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.