The Long View

May 5, 2008 //

What would characterize a uniquely Asian American worship or preaching experience? Does such a thing even exist? asks David Park over at Next Gener.Asian Church.

It seems that, in order to answer this question, we must first begin with the primary issue of our identity, to know deeply what it means to be created as Asian Americans in the image of God. The “neither/nor” struggle — not being fully Asian nor fully American in our identity — has led to shame, rebellion and self-hatred. Because many of us have wandered through this fog for twenty, thirty, forty years, the quest to discover our God-given identity is not easily or quickly resolved. We need the Holy Spirit to repair, heal, restore and redeem the mess that we are.

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Categories asian american, church, faith, family, hope, ministry, postmodern, preaching, race, worship

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

There Are Two Ways To Get Enough…

April 27, 2008 //

…One is to accumulate more and more. The other is to desire less. — GK Chesterton

Samuel Kwon has written a great post, Poverty & Greed, about how we might, as the church, direct our anti-poverty movements. These are much needed words:

I wish the Christian movements would, in addition to calling us to fight poverty, call us to fight greed fearlessly, the love of money that tries to buy comfort in the form of nicer cars, bigger houses, newer kitchens, and (allegedly) better lives.

Of course, this is treading into dangerous territory — the realm of personal finances has become somewhat akin to the holy of holies into which others may only dare enter at great risk of bodily harm.

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Categories church, communication, community, faith, justice, missional, stewardship

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