$400 haircut

so i heard someone talking about how john edwards (presidential candidate) paid $400 for a haircut. apparently it's true. & he did it twice. he hired a celebrity hairstylist from beverly hills, who charges $150 for a men's cut. but the price goes up when he needs to travel to meet his clients.

dog the bounty hunter

For several years I’ve been a fan of the reality show, Dog The Bounty Hunter. In fact I’ve talked about the show several times in my Sunday Sermons. Unfortunately few people share my enthusiasm. In our church we have one police officer. He is the only one who “gets it” when I talk about Dog.

Lately I’ve been reading the blog of a well-known pastor named Mark Driscoll. I was thrilled to see that he blogged about this show. He said that this show & The Ultimate Fighter are the best reality shows. And he said that he watches this show religiously w/his three sons.

Dog is a tough guy w/a big heart. He is able to intimidate & subdue his suspects. But after he catches them, he counsels them to reform their lives. The show often shows Dog praying w/his family. And they occasionally show him meeting w/his pastor to receive counsel & prayer.

On one episode he went to city hall to receive an award. Dozens of reformed druggies & prostitutes came out to honor him. When he saw them, he was moved to tears & said to his wife, “Beth, these are our people”. That really reminded me of how Jesus reached out to the lowly.

On one episode his wife bought him a shirt w/a designer label. He told her that he doesn’t wear clothes w/another person’s name on it, unless the name is “Jesus Christ” or “Harley Davidson”.

lunch

i just had lunch w/a local pastor. he is a fifth generation japanese-american. at his church, the english ministry is a lot bigger than the japanese ministry because there are very few recent japanese immigrants. i'm curious to see what the future holds in terms of korean immigration to the states.

breastfeeding

Last weekend Suhee & I took an infant care class. I learned some interesting things about breastfeeding. Breastfeeding provides many health benefits for the baby & the mom, & it also provides a financial benefit. To feed a baby on formula costs three thousand dollars per year. The U.S. recommends mothers to breastfeed for one year. They are in the process to changing it to two years, in order to match the WHO (World Health Organization). The worldwide average is 4.5 years. Which means that many children are breastfeeding beyond 4.5 years. Interesting...

images of sinful nature

I was preparing a sermon today & I went to google images to find these two pictures which illustrate the effects of sinful nature.

The Virginia Tech Shooter was a Korean Student

Yesterday, 33 people were killed in what's being called the "deadliest shooting rampage in modern U.S. history". This took place on the university campus of Virginia Tech. What a senseless & unexpected tragedy for the victims & their families. I just hope that others will not copy this incident on other college campuses.

I was shocked to hear that the shooter was a Korean student. This is what I learned from various news articles. He was a 23-year-old senior majoring in English. His name is Cho Seung-Hui. He immigrated to the U.S. in '92 & grew up in the suburbs of Washington D.C. He was an extreme loner & rarely responded when people talked to him. In his writing classes, his work was so violent & disturbing that he was referred to the university's counseling service. Before the shooting, he left in his dorm room a rambling note that was several pages long. In the note he spoke harshly against women & rich kids. In the note he even said, "You caused me to do this".

I know that Virginia & the Washington D.C. area is saturated with many large Korean churches & campus ministries. I wonder if other Korean people tried to reach out to this obviously-troubled person. And I wonder if there wasn't more that people could have done to help him.

baby names

Lately I’ve been obsessing over baby names. Suhee & I are expecting our first child on June 7. It’s a boy.

Here is a picture of the married couples at our church & some of their babies.

And their baby names are…
Girls: Lauren, Rachel
Boys: Christian, Noah

Actually, Noah is missing from the picture. I think he’s in a stroller behind us. Aren’t those names so Christian & so biblical?

From the beginning I wanted to name our son, Gideon Wisdom Chu. Suhee is slowly agreeing to Gideon, but she does not like Wisdom. So here are the other suggestions I gave for middle names…

Jaden: Hebrew roots, it means “God has heard”

Martin: Reminds me of Martin Luther, Martin Luther King Jr., Martin Smith of Delirious, & Martin Guitars

Porter: It just sounds cool

(We’re still waiting for my parents to give us his Korean name.)

Jesus Camp (the movie)

Jesus Camp is a documentary that covers a children’s ministry pastor & the summer camp that she runs in North Dakota. Becky Fischer is the featured Pentecostal children’s pastor. The movie is so disturbing because it portrays Evangelical Christians as ignorant, backwards, dogmatic, militant & just plain crazy. And the Christian adults are depicted as brainwashing young children to be an army that will take over the country politically.

I can only hope that people are smart enough to know that this is not an accurate representation of all Christians. And it’s probably not even an accurate representation of the people in the film.

What made this movie even more painful was that there was a kernel of truth to almost everything that was being preached. The kids were so cute & innocent & impressionable. I realized that most children are starving to receive any kind of attention from adults.

jacob's well

Last night I went to a free concert given by a Christian group called Jacob’s Well. They started out as the worship team for a Calvary Chapel Church near Seattle. They reminded me of Caedmon’s Call (male & female vocalist, a lot of harmonizing, acoustic guitar-based). All the musicians were talented; the songs were good; & they were good performers. When the female singer (wife of the male singer) shared about the songs that she wrote, there was such a strong message of God’s grace & unconditional love.

After the concert they were really cool about talking & spending time w/everyone. In fact they offered to pray w/anyone who wanted prayer. The lead singer even said that I could play his custom-made guitar, but I didn’t.

young men

my last blog was about a pastor named mark driscoll. here is another one of his quotes… (women, please do not take offense)

“So the question is if you want to be innovative: How do you get young men? All this nonsense on how to grow the church. One issue: young men. That’s it. That’s the whole thing. They’re going to get married, make money, make babies, build companies, buy real estate. They’re going to make the culture of the future. If you get the young men you win the war, you get everything. You get the families, the women, the children, the money, the business, you get everything. If you don’t get the young men you get nothing. You get nothing.”

this quote is comforting because one the biggest complaints about our church is that there are no women. we have become a “man” church. apart from our college meetings, most of our events have a guy/girl ratio of about 5/1. that makes it difficult for us to welcome more women into our community. but mark driscoll definitely emphasizes the positive aspects of having young men.

*this is a picture of some of our “young men” on one of our macho outings

mark driscoll & the emerging church movement

i always thought that the emerging church movement or “emergent church conversation” was all about the young & “hip” pastors who were successful at reaching out to the young, postmodern generation. but i recently learned that many evangelical leaders have criticized “emergent theology” as moving away from the biblical faith & becoming a repackaged form of liberal theology.

a friend of mine is a big fan of mark driscoll, the pastor of mars hill church in seattle (not mars hill bible church in michigan, which is pastored by rob bell). because my pastor-friend kept talking about mark driscoll, i started google-ing him. mark driscoll is a young & “hip” pastor whose church is full of many young & trendy people. but he is known for his “in-your-face” style when he is preaching the conservative message of the gospel. his controversial & radical quotes are posted all over the internet, by his fans & by his critics. this is what he said about the emerging church movement…

"In the mid-1990s I was part of what is now known as the Emerging Church and spent some time traveling the country to speak on the emerging church in the emerging culture on a team put together by Leadership Network called the Young Leader Network. But, I eventually had to distance myself from the Emergent stream of the network because friends like Brian McLaren and Doug Pagitt began pushing a theological agenda that greatly troubled me. Examples include referring to God as a chick, questioning God's sovereignty over and knowledge of the future, denial of the substitutionary atonement at the cross, a low view of Scripture, and denial of hell which is one hell of a mistake."

“The Emerging Church movement is a bunch of disgruntled liberal evangelicals who gather together to complain about the megachurches of their parents.”

eating in

suhee & i went to costco yesterday & brought home lots of food. we're trying to eat in more. this is what suhee made for dinner tonight. shrimp wrapped in bacon & salad. & it all came from costco.

oh.. & i made lunch today. chicken nuggets & salmon fillets. both from the costco frozen food section.

sunday afternoon

after church last sunday a bunch of our church peoples gathered to play ultimate frisbee. i haven't played in years but it was really fun. half the time we were just laughing at each other. it was funny to see everyone awkwardly bumping into each other & falling to the ground. anyways, now my legs are so sore & i'm walking around w/a strange limp.

on sunday night suhee & i went to one of our favorite mexican restaurants, la pinata in alameda. the food was really good. they always give complimentary tortilla chips (served warm) & salsa. but on that night they also gave us complimentary guacamole dipping sauce. it was muy bueno.