A garden that's bursting into life...

I dropped in on two other church planting network groups this past week. One was connected with Church Planting Canada out in Bowmanville (don’t ask me where that is).

Very cool, as all the guys here were in the messy midst of the early stages of church planting.

The other group was connected with the resonate, which they call greenhouses in downtown Toronto. Everyone there is in the dreaming and scheming phase of creating new forms of church. Very interesting.

I like the idea of a greenhouse

it makes me think of that overplayed Snow Patrol song, “Chasing Cars”. The one good verse that always sticks with me is where they sing “Show me that garden that’s bursting into life”

I see church planters as people who unleash cities that are bursting into life.

Update: If you haven’t heard it already, here’s an acoustic version of the song.

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Heroes...

I’m not much of a TV watcher, especially after Alias ended. But I’ve found a new favorite show that I finally just caught up with online.

Heroes. It’s about ordinary people discovering extraordinary abilities. Sounds like a call to all of humanity.

One of my favorite characters is Hiro Nakamura. Besides the ethnic affinity, I love Hiro because he naively assumes that he can change the world and yet struggles to be brave enough.

One of the best lines from Hiro was:

“If I’m too afraid to use my powers, then I don’t deserve them.”

What powers have you been given?

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Friday fix...

Some random links that might feed your online addictions…

You’ve probably seen the stats on the global village (ie. what the world would look like if it were shrunken down to a hundred people), here’s a flash video of it.

Quick tool for generating rss subscription buttons like I have on my sidebar.

ziki - helps manage your onine visibility. For the first 10,000 people they will sponsor your name on google, yahoo, and msn for free.

Moby writes about those insane Christians in his journal

Mac Tablet finally coming. If only I didn’t quit my job…

At least I can watch hundreds of tv shows online for free.

Or I can start a charity for myself on Network for Good.

Remind me again why I should plant a church?

DJchuang’s set up an excellent wiki for those interested in Asian American Church Plants.

Otherwise we could just sit around and watch other people create America’s Most Innovative Churches

and twiddle our thumbs waiting for Transformer’s the movie to come out.

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Great post on church planting…

The following is a great nugget from Pernell

To all you young ‘uns (and other assorted riff raff) who have ever thought about - or are thinking about - planting a church: Before you embark on your “rock-star-like” career, I think your perception of church planting may be a little clouded by the bull crap you see in the church, and on blogs, and at conferences.

Allow me to wipe that crap away: being a church planter will not make you cooler nor will it make you any more popular or more attractive to the opposite sex.

It will not make you any more spiritual and almost no one will respect you more for your courage, risk taking, or intrinsic motivation.

It will not make you braver or more disciplined.

It will not teach you to ‘take it like a man’ or ‘be a real woman’, it likely won’t help you to get on TV and it won’t allow you to buy nicer clothes, shoes, or hair gel either.

It won’t allow you to finally be part of the perfect church, or to shed institutional politics, nor will it guarantee that people will accept you for who you are - authentic community.

It will, however, expose every limitation you have and defeat you at almost every turn.

It will bite you on the butt whenever it gets the opportunity, it will choke you, break you, wind you, bruise you, cut you and batter you, emptying any sense of self-sufficiency along the way. It’ll wind you up like a clock until you feel like tearing your own face off and walking away in snivelling submission.

It’s probably the most fun you’ll ever have.

Or maybe it’s just me.

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Urbana 2006...

No I didn’t go this year. But Yu-ling’s been doing some live blogging from the event.

If you don’t know what Urbana is, it’s a missions conference with twenty-thousand or so students every few years. See here for streaming videos of the sessions.

In keeping with blogging more this year, I’ll be posting some archived posts as well as some yet-to-be published thoughts / articles.

I’m too embarrassed to post all of it, but here are some excerpts of an article I wrote after returning from Urbana six years ago:

God wants to do something for us, so that he can do something with us. Although He may be sending us to serve on mission, we are still His mission field.

We are called to be worshippers before workers – A.W. Tozer

Often the greatest thing that hinders us from worshipping God is our service to Him. We do not respond to him by our busyness for Him. God simply wants us, as we are, completely. God has enough burnt offerings. Don’t offer the sacrafice of fools. He wants our hearts.

God doesn’t want our worship… If we’re not going to repent. What has God done for us if He hasn’t forgiven us? How can we worship God while clutching on to sin?

Worship is not for the flawless, but for the broken. Worship is for the wounded. Worship is for the sinners; for those that desire God’s mercy.

“If you want to be a part of people’s healing in the future, be a part of people’s healing now. If you want to love and care for people who are different from you in the future, love and care for people who are different from you now. How you live now, will shape how you live in the future” - Susan Cho Van Riesen

Is what you’re living for, worth Jesus dying for?


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2007 goals...

Some goals for 2007

Family - spend lots of quality time with my two ladies. Become more and more a healthy and spiritual household of influence to our communities.

People - Consistently invest my time and resources into people - extended family, friends, maybe even some Christians

Ministry - I’ll be giving my time and energy for about a year to an yet-to-be-decided internship beginning this summer. If anyone has any good leads, recommendations, connections in the area that would fit a dude like me, please let me know.

Work - I’ve still got bills to pay. Hopefully the internship can be a payed one, but if not, I’ll definitely need to look into some new options. Starbucks is high on my list right now.

Network - I’ve had the aching sense the past year that I desperately need to connect with more people. I’m absolutely certain the dreams and visions I have on my heart are impossible on my own. I hope this year I can connect with more planters, pioneers, peers, heroes, mentors, and emerging leaders.

Club - as in join and be active in some type of non-ministry related club or group this year

Discover my voice by using it - There have been a few books on my mind that I’ve been wanting to write. I wasn’t planning on attempting to publish anything till my forties, but I feel the need to maybe get the process started sooner. I hope to be publishing more via the blog and speaking more as a baby-step towards this for the year.

If anyone has recommendations or suggestions with helping me along any of these goals, feel free to chime in!

Some personal highlights from Neil Cole's Organic Church

People are leaving the church to preserve their faith

Most warm blooded-living things grow to a point and then reproduce

Many a church continues long after the soul of the church has departed because the building itself keeps them going. A building can become an artificial life support system that keeps a church alive even though it died long ago.

In many of the churches in the West, ministry is done for Jesus, but not by Jesus.

Only 4 percent of churches in America will plant a daughter church.

See Tony's blog for a much more in-depth review and additional quotes.

Overall, the book helped me think through what the church really is and re-align myself to the Christ who builds his church.

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Maximum wage...?

Flipping through an issue of the Futurist, i stumbled across this revolutional concept for closing the wealth gap (ie. how in the United States 1% of the population holds more wealth than the entire bottom 90% combined).

In an article by Sam Pizzigati (www.toomuchonline.org) he proposes a ten times rule for a moving maximum wage. In this approach, the income ceiling is tied to the income floor. The wealthy could increase their incomes even with a maximum wage in place. To realize this increase however, the wealthy need only to convince Congress to raise the minimum wage, because the higher the minimum, the higher the maximum. By advocating for the nation’s poorest workers, the wealthy would have advocated for themselves.

There is some innovative income tax guidelines along with Pizzigati’s propsoal, but that’s the gist of it.

Of course, this still doesn’t completely deal with the root issues of greed in the human heart, but at least it would be a step towards helping people see that they are a part of everyone else in this global community.

I find this principle applies in many realms; spiritually, organizational, environmentally, etc.

Can you imagine a future when people embrace the reality that the richness of their own journey in life was dependent upon the last, the lost, and the least that surround us?

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Some Christmas photos...

Family…

A new generation of babies this year, Stellar, Carter, and Evan Noah

Home torched Creme Brule

And what’s Christmas without a present for daddy… Nothing like newborn poo shot out on the sleeve!

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Gandhi and Christmas...

During this Christmas season as the story of God is tossed around, Gandhi has something important to say to us:

“You Christians look after a document containing enough dynamite to blow all civilization to pieces, turn the world upside down, and bring peace to a battle-torn planet.

But you treat it as though it is nothing more than a piece of good literature.” ~ Mohandas Gandhi

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Nobody loves me...

... like she does.

Yvz is the most amazing woman I have ever encountered in my life. Not only is she a passionate follower of Jesus, she's now a mom. Somewhere in there she finds a way to continuously bless me as my wife.

Honey, it would be impossible to describe how you amaze me... but I'm going to spend my life trying anyways.

Here's a shot of one of her most recent paintings for baby Caleb.

It's a ladybug in the grass reminiscent of the Biblical character his name goes by that chooses to venture into the promised land despite the giants that surround.

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Holiday reading...

During those rare moments Stellar is sleeping I hope to get ahead on some reading over these next few weeks:

Organic Church: Growing Faith Where Life Happens by Neil Cole
Worship Old and New by Robert E. Webber
Planting Missional Churches by Ed Stetzer
Worship, Community and The Triune God Of Grace by James B. Torrance
Exploring the Worship Spectrum: 6 Views by Harold Best
Soul Cravings: An Exploration of the Human Spirit by Erwin McManus
Strategic Pastoral Counseling by David Benner

Anyone read any of these yet?

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