Dream Awakener

My Favorite Flickr Photos

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Every now and again, I like to share the last couple of dozen photos I have added to my favorites on flickr.  Here is another installment of my favorite Flickr photos.

Virginia Tech: Remembering the Massacre One Year Later

Today marks the one year anniversary of the Virginia Tech Massacre.  To remember this horrible event I will be wearing maroon, orange and white. This tragedy hit my heart deeply because the first church that God had me plant was [nlcf] at Virginia Tech.  I spent over thirteen years of my life on this campus.  I just "so happened" to be in Washington D.C. when I heard the news, so my friend Chris Backert and I drove down that Monday night, to be there for the students.

While I was there that week I made a series of posts to to share what was going on in my heart and what I was seeing first hand.  As a way to remember this tragedy, I have put together a collection of the posts that I had posted a year ago.  If you click through on anything, take a moment to listen to the song Forever Changed and the slide show that I link to under  Virginia Tech: A Journey Toward Healing.  After my posts, I have three other important links to help us remember.

Forever Changed
Here is a link to a band called The Season.  This band has two graduates of Virginia Tech in it - Kurtis Parks and Josh Kim, who were members of the worship band at the church I founded.  They saw this time as a way to use their gifts and wrote a song entitled Forever Changed.  Take a moment to listen to the song, as a way to remember.

From Virginia Tech: The In-between Day
Having just arrived in Blacksburg, I gave an update on what was happening as well as shared some thoughts about a day that didn't make the Christian Calendar, the day in-between Good Friday and Easter Sunday.  On Good Friday we see the reality of evil, when God took all of the evil upon Himself and in return gave a blessing.  Then there is Easter that speaks of the hope of a whole new world.  We live on Saturday, this in-between time.

From Virginia Tech: The Ministry of Presence
This is another person update with some thoughts on one of the best ways we can help people during tragedies - a ministry of presence.

From Virginia Tech: Prayer and Ministry
I shared some of my experiences at the campus-wide prayer meeting.

From Virginia Tech: The One Thing We Need
I share my heartfelt words to all affected by this tragedy.

Virginia Tech: A Journey Toward Healing
I put the photo's that I took at Va Tech in a slide show with some music.  A journey of the healing events that took place on the campus in the aftermath of the tragedy. This is a must watch to remember.

Remembering Virginia Tech - One Year Later
This is an honest post written by Eugene E. Cho today, reflecting on why this tragedy means so much to his life as a Korean.

When Answers Aren't Enough: Experiencing God as Good When Life Isn't
This is a book by my friend Matt Rodgers.  He is one of the current pastors of the [nlcf].  This book just came out at the beginning of this month, it's about the Virginia Tech Massacre.  Philip Yancey writes about this book, "Tempered by tragedy, Matt Rodgers explores both doubt and hope, and emerges with compassionate wisdom."  It might be a good read for you as a way to remember.

A Day of Remembrance
This is the site at Virginia Tech that shares the names of each of the Hokies that were victims, along with events that are taking place to remember.

Monday Morning Medicine

"A cheerful heart is good medicine."  Proverbs 17:22 NLT

"If you tell anyone else about this, I'll pee in your shoe."

Southern California Fires - Thanks for Your Prayers

I wanted to thank those of you who have called me, sent me e-mails and messages with your prayers of concern, in regard to the fires that are popping up all around Southern California.  A neighbor of mine who was  traveling to San Deigo, has not been able to come back to LA yet because of the fires, the road closes, and so forth.

My friend Dustin just sent me these pictures, so I thought I would post them as a public service and ask you for prayer.  I'm not sure where he got them, but here they are:

SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA

Please pray for those who have lost their homes or been effected in some way, and thanks again for the phone calls, the e-mails and messages.  Just so you know, the fires haven't sparked up here in East Hollywood. (We got real close the last time.)  Our congregation in West LA  was camping this past weekend and most of them headed home Saturday night when the wind gusted up to 111 mph at times and was steadily over 55 mph. While some of them may have lost their tents, none of them were injured.  But we obviously have many neighbors going through rough times.  Thanks for your prayers of concern.

PhotoFriday - The City

PhotoFriday  The City by JR Woodward

I took this photo in Hong Kong while I was waiting to meet up with my friend Sander who was coming to meet me from Amsterdam. I call it City in a Glass. When you find yourself waiting, take the time to be creative.  Part of being creative is looking at things differently.  What are you needing to see different today?  Turn your head upside down and look at the world that way.  Look underneath things, above things, to the side of things, just take a different look, who knows what you will see.

Favorite Flickr Photos

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Every now and again, I like to share the last couple of dozen photos I have added to my favorites on flickr.  Here is another installment of my favorite Flickr photos.  I guess today is all about photography.

Choice Blog Entries - Spong, Theology, Speedlinking

  .cristaleira. 
  Originally uploaded by !markmark

Ben Myers Reviews of Bishop Shelby Spong's New Book
It think you will appreciate reading Ben's review of Bishop Spong's new book entitled: Jesus for the Non-Religious.  He does a good job at sharing what he appreciates about the book and what he finds lacking.  Here is one quote:  "So in spite of Spong’s characterization of his own book as radical, “shocking” and “audacious” (pp. 10, 290), the real problem is that this book is not radical enough. The Jesus who emerges from these pages is ultimately indistinguishable from any other respectably innocuous, politically correct member of the Western middle classes."

Theological Links for Emerging Theologians
David Fitch has a number of great links that are worth looking at.  He links to Scot McKnight's posts on the "New Perspective" of Paul, he links to another article on tithing, another on Abraham Kuyper's view of the relation between Creation, Falleness, God's Work in Culture and Redemption and many other interesting links like how much money some pastors make.  It is an enlightening link.   All emerging theologians should check these links out.

Speedlinking
John Santic also gives us a number of links to follow, from Tim Keller on what you need most in a leader, to Doug Pagitt and John McArthur debating Yoga on Headline News, to Jason Byassee on Porn to other entries worth checking out.

So these links link you to more links which link you to... there is a lot of linking going on here.

Monday Morning Medicine

"A cheerful heart is good medicine." Proverbs 17:22a 

Here is a picture of a dog that we met in San Francisco.  Some lady was walking the dog around and I had to take a picture of the dog, and she kind of put the dog in my hands.

A Holistic Gospel Part XII

  My Friends in Kenya 
  Originally uploaded by dream awakener

In part eleven I shared some of my final thoughts.  In this post I would like to leave a prayer because I desire that the congregations that I influence and help start would faithfully share the good news.  With that in mind, I submit this prayer below, followed by a bibliography.  This prayer was shaped by a prayer that I read a long time ago. 

Father,

We yearn to be the church you want us to become.
Shape us into something beautiful.
We recognize that you are the Potter and we are the clay.
Please continue to mold us into the image of Christ.

We want to join in what you are already doing in the world.
In our worship and life together, in our ministry and service to others,
we want to give people a glimpse of your intentions for the whole world.

Help us to welcome the outcasts, love our enemies,
and form a Community that is visibly different from the culture around us
as a sign of what you are doing in the world.

Help us experience your love and grace,
grow in our relationship with Jesus,
and experience the power of your Spirit
as we offer your good news to others.

In Jesus’ name we pray, Amen.

Heading to San Francisco

  Golden Gate Bridge 
  Originally uploaded by wmchu

I'm getting ready to cruise up the PCH Highway to go to San Lois Obispo, then Carmel by the Sea, Monterey and then San Francisco.  If you are ever in California, you should take a trip up the PCH.  It is one of the top 100 things to do in the U.S.

My friend Daichi and I are heading up there, and we are meeting up with some  people from our canvas group.  It's nice to have a long weekend to rest from our labor. 

I hope to take some great photos while on this trip.  I should be able to do some blogging, unless things get to crazy.

I hope your Labor Day weekend, for those in the U.S. goes well.  Peace and Love.

PhotoFriday - Unfinished

PhotoFriday - Unfinished by JR Woodward

I took this picture at the Los Angeles County fair about a year ago. While the sun is setting, it is not yet finished setting.

A Holistic Gospel Part VIII

  My Friends in Kenya 
  Originally uploaded by dream awakener

In part seven, I gave an overview of where we have been with this series of posts.  Now we will take a look at a passage from the Apostle Paul.

SECTION TWO - THE GOOD NEWS OF PAUL

The Ministry of Reconciliation (II Cor. 5:14-21)
What we find when we get to Paul is that he articulates the mission in a very holistic way.  Being able to speak from a post-death and post-resurrection perspective, he makes it clear that through the death and resurrection of Christ, God has reconciled all things to himself.  He then calls us to embody the ministry of reconciliation.  What we see through this passage is that the purpose of forgiveness is the restoration of communion, the reconciliation of brokenness.  Paul tells us that it is the aim of God to restore everything that was lost at the fall, to restore communion on the part of humans with God, with one another, and with all of creation.   In other words, if Jesus has in fact died and risen again for all, if anyone has been placed into the body of Christ, this is evidence that the kingdom has broken in and that the new creation has indeed come.  Thus, Paul asserts, “If anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!”  (II Cor. 5:17-20).

In the above passage, Paul makes it clear that God is on mission and that his mission is to renovate this world and to restore it to its intended purpose.  Therefore, He sent His Son in order to reconcile the world to Himself, and now, He sends us with this message of reconciliation.  This message is holistic because as Christ ambassadors we are to follow the way of Christ, which means we take up his manifesto and learn to embody an economy of love, to practice justice, and to live generously toward one another.  Paul says, “God made him who knew no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (II Cor. 5:21).  What does the righteousness of God mean?

In The Justice of God, James Dunn states, "The key to understanding the theme of righteousness in the Bible, together with its related ideas of justice and justification, is to recognize that we are dealing with concepts of relationship…. In Hebrew thought righteousness is something one has precisely in one’s relationships as a social being.  That is to say, righteousness is not something which an individual has on his or her own, independent of anyone else – as could be the case with the Greco-Roman concept.  Rather, righteousness is a matter of the responsibilities which arise out of social relationships.  People are righteous when they meet the claims which others have on them by virtue of their particular relationships.

Thus in particular, the king is righteous when he fulfills his responsibilities as king towards his people.  The servant is righteous when he obeys his master…  in other words, righteousness and relationship were two sides of the same coin (Dunn 1993:32-33)."

After tracing this idea of righteousness through the prophets and the Apostle Paul, Dunn sums up with the following passage: "The biblical understanding of justification/justice/righteousness is all of a piece.  In particular, it involves two important aspects: righteousness as essentially involving relationships, arising out of relationships, expressed in relationships; and righteousness, as both horizontal and vertical, as involving responsibility to one’s neighbour [sic] as part and parcel of one’s responsibility towards God.  Unless these two aspects of biblical thought are firmly grasped the concept of righteousness, of justification and justice is bound to become distorted.  In Hebrew and earliest Christian thought it would not be possible for someone to be righteous apart from, without reference to, that individual’s responsibility to others; it would not be possible to be righteous before God while involved in unjust relationships with fellow humans.  And central within this understanding of the justice looked for by God was the recognition of society’s responsibility towards the disadvantaged and the concern to conform social relationships to the model of the caring family (Dunn 1993:42)."

No wonder the best way for Paul to sum up mission was with the word reconciliation.  This is because the good news, by its very nature, is about the restoration of relationships, our relationship with God, with one another, and with creation.

In my next post on this series, I will give a short summary of where we have been and then some missional applications.

The Unembraced

Tonight @ the Fountain Room along with a concert by Josh Garrels, I will be sharing with all who are in attendance about our ministry to the unembraced.  We hope to raise some funds to help orphanages that we work with in the Turkana region of Kenya.  If you have a desire to help out with this ministry, please e-mail me at theunembraced@gmail.com and I will let you know how you can be of help.

PhotoFriday: Old

PhotoFriday - Old by JR Woodward

My friend Jay and his family have a lot of land in Virginia, and at the bottom by the stream is this old house.  I think it is no longer there, so I'm glad to have captured a picture of it before it was taken down.

Incarnational Living

So with each missional poster I put up from Emerging Grace I will share some experience from my ministry here in LA. But first my comments on this poster.  I love the way Eugene Peterson translates this verse talking about Jesus in the message.  It's a perfect quote for this concept of incarnational living.

Anyway, having spent most of my life living in the suburbs, I have to say that I have quite enjoyed moving into the city.  A huge part of my reason for moving to Los Angeles five years ago was that I wanted to be in a place that represented a microcosm of the world.  The world is moving to the cities and I wanted to move into the neighborhood where people are living.  I wanted to live in a place where there was both beauty and grittiness, rich and poor, and a place where there are many Asian and Hispanic people as well as black and white.

Let's face it, LA is not the most beautiful city in the world, if I wanted to live in one of the most beautiful cities, I would probably pick Paris, San Francisco, Boston, Singapore or Vancouver or something.  But I love LA because it is a microcosm of the world and I am reminded of the whole world most days I walk around my city. 

In deciding a neighborhood to live in, I choose to live in East Hollywood, which is kind of the other side of the tracks.  I opted to live in a fairly run down building instead of a nice apartment complex with a pool and a party room.  I live at the intersection of Thai Town and Little Armenia.  I was one of the first white American's that moved into this apartment complex. I love it.

In my experience, people who live in the apartments that are more run down on average tend to be more friendly and open.  I have found that to be true in this case as well.  Living here I have learned what it means for people to live as a legal and illegal immigrants.  I have helped a number of illegal immigrants become legal. With all of the political hoopla about immigration, how many of us have stepped into the shoes of immigrants to try and see things from their perspective.  Doesn't incarnational living mean that we learn what it means to step into other people's shoes? Have we forgotten our history, or more importantly have we forgotten our Lord?   

Since moving here, I have been in a couple of car accidents, someone stole my computer from my apartment when I was serving the Lord in Kenya.  I had a huge water leak that destroyed my other computer a number of books and some other valuable things.  I have learned to live with noise of ambulances, cars and helicopters that shine their light in my apartment in the middle of the night.  I have had a letter sent to me like you see in the movies, where someone pasted letters from a magazine together threatening my life and just a couple of weeks ago someone was stabbed to death at the front door of my apartment.  A couple of weeks ago someone took a crow bar and crushed the window of my car and took a few valuable things.  I guess that is part of what it means to "move into the neighborhood."

I am still learning what it means to live incarnationally, and there is certainly much more to say to cover the richness of this concept, but I have tasted a little of what it means to move into the neighborhood. Yet I have a lot more to learn. 

Mystery

I was reading Jason Clark's blog and came across some missional posters developed by Emerging Grace. So I thought for the next couple weeks I would feature some of these posters, since I love both pictures and missional concepts.  Grace found her pictures at stock.xchng and developed the poster at despair, inc. The first one I am featuring  at this blog is mystery, which if you looked at the poster is no mystery now. Stayed tuned for:  Incarnational  Living

PhotoFriday - Loud

PhotoFriday - Loud by JR Woodward

The city center of NYC is typically LOUD.

Monday Morning Medicine

  Honeymooners 
  Originally uploaded by FrizzText

"A cheerful heart is good medicine"  Proverbs 17:22a

A dog looks at you and thinks, “You fed me, you pet me, you give me shelter, and you love me.  You must be God.”  A cat looks at you and thinks, “You feed me, you pet me, you give me shelter, and you love me.  I must be God.”

PhotoFriday - Vacation

PhotoFriday - Vacation by JR Woodward

I took a trip to NYC a couple of years ago with my family.  My Mom and Dad wanted to take their grandchildren to see the Macy Day Parade in New York.  While we were there, we saw many things.  I love street entertainment.  We get it all the time in LA.  Here is a dude breakin  NYC style.

PhotoFriday - Barren

PhotoFriday - Barren by JR Woodward

I took this photo in Death Valley, California.  It was a cool trip.  The desert is an amazing place.

Quote of the Week: A Question for Every Congregation

"The question which has to be put to every local congregation is the question whether it is a credible sign of God's reign in justice and mercy over the whole of life, whether it is an open fellowship whose concerns are as wide as the concerns of humanity, whether it cares for its neighbors in a way which reflects and springs out of God's care for them, whether its common life is recognizable as a foretaste of the blessing which God intends for the whole human family."  Leslie Newbigin

The Other Journal - Pop Revolutions

If you are unfamiliar with The Other Journal, you really need to check it out.  It is an insightful and challenging on-line journal which explores the intersection of Theology and Culture.  Here are the different categories which the journal explores:

Articles:  This section has connection to the latest articles, this issues topic being Pop Revolutions featuring people like Miroslav Volf and Shane Claiborne.  This section also has links to the most viewed articles like:  All Sexed Up: Is There a Way Out of Chasity, Marriage, and the Christian Sex Cult by Dan Rhoades.  Or Reconciling Sufjan Stevens: Religious Hipsters and The Inevitable Queerness of Christian Music by John Totten.

Examination: Theological glances into relevant historical movements, current events and cultural trends.

Creation: An art gallery that invites you to experience the diverse work of unique artists.

Imagination: A hub of fiction, non-fiction, and poetry. Creative writing that boldly gazes into the human condition.

Perspective: Articles that interact with film, music, and literature.  Taking a deeper look into the lives and work of current artists.

Social Justice: Articles exploring how to be proactive in affecting the world around us, discussing the problems and solutions facing us.

You may have read a number of journals, but you haven't read enough journals until you have encountered The Other Journal.  I think you will like it.

Words for Artists from T.S. Elliot

For those of you who are musicians, involved in film making or other artistic endeavors, you have the opportunity to help shape people's lives in deep ways.  I hope that this quote from T.S. Elliot will stimulate you to help people think more deeply about the transcendent and reality.  Now for the quote: “A great poet or a serious artist should be able to perceive or distinguish more clearly than ordinary people the forms and objects within the range of ordinary experience and ‘be able to make people see and hear more at each end’ of the spectrum of their sensibility than they could ever notice without his help.”