Monthly Archive for July, 2007

Leadership Insight 6: God is great

Published
by
Eddy E
on July 31, 2007
in Leadership
. 0 Comments

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!

Then sings my soul, my Savior God, to Thee;
How great Thou art, how great Thou art!
Then sings my soul, My Savior God, to Thee:
How great Thou art, how great Thou art!

– Carl Boberg, hymn popularized by George Beverly Shea

God is great. Muslims have that phrase at the core of their religion, but they certainly do not have a market on the greatness of God. In fact, I believe that only through Jesus (and therefore through Christianity) can we recognize the greatness of God.

God is great. Our imagination is often far too small to recognize how great God is. I sometimes read through passages of Scripture (especially the Psalms) without comprehending the greatness of God. What I am recognizing in recent days is that a recognition of God’s greatness has profound implications on leadership.

When we connect to the living God and recognize God for God, we recognize the depth of God’s call on our lives. The vision for our city, country, or campus may often be too small for the vision and the kind of transformation God hopes to bring. My prayers are often not bold enough and my eyes are not wide enough to believe God for the transformation of communities.

When we recognize the greatness of God, we will love the purposes of God and we will believe God for the faith steps we take. Implementing any vision is faith producing (regardless of the person’s religion). When we tap into God’s vision and we believe God for his equipping, we will have joy in leading people toward the vision.

And this is why I appreciate historical mentors. The Wesleys and Carey and the friars of the Middle Ages give me perspective on the greatness of God and the potential of people.

If we want transformed people and transformed communities, we have no choice but to connect them to the greatness of God. True leadership will nurture people’s faith where conviction will come from the Lord and God will provide the accountability toward that conviction.

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I think he/she is cute

Published
by
Eddy E
on July 27, 2007
in Family Life
. 4 Comments

Before you are too quick to wonder the cuteness of this one, remember that this little one has a few things working against him or her—like not all of his or her organs are developed yet.

ultrasound

 

Rhoda went in to her two month check-up and all is well so far. The baby is due to be born in February (Due date is February 14!) We are excited for the expansion. We think Layla is excited too.

Layla Kiss

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Aliens among us, Part V: The American Dream

Published
by
Eddy E
on July 26, 2007
in In The News
. 0 Comments

In Part III of this series, I looked at pull and push factors that cause people to migrate. In this post, I will specifically look at the pull factors. Over the years, I have learned that in nearly every situation, it is wise to first look at my contribution in conflict rather than lay the blame on others. I guess I am learning how to apply Matthew 7.1-5, where we are to judge ourselves before judging others.

As Americans, we are excellent marketers and proselytisers of the American dream. The image that the rest of the world gets from America may be very different from how the ordinary American feels about his or her country. For example, many in the Muslim world believe that America is a Christian nation. While many of us will contend that we are far from being a Christian nation, that is not the image that the rest of the world may have of us.

One image that we produce is the economic mobility that the American dream offers. “If we work hard enough, we can be anything we want” is our motto. Yet that is often far from the truth. Many people come to the United States in search of the jobs and the mobility that is only found in Hollywood movies. Unfortunately, over time they realize that the American dream is just that, a dream.

I think of the character Colonel Behrani in the book (and movie) House of Sand and Fog by Andre Dubus III. Behrani flees Iran with his family during the Iranian revolution in the late 70s. He comes to the United States, believing in the American dream of a new and better life for his family, only to quickly confront racism and classism and a way of life that is foreign to his Persian culture.

The discourse on immigration spends far too much of its energy confronting “those illegals” (or even “legals”). We blame the very people that catch the bait that the American dream offers. We are successful at prosletyzing this dream, but once they are here, we don’t want them here.

As Christians and as the American Church, we have to be wary at what we embody to the rest of the world. Are we ambassadors of Christ or are we propagators of the American dream?

It seems that there are several ways that American Christians contribute to the Hollywood image of America. We lack a healthy theology of suffering. We escape or medicate suffering so that we suffer no more. When that is our theology, we invite people to come to a “better place” which is here and not there.

Second, we confuse American with Christian. We are quick to address synchrotism in other cultures but we forget that our version of Christianity might be mired in Americanism and Westernism that is not necessary Biblical. And as we send people on (short-term) mission projects, we may be inviting people into Americanism rather than Christianity.

The discussion and debate on immigration is complex. There are many issues, and it would be amiss if we did not recognize how we contribute in painting a (false) picture of the American dream.

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Thoughts on the Democratic YouTube/CNN Debate

Published
by
Eddy E
on July 24, 2007
in Politics
. 1 Comment

I caught most of the Democrat’s YouTube/CNN Debate. I thought the format was engaging and creative. People all across America submitted questions via YouTube to the candidates. What a great way of combining new media with old media!

It’s hard to say if anyone came across as a clear winner. There were too many candidates and not enough time given to each candidate to allow them to articulate their position. Also, most of their positions on most of the topics is similar. What I can say though is that the winner of the debate was the Democratic Party.

When I survey this pool of candidates, I am impressed how they are articulating their position. Four years ago, you didn’t know what the Democrats or Kerry really stood for. This time around, if I were to vote for a Democrat, it would not be a protest vote (like it was in 2004).

Here are some thoughts:

  • Clinton is one smart and tough cookie. Her command of foreign policy and diplomacy makes her a credible candidate and legitimate candidate. She has experience, intellect, and (in my opinion) integrity. It is unfortunate that people think she is a polarizing figure and that she has a high unfavorable impression by conservatives. At this point in time, I would support her.
  • I like Obama, but I was unimpressed by him. The debate showed how green he really is (especially when it comes to foreign policy issues). I had a professor in college who recommended that we always vote for our president based on his or her foreign policy position. Though he may have some good ideas regarding domestic issues, I could not vote for Obama based on his grasp of foreign policy issues.
  • Edwards did nothing to gain my confidence that he would be a solid next president. I still don’t trust him in that seat.
  • It is unfortunate that Joe Biden doesn’t have more support and he doesn’t get more coverage. He is a solid candidate, and I wonder if he was the nominee in 2004, we might actually have a President Joe Biden right now. He came across as an honest legislator who has a command of the issues.
  • I think Bill Richardson would be a fantastic VP.
  • I didn’t catch anything fresh from Dodd. Mike Gravel is a joke and a relic of the old left. He knows he doesn’t stand a chance and his candidacy is simply to stir up the pot. Unfortunately he is on the wrong side of most of the issues (legalize drugs, get rid of free trade, withdraw immediately from Iraq), and it would be for better debates without his firecracker and inappropriate comments.
  • Dennis Kucinich is a good man. He is a man of conviction and integrity, but he just doesn’t come across as one who knows how to negotiate when needed, and to be taken seriously on the world stage.

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Leadership Insight 5: Everyone’s a Teacher

Published
by
Eddy E
on July 24, 2007
in Leadership
. 1 Comment

A few years ago I attended a weekend conference on preaching. There were a few of us who were new to the ministry and the weekend served to teach us how to draft sermons. The teacher for the weekend was a professor at a local seminary.

One of the things that  stuck with me was the professor’s learning posture to better his craft. He visits several churches every Sunday morning and he pays particular attention to the sermon that the pastor preaches. He keeps a running tally of what he is learning from the pastor. When he likes the sermon, he jots what he likes about the sermon. If he doesn’t like the sermon, he takes notes on what he doesn’t like about the sermon.

This professor teaches preaching to young students. We might consider him an expert on the subject. And rather than criticize pastors who give disappointing sermons, this professor tries to learn from them. The good and the bad teach him to be better at his craft.

Sometimes we can think of those who know more than we do to be our teachers. We look to the things they have that we don’t have, and aspire to incorporate those things into our lives. Good leaders will learn from the experts. Better leaders will learn from everyone.

This is an important value that allows us to practice humility for the sake of our growth. A few months ago I was at a meeting of various ministry leaders learning to do evangelism. I didn’t want to be at that meeting nor did I think that the training was that effective. During the meeting, I asked myself several questions, “Is there anything here that is useful? What is effective in this method? What is ineffective? What is my philosophy of evangelism and why?”

Rather than feel like my afternoon was wasted, I looked for ways to redeem that time by learning from the situation. On the one hand, I did not think that anyone at that meeting had anything to offer me. On the other hand, this meeting was the perfect laboratory to learn. What could have been wasted was redeemed to be a growing experience.

Like the professor, leadership needs to be shaped both by experts and those who may fail at their particular craft.

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Hey there Khalilah

Published
by
Eddy E
on July 23, 2007
in General
. 0 Comments

Enjoy :)

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Should religion count?

Published
by
Eddy E
on July 22, 2007
in Politics
. 0 Comments

A few months ago, I heard Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid tell a reporter that it is inappropriate for a politician to wear his or her religion on his or her sleeve. According to Reid, religion is a personal matter between the person and God. I presume Reid is reacting to the marriage between conservative Republicans and conservative Christians that has nearly baptized the Republican party to be the Christian party.

Reid is right in that religion is a personal matter between a person and God, but that is only a small slice of the role that religion should play in our lives. There is an aspect of my relationship with God that is deeply personal, but how I view my God and how I believe my God views me has implications on my decisions and how I live my life.

In this election season, candidates (both on the left and the right) are talking up how important their religion is. I am especially glad that the Democrats (Reid’s party) have rejected Reid’s line of thinking. In fact, it is healthy for politicians to speak of their religious beliefs and to illustrate how their religious convictions drive their policy.

What has been amiss in the last 25 years is that the Democrats (for the most part) shied away from religion by trying to woo the liberal vote, while Republicans found their base in the religious community. While some Democrats who ran for office had faith, they chose to not speak of their faith.

If religion continues to take a more prominent place in the national discourse, it will create several problems for the Church and Christians in general.

First, politics should not replace the role of the Church. When we believe that government and politics have solutions for spiritual problems, we are tempted to put hope in politicians rather than the local church. This does not mean that the answer to all problems is simply “just have faith in Jesus.” However, it does mean that many of the problems we experience are not temporal problems but spiritual problems. Poverty is not simply an economic problem, but it is a spiritual problem. To answer poverty simply with economic solutions would never address the problem of poverty.

Second, faithful people should be able to disagree politically. My concern is that the rhetoric of the left will begin to match the worst that we find on the right—that faithfulness would be to vote for a certain candidate over the other candidates. As a non-partisan (swing) voter, I am not convinced that either party has a market on religion and I will hold candidates to a higher standard if they begin to link religion and politics (especially since there are so few quality examples of people who have been able to practice religion through politics, and because there are so many gross injustices by those who have practiced religion through politics).

Politicians have great power to do good, but it seems that the church has at times ceded it’s authority to politicians. Rather than give to Ceasar what is due to him and to God what is due to him, we seem to believe that all things really belong to Ceasar and therefore Ceasar can fix everything. And we seem to also believe that our hands are tied unless our politicians act.

My ideal would be to be in a place where the local church is “shaming” our politicians and the political system, bringing transformation to communities, educating the young, empowering the poor, and practicing excellent diplomacy. Let us transform our communities in the way that we want our politicians to transform our country. Let us first practice economic reforms in our communities in the way that we want our politicians to influence monetary policy. Let us work on race relations in a way that would be a model that would be fair and right to legislate. Let the politicians take their cues from the Church rather than the other way around.

Religion should absolutely and unequivocally count. The greatest politicians would be the ones who are faithful with the authority given to them, and yet recognize that the greatest authority is not found in the halls of Washington, but in the power of God.

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Do Jews have a divine right to the Promised Land?

Published
by
Eddy E
on July 20, 2007
in General
. 0 Comments

I just read an article over at Desiring God (John Piper’s online presence) regarding this very question. Though the article is not exhaustive nor necessarily authoritative on the issue, Piper draws a fair (and Biblical) argument on why Israel as we know her today cannot claim that the land divinely belongs to her.

Piper writes, “Both the blessed status of the people and the privileged right to the land are conditional on Israel’s keeping the covenant God made with her.” In his estimation, the Jews have violated their end of the covenant and therefore it is fair to question their divine right to the land.

He concludes his article with suggestions to use measures outside of the Bible on claims to land. “And until that great day when both Jewish and Gentile followers of King Jesus inherit the earth (not just the land), without lifting sword or gun, the rights of nations should be decided by the principles of compassionate and public justice, not claims to national divine right or status.”

(As a side-note, it is worth noting that many Jews do not lay claim to Israel on the authority of scripture. Zionism was never a Biblical mandate. It is Christian Zionists—found mostly in the United States—who have played up the argument that the state of Israel is the fulfillment of Biblical prophecy.)

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Interesting facts about the world’s richest 0.16%

Published
by
Eddy E
on July 20, 2007
in It's the economy stupid!
. 0 Comments

Here are some highlights from the annual World Wealth Report by Merrill Lynch and Capgemini:

  • 9.5 million people worldwide were millionaires in 2006 (an increase of 8.3% over 2005).
  • The world’s millionaires are worth a combined $37.2 trillion (that’s almost $4 million per person).
  • Their total charitable giving was $258 billion, which is a 0.69% “tithe”.
  • Latin America and Africa have the largest percentage of the super-rich (those who are worth more than $30 million). In other words, the gap between the rich and the super-rich is the widest in those regions.
  • But these folks also spent 1.8% of their net worth last year to “investments of passion” (i.e. material things that make them happy).

(HT: “Time Magazine”, July 16, 2007, page 14-15)

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Heroes with difficult marriages

Published
by
Eddy E
on July 19, 2007
in Biography and Reflections
. 1 Comment

I just finished reading Faithful Witness: The life and mission of William Carey. Like many other Christian biographies I have read, it inspired me (I will reflect on lessons in a future post). What disturbed me though is the breakdown of his first marriage (he was married three times) and his relationships with his other two wives.

Carey

Carey is sometimes referred to as the founder of modern missions. His faithfulness to India and its people for 41 years inspires me to be faithful to the things that God calls me, despite any hardships. He proclaimed the gospel with no shame and labored to translate the word of God so that people would know God in their mother tongue. I am grateful to God for Carey and his vision.

However, I was disappointed to read about his difficult marriage with his first wife, Dolly. Though the biography is a little sketchy on what exactly happened (most biographies paint Dolly in a negative light), it seems that Carey paid more attention to his vision and ministry than to his marriage.

I don’t doubt that Dolly had her fair share of character and sin issues, but it seems that Carey failed (but perhaps never really realized) in loving his wife. She had more hesitations to give her life to India, yet Carey was not sensitive to her concerns. (Carey first left for India when she was 8 months pregnant). When her son died in India, Dolly never recovered and she had a mental breakdown to the point that many of his friends suggested to him that he check her into an asylum (Carey refused).

Within six weeks of her death, Carey was engaged to Charlotte von Rumohr. It seems that Carey loved Charlotte the most of the three wives. She died before him, and though he remarried, he asked that he be buried beside her when he died. It makes me wonder how his third wife, Grace Hughes, would have felt.

As I am compiling a list of lessons from William Carey, it is hard to know how to glean marital lessons. Another hero of the faith, John Wesley, also had marital problems that can be traced to Wesley’s emphasis on his ministry rather than his marriage.

There are many Christian leaders today who forsake their marriage for the sake of the ministry. Like many other things, even ministry can be addicting and can be the “whore” that comes between a husband and a wife. I have been in full-time ministry for nine years and married for nearly six years. Over the past six years, I have had to learn and re-learn how to focus on my marriage and my family. The tension of family and ministry are real and it seems that every season brings new challenges that require me to reconsider my priorities.

When I read Carey and Wesley, I am inspired to model my life after them, but I am also cautious to find a better model that would honor my devotion to my wife and my family. But is it really possible? If I were to pursue faith like Carey and Wesley, will my marriage suffer? And is it fair to consider these men as heroes of the faith when they neglected such important responsibilities as husbands?

These are some of the questions that are lingering in my head. We all want to believe that our heroes are perfect and without blemish. But I am learning the difficult truth that some of my heroes may be far more broken than I would like them to be.

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