bill hybels & reveal

a few weeks ago willow creek church hosted their yearly leadership summit conference. i wasn't able to go, but i visited one of their satellite locations & watched about 10 minutes of one of the messages. actually before the message they showed a very long advertisement promoting their latest book/dvd/conference/program/etc called reveal. reveal is a study (survey-based) that tries to figure out what does & what does not help people to grow spiritually. what are churches doing or not doing right in helping people to grow spiritually. after the advertisement bill hybels introdocued the speaker, chuck colson. chuck colson spent the first few minutes praising bill hybels, especially in how he has been handling all the criticism about himself & the results of "reveal". apparently a lot of hybels-haters have been blogging nasty stuff about him & "reveal".

i think willow creek church did a great thing in openly sharing the weakenesses of their ministry model. i think it's ridiculous that all the haters are coming out & using this to criticize them even more.

although there is some funny/witty criticism out there. for example...
willow creek is admitting that their program-based ministry is not working; & they are admitting it by introducing another program (reveal).

how about this one...
"give us bibles, not hybels"

i have been a hybels fan for many years. i've read his books, listened to his sermons, even got to meet him when he was in korea. but i don't think that everyone should try to carbon-copy him & his church. and i think it's fair to say that he is past his prime & his ideas aren't exactly "cutting edge" anymore. but he is an awesome person & God used him mightily.

anyways... i wanted to share what he said about reveal...

"spiritual growth doesn't happen best by becoming dependent on elaborate church programs but through the age old spiritual practices of prayer, bible reading, and relationships. And, ironically, these basic disciplines do not require multi-million dollar facilities and hundreds of staff to manage"

“We made a mistake. What we should have done when people crossed
the line of faith and become Christians, we should have started
telling people and teaching people that they have to take
responsibility to become “self feeders.” We should have gotten
people, taught people, how to read their bible between service,
how to do the spiritual practices much more aggressively on their
own.”

miss korea & wanderlei silva

suhee keeps me updated w/korean news & pop-culture. so a new miss korea was recently crowned & people are in an uproar. they are saying that the most recent miss korea is proof that the contest is so obviously & blantantly fixed. in fact people are saying that the new miss korea looks like wanderlei silva (the great mma fighter from brazil). that's a mean thing to say, but it's pretty hilarious. & i'm impressed that mma is so popular in korea that people know who wanderlei silva is.

matching hoodies

the worship team from the jama conference got together for dinner. i was pretty excited to distribute the embroidered-hoodies that we got made. it says, "Jama 2008 New Awakening Band".

gideon pics

i told suhee that in a few month gideon won't be cute anymore. soon he won't be considered a baby, but just a little boy.