Serving Bread

Loving the least: Who is loving whom?

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on July 2, 2009

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Thanks for visiting my blog, Serving Bread. Here you'll read stories, insights, reflections and ramblings from a campus minister, father, husband and Jesus-follower. If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to the RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

In the past two weeks, I have enjoyed observing how students are wrestling with issues of poverty and economics, race and class, and God’s heart and intentions for our world. As students sit through hours of input, they have had plenty of opportunities to see some of the “abstract” teachings express themselves in ministry as they interact with the various communities and ministries that serve and love the least among us.

I am praying for transformation to happen on two levels this summer. I am praying that both students and communities are transformed by the faith and good works through our summer urban program. Missions and service usually follows this formula: Those who have will share what they have with those who don’t have. This may be the basic definition of charity and volunteerism. Our students will share their time (not to mention the privilege of having six weeks set aside for an urban ministry), their energy, their intellect, their love, their knowledge, their commitment, and their money (to name a few) to serve in the various communities.

When raising funds or giving vision for projects, we do share the needs and how we are some sort of answer to the needs that are out there. And at first glance, we see how we who have are loving those who have not.

Yet as I observed the interactions between our summer interns/missionaries and the communities we are serving, it became clear that the love is and should be reciprocated. While I hope that through our interns, people’s lives are transformed and people come to know the love of Jesus in a powerful way. But I also pray that through the communities we are serving and through the least, our interns are being transformed.

Missions and ministry may not have historically pressed interdependent relationships, yet both experientially and biblically, I find interdepence is the only way to honor and serve God and God’s people. Ar Urbana ‘03, I remember being struck by the message of Ray Aldred who exhorted the delegates to think about missions as both giving and receiving. Jesus models that well in John 4 when he is both giving to the Samaritan woman but also receiving from her (asking her for a cup of water). His dependence on her opens up the relationship for powerful transformation.

Loving the least is not just about charity and volunteerism. If it were simply about that, my expectations for long-term transformation would be shallow. Loving the least is being open to be loved by others and looking for the ways that God wants to minister to us by the children, the families, and the neighborhood.

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Leadership Insight 45: Freedom to fail

Published

Eddy E

on June 30, 2009

in Leadership

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“Success is the ability to go from failure to failure without losing your enthusiasm.” — Sir Winston Churchill

“Look at entrepreneurs. All of the business literature indicates that starting a business is a phenomenally stupid thing to do. Most new businesses fail, and not simply because most would-be entrepreneurs are actually no-hopers. Even people who have founded successful companies in the past still have a 70 percent chance of failing. All those business failures are costly—but the successes are the difference between us and Tanzania. We want people to take these kinds of risks, even if that means we write off a lot of bad debt.” — Megan McArdle, The Atlantic Monthly, June 2009

I hate failure and I hate failing. Much of my ego and self-worth get crushed when I fail. I’d rather succeed and I would love to go through life experiencing nothing but success. But the reality is that there are plenty of failures I have experienced and plenty of more failures that I may experience in the future. That’s not an exciting prospect.

I have learned (and continue to learn) that failure is good. It doesn’t feel good but it builds character and provides insight. Failure should conceivably eliminate bad ideas and push forward better ones. Without failure, innovation is not really possible. And I imagine that lack of failure may point to a lack of innovation and to a plateauing of leadership and risk taking.

Churchill assumed that there will be failure along the way. Those who seek success will have testimonies of handling failures. That assumes that we are regularly putting ourselves in areas where failure is a real possibility. Playing it safe doesn’t leave room for any possibilities to fail and let alone to really succeed. Megan McArdle, in her article, wrote a defense of the bankruptcy system that we have in the United States, arguing that it gives space for people to fail and rightly so, because risks in business lead to innovation.

Over the last eleven years of ministry, I can point to some painful failures along the way. I learned two major lessons regarding failure:

We don’t know how to talk about failure. In the school system, failure is a D or F and is given as an assessment of a student’s work. Failure in business or ministry is a different kind of failure, but we operate under the guise that our failure is an assessment of our work rather than part of the learning process. After 12-16 years of striving for A’s and B’s, I want nothing for myself but excellence. It’s easy to equate my ministry as a grade and to see an F as simply an assessment of my work.
Freedom to fail leads to innovation. When there has been an environment (and leaders and supervisors tend to be best at setting such an environment) where failure is OK as long as we learn from our try, I have enjoyed ministry and have had freedom to take even more risks. I can point to several successes in my ministry over the course of the past 11 years, and a few of those came at the culmination of several failures.

Objectively, all of the best baseball players can be deemed as failures. Yet getting a hit 3 times out of 10 at bats is a worthy accomplishment. Baseball is a great game to illustrate character in negotiating failure. Batters are more often walking back to the dugout than running to base and yet they have to be prepared to learn how they would have negotiated their time at bat differently and they have to negotiate any feelings associated with having struck out. Being stuck in their failure will not do them and the team much good when they are at bat again.

As I look to our fall semester, we have made some significant changes to our outreach that are not necessarily guaranteed to work. Some of those ideas may fail. My prayer is to have a posture that is willing to keep innovating and yet learning from the failures that come along with the hoped-for successes.

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Leadership Insight 12: Watch and Learn

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Leadership Insight 31: For better or for worse

Equity vs Equality

Published

Eddy E

on June 29, 2009

in General and Ministry

. 0 Comments

Doing cross-cultural relationships well is an important and biblical value. The Apostle Paul spent much of his energy, a good portion of his writings, and gambled his relational influence to make sure that the young church would not only value but be a multi-ethnic community. Crossing cultures can be complicated and cross-cultural ministry can be just as complicated. We have to understand the culture and learn how to navigate the relationship.

I recently read an article outlining the differences between collectivist and individualistic cultures. These two cultures tend to have certain bedrock values that may not be present in the other culture. For example, individualistic cultures tend to value freedom as a top value while collectivist cultures put a primary focus on harmony. While the values in the cultures are not necessarily exclusive, they will create relational conflict. Because we are all products of culture, we will hold positions and come to decisions that focus on a value particular to our culture but not as important to another culture. And if we consider our particular set of values as more biblical, we will fail in building cross-cultural relationships.

One set of conflicting values in individualistic and collectivist cultures is the notion of equality versus equity. Collectivist cultures tend to value equality over equity, while individualistic cultures value equity over equality. Here’s how one set of writers describes the difference:

Note the equality vs equity distinction between collectivist and individualist values. Assume that there are four people in a work group and that an objective outsider concludes that the people contributed to the group’s success in the following ratio: person A, 20%; B, 30%; C, 15%; and D, 35%. Equality means that any reward are distributed evenly across the four people: 25% to each…. Equity means that the rewards are distributed according to contributions: 20%, 30%, 15%, and 35% for A, B, C, D, respectively. (Training and Individual Collectivism, H. C. Triandis et al.)

I found this to be a fascinating insight. Neither value is right or wrong or even more biblical. I can see the biblical principles present in both values. Since in the west we value equity over equality, it would be easy to extend judgment toward other cultures that find it odd that we put so much of our energy in promoting equity rather than equality.

Years ago I participated in a cross-cultural program in China. We faced the conflict of values often during our six weeks interacting with university students. One way we saw the value come up was in sports and games. Many of the Chinese games promoted and valued that everyone plays and everyone wins. Since all will share in the experience equally, it is only right to allow all to share in the “victory.” (There are a few other values at play in this example) As Americans, we were frustrated that there was no sense of competition or even a victor at the culmination of the game. We wanted winners and losers. There is nothing wrong in how we perceived athletics and I would argue that there is nothing wrong in how the Chinese students perceived the games. As an inter-cultural community, we were learning how to negotiate conflicting values.

And that’s really where the gospel can shed the most light: how to negotiate conflicting values. No one culture in history can claim a monopoly on being a perfect reflection of God’s intent for culture. Some may have come close and others have been farther out, but all will have values that reflect both sin and righteousness. The Apostle Paul was a master at crossing cultures because he learned to enter with a posture of humility and not judgment. And he valued crossing cultures seeing that somehow the gospel and cross-cultural relationships should and did go hand in hand.

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Book Review: Economics in Christian Perspective by Claar and Klay

Published

Eddy E

on June 28, 2009

in Book Review

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The authors wrote this book when they concluded that most people who critique economics from a Christian perspective are not economists. As they write in their preface, “while several currently available books approach economic issues from a Christian perspective, most are unconcerned with basic notions of economic theory… due to their failure to consider economic theory and evidence, their policy recommendations are sometimes dramatically inconsistent with the essential, orthodox principles of economics.”

In the book, the authors explain basic economic theory and try to critique that theory against a biblical framework. A reader with no training or understanding of basic economic theory should have little trouble understanding their arguments. I appreciate (and hope that Christian publishers continue) that IVP published such a book. The recent downturn in our economy has revealed

how important economic theory and practice is. As believers, we need to know how the system works and how to bring influence both within the system and outside of it. I may not agree with everything the authors argue, but I appreciate their investment in the dialogue (and I hope a dialogue continues).

In reviewing this book, I will list some helpful insights from the book and also note my critiques and disagreements. I admit I’m not an “economist” nor a “theologian” in the traditional understanding of those terms.

Insights I appreciated:

What sounds good may not be good in the long run. Politicians are guilty of advocating certain economic policies that can create more havoc in the long run.
Our hope is in Jesus and not in any government institution. Tax policy is one of those tricky political and economic issues that often solicits the question of how much we trust our government. Regardless of our views of government, even those institutions will pale in comparison to the hope that Jesus offers.
Regardless of the role of government, we need to be faithful to our convictions. The authors show data that in countries where government has a bigger role in society (and thus a higher tax rate), the tithing rate is lower. We often spend more time criticizing the role of government and our tax rate than being faithful with what we have.
Economics forces decision-making (Trade-offs and opportunity costs). “For everything you do, there is something you are choosing to leave undone.” This is true in how we spend our money and our time. Everything we do has costs. As believers we need to be faithful with the resources at hand and to pray and ask God for wisdom to steward those resources well.

Critiques of the book:

An apologetic for market economics. For the most part, this book is an apologetic for market economics (and especially the conservative bent of market economics / capitalism). While I think that market economics is probably the best system we have today, I wouldn’t go so far as to defend it and place it within Christian perspective. All things fall short of God’s intentions, and that includes economic theories and systems.
Lack of prophetic voice. I don’t think there was much of a prophetic voice in this book. The reason that there are uniformed Christians who critique our economic system is because there is a sense that the system is not working for people, and thus we need to keep the system accountable and point out the ways that it can fall short of God’s intentions. This book fails to provide any sort of prophetic voice. Two ways I saw the lack of voice in this book:
1. The authors cite the notion that “sunk costs are sunk.” This means that, “costs incurred in the past that cannot possibly be recovered are irrelevant to today’s decision making.” Actually, I would want costs of the past to be at play in today’s decision making. Decision makers should be held responsible for past decisions, and we need to recognize how much at play the costs of past decisions are in our current economic climate. The prophetic voice would speak about sunk costs and recognize that the past is not past. While Jesus forgives us and we are free from past sins, our discipleship depends on how we plot a path of repentance and learn the lessons of the past.

2. While the authors do well to explain to us how to operate within our system, they fail to outline how to stand outside of the system and critique it’s failures. One of my issues with American-style capitalism is it’s emphasis on a consumer culture. Consumers drive the economy. When people stop spending their money, the system begins to fail (which is what we have now). I would have liked a stronger criticism against consumerism.
Weak on extracting principles. It is difficult to apply the economic system of scripture to our society because so much of the ancient society differs from ours. The best we can do is to extract principles. The authors seem to have started with a (again, generally positive) critique of the current system, and looked to scripture to extract principles that validate such a system. For example, they argue that the government can be guilty of stealing with higher tax rates. I would have rather had the authors begin with scripture, extract the lessons, and see how our economic system stands against the testimony of the Bible.

After reading this book, I realized that I need economists in my life. I need people who can understand and interpret the data and advocate policies that stimulate economic growth for everyone. But I also need the voice of those who remind us that God intends so much more for us than what market economics promises. I especially need the voice of those who tirelessly advocate for the least and who are free to point out all the ways that the system doesn’t work or that the system can work even better. My final critique is to the publisher who titled the book, Economics in Christian Perspective. I think a better title would have been “Economics in a particular Christian Perspective.” (But that’s just not catchy!) I hope that this book opens the dialogue and invites Christian economists to provide various other (including dissenting) commentaries on economics.

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Twitter Weekly Updates for 2009-06-27

Published

Eddy E

on June 27, 2009

in General

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I'm finally home. It's been too long. http://twitpic.com/7xude #
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LAUP Day 3: Learning to open our eyes and look. Seems like most people refuse to look. #
Challenge from LAUP: Christian unity is the reconciliation and peace between culture/race/ethnicity, not doing things together as Christians #
SC Gov. Mark Sanford admits he's had an affair
http://bit.ly/MhBKD #
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Thinking and praying for the 33 students who are engaged in urban ministry in LA beginning today #
A “new” take on Ephesians 6.10-20 http://tinyurl.com/ndg4uw #

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A “new” take on Ephesians 6.10-20

Published

Eddy E

on June 26, 2009

in Bible and Theology

. 0 Comments

Last night, I had a chance to preach on Ephesians 6.10-20. It’s a fairly familiar passage for me, as it captures the cosmic battle at play and how God prepares believers for that battle. As I spent some time familiarizing myself with the passage, I came to some observations regarding the focus and purpose of the passage.

The general teaching on this passage is best captured by the following graphic: eph6

Most Christians will agree that there is a battle in our world. We recognize the ways that evil has permeated into our world and that God had not intended that for our world. And though evil is often manifested through physical means (gang violence, poor education, systemic racism), their roots lie in the spiritual world. The Apostle Paul reminds us that our struggle is against the “cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.” There are spiritual forces at play that are at war against the purposes and goodness of God.

Because of this cosmic reality, Paul exhorts his listeners to “take up the whole armor of God.” (It is somewhat ironic that Paul argues that the battle is in the spiritual (”unseen”) realm, yet he invites listeners to outfit in a very physical way) The armor of God, though physical in its description, has spiritual implications that are meant to empower believers in the cosmic struggle.

The early listeners would have heard Paul describe a Roman Soldier. At around Paul’s writings, the Roman military was the most feared entity in the known world. The army was disciplined, organized and very strategically minded. Soldiers knew how to fight well and defend themselves well. And their uniforms were sophisticated and technologically advanced. These soldiers were organized into centuries and legions and fought as a unit. In defense situations, the unity of the army made them that much stronger, as they used their shields in such a way as to create a better defense in response to the incoming missiles. They needed one another to defend themselves and to defeat the enemy.

As Paul completes his letter to the church in Ephesus, he uses the image of the roman soldier not so much as to equip individuals in the struggle, but to equip the church for its struggle. This passage is not a checklist for individuals to wake up in the morning and make sure they have put on the whole armor of God. This passage is for the church to see the cosmic battle at play and for the church community to put on the armor for the battle at hand.

Most of the wars and battles the Romans fought, they won. Some historians have noted that the army lost when it neglected its unity. When the enemy was successful in creating distrust and desertion in the army, the Romans lost (even though they were more numerous and more technologically advanced).

In reflection on my life, I recognize that the threats of the evil forces come to me in form of disappointments and despair, sin and temptation. And I can spend (and have spent) much of my energy to equip myself in such a way as to defeat those things. But ultimately, I have discovered that when I have been a part of a community that was strong and united, the wiles of the devil became less threatening.

Many Christians will settle for weak communities or no community at all. Many Christians will claim that the church will hinder rather than grow their faith. For those who either want to or believe they can address the battle on their own are not only walking against the grain of Biblical teaching, but they are preparing themselves for defeat.

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Finance Friday 42: You too can live on $30 / week

Published

Eddy E

on June 26, 2009

in Finance Fridays

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This past week,we began a summer-long urban project in Los Angeles, where young college students from around the country will engage issues of poverty and in justice in the city. One of the values underlying the program is to give the interns a glimpse into the lives of the poor and how the folks who are caught up in a cycle of poverty negotiate life on less means.

We ask students to leave credit and bank cards behind and bring no cash with them for the summer, instead relying on God’s provision through stipends. Each student receives $30 a week to cover food, gas, miscellaneous groceries (such as detergent), and even a tithe to a local church. It is daunting to live on limited means. I watched my team of five students deliberate on how to spend their modest stipend. They quickly had to learn how to negotiate differences in taste (brown rice or white rice? Which vegetables and fruits?) and to think creatively in creating menus for the week that allow them to be operate within their means.

The team shopped well and ate well and as they begin the second week, they have $6 of excess from the previous week. And the team was so excited to have ended the week knowing that they lived within their given means. A team stipend of $150 for five students may not be much but taht is a reality that many families live with. Our students are learning to live both in solidarity with the neighbors of their community and in simplicity. They are not only learning to shop in places where they can get more for less, they are learning how to negotiate differences and doing so in community.

My team has challenged me in how I organize my budget. If my family were to live under these guidelines, we would be spending $120 a week and just shy of $500 a month on groceries. In some respects, this should be enough, but as I look over my budget, I constantly find myself going several hundred dollars over such a budget. In reflecting over my team’s experience this past week, I have learned several important lessons from them:

Shop with a list. The team mapped out their menus for the week and bought only what they needed. In fact, at one point during their shopping trip they realized they were going to go over their budget, so they cut some of the food to remain under the allocated stipend.
Shop with a budget. When we shop with a budget, what happens is that we say yes to some things and are forced to say no to other things. I often shop for what I want. Shopping with a budget forces us to negotiate and say no to some things.
Shop at the cheaper places. I have been shopping at a Korean market for my produce because it is about 40%-50% cheaper than the big-name supermarket.
Stay away from packaged stuff. Packaged goods will generally cost more because you are paying for the packaging. For example, rather than buy spinach in a bag, buy them loose-leafed. I found out that I can buy my rice and beans that way too!
Careful when buying in bulk. Though buying in bulk could be cheaper in the long run, I have found that I may not end up saving as much as I anticipate. Some of that has to do with impulsive buying and some of it has to do with the desire to buy more because other stuff is cheaper. Bulk shopping feels like an art that I haven’t mastered very well.

I am motivated to be a bit more thoughtful about how I shop for my weekly groceries. As a family, I don’t see why we couldn’t live on $120 a week. I will give an update on how we are doing in a couple of months.

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Signature Sins by Michael Mangis

Published

Eddy E

on June 25, 2009

in Book Review

. 2 Comments

I recommend Signature Sins by Michael Mangis for anyone who knows and feels like sin is a bit more than just what we do wrong (or we leave undone). A practicing psychologist, Mangis explores how sin can take root in our lives and he provides practical insights on addressing the sins in our lives. He organizes sin around the classic understanding of the seven deadly sins: anger, sloth, gluttony, envy, pride, lust, and greed. He also adds fear to that list.

Using some of the insights of the early Christian writers (notably Augustine), he addresses the different components and manifestations of each of those sins. For example, greed can be manifested as avarice (the inordinate pursuit of wealth and material things) and stinginess (inordinately hoarding money). In doing so, he illustrates the magnitude of how sin creeps its ugly head in our lives

Mangis bases his understanding of sin on Oswald Chambers definition that sin lies in “an incurable suspicion” that God is not good. In laying out the various sins, he invites readers to name signature sins. Writing with some level of vulnerability, he argues that we need to name the sins that most have power to define us. When we name these “signature sins,” we are better equipped to address and combat them.

In addition to the seven deadly sins, Mangis spends some time on the Eneagram and Myers-Briggs temperaments, identifying how each of these tools can shed light on our signature sins. While this section may not be too helpful for people who are not familiar with these assessments, it provides depth to how our personality and our passions motivate us toward certain kinds of sin.

He closes the book with plenty of practical applications and calls for discipline. The reason that naming our sin is important is because each sin will require a different set of disciplines to help us flee from its entangling powers. In my last installment of Finance Friday, I write of disciplines that help us address greed in our lives. His final chapter invites readers to make commitments known as a rule of life. The various monastic traditions have done good with this. John Wesley led his followers through a set of rules. I am inspired to create a rule of life for myself to assist me in deepening my understanding of sin and grace.

A few years ago, I had the privilege of having a private lunch with Dr. Dallas Willard. During that lunch, I asked him why he ended up in a secular academic setting when so much of his writings are geared around spiritual formation. Why not be a pastor? He told me that he started his career as a pastor. And after ten years, he realized that people had not changed one bit. They claim that they want change in their lives, but the sins and the temptations remained the same. His disappointment led him to look for other means of influencing the church. Michael Mangis’s book is one of the most best books I had read on the subject of spiritual formation, where he calls readers to not be satisfied with the sins in our lives, but to proactively address these entanglements where we can testify ten years from now that we are changed beings.

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Overworked

Twitter Weekly Updates for 2009-06-20

Published

Eddy E

on June 20, 2009

in General

. 0 Comments

@mattemeyer leave infidel… in reply to mattemeyer #
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Xian life isn't merely the remembrance of a historical Christ in the past, but it is fellowship with a living Christ–with us now (H. Mears) #
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Finance Friday 41: Greed as a deadly sin http://tinyurl.com/m8whdu #

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Finance Friday 41: Greed as a deadly sin

Published

Eddy E

on June 19, 2009

in Finance Fridays

. 0 Comments

My devotions in this season have included input from Michael Mangis’s Signature Sins. In this book, Mangis explores how sin takes root in our soul and how to focus our attention on being more Christ-like. He works with the church’s classic understanding of sin as categorized by the fourth-century monk Evagrius and reformed by Pope Gregory I. We know this list as the seven deadly sins.

For this edition of Finance Friday, I’m exploring the sin of greed, using Mangis’s reflections as a starting point. Greed can best be summed by entrepreneur turned philanthropist Andrew Carnegie’s response to the question, “How much money is enough?” His response was, “Just a little more.”

Though greed does not discriminate between cultures, I think it is more prevalent in a culture as wealthy as ours. It does not discriminate among class or race. The poor may express greed as much as the wealthy. Greed is being discontent with what we have and put our satisfaction in gaining more. And unfortunately, greed has become a gray area. We tend to justify it more than some of the other sins.

Saint Augustine has identified different strands of greed which I find helpful in defining and understanding greed:

Avarice: The inordinate pursuit of wealth and material things by either honest or dishonest means.
Inordinate ambition: The lust for power and status.
Prodigality: Wastefulness and extravagance.
Stinginess: Hoarding money and obsessing with security, imagining that wealth can protect us.
Domination: Insisting having things our own way.

In all these manifestations of greed, we fail to live up to God’s intentions for us and our resources. As I look at the above list, I find that prodigality and domination can tend to rear their ugly heads in my life. Though I value spending my money wisely, I recognize my struggles with prodigality. God began my disciplines of good finances ten years ago when I came to the realization that I had been living beyond my means, racking up debt, and valuing extravagance over simplicity. Though I have taken steps toward addressing this area of sin in my life, I confess that it is (as Michael Mangis calls it) a signature sin and an area I must revisit often.

Second, I can tend toward domination with how I use my finances, especially in my generosity. I enjoy giving. But I sometimes tend toward being judgmental on how my finances are used. I acknowledge that there is a healthy element to demand good accountability in our giving, but my expectations often go beyond accountability.

If greed has taken root in our lives, we have to address it and it’s effects. I find spiritual disciplines to be the appropriate practices to address sin and work to root it out. First, we need to confess the sin and how it manifests itself in our lives. Naming the sin allows us to understand what we are working with and begins to shed light on it. Light kills sin.

Second, we need to understand which disciplines we need to respond to the particular shade of greed that affects us. In the area of greed, I find that the following disciplines and practices will empower us to overcome it.

Avarice: Seeking accountability to limit excess, encourage integrity and live on a budget that limits your expenses. Give away anything above your set limit.
Inordinate ambition: Commit to volunteer behind the scenes.
Prodigality: Seek accountability, set a budget, and don’t carry your credit cards.
Stinginess: Push yourself to be more generous, trusting that your security is in God and not wealth. Set your budget to a point that tests your faith.
Domination: Give anonymously.

I don’t think there is anything magical in the disciplines mentoined above. And they are certainly not thorough. Prayer, meditation on God’s promises, community and Bible Study should also be a part of the process. I’ve just mentioned some ideas that are unique to the particular form of greed.

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