Sang's Blog

Wednesday Reflection Week 10

Sang — Mon, 12 Mar 2007 17:19:36 +0000

God always has a way of getting to us the right thing, at the right time and at the right place. This is something I have really experienced begin at Fuller. When I first began serving the youth group at my church, I ended up taking Chap Clark’s foundation for youth ministry. It was when I began to preach for adults that I ended up taking homiletics (and begin tremendously helped by the readings). Now that I began to plan a church, I came across this class. Some might say it is a coincident but I know there is no “coincidence” in our lives. I truly felt the guidance of God throughout my ministry and my seminary education. This class was really helpful in expanding my ideas of church planting and what the mission of the church should be. The church is to be part of the great mission of God, which has started from the beginning of the world and is still in the process. It is the expanding and living out the kingdom of God with justice, peace and joy.

Monday Reflection Week 10

Sang — Wed, 07 Mar 2007 13:14:22 +0000

It is true, as discussed in class, that churches have adopted the market economy model where as the Kingdom should take the gift exchange model. I think this is the influence from modernity as Fetch has pointed out in his book. It is the give and take model. This brings me to the text we read in the preaching class yesterday: “whoever welcomes this little child in my name welcomes me; and however welcomes me welcomes to one who sent me. For he who is least among you all – he is the greatest.” (Lk 9:48). The person who was preaching, Beth, said that welcoming children means accepting other not for what they can give us back but for who they are. She said children can not benefit us in any ways but slow us down. I totally agree with her and with the idea that we must give without expecting a return. We must love not so we can be loved back but because that is what Jesus have told us to and showed us to. As Chap Clark said: “I am not here to be a professor but to follow Jesus.” Amen to that!

Wednesday Reflection Week 9

Sang — Mon, 05 Mar 2007 21:16:52 +0000

I think the steps discussed in class really helped me to put my vision of Kingdom of God in realistic terms. Throughout the project, I had hard time putting into practice the vision I had for the church. The key element I realized was “time.” Nothing will come easy or as quick as we desire to. Just as the sewer must wait patiently for the time of the harvest, anything we plan in our church must wait for God’s time. The process of awareness, understanding, evaluation, experimentation and action plan was really helpful in planning the process of the church planting. I think our church will take more than 6 month for each process which would make the project into a 2 or 3 year plan. It might take longer, who knows? But the important thing I realized is it will take time. Only God knows how long but as long as we keep planting I believe there will a time of harvest.

Monday Reflection Week 9

Sang — Wed, 28 Feb 2007 19:28:22 +0000

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

Sang — Mon, 26 Feb 2007 07:23:47 +0000

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

Sang — Wed, 21 Feb 2007 20:14:14 +0000

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)

Sang — Mon, 19 Feb 2007 09:47:09 +0000

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

Sang — Mon, 19 Feb 2007 07:44:12 +0000

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

Sang — Wed, 14 Feb 2007 20:08:40 +0000

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

Sang — Mon, 12 Feb 2007 20:09:12 +0000

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…