Stuff That Matters In Life

From Sean McDowell:

Many kids leave the church because they never built healthy relationships with their parents or other Christian adults. If we want to teach the biblical worldview effectively, we must first help kids get emotionally healthy.

This is why I deeply believe in mentoring. Jesus was a mentor. My hope is that mentoring will become as normal in the church in the future as small groups are today. Young people simply cannot survive temptations and intellectual challenges without caring, involved adults coming alongside to guide them.

When I was in seminary, small groups was the panacea. That method did indeed helped the growth of the church.

However, a method is just that, a method. It’s a means to an end, but now in churches, small groups are almost seen as an end. If you join a small group, you’re done. Spiritual growth will happen automatically if you are in a small group. This, of course, is not true. There is a right way and wrong way of running small groups.

Mentoring is also a method. You can say Jesus was a mentor. Or you can also say Jesus was a small group leader. Either way, the focus is on the goal of spiritual growth, not on a method.

For the record, I think both mentoring and small groups are necessary for spiritual growth, when done right.

I just finished reading An Amish Wedding by Beth Wiseman, Kathleen Fuller, and Kelly Long.  It was an easy read and an entertaining fiction, good for a heartwarming distraction, especially on a rainy day.

Three short stories set in an Amish community, the book tells the sweet stories of three couples.  Along with the romance and conflict, there were lessons of faith woven throughout.

I like the way how the three stories are different yet the characters all intertwined, giving a common backdrop.  I also liked learning a bit of the Amish culture, and now it makes me want to visit one.

While the stories are a bit simplistic and the endings fairytale-ish, there is nothing wrong with getting away from the high drama, violence and sex themes of what you usually see in media entertainment nowadays. Again the description I would give is sweet: sweet characters, sweet storyline, everything about it is nice and sweet!

Disclosure:  Thomas Nelson provided me with a complimentary copy of this book for this review. Opinions are entirely my own.

There’s a shoe repair shop in our little city of 30,000. How many people would need their shoes repaired?

I went in there to have my $40 pair of shoes repaired. The cost of repairing the sole is $16. It’s hardly worth it for me, and hardly worth it for him. It made me wish my shoes were more expensive to have the repair even make sense. But I decided to have it done any way.

It said on the window of the shop that he can make any shoes you want in leather, custom size, custom style. It’s good to know not everything is made in China, and that this type of artisan is still around.

“Lady, can you spare a quarter?”

I said no and turned away.  Then I felt a pang of guilt -what if she just had some bad luck and need a helping hand?

Not so.  10 min. later the same lady was in line in front of me at the market, paying for a bottle of cheap wine with $2.50 in quarters.

It’s people like her that give honest beggars a bad name.

Changing the carpet today ushers in a new stage of life for us.

Gone are the stains, left by three dogs who were our companions and security system.  No more chewed up carpet corners, reminiscence of our first pet bunny Smokey. Spills and grime of children’s play are no more.

A fresh start, a new era, I vow to keep it clean.  We shall see how long that will last. (Having friends over this weekend to break it in.)

Some people look at their past with fond memories and like to relish in those remembrances. But I am not one of those.

While I am generally not a glass-half-empty type of person nor am I a perfectionist, but for some reason, I tend to think of my past with regret. I wish I had yelled at my kids less; I wish I had homeschooled them; I wish I had taught them to clean their rooms; I wish I had maintained a daily devotional time with them…. I wish I had been nicer to my husband early in our marriage; I wish I had been smart enough to popularize my blog 7 years ago; I wish I traveled more with my husband before we had kids; I wish I was more brave…..

As I pack up the house this week in preparation for new carpet to be put in, I am having to look through all the stuff of the past, and I am feeling sad. Those fun days with my kids when they were little are gone. I am old…

I don’t like to look at the past; I am ready for a new challenge.

From “Moralistic Therapeutic Deism–the New American Religion” By R. Albert Mohler, Jr., Christian Post Columnist

…religious beliefs held by American teenagers, they found that the faith held and described by most adolescents came down to something the researchers identified as “Moralistic Therapeutic Deism.”

Moralistic Therapeutic Deism consists of beliefs like these: 1. “A god exists who created and ordered the world and watches over human life on earth.” 2. “God wants people to be good, nice, and fair to each other, as taught in the Bible and by most world religions.” 3. “The central goal of life is to be happy and to feel good about oneself.” 4. “God does not need to be particularly involved in one’s life except when God is needed to resolve a problem.” 5. “Good people go to heaven when they die.”

I am guilty of representing the gospel in a simplified moralistic therapeutic deism way.
Let’s go back to the true gospel, not an Americanized feel good version.

(More on moralistic therapeutic deism by John Ortberg, one of my favorite authors.)

I was very disappointed with this book.  The material in this book could be covered in half the number of pages. Not only was it drawn out, the concepts in the book were not “deep”.

Going Deep by Gordon MacDonald is a story of fictional church implementing a supposedly new and innovative idea of Cultivating Deep People (CDP).  A group of people are chosen to be committed to meeting once a week to learn to be deep. But I did not see anything innovative nor deep in its idea or methods. While the premise is good – “Strengthening and enlarging the core congregation by cultivating growable men and women to be rooted, built up, and strengthened in Christ and to become competent and confident in their call to serve others in his name”  – the way to do that is nothing more than a pretty typical discipleship group.  I was hoping to learn something more about “cultivating deep people”, such as challenging people to live out their faith, but the people in the group were not challenged in any way that is radical.  If you really want to be “deep” in your faith, I recommend the book Radical by David Platt.

There were a couple of things I did learn.  One is a quote attributed to hockey star Wayne Gretzky: “A good hockey player plays where the puck is.  A great hockey player plays where the puck is going to be.”

I have not read MacDonald’s other book of this fictional church Who Stole My Church? I hope it’s better than this one.

Disclosure:  Thomas Nelson provided me with a complimentary copy of this book for this review. Opinions are entirely my own.

I unexpectedly saw a long time friend at Soupplantation today.  We were both waiting for our lunch partners so it was a perfect opportunity to catch up.

To be honest, she is merely an acquaintance, and we barely recognized each other, but our conversation was so encouraging to me.

I told her I wasn’t sure if it was her because she looked younger than when I saw her several years ago.  “It’s the joy of the Lord!”  She replied.

When I asked her which church she was attending now, she went on to tell me that when she obeyed the Lord by submitting to her husband to attend a small Cantonese church (rather than the large church that she preferred), “blessings have just been pouring in.”  Her family life and her children have all been happier.  “The Bible is true,” she says.  “When you obey God, life is so much better.”

I said that it is often counter-intuitive, against our nature to want to submit to anything or anyone.  But when we by faith do what God says, and act according to what the Bible commands, He will take care of the rest.

“Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness, then all these things shall be added unto you.”  Matthew 6:33

Thanks for that reminder, CA, just in that brief conversation.

Every time I’m asked to speak, I get very excited about it.  I often think I have knowledge about the topic, plus I do more reading and research about it, and I feel confident.

Then as soon as I think I’ve got a handle on the topic, I begin to feel like I know nothing. How can I be so arrogant to think that I know something?  Have I lived my life according to the principles I’m teaching? (That’s a rhetorical question.) Am I wasting people’s time, an hour of their life they’ll never get back?

Every time I teach, I am humbled.  It drives me to examine myself, and be convicted of my own shortcomings.  I am no expert, I’ve made many mistakes, I haven’t lived up to what I’m preaching.

I am once again begging for mercy from God, and turn to totally rely on Him.

Lest anyone thinks teaching is easy for me – because to me standing and talking in front of an audience is the easy part – the inner work of exposing my own weaknesses is the hardest of all in teaching.

Every time I teach, I do it with fear and trembling.

(I am preparing to teach 5 times in the next several weeks. Pray for me.)

This book has all the elements of a murder mystery that I love – all the pieces fit, believable characters, likeable detective who solves the case, and the ending is satisfying.

There is one thing that bothers me about murder mysteries, in any medium – TV, movies, print, is that the killer always commits a second or third crime, and that’s when he/she makes a mistake and gets caught. The first murder baffled the detective and the murderer would’ve gotten away with murder (no pun intended) if he/she would only stop there. I wonder if it’s like that in real life.

Although there are some weird sexual themes (fortunately no explicit descriptions) in the book that I could’ve done without, The Killings at Badger’s Drift is good enough that I would like to read another book by Caroline Graham.

I like the term “First World problem”.  Every time I think I have a problem, I say to myself, “Heh, First World problem.”

It helps me to put my problems in perspective. I have [more than] enough to eat, I never hear gunshots outside my house, I don’t fear for my life when I walk out at night, and clean drinkable water comes out of the faucet when I turn it on. I have no complaints.

Here are my First World problems that I am not complaining about, but just sayin’.

*Grieving over our move from our home church of 20 years and adjusting to another church. – Many places do not even have one church, much less having the freedom to choose one church or another.

*Family room remodel has been installed since May, that’s six months of mess. – I won’t bother to go into the obvious fact that many people do not have a roof over their heads much less a family room, and even less be able to remodel it.

*The air conditioning in my van isn’t cool, and it’s a hassle to go to the mechanic, plus, there’s always something to fix in our 10+year-old cars, costing more each time we take it in.  – No, I would not rather walk or ride a donkey.

Here are some quotes I want to remember from the book Revolution in World Missions. Very convicting stuff.

* As I studied the Gospels, it became clear to me that Jesus understood well the principle of reaching the poor. He avoided the major cities, the rich, the famous and the powerful, concentrating His ministry on the poor laboring class. If we reached the poor, we have touched the masses of Asia.

The battle against hunger and poverty is really a spiritual battle, not a physical or social one as secularists would have us believe.

The only weapon that will ever effectively win the war against disease, hunger, injustice and poverty in Asia is the gospel of Jesus Christ. To look into the sad eyes of a hungry child or see the wasted of life of a drug addict is to see only the evidence of Satan’s hold on this world… Fighting this powerful enemy with physical weapons is like fighting an armored tank with stones. (Page 29)

*One of the biggest lies the devil uses to send people to hell is, “How can we preach the Gospel to a man with an empty stomach?” However, the Bible says all – rich and poor – must repent and come to Christ or be lost. (Page 219)

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*Religion, I discovered, is a multi-billion dollar business in the United States. Entering churches, I was astonished at the carpeting, furnishings, air-conditioning and ornamentation. Many churches have gymnasiums and fellowships that cater to a busy schedule of activities having little or nothing to do with Christ. (page 47)

Coming from India, where I was beaten and stoned for my faith, I know what it is to be a persecuted minority in my own country. When I set foot on Western soil, I could sense a spirit of religious liberty. Americans have never known the fear of persecution. Nothing seems impossible to them.

From India, I always had looked to the United States as a fortress of Christianity. With the abundance of both spiritual and material things, affluence unsurpassed by any nation on earth, and a totally unfettered Church, I expected to see a bold witness. God’s grace obviously had been poured out on this nation and Church in a way no other people ever have experienced

Instead I found the church in spiritual decline. American believers were still the leading givers to missions, but this appeared to more to historical accident than the deep-set conviction I expected to find.(page 51)

In the sermon at church today, I was reminded about the rich young ruler to whom Jesus spoke. Jesus looked at the young man and loved him. He could relate to the challenge that was put forth – to give up his riches and power to follow God. Jesus himself gave up heaven’s riches and the authority he had at the right hand of God.  He temporarily set those aside to fulfill God’s will for him and he was asking the rich young ruler to do the same.

Jesus knows what it is to be a man. He never asks us to do anything that he himself had not done. We have a great high priest who can sympathize with us, empathize with us, because he’s has been tempted, but he never gave in to temptations, no matter how tempting it may be. Our temptations are not even half of what Jesus had been tempted with.

The rich young ruler was not willing to place the will of God above his own. Setting aside wealth and authority was only a temporary life change. In the end if he had followed God he would have gained much more.

We often think of giving up as a bad thing., especially giving up something like wealth and power. After all we spend our life striving for those things and then be asked to give it up? But when Jesus asked us to give it up, it is in order to gain eternal life, to exchange it for treasures that will not rot or rust. Giving up is not really giving up much.

“He is no fool who gives up what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.”

Read this definition of discipleship from church:

Intentionally imitating Christ and reproducing increasing Christlikeness in others through caring relationships that practice accountability.

Various forms of discipleship: Family (parents and children), One-on-one/mentoring; Biblical counseling (issue-specific); Evangelism (from unbeliever to a believer); Sermons (being discipled by the Word); Sunday School (being discipled by the Word); Small group (more in-depth than sermon); Personal quiet times in the Word (being discipled by the Word)

There is nothing wrong with this definition, it’s one way to make concrete a nebulous concept. But I think discipleship can also happen unintentionally. You might be living out your life of faith without intentionally trying to disciple anyone, but when people see your life, they are motivated to do the same to be like Christ.

I am often discipled by people like that. Most of the time, they don’t even know they’ve helped me to grow in Christlikeness.

I have a friend name Iscah. I thought it’s a made up name, but yesterday I read it in the Bible.

Iscah is the daughter of Haran; Haran is Abraham’s brother, that makes Iscah Abraham’s niece. (Gen 11:29). Her brother is Lot, who traveled to Canaan with Abraham. Though she is only mentioned one time in the Bible, Iscah’s close relationship to the well-known father Abraham makes her a pretty famous as well. (Some Jewish traditions says Iscah is called Sarai, which makes her Abraham’s wife.)

I’ve been following a daily Bible reading plan from the YouVersion app on my iPhone. It’s a great way to keep track of my Bible reading.

Finding Iscah in the Bible is only one of a lot of good stuff I learn from the Bible. Most importantly I learn about God who reveals Himself through the Bible.

P.S. Wikipedia says Iscah is the Hebrew for Jessica.

This book has given me a whole new way of thinking about world missions. K.P. Yahannan, an Indian (from India) writes about the vision God called him to, and the reasons for that vision.

The mission organization he started, Gospel for Asia has the distinctive of supporting national missionaries rather than sending missionaries overseas. He gives many compelling reasons why this is more effective. There are many great insights in this book challenging the way we view missions that has been carried over from the days of colonialism. Yahannan shows how God is evangelizing the world in a different movement now, and how we need to adjust the way we use our finances to support world mission.

There are too many good quotes for me to write here. You’ll have to read the book yourself, which I highly recommend.

Let me quote here the reasons the author gives that it is wiser to support national missionaries in their own lands than to send western missionaries:

1. It is wise stewardship.

In India for only the cost of flying an American from New York to Mumbai (Bombay) a national missionary already on the field can minister for years.

2. In many places the presence of western missionaries perpetuates the myth that Christianity is the religion of the West.

A friend of mine who heads a missionary organization similar to ours recently told me the story of the conversation he had with some African church leaders. “We want to
evangelize our people,” they said, “but we can’t do it so long as the white missionaries remain. Our people won’t listen to us. The Communists and the Muslims tell them all white missionaries are spies sent out by their governments as agents for the capitalistic imperialists. We know it isn’t true, but the newspaper reports tell of how some missionaries are
getting funds from the CIA.  We love the American missionaries in the Lord. We wish they could stay but the only hope for us to evangelize our own country is for all white missionaries to leave.”

There was a time when western missionaries needed to go into these countries in which the gospel was not preached. But now a new era has begun and it is important that we officially acknowledge this. God has raised up indigenous leaders who are more capable than outsiders to finish the job.

3. Western missionaries and the money they bring compromise natural growth and the independence of the national church.

4. Western missionaries cannot easily go to the countries where most so-called “hidden people” live.

Although more than one third of the countries in the world today forbid the Western missionary, now the national missionary can go to the nearest hidden people group. For example a Nepali can go to Malaysia with the Gospel much easier than anyone from the West.

5. Western missionaries seldom are effective today in reaching Asians and establishing local churches in the villages of Asia.

Unlike the western missionary the national missionary can preach, teach, and evangelize without being blocked by most of the barriers that confront Westerners. As a national of the country or region he knows the cultural taboos instinctively. Frequently she already has mastered the language or a related dialect. He moves freely and is accepted in good times and bad as one who belongs. He does not have to be transported thousands of miles nor does he require special training in language schools.

This book is very convicting  in changing my thinking not only about missions but about my biases that are often unbiblical in the Christian life. I only know how to be an American Christian, and I need to understand the power of the gospel in a bigger way.

Kayaking was not on my bucket list, but since I went for the first time on Saturday, I decided it deserved to be put on the list so I can check it off.

Wonderful fun friends and our family drove 2 hours to San Diego to kayak around some caves. I was hesitant to go at first; in fact, I was downright worried about going. What if I flip over and can’t get back on the kayak? I have no upper body strength! What if I get pulled down by a riptide?

But the interesting thing is, I normally like a bit of adventure.  I had no hesitation going whitewater rafting, which can be more dangerous and “deadly”. Kayaking should be easy. But the difference is, I went whitewater rafting 17 years ago, when I was 17 years younger than I am today.  It seems to me that age tends to make one more cautious and fear subtly creeps in.

When I started to feel that psychological weakness, I knew I had to overcome it and get up the courage to go. After all, how can I turn down a wonderful opportunity to go enjoy a day with my good friends and my family? I would regret it forever.

As you can tell, I lived to write about it. A normal person won’t understand why I even had second thoughts. In fact, I don’t even know why I was scared. I can only attribute it to age. I hate getting old.

Another factor may be my genes. My mother, when she was about my age, developed agoraphobia. Whenever I have any irrational fear, I have to consciously fight against it because I don’t want to be like my mother.

The weather was perfect, not too hot, not too cold. It was a lot of fun, and it was even more fun when our kayak did flip over (as we were coming in, so I didn’t have to climb back on).

On the way back, B asked me if I would go again. I said no, not unless it was kayaking in Hawaii. But then again, never say never. I may go again. But next time, I will get a strap for my glasses. (Somewhere in the Pacific there’s a pair of glasses that belongs to me, in case you find it.)

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After kayaking, we had a unplanned picnic lunch consisting of all the snack foods we each brought – bread, peanut butter, cream cheese, cantaloup, pretzels, trail mix, a few blueberries, animal crackers, 3 granola bars, fruit leather, and water. It didn’t matter much what we ate, because the fellowship and the view of the ocean were satisfying enough.

Then we spent a couple of hours on a small beach with fun rocks and shells to explore. You have to be with the right people who like this kind of stuff – the kind of stuff that is nothing to most people but we can spend hours making up our own entertainment with simple pleasures. This is the kind of people who can spend hours looking at one animal exhibit at the zoo, or hours doing crafts with a few material, the kind of people who are never bored, who do not need elaborate forms of entertainment. Those are my kind of people that we spent the day with.

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Ordered new glasses today to replace the ones lost in the ocean. It was time for a new pair anyway.

My daughter has a very heavy load of classes this year, her junior year of high school. It’s only the second week of school and she’s stressing out – “I have SO MUCH homework!” She’s studying every single minute, and not having a balanced life.

I gave her a lecture about why she should not worry and should not be working so frantically: No matter how much you study, your future is not controlled by you. God has your future in his hands. Stop relying on your own efforts. Trust God and no matter how you do on your tests, you’ll be fine.

My own words was echoed back to me as I heard God telling me the same thing: No matter how much effort you put in, you cannot control the future. Stop trying so hard and relying on your own efforts; trust in me and I will help you.

Fresh off the press, I borrowed AB’s copy of Francis Chan’s new book Erasing Hell.

About a third of the book analyzes specific passages of the Bible to discover whether hell is retributive or corrective (a second chance to go to heaven), and whether it’s eternal or annihilation (completely destroy the soul).  Since I don’t need to be convinced that hell does exist and that it’s a place of eternal judgement, I read through those chapters quickly. For those who are not sure, those chapters are very informative.

The premise of the book is that we cannot impart our own ideas about what is or is not hell, but rather we need to see what God says in the Bible. We have to let God be God. Even if you don’t believe the Bible, you might want to hear what Jesus says about hell, and this book explains it well.

The best parts of the book are the introduction, the first two chapters and chapter 6. The most important lesson in the book that Chan keeps reiterating throughout is hell should not be taken as an academic subject to be discussed. People’s future is on the line. “In other words, don’t forget that the doctrine you are studying may be the destiny of many people.”

So what do I do with the information that hell is real and horrible? I don’t know.