Monday Reflection Week 9

We have all experienced that social place is not limited to physical place (anymore). As I have mentioned at the beginning of the class (first post) I really had negative views of cyber space since it has been misused in so many ways (popularizing pornography, promoting individualism, piracy and many more). Of course there are good aspects to it (instant communication to anywhere in the world, sharing of ideas trading of good [yeh~ ebay] and etc…). I guess in any issue there will always be the positives and the negatives. Either way the fact is that cyberspace, the idea discussed in class: “more and more our lives will be influenced by people we haven’t met face to face,” is a reality to us. It is something we can not just avoid it or disregard. It was good that in class we reflected on it and how it would relate to the mission of the Church. I don’t just want to jump in conclusion and say “oh, then we could use the internet as tools.” I believe there is something deeper into in then that. The cyberspace is not just another tool but a whole new way of seeing society and interaction with other human beings. I am sure things are going to start changing even faster as the technology progresses. I just hope I will ready for it.

Wednesday Reflection Week 8

The idea of “lifestyle as evangelism” (an idea discussed at class) seems to cut both ways. I am a strong believer of evangelizing through our lifestyle. Instead of forcing a shallow acceptance prayer from the non-believers (which will supposedly get them into heaven in few second), we should evangelize by creating and being part of a Kingdom like Community; and by inviting people into it. Yet at the same time, it would be too idealistic to expect people to just come and desire to be part of our community by just seeing our lifestyle; because our lifestyle can not be perfect. Our community on earth is only a process towards the true community in the eternal Kingdom of God. Therefore we must proclaim the gospel as well as living it out. It is not a “one or the other” issue but to incorporate both aspect of proclaiming and living it out.

Monday Reflection Week 8

The idea of reading each others rough draft and commenting on them was a great idea. Honestly, I didn’t expect much from it but ended up getting a lot of great feedbacks. The direction of the final paper was further understood and explored by the discussion. One of them was with the idea of being very specific in terms of the action plan. Since I know my context and I have the idea in my mind, I realized that I failed to be more detailed in describing the steps. One of them was to help the congregation of my church become less individualized and be more communal. The question that was raised was “how?” what are some specific steps the church need to take in order to accomplish that. This really challenges me to further reflect and think on the future action plans for the church. I realize that many times in our churches, we have great idea and plans but fail to narrow them down and come up with specific action plans. It is good to dream and idealize a concept but it is nothing if it is not taken into the real life.

Missional Church Transformation Paper (rough 01 – 500 words)

In this paper I will be working in my current church planting project. The challenge will be to go beyond the influences of modernity and truly emulate the Kingdom of God.

The church I am part of, Amazing Grace Church in Long Beach have begun a church planting project in which I will be the pastor. The new church, called Walnut Amazing Grace Church was planted in the city of Walnut. It has been two months since we started and we are currently praying for the vision of the church. The target audience is 1.5 generation (Korean speaking) young adults. The challenge for the new church begins with the language. Since it is a Korean speaking group it is very hard for us to connect with the neighborhood and with people of other ethnicity. That, plus the exclusive tendency of Korean Churches (we have had not much success in the area social justice) would be a great challenge in forming a Kingdom like community where inclusiveness is a big characteristic.

If Jesus were to be part of the founding members, He would challenge us to rethink the purpose and the mission of the church. He would begin by shifting our inward focus to an outwardly form; our individual focus life to a communal form. The question he would ask would not be: “how can we bring new people to church” but “how can we be the church in this place, in our community and in the specific context of being a Korean American Church.” This does not mean that he would encourage us to be only Korean American church but to think beyond our race and ethnicity. Jesus would really push us to connect with the American church we are renting the facility from and to connect with people in the neighborhood, instead of trying to create a commuting church composed only by Korean.

The first idea we need to work on is that the church is a community. Not just community in the sense that there is more than one person but a community which shares in the vision and the mission of God. We would begin by learning that God has a plan for the community before he has plans for each individual. It is only then, when we recognize and value the idea of community, how we will be able to go beyond our ethnicity, our tradition and our comfort zone in the church. The first barrier we must break is the individualism of the people. We will begin to see a new way of doing church and a new way of communicating with other ethnicity only when we realize that the Kingdom of God calls for an egalitarian form of community.

The new church, which will be mainly composed by Korean speaking congregation must work in reaching and cooperating with other ethnicity. Only then we will be able to see creation and church in a new light; in the light of the Kingdom of God.

Wednesday Reflection Week 7

At first I didn’t quiet get the difference between the Trinity view of the mission and the Kingdom perspective on the mission. I can’t say that I do but I started seeing subtle differences. One thing I have noticed is that the former could be exclusive in certain aspects. It is in fact inclusive towards the outside (or secular) but it still seems to define the outside and the inside (it is us who are in the inside who gives/shares to the outside). Where as for the latter, it is more inclusive in the way how it considers all creation as part of (or at least as subject) to the Kingdom of God. I, personally do not believe all creation is part of the Kingdom of God since there is clear distinction between the good and bad (i.e. the parable of the weed) but I believe the church must be less exclusive and be more open to the outside world. After all, the parable of the weed also teaches us that we are not the harvesters; we are not the ones who sort the good and bad. That is God’s job at the end of time. For now we must try to reach out to all areas of our lives without concerning too much on who is “in” and who is “out.”

Monday Reflection Week 7

Wow, already week 7? Times does fly. I am starting to see a clearer picture in terms of our final case study; and more importantly regarding the church planting I am involved in. The readings really challenged me (especially the last two) in terms of seeing a new way of doing church without completely abandoning the traditional ways. The good thing about the structure of the final paper is that we could work both on the idealistic/theoretical aspect of the church and the realistic aspect that is present in my current context. As many have noted, it is not about doing the church in certain x, y, z way but to be faithful to the Lord “in” the context we are put into.

- Book Review 6 – David E. Fitch, The Great Giveaway

Author: David Fitch (Ph.D., Northwestern University) is pastor of Life on the Vine Christian Community of the Christian and Missionary Alliance in Long Grove, Illinois, and is adjunct professor of ministry, theology, and ethics at Northern Seminary.

Theme: “The Evangelicalism has “given away” being the church in North America” (P. 13)

Summary: This book talks about how the evangelical church today has lost its identity and its function to the world (e.g. American business, parachurch organizations, psychotherapy and etc…). The church has been influence (and is still) by the values of modernity and stop being the church that was originally meant to be. It can not be done by stripping away the modernity aspect since it is very fundamental to the church but the church has to deconstruct and rethink on many methodological aspect of being a church.

Reflection: The book addresses many issues such as: seeker service in post-modern world, the need of renewal in worship, business model of leadership in the church, and etc… These issues are nothing new but part of the ongoing discussion within evangelicalism and emerging church movement. Yet the great thing about this book is that the authenticity of the author and his heart is transmitted through is writing. He is not criticizing the evangelical church from an “outside” view point but from the inside view point. The authors really spoke to me since I totally felt his struggle since that is my current struggle as someone planting a church. He writes: “Some things remained important to me about evangelicalism, and yet some things remained seriously problematic about its commitments to modernity” (P. 15). I have mentioned in a couple of reflection and book reviews that I believed in renewing the current church and not dismissing them and replacing them with a new form. Yes, there are something problematic with the church today but I believe we are called to work within our situation and strive to change what is wrong and continue the good work. The churches throughout the history have been and are corrupted in many aspects; yet God has chosen the church as his vehicle of spreading his message and good news. We must work within the situation where God has put us. If the church can be compared to a family, then now matter how problematic the family become we need work with it and not look for a different family.
Also this book helped me in developing my ideas and visions regarding the church plating (which is my case study) since it sheds great lights on the issue of church planting, the worship service and preaching. The author writes: “Church planting is the ultimate form of postmodern evangelism” (P. 68) stating that salvation is not passing out the right information and getting the right answer but it is a way of living. This helps me to focus the new church even more in the aspects of community, a community that lives out the salvation instead of just trying to get it…

Wednesday Reflection Week 6

Synagogue 3000 is the emerging movement of the Jewish community. There are a lot of similarities with the Emerging church movement that seeks to be relevant to its community and its culture. The question some times boils down to “how do we keep the young people?” But as mentioned in the lecture, that is not the core question for the people in the emerging movement. It is more like “how do we become the true church of Christ?” I see a value in the emerging movement in that it is not only a movement to keep the young people in the church but to seek the heart of Jesus Christ for His church. Because once the church becomes the true church of God (I am not implying there is “one” way to do it, I believe this could take many forms) then the issue of young people and generational gap will not a big problem since I believe God will be at work with every generation. This idea truly challenges me with the idea of my church planting project. I pray that God will show us His vision for our church and that all members will be able to seek the heart of Jesus as He has sought us.

Monday Reflection Week 6

We continued the discussion on the emerging church. It was clear from the lecture that emerging churches are still developing and many new people are jumping into it. The problem with the many misunderstandings and criticisms are, according to Dr. Bolger, because the internal discussions (that are supposed to stay internal) are being exposed to the outside through the internet (such as blogs or personal websites). Many people read the ideas that are in progress and criticize those, thinking they are final definitions regarding the emerging church. This made me reflect on the fast paced norm of our society today. We always want everything done as soon as possible and as quickly possible. Many times we say things without thinking and regret later for having said that. Also, we expect quick results on what we do. As someone planting the church of God, I am thinking that I should not be expecting a quick result but to expect the work of God according to His own time.

– Book Review 5 – Leonardo Boff, Ecclesiogenesis

Author: Leonardo Boff, was educated in his native Brazil and Munich, Germany. He is author of numerous books, including Jesus Christ Liberator, Ecology & Liberation, cry of the Earth, Cry of the Poor, and most recently Holy Trinity, Perfect Community.

Theme: The Basic Church Community (community base Christian gathering where the laities plays a central role) is the new way of church which up to this point has relied on structure and hierarchical organization.

Summary: The author uses the basic church community seen in the country of Brazil as a model to speak of the new way of church; which breaks the structure of the traditional organization and focuses on the people and the community. The issues that are raised through this from of emerging church (although the authors does not identify as such) is the definition of church, the will of Jesus regarding it and the practical aspect of clergy-less Eucharist and Women Priesthood.

Reflection: Here again we see the discussion regarding: what makes a true church? Or what is needed to be identified as church? It is the ongoing discussion of the emerging church vs. the traditional local church (each claiming to be the church Jesus originally desired). Actually my understanding of the church has changed in many ways due to the various readings in the class. At first I had negative views of the ideas that spoke of the universal or invisible church (it seemed to ignore or even reject the traditional local churches to the extremes). Also the movement towards the purely social justice (at the expense of the Spiritual aspect) seemed to be an incomplete solution for the current problems of the church (which many characterize as the lack of social justice and community values). I am beginning to see that it is not an issue of one or the other; nor can’t it be simply summarized by “doing both.” The church should definitely work towards a holistic church but that will look differently depending on the culture and context. It all comes down to the idea of being faithful to the context and modeling the incarnational ministry of Jesus. As great as the new ideas (such as community based, world church, and etc…) might sound, I realize it is very unrealistic in my current context of Korean-American church. To follow the model of base community or other emerging church would be unthinkable. But in fact, that is actually ok, since the whole idea here is not to have an x, y, z formula. My case study, which is the Korea-American church plating, can not and should not follow the “look” of the basic community church but to seek how to incorporate the idea of community, social justice and many more kingdom characteristics into my context. I can not get rid of the structure or the hierarchical organization but what I can do is to turn that upside down; just like Jesus did. The solution is not to get rid of it (since it is impossible) but to communicate the idea of bottom-up leadership which could be interpreted as “serving.” Another way in which I could incorporate these ideas is to have the congregation realize that Jesus always spoke to the community rather than to an individual when speaking of “church;” to have people realize how individualistic we have become and that church is the gathering of believers (the community of God).