Missional and Organic Leadership

I’ve been interested in the issue of leadership and how we can contextualize biblical and secular leadership principles to our churches so that more people can come to know the hope that we have in Christ Jesus.

I loved reading Neil Cole’s Organic Church a few years back as it transformed the way that I view the church. I recently picked up his book, Organic Leadership, and can’t wait to dive into it!

Ed Stetzer’s books have always been good as he is very much of an intellectual like myself, but he uses his intellectual gifts and talents for the church and for practical purposes and means. I love that and that’s what I am striving to do, as that is where I’m discovering my talents and giftings lie. One book he co-authored with David Putman, Breaking the Missional Code, is a must-read for church leaders as it practically describes how to contextualize the gospel to your immediate situation.

On his website, he recently posted a seminar he did for church leaders on missional leadership. I saw it once, and i’m definitely going to be revisiting it again and again until I can truly understand and apply the biblical principles he outlines.

Here it is,

Missional Leadership from Ed Stetzer on Vimeo.

 

Training for Ministry

Today, during our 2009 Onnuri Spirituality and Leadership Conference, Richard Foster said something along these lines – “After coming to know the Lord, Paul spent three years in the desert being trained (Gal 1:17-18) – this wasn’t seminary…this was after seminary” (my paraphrase).

He went on to talk about how the Lord taught and trained Paul during those years and how as pastors, we must be ready to go through a time of “tucking away” or being trained so that God can teach us the prayer of relinquishment. Just as Paul went through that type of training, so did Jonah, David, Job, and Abraham. And who can forget Jesus (Matt 26:39), who had to learn the prayer of relinquishment in one of the most difficult ways – through facing death.

Often times, we think that going to bible college or seminary automatically grants us the God-given-privilege to pastor and lead others. What many of us don’t actually grasp is that pastoring isn’t a job, it’s pure honor and a serious, yet joyful calling. One can’t just learn in a classroom – ministry is best learned in the field, while doing it.

Worship Services in the Early Church

I’m currently preaching through 1 Corinthians 12-14 to our youth ministry, Nine37, on the topic of spiritual gifts. As I was preparing my message for tomorrow’s service, I stumbled upon 1 Cor 14:26 and began wondering what worship services looked like in the early church.

1 Corinthians 14:26 NIV – “What then shall we say, brothers? When you come together, everyone has a hymn, or a word of instruction, a revelation, a tongue or an interpretation. All of these must be done for the strengthening of the church.”

Where to go to Seminary? A preliminary comparison between seminaries in Canada, the United States, and Korea

This post arises out of a unique journey of mine. Believe it or not, I am actually enrolled in 4 seminaries at the moment, pursuing my Masters of Divinity (M.Div) at all of them! Okay, before I qualify that statement, I am actually only taking courses at one of the four seminaries, but I still have student numbers at all of the other ones.

Let me briefly explain my  journey, and then I’ll do a brief and preliminary comparative analysis between three out of the four seminaries.

Calling All John Piper “followers”: John Piper & N.T. Wright

I’ve been reading N.T. Wright’s Simply Christian: Why Christianity Makes Sense, and there are parts of his book that are causing me to raise my ears and my ’sensors,’ so to say.

Now if you are aware of anything related to “The New Perspective on Paul” you will know that N.T. Wright, James Dunn, and E.P. Sanders have different views on justification than John Piper and traditional reformation Christianity. The purpose of my post is not to get into that debate – if you are interested in the debate, then look at the 7-part interview that John Piper had dealing with N.T. Wright (see below for the links).

The purpose of this post is to get your thoughts on the following quote by N.T. Wright, in Simply Christian: Why Christianity Makes Sense (p.91-92)

Christianity isn’t about Jesus offering a wonderful moral example…

Nor is Christianity about Jesus offering, demonstrating, or even accomplishing a new route by which people can “go to heaven when they die.”…

Finally, Christianity isn’t about giving the world fresh teaching about God himself…

So what is Christianity about then?

Discovering Myself and My Calling Through Writing

I recently started to write for a monthly devotional publication – Living Life: A Journal of Spiritual Formation & Reflection (It is published by Duranno and the English version is translated into Spanish and Russian), and guess what I’ve discovered about myself? I love writing. I even consider writing to be a potential strength for me as well – albeit I do still need to improve many aspects of this skill.

In Marcus Buckingham’s Go Put Your Strengths to Work, he considers there to be four S.I.G.N.’s of a strength.

• S uccess
• I nstinct: How you feel before the activity
• G rowth: How you feel during the activity
• N eeds: How you feel after the activity

Based on these SIGN’s, I can deduce that writing seems to be a strength of mine.

• S uccess: When I write assignments, I typically receive A’s.
• I nstinct: When I even think about writing or having the opportunity to write, I get really excited.
• G rowth: As I write, I can easily concentrate and get into the zone. Even if I am interrupted, I can easily begin writing again.
• N eeds: Afterwards, I feel such a sense of accomplishment and joy.

But it wasn’t always like that…I didn’t always like writing.

Here’s my story…

A Method of Teaching for the Online-Degree Generation

I recently saw a fascinating proposal by the Dean at Southern Methodist University, Jose A. Bowen. He proposes a different way of teaching that is radically different from the traditional way of: 1) Come to class; 2) Listen to the Lecture; 3) Discussion.

He proposes that you:

1) Podcast your lecture.
2) Have your students listen to the lecture before coming to class.
3) Have a quiz at the beginning of the class to ensure that they listened to the lecture
4) Have Discussion and important points, etc. for the majority of the class

This methodology, he believes, will promote on-site degrees, rather than online degrees because of the clear benefits of live participation.

Have a look at his proposal:

The Architecture of Asian Christianity

Two weeks ago, when my wife and I travelled down to my mom’s home town (Seosan, Choongchun-Namdo, South Korea) for my uncle’s funeral, we came across this interesting building. Upon closer examiniation, we discovered that it is a Catholic church, but I was just in awe of the Asian flavor that the cathedral had.

Living in Montreal, Quebec for a couple years, I definitely saw my fair shair of cathedrals. Montreal even boasts of the St. Joseph Oratory, which has the third largest dome in the world, and the Notre-Dame Basillica, which has an amazingly dramatic Gothic  Revival architectural style.

However, never did I once see a cathedral that was so architecturally Asian!

Now that is a prime example of architectural contextualization!!

 

A Korean Funeral

This past week, my uncle passed away from cancer so I had the opportunity to experience a full-fledged Buddhist Korean funeral. When I got to the hospital, I had to pay my respects to his son and his mother and then we were ushered into this room where the dead body was (it was covered with a sheet).  When the whole family was in that room, they began to clean the body and wrap it in this traditional Korean funeral garment. It was very ritualistic and probably took more than an hour. For example, they cut off some of his toe nails and finger nails, and while they were doing that, they said some ritualistic saying. Afterwards, they put those things in a small bag and put it on his body. They did the same thing for some of his hair too.

The Power of Shame in Asian Cultures

I have never heard so much about suicide until moving to Korea. Sure, there were the occasional suicide stories in the news back in Canada and in Hollywood, but to so frequently read the names of celebrities, political leaders, and high-profile individuals in the headlines in apposition with the deadly words, “suicide,” was unfathomable.

“South Korean Ex-President Kills Himself” is one of the major headlines in the news today. Even if one were to survey this past year’s news, one would frequently come across stories of celebrities committing suicide in Korea.  Committing suicide in Korea is really not an occasional occurrence.

But why? Is it that the preciousness of life isn’t valued any more? Is it a decision of the whim? Why am I coming across so many stories of suicide in this shame-based-Confucianistic culture of Korea?