Archives for category: church

Reformergamissionavegematic!

October 17, 2007 //

It might be a postmodern tendency (or just the unleashing of my inner nerd after finally watching Transformers last night) to redefine words and ideas by combining them in unexpected ways. For example, hybrid words like ginormous have made it into our consciousness, and the Merriam-Webster online dictionary (for fun, try out words that don’t fit nicely together — like, “gi-huge” or “hu-big”). Even the holidays are not safe, as we learned from The OC (but, seriously, don’t call it “The OC” — I kind of like the ring of “The Orange Curtain” myself) about Chrismukkah — I have gone the distance with what I believe to be the ultimate end-of-year celebration, Christmahanuramadanakwaanzafestivuskah (Please forward all royalties from these greeting cards to me).

Mo Rocca is a fundit and this guy used to be Bennifer. Seriously, we love hybrid words. Even music is not safe, as Danger Mouse showed us by giving the mashup mainstream exposure (what do you get when you combine The White Album by The Beatles and The Black Album by Jay-Z? The Grey Album, of course).

Fear not, mainliners who are interested in postmodern theology — presbymergent is here! And we haven’t forgotten you either, reformergents.

Actually, I think there is great value in contextualizing and reconfiguring words & ideas. Information is no longer static or easily boxed into a single category [h/t: David Park — I think I should just put quotation marks around every post you write and then link it!], so it makes sense that we would hybridize theological words & phrases. While I know it probably drives some word purists (and hardline whoevers) nuts, this process must not necessarily rob these words of their original meaning. The use of multiple tags by bloggers for a single post might be a helpful analogy — just because an article is about “worship” or “community” doesn’t make it less of either. In fact, this interconnectedness of ideas gives a greater depth to each.

Word hybridizers, roll out!

Categories church, communication, community, emerging church, faith, hope, ministry, postmodern, reconciliation

Friends Are Friends Forever

October 16, 2007 //

I think a good part of what I’ve been struggling with these days comes from missing friendship. I’m not trying to write a sad song here — I definitely have friends and acquaintances and, more importantly, a beautiful, supportive family. But, in the last couple of years since we moved out to California, I find myself missing the community we had on the East Coast more & more. My seminary days were tumultuous and difficult, but I treasure the friendships we forged there.

David Park recently shared some great thoughts about accountability, authenticity and friendship. As I read, I was reminded of the “accountability” group I was a part of during my seminary days. We would gather every week to share about our sins & struggles and to pray for one another. However, all of us being Asian American, I think we were pretty guarded. There were several things working against sharing what was genuinely in our hearts — we didn’t all know each other that well, we were all raised in an honor/shame culture, we were all men and the group was little bit too large to allow everyone to share in a reasonable amount of time.

Now, don’t get me wrong — I really valued, and still value, those “official” gatherings. But those kinds of accountability groups, as Joseph Myers points out in Organic Community, have a tendency to focus on the negative. As he puts it, “There is such an underlying expectation of failure” when all we do is keep “account” of our sin & failure. Even my personality (introverted, and shy to boot) works against the effectiveness in my life of this kind of gathering.

I found that simply sharing life together with these same friends set me on a true path. Laughter and joy keep my heart in order and provide perspective, keeping me from getting too wrapped up in my own problems. Actually being there together builds more trust in my heart than going around in a circle and sharing coded prayer requests with people who are essentially strangers. And it is being there together that creates an environment where, from time to time, deep sharing can occur.

I suppose this is all tied into what I am feeling about my future in the church. I am tired of being part of commuter communities, where the sheer physical distance makes it virtually impossible to build deep friendships. I’ll probably say more on the problems of commuter churches some other time but, seriously, can we develop meaningful relationships in a couple of hours a week — much of which is spent sitting in relative physical proximity but never really engaged with each other? Or can a people’s minds really be there for someone else sharing late into the night at a weekly small group gathering if they know they have a twenty or thirty mile drive in order to get home after everything is done?

Maybe I just need a friend to go to the batting cages, or some indie rock shows, with me. It would relieve a great burden from my wife — who is an extraordinary listener, but who is burdened with the entirety of my worry, stress and frustration — and from me.

Categories asian american, church, community, faith, family, health, ministry, sigh

Futures

October 11, 2007 //

Marko has written a great post about the future of youth ministry [a link! let’s get those Technorati stats back up!]. He asks this vital question:

if youth ministry past was “proclamation-driven”, and youth ministry present is “program-driven”, what’s our hopeful ‘driver’ in the future?

And Marko takes the conversation deeper with this question about how we would shape the character and ethos of future youth ministry:

if youth ministry past was focused around key themes of EVANGELISM and CORRECTION, and youth ministry present is focused around key themes of DISCIPLESHIP and POSITIVE PEER GROUP, then what would be the key themes of this preferred future?

I love the discussion this has generated in the comments section of this post. It is beautiful to see the hearts of so many people dedicated to serving youth and the passion with which they love them. I really needed to hear these words; I have been pretty worn out lately, and it does my heart good to get my nose off the grindstone for a moment and walk alongside others, even if it’s just to listen in.

I think the amount of conversation this has generated also speaks to significance of asking the right questions — and Marko has given a wonderful example of how people come alive not through yet another top-down, I’m the expert with all the answers lecture but through excellent questions that get to the core of who they are and what they’re all about.

While I can’t say that I agree with everything in the comments (and, really, when does that ever happen?), I appreciate the deep engagement so many people have shown with theology and praxis. Of course, whenever I enter these discussions, I automatically begin filtering and re-processing my thoughts to contextualize it to Asian American youth ministry.

If we want to revitalize Asian American churches, so much of it begins with youth. This is part of what drew me back into youth ministry after several years of serving an adult congregation. Asian American youth (Korean American kids, in particular) are so churched, and yet this does not result in healthy churches. In fact, many young people end up leaving the church in droves, a silent exodus of thousands.

In the next couple of weeks, I will try to put together some thoughts about how I see the future of Asian American youth ministry — or, at least, how I would like to contribute towards building a better future.

Categories asian american, church, community, emerging church, faith, family, hope, ministry, postmodern, youth ministry

Cowards.com

October 11, 2007 //

After reading this article about a series of nooses being hung all around the nation, apparently in response to what is happening with the Jena 6, I am saddened, disgusted and frustrated. Nooses, really? Our culture is digressing in troubling ways. I get the same sinking feeling that Eugene Cho wrote about recently, in his post Racism Sucks, about the vast difference in media coverage between crimes committed against white and black people.

There is so much hatred lurking just beneath the surface. People are so quick to pin the blame for the difficulty in their lives on someone else — it’s always “their” fault, whoever they might be. What is particularly infuriating about these noose incidents is the disgusting cowardice of these perpetrators. Like the Klansmen who hide behind masks, these people sneak around as they attempt to inflict terror on others.

I am reminded of an ugly incident that occurred during my seminary days. Several non-white students received racist, hateful rants scrawled across the message boards on their doors. Although the seminary convened a task force in response to these incidents, the perpetrator was never caught and the matter was essentially swept under the rug. Looking back, I wish I had taken a stronger stand in pursuit of justice instead of allowing the seminary community to act like nothing ever happened. Princeton is a wonderful community in many ways, but very proud and set in its ways — during my time there I encountered many people who were shocked to find that not everyone shared their worldview and that, in fact, their perspective was not normative for everyone else.

We are often guilty of perpetuating the culture of self-centered entitlement — Jesus died just for you, our church is all about your needs, etc. — instead of self-giving servanthood. This sense that someone, everyone, owes me only breeds resentment and violence. May Christ break this sick, self-perpetuating cycle of privilege and selfishness.

Categories asian american, church, controversy, frustration, race, reconciliation

As Much To Myself As To You

October 9, 2007 //

Jonah Matranga is one of my favorite artists. His music has been influential on a wide variety of bands. His work in Far showed that it wasn’t a contradiction to bring together heartfelt lyrics and face melting riffs. And before Chris Carrabba was stealing hearts and gracing magazine covers and the Plain White Ts were in heavy rotation on every tween in America’s playlist (you know, the Hey There, Delilah guys?), Jonah’s work as onelinedrawing brought being a singer/songrwriter back into style in indie and punk circles. He has even been featured on a couple of hip hop tracks by Fort Minor and Lupe Fiasco.

While I am a big fan of his music, I appreciate his honesty and humility as a human being. I saw him perform to an audience of about twenty or thirty people last week at the Casbah and he sang with the same sincerity and passion as he does to a packed house of hundreds. Afterward, he manned his own merch table and stayed late into the night to talk with everyone who came. I had emailed Jonah a couple of weeks ago with some questions about his show — and he surprised me with a phone call the day before the concert. Although I was trying hard to hide my enthusiasm and play it cool, Jonah was extremely normal — just a friend reaching out to another friend and connecting. After his performance, we talked a bit about family and he gave me a big hug as I left.

One of the most fun parts of Jonah’s live performance is his wealth of stories. With a big smile, he introduced his cover of the Jackson 5’s I Want You Back as being the roots of “emo” — not Rites of Spring or Fugazi. And before singing his song Tides, he described how a major corporation offered him essentially a hatchback full of cash to use this song in a commercial. In the end, he said, he turned them down — not out of some high and mighty, punk rock ethic — but simply because it didn’t sit right with him. These days, music is commercialized to the point of “indie” music being indistinguishable from mainstream radio in terms of usage in ads and sponsorships.

Jonah made a really good point during his show about the importance of honesty. Some bands “sell out” but experience a kind of cognitive dissonance about it, and so they try to rationalize or explain away what they’ve done. However, wouldn’t we all be better off with a little more honesty? If Apple wants to use your song in an iPod commercial or EA Sports in their next video game franchise — and the prospect of swimming in a vat of the gold dubloons these mega corporations are willing to pay is really attractive to your band — then just be honest about it. You don’t have to prove anything to anyone, you don’t have to score scene points with anyone — just do what you do with integrity and honesty.

I think this really hit me hard because I’ve been struggling with my current ministry context. Please don’t misunderstand: this is a good church , I love working with the students here, and our church’s leadership loves the Lord and His people. But I can’t help but feel that I’m not being completely honest to my calling — the thoughts about ecclesiology, mission, creativity, friendship and community that have been brewing inside me for quite some time now. I’m living in that tension, and trying to discern where this road might lead — with as much honesty and truth as I can muster.

I love this line from As Much To Myself As To You by onelinedrawing:

As much to myself as to you
As much a list of questions as
A list of what to do

Mystery, doubt, confusion. This is the mess that so many of us live in — I’m just hoping that it leads somewhere soon.

Categories church, communication, community, faith, indie, ministry, music