jonathan

i just finished a draft for this sunday’s sermon. it is about how jonathan was such a good friend to david in the old testament. it inspired me to post a blog about jonathan from my church. jonathan is one of the worship leaders at my church. this is a picture of him & his larrivee guitar. actually the picture focuses on the guitar more than him.

though jonathan is 10 years younger than me, here are a few things we have in common. we are both christian. we are both korean-american. we both lead worship. we both have been influenced by chicago-style ministry. we both have lived in the east coast, midwest & west coast (in that order). we both build bridges (he is a civil engineer working on the bay bridge w/caltrans; i build bridges metaphorically). we both wear a chronograph watch. we both have a larrivee acoustic guitar. we both have a nikon digital slr camera (mine was used to take this picture). we both have a honda. & we are both good looking.

ordering your private world

we recently finished reading this book with our married couples small group at church. Gordon MacDonald is a well-respected pastor who has survived the ups & downs of life & ministry. this is basically a book about Spiritual Disciplines. if i never read a book about Spiritual Disciplines, i would think that this book was great. but since i’ve been spoiled with books by Richard Foster & Dallas Willard, i thought this book was good but not great.

in chapter 10 he talks about how many christians look for a “quick fix” that makes God seem more real & intimate. some find it in a condemning preacher who makes them feel guilty. some find it in emotional & ecstatic worship experiences. some find it in endless Bible teaching & study of doctrine. some find it in the busyness of church ministry. MacDonald concludes, “If we are ever to develop a spiritual life that gives contentment, it will be because we approach spiritual living as a discipline, much as the athlete trains his body for competition”.

chapter 13 includes an interesting discussion on why so many christian men do not like to pray with their wives. this is because men have been taught never to reveal weakness. but authentic prayer acknowledges that we are weak & dependent upon God.

blink

i thought this book was a little slower than the tipping point, but it was still very insightful & interesting. blink discusses how our unconscious snap judgments are extremely powerful & valuable.

he talks about how the psychologist john gottman can observe a married couple for three minutes & accurately predict if they will get divorced or stay together. i’ve read gottman’s books & i’ve seen gottman on tv, but i really enjoyed gladwell’s summary of gottman’s work. gladwell is such a good storyteller that he talks about gottman better than gottman does.

gladwell talks about mind reading & how we all do it every day. he introduces us to a psychology professor, silvan tomkins, who had an incredible ability to read faces & read minds. the stories about tomkins & his abilities are amazing. tomkins’s pupil, paul ekman, went on to continue a lot of research on this subject.

i am a fan of malcolm gladwell & i hope that he continues to publish such interesting books.

my grandmother (part 2)

last week we had the funeral service for my grandmother. i was impressed by the sheer number of people who attended. at the funeral home, the main room & both overflow rooms were so full that some people had to stand for the whole service. i was impressed by both the quantity & the quality of the people there. my grandmother was blessed to be surrounded by so many good & God-fearing people. as we gathered, there was a true sense of honor & respect for my grandmother & the life that she lived. during the service, i had the privilege of standing & sharing a few words about her.

i included a picture of my grandmother & me. sometime in the 1970s this picture showed up in a korean newspaper in new york. my parents have saved it since then.

my grandmother

today at 1:30pm my grandmother (paternal) passed away in a hospital in new york. she was 91 years-old & had many health problems.

i am the youngest of three children & my grandmother moved in w/our family specifically to help out with raising me. because i was so close w/my grandmother, my older siblings tried to trick me into believing that i was not their real brother. they said that i was my grandmother’s son, & they even called me samchun (uncle). my family always blamed my grandmother for making me a chubby kid, because she was constantly putting food in my mouth. every night she would have me join her as she got on her knees to pray. as a little kid i remember getting impatient, because she took so long to finish praying. some of the moms at our church used to say that i turned out so well because my grandmother poured out so much love into me.

a handful of our family members (her offspring) are very smart & successful. for that i give all the credit to my grandmother. she was a feisty woman w/a quick wit, & she passed down some of her intelligence & sense of humor. i am so grateful that both her & my grandfather were faithful Christians. i know that they are both in a much better place.

i will be attending her funeral service in a few days. i hope that we can celebrate her life & the impact she had on us. she was a great woman & i’m so proud of her.

the tipping point

this is a very fun & insightful book. the author argues that social epidemics spread just like contagious viruses do. the tipping point occurs when a social trend crosses a threshold and then spreads like wildfire.

chapter four is an interesting chapter explaining the “fall of new york city crime”. in the 1980s new york experienced a crime epidemic that peaked in 1990, then went into a huge decline. key leaders in the nyc police department implemented the “broken windows” theory to combat this epidemic. the theory argues that broken windows left unrepaired send a message. the message is that this is a place where no one is in charge & no one cares. this is a place where anything goes & even serious crimes will go unpunished. the nyc police spent millions of dollars cracking down on small crimes, or “broken windows”. when they cleaned up the small crimes, violent crimes dropped dramatically. fixing those “broken windows” proved to remove the tipping point for violent crime.

this concept of “broken windows” & the tipping point forced me to think about the “broken windows” in my own life, the insignificant details that i tend to overlook. i was inspired to fix the small problems in order to prevent the bigger problems from occuring.

could it be the pregnancy hormones?

some people believe that when a woman is pregnant, her husband gets affected by the changes in her hormones/pheremones. that is one reason why some men develop strange food cravings & gain "sympathy weight". suhee is now seven months pregnant, & i've been going through some weird changes.

change #1: i stopped lifting weights. i used to work out regularly for over 10 years (96-06). in those 10 years i rarely ever took a break for over one week. even when i didn't have time, i would make time because i enjoyed it so much. my roommate & i used to go to the gym at 5:30am every weekday. last december i completely stopped working out. it's been three months & i don't miss it at all. at this point i have no desire to get back in the gym.

change #2: i stopped training in brazilian jiu-jitsu (bjj). i trained in bjj for about 1.5 years (05-06). i used to love the training. in fact when i wasn't training, i found myself day-dreaming about it. last december i stopped training. it's been three months & i don't miss it at all. & i have no desire to get back into it.

what's wrong w/me? am i turning into a woman? honestly i don't think it is the pregnancy hormones. the anticipation of becoming a father has changed my mentality on so many things. i know that when the baby comes out my life will change even more. pray for me.

career forum

yesterday i participated in a career forum. the event was organized to serve the korean-american community by teaching students & parents about different career paths. i was a speaker in the panel discussion & i was a representative at a table. the sign on my table said "religion". i guess that made me the representative for "religion". the event ended up being a great opportunity for me to tell people about my conversion & my calling to ministry. & i got to meet some interesting people.

i met a high school senior from santa clara. his name is eric. on sundays, he leads praise at his church. & on fridays, he goes to a smaller church and give messages for their youth group. he is thinking about pursuing pastoral ministry. he is just oozing with a passion to serve God. it was weird because i saw so much of myself in him. when i was his age, i acted just like him. it's good to know that there are still young people out there who want to change the world.

the five Bs of public speaking

yesterday i went to golden gate baptist theological seminary. i went to have lunch w/our youth pastor (jun). i attended the chapel service too. it was a special chapel because the president of the southern baptist convention came to give the sermon. he gave a good message about killing the giants in our lives (just as david killed goliath). he said that one of the giants the church is facing is factions & politics.

he gave a great one-liner when he said that he would keep his sermon short because he knows the five Bs of public speaking, "be brief brother be brief".

the seminary is in a very affluent neighborhood & has a great view overlooking the city of san francisco. i was told that the land alone is worth over one hundred million dollars. God is good.

so many Christians in the UFC

tonight a few of the guys got together to watch a live pay-per-view event. we watched the UFC (ultimate fighting championship). it was interesting that all of the fighters who won gave thanks to God in their victory speeches. in fact two of them specifically gave credit to Jesus Christ. & two of them were wearing Christian t-shirts.

randy couture is a 43-year-old who came out of retirement to fight for the heavyweight title. he fought a guy who is much younger, taller & heavier. not only did randy pull an upset & win the match, he dominated all five rounds. it really was kind of inspiring. & he was one of the fighters who gave credit to Jesus Christ.

*jin, thanks for hosting tonight

we survived the storm

this past week suhee & i went up to lake tahoe. suhee was nice enough to let me go snowboarding before the season ends. on our way up we hit crazy amounts of snow. the weather report described it as blizzard-like conditions with heavy winds & four inches of snow per hour. it was the worst weather i ever drove through. the drive was so long & stressful. many cars were stuck on the side of the road. actually highway 80 was closed the next day because so many cars spun out. i felt so helpless & at the mercy of God's creation. & i was having nightmares about getting stuck up in the mountains w/my six-months pregnant wife. by God's grace we made it through that night, & by God's grace we got back home safely too.

on a lighter note, the ski conditions were awesome. the mountain was covered w/several feet of fresh powder. i never saw such good snow here in lake tahoe. i had to re-learn how to snowboard on top of the powder & i had to re-learn how to get up after falling in the powder. God is good.