Kenneth Liu

Two weeks ago, I headed to Chicagoland to attend the Asian North American Theology and Ministry Consultation.  In our track, we explored the shared task of ministry of the gospel in an Asian American intergenerational context. Here are some of the insights I gleaned from our conversations:

The problems are not primarily language, but attitude

One of the older, wiser pastors leading our track pointed out that most people often misdiagnose the problems in between the generations. Most point to language as the biggest barrier to overcome.  Communication is obviously important, but it can’t be reduced to language and words. Non verbal communication is just as important and often reflects one’s attitude. If we are really honest with ourselves, it’s our attitude towards each other that is the primary problem. Often times, it is the brokenness within our own households that shape our attitudes and they often get projected onto our church relationships.

Make every effort to do the cross cultural work within in order to effectively work cross culturally in the world.

In Acts, the worldwide expansion of the church did not happen without Acts 6 where they needed to work out the cultural and generational issues first. The seeking of intergenerational reconciliation is never a wasted effort. It’s a means God uses to bring about sanctification, humility, and a eventual wholeness that we all long for. When we make every effort to seek reconciliation and unity, two potential things can happen. first, it’s good preparation for cross cultural ministry. But secondly, a reconciled intergenerational community is an apologetic witness to the world. There’s something going on within that only Jesus can do.

The bridge must go two ways

Reconciliation and unity between the generations must be a shared value. Our primary identities shaped by the gospel must produce in us new attitudes towards each other. Leadership obviously must sacrificially model this for the congregation to follow.

There’s more, but that’s all for now…

Whew! What a weekend for our family and church family. I think I took a couple hundred pictures! Starting with Friday, the youth group had our first “Goofy” Olympics. We had some memorable and inspiring moments!

On Saturday, we had the privilege of hosting the original members of the Chesterbrook Presbyterian Church during our Mother’s Day picnic. It was wonderful hearing them recall their stories and the different ways God used the church to serve the community. But one common theme shared by many was their insistence of reaching young people. I rushed home with the boys to prepare for their birthday party with our extended family. We had a “taco night” with fish (salmon) and chicken tacos. I also attempted to make tacos with bulgogi and kimchee. I was inspired by the Kogi trucks in LA. It wasn’t too bad, but then again, I’ve never had Kogi before so I really don’t know what they are supposed to taste like. Its a great blessing to have so much family in the area. Hopefully our parents will join us down south very soon.

On Sunday, we had four baptisms. I had the wonderful privilege of baptizing infants for the first time. George and Karen came to CTPC around the same time we did, so it was with great joy that I would have the privilege to baptize their two beautiful daughters. Also, I got a chance to baptize my daughter Alisa as well. Please pray for the little kiddies and their families that their little hearts would be good soil for the gospel to be rooted in their hearts one day. Lastly it was a joy to baptize Mayline who joined our youth group back in her high school days. I’m excited for the good things God is doing in her life. Let’s pray for her growth and sanctification as well.

One thing I totally missed which I deeply regret is forgetting to acknowledge Pauline’s last Sunday before heading off for business school in Philly. She tells me she’ll be back next week so hopefully we get a second chance to see her off the right way! Sorry Pauline!

We ended Mother’s Day by taking advantage of the beautiful weather. We got some McDonalds drive through, and headed to the local park for the boys to try out their new scooters they got for their birthday. We also took advantage of the breezy weather for some kite flying. After the kiddies went to bed, we watched my niece in her debut film, “Children of Invention”.

I’m a bit wiped out this morning, but very thankful for God’s blessings.

If I had time to squeeze these quotes in yesterday’s sermon, I would have. So there they are:

Tim Keller on lasting change…

“All change comes from deepening your understanding of the salvation of Christ and living out of the changes that understanding creates in your heart. Faith in the gospel re-structures our motivations, our self-understanding, our identity, and our view of the world. Behavioral compliance to rules without heart-change will be superficial and fleeting.”

on the difference between moralism and the gospel…

“The key difference between a Pharisee and a believer in Jesus is inner heart motivation. Pharisees are being good but out of a fearful need to control God. They don’t really trust him or love him. To them God is an exacting boss, not a loving father. Christians have seen something that has transformed their hearts toward God so they can finally love and rest in the Father. . . . Jesus Christ, who had all the power in the world, saw us enslaved by the very things we thought would free us. So he emptied himself of his glory and became a servant (Philippians 2). He laid aside the infinities and the immensities of his being and, at the cost of his life paid the debt for our sins, purchasing us the only place our hearts can rest, in his Father’s house.”

- Timothy Keller, The Prodigal God (new York, NY: Dutton, 2008)

What happens when we lose sight of our identity as Missionaries? We inevitably become ingrown. Think about an ingrown hair. Hair is supposed to grow out and be seen. But when it becomes ingrown, it grows back into itself and the skin grows over it. It’s not a pretty sight nor does it feel good. Hair is supposed to grow out, not in. Yet when the church becomes ingrown, a hard protective layer grows over it.

The focus is preserving and protecting culture and traditions rather than taking the unchanging message to our ever changing world. The focus becomes the glory of year’s past rather than focusing on what God wants to do in the here and now. For ethnic churches, their shelf life is often shorter especially when immigration patterns change. How will they not just merely survive, but thrive? We must remember that we are not only family, but simultaneously missionaries doing cross cultural mission where we are. Yes, we are family, but we are a family on mission with Jesus.

Our bible readings are in the Pastoral letters which have been good for my soul. This week, we are in Titus, Philemon, and James. Admittedly, Titus and Philemon are not on my radar very much, so I’m appreciative for a bible reading system because it covers parts that I’m not initially inclined to turn to.

Paul, a servant God and an apostle of Jesus Christ, for the sake of the faith of God’s elect and their knowledge of the truth, which accords with godliness, in hope of eternal life, which God, who never lies, promised before the ages began and at the proper time manifested in his word through the preaching with which I have been entrusted by the command of God our Savior;

At the beginning of his letter to Titus, Paul identified himself and his purpose as an apostle of Jesus Christ, which is to spur on the 1) faith of his people, and the 2) knowledge of the truth (v.1). Both go hand in hand and leads to godliness. Both faith and knowledge of the truth, rest on the hope of eternal life (v.2). In other words, Paul is giving Titus and his readers and long view of the Christian life. Since godliness on this side of heaven can be so hard to experience, is Paul showing us the long view by saying that our time here is momentary and although it seems growth is so slow and incremental, the reality is that one day, we will be godly for a long time. That should encourage us in the midst of our discouragement!

But what shall we do in the meantime? Paul points to sitting under his preaching in order to spur on faith and knowledge. Practically, this means to sit under good preaching where the gospel is central. But we also need to learn how to preach to ourselves. What are you doing daily that would stir up faith and knowledge of the truth within you? If anything, we often operate off of unbelief and deception which inevitably leads to ungodliness which stems not from a long view, but a short view of life. This is where preaching to oneself is crucial. For our minds, we must evaluate our thoughts and see if we are operating off of lies and deception. We then need to counter the lies we believe about God and ourselves with the truth of the gospel. But this is not just merely a mind exercise, but a battle for your heart as well. Our hearts are the center of our affections, desires, and worship. To extricate oneself from something you love and desire isn’t easy at all since we are all by nature, worshippers. The only way is to worship something infinitely more valuable not only for today, but for all of eternity. Jesus is not a temporary fix to get you through your life. Jesus in the central character of the BIG story in which he was so gracious to include you to be a part of it.

So keep the truth of the gospel in your mind and heart.  Keep the long view in focus. God will finish what He has started in you.

Our ministry holds three retreats a year. The youth retreat, vision retreat, and the family retreat. Admittedly, they are not spaced out very well. All of them in the first six months of the year. So I hesitate to publicizing more retreats within those same 6 months! But if you feel compelled to go and serve, I commend them to you. If you’re just a retreat junkie, then disregard.

The Lynchburg retreat has been around for 20 years or so during Memorial Weekend. The retreat brings together Chinese churches from Virginia, D.C., Maryland, and North Carolina. I’ve always been intrigued by this ministry, but since its so close to our family retreat, we’ve never gone ahead with it.

The Allentown Retreat [facebook] was the joint retreat I used to go to as a wee lad growing up in New Jersey. CTPC used to go for a couple years when I first started here, but we’ve stopped going for various reasons. This year, they’ve invited me to speak so I’ll be there this July (16-19).

If you’re interested in going, you are on your own. I’m just letting you know what’s out there. The funny thing is that Lynchburg, VA is just as far as Allentown, PA even though it’s in our own state. If the spacing was better, I’d be great to partner with other churches and work together to advance the kingdom. There’s great value in networking and partnering together to equip and reach people and region for Christ. Hopefully we can find some way to make it all work.

I wasn’t going to post on this, but since it’s Earth Day, I figured I’d do a “green” post. I’m not that organized, especially when it comes to the piles of paper and mail littered everywhere in my home office. I’m kind of a packrat in that way. I needed a file cabinet in a really bad way. But I opted to experiment and go “paperless“. Instead of plunking money on a file cabinet that I have no space for, I got a nifty multipage scanner that saves everything .pdf. I also automated most of my bills online. So most of my files are on my computer and backed up by dropbox. I’m also trying to integrate Evernote (recommended by Kevin) into my system to keep my notetaking, scanning, and everything else together and sync’ed between my desktop and laptop. I also have to be much more conscientious about pressing that “print” button for all this to work.

My biggest challenge is what to do with Matthew’s drawings. He draws about 20+ pages of stories and illustrations a day. Plus, he can’t bear to throw away his typical epic battle scenes. He’s like his dad in that respect (the packrat part!). There’s a lot of advice out there, but I can’t keep it up. I’ve tried scanning his stuff on his own flickr page to show his grandparents, but the pile is too insurmountable. So my attempts to be green are thwarted by my 5-year-old. 

Lastly, instead of jotting notes or to-do-lists on scrap pieces of paper that I usually end up losing, I use Reqall to send voice messages that are transcribed and sent as an email to my inbox. The transcription isn’t perfect, but it gets the job done. They’ve butchered my wife’s name several times. But they do save my message as a .wav file if I can’t make it out.

So how do you handle your paper clutter? How do you conserve the use of paper? How can we better at this as a church?

[wow. that was a geeky post]

I’m a day late, but Happy Easter. May we face our fears with the hope of the resurrection. Here’s two quotes on what Jesus’ death and resurrection accomplished for us:

The message of the cross takes away the burden of guilt and sin, removes forever the divine wrath from us; then it takes away the heavy burden of our selfishness and self-preoccupation. (p.74)

I am so glad for the free and absolute forgiveness of sins by the Father because of His reconciling love revealed on a blood-stained cross. I need his righteousness to cover over my best deeds as well as my worst. (p.208)

John Miller in The Heart of a Servant Leader: