Archives for category: ministry

The Perfect Score

May 3, 2008 //

Six students at a local high school that several of our youth group students attend were suspended last week for hacking into the school’s computer system to change their grades and access upcoming test material. This probably would have been a newsworthy blurb on its own and a conversation about cheating and technological security, but the emotional response of the assistant principal of the school has pushed this story to another level.

The assistant principal called this, “Our (worst) technological nightmare” and said, “This case is unique in its depth of complexity and depravity.” Now, of course cheating is wrong, but this response sounds a tad melodramatic. Does the high-tech nature of this cheating make it any worse than old-fashioned cheating (e.g., students writing answers on their palms)?

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Categories community, controversy, family, ministry, youth ministry

Step Right Up, Get Your Church Here!

April 30, 2008 //

One postcard, in particular, stuck with me from the virtual mountain of freebies we received from the National Pastors Convention awhile back. The headline boldly declares:

STANDING ROOM ONLY:
Outreach events that draw a crowd

The postcard then goes on to detail a list of motivational speakers, musicians, comedians and other specialty acts a church could bring on board in order to attract a crowd — standing room only, in fact. Reminds me a bit of this old rasslin’ introduction — just plug in “speakers” or “comedians” for “tag team champions of the world.”

Sigh.

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Categories church, community, ministry, missional

Now You Tell Me!

April 25, 2008 //

Over the last several years, I have undergone an ecclesiological revolution of sorts. That is, my understanding of what the church is and is called to be has changed dramatically. This is due, in part, to personal frustration and dissatisfaction. However, this shift in my ecclesiological understanding largely comes from my deeper trust in and larger view of God and a deepening sense what it means to be a sent people.

Darrell Guder, one of the editors of the seminal work Missional Church: A Vision for the Sending of the Church in North America, gives eloquent words to the shift in thinking I have experienced in his lecture, Walking Worthily: Missional Leadership after Christendom:

From a missional perspective, the desired outcome of theological education is not the competent, well-equipped professional clergyperson… Rather than just the clergy, it is the entire missional community that is the central agency that God’s Spirit employs to bring about God’s healing purposes for the creation. The test of missional theological education is the equipped and faithful witness of called and sent communities. The people of God in concrete assemblies and fellowships must be the focus of missional formation and not merely the incumbents of ordered ministry structures. To borrow Leslie Newbigin’s now-classic phrase, it is the community that is the hermeneutic of the gospel.

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Categories asian american, church, community, faith, family, ministry, missional

Act Justly, Love Mercy, Walk Humbly With God

April 23, 2008 //

A Bigger Gospel

Reducing the entirety of the Gospel to the idea that Jesus died so that I can go to heaven has had some unfortunate consequences. Certainly, Christ died on the cross, bearing the weight of our sins upon Himself so that we can enter into right relationship with God. However, by behaving as if Jesus is essentially a get out of jail free card, we end up with Christians who can make statements like this:

Christ does not call Christians to ‘make the world more compassionate and a better place’. Christ calls us to proclaim the Gospel message of Christ Crucified for sinners. This message is not compatible with any other religion or spirituality.

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Categories asian american, church, college, community, faith, family, hope, justice, ministry, missional, prayer, stewardship

Weary From This Journey

April 18, 2008 //

From the time we graduated from seminary and were married, I have been extremely blessed to serve alongside my wife in vocational ministry in the churches of which we have been a part. She is a wonderfully talented woman with passion and love for God and His people. Her pursuit of sharing the grace and peace of Jesus has taken her all over the world — in fact, to over forty nations. She can teach you about Chomsky and Dostoevsky, mid-century design and molecular gastronomy. Despite enduring much hardship in her life, she is extremely compassionate — often empathetic to a fault. She is a gifted preacher, having spoken around the country, and a talented worship leader, even being featured on a worship album.

And yet, in our years of ministry together, she is often seen as “the pastor’s wife.” Without taking anything away from the many faithful women who have been pastor’s wives, my wife is a pastor. In all honesty, she is more qualified for the task of vocational ministry than I am — and yet, while many people have no problem addressing me as “pastor” (which, in the hierarchical Korean American church, is an issue of respect and directly affects a person’s ability to lead) others struggle to afford my wife the same inherent respect.

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Categories asian american, church, community, family, ministry