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.

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.

I’m currently in seminary (you can read about my journey by clicking on the link) and am concurrently serving at Onnuri Community Church in the Onnuri English Ministry. I never planned to come out here and pastor at this 60,000 member mega-church – I didn’t even seek it out. Neither did I even plan on pastoring in Montreal with River’s Edge Community Church before coming to Korea.

My ministry journey has definitely been a unique one where I was given the privilege to pastor even before receiving formal seminary education. My undergraduate degree was in Biology and Religious Studies – that’s secular religious studies and science, which are definitely not bible related.

So why and how did God open the doors for me to pastor at these churches? Was it because I sent out my ministry resume to every church I could find? Was it because of my networking and interpersonal skills? What about my intellect or preaching skills? In the end, I don’t really know if it was any of those things because I didn’t send my resume to anyone and I definitely fall short in the rest of those categories. So I don’t really know how it happened, other than to say that it was God’s providence and I was always faithful in what little or large responsibilities God gave me. Perhaps it was the parable of the talents (Matthew 25:14-30) principle that when we are faithful in the little, God will entrust us with more. But then again, who knows what other factors went into it?

Reflecting on my past years in ministry, I’ve learned so much about ministry that just isn’t taught in the seminary classroom. I’ve learned through “catching” ministry by doing it and seeing others do it. Lorenzo DellaForesta (Lead pastor of River’s Edge Community Church) and Eddie Byun (Lead Pastor of Onnuri English Ministry) have both meant so much to me and have both taught me so much that words cannot even express my gratitude. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to learn and grow.

If you are considering ministry, let me give you some advice – don’t expect to automatically become a pastor and a leader once you graduate bible college or seminary. The educational training is important and very valuable, but if God is calling you to ministry, don’t wait until you’re finished your education – start now! As you are studying theology and your Greek and Hebrew, begin to lead. Don’t wait until you’re finished, but start leading where you are. Even if you extend your degree program another year or two – that’s okay!! What’s wrong with that? Kill your pride – it’s better to learn well and graduate later, than learn quickly and graduate sooner.

Lead a small group, disciple others, etc. because if you aren’t doing it now, you might just end up like Paul, who after finishing seminary (his Rabbinical training), discovered that he wasn’t actually finished his training…it had just begun.

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.”

1Corinthians 14:26 ESV -“What then, brothers? When you come together, each one has a hymn, a lesson, a revelation, a tongue, or an interpretation. Let all things be done for building up.”

1Corinthians 14:26 NLT – “Well, my brothers and sisters, let’s summarize. When you meet together, one will sing, another will teach, another will tell some special revelation God has given, one will speak in tongues, and another will interpret what is said. But everything that is done must strengthen all of you.”

1Corinthians 14:26 MESSAGE – “So here’s what I want you to do. When you gather for worship, each one of you be prepared with something that will be useful for all: Sing a hymn, teach a lesson, tell a story, lead a prayer, provide an insight.”

After looking at those different versions of the same verse, there seems to be 4 or 5 things that were a component of the worship services in the early church:

1. A Hymn
2. A Word of Instruction
3. A Revelation
4. A Tongue/Interpretation

The MESSAGE translation actually takes an interesting spin on the components of a worship service: “Sing a hymn, teach a lesson, tell a story, lead a prayer, provide an insight.”

Upon examining this verse, let me ask you a question: How are your worship services? What happens in your worship services? Do they reflect this model? Or are they lacking any of these components? Is the verse inferring that we need all of those components in every worship service, or just that we eventually need to do all of them?

Any thoughts? Reflections?

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.

After my undergrad, and right after getting married, my wife and I planned to move back to Vancouver to enroll at Regent College to pursue my M.Div. As a result, that summer in 2006, I began taking classes via correspondence. However, through God’s providence, my wife and I actually ended up moving to Montreal to take a Youth Pastor position at River’s Edge Community Church. While living in Montreal and serving as a youth pastor, I kept on taking courses at Regent College. A year later in 2007, I decided to transfer over to Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in Boston because I figured I couldn’t complete my degree through correspondence with Regent. So upon enrolling at Gordon-Conwell, I began driving from Montreal to Boston weekly to take classes. I would leave on Tuesday morning, drive 6 hours, take 1 course, sleep on campus, wake up the next day and take another course, then drive another 6 hours back to Montreal for Wednesday evening. I did that for a semester, and became very tired! So I did correspondence courses the next semester while learning how to church plant at River’s Edge. Figuring I couldn’t do another semester of driving, I decided to enroll at Tyndale Seminary in Toronto because they had an M.Div program for individuals in ministry, which would only require me to travel to campus once a week. And since I had family in Toronto, it was going to be easier. So I enrolled and finished off my Greek through correspondence. Afterwards, in 2008, through much discernment, my wife and I decided to move out to Seoul, Korea to be pastors at Onnuri English Ministry; as a result, I decided to transfer to Torch Trinity Graduate School of Theology here in Korea to finish up my M.Div (it’s an English graduate school in Korea).

Wow! That was long. Anyway, that’s my journey through 4 different seminaries. As much as you might laugh at my journey or think it’s amusing to consider how many hours I actually spent applying and getting accepted into each of these seminaries, there has actually been a great benefit to being at all 4 of them – I can offer first-hand advice and critiques as to the differences between the seminaries.

So I’m going to attempt to make a brief and preliminary (and by no means exhaustive) comparative analysis between the M.Div program in 3 out of the 4 seminaries: Regent (Canada), Gordon-Conwell (USA), and Torch (Korea).

Side notes: I do not know enough about Tyndale to comment. Also, I don’t like emphasizing the negatives, so I’ll write out the unique strengths of each institution!

Regent College (Vancouver, Canada)

• Community
• Professors
• Name-value
• Holistic and culturally engaging types of courses
• Able to take correspondence courses, and even campus courses with the likes of J.I. Packer, Eugene Peterson, Gordon Fee, Bruce Waltke etc.
• Balance between ministry and biblical studies/theology in the M.Div curriculum
• Summer program
• Conferences

Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary (South Hamilton (Boston), USA)

• Professors
• Name-value
• The variety and sheer amount of courses you can take (For your degree, you can take courses at Harvard, Boston University, etc.)
• Tradition and ecumenicism
• Conferences
• Mentored Ministry

Torch Trinity Graduate School of Theology (Seoul, Korea)

• International student population (There are students from all over the world studying in Korea to be trained and released back to their native countries – i.e. Nigeria, Iraq, India, China, South Africa, Kazakhstan, Philippines, Canada, USA, etc.)
• International Faculty (Professors from different backgrounds with different academic and ministry expertise)
• Personable professors
• Conferences
• Strong Missions Focus (especially with Korea being a massive missionary sending nation)
• Cheap tuition
• Asian-American Visiting Professors (Peter Cha, Paul Lim, Julius Kim, etc.)

Are you going to seminary? If so, what are the strengths of your school?

If you are considering seminary, what kind of questions do you have?

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?

Christianity is all about the belief that the living God, in fulfillment of his promises and as the climax of the story of Israel, has accomplished all this – the finding, the saving, the giving of new life – in Jesus. He has done it. With Jesus, God’s rescue operation has been put into effect once and for all. A great door has swung open in the cosmos which can never again be shut. It’s the door to the prison where we’ve been kept chained up. We are offered freedom: freedom to experience God’s rescue for ourselves, to go through the open door and explore the new world to which we now have access. In particular, we are all invited – summoned actually – to discover, through following Jesus, that this new world is indeed a place of justice, spirituality, relationship, and beauty, and that we are not only to enjoy it as such but to work at bringing it to birth on earth as in heaven. In listening to Jesus, we discover whose voice it is that has echoed around the hearts and minds of the human race all along.

Before I state my views, why don’t you examine this quote?

All John Piper “followers,” or individuals who agree with the many things that John Piper ” preaches,” Is there anything wrong or “off” about this quote?

Below are the links to an interview where John Piper discusses his views on N.T. Wright and the New Perspective on Paul

• Part 1, Who is this book for?
• Part 2, Who is N. T. Wright?
• Part 3, What do you believe about justification?
• Part 4, How is Wright’s view of justification different than yours?
• Part 5, What’s the problem with Wright’s view of imputation?
• Part 6, What damage could Wright’s view cause to the church?
• Part 7, Where is it that you’re trying to preserve the doctrine of justification from moving?

Here is a link that contains N.T Wright’s response to John Piper’s View of Justification

And here is a link that summarizes both views by Christianity Today

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…

Ever since grade 5, I wanted to be a doctor. It was always about the sciences, satisfying my curiosity, and helping the world. I begged my parents to buy me ‘do-it-yourself-science experiment’ books, and it was awesome! Even in high school, I focused on the sciences and thus entered university with a relatively high GPA in sure hopes of getting my Bachelor’s of Science (BSc) degree. With that, I hoped to get into medical school and save the world.

But what happened? I neither graduated with a BSc nor did I enter medical school, yet I am absolutely enthralled with the journey that God has brought me on, rather than being filled with devastation.

In grade 10, when I actually started to care about school (that’s another story), I discovered that I was actually a good writer. I enjoyed writing so much that I decided to enter into AP (advanced placement) English in grade 11 – what a bad decision. It wasn’t necessarily the challenge of an advanced placement class that caused me to regret my decision, but it was the specific teacher who taught the class. She was such a strict and harsh grader that I began to wonder if I was even a good writer at all; in fact, I began thinking that I was actually incompetent at it. As a result, my mom forced me to get an English tutor, which further reinforced the idea that English skills were poor.

Thus, with all the discouragement, I decided to focus my efforts on the sciences because people couldn’t judge me based on my sentence structure or grammar – I was merely judged on whether I was right or wrong. So I worked hard. I worked really hard in the sciences. I worked so hard that I was guaranteed a place in multiple BSc programs before my grade 12 year was even half finished.

However, upon entering university, I encountered another crisis. I liked the sciences and I worked hard, but no matter how hard I would work, my grades were horrible. I didn’t experience success.

Let’s fast forward a bit to my third year of university when I transferred out of sciences (biology) and into arts (religious studies). I was afraid at first because I knew I would be judged again on my writing, but guess what I discovered? Rather than my grades going down, they actually shot up into the high 80s and 90s.

In fact, from that point on, my joy and desire to write has actually increased exponentially. It’s gotten to the point where I am hoping to pursue my doctorate and begin writing books.

Here’s my point: This generation struggles with the big and looming question, “What are you going to be when you grow up?” In fact, children are asked this question beginning in elementary school and onwards. Thus, in order to answer that persistent question, you are either told what to be by others, or you choose your future occupation from a list – and that’s that!

However, there’s an inherent problem with that sort of methodology – you can’t be anything you want to be! Our culture says you can, but the raw, plain, and absolute fact is, you can’t!

BUT, you can be who God has created you to be.

So instead of looking to others for your university major or your ultimate career destination, why don’t you look in a mirror and try to discern the SIGNs of any strengths you may have?

Here are some tools that can help you to do that:

• Strengthsfinder 2.0 (For Anyone)
• Strengths-Based Leadership (A leadership-version of Strengthsfinder 2.0)
• Living Your Strengths (A Christian-version that integrates strengths with faith)
• StrengthsQuest (A version specifically for students trying to figure out what they want to do in the future, or individuals who want to make career changes).

I love the quote by Sun-Tzu Wu in The Art of War: If you know your enemy, you’ll win half of the battles, but if you know yourself, you’ll win the other half (paraphrased).

Let’s discover who we are and who God has created us to be, rather than listening to all the other voices telling us who we are and ought to be.
On a side note, I’m a certified strengths-performance coach, so if you have any questions on those books or you bought a book, but would like some guidance, feel free to contact me!

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:

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!!

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.

After wrapping the whole body, they showed us his head and had people put their left hand on his forehead and then walk around the body once. Since i’m a Christian, I didn’t follow those rituals, but with another one of my uncle’s and his wife, we prayed for him and everyone in the room instead.

The next day, we travelled to the country side and buried the body – there was so much ritual in doing that as well. They also offered food to my decesased uncle as a sacrifice offering (Ancesteral worship and respecting the dead is really big in Korea).

I’m so glad that my uncle who is Christian has a big role and influence in my family. If no one was Christian except me, I know I would have faced a lot more persecution and perhaps would have been forced to bow down to the deceased and follow the Buddhist rituals. I know others who were forced to bow down to their dead ancestors because they refused to do it since they were Christians. They were hit and abused.

I wonder what is going to happen when a Christian passes away in my family here in Korea? What kind of rituals and ceremony are they going to have?

I hope I don’t have to see another funeral soon, but things happen and everyone will eventually die. Am I ever glad that this life is temporary and I have eternal life waiting for me.

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?

I believe that my last question holds the key to scratching the surface in regards to the driving force of suicide in Korea.

Shame.

It’s the Power of Shame.

Shame (n): a painful feeling of humiliation or distress caused by the consciousness of wrong or foolish behavior.

In this Confucianistic-Buddhist-Asian culture of Korea, one’s consciounsess of wrong isn’t personal, like it is in Western-highly-individualistic-cultures, but it’s collective.  As a result, when one commits a wrongdoing, one feels humiliation and distress from everyone – not merely from one’s own conscience.  In psychological terms, it’s called the “invisible audience” phenomenon.  Albeit, all individuals experience the “invisible audience” phenomenon from adolescence onwards, I wonder if it is stronger in Asian cultures because of the emphasis on collectivity?

Thus I believe that it is the power of shame that overtakes one’s own reason and well-being, and leads one to ponder the option of suicide.  One cannot merely reconcile the wrongdoing easily.  It is no longer a wrongdoing against oneself, but it is one that has been exposed to the world.  To reconcile the wrongdoing with the world seems to be too big of a task, and without God, it surely is.  As a result, suicide seems to be the best option for most people.

Now do I agree with my hypothesis? In a humanistic sense, I do. But in light of who God is, and the power of spiritual warfare in this world, my argument above is merely one point of view.

Sure, the power of shame is a huge force that drives people to suicide, but behind that, I believe there is an insatiable craving and longing in everyone’s soul for God.  Now when humans try to fill that longing for God with money, power, sex, and fame, it always comes up short.

“Why is there this emptiness in my soul?”

“Why is there this emptiness in my soul??”

“Why is there this emptiness in my soul???”

“Why is there this emptiness in my soul????”

To not find the answer to this question, and to give up the search, signifies the beginning of death.

As a result, when individuals commit suicide, are they already dead? Have they already given up searching for the One that our souls long for?

These are my reflections…what are yours?