Daniel Im

Pastor + Author

Articles

The Mighty Have Fallen. Don’t Join their Ranks.

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My heart is heavy as I write this.

Although we’re all sinful and broken, seeing the mighty fall is painful, heart wrenching, and incredibly sobering.

It makes me want to throw up.

Especially when it involves individuals in the faith who have gone ahead of us, paved the way, ministered locally and globally, and seemed to be living a life of faithfulness to the Lord.

I guess God wanted to shine the light and reveal what was hidden.

And this time, he didn’t use a flashlight; he went for the jugular and used those outdoor flood lights you see at baseball fields.

This declaration by the prophet Daniel seems to be quite fitting for this time,

May the name of God
be praised forever and ever,
for wisdom and power belong to him.
He changes the times and seasons;
he removes kings and establishes kings.
He gives wisdom to the wise
and knowledge to those
who have understanding.
He reveals the deep and hidden things;
he knows what is in the darkness,
and light dwells with him.
(Daniel 2:20-22, CSB)

Jesus puts it another way,

For nothing is concealed that won’t be revealed, and nothing hidden that won’t be made known and brought to light. (Luke 8:17, CSB)

Though sin might feel like a personal thing that you can hide, it will eventually come to light.

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Just One More

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There’s a fun little children’s book entitled Just One More by Jennifer Hansen Rolli where a little girl named Ruby continues to ask for just one more thing…

It’s cute because after continually asking for just one more minute of sleep, one more push on the swing, and one more scoop on her cone, she realizes that maybe one more is just too much.

How many of us live the same way?

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AI, Google Assistant, Robotics, the Church, and Your Faith

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Are you paying attention to the rapid advancements in AI?

We often joke that Siri, Alexa, or Google are listening into our conversations to gather data and serve us up with targeted advertisements, but they know better and would obviously never admit to that (ask any one of those assistants if they’re spying on you to see what they say). So if they aren’t, then why does the internet increasingly feel personal and up in our business?

AI, or artificial intelligence

Recently, Google stunned the tech world (and everyone else) with their new Assistant. You can watch it in action here, but here’s basically what they showcased: the ability to call a human being and have it intelligently make an appointment for you!

Can you believe that? That wasn’t a human making the appointment for you!

Have you heard of Move 37?

A couple years ago, Lee Sedol and AlphaGo faced off in a historic Go match where the 37th move made history. If you’re not familiar with Go, it’s “an abstract strategy board game for two players, in which the aim is to surround more territory than the opponent.”[1] It was invented over 2500 years ago in China and is exponentially more complex than chess (fun fact: it’s one of the few games that I’ve yet to beat my dad in).

This match was partly so historical, not just because one of the world’s best Go players (Lee Sedol) lost, but because he lost to a bot. Okay, maybe “bot” isn’t the right word to describe AlphaGo, but the fact of the matter is that AlphaGo is not a human—it is an artificially intelligent machine designed by DeepMind, a London AI lab owned by Google.

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Change or Die: A Few Steps to Effectively Introduce Change

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“It takes courage to be a change leader in the church. Opposition and resistance often come frequently and fiercely. But too much is at stake to do otherwise. . . . The choice is simple: change or die.”

Thom Rainer, in his book Who Moved My Pulpit?, couldn’t be more right in his statement here. The fact is, if there’s anything constant in ministry and in life, it’s change. (I wrote an article here on Leading Change in the Church).

If there’s anything constant in ministry and in life, it’s change.

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When it comes to introducing change, your change initiative will face one of three fates:

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Thinking of Starting a Podcast? Don’t! Until you read this…

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I love podcasts. They’re informative, inspirational, (can be) fun, but best of all, they’re FREE…

…well, that is, they’re free to the listener, but they are actually quite the investment (time + money) for the host.

And that’s something that I can personally speak into.

According to a 2017 survey from Edison Research,

  • 40% of Americans had ever listened to a podcast, which is up significantly from 11% in 2006
  • 18-34 year olds are the largest group of listeners, making up 44% of the group, with 35-54 year olds coming in a close second at 33%
  • Average listeners typically tune into five podcasts per week, are subscribed to six, and mostly listen at home or while driving

Though it’s been 10+ years since I first entered the world of podcasting as a listener, I’ve actually been recording my own podcasts since 2015.

I’m the co-host of three:

  1. New Churches Q&A Podcast: Church Planting, Multisite, Multiplication, Leadership Development, and Discipleship
  2. 5 Leadership Questions Podcast: Leadership
  3. IMbetween Podcast: Marriage, Parenting, and Faith

And as of April 2018, I’ve recorded more than 350 episodes on the three I co-host, as well as other ones I’ve been interviewed on as a guest.

In other words, I know the cost of starting and maintaining a podcast, and it’s definitely not free for the host!

But if you’re committed to it for a certain length of time, and have determined a clear purpose and reason for doing it, then it can be a fun endeavor to undertake.

I’ll talk about equipment options below, but let me get to the reason I’m writing this in the first place.

If your goal is to share information or spread an idea, a podcast may not be the best means for doing so.

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Why You Should Hire Your Next Boss (according to Mark Zuckerberg)

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Only hire someone that you’d be okay working for.

In one of the podcasts I listen to frequently (Masters of Scale), Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook was interviewed on his hiring best practices. This is what he said,

So the single most important thing is to get the best people you can around you. When I look at my friends who were running other good companies, the single biggest difference that I see in whether the companies end up becoming really great and reaching their potential, or just pretty good, is whether they’re comfortable and really self-confident enough to have people who are stronger than them around them. I’ve adopted this hiring rule, which is that you should never hire someone to work for you, unless you would work for them in an alternate universe.

“Never hire someone to work for you, unless you would work for them.” – Mark Zuckerberg

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Which doesn’t mean that you should give them your job, but just if the tables were turned and you were looking for a job, would you be comfortable working for this person? I basically think that if the answer to that is “no,” then you’re doing something expedient by hiring them, but you’re not doing as well as you can on that.

There are all these things that Sheryl, for example, is just much stronger than me at, and that makes me better and makes Facebook better. And I am not afraid or threatened by that—I value that. That’s what makes Facebook good.[1]

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Interruptions and the Cross

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This past week was supposed to go a certain way, and that way it certainly did not go…

  • I was supposed to fly to Denver on Wednesday to train a group of church planters, but that didn’t happen
  • On Thursday, Christina and I were supposed to interview our first guest together for our podcast, but that didn’t happen either
  • And this week, I was supposed to get back to the gym after finally fighting off the stomach bug, but as you might’ve guessed already, that didn’t happen either

That last point, I didn’t mind too much though.

I guess you could say that I was interrupted…

Tuesday morning, while I was getting ready for work, I gave my son, Makarios, a great big hug and squeezed his head close to me, while encouraging him and calling him a big boy. He then immediately pushed himself away from me, while beginning to cry and shout out, “I am not a big boy! I am not a big boy!”

Whoa, someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed…

Later on, while I was at work, Christina noticed a big bump behind his left ear, so she asked whether or not he had fallen or hit his head somewhere.

Not that I knew of…

So she brought him to the doctor when the girls came back from school. While there, the doctor basically told her that she had to bring him to the hospital because he needed a CT scan.

Yep. That was our week.

UPDATE: It ended up being an infected lymph-node, rather than what the doctor initially thought, so he’s now at home on heavy antibiotics after a two-night stay at the hospital.)

When’s the last time you were interrupted?

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Why Isolation, Boredom, and Pride are as Dangerous as Dynamite

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“Wow, I’m a natural. This is it. I was born to do this,” were the very thoughts I had moments before I was disqualified.

After running the 100m dash at a track meet in elementary school, our coach asked the team if anyone wanted to enter the speed walking event.

“Speed walking? Like…walking with speed?” I thought to myself.

This was my first official track meet and everything was new to me. The sights, the sounds, the smells, and especially speed walking.

Though I had never heard of the event—let alone see it take place—I volunteered for it. After all, how hard could it be? It’s just walking fast, isn’t it? Anything was better than just waiting around until the track meet was over.

After the coach showed me the proper form and let me in on the rules, I was off.

Seconds into the race, I was leading the pack. Minutes in, the distance between me and the next contestant was unfathomable.

“Wow, I’m a natural,” I thought to myself. “This is it. I was born to do this.”

And that’s when it happened. I was pulled out of the race for breaking the rules.

Disqualified. No second chances. No restarts. It was over. My rising Olympic career was over.

Have you ever been disqualified?

Okay, maybe not for bending your knees while speed walking, but for something else? For over embellishing your resume? Or, maybe for looking over at your friend’s answers during an exam?

There’s a disturbing—dare I say—trend that I’ve noticed over the past several years. It seems like an increasing number of public figures are falling from grace and disqualifying themselves from leadership.

An increasing number of public figures are falling from grace and disqualifying themselves.

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Eric Geiger words it well in his new book, How to Ruin Your Life and Starting Over When You Do,

I could easily write about a recent story of a well-known leader, coach, college professor, or ministry leader who was removed from a position of influence because of disqualifying behavior, because of issues of character and integrity. However, the story would be old news by the time you read these words because there are always new stories as these implosions continually come to light. Competent and effective leaders in a variety of fields and disciplines forfeit their roles over deficiencies in their character. They were able to lead others but not themselves, able to grow an organization while their hearts grew cold. When a lack of integrity comes to light, leaders can be disqualified. [1]

When a lack of integrity comes to light, leaders can be disqualified.

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To Grow, Rest, or Die? The Olympics, Farming, and Church Leadership

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The Quad King.

Do you know who I’m talking about?

In the recent 2018 Winter Olympics, U.S. Olympic figure skater, Nathan Chen performed the impossible. He became the first figure skater to perform six quads in one program.

Six quads!!

I still remember when Elvis Stojko landed the first quad combination!

Despite Chen’s heroics and the fact that he set an olympic record, he didn’t end up medaling.

In fact, according to the Washington Post, after his devastating short program where he placed 17th place, he “retreated to his room in the athletes’ village Friday and, for once, didn’t dissect his shortcomings in clinical detail. Nor did he torture himself for falling so terribly short and blowing any chance at an Olympic medal…

…Chen put his head on a pillow and fell asleep.”

Have you ever wondered what olympic athletes do after their competitions and what this has to do with leadership in the church?

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