How I Procrastinate

You know it’s finals time, when there’s a stash of random junk food on my desk and I sleep intermittently at odd hours.  Life is chaos.

But one consistent habit that I developed over the past semester is that I take short breaks (sometimes extended) by going through tumbler sites to gather quotes and pictures. Not sure why.  Here’s a little collection from today:

“Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not.”
— Dr. Seuss

“There are moments in our lives when we find ourselves at a crossroad, afraid, confused, without a roadmap. The choices we make in those moments can define the rest of our days. Of course when faced with the unknown, most of us prefer to turn around and go back.”
— Lucas Scott, OTH

“Take love, multiply it by infinity and take it to the depths of forever.. and you still have only a glimpse of how I feel for you.”
— Meet Joe Black

The End

Church Commuters

Took me 5 mins to figure out how to login to WordPress again.

It’s definitely been awhile since I blogged. But I wanted to share some of my thoughts as I am writing a paper for “Urban Church Planting” course.  It’s a long post, so I don’t expect folks to read it.  But I had  share some convictions that I am gaining.

As a part of the course, we had a chance to visit  Journey. And Darin Patrick, the senior pastor, shared how in his vision to shape his church to be more missional to its local community, he challenged his congregation to stop attending Journey & find a local church, if they were commuting more than ten minutes.  Of course, people continued to flock to hear great preaching from the church, but I really appreciated Darrin’s challenge for a church to be more local than regional.

So how long do you drive to your church? 10 mins? 15 mins? 30 mins?  A better question that I want to ask myself is, how is my church impacting its local community?  Does the neighbors living near the church ever have a chance to interact with your church?

I realize that this is a complex question for the 1st generation Korean churches and 2nd generation Asian-American churches in US.   As immigrants or the children of immigrants, we found ourselves sheltering and growing in our homogeneous setting.  But as I am wrestling with these issues, I read a section from “The Urban Face of Mission” that fleshed out my thought:

Churches in North America have become more regional and less local.   Location has not been taken as seriously as it should for the mission enterprise.  Congregation look for locations with suitable facilities that are accessible by automobile and provide sufficient parking space, but they show little concern for the immediate mission context.  Certainly there is a need for churches that might be regional, especially in center-city communities, but this has become all too common.  Often this is done because churches focus on the wrong group of people.  Most churches are primarily concerned about the people within the church and the people most like “us.”  They give insufficient attention to their mission context, which could represent a different ethnic, racial, and socio-economic group.

This means that we have followed a church model apart from a mission context.  Instead of seriously strategizing to reach the local community, we have transferred people in, in order to get the pews filled, have experienced leadership, and have adequate finances.  In this pragmatic move, the mission of the church is short-circuited.

I am recognizing the need for churches strategize with the local community in mind.  We should not segregate our lives in the interest of ease and comfort while living in a diverse community that needs the gospel.

Now what? This is coming from a seminary student that owns a condo in the burbs of West County.  This is where I must pray the prayers of Matt 9:38 and ask the Lord to make me into His laborer.

Matthew 9:37-38  “Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few;  therefore  pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to  send out laborers into his harvest.”

 

 

 

 

Katie & Me

(WARNING A MOVIE SPOILER!)

OK. In this tweeting rising and blogging declining time,
I decided to write a blog entry (at least try) every week.

Finally, I watched “Marley & Me.”  It was much talked about by the Kim family and one of the siblings (Becky/John/Angel/Joe) told me that my senior pastor cried watching the movie (he LOVES animals), so I figured that it would be a good emotional ride.

Overall, I was glad to finally understand the bond between man and his canine that seemed so foreign to me.

And through out the entire movie, I just couldn’t help but to think about the pup that I had for 24 hours during my 1st year of seminary. It was a Shiba Inu and I named her “Katie.”  YG kids told me that you shouldn’t name a dog’s name that sounded like a real person’s name but I decided to give her that name anyhow – named after my favorite actress. Isn’t she a good looking pup?

But after interacting with a pup for the first 24 hours, I realized that I have no capacity/time/patience to responsibly raise her, so I returned her to the owner. People say that you will treat your kids like how you treat your pets, so this may not be a good sign for my parental side.  This is something that I will need to work on later, when I get a new dog or a kid (or which one comes first).

Going back to “Marley & Me,” two things that stuck out for me:

1) “Love suffers long.” This is the KJV’s translation of 1 Cor 13:4 “Love is patient” and for this verse, I prefer it. Through out the movie, I loved the patient suffering that the entire family showed to Marley “the world’s worst dog.”   And the last scene was definitely moving, I think the kids learned an invaluable lesson on love – that every relationship comes to its inevitable/temporary end, yet love is still worth giving and receiving.

2) “We all want a good life.” For some reason, I totally identified myself with John G. The main character in the movie might possibly have everything a man would want in his life, yet his eyes were set another life/career of his friend.   This attitude of “My life will be complete with _______________” is so prevalent in my life and our time.   And the movie ends by sharing a few simple thoughts on dog’s attitude:

“A dog has no use for fancy cars, big homes, or designer clothes. A water log stick will do just fine.

A dog doesn’t care about whether you’re rich or poor, smart or dumb, you give  him your heart and he will give you his.”

Simple contentment that comes from a simple life.

Unwavering loyalty displayed to the master’s faithfulness.

No wonder so many people prefer to relate with dogs over people.

So True…

Being a newbie to a pastoral ministry,

I love getting advices from the older & wiser pastors.

Here’s one worth listening to:

“People will get mad at you anyway, so you might as well do it right.”

Another Post :: Bitter-Sweetness

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A good rule of thumb for launching a new site:

“Make sure to have enough quality content.”

I am not sure if these entries are quality, but since I am deciding to launch my blog site during my finals week, two entries will do for now.

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As I am studying for my last final exam and writing an exegetical paper, I am finding myself with bittersweet emotions.

Did I tell you how much I dislike writing academic papers? Being a 1.5 generation Korean-American, I am bound to love math and science – that’s my way of saying I avoided writing papers. In undergrad at the U of I (majoring in Mechanical Engineering), I wrote a total of 4 papers – one in macro econ, one in micro econ, one in religious studies, and one in my engineering rhet class. Yeah, I realize that writing is not my thing. My proofreaders (Eric & Susan) can totally back me up on that. But even in my inadequacies, I am thankful that I can logically document and articulate all of the great truths that I am learning at Covenant.

This might sound strange to you, but I really don’t want my 1st MDiv year to be over. I don’t want it to end. Sure, I might be getting slightly nostalgic, because things are about to wrap up, but it really was that good.

I am pretty sure that I will dedicate one entry to the top lessons that I learned at Covenant.

Here’s a big one: the Bible comes to us in a narrative format.

God has not given us a book of systematic theology, but His revelations come to us in one big story.

The Bible is a redemptive drama with four parts:

Creation—when everything was as God meant it to be.

Fall—the tragic intrusion of sin and death, resulting in the pervasive brokenness of all people and everything God has made.

Redemption—God’s astonishing promise to redeem his fallen image-bearers and creation through the grace-full work of his Son, Jesus Christ.

Consummation—the magnificent fulfillment of God’s plan to gather and cherish a people forever, and to live with them in a more-than-restored world, called “the new heaven and new earth.”

It might sound too simple, but this redemptive/historical/narrative framework has given me the ability to properly fit all biblical truths I have learned over the years into its proper perspective.

In this Story of God, where Jesus is the main character, each of us is invited to participate in this grand narrative of hope.

What a privilege, what an honor, what a calling this is

So as I am wrapping up my studies, I am all the more thankful for my professors at Covenant Seminary. I really am. Yes, even the one who gave me a C on my term paper to ruin my run at straight A’s for the first semester.

Going off tangent here:
But did you know that the new ESV Study Bible has come out?

It looks pretty amazing. If you order it before May 15th, you can get 35% off. I just ordered one tonight.

Going back to talking about my profs at Covenant Seminary:
If you visit the ESV contributors page, you will recognize all of our wonderful profs: Collins, Chapman, Perry, Aucker, Bayer, Sklar.

But let’s not forget the profs that are not mentioned here: Chapell, Barrs, Agan, Bradley, Dalby, Douglass, Williams. Let’s just say that I wouldn’t trade the past year of education for any other years in my life.

Yeah, enough brown nosing.

Let’s get back to studying for finals.

Hello Blogging World!

Yes. I have officially jumped on the WordPress wagon.

So why leave the Xanga community for a new one?

I am not sure. It seems like you rarely get comments in this blogging community. I am pretty sure that I will miss getting those superficial eProps.

I guess you write to express. That’s the way of POMO.

And I guess you never know who’s reading your blog.
One of my Covenant Seminary profs wrote a blog about Obama’s situation with Pastor Wright. Obama actually posted Anthony’s blog on his website.

Not too shabby. (Where’re my smiley faces at? For now this will do.) =)