower the heart of the congregation so that we can be a comfortable place for your justification to be seen.

Why Nick and I buried Jesus?

2004-10-16T08:36:00.000-07:00

Shalom! Good morning, My name is Joseph, (but according to your culture, you can call me Joe). I am from Arimathea, a region in the Northwest of Jerusalem [1]. I am a nobleman among the seventy members of the Sanhedrin of Jerusalem, (or Ruling Council in your term). I am here to debrief you about the incident of Yeshua, (or Jesus in your term), who was from Nazareth. First, what were the problems? Many of you have already been aware that He commanded a peasant to carry his mattress on the Sabbath. This is a serious offense. Our Ten Commandment stated clearly: “Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your manservant or maidservant, nor your animals, nor the alien within your gates. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.” [Ex.20:8-11] Carry a mattress is breaking the Sabbath; consider how we were supposed to deal with Sabbath-breaker according to the Sacred Law of God in Numbers 15:32-34: “While the Israelites were in the desert, a man was found gathering wood on the Sabbath day. Those who found him gathering wood brought him to Moses and Aaron and the whole assembly, and they kept him in custody, because it was not clear what should be done to him. Then the Lord said to Moses, 'The man must die. The whole assembly must stone him outside the camp.' So the assembly took him outside the camp and stoned him to death, as the Lord commanded Moses.” Now, with the progress of time, we may not be as vicious as back then, for we believe that this specific death penalty was pronounced directly by God in order establish a precedent for us all to follow. Therefore the only thing we can do today, is to confront our Jewish brothers and remind them when we see them breaking God’s Commandments. Often, people were just ignorant of the Law and they didn’t mean to break God’s Commandments; so when we confronted Jesus, we were expecting His quick compliance. But no; this is how He responded to us, as recorded in the transcript you have, verse 17: “My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I, too, am working.” This is a deadly claim! Immediately after this pronouncement, the Temple Guards went and escalated the matter up and down the authority chain. Any members of the Ruling Council available nearby were heading down to face off with this fellow right away. By the time I got there, there were more than a dozen of us from the Ruling Council surrounded him. On a balcony near by, I saw Caiaphas (the Council President in your term) observing the situation. Let me explain a bit more about the severity of that statement. It’s not just because the defiance of “Screw you and your rules!” in this fellow’s statement, but something more deadly than that. Which Father who “is always at his work to this very day”? Our Rabbis taught that God Himself, the Father of Israel, had continued to work since creation, sustaining the world even on the Sabbath.[2] Therefore, when this fellow said, “and I, too, am working”, He claimed to have the authority equaled with our God in order to ignore His commandment! I could not believe what was going on, so I turned to one of my Council friends I saw there, Mr. Nicodemus (you can call him Nick) and asked, “Were you there when this man mentioned God as, ‘My Father’, are you sure He didn’t say ‘Our Father’”? (We Jewish people regard God as our Father of the whole nation and in a communal sense, but not in a personal sense. Calling God as ‘My Father’ could be interpreted in a wrong way in our culture [3]) My friend Nick nodded, “Yup, that’s what He said. By the way, this is the same fellow who disrupted the Temple merchants last year Passover. At that time, He also used that same phrase, claiming the God’s Temple as ‘My Father’s House’. What He was saying is that ‘I am equaled to God!’” I and other Council Members all shook our head. This man was asking for a death sentence. Leviticus 24:16 stated clearly, “anyone who blasphemes the name of the Lord must be put to death. The entire assembly must stone him. Whether an alien or native-born, when he blasphemes the Name, he must be put to death.” In that same chapter the ancient Israelites stoned a man to death for cursing God; later on under King Ahab’s reign, Naboth was sentenced to death for charge of blasphemy [1 Kings 21]; and today our Ruling Council could hand out death sentence to people who blaspheme again our God (by special agreement with the Romans)![4] Ananias, a much older Council Member was there and wanted to contain any misunderstanding before things getting out of hand; he told all of us, “Ahem, sometimes young people didn’t mean what they say. Let’s not be hasty in condemning anyone here.” Jesus heard that, and looked straight into each one of our eyes, and said slowly: “Verily, verily, I say unto thee…” Oh, that was Old English, I see that your modernized transcript translated that as “I tell you the truth”; nah, that didn’t express clearly the formality of the situation. In your culture, it is as formal as placing your hand on the Bible to assert that you are telling the truth. This is what He said, “I (solemnly) tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does. For the Father loves the Son and shows him all he does.” Oh, good grief! Not only He called God as ‘My Father’, now He claimed that He is the Son of God. This is out right obvious blasphemy beyond any misunderstanding. You see, in your modern culture the idea of “son” connotes a different person than the father, but in our Jewish culture, a “son” is the extension of his father. The word connoted identification with rather than difference from.[5] Jesus is saying that He work during the Sabbath because He is just like His Dad, the God who sustains the universe! This is bad. No one should exalt themselves to be Son of God! Jaws were dropping, eyebrows were raising, and we could not believe the gut of this guy! And He went on, “Yes, to your amazement he will show him even greater things than these. For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son gives life to whom he is pleased to give it.” There is no mistaken what Jesus was claiming here: Only God could raise the dead and give life, and here Jesus said that He could give life to people as He pleased! As if that was not bad enough, Jesus went on and said, “Moreover, the Father judges no one, but has entrusted all judgment to the Son, that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father. He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father, who sent him.” You hear that blasphemous claim? God alone is our Judge! God alone should be honored! And this guy wants us to honor Him as we honor God! I was about to slap Him across His blasphemy mouth, but Nick pulled me aside. He said, “Cool down Joe! Watch out for traps, Joe. He set this whole thing up. Don’t you see that He could have done His healing on any other day but the Sabbath? And now walking into the Temple with these arguments, He must have planned this out. Let’s see what He wants first…” I might be hot head, but I am not stupid; so I listened to Nick and got back in with the crowd. As if Jesus knew what was in our minds, He slowly said in a very serious tone, “I (solemnly) tell you the truth: whoever hears my word and believes Him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life.” O, is that what He wants? Later that night, when I and Nick got together and discussed about the event of the day, we both agree that this seems to be the central plot for Rabbi Jesus to stir up everyone’s attention. He wants us to believe that He is the Son of God; that He has the same power of God; that He has power over life and death, power over the afterlife, power to judge every living soul. Jesus qualified that claim immediately, “I tell you the truth, a time is coming and has now come when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will live. For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son to have life in himself. And he has given him authority to judge because he is the Son of Man.” When I first heard it that morning, I was so outraged that a human being dared to blaspheme and called Himself Son of God, and have the power to grant life. How could anyone in their right mind entertain the thought that he is same level with the Most High God? This Jesus of Nazareth must be delusional on a grand scale. But as I went over the transcript again, I notice the other curious title; He called himself “Son of Man”[6] and God granted His judgment authority because He is a “Son of Man”[7]. I must admit that there is a possibility for God to be more fair in His judgment of humankind if He really know what living as a human is all about. Didn’t the prophet Isaiah express the same idea when he cried, “Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down…” [8] But back on the scene that morning, as I told you before, we were all outraged and shocked at the claim, and we thought this Jesus must be nut! And Jesus didn’t even back off, he kept on stretching our patience: “Do not be amazed (or shocked) at this, for a time is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice and come out - those who have done good will rise to live, and those who have done evil will rise to be condemned. By myself I can do nothing; I judge only as I hear, and my judgment is just, for I seek not to please myself but him who sent me.” Even Ananias the elder couldn’t put up with this no more; he shrugged and suggested, “This is all non-sense, why are we wasting our time listening to this lunatic. It’s all words. The guy was just babbling by himself and to himself! Let’s all get back to our tasks…” Jesus interrupted, Really? “If I testify about myself, my testimony is not valid. There is another who testifies in my favor, and I know that his testimony about me is valid.” “Alright”, I thought to myself, “let’s call the witnesses to the stance; proof to me that you are not a loony!” Jesus called on his first witness, John the Baptist. “You have sent to John and he has testified to the truth. Not that I accept human testimony; but I mention it that you may be saved. John was a lamp that burned and gave light, and you chose for a time to enjoy his light.” That’s true; we the Ruling Council often investigate new movements among the people in order to get a handle on stuff around here. When John started gathered a large following by the Jordan, we came and checked him out: “Now this was John’s testimony when the Jews of Jerusalem sent priests and Levites to ask him who he was. He did not fail to confess, but confessed freely, “I am not the Christ.” They asked him, “Then who are you? Are you Elijah?” He said, “I am not.” “Are you the Prophet?” He answered, “No.” Finally they said, “Who are you? Give us an answer to take back to those who sent us. What do you say about yourself?” John replied in the words of Isaiah the prophet, “I am the voice of one calling in the desert, ‘Make straight the way for the Lord.’” Now some Pharisees who had been sent questioned him, “Why then do you baptize if you are not the Christ, nor Elijah, nor the Prophet?” “I baptize with water,” John replied, “but among you stands one you do not know. He is the one who comes after me, the thongs of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie.” This all happened at Bethany on the other side of the Jordan, where John was baptizing. The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world! This is the one I meant when I said, ‘A man who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.’ I myself did not know him, but the reason I came baptizing with water was that he might be revealed to Israel...” And yes, for a while we “enjoy his light”, many of our people believe that John is a great prophet from God. Then Jesus appealed to his second witness, “I have testimony weightier than that of John. For the very work that the Father has given me to finish, and which I am doing, testifies that the Father has sent me. And the Father who sent me has himself testified concerning me.” The work huh? It’s true that Rabbi Jesus is widely known for the miracles he performed. The lame guy who carried his mattress earlier was a prime example. I don’t think we can refute that his miracles didn’t exist. Later that night, I and my friend Nick argued about this second proof from Jesus. Nick said, “Rabbi Jesus must come from God, otherwise how anyone could perform miracles like him if God were not with him?” [9] I argued back, “If He came from God like Moses, Elijah and the prophets, then wouldn’t He also must abide by all God’s Law and keep the Sabbath as well as other commandments? This is not counting his blasphemed statements earlier!” Nick thought for a bit and said, “Yes, unless He is NOT like Moses, Elijah, and the prophets; unless He is from God but NOT in the same class like the Great Prophets.” “You mean that He would be even greater than the Great Prophets?” Nick quietly nodded his head. Back to the morning incident, Jesus appealed to his third witness, “The Father who sent me has himself testified concerning me. You have never heard his voice nor seen his form, nor does his word dwell in you, for you do not believe the one he sent. You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life.” Jesus called the whole Bible as testimony about Himself. How could we miss that? We study the Bible every week, analyzing each verse to find the “Techniques of Holy Living”, the “Methods to a Happy Being”, and even the “Standards for Eternal Life”. But Jesus said that if we don’t start with the belief in Him, then we won’t be able to understand that the promise of Redemption for Sin is about a Person, and not just a Code of Conduct. Later that night, as Nick and I discussed more about this incident, we agreed that through out the Bible, there seems to be a thread point to the promised one, the Messiah from the beginning to the end of (what you are now known as) the Old Testament. From the opening chapters of Genesis, when humankind chose to disobey God, God promised us someone to crush the head of Satan: “And I (God) will put enmity between you (Satan) and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he (The Descendent) will crush your head, and you will strike his heel” [Gen.3:15] From the last chapters of Malachi, we found the promise of God sending someone like Elijah before the arrival of the Messiah[10]: “I will send you the prophet Elijah before that great and dreadful day of the Lord comes.” [Mal.4:5] I was willing to entertain Nick’s point, “I see that He could be the Messiah!” Nick thought for a bit, and shook his head, and pressed even further, “No, not the Messiah as our Jewish culture understood it. We have always thought that the Messiah would be like another King David, like another human being.” I gasped, “No, you are not suggesting that He is who He claimed to be, right?” Nick suggested, “Think about it, Joe. Can a lion behave just like a dog? Can an eagle walk like a chicken? Think about this, if God Himself were to show up at our temple and see all these merchants, what would He do? If God Himself were here and disapprove with the way we interpret His Law about the Sabbath, what would He do? Would He even care what we human have to say?” Earlier in the day, Jesus certainly didn’t care what our institution could have done to Him; he concluded with some harsh words, “I do not accept praise from men, but I know you. I know that you do not have the love of God in your hearts. I have come in my Father’s name, and you do not accept me; but if someone else comes in his own name, you will accept him. How can you believe if you accept praise from one another, yet make no effort to obtain the praise that comes from the only God?” Just right then we heard the windows slammed up there in the balcony where Caiaphas was listened in. The Council President was mad, I am sure. Down here, Ananias the elder sneered at the young Rabbi, “Sure, ‘The Son’ is careless about getting any approval from us mere human! I am sure that death row heretics need no approval from their executioners!” Rabbi Jesus had just signed his own death sentence. The wrath of Council is going to be on him. The old Ananias stormed off; we filed out after him. I and Nicodemus were the last to file out. As we left, Jesus caught the sleeve of Nick and held us back; he looked us straight in the eyes and said, “Don’t think I will accuse you before the Father. Your accuser is Moses, on whom your hopes are set. If you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote about me. If[11] you do not believe what he wrote, how are you going to believe what I say?” That farewell statement haunted Nick that night. We found what Moses wrote, “The LORD said to me, ‘I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers; I will put my words in his mouth, and he will tell them everything I command him. If anyone does not listen to my words that the prophet speaks in my name, I myself will call him to account’” in Deut.18:18-19 Nick asked me, “So if Jesus is who Moses wrote about, then we must listen to Him, especially if we understand that He is no human being but the Son of God. Not doing so would be eternal death by the hands of God! What do you think?” I didn’t know how to answer my best friend, and Nick went on, hesitant, “But then, if I seriously take Him for who He claimed to be, then I must be willing to take His side and I could lose everything, everything that I have been built up so far. I could end up condemning myself by support His deadly claim too.” I was getting nervous, “Nick, I see your evidences, and I hear your reasoning. But at the same time, I fear that line of reasoning. At this rate, you will get us both in trouble with the Ruling Council!” He sighted, “I know, I know. To be honest, I don’t have the gut to follow Jesus right now. For now, perhaps I should settle just to be a good religious person.” That was just the beginning. From then on, we closely observed Jesus. We have seen amazing deeds done by Him, and even heard even more outrageous claim from the man. More and more, we became convinced that He was who He claimed to be. But we still had no gut to identify with Him. Not until that fateful day when He was condemned to be crucified by the Ruling Council, we came to the realization that Jesus was deliberately breaking the Sabbath that day in order to earn a hearing before the religious leaders; and that He was so forceful with us, so that He could make this point heard: that we need to believe in Him to have Life. And He did all that, knowing that we would nail Him for it, literally. As I stood there looking at the cross under the purple sunset sky, I and Nick understood that Jesus died personally to reach out to the top 70 head honchos of the Jewish state. Sadly, only two of us got his message. And we were still chicken to stand on His side all this time! So, making one last decision before it’s too late, we stepped forward and asked Pilate for Jesus body as John recorded: “Later, Joseph of Arimathea asked Pilate for the body of Jesus. Now Joseph was a disciple of Jesus, but secretly because he feared the Jews. With Pilate’s permission, he came and took the body away. He was accompanied by Nicodemus, the man who earlier had visited Jesus at night.” John was very careful to make sure that his readers see the final tender act reserved for the Son of God, "Taking Jesus' body, the two of them wrapped it..." [John 19:38-40a] [Take off head covering] How about you all this morning? Do you have gut to follow the Son of God, or will you just settle to be a “Christian”? [12] Jesus had been always pushed His disciples to answer the question, "What about you? Who do you say that I am?" He asks that question to each of us. There is only one right answer. And it's not the type of easy answer where you can just check it off like on a test, but it takes gut to answer it correctly since it will require anyone who knows it to follow it. [13] Either Jesus was loony, or He was a phony or He really is God. And if you accept that He is God, then you also must accept that you are not; that you would have to follow and listen and obey to what He had to say. It meant that you may lose your control of what you want to do. It meant that you may have to make some tough choice. But it also meant that you are a true follower of Jesus Christ and not just a nice label you have. Do you have gut to follow the Son of God, or will you just settle to be a “Christian”?

Invalid Grace

2004-10-13T09:24:00.000-07:00

'Who is this fellow?' The man who was healed had no idea who it was... - John 5:12,13

I want to tell you a story of God’s Pervasive Grace; it’s a story of His Personalized Grace. As with any story, it started out with the setting: “Some time later, Jesus went up to Jerusalem for a feast of the Jews. Now there is in Jerusalem near the Sheep Gate a pool, which in Aramaic is called Bethesda and which is surrounded by five covered colonnades.” If you visit St. Anne’s Church in Jerusalem, they will show you the deep excavation that has revealed the ancient Pool of Bethesda. The Hebrew name Bethesda has been spelled various ways and given differing meanings. Some say it means “house of mercy” or “house of grace,” but others say it means “place of the two outpourings.” There is historical and archeological evidence that two adjacent pools of water served this area in ancient times. We do not know which feast Jesus was observing when He went to Jerusalem, and it is not important that we know. But it’s important to realize this is not the place for Jesus to be to observe whatever the Jewish religious ceremony to take place. The five covered porticoes on four sides of and between the pools attracted a large number of disable people as the text described here, “Here a great number of disabled people used to lie - the blind, the lame, the paralyzed.” Why were they there for? All manuscripts earlier than 400AD omit the end of v.3 and all of verse 4, as your NIV footnote shows, “they waited for the moving of the waters. From time to time an angel of the Lord would come down and stir up the waters. The first one into the pool after each such disturbance would be cured of whatever disease he had.” Is this just a superstitious rumor? The fact that all the sick people gathered here (and the man’s words in verse 7) would suggest that something special had happened here. Why would anybody, especially a man sick for so many years, remain here if nothing were occurring? You would think that after thirty-eight years of nothing happening to anybody, the man would go elsewhere! It seems like something extraordinary kept all these handicapped people at this pool, hoping for a cure. Pervasive Grace Grace is what God gave us even when we don’t deserve it. But “Pervasive Grace” is the grace which available to all. For example, we don’t deserve to get any healing outside of the name of God, but He allows it. We all read reports of healing from other religions, sometimes even from questionable sources such as the one mentioned here. And here is also “Pervasive Grace”: it is the grace available to us, even when we don’t know about Him, or even when we stand against Him. This “Pervasive Grace” of God can be seen in the self-healing capability of our physical body. Don’t you realize that without that built-in capability, all medicine would be of no use? Students of medicine know that antibiotics were just like weapons for our white-blood-cells to use in order to kill off foreign cells. This “Pervasive Grace” of God can be found in our own internal psyche. Why is it that we just won’t get any satisfaction in drinking, partying, indulging and even achieving? Augustine said that our hearts will forever go wandering until it found God, because God had already “set eternity in our hearts”. The “Pervasive Grace” of God is available for all of us. Do you realize that even when people use God’s name as a curse word, God Himself sustains the air they breathe so that they could curse Him in their ignorance? Personalized Grace But God’s Pervasive Grace is also presented to us in a very personal manner, even when we don’t know Him. Here, the text go on, “One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time.” Invalid was from the Latin invalidus (from in, not; and validus, strong), it is like a form of paralytic from what we can gather from the story. There were many sick people there, but Jesus did not come to all of them; He singled out one man. Did He single out this man because of his enduring hope despite the long history of illness? Or did Jesus just pick a person, any person, to be a representative of the healing everyone would have in eternal life [1]? We never know for sure. The only thing we knew was that that Jesus came to the man, spoke to him, healed him, and then met him later in the temple. This is the proof of God’s wonderful grace and mercy, a grace that is personalized to each one of us, a mercy that is individualized for each one of us. Each one of us have already have God’s Pervasive Grace. Didn’t Jesus die for the sin of the world, including each one of us? But have you receive God’s Personalized Grace; the-grace-story-with-your-name-on-it? Here we see grace become personalized for this man: "Jesus asked him, 'Do you want to get well?' 'Sir,' the invalid replied, 'I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me.' Then Jesus said to him, 'Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.' At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked." Some of you asked me how could I handle career, family, ministry, and seminary all in the same time? Beside the great woman I married to, I want to let you in on another secret: I have a low-stress day job! I have been working at the college for a long time. I started working part-time as a student there, then they gave me full-time when I was 23. The job was enjoyable, pay well, and low-stress! Without it, there is no way I would have any juice left for anything else. And what did I do to deserve such a treatment? Nothing! Worse, when I was 23, I was hostile to God, running my own life and didn’t care much about anything else! Yet, God granted me a great job anyway. That was my Personalized Grace story. What about you? What was your Personalized Grace story? Perhaps it was the story of God saving your life from a tragic accident; or the love you received unexpectedly from someone; or even a chance meeting which turned your perspective of life completely around. Remember, God’s Personalized Grace lavished on us even when we didn’t know who He was. The text here said, "The day on which this took place was a Sabbath, and so the Jews said to the man who had been healed, 'It is the Sabbath; the law forbids you to carry your mat.' But he replied, 'The man who made me well said to me, 'Pick up your mat and walk.'' So they asked him, 'Who is this fellow who told you to pick it up and walk?' The man who was healed had no idea who it was, for Jesus had slipped away into the crowd that was there." Notice that the Jewish religious leaders were asking "Who is this dude who told you to break the rules?" Back in those days, the temple authority had listed thirty-nine tasks that were prohibited on the Sabbath, and carrying a burden (like this mat) was one of them. By asking the wrong questions, focusing on the wrong things and they've missed seeing God's grace in life. What they should have asked was, "Who is this guy who turns your life around?" But instead of recognizing the wonderful deliverance of the man, the religious leaders condemned him for carrying his bed and thereby breaking the law. But God's Personalized Grace could become so Pervasive and hard for us to realize until we choose to see it. The miracle would have been easier to see if it didn’t occur on the Sabbath Day. Jesus certainly could have come a day earlier or even waited a day later. But He intentionally did it on the Sabbath. God’s grace was designed so that everyone will have it, but only the one who choose to see it will see it. So, if you struggled with finding a Personalized Grace story in your life, it was not because God didn’t write it in your life, but because you are not familiar with His handwriting. Stop looking for His signature, for He doesn’t sign everything He have been written, but look for His hand writing and you will see His handiworks everywhere. [3] Why Would God Gives Grace? Often, it's the job of the patients to look for the Doctors to thank them after they were cured. But our story was different, the man didn’t find Jesus, Jesus found the man! The doctor goes look for the patient! Our text read: "Later Jesus found him at the temple and said to him, 'See, you are well again. Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you.'" Why did Jesus go find the man? Can God just do good deeds anonymously without seeking for recognition and appreciation? This is the biggest misconception of our time: Some people proposed that God is bigger than any of our religions. They believed that all roads will lead to heaven, that the Christians’ God, the Muslims’ God, the Buddhists’ God, the New Age’s God, and even the Wicca’s God were all the same God; may be with different names, but it is still the same God! That is far from the truth! That’s not what we see here! God do care about us knowing that He is the source of His Grace! And this is why Jesus came to the man: so that he knows the healer. The man was in the temple, no doubt thanking and praising God for healing him. And Jesus came to him in that temple, to reveal to him God, in the flesh. God is not an abstract universal and transcendental life force, but he can be known specifically and personally in a person: Jesus. As we see next week, Jesus spent the rest of his time talking to the religious leader on this precised point. But back to our story here: Jesus Himself went to find the man so that he could know him personally. He said to the man, "Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you." Some people think that the man’s sin caused his sickness 38 years earlier, while some other people jump, “Woa, what a guy! Just back on his feet and he had started sinning already!” For me, I think that sinning here was referred to the man’s spiritual condition: he was healed physically, but personally he was not in a personal relationship with his healer yet. Warren Wiersbe put it this way: “It is possible to experience an exciting miracle and still not be saved and go to heaven!” Yup, it is possible to be in the midst of the temple back then or in the middle of the church today and still not have any relationship with God. It seems strange that the man did not actively seek a closer relationship with the One who healed him, but many of us today are in the same boat: we often would have gratefully accepted the gift and ignored the Giver. Person of Grace Finally, it is hard to classify the relationship this man had with Jesus. John concluded the story with this line: "The man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had made him well." In the context here, the “Jews” were the same religious leaders who harassed him back in verse 10. So, did the man “report” Jesus to the authority because of fear, so that the Jewish leaders leave him alone and go after Jesus? (In chapter 9 later we will find out another guy who was thrown out the synagogue for siding with Jesus). Or may be this man was just naively think that he was honoring Jesus for telling them about his healer? We will not know for certain. There is no evidence for us to say that he believed Jesus and was converted; yet we cannot say that he was opposed to the Savior either [4]. What do you think? How did he respond to the grace of God? As I studied this text with Yen (over Email), he offered this observation:

This passage is about Grace of God vs. the apathy of man: Man suffers, God comes and offers grace, man doesn't really realize the significance, God extends grace anyway, God goes away, man is satisfied but doesn't follow after God, God comes back, God gives warning.....Now, it's up to man to respond appropriately. This same pattern played out over and over again in the Old Testament narratives. In this case of the invalid, it's the same way: He suffered, Jesus offered to heal, the invalid guy didn't realize who is talking to him, Jesus healed him anyway, Jesus quietly left, the guy is now happy and didn't even know who healed him; Jesus came back to him and gave him a stern warning about his condition. The guy now realizes who saved him, and is left with a choice.

But enough about the poor guy; how about you? How do you response to the grace of God? Have you ever realized how Pervasive his grace was in your life in the stuff that didn’t have his signature on, even before you knew Him? Was God’s grace personalized to you; is your name there in the story? Or are we a just a bunch of ungrateful people? To overcome ungratefulness and become a person of grace, we need to start with what we see every day.

First, we need to see the gifts of grace all around us, and be grateful in everything; drop that attitude of “I deserve it!” or “I deserve better”; but instead start thank God for everything He had already provided for you. (Eve’s original sin was not disobedience but that she was ungrateful with all that God had provided for her).
Secondly, we need to see The Giver, the one who able and love to give, but not compelled to give. If we just occupied ourselves with seeing only the gifts from an abstract God but not realizing the love of the Giver for us behind everything, we are missing the point. We could become people who considered themselves fortunate, but not the people with a grateful heart.
Thirdly, it would help if we understand what we stand to lose without these gifts. Unlike the secular concept of grace as in “grace period”, “grace note”, graceful moves”, a concept of something extra; the grace of God is something totally essential. Two men losing their job from a company which went bankrupt; their boss took both of them to work for a new company: one was a new college graduate, the other was a middle-aged man; who would be more grateful? The middle-aged man, of course, for he stood to lose much more if he won’t have a job. [6]

Are you grateful for God’s grace, both Pervasive and Personalized?

Let us walk boldly in thanksgiving and honoring God for the grace He lavished on us.

How do you make a big splash?

2004-10-07T18:42:00.000-07:00

(Or - the Rock-Throwing Theory) Consider throwing a rock into the water, the impacting splash would be the result of: 1. How big is the rock, 2. How deep/wide is the water body, 3. The appropriate contact point (don't miss the middle of the lake), and 4. Then there also need to be enough clearing space for the aftershock waves to be spread. If you throw a pebble instead of a rock, you will make wave but not splash. But if you add more and more mass to a small rock, it will grow into a boulder, and the effects of the splash would even be bigger. This explained why events with more preparation are not only more enjoyable but also often make more impact. If you have big event but have no depth (for example where people don't know each other and don't participate) then the event was just a rock throw in a puddle of water, barely making any splash. But if we have much more depth (where people know each other, where they personally committed some stakes into the event) then the body of water will be wider and deeper and the splash would be possible. If you get both of the above but aim for the shallow end, you won’t make a splash either. This is why we need to be very intentional in our planning process. We need to think through the whole event and how it hit the target audience. Finally, if there are not enough clearing space around the lake, say too many trees in the surrounding, then the splash would not be felt far away from the impact point. Often, we fail to build the anticipation leading up to the event and the follow up for post-event processing. The big lake is the community of faith. It needs to be wide open with relationship among each other and it needs to be deep in authentic relationship with God. We must continually foster the environment space to anticipate and process rocking events. Rocks are ministry events, which got thrown by our heavenly Father into the lake all the time to make waves. Really big one like asteroid, once happens will change the landscape forever. But smaller ones got thrown by God's hand via ministry and individuals all the times and their accumulative impacts are not less important. No matter what size of rock God gave us to throw, we need to maximize its effectiveness by faithfully consider all four factors of the rock throwing theory. Now, only if I can back up this theory with Biblical support...

Am I just a rationalized rich man?

2004-09-29T15:54:00.000-07:00

"There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day. And at his gate lay a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, who longed to satisfy his hunger with what fell from the rich man's table; even the dogs would come and lick his sores. The poor man died and was carried away by the angels to be with Abraham. The rich man also died and was buried. In Hades, where he was being tormented, he looked up and saw Abraham far away with Lazarus by his side. He called out, 'Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am in agony in these flames.' But Abraham said, 'Child, remember that during your lifetime you received your good things, and Lazarus in like manner evil things; but now he is comforted here, and you are in agony. Besides all this, between you and us a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who might want to pass from here to you cannot do so, and no one can cross from there to us.' He said, 'Then, father, I beg you to send him to my father's house -- for I have five brothers--that he may warn them, so that they will not also come into this place of torment.' Abraham replied, 'They have Moses and the prophets; they should listen to them.' He said, 'No, father Abraham; but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent.' He said to him, 'If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.'" from the parable of Jesus in Luke 16:19-31

Someone had said, "It's not the thing I don't understand about Scripture that bother me; but it's the thing that I do understand!" When I re-read the text with a focus on social justice, the bothersome question is "How and to what extent?" I identified myself with the rich man. Even though I consider myself a faithful follower of Christ; our family tithed beyond what was asked of us to finance for various ministries, we spent all our times outside of work to serve the people of God in the church, we committed to a simplistic life (my boy is not even have Xbox, or PS2 yet, but borrowing someone else obsolete Sega Dreamcast to play), etc. Yet, I am still a rich man with double managerial incomes, a house and two cars. Compare to the third world country I came from, we are beyond rich! Compare to our average congregation, we are rich! My wife could afford the latest brand name fashion (even though she often got them on sales at outlet mall), so in a way we were "dressed in purple and fine linen". I myself loved good food, I watched "Iron Chef" every time I got a chance, and I feel no regret dining in Beverly Hills on vacation and paying for $35 per plate, so in a way I was "feasting sumptuously". One can justify my life style by exegete the word "every day" at the end of verse 19. But if one willing to compare my daily "standard" with those "standards" in the third world countries, then in deed, I am living large "every day", even in my modest days. Some would point to the fact that Lazarus was placed at the rich man's gate as an indicator that contrasts between the rich and poor here happened at the local context. Of course, if we compare ourselves to Haiti and Bangladesh then we all the rich men. But may be we are called to confront the situation at our own gates first as a start. I found comfort in the fact that the Gospel didn't condemn the rich man to hell just because he was rich, or admit Lazarus to heaven just because he was poor. May be the text was not about social justice as "the rich will be punished, and the poor will be rewarded eternally" at all. But it more like social justice in the local context, make sure you respond to whatever opportunities God placed around you. But was that it? I still see myself as the rich man. He knew Lazarus by name, he even allowed the poor beggar to hang out at the gate, he probably gave the poor guy a few coins here and there on a good day. But Scripture seemed to condemn the rich man with the description of Lazarus "longed to satisfy his hunger with what fell from the rich man's table." So, when the parishioner who live in the mobile home slump long to have a big house like mine, would I be condemned too? What do I and the rich man were supposed to do? Selling off my house and move into the mobile home slump? Embrace the ascetic life and deprive myself of any good thing in life like the monks would? No! Notice that the message the rich man wanted to send back was not that of, "live a pious life", nor "sell all your possessions now!" The message was "warn them", (Gk. diamarturomai = thoroughly/dia + testify/martureo). He wanted Lazarus to testify what he had been through, that there is an after life, that there is heaven and hell, that there is punishments and rewards. Abraham generalized the message a bit more and said that the Law and the Prophets was enough for living people to listen to already. It is interesting that Jesus referred to the same term Law and Prophet only a few verses earlier in v. 16, and confirmed its eternal validity in v. 17. Jesus also pointed to the Good News of the Kingdom in v.16b which caused a stampede for people to rush in the Kingdom since then. After all, He was the guy who comes back from the dead to carry the message of the tormented rich man (grin, not literally of course). Seeing the parable in this light, I am no longer identified myself as the rich man, or fear condemnation because of I am rich (compare to my other brothers and sisters). If I have the farsightedness to prepare to the next age, if I walked my life accordingly to the Law of God, if I heed the warning of the Prophets, if I repented according to the Resurrected One, I should have nothing to fear. In the mean time, I understood that my blessing (even though coming from God), could cause social barriers to many of my less unfortunate brothers, and that's why we didn't drive a Mercedes nor spending money on unnecessities. I also understood that we would be ridiculed by my less unfortunate brothers too, for sending my kid to private school, and buying top-of-the-line products if they worth the money I invest in. (Especially if I keep my charity giving records private as Jesus commanded me). I realized that my disclosure above would not be an accurate measurement of who I am since you don't know who I am personally in my context. But I am open to your judgment of my thinking on this text. After all, in the next few verses, Jesus said to his disciples about not causing anyone to stumble, and that "if another disciple sins, you must rebuke the offender" (Luke 17:3). What do you think? Am I rationalizing my way to have my cake and eat it too? To what extend are we supposed to identify ourselves with the poor?

How could servants in ministry got corrupted?

2004-09-15T08:38:00.000-07:00

"I have decided what to do so that, when I am dismissed as manager, people may welcome me into their homes..." - The Unjust Steward of Luke 16

Last night my wife and I talked again, after a long board meeting. Eventually the subject turned to our weariness of the corruption from God's servant in regard to church's politics. She raised the question of, "How could people who know God so well, how could they play politics?" My answer at the moment was, "Perhaps because we started concern about the future of the church more than we concern about Christ." Then this morning, as I read the lectionary text (one of the hardest parables of Jesus), I start seeing some interesting implications:

Then Jesus said to the disciples, "There was a rich man who had a manager, and charges were brought to him that this man was squandering his property. So he summoned him and said to him, 'What is this that I hear about you? Give me an accounting of your management, because you cannot be my manager any longer.' Then the manager said to himself, 'What will I do, now that my master is taking the position away from me? I am not strong enough to dig, and I am ashamed to beg. I have decided what to do so that, when I am dismissed as manager, people may welcome me into their homes.' So, summoning his master's debtors one by one, he asked the first, 'How much do you owe my master?' He answered, 'A hundred jugs of olive oil.' He said to him, 'Take your bill, sit down quickly, and make it fifty.' Then he asked another, 'And how much do you owe?' He replied, 'A hundred containers of wheat.' He said to him, 'Take your bill and make it eighty.' And his master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly; for the children of this age are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light. And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of dishonest wealth so that when it is gone, they may welcome you into the eternal homes. - (Luke 16:1-9)

And this is my paraphrase...

I, pastor, was accused by God for not managing His ministry properly (squandering His property = use and abuse it by my own will as it belongs to me). And He demanded a full accounting of my management practice. Worse, He was mentioning that He would no longer employ me as a pastor. That would be a big problem for my pastoral career. I am not strong enough to dig, and I am ashamed to beg. It's hard to find another line of work, which would require expertise in Greek, Hebrew, Exegesis, Hermeneutics, etc. With my rhetoric skills, may be I could be a salesperson, but my conscience would hold me back from a successful sales career, I am sure... So, I started worrying. About my family finance, about my kids, about my future. And somehow in that worrying, I forgot the option of throwing myself down at the Master's feet and beg for mercy. May be my long time position of a respectable pastor prevented me from consider such a thing. So, I decided to use whatever time I have left to take care of myself. I need to network more with the parishioners if I want to save my career. As I spent more time with the parishioners (the powerful ones first to be sure), I get to know them more: "So, what were your issues and struggles?" "I am struggled with the sins of ______ and ______". They answered. "Well, don't let it bother you too much; it's not that bad. You see, according to _____, the real issue is _____." And I started to rationalized and helped them feel better, and that of course, made me feel better too. In the final analysis, if I got many parishioners to like me, if I got many to appreciate my helps to them, then I will have a better chance of continue to be their pastors. And at the end, I've succeed in keeping my pastoral job. I pitied many of my friends who called themselves "children of light". They have no skills whatsoever to function tactfully in a congregation. They have no idea what to do to soften a hellfire and brimstone passage in order to survive in a parish. They forgot that you need to survive first, in order to fight another day. Just the other day I received a commendation from God Himself. He liked my pastoral work, the fact that I care and lift up these people. I guess someone will need to lift the burden of sins and guilt for them. And if I can make them feel better about the struggles they have, that's good. God likes that too (at least from His commendation). There's only one thing I am not quite sure about His commendation. God said that my friends will "welcome me into the eternal homes". I thought God Himself would do the welcoming. And I thought there was supposed to be one eternal home for all of us, not "homes".
What's up with that? But well, I need to run to a marital counseling appointment for these guys down the street...

We all could end up like that the servant in the parable, without even knowing it...

The never ending forward/backward movement of ministry

2004-09-13T08:29:00.000-07:00

"This fellow welcome sinners and eats with them." - Luke 15:2b Last night, my wife asked me, "Have you ever feel like you want to quit". "All the time", I said. We were just coming back from a college/career Labor Day retreat. I didn't do much (after getting a good speaker for them), my wife was doing the cooking for 70 people over the 3 nights/8 meals period. In one of the small group activities, they were personalized a modern coat-of-arm, and taped them on the wall. One of the question on the coat-of-arm was "Name two people you admire." And the next morning I found myself wondering the hallway, trying to count how many of them mentioned my name. Just one, while the High School youth group leader got several. "That's pride!" the quiet voice spoke in my heart. "The spirit of a servant is that of humility. A good servant should be invisible and never seek attention to themselves." Besides, as I moved further into a higher level abstraction of the work in discerning and visioning, and with the commitment to cultivate my family and my 5 years-old son, I will not be able to maintain a high level of interfacing with the people as I did before. "When you feel like people don't like you, should you continue to minister to them?" My wife asked. I told her about my wandering in the hall way looking for my name, and feeling sad because I don't see my name much. I told her about the conviction of pride from God. I think she knew the answer to her own question all along. She was just want to vent her anxiety. "Do you think our group will get anywhere?" "Not really", I answered. "The group won't get anywhere, but the individuals will." What happens here is the nature of ministry. If the Christians were growing and matured, getting themselves to a point of serving and caring for others, making biblical decisions for their lives, etc. Then by definition of Christian maturity, they were supposed to attract many more messed-up and broken people into the body, and the cycle will start all over again. So if we serve to build a church to reach the ideal image of the church, sooner or later we will be frustrated. "Spiritual Pornography" - that was the term one of my mentors used to describe the temptation for ministers to lust after an ideal, non-existence, and impossible church. Back to the lectionary text for this week. The danger is settle for what we have and not what we lost. One of the maxim I learned from strategetic is that we should be concerned about what we have, and not what we don't have. Keith Drury wrote:

A returning hunter focuses on what he got, not what he missed. A good duck hunter might miss dozens of ducks and still bag "the limit." Any duck hunter who keeps whining about those he missed won't last long in this sport. Face it, with just one shotgun, and hundreds of ducks flying away, you are bound to miss plenty. Leaders don't focus on the "missed ducks" either. No leader gets all the ducks. Perhaps you don't have enough resources. Or, the flock is elusive, flying too fast, your aim is lousy or your gun is dirty. Or some other reason. Leaders don't let their mind dwell long on the ducks they've missed. Neither do golfers, or quarterbacks, or ministers. Do you ever come home from church and join your spouse in the depressing game of tallying who was missing that morning? If so, you are focusing on "missed ducks." Ever get all bent out of shape when one woman calls to ask the time of the meeting you've announced ten times already? If so, you're worrying about "missed ducks." Or, do you use up valuable energy brooding about those who didn't pledge to the capital campaign, didn't vote for your call as pastor, didn't sign up for the small groups, or refused to respond to today's altar call? If so, your focus is on the wrong collection of ducks. Leaders focus on the ducks they get, not those they miss. Jesus was such a leader. He missed prize specimens like the rich young ruler. He missed most of the people in his home town where they dismissed Him as too ordinary. Even after three years together He wasn't able to make a true convert out of Judas. In fact Jesus once watched more than 5,000 missed ducks fly away in a single day. But he didn't focus on them. Rather he kept His eyes on those he did have. He seemed to consider missed ducks an "overhead cost" of leadership.

I have been fixing my mind on the guidance above for a long time. But now, perhaps with the text this week, I could have another anchor to make a creative tension between the two polars in order to think through these kind of issues. Here we read:

Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to him. And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, "This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them." So he told them this parable: "Which one of you, having a hundred sheep and losing one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the one that is lost until he finds it? When he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders and rejoices. And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them, 'Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.' Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance. "Or what woman having ten silver coins, if she loses one of them, does not light a lamp, sweep the house, and search carefully until she finds it? When she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, 'Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost.' Just so, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents." (Luke 15:1-10)

It is easier to focus on what we have left, the 99 sheep or the 9 coins. The effort required to search for lost one is much more strenuous. What I need to do is to keep balance on this two anchors: focus on what we have, but also searching for what we have lost. How? I think the key is to see the connection between the two polars: we need to focus on what we have, in order to search for what we have lost. The mission is to reach the lost, but in order to do so we must have matured disciples on hand so that we can minister to them effectively. We need to focus on having the capability to nurture, to celebrate when the lost returned. How are we doing at assimilating the lost into our existing community? How many people in the group could welcome sinners and eat with them, while NOT conforming/becoming like sinners? (Right now, the attitude of the group is polarized on two spectrums. On the one hand, some feel like, "we welcoming sinners and eat with them, because we are just like them". On the other hand, some feel like, "we are no longer like them, so it's hard to welcome sinners and eat with them." Both extremes are wrong. The key of connection between these extremes and balance this creative tensions can be found in one word: Grace. Once we fully grasp the grace of God in our lives, we will be compelled to move forward and not behave like the world, but we will also be filled with compassion to move backward and reach the lost world too. Let's see how we could applying this in the time to come...

The Cyclical Pattern of Faith intersecting Culture

2004-09-09T09:33:00.000-07:00

(or - Why now do I blog?)

"...they are not of the world any more than I am of the world. My prayer is not that you take them out of the world..." - Jesus (Jn.17:14b-15a)

For the last few thousands of years we have been trying to figure out the relationship between faith and culture. If there are two basic wet and dry positions, they would be 1) our culture blended well with our faith, or 2) our faith is separated from our culture. And if I have to pick between the wet and the dry, I would pick the dry position.

Fortunately, life is not just wet and dry. In the classic book "Christ and Culture", Richard Niebuhr stated the five basic positions: "Christ AGAINST Culture", "Christ OF Culture", "Christ ABOVE Culture", "Christ and Culture in PARADOX", and "Christ the TRANSFORMER of Culture". (Go here for an abbreviate overview of each position). The first two positions were the two basic wet and dry ends of the spectrum. The last three were variations of the mix.

And so, faith and culture is not just wet and dry. Jesus started the confusion two thousands years ago when He desired for his followers to "not be out of the world" but "not to be of the world" either (Jn.17). The question is "How?" How that relationship between faith and culture would look like? If you haven't read the link about on the overview of Niebuhr's book, now is the perfect time to hit it before we move on...

Leonard Sweet in "Soul Tsunami" had this excellent illustration about the relationship between faith and culture as a boat and water. The boat should "not be out of water, and not be 'of' (immersed-in) water" either. Is the boat wet or dry? Hhhm.. (Now you see why I started out with wet and dry positions and not black and white ).

And as the two dimensional water surface intersects the three dimensional boat, there will be misrepresentation and misunderstanding; culture won't really "get" the faith; readers will mistaken the persona for the person; miscommunication was a built-in cost of communication. After all, aren't we the humankind always the expert in miscommunication? Even after thousands of years we still haven't grasped the communication from God, even as it was directly delivered to our world - in a Person! And since there exists that mixture of intersection between faith and culture, between a persona and the person, which is unavoidable in communication; I am willing to risk mis-communicate in order to communicate through this blogging medium.

But there are more. Back to the question of, "How the relationship between faith and culture would look like?" Niebuhr's book presented five options; all five could be supported by Scripture, and all five could be appropriate. How could this be? Phillip Yancey wrote, "I remember that Niebuhr's book left me feeling enlightened, but as confused as ever. All the approaches seemed to have something to contribute, and in fact, I could point to biblical examples of each one..."

Aaahh, welcome to the age of pomo, where people could hold seemingly contradictory views in contiguous space of their minds.

The problem is that we often have a "static" view of a position, rather than seeing everything as a "dynamic" view of the overall positional pattern. I am speaking non-sense here, so let me explain.

If you ask, "Are we called to be out of the world or in the world?" The answer will be "Both; it's all depends." It's all depends on where you are in the pattern, and then you take up the appropriate position. It's similar to beginner's volleyball: if you are in the back row, you dig; front row, you hit; and center, you set.

The idea came to me while I was in a Bible Study on an obscure text of Genesis 45-47 on Joseph preparing his family to migrate to Egypt. {Thanks, Yen - for your exceptionally keen observation.} At the time, Pharaoh offered generously, "I will give you the best of the land, here load your household on these cars, never mind about your stuffs, because I will give you the best here..." In contrast, Joseph carefully coached his brothers, "I will settle you in Goshen, bring everything, including your herds. When Pharaoh asks, tell him your occupation as shepherd, it's detestable to them and you can settle there at Goshen."

Joseph was a successful bi-cultured man, why would he want his family to be secluded from the Egyptian culture? Wouldn't he want them to also be successful too?

What happened here is the illustration for Joseph's grasp of faith and culture. He understood that the ultimate end is not about current culture, but about the fulfillment of faith in the Promised Land. While his steadfast faith remained vibrant as he was assimilating the Egyptian culture, climbing the Egyptian hierarchy, enjoying Egyptian food, marrying Egyptian wife and producing kids. He knew that his brothers would not last a chance in that culture. So he sheltered them up in a paralleling culture, build them strong, so that one day the Jewish culture would emerge, would struggle, and would overcome culture to receive the Promise Land.

We see God did the same thing to Moses, get them out of his people into the dessert for forty years, then sent him back in among his own people again. We see similar pattern in Jesus' ministry. He took the disciples out of the world to be with him, build them strong in Him, then sent them back in the world to make disciples and repeat the cycle. I see the similar pattern today in new believers too. Often they are cut-off from their old secular friends and influences so that they can solidify their faith, then as they are matured, they will attempt to re-enter the culture to live out their faith.

The frequent problems with this cyclical pattern is in its shape and its size. We often don't like changes and therefore we resist both the movements of God: 1) to call us out of the world as well as 2) to send us back into the world. The cycle could not complete here if we don't move. Just look around and see how many people would be willing to step out of their comfort zone today? The second problem is that some of us take way too long to complete the cycle, so by the time we re-enter the world, we no longer have any connection left to the culture. The cycle could not complete here either if the curvature of the cycle get too big. Just ask the "seasoned Christians" around and see how many friends they have left outside of church?

However, these problems are artificial problems created by our lack of responsiveness to God. Let's take the size problem for example, the cycle of faith intersect culture wasn't designed to take a long time to complete. In fact, it was designed as a series of small spirals. At least once a week, we were called out from the world into the faith community, where we are strengthen and built-up, so that we can re-engage the world again every Monday, living out the faith in the culture. Even every day, the spiritual discipline of "Quiet Time" is designed for us to be away from other distraction, to receive the nourishing strength from God so that we can re-engage the world for the rest of our day.

In Niebuhrian terms, I woke up with the "Christ against Culture", I rushed on the freeway for work and yielded for a passing car with the "Christ paradox Culture", I managed my staff with the "Christ above Culture" and I seeked business opportunities with the "Christ transform Culture" through out my day. Finally, I ended my workday hanging out in my small group with the "Christ of Culture". Does it make any sense to you at all?

With this circular pattern thinking, I decided to enroll my son into a private Christian elementary school (since I could, and therefore I should), with a clear view of the day he would have to be "salt and light" in some public high school. I told you, my thinking is so warped; now it's affecting my children!

Yes, this theory is so warped. No wonder my mentor disagreed with it. Perhaps I am brewing some interesting heresy here. What do you think?

I12know - What?

2004-09-02T13:55:00.000-07:00

Have you ever been to a place, which give you a foretaste of heaven? And once you have been there, what would you take back?

The closest place to heaven for me personally was Urbana Mission Conference 1990. I was surrounded by 20,000 other die hard Christians for a week. Everyone was on fire for God. Everyone was having the same heart and same mind, willing to live and die for Jesus. And the thrill of worship God with thousands of other brothers and sisters could truly give you a foretaste of heaven. In the midst of all that glorious experience, I encountered this treasure for the first time as a quote from Paul.

"I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead..."

I was so captured by the passion, by the pursuit, by the single-mindedness to "know Christ". And I take that verse back with me after the conference. It had become my life verse since then!

I12know!

The verb “to know” here is not just mere intellectual knowledge, but a deeper knowledge by personal experience. If you walked into my church and asked for me, people could say “Yeah, I know him” and introduce you to me. But if you asked my wife something about me, and she said, “I know him!” It meant something else entirely different. It’s the deep, intimate, and personal experience that we desired here.

I12know Christ! For a long time, I thought I knew Him. I was born and raised in a Christian family in Saigon, Vietnam. As a kid, I knew all the stories and doctrines about God, getting medals in those Bible Trivias and competitions. But those knowledge didn't help much. By my teen years, I was addicted to stealing and lusting, and even dabbling with the devil for guidance and protection. Not until when a friend helped me to accept the grace of God into my life back in 1980 that I would start knowing God by experience.

And there are more to know about Christ. I still remember the first time I discover Jesus as the one I have not known before. We were doing a Bible Study about a day in life of Jesus in Mark 1. Typical stuff. Jesus went to church and preached there. In the middle of the service, a person with demonic manifestation started disrupting. And Jesus went, “Shut up! Get out!” And the demon was cast out. After church, Jesus went to Peter's house for lunch. His mom was sick so Jesus took her by the hand and help her up; the fever was gone!

My bible study leader then asked a lame question, "What the differences between the two miracles?" "Well, it's obvious! The first He just said so, and the second one He touched", I replied. My leader followed, "What then is the significance of that difference?" Suddenly, I was blown away by the realization that Jesus, the Son of God, was also so human. He could have shout, "Arise, woman! Your fever had gone!" But no, He came near, stoop down to where she was, took her by the hand and helped her up; so respectfully, so caringly.

I12know Christ! The more I read the gospels, the more I discover, and the more I like what I saw. Jesus was an organized person, he was creative, and he even slept on a cushion! But just knowing the historical Christ is not enough, I want to know what Christ can do today!

I12know the power of His resurrection. I grew up witnessing the revival of God's signs and wonders among the persecuted churches in Vietnam and I want to continue experiencing the power of the Living God, who is still working in the midst of our congregation today.

I don’t want to know just a better way to live life, a new methodology to communicate to people, or even the principles of impacting the world. More than any of that, I want to experience the power of the resurrection, a divine power that cannot be explained, a vivid power that cannot be denied!

A couple of year ago we had a case of demon possession at our church. The senior pastor was away, and it was up to me and the youth pastor to handle the matter. We have no idea what to do. So I studied everything I had so far on that issue, consulted on the phone with a pastor in the next city. I called a fast-and-pray for all the people in the youth group. And as the whole room full of young people praying for us at church; I, the youth pastor, and a medical doctor from our church went out to visit the person. As we gathered around, laid hands and prayed, I spoke up according to Scripture, “What is your name?” And you know what, the demon inside the person answered back to me. Wow! This is unbelievable! This is power encounter! And by the power of God we cast out the demon that day. The person is still here with us today, growing and serving in our church.

And I have experience this supernatural power of His resurrection again and again in our church, where ex-criminals devoted their lives to live for God, where healings took place, and more importantly where many lives are still transforming from darkness into light.

That is the power that I am seeking after, the power that changes lives. But ultimately there is more in Christ than even this power.

I12know the fellowship of sharing in His suffering. This is hard. This is so hard for me. I am the type of person who will switch the TV channel when I see pain and suffering, regardless of orphanage or famine or violence or just imagery of kids with haunting hollowed eyes. Do I really want to know the fellowship of suffering for my life and for my ministry? God, this is hard! I constantly struggle with it. How could I desire such a thing? Although I cited this as my own life verse, the sober reality is that I often desired “the power of his resurrection” more than “the fellowship of his sufferings”.

There is the tendency in the comfortable modern church to shy away from the biblical teachings about suffering. We dread the subject and skirt around it whenever we can. Here, Paul embraced it fully, for he truly understood the glorious joy and hope of the Gospel. Perhaps, in order for us to embrace “the fellowship of his sufferings” like Paul did, we need to start where he started, in the desire to experience “the power of his resurrection” first. If we know the power of his resurrection, we would be able to have the fellowship in his suffering.

In your life and my life, eventually we will face our own suffering. And if we don’t know the fellowship in His suffering we will not be able to deal with our suffering.

But knowing all of the above is not enough. Notice the change as Paul went on “becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow to attain to the resurrection from the dead”. It’s no longer about the nouns of “the Christ”, of “the power”, of “the fellowship”; but the verbs of “becoming”, of “attaining”.

The whole thing of I12know must channel into actions. It is the actions of becoming like Jesus, days in days out; of laying my life down, days in days out; of dying to sin, days in days out. Life is a sequence of actions. And if my actions conforming to Him in death; then those actions will also be the same steps which lead to life in Him, and to the resurrection one day before God.

As we pursue the transforming movements of “knowing the power of the resurrection” and “knowing the fellowship of his suffering”, there will be the effects of “becoming like Him in his death” and finally “attaining resurrection from the dead” somehow. The whole thing is an amazing process from God in which we are immersed in.

It was a tall order to pursuit, to follow that passion after Christ. Paul felt the same way. In the verses followed, Paul wrote:

“Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.”

Christ Jesus had already taken hold of our life; and I trust that He will continue His work so that we can respond to him, and press on! For I am confident, “that He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” (Phi.1:6)

As Christians, we all have a foretaste of what heaven would be like. But in the mean time, what would you take back from that heaven to live our lives here on earth?