Last speaking engagement of the summer

Well, I'm off this morning to Atlanta, GA where I will be speaking at a retreat called GAJA. It's a multi-church student retreat sponsored by the Georgia Korean Baptist Association. The last time I spoke there was back in 2003, so it will be a good chance to reunite with some long-time friends and partners in ministry. I ask for your prayers as I speak along the theme of "This is Why". I will be presenting over 5 sessions an of biblical theology. My hope is to show how the story of salvation history explains the phenomena of human experience - why we do the things we do as humans. I'll be working straight from Genesis 1 through Revelation, taking brief stops in places like Gen 3, Ex 19, 32, Rom 3, 1 Pet 2, and finally arriving at Revelation. It's not an easy task, and I'm praying for soft hearts and open eyes and ears.

I'll post a summary of the experience when I'm back.

Reflections on something I've avoided

So I know that I said I wouldn't post again until I finished the Wright review, but I felt that I needed to express some of my reflections from watching the movie Crossing tonight.

My church partnered with OMF to host a showing of this Korean movie. It’s a dramatic movie that depicts the story of a North Korean refugee. While not a documentary, the story was crafted based on a number of true stories from several refugees. About 80 folks from my church and some surrounding churches gathered together to watch, experience, and pray. I won’t give away the plotline, but following usual dramatic Korean story-telling, the movie pulled on every heartstring in my being. I found myself fighting myself to hold in the tears. Seeing a dramatization of how so many people live in the world with no access to medicine, food, security, and basic needs left me heartbroken. The fact that it was North Koreans left me humbled.

Having lived in South Korea for two years (and most recently visiting last January), I realized how in my mind I had blocked out North Korea as another country. I had so much disdain for the country because of its leader, its political system, and international agendas. I was embarassed at what a spectacle North Korea had become in the global theater so much that I refused to let the common ‘Korean-ness’ sink in. I didn’t want to be associated with that country in any shape or form, but as I heard and watched them speak Korean, I couldn’t deny it any longer. It’s horrible what has been happening there, and it really hits home for me. I can’t help but take it personal, and maybe that’s why it’s easier to advocate for a country like Haiti or Cambodia – those are countries I can walk away from at the end of the day.

All of my emotions that night came to a climax as we prayed. For the first five minutes all I could think about was my son, Calvin. What if the son in the movie was Calvin? What would I do? What would I feel about the wealth of the South? As we prayed for the thousands upon thousands of North Koreans who have no access to medicine, regular food, simple public service, I kept seeing my son – dirty, destitute, and alone. All I could do was cry – no one should live that way especially my son. I say this not from a Western perspective – that everyone should live like we do in the West. No, I feel this from the commonness of our humanity. No image bearer should be forced to abandon his family to find medicine for a completely curable disease.

I wonder if this is what is on the heart of God when He sees the plight of North Korea. I wonder if this is what the biblical hope of justice entails – the longing that God should make the world right, that he should do away with the oppressive systems of government still holding on to their last breath as if they could alter the outcome. I wonder if a biblical hope for justice births out of the longing that image-bearers should be able to live without sickness, death, hunger, or oppression.

As we prayed that God would turn his attention to North Korea, the thought came to me that God already is. God’s already working there. The church is growing there. It’s so easy to think that we are more spiritually blessed because we have material means to worship (such thinking is tantamount to a prosperity Gospel that equates spiritual blessing with material). Not even Kim Jung-Il can keep the Spirit of God out of the country, but how would he have the church to respond? I kept thinking about all the big, resourced, and fervent churches I had visited when I lived in South Korea. I kept thinking about all the spending and consumerism of South Korean department stores. The real horror of this to me is that we have done a great job of blocking the North out of our minds. May God open the eyes of the South Korean church to sacrificially give to help out their fellow Koreans.

There’s a flood of other emotions and thoughts that I haven’t quite processed yet. In some sense, just writing this out is the first step, so you’ll have to excuse the unordered nature of my thoughts. I drove home tonight in the pouring rain with the sole thought of hugging my wife and holding my sons, and a strange thing happened. The thought of how much I loved my son led to thinking again about the plight of North Korean families just like ours. As I drove I found myself asking that God would use my sons’ lives to reach the nations. I prayed that in some shape or fashion my sons would be part of the work of God to bring hope to this nation, that they would one day see with their own eyes God’s hand in North Korea even if it were to cost me my sons themselves. It’s a scary prayer to pray, but I can think of no safer place to be.

Some time to just breathe

I apologize for the recent break from writing anything substantive. Truthfully, I've found that all of my reflective energy has been going into sermons and teaching lessons. On a sad note, time and schedule has gotten away from me such that I've done very little writing like I wanted to this month - a cold set me back in sermon prep and various counseling and family obligations have derailed me further still. Busy-ness is no excuse however. I will chalk it up to a combination of two things: laziness and pride...at least that's what Eugene Peterson describes as the reason for busy-ness in the pastor's life.

He says laziness is a source of busy-ness because we refuse to take ownership for the things that are really important to us. We let other people and things dictate our schedule because we are not diligent enough to carve out and protect the things and people that are important to us.

Pride comes in because I feel justified and validated that I have so many people to meet and so many 'important' things to do. To be busy means that I am in demand and wanted, and so often I flaunt this busy-ness as a sort of passive boasting, an expression of my pride. 

So, I need to find a way to really get cracking on this book. I've been pouring over the outline, and based on Justin Taylor's indirect recommendation, I've purchased a book that will be the first in my fall reading list, "How to think like your editor..." I need to clear out the schedule and just write!!!

On another note, I just finished N.T. Wright's book, "After You Believe". I will have a review of the book written here by middle of next week. It was a fascinating read, and has got me really thinking about the nature of discipleship and particularly how I need to go about training my two sons in matters of character and virtue. If you've ever wondered about what you're supposed to do after you become a Christian (or maybe the better question is - how you're supposed to be a true Christian), then this book is for you.

I probably won't make another post until that review is finished as I am finishing up a sermon series for next week's GAJA 2010 retreat in Atlanta land (last speaking gig of the summer, hurray!) 

Until then, I'd be interested to know, how do you fight busy-ness so that you can get the things that you really want to do done?

Is it Power or Privilege?

Andy Crouch gave a great talk on the proper use of power and the self-denial of privilege. What I found striking was how he rooted our ability to give up privilege in the security of a new identity in Christ. This is fascinating stuff and is worth the 20 minutes to watch it.

Imitate, Tell, and Engage

Justin Taylor has an excellent post on the biblical command to imitate me as I imitate Christ. This really resonates with me because our church's mission statement is to Imitate Christ, Tell His Story, and Relationally Engage our neighbor. As we were crafting this statement, we took a long look at what it really means to imitate Christ. Imitation can be a form of great mockery or it can be the highest of compliments. We can imitate something in order to show it as tomfoolery, or we can imitate something because we want to do it exactly that way.

Most of us have no problem talking about imitating Christ, but we tend to get gun-shy when we think about calling others to imitate us. Perhaps this is due to a fear of pride or condescension, a "holier-than-thou" attitude that says I'm better than you. But just like the word imitate can take two almost opposite meanings, so can this command. Taylor lists several of the commands where Paul speaks about imitation. He boldly asserts that his children in the faith are to watch his life and follow him. This leads to two conclusions:
1. His life was lived with such an intention in mind. Paul lived out his faith in practice so that he could be followed, patterned after, and emulated.

2. He understood the importance of patterning and modeling. Could it be that for Paul the Christian life is caught as it is taught? We can speak about prayer until we have exhausted every practice, method, and theological/philosophical area of inquiry, but if we are not praying together, then what is the benefit?

I pray for Paul's boldness, a boldness that is founded on several truths: 1) All that I am is because of Christ and the grace of God in me. I have nothing to boast about except him alone. Therefore, I can boldly call people to imitate the expressions of grace that they see in me. 2) God has set younger believers underneath me for whom I am to model the Christian life intentionally and deliberately. To not call them to imitate me would be tantamount to ignoring/refusing my calling. 3) Similar to the first, God's grace IS at work in me, so I cannot make the excuse that there is nothing in my life worth imitating. I cannot accept the lie that I have nothing to offer. As an object of God's mercy through Jesus, and as a part of the new Temple of God in which God dwells by His Spirit, I have at default a life worth imitating (though I am still in need of great sanctification - refer to 1).

I know that you have people in your life who are looking to you. I hope that you'll follow Paul's example in boldly calling them to imitate you as you imitate Christ.

Being Fully Human

Last Saturday/Sunday night, my cousin who was visiting from San Fransisco and some ministry friends of mine got together to participate in the L.A.T.E ride for Friends of the Parks. Basically, it's a 25-mile midnight bike ride in downtown Chicago through neighborhoods like Greektown, Wicker Park, Humboldt Park and the Lake Shore area. 10,000 bikers came out at 11pm, and the ride started around midnight to 1 am. When all was said and done, I got home at 5 am, just as the sun was about to peek over the horizon!

The event stands out to me for several reasons. First, not only was it the latest I had been up for a while, but it was definitely the latest that I had been out in the city ever. I was reminded of what a different world the city was as we were driving in around 11:30 pm and I saw tons of people walking around looking for the next place to go.

Second, it was a spontaneous activity with two good friends. It was refreshing to be able to just hang with some ministry colleagues who are friends, not just associates. This kind of memory-making is so rare, and I was grateful to my wife to have permission to share this with my beloved cousin as well as two friends.

On another note, as we were biking through the city, I was reminded of the kind of values and culture that drives night life in the city. There were so many people bar crawling and looking for the next good time. On several occasions, we biked passed people who were clearly wasted, and I'll never forget the countenance of one of the girls. Her face was blank and her eyes were zoned out. She obviously had too much to drink and was not in control of her own faculties. What hit me the hardest was how inhuman she seemed to be. I have no idea who she is or what she does, but I know that she must have creative potential, social capital, and dignity as an image-bearer. However, she exhibited none of that in her drunken stupor. She was like an animal unable to even communicate with her fellow humans (who happened to be on bikes).

I was deeply affected by this because of some of the reading that I have been doing as of late. I've been working through N.T. Wright's book, "After You Believe," (review forthcoming), and one of the things he says is that the formation of character and the instilling of virtue into the human soul is actually part and parcel of the process of becoming human. That is, it forms the process of becoming the kind of image-bearing, royal priests that we were created to be. When we are mastered by anything else, we become dehumanized, and this woman in her drunkenness showed me a picture of that. Who knows how she got where she was or even why? With all the compassion in my heart, I saw an image bearer who, I'm sure even to herself, would be ashamed and embarassed about the hours she spent in the twilight of Sunday morning as less-than-human.

I guess sin does that. Sin masters us by taking our cravings and making them have the final say. Sin robs us of our dignity and does so in the most undignifying way - by causing our own self-destruction. To paraphrase the Puritan pastor John Owen, sin always wants to take us to the furthest extreme.

At the end of the ride, I sat on the sidewalk and just looked at my friends. Our relationships operate on a different scale than the bar-hoppers we rode past. Our idea of pleasure and enjoyment have different measures than the drunkards pleading to try and get in the next club. I was reminded of what I am called to as a minister of the Gospel. My commission is not to just warn people to avoid that lifestyle. It's to rescue people from that kind of meaningless, fruitless search - to show that there is a way to be fully human that isn't fearful, dangerous, and can actually be accomplished!

Now that's good news.

Reflections on a Birthday Boy

Today marks my son's third birthday. It's been an incredible journey thus far, and as one parent warned me, "just when you don't think it can get any better, it does!" In many respects, my life with my son has been a foretaste of what I think the new heavens and new earth will be (except without the occasional tantrums, crying, disobedience, selfishness, impatience, and the like). Jonathan Edwards once gave a sermon called, "Heaven is a World of Love". One of the most inspiring points of his sermon was that heaven would be a place where just when we didn't think that we could experience any more joy, the next day would bring even more fullness, even more ecstasy. My relationship with Calvin has been largely this sort of progression. By his simple and plain observations of the world, his straightforward commentaries, and his hilarious outbursts and retorts, I find joy and excitement in the nooks and crannies of life that adulthood has told me to overlook.

At the same time, Calvin has shown me the depths of my selfishness and ongoing desire to reign and rule my own life (and my own empire). When he was an infant, waking up early in the morning to change his diaper exposed the self-centered settledness of my own schedule, my own preferences, and my own conveniences. Even now, there is a constant tension as I struggle to let him express his own personality, to train him in godliness, and to not conform him to my own expectations, dreams, and hopes. He shows me my powerlessness, and he shows me my need for a Savior.

Donald Miller wrote in the book, "To Own A Dragon," that perhaps the closest thing to agape-type love on this earth is the love that a parent has for his child. Even the relationship between a husband and a wife was at some point conditional - based on looks, interests, personality - all these things made the two attracted to each other in the first place. However, the love that a parent has for a child is unconditional. No matter what the child does, no matter how he looks, no matter how cranky the personality, he's my kid, and I love him (remember that Seinfeld episode about the "ugly baby"?).

Space doesn't even allow for how my son has influenced my relationship with Sarah. Seeing her grow more and more beautiful as a mother is breathtaking in and of itself. 

All this to say, happy birthday, kid. Thanks for being the aural chamber in which the echoes of the myth reverbate with ever increasing force in my heart, home, and marriage. You are daddy's buddy!

Video games, Myths, and Idolatry...oh my!!!

C.J. Mahaney from Sovereign Grace Ministries has an excellent blog post about how to train and instruct children about our tendency towards idolatry (in this case expressed as video games). His most compelling point is that we must parent and nurture our children from a perspective of humility, not self-righteousness. One of the ways that this self-righteousness flares is when we rely on our own past experience to relate to our kids. It's an innocent enough tactic, but it can come across as very condescending. Instead of validating the struggle that a kid might be having, we rather subject to our own experience, and (usually) our own success regarding it.

For instance, Mahaney uses the example of the fear of man. Instead of saying, "here's how fear played out when I was 16," I must bring it to the present, "here's how fear is playing it's way out today." This makes the issue a present one that even I am wrestling with. It brings me to the place of the person I am counseling. It doesn't invalidate the struggle by suggesting it's just like mine was in the past. Rather, it shows that if measures are not taken to mortify this sin TODAY, then it will continue to master me later on.

On another note, I find the increased obsession with video games to be indicative of something deeper than idolatry. My sister and I were chatting about this a few weeks ago as I was preparing a series of messages on "The True Myth". I gave a four-part talk to the graduating seniors of Wheaton Academy about how every great story fits into recognizable phases. These phases are what make the journey of a hero, and these journeys are often labelled and retold as myths. I think every one of us longs to be a part of these kinds of myths, and the brilliance of it all is that the True Myth is found in the the Gospel story. (Thus, this blog is called Echoes of the Myth, and I posted the quote by C.S. Lewis on my home page.) We desperately long to pursue this myth and its reality in our lives. We want to be part of setting out on a quest, facing obstacles, training to do away with our own foolishness, finding a mentor, slaying a dragon, and returning home wise and tested.

These are all parts of myth. This is what makes certain movies/stories so compelling. The Shawshank Redemption, The Lord of the Rings, Toy Story, Remember the Titans, Avatar, Spider Man, Star Wars - they all contain mythology. Creation, Fall, Redemption, Resurrection, and Return - these aspects of the Gospel embody what resonates in our hearts as a good story, a true myth.

My sister made the astute observation that video games are fast becoming the next medium for living out this myth, and not just the fantasy-type video games. Even your run-of-the-mill sports games are about developing a character, putting him/her through tests of training, seasons, adding skill levels, beating different bosses - these all have to do with developing a hero, pursuing and living out this myth. Coupled with the fact that our hearts are natural idol-makers, could this be why video games are increasingly popular and addictive especially to our young (and not so young) men? Is it the desire to live out the myth + idolatry + frustration/fear in our lives?

Where does the True Myth, the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Good News that the kingdom of heaven has broken into our existence here and now through the cross, and is remaking the world that we live in, where does this myth expose our silly little adventures and diversions for the rabbit trails that they are? How does the coming reign of Jesus and our mission to help usher in that reign set us ablaze such that we don't waste our lives in the basement of our parents' house celebrating the next level we've achieved in Rock Band 3 or Call of Duty?

And so it begins...

Well, I've been putting this book idea for long enough, and my dear sweet wife has been calling me to ask on it - challenging me to really start writing and putting some ideas down on paper. I've received a lot of feedback on a book idea that started as a point in a sermon, then transformed into a sermon in and of itself, and then into a two-part sermon series. Even this past week, someone came up to me after I had preached this message for the first time in a long time and encouraged me to publish it.

I won't give the idea away here, but I'm posting on the blog in order to ask for prayer and accountability. I find that as I start projects like this, it's so difficult to stay focused and steady. (Frankly, it's amazing that I've made as many entries/posts on this blog as I have - part of this blog's purpose was to prove to myself that it was possible for me to sustain a writing project for longer than one week.) Thus, if you're a reader, ask me about the writing project is going, send me some notes of encouragement, offer up prayers, etc. This is about more than just trying to get my name out there. I really believe God has given me a message that could really make a difference in the lives of people in a sphere much wider than I can physically travel.

So here we go!!!