This was an Easter flyer that a church left on our door (on both doors — front door and the door to the family room) during Holy Week to announce their Easter Worship.
There is no way that was an accident. I’ve tried to see how it may have “accidentally” flew from the screen door handle to where you see it now. You can’t. And it was highly annoying to try to fish it out. Then to turn around and see that there’s another one of the same flyer on the other door.
Why the church would do that is beyond me. And they expect me to come to the church after that?
This Sunday, we begin a new sermon series: Jacob’s Ladder: Surely the LORD was in this place & I did not know it!
We’re going to be spending 5 weeks on the same passage (Genesis 28:10-18), but really focus on verse 16: “Surely the Lord was in this place and I did not know it!” based on Lawrence Kushner’s book, God was in this Place & I, i did not know.
Quite a few times, people have come up to me after church and say things like, “Boy, God was really here today!” (And I know I’m not the only pastor/church leader that gets that). Those thoughts always gets me thinking… Does that imply that God hasn’t been there the other times?
But those kind of thoughts happen outside of the church, too.
One day, after a long (long) hike, when I got to the top, I saw the beautiful surrounding site and I caught myself saying, “Wow. God’s really here at the top of this mountain!” Which made me pause and ask myself, “Wasn’t God with me on my hike up?”
So, for the next 5 weeks, we’ll be talking about what Jacob might’ve experienced that kept him from realizing God was in this place before he fell asleep and had his dream, and how we, as today’s readers of Jacob’s story, can learn from his experience and story.
What is it that keeps us from being aware of God’s presence everywhere we go?
If you can’t join us at St. Mark on Sunday mornings in beautiful Santa Barbara, I invite you to come listen to us online on our website!
Unfortunately, many of our churches still view success and health of a church by how many members they have in church.
I, personally, don’t like it when someone says, “Our church has a membership of 800. And an worship attendance of 200.”
Isn’t the 200 more accurate number of the church rather than 800?
Recently, I started wondering if it is important for a church goer to join the church they attend.
Is officially becoming a member of the church more important to the church or to the people joining?
Is joining a church — becoming a member — still an important part of church life and the lives of Christians today?
Being part of a church, a faith community, is a huge deal but does one feel, these days, that joining a church (going through its membership class) is an important part of their journey?
Does church membership benefit the church more or the new member?
Is becoming a member as important as it was 10, 15, 20 years ago?
If not, how does that change how we, as churches (particularly UMC’s) keep our records? Would it change how we would assess and evaluate a pastor and her/his ministry?
I have no idea what the answers to these questions are. And am in no way qualified to answer these questions.
On our way home from visiting my parents in Pomona, we stopped by Korea Town in Los Angeles to stock up on Korean groceries, since we now live 1.5 hours away from K-Town.
My wife was doing her thing and I was wandering around the grocery store trying to appease the ADD I always feel at grocery stores. Or, in shopping scenarios in general.
There was a Hispanic lady that was shopping with her young daughter at the store. In a sea of Koreans, it's easy to spot the non-Koreans.
She was shopping and trying some of the samples being offered at the store.
She and her daughter came up to the station that I was standing at wanting a sample of the udon the worker was offering. She went up to the worker and asked, “Can my daughter and I try some?”
The Korean worker, whether she really didn't know English or pretended that she didn't, shrugged and said, “Not ready now.”
The lady then asked, “Oh. Okay. How long until it's ready?”
The worker, now clearly annoyed, for reasons unknown, said sternly, “Not ready now.”
The lady replied, “Understood, but can you tell me how long? 3 minutes? 5 minutes? 10 minutes?”
Then the worker looked at the lady, threw her hands up in the air saying “I don't know” and walked away from her station leaving the lady, her daughter and myself in disbelief.
It was so rude and shocking, I felt myself turning red in shame.
I walked over to her and I said, “Hey, I saw that. So sorry what happened. That was messed up and rude.”
I don't know why I apologized, but I felt a real strong need to apologize on behalf of my people for this lack of hospitality.
The lady looked at me and said, “What can you do, eh? Guess we don't really belong here.”
Ugh. I mean, she said it with a smile, jokingly… but my shame turn to disgust which was made worse when the lady left the udon station, the worker returned to start making udon. Maybe it was coincidence, but the timing was too perfect.
I wanted to say something to her, but I was so annoyed and angry that I don't think it would've been a very productive conversation. If it was true that she didn't speak that much English, and with my Korean being so bad — what communication would there be?
When there were udon samples ready, I actually went looking around the store for the mother and her daughter, but couldn't find them.
But, Cmon! I mean, who treats their customers like that?
You can't expect that ALL your clientele will speak Korean. Heck– a lot of their workers aren't Korean.
But this incident got me thinking about how unwelcoming some churches are, whether intentionally or unintentionally.
I mean, just like the Korean grocery store can't expect all their clientele to be Korean, we can't expect that every Sunday will be filled with folks who've been long time members of our church or long time Christians.
Even if it's just from a psychological point. Once we think that there will no longer be guests/visitors/new folks then we'll probably never have guests/visitors/new folks in worship. Or at least that's how I tend to think.
I have heard of (horror) stories where churches come off as unwelcoming.
Like, when someone who's new sits in the “Johnson's” pew. And when the Johnsons arrive, the new comer is asked to move by the ushers to make way for the people who “rightfully own” that pew.
There have been churches I've stopped by where it was made apparent and known that I had worn the wrong attire to their church. You'd think that denim was from the devil himself.
Something I've been guilty of — assuming that people just know. That people know who I'm talking about when I say, “Go see so-and-so.”
Or when churches use overtly Christianese terminology or inside jokes.
While we may not be able to get rid of all the kinks, the point is that we should try to make our community of faith as welcoming and accessible as possible– for both long time members and first time guests.
We shouldn't foster an environment where people feel ashamed to ask the simplest of questions — “Where's the bathroom?” “Where's coffee fellowship?” “Who's the pastor?” “How long will the udon take?”
Churches, especially, should be a warm, welcoming place that embraces all people, regardless of what stage of life they may be in and/or where they may be in their faith journey.
No matter how different they may look or be from us.
One of the biggest things I had to get adjusted to in my new appointment was preaching on a weekly basis.
In seminary and 2 years in Hawaii (post-seminary), I did preach weekly. But from 2008 – June 2012, I preached about once a month.
During those 4 years, I know those sermons were above average. I don't mean that in an arrogant or prideful way. But, since I had a month to prepare for those messages, those sermons had better be, at the least, good. I had a month to let the sermon sit, boil and stew in my head and heart. I had a month to let the scripture take root in my thoughts. A month to think about illustrations. A month to research. So, yea. It better have been good.
And it was nice preaching once a month. It made me look like a better preacher than I really am.
Nowadays, on Monday morning, I wake up with the preacher's hangover and head into the office, open my Bible and realize, oh, I have another sermon to prepare for.
Now, we preachers know if we did a great job or if we completely missed the mark. It sets a tone for the rest of the Sunday, and quite often, rest of the upcoming week.
There have been days when I leave church thinking, “man, I need to make up for this one” and wish that there was one more service to re-preach that sermon. There are days when I leave church with a sigh of relief, and quite honestly, satisfaction of knowing, “Today, I didn't screw up.”
The church folks, bless their hearts, are (and always have been) encouraging and supportive. There are days I know I didn't do so well, yet they say “What a wonderful sermon that was.” Now, I don't know if they're saying it to be nice, or if they mean it, but it doesn't matter, because I know in my heart that it wasn't my best and would love to do a mulligan.
There are lots of reasons why sermons fall flat on Sunday morning, and it doesn't always have to do with the amount of preparation. Sometimes, you can prepare too much for a sermon. Sometimes, the pressure and adrenaline of not being prepared makes it better (we refer to that as the Spirit taking over). Sometimes, we're thrown off our game because right before worship starts, someone says something idiotic to you or shares some sort of news with you or whatever they say, it just throws us off a bit.
Sometimes, the congregation seems tired and worn out, and their lack of energy becomes contagious, and the room feels… heavy and you feel everyone's weight on your shoulder.
Sometimes, it just wasn't the time for that particular sermon.
While I want nothing more than to have every sermon be a smashing grand slam — that's not always going to be the case, and in no way is that an excuse to slack off or not give it my best. What we need to aim for is consistency– that we are consistently good in our preaching. In a baseball analogy, that we aim to at least get on first base every time we step up to the plate. In football, that we aim to consistently get first downs without turnovers–not every pass has to be a touchdown bomb. In basketball, that we aim to shoot at a high percentage from the field–not every shot can be a miracle half-court buzzer beater. In soccer, — okay I ran out of sports analogies.
There have been days where I just want to crawl into a cave and be away from any and all living things in the world after a Sunday and of course, there have been days where I feel like I'm kicking it with God on cloud 9.
No matter how good we are at something, we're always going to have off days. Everyone has off days. But again, that's not an excuse to keep having off days, but a graceful and gracious reminder: we have next Sunday to improve a bit from the previous Sunday.
We don't let failure go to our hearts, and we shouldn't let success go to our heads.
And, really, it's never about us. It's about God and what God is doing and saying through us.
So whether we preached the heck out of that sermon or we left a lot to be desired for — we shouldn't under estimate the power of God's words spoken through us. At the end of the day, we're just the mouth piece – or as someone said, God once spoke to Balaam through an ass and has been speaking through asses ever since.
The video is from a TED talk entitled “Embrace the Remix.” It’s about 10 minutes long, so check it out if you have time. And want to.
Kirby’s main argument is that everything is, basically, a remix. Creativity comes from without more than within. We’re influenced by the things out there. Henry Ford invented the automobile building upon the work of others before him. Kirby quotes Steve Job quoting Picaso saying that “good artists copy, great artists steal.” Unless, someone steals from you. Kirby then has a quote from Jobs vowing to destroy Android for stealing from Jobs.
Years ago, I decided that I needed to take preaching a bit more serious. In seminary, I was a notorious procrastinator. I still am, but not as bad nor notorious. On top of the school work, I had to preach weekly, too. I used to wait until Saturday evening to start my sermon prep. Praying for the Spirit to inspire me and take over so that the words would just flow. I lied by telling myself that I work best under pressure. I mean, there’s some truth to that. But more often than not, the outcome of the pressurized work wasn’t the greatest.
Still years ago, my computer crashed before I backed any of it up (including some valuable/memorable/important pictures. Oops). But one thing I don’t miss is the sermons from that period of my life. I cringe thinking about what kind of sermons they were (I can’t really remember, except for a few), and can’t imagine my response from actually reading those sermons.
I begin to realize that I was doing God and the people listening to me a huge disservice by procrastinating on my sermon, thereby making it an afterthought in my life. So I decided that I really needed to work on this craft.
I so desperately wanted to be original and creative in my preaching.
You want to frustrate yourself endlessly? Try forcing and stressing yourself to be something you are not.
I’m not that creative. I’m not that original. I’m not that much of a scholar. I’m not that innovative.
But here I am, stressing myself out completely by trying to figure out how to present something in a fresh and new and unique and memorable way to the people.
I have a few sermons from that chapter of my life, but I dare not to read it, either. The cringe-worthy level is probably a 9 (out of 10).
My sanity would betray me if I kept forcing myself to be something I am inherently not. By then though, I discovered something. Though I may not be that creative, original, innovative, yada yada, I did know (and do know) that I’m a decent story teller. (One of my favorite stories to tell is Johnny and his 2 pink ping pong balls. Consequently, it’s my wife’s least favorite. And that’s putting it mildly. She leaves the room when I start telling this story. So remind me to tell you, one day.)
And here’s something else I discovered: Not everyone’s a church nerd like me. At least within the congregation. These kids and people didn’t spend their work and free time perusing the Bible and other resources for sermon ideas. The stories I’ve heard 100 of times through other preachers, books and classes – the people I was preaching to would’ve heard them for the first time.
It was also during this time, I started discovering great pastors and speakers around the country.
I realized that I could (re)tell their sermons very well. So started a point in my life where I would shamelessly (and I mean shamelessly) use other preacher’s sermons (like Adam Hamilton’s). Word for word. And my delivery would be different, based on who I was stealing from. If it was Adam Hamilton, there was an Adam-ness to my preaching. If it was Francis Chan, my voice inflections would mimic his. If it was Rob Bell’s, my pauses would be more exaggerated. Although, to this day, my pauses are still long and exaggerated, much like his. Actually, there’s a lot of my delivery that has been influenced by Bell. I used to be annoyed that I couldn’t stop doing it, because it was so engrained in me. It felt like organic, like it was me. So, I embraced it. Who knows, maybe I would still do those certain things, even if I have never watched him.
The sermons were pretty good, of course. But after a while, something inside me started gnawing at me. Call it the Spirit or a bad burrito, but I couldn’t ignore it. Not only was I being a fraud, but I was blatantly stealing. It would be one thing to give those preachers I shamelessly stole from credit. But I didn’t. I passed it as my own. I knew that I couldn’t live with myself if I kept desecrating the integrity of speaking, and particularly the mind-daunting task of preaching God’s words, by relentlessly stealing and pretending these words were from me, inspired by God when it was Adam’s (or Francis’ or Rob’s or Erwin’s) God-inspired words.
These days, I feel like there’s a good blend of ideas from within and without. But, even those ideas from within me, I know they came from somewhere else. Reading. Listening to other people of faith. Blogs. My wife. My parents.
And, now, when we do borrow sermon series from other pastors, I don’t use their sermon word for word, but use their sermons as a spring board for my own line of thinking.
I’m okay with thinking that all of my great ideas aren’t 100% my ideas (that is, when I feel like I have some what of a great original idea), but have been influenced by others who have gone before me or my contemporaries.
Recently, our ex-intern called me and asked what I was preaching on. I think it might’ve been my last sermon at my former church. And after I told him what the sermon was about, he said, “Dude. Cool. I’m going to steal it.” And I replied, “Go ahead. I’m pretty sure I stole a lot of it, too. But I’m still going to charge you.” (I don’t know if he ever used it, but since I never got paid, I assume he didn’t. )
While this can raise a lot of ethical questions, for sanity’s sake, let’s not go there, please. At least not now. Feel free to start your own blog post on the ethics of using other people’s sermon, though. I’ll read it.
I am still learning about my voice and who I am as a preacher. I am still trying to, if you will, “master” this craft of preaching and story-telling. I’m very much a student, and I don’t think I’ll ever be the master. And I’m totally okay with that.
I’m also totally okay with the notion “there’s nothing new under the sun.” But we can take things that we already know and remix it, adding our own flavor and personality into it– and maybe try to present an old idea in new or modern or your ways, which is what many of the Christian authors and preachers do, anyhow.
The greatest story ever told has… already been told… so embrace the remix.
A lot of people ask me what’s my favorite book of the Bible, and I don’t really have one.
Of course, I make something up… I’ll say Mark or Luke, or Philippians, or Revelations just to see what reaction I’ll get.
But the truth is, I don’t have a favorite book of the Bible. Because it’s all good, silly.
I know people who spend most of their quiet or devotional time reading any of the Gospels or Epistles or Acts (so, yea, the New Testament).
But, I like to spend my devotional times reading the narrative stories and I like reading about the people God called in the Bible. Abraham. Moses. David. Saul. Samuel.
In Sunday school, we were led to believe that these folks in the Bible were just great women and men, and that’s why God called them. They’re in the Bible because they were the Michael Jordans of faith related things in their time.
Maybe that’s why the Bible had no interest for me during my teenage years. Because it was impossible to be that good and strong in faith. Maybe that’s why some folks just don’t read the Bible, because all we remember is how great these people were and there’s no way we can live up to that.
But what draws me, now, to those stories is just how human these folks were. How flawed they were. How confused and unsure they were. How broken they were. How normal they were.
I mean Peter, as a disciple, was a bit moronic. And constantly stuck his foot in his mouth. David broke 5 commandments in one chapter of the Bible. Solomon had 700 wives and 300 concubines (you can enter a snarky comment on what Biblical idea of marriage here, if you like). Abraham lied about his wife being his sister. Twice. Isaac ended up doing the same thing. Moses was a short tempered murderer. Esther had to be really convinced by Mordecai before she did the right thing.
I mean, they are normal. Their struggles aren’t foreign or trapped in their time. I struggle with things they struggled with today.
By no means, were these people perfect (except, you know, Jesus).
But the beauty of it is that God still choose them to lead the way.
They were ordinary folks, but it was God and through God that they did extraordinary things.
Starting next (next) Sunday (the 26th), our church is going to do a sermon series on the people of the Bible (the heroes and heroines, if you will). We’ll be talking about Moses, Hannah, David, Esther and Joseph this time around. I’m sure that we’ll come visit some more later in the future.
But I’m excited to share their stories (the good, the bad, the ugly and the amazing) with my folks at church.
1 – Let me just say how proud and honored I am to be the pastor at this church. St. Mark has been nothing but warm, gracious and welcoming to the both of us. And I am thankful (on top of being proud and honored) to be your pastor.
2 – When DS Coots told me that you were a praying church, boy she wasn’t kidding. I ask that you continue to pray for our church. Pray that God’s will (and God’s will alone) be done. Pray that we will be a center of hope and transformation in our community. And while you’re at it, pray for your pastor. He needs it.
3 – Change is always easier for the implementer, I understand that. Much like, the one who initiates the break-up in a relationship often has a better time coping than the dumped. I know that changes have been made here and there and I haven’t really taken time to explain a lot of things to everyone. And also know that changes are still going to happen. Some big. Some small. Some you’ll like a lot. Some that will have you questioning my sanity. And the leadership of the church will always try to keep communication open and clear. That goes for me too. So if something is pressing on your heart, come talk to me. And I’ll refer you to the right people I’m kidding.
4 – I am really excited about where God is leading us. And I’m more excited that we get to do ministry together.
5 – Starting this Sunday, we’ll be doing a 3 sermon series on Forgiveness. This Sunday, we’ll talk about not only forgiving ourselves, but owning up to ourselves, as well. The following Sunday, we’ll talk about why revenge may not be as sweet as we think. And the final week, we’ll talk about Christ’s model of forgiveness. I’m looking forward to sharing this journey with you all.
“Proud to be an American” is a sentiment I never really felt nor really uttered.
“Grateful to live in America?” Yes. “Thankful to be a citizen?” Most def. But proud? I don’t know.
I mean, during world events, like the World Cup, I’m heavily invested in how the South Korean team does more than what Team USA does.
I think part of it may have to do with the fact that I was never led to feel I was “American.” Growing up, I was led to believe that Americans were ‘white’ and since I wasn’t white, which people went out of their way to point out (I mean, dude, I don’t need you to remind me that I’m not white…), I was not American.
When someone asks me “Where are you from?” They’re not really satisfied with my answer.
“I’m from Hawaii.”
“Oh. Did you live anywhere before that?”
“Yea. I used to live in California before Hawaii.”
“Oh. So… were you born in California, or did you move to California?”
“Oh, we moved to California when I was like in 6th grade.”
“I see. Where did you move from?”
“South Carolina.”
And it becomes a fun game for me, because I know they want to know where my motherland is.
If I were viewed as “American,” I feel that the answer of Hawaii or California should suffice. But, it was very evident, throughout my life at least, that I was something dash American. Korean-American. Asian-American. Never just American.
But I think I can say that I am proud of my heritage. So much so, I worry how un-Korean my children will be because I am so Americanized. I want to keep our heritage (and language) alive through generations to come.
Oh, and I own a Korean flag somewhere in my home, but I have never owned an American flag.
This is where some people will start shouting, “Well, go back to your country then!” Right.
So, I think, more than not, this plays in to what bothers me when Americans try to claim God as their own. I think one of the more offensive images I’ve seen of Jesus was Jesus ascending (descending?) to (from) heaven with an American flag draped around him (not the image shown above). I don’t know who the artist loved more: Christ or ‘Merica. And also, why I get really annoyed when Jesus becomes about “truth, justice and the American way.” Which, by the way, is a motto attributed to Superman, not Jesus.
I don’t know how else to say this, but Jesus is not American. And God does not belong to America. I hate to break it to you, Americans aren’t God’s ‘chosen’ people. And to further upset a few: to some Americans, Jesus’ real skin tone was probably a lot darker than they wished it were, because Jesus ain’t white.
Therefore, I always wondered why the American flag had to be present in our sanctuaries throughout our country. And always wondered if other countries have their flags in their sanctuaries.
I mean, we live in a smaller world, meaning that, we have more cultures and countries represented in our pews today than ever before. With technology and the Internet, we are more connected than ever before. And with the melting pot that America is becoming, there are more than just “Americans” present in worship. I’ve always felt that we either have all flags of the world or no flags displayed in our sanctuaries across America.
God is bigger than America. We are doing a sinful thing if we try to contain God within our borders and make him American. We, then, are no longer the created, but become the creator, as we have re-created God’s image after our own.
God’s blessings goes further than America. Yes, God bless America. But, man, America’s been blessed. That’s why regardless of what you may have gathered, I am grateful and thankful that I live in the US of A.
But, when do we start asking, How can America bless God?
Remember, Abraham was blessed to be a blessing to others.
I believe that we are blessed to be a blessing to others and God as well, both individually and collectively, as a nation.
God’s love and grace has no boundaries or borders. It is not limited to one group of people or one country. Christ died for all and loves all. And all means all.
If that makes me unpatriotic and un-American, I can live with that. I’ve been called far worse.
So, Santa Barbara.
It’s a lovely city. Weather is fantastic, so far.
There’s are few things to get used to. The food here is far more expensive than Valencia. There’s just something wrong with paying $10 for some pho. (Google it, if you must).
Secondly, I’ve seen far more spiders in my two weeks here than in my two years in Valencia. I don’t really like that. Spiders are just… wrong, too.
Anyway, my wife was reading one of the local magazines and discovered this place where she could volunteer at.
She called and they wanted her to come in for an initial interview.
She tried to get the directions and the guy on the phone kept assuming we were locals. Or something. Even when she said, “We just moved here” he didn’t really clarify the directions.
He kept calling the street (a three word street) by it’s initials.
“Oh, it’s on ‘ABC’ street.”
Along with phrases like,
“Oh, you can’t miss it. It’s behind such-and-such. It’s a well known area. Everyone knows ABC street.”
Yea, maybe for the locals and the regular visitors.
So on the morning of our appointment, we asked Siri for directions and followed the google maps direction on my iPhone.
Guess what?
We couldn’t find it. Siri, my wife and I did not know the street that everyone knew about.
Now, I’m not the best with directions to begin with. I get lost easily. But even so, the ABC street that he was talking about, there were no street signs for it. It technically wasn’t even a street. It was like a private driveway. We circled around a bit, now running late. We finally called the place and the lady on the phone had to give us turn by turn directions on the phone. Without her help, I don’t think I would’ve ever found it.
The guy who we initially talked to knew the area well, because he lived here. It’s only natural to think that it’s easy for anyone to find, because it’s easy for him to find.
And we think like that in our churches. We’ve been at a church for so-and-so years, so it’s natural for us to think that everything we do is normal.
But, it’s not. Church isn’t really ‘normal’ for those who’ve never really been. And each church has its own quirks and traditions that are unique to their own setting.
A friend told me of a church who, when it came time to do the Lord’s Prayer, would stand up, turn around and recite the Prayer. The new pastor, after a few Sundays, could no longer contain his curiosity and began to ask parishioners why they would stand, turn around and then recite the Lord’s Prayer. After digging, he finally found the answer from one of the older members of the church. Years and years ago, the Lord’s Prayer was on a banner at the back of the church, so to make everyone feel welcome, they would all stand, turn around and read the Lord’s Prayer together, just in case someone didn’t know it. The banner had been long gone, but the tradition remained.
For long time members: normal. For new comers: “What is going on? Why are we standing up? Why are we turning around? What are we reciting?” (That’s the other thing, we assume that everyone knows the Lord’s Prayer… that may not be so true anymore…)
It’s natural for us to assume that people know what we know.
But I think it’s safer to assume that they may not know what we know.
Not everyone may know where the bathroom is located on your campus.
Not everyone may know where the coffee fellowship is (if there is one) and if everything is for free after worship.
Not everyone may know why people are furiously writing their information on pads, and if you’re supposed to do the same.
And they may have been attending your church for years…
For many of us, everything about church life is normal, because we’ve been at a church for a dominant period of our lives. In fact, we can still get the hang of the language and vibe when we switch churches or visit a church on vacations.
But there are many more people these days who haven’t grown up in church and are finding themselves inside a sanctuary for the first or second time in their lives. They probably have no idea of what is going on and their anxiety may be made worse when we assume they should just know everything.
So just be open to the idea that not everyone knows what you know.
This was an Easter flyer that a church left on our door (on both doors — front door and the door to the family room) during Holy Week to announce their Easter Worship.
Posted with Blogsy
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I’m kidding.
