*Re-publishing this on the one-year anniversary of his passing. His thought still shapes my own, and the few times we met still leave a lasting impression.
If you’ve had a heart for missionary work overseas you may or may not have heard of the name “Ralph Winter”. Hands down, his was THE MOST influential voice in global mission in the past 50 years. While not the hagiographical superstar, his thought has subtly, yet profoundly influenced – no – charted the course of global Christianity and steered it toward new dimensions. Pop ideas like the 10 / 40 window would not be were it not for him, and those themes only scratch the surface of his ideas. Sadly, Ralph Winter passed away yesterday (5/20/09) at his home in Pasadena, after a long and courageous battle with Multiple Myeloma. He was well into his eighties. Read more…
I annually re-post this as reminder to fix my eyes on the prize:
Ten Things To Do Before I Die:
1. End genocide.
2. Stabilize the Middle East.
3. Master a foreign language.
4. Eradicate one disease, pathogen or virus.
5. Alleviate unnecessary human suffering.
6. Write one well-written and scholarly book.
7. Promote racial unity, diversity and reconciliation
8. Experiment with micro-loans
9. Provide clean water for those who don’t have it.
10. Finish school dang it.
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Pastor Jay w/ Edna Yoder, 104 yrs old
One thing that always makes me smile is when I hear church planters talk of what kind of people they will gather together in their new churches. “We plan on gathering the hip, urban trendsters who have turned their back on the church”. One proposal I read listed Subaru owners and indie rockers. I can’t help but smirk because I relate to this. You want to gather the “cool” folk. It’s so what we want and it’s actually so off-target. Reminds me of a line from one of my fav movies, Tombstone: Read more…
While it’s still been only recently that we shut down missio (last December) it is an anniversary of sorts in that the prior summer was when it really started to hit home: This isn’t going to work. It was the pits. And while it sounds cliche, it’s true, failure in starting a new church is like experiencing a death in the family. It hurts for a long time, and does things to your head, messing up your confidence, shaking some of that youthful cockiness you may have once had. Perhaps it’s for so much good. But in the end it still hurts – and you wonder if you’ve got damaged goods. Read more…
Soong-Chan Rah: Another Angry Asian Man?
Reading “Prof Rah’s” The Next Evangelicalism is like gargling with salt. It stings in the throat but at the same time clears the sinuses of the stuffiness and congestion of poorly thought-out racial dialogue. Sure, we like to talk about color-blindness, and melting pots, and model minorities, but do we know what we’re really saying when we talk about these things? Surely the Church – that glorious multicultural reality – is exempt from these faux-pas assumptions… Or is she? Perhaps a little deconstruction is in order – and maybe that aint such a bad thing.
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While I thought some of the acting was kinda kitschy and predictable, (yo holmes, I’m from the South Side, I represent) I found this movie pregnant with so many important themes. Faith, Place, & Race are three of them (and also happen to be the title of this blog) but it wrestles deeply with issues of urbanization, neighborhood, culture, and so many things. David Swanson gives a more complete review, titling it “urban exile” and I think that captures the essence of Gran Torino; being stuck in a place with people you don’t like and making the most of it. Staying put. And this is faith. What’d u think of the movie?
I found this article terribly compelling (thanks to Daniel Eng for the heads up) – especially the following snippet – this has everything to do with defining * success * in church, or entrepreneurship, or just plain life: Read more…
Tech writer Clive Thompson calls Twitter "ambient awareness"
I’m re-publishing this as a convo about Twitter is jump-started by Time mag’s recent cover story on the 140 character cultural phenom. A friend dialogues about it (Twitter) here too. But specifically I am interested in Twitter’s implications for how we do church. I don’t mean so much using Twitter IN church, but the implications for end-user innovation in how we do church. Or be church. What if the church became “open-sourced” and congregant or laity-driven innovation? Original post here: Read more…
We had a discussion among our staff about the art of Makoto Fujimura this morning. He’s a New Yorker. He’s a Greenwich Village artist (my old haunting grounds back in the day @ Parsons School of Design). He’s asian (yay!) And he’s a Christian. So it intrigued me to watch an emerging figure who represents two worlds I inhabit, as an Asian-American as well as a Christian within the arts. So I did some homework only to find this little endorsement here to the left that he receives from CT mag, and to find out that he’s received some accolade from some great sources. See his blog here and professional page here. So I’m thrilled for this guy who is making a statement in numerous ways – as an urbanite, a religious person, an ethnic person – just thrilled. But the one question that seemed to echo in our group was: Read more…
I’ve been making my way through Korean-American author Soong-Chan Rah’s recent new work The Next Evangelicalism. Now careful here, reading it is like gargling with salt – it stings on the way down but clears the sinuses of quaint tokenisms and so-called “color-blindnesses” that perpetuate faulty systems. Basic premise: while the de facto representation of American evangelicalism is predominantly a Caucasian playing field, the fact of the matter is, “American evangelicalism” is fast becoming non-white. I think this is no mystery, and just today heard this sentiment expressed, by a Caucasian brother for that matter. What’s the big stink then? Why the ranting against the establishment, when folks recognize the nation over this phenomenon of “the browning of America”? Read more…
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