My friend Richard is a librarian — yes, a real-life librarian — out in Illinois. I love reading his reflections about building and resourcing his local community. He is passionate, talented and has a wonderful sense of humor.
Recently, he posted about a person who was looking for a “video rental store but for books.”
Yikes.
Is this what we’ve come to? Are we such a Netflixed and TiVo’d culture that we have forgotten the old brick and mortar local library?
But enough hand-wringing… more fail!
A friend of ours from church was telling the story of his college days and the various nicknames given to members of his campus fellowship group. This group took the nicknaming process very seriously and went far beyond simply differentiating between “Big Steve” and “Little Steve.”
More often than not, there was kind of a mean ring to the nicknames. For example, “Punching Bag Dave” was given that title after getting beaten up by a younger student, and one student was named “Home Plate” after her home plate-shaped jawline.
However, the championship goes to a boy named Dave whose nickname was “Good Looking Phil.” Apparently, the “Phil” came from his early onset male pattern baldness (which gave him a kind of Phil Collins appearance) and the “Good Looking” part came from his arrogant self-perception as a ladies’ man. Thus, Dave became “Good Looking Phil.” Brilliant.
Reminds me of when George wanted to be known as “T-Bone.”
Recently, our church community entered a new season of life and ministry as my wife and I began to serve as co-pastors. We became United — a nod to the heritage of our mother church, Korean United Presbyterian Church, while also symbolizing the new direction in which we believe God is leading us.
We have hope that God is building up a missional community of Christ-followers who will stand united with Christ as individuals, with one another as a diverse community and with God’s purposes in the world.
I designed the United logo, which you can view below.
And please, no Ponzi schemes! :)
This summer, our church will be sending a team of mostly college-aged people to Japan to partner with the ministry of a local church there. The prospect of raising $3000 each has been daunting for our team members.
As pastors, my wife and I have done our best to assure them that, in our experience, money is never the thing that prevents us from participating in God’s work around the world — but, at the same time, they must be willing to work really hard to raise the necessary support.
If you have any ideas that a small group of five or ten people can use for effective fundraising, please let me know. And, if you’d like to contribute, drop me a line!
At the gracious invitation of David Park, I have begun sharing some thoughts over at Next Gener.Asian Church. You can read my initial post about Asian Pacific American Heritage Month there. NG.AC always hosts thought-provoking, engaging discussions so, hopefully, I can add another perspective to the mix. It is a healthy sign, I believe, to see a spectrum of voices and thoughts emerging in the Asian American church blogosphere.
I will still be blogging primarily here, but I’m excited to contribute to the work of NG.AC.
In a nod to David’s wonderful NG.AC Asian American Surveys on YouTube, here are some AA-related music videos:
headsparks* 