leica s2

leica released a new digital camera (s2) which is expected to sell for $45,000 (body only). outrageous camera for an outrageous price. but i love the understated minimalist design.

born with a destiny

lyoto machida is currently one of the best fighters in mma (mixed martial arts). he competes at 205lbs & he is undefeated. he is of japanese descent, but he grew up in brazil. his father was a shotokan karate master/instructor. he recently defeated tito ortiz. in the pre-fight interview he said this, "my father always told me: lyoto you have samurai blood, you must fight".

one of our youth pastors (eugene kim) comes from a family where all the firstborn men are pastors. he is the firstborn son, just like his father & grandfather. soon after he was born, his father held him up & committed him to the Lord for the ministry.

it's amazing how many people are born with a sense of destiny. like their future is already all mapped out before them. i suppose that's better than having no sense of destiny. i'm excited to watch gideon grow up & discover his path.

breakfast w/dave gibbons

i just got back from a 3-day pastors' conference in orlando. although we flew to florida, all we saw was the hotel & a few restaurants. we had close to zero free time. five pastors from our church went to join a larger group of about 200. it was a good bonding-trip for the five of us.

last weekend dave gibbons (pastor of new song church) was in town (nj) to speak at a conference. on saturday morning he made time to have breakfast w/local pastors. i was planning to sit far away from him so that i could just listen quietly. but the group was kind of small & i ended up sitting next to him.

i was really impressed by him. he had so much wisdom to share w/us. he gave us really good insights into church & ministry. i asked him if he had any advice on how to raise leaders & keep them accountable. he said that they have to "live at your house". in other words they have to be so close to you that they are always w/you & always at your house. some of his leaders even literally lived at his house. actually i've been thinking a lot of about all the things he shared w/us during that brief time.

two retreats

we had our church retreat last weekend. we had an awesome time w/our church members. then two days after that we went to a pastors retreat. both retreats were in the poconos. gideon went fishing for the first time. he used a "barbie" fishing pole. suhee caught a pretty big trout using a "mickey mouse" fishing pole.

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".