to the christians in my generation

I heard one time that when you crave chocolate your body actually needs protein, sure chocolate might have some good things to offer but a steady diet will leave you malnourished and if you really would have ate protein you would have fixed the problem. It seems as if the current generation has come to the Emergent church, much like people who crave chocolate really are needing protein.

My generation has had it with the hypocrisy, the legalism and the watered down disconnected evangelicalism, that seems to be all about formulas. It is right to be frustrated by these things. It seeks authenticity, truth that makes sense in everyday life, humble acknowledgement  that we don’t have all the answers, a renewed appreciation for arts in the church, and getting rid of some of the focus on trial matters. Then comes the Emergent church, with it’s loving tolerance, introspection, frankness, and cultural sensitivity.

 

It has scratched the itch, but only for the moment. It leaves us sidetracked with open-ended contemplative questions but few answers. It is self contradictive but redefines things in such a way as to seem profound. But it is lacking. It, like our current culture, has many uninformed opinions not rooted in any historical fact. It has cut both it’s legs and then wants to redefine what standing really means. It leaves spiritually anemic Christians that want to share Christ with others but since the gospel has been so stripped down there isn’t much left to share that even resembles the gospel.

 

I can say, at least for myself that it has been a battle not to get swept into this stream. If it is not called out for what it truly is, it can be quite appealing. For those that grew up in church and had some bad experiences, or where told if they listened to rock music they were going to hell, or that they were supposed to hate gay people. We should react strongly to these errors we were possibly exposed to. We should seek orthodoxy and faith that has meat on it’s bones. We should reject the health wealth and prosperity gospel that is out there. But we should not turn to the Emergent church for answers. (first of all because they aren’t giving any, they are mostly asking questions) We should seek truth, it hasn’t died in the 21^st century as many people would say it has. Christ is still alive and working. We should seek to communicate this truth to a post-modern audience without compromising it’s integrity. We should not just pick up the newest Christian book with an edgy cover and just mindlessly ingest the entire thing. We should go back to studying theology and wrestling with some issues. Truth doesn’t change, culture does. We should be in the world and not of the world. Our clothes might change with the times but our truth should not. We need to be discerning! 

how sure is "sure"?

Exactly to what degree does one have to be sure about something to move out of the realm of indecision towards decision? There has to be some point where one says, ok I think I can say I am sure now and not just wavering in uncertainty. This could apply to many life situations, where one is having to make decisions. I struggle with this. I over-think it, over analyze. Sure I might make fun of some of my friends for spending way too much time thinking over what soft drink to get or what to pick on a menu (you know who you are and I love you, and wouldn't want you to change), but really I am no different when it comes to them in larger matters. I think about all the different possibly options and how all the little decisions can have huge effects on the larger decisions. That is all I will say because I know that it is exhausting to have these long drawn out thoughts in my head and I don't really want to exhaust anyone else with them any longer than necessary. So you get my point. But there must be a certain point someone reaches where they are ready to stop musing about something and plan a course of action and take it. I know a lot of people aren't ever really 100% positive when making huge life decisions, which honestly scares me. I would like it to always be 100% yes, 0% no or vice versa. And sadly a lot of this is based on human emotions which we all know can be very flawed. So it's basically a gamble. You pray that God would guide you and your flawed emotions towards the things He wants you to do, and hope that you understand correctly and don't misinterpret things. But through it all He is ultimately in control and if He doesn't want me to do something He has the power to prevent it or to change my course. 

All vagueness aside I am really struggling with decision making in regards to the next 5 years of my life. I am considering going back to Shanghai with DBC. It would be a 4 year commitment, which anyone who knows me knows that 5 year plans scare me to no end, I don't like to plan more than a year in advance. But it also seems as if God is guiding me in this direction, I am just struggling with how sure I have to be to say, "I am doing this" instead of "I am thinking about doing this". 

to blog or not to blog...what was the question?

Is facebook and blogging filling the gap that community left or is it pushing community out of the way? Does it enable us to be better informed on each other’s lives and connect us with people or does it give the illusion that we really know people? Is it a help to people’s social lives or does it replace them all together? Does it let us know more intimate things about each other or does it give us the illusion that we know each other? What are social networking tools doing to the upcoming generation? Can we talk to people face to face anymore or would we rather just read their blog? Did we really communicate with people when we were talking face to face or did it just consist of “hi, how are you?-good and you?” end of conversation? Does refusal to participate in the internet community cut us off from communicating with our culture? 

 

I don’t claim to know the answers to these questions, it think they are complex issues and the answers are probably different for everyone. I think it can’t be broad brushed and done away with all together. Sometimes I have to begrudgingly check facebook or people’s blogs as an act of being faithful and knowing how to pray for them and keeping in touch. I have friends all over the country and all over the globe and it is not realistic to assume I will be able to see all of them face to face and have a conversation but I certainly don’t want to forget about them in my thoughts and prayers just because I don’t like the idea of blogging or whatever. It is hard to maintain community in general, even if you live in the same city much less when someone is halfway across the globe, but you take what you can get. I am notoriously bad at not emailing people and keeping in touch, even when I know what it feels like to be halfway across the globe and have people not keep in touch, but I am trying to be better. I don’t know why I am rambling, I just have a lot of ideas about this at the moment. I just guess I want to challenge people not too just shun technology because there are all these problems and moral issues with it but to say… USE technology don’t let it use you, keep in touch with people (even if they are down the street), think about the effect that technology has on your life and make sure it is helping and not hindering your communication with people. If we default to more and more impersonal methods of communication when more personal ones are possible fellowship will surely be less authentic and will suffer greatly. 

Revolving Door

I feel like the last year and a half has been a revolving door of friends, enter new friend A, friend B exit stage right. Of course I’m sure to others I am the character entering and exiting their sitcom of life. Not that life is a sitcom, but maybe yours is or maybe a Lifetime movie. Anyway back to what I was saying; friends have been entering and exiting my life at more of an accelerated rate recently. Maybe it’s due to the stage of life I am at where friends are getting married, maybe it’s living abroad and then being friends with people who are living abroad. The world is getting smaller, but also more chaotic. It seems like sometimes the most interesting people you meet aren’t meant to stay in your life for very long. One of my friends was explaining a Chinese concept to us last night that was somewhat similar to fate. It has to do with people destined to meet each other, and if they have more of this particular “force” then they will stay friends for longer. No matter what you believe, people are in your life for a reason, that is for sure and it is hard not to believe that. It is interesting to hear how other people explain it. I think it is the sovereignty of God, no I know it is the sovereignty of God. He puts people in my life to teach me things and also maybe sometimes I teach them. I love meeting people from all over the world and hearing their point of view, even if I have never been to their home country it gives me at least some understanding of where they come from. Also it gives me insight into how to pray for the world and the different issues people are facing that I might be insulated from in my American bubble. Well that’s been a lot of rambling, but I mean all of this to say that if you have been someone who has been in and out of my life at some point, I have appreciated you being a part of my life. And thus the revolving door spins…

:)

Well I have orientation tomorrow and classes start on Monday. I don't get my books from Amazon till Wednesday, so that could be a problem. After looking at the book list I anticipate doing nothing but studying from now till May, so this may be my last post for a while. 3 months, 11 books (most of which aren't fluffy-read-quickly ones either, and I'm a slow reader), 13 hours of courses and working part time. With careful time and money budgeting and lots of prayer I think I'll make it through. Talk to you in 3 months.

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The last week and a half has been stressful/exciting. There have been a lot of things to think about and decisions to be made that I have been pondering the last two months. God has really been doing a lot in my heart since I got back from China. I feel like I've been tossed to a fro by dreams and ideas but over the last two months I have had more direction. I have also done a lot of praying about the confirmation of this direction and will continue to do so. I have decided to take a step in faith and I have put in my application for MTI (Denton Bible's missionary training institute). It's a year and a half and then if everything goes as planned I will be going off to a foreign land for four years (at least). Yes it's terrifying, but I have peace, and honestly I can't see myself doing anything else at this point. Not to say that I am perfect or cut out for this or anything.  God has a lot more work to do on me before I go back oversees that's for sure.

Christmas Vacation (boring title, I know)

This Christmas break started earlier than I thought because I ended up getting sick the entire week before and during Christmas. I had originally planned to take two weeks off, one for Christmas and then other for going to Washington, D.C and NYC. Even though I wasn't getting paid I figured I could make it work with the money I had saved. My boss is very gracious about giving me as much time as I need, well partly because it's a really slow time of year and he doesn't have to pay me. Anyway so I spent a week lounging around my apartment watching movies with our house guest Amrita. She was staying with us until she went back to Malaysia, she left yesterday, sad. It was as much fun as I could have had while being very sick. Then I went home for Christmas and ended up lounging around my parent's house. I assured them that it was because I was sick and not because I have become a lazy bum since they last saw me. I felt bad that I couldn't help my mom with the food preparation but I also didn't want to give everyone a gift that would probably keep on giving after the holidays where over. Yuck! 

Due to the fact that my parents now have cable, they never did when I was growing up, I ended up watching a House marathon on USA that continued on for three days. Even though I was sick I shouldn't have been that much of a bum, I should have read or something. Oh well. 

Ok but that was not the interesting part of the break, m

y brain turning to mush and all. So then, hyped up on cold meds and antibiotics I got on a bus with 50 other students to embark on the long drive to Washington D.C. from Denton. It ended up being about 29 hours and a storm was chasing us all the way

 through Tennessee. But we made it and ended up all having a great time at the Vision "08 conference. It was put on by Bridges International, a ministry of Campus Crusade, focused on reaching international students. There ended up being 900 students at the conference. At times I was confused as to what country I was in because I kept hearing all these different languages being spoken, I think there were 50 different counties represented. was cool to get to meet people from all different countries and cultures.  It was also a good time to get to know people better. Because I work full time I don't get to hang out with the students as m

uch as I would like to, so it was a good time to deepen relationship, and also just have a lot of fun together in a new place. After the conference I was really exciting about the possibility of doing Bridges but I also feel conflicted about it. So I feel like God is reaffirming more and more my love for cross cultural ministry, it's just a matter of where. I am also considering doing MTI next year, but I still need to have some meetings regarding that. I feel

 incredibly inadequate and I have really wrestled with God on the idea since I got back from China. But that's a whole other blog for another day. All that to say that I felt like there was clarity, but not complete clarity. 

Woohoo for the Capital building! 

After the conference I took the subway with some Chinese students I had met to the bus station to catch my $8 bus to New York. I was on a different bus than my new friends so I ended up leaving them early to find it. I couldn't find the bus stop anywhere. I went to the intersection they said it was going to be at, but I couldn't find anything resembling a bus stop. Frustrated that I my good deal might have been too good to be true I called my friends to see if I could buy a ticket for the bus they were taking. My friend Fei told me, they had an extra ticket I could have! As I sat down next to one of the guys in the group he asked me if I was a Christian, I told him yes. Then he said, well it looks like God was watching out for you. It turns out that he was also a Christian and we talked about the church in China for a long time. It was good to take the bus with people I knew, well at least people I had met before getting on the bus. 

Then we arrived in Chinatown in New York. I had to meet up with Dana at the subway, but we ended up going to two different stops. I had this huge rolly bag that might have well have said in large letters "ROB ME I'M A LOST TOURIST". As I was rolling this bag around trying to find the right subway line to take I saw a girl with a map open so I thought I might ask her where to go. I glanced at her map, and but I couldn't read it because it was in another language. Anyway she didn't know were to go either and so we decided to be lost together since it was way past dark and there was a guy not too far from us hassling some girls. Turns out she was from France and just visiting, no wonder I couldn't read the map. We asked more people if they knew where to go but they also had no clue. But finally we made it, and I met up with Dana, Justin, Gram and Natalie. First day of the New Year and God

 was definitely taking care of me every step of the way. 

It looks like China, smells like China and sounds like China; but it's actually New York.

New York was so much fun. We did a few touristy things like walk across the Brooklyn bridge, eat pizza at Lambardi's, see a Broadway musical, visit Time Square and go the the Brooklyn museum of art. Oddly enough it really made me miss living in a big city. I thought I'd never say that, because living in Shanghai was really hard and it bummed me out not to be able to see the sunset and the stars. But I really did miss it. All the people and excitement, the fact that people aren't so isolated at least not in the same way as suburban america. 

It was also good to catch up with friends I hadn't talked to in about 6 months; Dana, Sally, Justin, Steven and Megan. And also get to know Gram and Natalie better. It was a really fun time. I felt like I probably talked about China way too much but it was on my mind a lot because there were all these memory triggers being in a big city with public transit and all.  

The flight back was weird and this guy ended up falling asleep on my shoulder. Awkward! I didn't end up saying anything about it because I didn't want to embarrass him, I just nudged him off. At last after traveling all the way across to the east coast and being gone for 10 days I was back in Denton. I ended up taking another day off of work just to process it all, also I really just didn't want to go back to work. Sorry this is so long, I haven't blogged in a while so just think of this as making up for lost time. Now I probably won't blog again for another 2 months or unless something exciting happens.