Archives for category: ministry

NYWC 3: Mysterious Ways

October 21, 2007 //

I am worn out after day three of NYWC but, finally, in a good way. I always have difficulty articulating my inner life but I have been in a particular state of disorder in the weeks leading up to NYWC. In the midst of busyness and weariness, I have not been listening well for God’s voice. Today, at the convention, the fog began to lift in myriad ways. This was a full day of getting to sit under some great teaching, and Mike shared about building a holy rhythm to our lives.

* * * * *

I have been looking forward to hearing Francis Chan since I saw that he would be a main session speaker. He is a dynamic and gifted communicator — and, as an Asian American, it is so encouraging to see a face to whom I can relate up on the main stage. I am sure, though, that his words spoke to everyone there this morning. I won’t attempt to recap everything Francis said (although I’m sure I will wear out the CD of his talk that I picked up), but God was definitely speaking to me through his words this morning. Several times, I found myself in tears as I listened.

When Francis began to share his heart, as a parent, about what he wanted from his daughter’s youth pastor, I was completely convicted. More than programs and messages and the big show, he is looking for a youth pastor who will love and pray passionately for his daughter. I know I would wish the same thing for my daughter — and, if that’s what I’m looking for, then I cannot offer any less.

Francis’ words about actually believing the Bible and living it out — not mediated or filtered through someone else’s lens, but engaging, living and breathing the Word of God in real life. The consequences in the life of Francis and his church have been nothing short of revolutionary.

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In the afternoon, I went to a brilliant seminar by Mike King. His words gave voice to so much of that with which I have been wrestling over the last couple of years. He exhorted us to find out what makes us feel fully alive, and to incorporate those things into our everyday lives. I am looking forward to reading his book Presence-Centered Youth Ministry. He gave several practical, creative, engaging ways to incorporate a rule of life into our daily living.

In particular, his words about community spoke powerfully to me. Not just community as a concept, but the physical, proximate community of people with whom we actually live our lives. The commuter church has not been kind to our family in terms of building and maintaining these kinds of meaningful friendships — I feel my heart gravitating more & more towards this friendship and proximity.

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Tonight’s main session was brutal in all the right ways. Doug Fields spoke about his deepening concern for the heart of youth workers and he identified ministry envy as a primary killer of our hearts. While we might be good at masking the obvious envy we have of others, it comes out in the way we talk about and criticize others. Sure, we might try to disguise the envy by claiming that we’re just pointing out our differences, but it looms large in many of our lives.

In a powerful exegesis of the Genesis account of Joseph and his brothers, Doug showed us the crippling effects of envy — and ways in which we can combat it. By celebrating others and their accomplishments we are protecting our own hearts. Celebration counters our tendency to turn those who should be colleagues and friends into rivals.

* * * * *

Doug’s words caused me to reflect more deeply about what I recently wrote about the American worship music industry. My words might have come across as an unfair attack against Matt Maher, in particular. I sincerely regret speaking quickly and foolishly. There is plenty of room for legitimate criticism when it comes to the worship industry, but I want to be much more careful with my critical words — not to speak out of envy, bitterness or cynicism. I want to spend more time celebrating those things I genuinely love and appreciate than in criticism (legitimate or not).

Categories asian american, church, communication, community, controversy, faith, family, hope, ministry, postmodern, prayer, preaching, youth ministry

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

Further Seems Forever

October 15, 2007 //

Being in vocational ministry can be lonely and isolating. I have really been feeling it these days — my struggle with depression has left me worn out, on edge and easily angered. This leaves me feeling like a failure as a husband and father which, in turn, leads to more depression and on and on. Ugh. I can recognize what’s happening inside of me — which is a pretty big step for me — but it is very difficult to actually break free from it.

Part of my sadness comes from feeling out of place. I don’t blame our church. In fact, I think they would be much better off with someone who understands the language and culture. Although I know it is commonplace in first generation immigrant churches, I find myself increasingly intolerant of “family ministry” meaning essentially “I want to get rid of my children for as long as possible while you supervise them.” Some of the things that are most important to me in life don’t really have a realistic place in the first generation immigrant church context, and that makes it extremely difficult to keep forging ahead in the same direction.

However, as much as I know there is no future for me in the first gen church, I have a hard time picturing myself in a second generation Asian American church context — or, at least, with many of these churches that I have encountered. Let me illustrate: we have a couple of close friends from Orange County who are part of an Asian American church. When the leadership team found out that his background was in the PC(USA) they joked that he was “just barely” a Christian. Sigh. I am weary of this kind of theological arrogance — what good does it do if I can quote Calvin and Piper verbatim, but still act like a gigantic jerk most of the time?

So, then, do we plant a church? Maybe one day, but for now the last thing I would want to do is try to build a new faith community out of frustration or hurt. There is holy discontent, and then there is just plain bitterness. I think I just want to be part of a community where we can be honest and open — maybe not constantly spilling our guts (that’s not really in my personality anyways), but at least one in which we don’t have to go through an elaborate charade every week (and in which “church” is more than once or twice a week in the first place).

Yes, I want to do everything I can to build the kind of community I believe in right where I am. But I would love to be a part of — and contribute to — a church that I am genuinely passionate about, where we have more than “vision statements” that sound great but have little bearing on our reality. I have to admit, though, that dream always seems just out of reach.

Categories community, faith, 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