I just posted the first of a two-part interview with Daniel DK Kim over at Next Gener.Asian Church. DK is the worship leader at Newsong Church in Irvine, California; he and his family are moving to Mexico City this month for the next two years to fight human trafficking.
We all need stories of courage and redemption to push us further along the path to which God has called us. You can support DK and his family in their journey by purchasing his album thefirst over at his site.
Risky Business
I have been extremely blessed to volunteer for Justice Ventures International for the last year. I’m excited to see where this partnership leads and how I can continue to contribute to the great work JVI is doing around the world. As my friend Charles Lee says, “Compassion must be more than just a re-tweet.” I want to work towards compassion & justice around the world in tangible, even sacrificial, ways — to venture, to risk, in becoming a better expression of God’s love.
Part four of my ongoing series of reflections on The Idea Camp (catch up on part one, part two, part three):
I loved seeing a wide range of speakers and facilitators presenting from the main stage. It’s not just diversity for its own sake (which can so quickly devole into tokenism). As David Gibbons shared with us at the Camp, creativity and life come from the margins, from intersections you might not otherwise cross. When we hear the same people making the same rounds from the same book tour on the same circuit…. well, you get the idea. That’s why I appreciated William Paul Young, author of The Shack, urging the National Pastors Convention to highlight women’s voices from the main stage there (this past year, the main stage was not the most diverse bunch).
The diversity at The Idea Camp was more than just cosmetic: we heard from pastors, non-profit innovators, business leaders, men, women, young, old, people from a variety of racial & ethnic backgrounds, the tech-savvy, the well-known and the not-as-well-known. Kudos to Charles Lee for his vision of bringing together a remarkable group of people to lead & share.
For me, as an Asian American, every conference I attend is a cross-cultural experience. Occasionally my wife and I talk about how difficult it is to find our place in life & ministry – not quite here or there most of the time. It was encouraging to be reminded that diversity is an important part of creativity and listening for God’s voice.
Part three of an ongoing series of reflections about my Idea Camp experience (feel free to check out part one and part two)…
After I came home from The Idea Camp, my wife commented on how completely my inner geek had been unleashed. “I had no idea,” she said to me, shaking her head. It’s true — I spent a good deal of the weekend bathed in the warm glow of a small army of MacBooks running TweetDeck.
I definitely experienced firsthand what Charles Lee wrote, “Social networking is more than a nice tool, it’s cultural architecture.” For me, tech facilitated friendship. In some cases, I was able to connect with friends who I had only known through the blogosphere; in others, I met people face to face and have since been connected online. In both cases, the transition from online to offline friendship was pretty seamless. Gives me some hope for facilitating online/offline friendship and community in our church.
In terms of participation, tech opened doors for people to be involved in many different ways. As DJ Chuang observes, The Idea Camp was a great venue for connecting the online and offline worlds, “We had as many people online as in-person at the event, Q&A was interaction with both onliners and offliners, relationships initiated online came together in person, etc.”
On a personal level, it was so encouraging to gather with like-minded friends who are asking similar questions and seeking to build God’s kingdom in their local communities. Working in church ministry has an isolating effect, and sometimes it’s good to get together with people who are thinking in the same direction just to know that you’re not crazy. I heard that same refrain recently from Mike Bishop, author of What is Church?, in describing the close friendship he has built with a group of people around the country that started with the question, We’re not crazy, are we?
I’m still a total Twitter newbie (despite my total Twitter avalanche – Twit-alanche? — from The Idea Camp). And yet, I already find my writing being Twitter-ized… 140 characters or less! So, here are my bullet-pointed, tweetified notes from the panel discussion on leadership with Eugene Cho, Scott Hodge and Dave Gibbons.
What is leadership?
Can you share what contrarian church leadership looks like?
What is the Third Culture mindset and will?
Posterous
