When Phye Sun suggested we join the Holiness Denomination as I didn't think too much about it because I knew when I married Phye Sun I knew I was joining my destiny with hers and taking ownership of her identity.
Monday, February 27, 2012
"Men of Peace"
God is going to bring you "men of peace" and it is through them He will establish the church, a young woman who prophesied over me said. I didn't know what she meant by "men of peace" but her words stayed with me. Since then, like a script in the back of my mind, I've been searching for "men of peace."
Matthew 13:23
"But the seed falling on good soil refers to people who hear the word and understand it. They produce a crop, yielding a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown."
Thursday, January 26, 2012
Jeong-in's reflection
I woke up in the middle of the night, crying. How can I trust anyone anymore? "Some truths are better left hidden," he sighed sadly in my dream. But without trust, everything I see, hear, and understand will be built upon lies. "I can't live like that," I replied, "but I'm scared to lose the people I love." He turned to me, and smiled. "What is most important is that you don't lose the truth that is in you. Be who you are meant to be. Be freed from your insecurities and fears, and clearly define what really is precious to you," and he gently held me in his arms. "Don't be worried. I will not leave you nor forsake you," he promised, "surely I'll be with you always, until the end of everything..." and there I cried, because it was then I realized...that he was the one and only truth that is in me.
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
Principle of Organic Institution (Mark 2:27)
We do not create institution and plug people into it but we create institution only in response to a real need of the community.
I had initially envisioned finding a church somewhere near Morrisville. It was a nicely triangulated location between UNC-DUKE-NC STATE. However, so far there is no member of the church that is from UNC or DUKE. We have two STATE students and other members come from Goldsboro, Dunn and Raleigh. We want to honor these members, and applying the principle of organic institution means, we need to find a location that honors these members, which means that the church location, as Jang JPSN had initially suggested, should be in a newly triangulated location -- Knightdale.
Friday, January 20, 2012
Waiting for God
I drove around for 5 hours today looking for a church space to rent for our next service. God's been moving so amazingly last couple of weeks that I was waiting for yet another "Wow! I can't believe that just happened" experience. I started out at the outskirts of Raleigh, near RBC center, and followed my "spiritual spidey sense" towards downtown.
I so badly wanted finding a place worship to be another testimony like so many other events that led up to our first worship last Sunday. I don't I fully trust my spiritual judgment so I wonder, if I am really honest with myself, if the events of last two weeks is a case of my "spiritual wishful thinking." I used my GPS on my iPhone like a "God Positioning System." (Get it? GOd Positioning System...never mind). I would type in "church" in the POI (point of interest) and follow the directions on my iPhone like a spiritual guidance system.
One time, a homeless guy called me from across the street. He shouted, "Hey! Do you know where Snow Street is?" I was just coming out of a particular bad experience with a church secretary in a very established Church of Christ in downtown. I shouted back, "I am sorry!" as I shrugged my shoulders. He turned and went about looking for Snow Street. Immediately I felt convicted, "I have a GPS. I should help him," a voice inside my head said. As I resolved to find Snow Street and take him there, I had another thought, "May be this is how God is guiding me." I then got excited about the thought, "What a testimony this would be, an angel in the form of a homeless man. It would be prophetic judgment against the unwelcoming mainline denomination." I immediately jumped into my Hyundai and went looking for my angel in rags. He wasn't there. "What a great layer to the testimony, an angel guides me and then disappears," I thought to myself. So happily I followed my God Positioning System to Snow Street in sunny 65 degree weather. It was around the corner. I drove up and down the very short three blocks that constituted Snow Street looking for a place of worship. I didn't find one. However, I found a bunch of street persons loittering around a building. "This was what my homeless angel was looking for," I thought. As I was observing the modern brick building another homeless angel, this time smoking a cigarette, asked me what I was looking for. I asked him what this place was, he told me it was a homeless shelter. My theological idealism reared its well trained head: "How perfect. For Korean-Americans bent on success to begin worshipping at a homeless shelter. How profoundly prophetic!" I walked into the shelter where the security guard asked me in a slow southern drawl what I was looking for. I asked him with a great expectation if they rented out their space for worship. He simply shook his head again in a slow southern drawl. I was disappointed.
I quickly realized that I was putting God in my box of expectation. I was making him do another divine trick so I can tell another cool story about our journey. It was heretical. From that moment on, I simply prayed, "God open a door for me so it will become clear." I then went onto visit twenty or so churches. I knocked, called, walked, asked, and prayed my way to 15 plus rejections. I learned a lot about churches today. Some people were upset I even stepped my foot in their church, one lady of a large Raleigh church scolded me for looking for a bathroom saying that "you can't wander around the church!" One lady was clearly offended that I was even in her church without permission. Church after church turned me down. Some were more polite, nevertheless, the answer was no. I called and left countless messages, no one returned my call. Not one pastor was in their office. Not one person asked me a single question about the ministry or the congregation. However, almost every church had a "welcome sign" on the door or the entrance of the church. It made me think, "a welcome is not a sign on the church door but a condition of our hearts." Occupational hazard, I know.
After realizing that downtown Raleigh was close to none of the members of our community, except Paul, I took my search to outside 440. I drove around for another 3 hours with the same results. I came home defeated and tired.
As I was reflecting on the events of the day, tired and discouraged, I realized that none of the churches I visited appealed to me: it was too big, too small, too flashy, too suburban, too urban ... but more than the physical attributes of the church, I just couldn't imagine our fledgeling community worshipping in a "church" building. Something about it just didn't fit. We are an organic community that was formed by God's desired to hold the broken, desperate, and lost. Nothing seemed organic about finding a building, paying rent, trying to fit into the culture, and expectations of some suburban congregation. A thought flashed through my mind, perhaps we can meet at Elder Lee's house. After confirming it with my wife, who also thought that it was a good idea, I called Elder Lee and asked. He agreed it was a good idea. After we hung up, Lee Jipsanim called me soon after I hung up with her husband. She told me that that very day the family decided to look for a new house that could hold worship! She asked me to ask an agent to help them find a house near the Triangle Mall. I readily agreed. God had done it again!
We are a community that was formed organically by stepping through the doors God's been opening, and it's been nothing less than amazing. I realized at the end of the day that the principle of organic obedience -- obedience not as submission to prefabricated categories but to the leading of the Holy Spirit -- will have to guide us in finding the church rather than simply creating a structure because we can, a la GBGM.
I so badly wanted finding a place worship to be another testimony like so many other events that led up to our first worship last Sunday. I don't I fully trust my spiritual judgment so I wonder, if I am really honest with myself, if the events of last two weeks is a case of my "spiritual wishful thinking." I used my GPS on my iPhone like a "God Positioning System." (Get it? GOd Positioning System...never mind). I would type in "church" in the POI (point of interest) and follow the directions on my iPhone like a spiritual guidance system.
One time, a homeless guy called me from across the street. He shouted, "Hey! Do you know where Snow Street is?" I was just coming out of a particular bad experience with a church secretary in a very established Church of Christ in downtown. I shouted back, "I am sorry!" as I shrugged my shoulders. He turned and went about looking for Snow Street. Immediately I felt convicted, "I have a GPS. I should help him," a voice inside my head said. As I resolved to find Snow Street and take him there, I had another thought, "May be this is how God is guiding me." I then got excited about the thought, "What a testimony this would be, an angel in the form of a homeless man. It would be prophetic judgment against the unwelcoming mainline denomination." I immediately jumped into my Hyundai and went looking for my angel in rags. He wasn't there. "What a great layer to the testimony, an angel guides me and then disappears," I thought to myself. So happily I followed my God Positioning System to Snow Street in sunny 65 degree weather. It was around the corner. I drove up and down the very short three blocks that constituted Snow Street looking for a place of worship. I didn't find one. However, I found a bunch of street persons loittering around a building. "This was what my homeless angel was looking for," I thought. As I was observing the modern brick building another homeless angel, this time smoking a cigarette, asked me what I was looking for. I asked him what this place was, he told me it was a homeless shelter. My theological idealism reared its well trained head: "How perfect. For Korean-Americans bent on success to begin worshipping at a homeless shelter. How profoundly prophetic!" I walked into the shelter where the security guard asked me in a slow southern drawl what I was looking for. I asked him with a great expectation if they rented out their space for worship. He simply shook his head again in a slow southern drawl. I was disappointed.
I quickly realized that I was putting God in my box of expectation. I was making him do another divine trick so I can tell another cool story about our journey. It was heretical. From that moment on, I simply prayed, "God open a door for me so it will become clear." I then went onto visit twenty or so churches. I knocked, called, walked, asked, and prayed my way to 15 plus rejections. I learned a lot about churches today. Some people were upset I even stepped my foot in their church, one lady of a large Raleigh church scolded me for looking for a bathroom saying that "you can't wander around the church!" One lady was clearly offended that I was even in her church without permission. Church after church turned me down. Some were more polite, nevertheless, the answer was no. I called and left countless messages, no one returned my call. Not one pastor was in their office. Not one person asked me a single question about the ministry or the congregation. However, almost every church had a "welcome sign" on the door or the entrance of the church. It made me think, "a welcome is not a sign on the church door but a condition of our hearts." Occupational hazard, I know.
After realizing that downtown Raleigh was close to none of the members of our community, except Paul, I took my search to outside 440. I drove around for another 3 hours with the same results. I came home defeated and tired.
As I was reflecting on the events of the day, tired and discouraged, I realized that none of the churches I visited appealed to me: it was too big, too small, too flashy, too suburban, too urban ... but more than the physical attributes of the church, I just couldn't imagine our fledgeling community worshipping in a "church" building. Something about it just didn't fit. We are an organic community that was formed by God's desired to hold the broken, desperate, and lost. Nothing seemed organic about finding a building, paying rent, trying to fit into the culture, and expectations of some suburban congregation. A thought flashed through my mind, perhaps we can meet at Elder Lee's house. After confirming it with my wife, who also thought that it was a good idea, I called Elder Lee and asked. He agreed it was a good idea. After we hung up, Lee Jipsanim called me soon after I hung up with her husband. She told me that that very day the family decided to look for a new house that could hold worship! She asked me to ask an agent to help them find a house near the Triangle Mall. I readily agreed. God had done it again!
We are a community that was formed organically by stepping through the doors God's been opening, and it's been nothing less than amazing. I realized at the end of the day that the principle of organic obedience -- obedience not as submission to prefabricated categories but to the leading of the Holy Spirit -- will have to guide us in finding the church rather than simply creating a structure because we can, a la GBGM.
Monday, January 16, 2012
waiting to exhale
a friend told me that the people gathered for the sake of spreading the love of Christ refuses to go to smaller towns/cities in the us because it is not as exciting, it is not as sexy, it is not as . . . whatever . . . they did not give up living in la/nyc/chicago to go to durham, montgomery, kiln, etc. it makes me sick to know that we place preconceived conditions on love. this is not the covenant of love that Christ takes hold of for us. the burden of love is a heavy burden. it is a burden not for the faint hearted.
why is it so hard for us to love? it costs our lives too damn much. we cannot sacrifice shit to care for things that really matter. we are so caught up in the stupid, pointless, worthless stuff that we see people dying around us and we stand pat. it makes no sense. we are Christians, people formed in the love of God -- people who's supposed to embody this love to BE the hope of the world -- and we turn away. we are to be the greatest force of love the world has ever seen; however, we have betrayed, sold our inheritance for worthless idols!
how frustrated God must be as he looks out into the landscape of humanity and glimpse and take in the suffering in his single omnipresent, omniscient, and omnipotent breath. He breathes it all in and holds it in his heart. the pain tearing at him . . . he exhales only when we, his people, carry forth his will obedience love. we become his breath speaking life into dead hearts, broken lives, and withering spirits. this is our act of faith in action. we embody in our lives, our emotions, etc. if you want to hold the broken, the destitute, the weak, the poor, and the desperate in the name of Christ -- then give me your hand, let's work together for the expansion of this Kingdom of God here and now.
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
Harvest is Plentiful
Matthew 9:35-38
Then Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, and curing every disease and every sickness. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, "The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore ask the LORD of the harvest to send out laborers his harvest."
Then Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, and curing every disease and every sickness. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, "The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore ask the LORD of the harvest to send out laborers his harvest."
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