seeing in the fog

For the past couple of weeks northern California has been plagued with wildfires that have filled the air with smoke. This has caused breathing problems for some people, but most of us just continue on with our lives and do our best to help the others who are more severely afflicted. Today the wind is supposed to shift and give us some relief.

Life is like that. We try to get on with our everyday routines and responsibilities, but some of us are less able than others and the rest of us just try to give them a little help or find them some respite. Together we manage and we all look forward to the time when things will get better.

On the mount of Transfiguration Jesus was revealed as glorious, attended by holy men of the past (Moses and Elijah). It was an awe-inspiring sight. Peter, James and John get to see it, and Peter babbles something about making a memorial. At that moment a cloud descends and fog hides everything. As the cloud envelops them, Luke records that the three disciples are afraid. But as everything becomes fuzzy and obscured a voice speaks to them: “This is my Son… listen to him.” (Luke 9:28-35).

In Eugene Peterson’s “Under the unpredictable plant” he tells us that as we go about the dull routines and unattractive responsibilities of life we are “witnessing to the transcendent in the fog and rain.” Helping each other while we ourselves are struggling to survive is burdensome. We wonder when we’ll get some relief. But those are the very moments when God is speaking, when we are “witnessing to the transcendent.”

Wouldn’t it be more efficient if things were clear all the time? Couldn’t we get so much more done for God’s Kingdom? But God knows we don’t work like that. When things are clear we’re likely to be like Peter, idolizing the nostalgia of the glimpse of glory. It’s as if we need the fog and smoke to humble us, to force us to keep from looking back, to make us more aware of the present, helping each other out in dependence on God’s grace. It’s in the haziness of everyday life and the burdensomeness of helping each other that we come to see God most truly, that we hear him most clearly.

companionship

All of us crave companionship. We want someone alongside, someone with whom to share our journey.

My friend Russ Ikeda has an interesting insight about companionship. The word itself comes from two Latin words: com = with, and panis = bread. A companion is someone with bread, someone who brings sustenance for the journey.

Am I truly a companion for others? How can I supply sustenance to those God has given me as partners? My friends? My significant other? My children? My aging parents? Those in my growth group? Those with whom I serve on a ministry team? My co-workers? My neighbors?

"Two are better than one because they have a good return for their work. If one falls down, his friend can help him up." Ecclesiastes 4:9-10a

decisions, decisions, decisions

Last night I was listening to the commentators speculate on Barack Obama's next move as the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee. Hillary Clinton's lack of a clear concession led them to believe that she was angling for a spot on the ticket as the candidate for vice president and that Obama would need to make a quick decision on this.

I started thinking about how Obama might make such a decision. I'm sure he'd bring in his wisest and most trusted counselors. He'd look at the decision from all possible angles, playing out all the possible consequences. And this is an important decision. Not only might this decision affect the success of his (presumptive) candidacy, it could possibly affect the well-being of the country (if he does become the next president).

How do I go about making important decisions in my life? I may not make decisions that are quite as broad in their consequences as the decision facing Obama. But how do I (and the leadership team) go about making important decisions that affect our church community? It's true that gathering data and hearing wise counsel are very important. But what's the most critical factor in making wise decisions?

It made me think of Solomon's prayer in 1 Kings 3:9. I like the way Eugene Peterson puts it in his translation The Message: "Give me a God-listening heart so I can lead your people well, discerning the difference between good and evil. For who on their own is capable of leading your glorious people?" Amen.

multimedia

In our culture "multimedia" is usually a good thing. The use of multiple forms of media is intended to make the content exciting and interesting.

But the use of multimedia is fraught with peril. I recently tried to use a video clip as part of my sermon. We loaded it in the computer an hour before the start of the worship service, hit "play", and everything seemed to be working fine. It wasn't until 5 minutes before the start of worship that I noticed that the action in the video was happening a little too fast. We discovered that our presentation software was playing the video at 2x for no apparent reason (it was a kind of "artsy" production so the projectionist assumed it was supposed to look that way). A workaround was suggested and put in place without the time to test it out. When it was time for the sermon, the workaround didn't work and I had to scrap the video.

But technical glitches aren't the only problem with multimedia. What makes cars or electronic gadgets or clothes or shampoo look exciting and interesting on TV doesn't necessarily work the same way for people. In fact, when my kids are all yelling at me and shoving things in my face I'm getting a kind of multimedia show that can only be described as annoying at best and downright irritating most of the time.

Worship is about persons, God and us. And multimedia isn't always the best way to get to know a person. We learn about another person through conversation over a good cup of Peet's (I'm trying not to be a shill for Starbuck's) or by taking a nice long walk together. The give and take of conversation, and even the times of silent shared journeying, are important for interpersonal relationships. We learn each other's rhythms and moods and there's a physicality and tempo to the relationship that's more than just downloading data from one digital repository of information to another. There is no USB 2.0 for relationships, either with each other or with God.

So I'm not concerned that our worship service have the latest and greatest presentation software or sound system or other medium for communication. Personal communication is best when it's the least mediated by technology. What's more important is that the persons are as engaged as possible in each other. Which reminds me that when I show up for worship, God is always there first, waiting and attentive and loving. My experience of worship is best when I reciprocate.

Be still and know that I am God. Psalm 46:10

systematic abandonment

A children's ministries pastor mentioned the term "systematic abandonment" at our recent conference's annual celebration (see pswc.org) in a forum on "Church for the next generation."

The term comes from Chap Clark's book "Hurt" based on his research on the world of today's youth. The phrase caught my attention, not just because it sounds erudite and has a lot of syllables, but because it seems to capture the world that my daughter, who recently turned 10, is entering. It appealed to my dad-ness to listen to what this youth worker was saying.

The phrase refers to kids' sense that they are being systematically abandoned by well-meaning parents: abandoned to experts who are teaching them everything from math to softball, all in the effort to give these kids the best possible preparation for the world. Ironically, the thing that the kids want most is their parents' attention and love.

This abandonment happens in the church, too. Parents think they're not very good at being good, so they enlist the help of Sunday School teachers and youth pastors. To twist a well-known phrase, 11:00 on Sunday morning is the one of the most segregated hours for families. Churches are like shopping malls, with classes, meetings, and groups targeted at every demographic group described by marketing experts. In fact, that's exactly how Sunday School, youth group, and small group curriculum is packaged and presented, using all the standard marketing techniques.

And that's how Grace Community is organized, too. When I heard the term "systematic abandonment" I realized that we've become conformed to marketing segmentation. The result is that families are being fragmented even as we give lip-service to the idea of healing families. Obviously, that's not how it's supposed to be. God's Church is supposed to be a counter-cultural agent of transformation in the prevailing culture.

My dream is for Grace Community to be a church community that brings families together. It's not going to be easy. Our minds are already predisposed to thinking in terms of segmentation. It's not enough to just re-think our children's ministries. We have to re-think EVERYTHING. And then comes the hard work of breaking the world's mold to which we've become conformed and then allowing God to re-shape us according to his design. It'll be a tough and grinding job, taking a lot of sacrifice and hard work. But it'll be worth it, for my family and for all our families and for us as a church community.

Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will. Romans 12:2

confessions of a mono-culturalist

Being an Asian American church is hard. The natural tendency of any person or group is to be mono-cultural. In fact, to be Asian American is in a sense to be mono-cultural, too, because not everyone who is from an Asian ethnic background would call themselves Asian American. It’s an American social construct produced by the Civil Rights Movement.

So within the category of Asian American is a diversity of cultures that we can choose to recognize and celebrate… or not. If we choose not, then we are going to go down one of two roads. We will either become essentially white, or we will go back to the ethnic cultural rhythms that are most comfortable to us. The latter is what has happened to Grace Community. (I’ll say something about the former a little later.)

A couple of months ago I looked at who was a part of Grace Community and did a simple data analysis. I counted up everyone who was not of Chinese extraction. I found that only 18.9% were not Chinese. Of that group, 7.4% were white. In other words, we call ourselves a church for Asian Americans, but only 11.5% of us are not ethnically Chinese. I don’t know what all the causes are, but we are becoming more and more mono-cultural.

One cause is that I’m not Asian American enough. My native cultural rhythms have Chinese origins: it’s the food I’m attracted to, it’s the holidays I’m most familiar with, it’s the language I get harassed for not speaking. No one expects me to speak Korean or Japanese or Vietnamese or Tagalog or Hmong. And I taste the food of other cultures with a Chinese palate, i.e., as a “tourist” (albeit a fairly adventurous one) and not as a native.

More importantly, I have very little familiarity with the holidays or sense of calendar of other Asian ethnicities. Holidays give form to our sense of the year. They also describe what is important to us (which is why Senator McCain apologized for not originally supporting a day to commemorate Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.). Language and food are also purveyors of values, ways that a culture is expressed and passed on. So this is truly a confession: as a pastor of an Asian American church community, it is my obligation to become more familiar with the cultures of everyone who is a part of Grace Community so that I can better shepherd each of you. For that past lack of interest, I sincerely apologize.

It isn’t enough to merely use the label “Asian American”. I’ve done that in the past, but too many of my Chinese American cultural rhythms have slipped out unconsciously. I think that’s why we’re becoming more and more a Chinese American church. I want to reverse that trend.

But why not studiously avoid any reference to culture? Because it’s impossible. As I said earlier, language, food and holidays are all purveyors of culture. Asian culture is noticeable because we live in a place that has its own culture: mainstream white American culture (“white American” is itself a social construct that at one time did not include the Irish or Italians). Avoiding any reference to non-white American culture is to attempt to integrate into white American culture by denying our differences, rather than accepting and understanding those differences and then using that understanding to enrich the greater American culture.

Being an Asian American church is harder than I thought. But I believe that by seeking to understand and celebrate our differences we will find a new diversity of expressions of God’s creativity and new ways of understanding God and the world he has made and loves and sent his Son to redeem.

duck walk

I went to a pastors’ meeting yesterday. What do a bunch of pastors talk about? One thing we talk about is how pressured we feel. One pastor shared how he was a journalist for 11 years and never felt the kind of pressure that he feels now to be at the top of his game all the time. Another shared his financial pressures. I sort of got the ball rolling when I shared how I’d felt very down on Monday, right after the weekend retreat.

It seems odd that I’d feel depressed after what had been a great retreat. But I’m going to share something that very few people know: on the surface everything was going great, but behind the scenes we were improvising and re-designing like crazy. Dave Evans mentioned that it was like a duck: on the surface things seem fine but under the water we’re paddling like crazy.

The question we kept asking ourselves was: how is this retreat fitting into the big picture of what God is doing at Grace? I felt like I was in a constant tension of both needing to have all the answers while also being spontaneously available to whatever God wanted to do. Sure, we could just let the Spirit lead but we needed to come up with a plan, too.

So by the end of the retreat I was exhausted. We had just finished a wonderful time of learning to rest in what God was doing among us, and I was tired. It just didn’t make sense. And I spent the whole day on Monday feeling tired and pretty unmotivated.

I told this to my prayer partner on Tuesday morning and it was refreshing to let go of that tension and be prayed for. I shared about this at the pastors’ meeting and was encouraged to hear that everyone else felt exactly the same way. We all realized that we wanted to ‘get it right’, to be the world’s greatest pastor (or at least the pastor of the big church nearby), and it was hard to faithfully walk the path God’s given each of us. We can talk about a lot of great ideas, but those may not be ideas that God’s designed us to implement and we end up like a bunch of exhausted ducks lying by the road in danger of becoming pastoral road kill.

So what’s the answer? I wish I knew, then I’d write a book and go on a lecture tour. What’s more important is that I’m slowly learning, that I’m gaining new skills in both God-sight and church leadership. I’m sure there will be more times when I’m exhausted, but I’m glad for those that come alongside and share my burden and help me get back on my feet to continue what Eugene Peterson calls “a long obedience in the same direction”.