Daniel Im

Pastor + Author

Articles

Are You a Life-Giving Christian?

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After having lived and pastored in six major cities in three countries around the world, I’m often asked the question, “Which is your favorite?”

When I was younger, I’d reminisce about the mountains in Vancouver, the frozen river canal in Ottawa, the International Jazz Festival in Montreal, or the skyscrapers in Seoul. However, after packing and moving for the thousandth time—or so it feels—I finally feel like I have an adequate answer to that question.

It depends. That’s it—it depends.

It depends on whether or not I approached the city with the posture to give or take. It depends on whether or not I came with the desire to bless or an attitude of entitlement. Did I go to harvest or to plant? Did the city exist for my benefit, or did I exist for its benefit?

—— Enter the giveaway at the bottom of this article for a chance to win one of four copies of Todd Korpi’s book, The Life-Giving Spirit: The Victory of Christ in Missional Perspective. ——

Every week, Christians in your city are wrestling with a similar tension.

Should I go to church or to the lake? Should I participate in a small group or watch the game on TV. Should I open up the Bible app or Facebook?

Every week, when people enter the doors of your church, they are either coming with the posture to give or take. They are either coming to serve or be served. They are coming to bless the Lord or be blessed by the Lord. They are coming to give worship or take information and inspiration from the sermon. It’s a subtle difference, but your posture changes everything.

This reminds me of this one particular phrase that Todd repeats in his book, The Life-Giving Spirit: The Victory of Christ in Missional Perspective, “If every breath we inhale is from God, then every breath we exhale should be for God.”

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Music and Your Brain, Worship and Your Heart

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My children love to sing and dance. So oftentimes after dinner, we’ll goof around, turn up the tunes, and sing songs with one another.

No, not like the von Trapp family—albeit, we have sung, “Doe, a deer, a female deer” more than once…

One particular evening, I began singing “A Whole New World” from Disney’s Aladdin. I always loved the melody as a child, but while I was teaching it to my children, I quickly realized something about the lyrics—I didn’t agree with them! And I definitely did not want my children being influenced by those horrible lyrics.

“No one to tell us no? Or where to go?”

I didn’t want my children saying that to me! And I definitely did not want them to leave me…at least not yet.

The thing about music is that it deeply shapes us—often without us recognizing the full extent of its influence.

In one study, three professors from Harvard and Boston College discovered that children who had three years or more musical instrument training performed better than those who didn’t learn an instrument in auditory discrimination abilities and fine motor skills. They also tested better on vocabulary and non-verbal reasoning skills, which involve understanding and analyzing visual information.

What’s interesting about this study is that you would naturally expect someone who is learning an instrument to develop in their fine motor skills, which they did. However, you wouldn’t necessarily expect someone who’s learning an instrument to grow in their vocabulary and non-verbal reasoning skills! It’s amazing how the brain is wired and how music shapes your brain.

Similarly, have you ever considered the way worship shapes your heart?

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How to Improve Your Leadership…Immediately!

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I have three young children, so our house is well stocked with Band-Aids.

Not adhesive bandages, but Band-Aids…you know, the name brand kind that have Disney-Pixar characters on them. Now before you go and think I’m raising entitled children, let me explain the backstory.

When my children were younger, Christina and I refused to buy the over-priced character Band-Aids. We bought the generic kind with no designs. I then would take a pen and draw a smiley face, panda, or bunny on it.

My children loved it. They didn’t think it was cheap, by any means! After all, I was giving them a custom, handcrafted, one-of-a-kind bandage to cover up their cut, scrape, or wound. Unfortunately, that only worked when they were toddlers. Now, the only thing that is acceptable, in their opinion, is a Band-Aid with a character on it.

Oh how things change…

Alright, design aside, I’ve found that Band-Aids do actually work better than the generic kind. They last longer and do a better job keeping the water out, which is actually part of the problem. Since the cheap ones often come off within the day, my children will remind me that they need a new one. However, with Band-Aids, if I’m not paying attention, days might pass before I remember to change it.

This is fine if I remembered to clean the wound and treat it with an antibiotic before covering it with a Band-Aid. But what if I didn’t? What if I just put the Band-Aid on immediately after, and didn’t take time to clean or treat it? And then I left it on for a few days without checking it?

My children would likely get an infection at best. At worst, they’d need surgical debridement and antibiotics.

This is because Band-Aids are just that…they’re an aid to the healing process. They can’t do it alone.

Have you ever been given a “stretch” assignment?

Something that you’ve never done before? Something that you had to go get help to complete? Something that you had to research and develop new skills for, in order to get it done?

Leaders use “stretch” assignments to challenge individuals on their team. They know that it’s extra work and that the team member might not be ready for it, but it’s a way to discover potential and build capacity. Essentially, it’s a real life test of an individual’s competency, character, tenacity, and grit.

Stretch assignments are a real life test of an individual’s competency, character, and grit.

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However, it’s important to note that completion of the assignment, in and of itself, is not the only goal. The way the team member reacts to the assignment, prioritizes it, and works through it is just as important:

  • How did they react when given the assignment?
  • Did they ask clarifying questions immediately? Or later?
  • How did they prioritize the assignment in light of their existing workload?
  • How did it affect performance in their other work?
  • Did they recruit others to help?
  • Did they delegate it, dump it, or do it?

“Stretch” assignments, when used appropriately, will move your team members out of boredom and comfort, to a new level of effectiveness and productivity. When overused, however, they have the potential to lead to burnout.

So use them…with caution.

Are “Stretch” Assignments Band-Aid Solutions?

When used by themselves, yes they are.

“Stretch” assignments aid the development of leaders, but they’re not the way to develop leaders. They’re not a silver bullet solution.

If you’re serious about “stretching” the individuals on your team and in your church, you need to think about competencies and culture. More specifically, I’m referring to the people development competency and a developmental culture.

After all, which would you rather have? Hirelings or owners?

When your team members are engaged in their work, they’re more likely to own what they do, go the extra mile, and do one more thing.

If your team is engaged in their work, they’re more likely to go the extra mile.

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In fact, in Gallup’s extensive research on engagement, they discovered that there’s a correlation between being developed at work and an individual’s level of engagement. In their Q12 survey, there are several statements focused on measuring an employee’s development, such as,

  • There is someone at work who encourages my development
  • In the last six months, someone at work has talked to me about my progress
  • This last year, I have had opportunities at work to learn and grow

How would you answer these questions for those on your team? How would people on your team answer those questions?

In order to “stretch” individuals to greater levels of performance, productivity, and potential, yes, you can leverage “stretch” assignments, but first, you need to clean and treat the wound, so that it doesn’t become a Band-Aid solution.

In other words, you need to create a culture of development and identify what proficiency looks like in the people development competency.

When you do this, “stretch” assignments cease to be one-offs or Band-Aid solutions to problems. Instead, they become a part of a larger framework devoted to developing every team member to their fullest potential for kingdom impact.

Share the Good Stuff

In conclusion, use “stretch” assignments. They’re good and they work well in light of the caveats above. But when you do hand out “stretch” assignments, resist the urge to delegate what you don’t like doing. Share the good stuff. Share something that you love doing.

Who knows? They might discover a way to do it better. And the whole team would be better for it.

Stretch assignments can move you out of boredom and comfort, to a new level of effectiveness.

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Mass Gatherings and Movements

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The year 2011 was the year of social media, mass gatherings, and movements, or as we now know it, The Arab Spring.

It’s believed to have all started in Tunisia when a 26-year-old man, who was trying to sell fruits and vegetables in order to support his widowed mother and six siblings, had his cart confiscated and was slapped by a policewoman. Humiliated and full of rage, he set himself on fire in front of a government building. This wasn’t the first time an instance like this had happened, but when it was captured by cellphone cameras and shared on the Internet, everything changed. This act of injustice, which led to the President of Tunisia fleeing the country a month later, awakened a sleeping giant across the Middle East. Just consider what else happened that year:

  • January 14, 2011: Government overthrown in Tunisia
  • February 11, 2011: Government overthrown in Egypt; President Mubarak resigns facing charges of killing unarmed protestors
  • February 15, 2011: Anti-government protests begin in Libya, and on October 20, Gaddafi is killed.

And the list goes on and on with Syria, Yemen, Algeria, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Morocco, and Oman.

Mass gatherings, riots, and movements are nothing new.

Just consider when over 200,000 people gathered on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial to hear Martin Luther King Jr.’s speech in 1963. Or what about the L.A. Race Riots of 1992 and the Ferguson, Missouri, riots of 2014? Then there are the riots that I am personally most embarrassed of—not because I was there, but because this was my home city—when, in 2011, the Vancouver Canucks lost the Stanley Cup 4-0 against the Boston Bruins.

Fans went insane. Police cars were set on fire, shops were looted, glass was broken, and cars were overturned. It was chaos.

And at the end of 2016, let’s not forget the massive movement where millions came out protesting and calling for the impeachment of Park Geun-Hye, then President of South Korea.

We remember moments like these because people gathered. And when they gathered, they did something together they wouldn’t have been able to do by themselves. They saw both the dificulties and possibilities so clearly that they were able to visualize a different reality. This vision for a golden tomorrow has fueled movements in the past and is what will spark a church multiplication movement today.

Vision has fueled movements in the past and is what will spark a movement today.

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A Golden Tomorrow: Planting 1,000 Churches

Subtract your age from the number 80. Now take that number, and add it to this year’s number. What year do you get? 2050? 2070? 2090?

What if I told you that it’s possible to plant 1,000 churches before you get to that year? 1,000 churches in your lifetime? Would you believe me?

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Mars, Contextualization, and Church Leadership

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Image: NASA

What time is it on Mars?

I was obsessed with space as a child. In fact, I still have my old books about space, and now my children are reading them! I can assure you that it was their decision, not mine. Going along the theme of loving space, I was naturally into Star Wars, but it was Star Trek that won the day for me. Now I’m definitely revealing my inner nerd, but I even had a manual that talked about all the intricate systems on the USS Enterprise.

I recently watched a TED Talk from Nagin Cox, a Spacecraft Operations Engineer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. In it, she explained what life on Mars was like—she even referred to herself as a Martian! Now before you ask Google, Siri, or Alexa when humans first landed on Mars, let me clarify. She’s a Martian because she works on the team that controls the four rovers that the U.S. has placed on Mars since the mid-90s.

When the rovers are “sleeping” at night—in order to recharge their batteries—Cox and her team are hard at work creating the rover’s program for the next day. So essentially, Cox works the night shift.

Now unlike individuals who work the graveyard shift from 11 pm – 7 am here on Earth, things are a bit different on Mars. This is because a day on Mars is 40 minutes longer than a day on Earth. In other words, it takes 24 hours and 40 minutes for Mars to rotate once.

Not only that, but a year on Mars is almost twice as long as a year on Earth.

While this might sound like a minute detail (pun intended), this has actually created quite a couple of issues for Cox and her Martian colleagues, such as:

  • When you say the words yesterday, today, and tomorrow, how do you know if someone is referring to yesterday, today, and tomorrow on Earth time or Martian time?
  • Do you work the 11 pm – 7 am shift according to Earth time or Martian time?

Now what does this all have to do with church planting and leadership in the church?

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Missional Living and the Scriptures

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Mission is not something that your church does. Nor is it something that your church can opt out of. And it’s not a strategy, preference, or style of ministry either.

Mission needs to be core to the identity of any and every local church. After all, a church without a clear understanding of its mission is a church without power. As scholar Martin Kähler said a century ago, “Mission is the mother of theology.”

What It Means to Be Missional

I’m not talking about having a mission statement. I’m talking about the great and grand mission that God has invited us all into: the mission of God, the missio Dei. The concept of missio Dei is recognition that God is a sending God and that the church is sent.

Jesus said to them again, “Peace to you. As the Father has sent me, I also send you. (John 20:21 CSB)

In describing the mission of the church, Tim Keller notes: “God does not merely send the church in mission. God already is in mission, and the church must join him. This also means, then, that the church does not simply have a missions department; it should wholly exist to be a mission.”1

The church does not simply have a missions department; it should wholly exist to be a mission.

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The church has been sent to join the most important mission in the Scriptures.2 Jesus Christ embodied that mission; the Holy Spirit empowers for that mission; the church is the instrument of that mission; and the culture is the context in which that mission occurs.3

As missiologist Wilbert Shenk points out: “The Great Commission institutionalizes mission as the raison d’être, the controlling norm, of the church. To be a disciple of Jesus Christ and a member of his body is to live a missionary experience in the world. There is no doubt that this was how the earliest Christians understood their calling.”
4

And this is how we need to understand the word mission or its adjective, missional, today. A missional church is a church that’s adopting the posture of a missionary, joining God on His mission, and learning and adapting to
 the culture around them while remaining biblically sound.
 Think of it this way: missional means living and acting like 
a missionary, even if you never leave your city.

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Sanctifying Your Ambition and Faith

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If you missed my last two posts on ambition, you might want to start there:

  1. The Paradox of Ambition and Faith
  2. Ambition, Faith, and Timing

Oftentimes God has to bring you through the desert before he can use you.

In other words, he has to sanctify your ambition and faith in order to use you for his purposes.

If you haven’t yet gone through a desert experience where your world has been turned upside down, then expect to. God uses these desert experiences to accomplish things through you that you would never be able to accomplish apart from them.

Oftentimes God has to bring you through the desert before he can use you.

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In fact, spiritual leaders find their greatest insights and contributions in these desert experiences.

Moving back to Canada from from Korea was definitely a desert experience for me. I felt like my world was turned upside down.

I knew that God had called us to Korea, but if that was really true, then why did he allow us to leave Korea the way we did? The ministry was multiplying, people were being transformed, and we had just signed a lease for a new place and bought all new furniture, only then to turn around and leave it all?

My wife, Christina, and I didn’t understand why God was allowing us to go through this, but by his unbelievable grace we did sense his presence along the way.

When we moved back to Canada, we were jobless, hopeless, and our savings were running out fast.

I was disillusioned with ministry and knew I needed a break, but I also knew my family needed to be fed.

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My Seminars for Exponential East 2017

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I’m excited to be speaking this week at Exponential East 2017!

If you are at the conference, I’d love for you to join me at one of my seminars.

Pre-Conference: Developing Better Disciple Makers – Hosted by Discipleship.org

  • Join Jim Putman, Ralph Moore, Bobby Harrington, Bill Hull, Ariyana Rimson and Daniel Im to learn how to get better at personally living out Jesus’ final command. The sessions will be practical and led by some of the nations leading authorities and, more importantly, practitioners of disciple making.
  • Time: Monday 1:00pm – 5:00pm
  • Location: Henry Chapel

Pre-Conference: Embracing Disruption – Repurpose Your Church to Redeem Your Community – Hosted by Mosaix

  • An increasingly diverse and cynical society will no longer find credible the mere explanation of theological truth apart from effective community engagement. Advancing the common good, then, and thus the very Gospel, itself, must involve more than mere words, and the building of large congregations filled with people of a similar race, class, or cultural background. In this present future, our common confession must be validated by concrete action and accompanying measurable results along spiritual, social and economic fronts. Indeed this is the expectation of Christ in Matthew 5:16 and of the Apostle Paul in Ephesians 2:10. Whether you’re the pastor of an existing church or soon-to-be church planter, don’t miss this first ever presentation designed to help you advance disruption innovation, effective community engagement, and maximize your church’s influence in the community.
  • Time: Tuesday 8:00am – 11:30am
  • Location: Faith Hall – Room 350

Workshop Session 1: Pathways: The Shift from Level 3 to Becoming a Level 4 Leader and Church

  • Join Daniel Im, Mac Lake and Chris Lagerlof as we discuss the process and steps to successfully shifting from being a Level 3 (growth by addition) church to becoming a Level 4 (reproduction) church. We will look at barriers to making this shift as well the necessary steps you must make in your own personal leadership and ministry to successfully navigate this shift. Our conversation will focus on helping you and your church, network or tribe build a culture of reproduction and a level 4 mindset. We will also discuss the pathway and process to successfully be a Level 4 leader and church.
  • Time: Tuesday, 2:30-3:30pm
  • Location: Henry Chapel

Workshop Session 2: A Discipleship Strategy for Multiplication

  • In order to multiply, you need to have a discipleship strategy in place. After all, the multiplication of your church always begins with the multiplication of disciples. In this workshop, learn how to create a strategic discipleship pathway that will help you develop multipliers, rather than consumers.
  • Time: Wednesday, 8:45-9:45am
  • Location: AP Buildings – AP 7

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Ambition, Faith, and Timing

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Last week I covered the paradox of ambition and faith. Today, I want to add a third variable to the mix: timing.

What relationship does ambition and faith have with timing?

Although spiritual leaders can have ambition and God-placed faith, there’s still one major area they can mess up in—timing.

It’s easy for spiritual leaders to mess up in this one area–timing.

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Abraham had a significant calling on his life, and it was to be the father of a great nation, one that was intended to be a blessing to the entire world and one from which the Savior of the world would come. To even believe that this could be true, for him took a great measure of faith, and only a truly ambitious person would’ve even accepted this grand assignment.

The only problem was that Abraham was impatient.

I don’t blame the guy, though. After all, he was childless and seventy-five years old at the time God commissioned him (Gen 12:2–4). In the ensuing years Abraham moved, experienced a famine, lost his wife, then received her back, moved again, got into a fight with his nephew Lot, experienced war, experienced the destruction of a city, and moved again (did I already say that?), among many other things.

In and through these experiences, God reminded him multiple times about this calling that he had placed on his life.

God will often use your current circumstances to remind you about your calling.

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Eleven years later Abraham and his wife Sarah (their names were Abram and Sarai at that time) got fed up about continually hearing this calling and not seeing it come to pass, so they ambitiously took their faith into their own hands.

“Sarai said to Abram, ‘Since the LORD has prevented me from bearing children, go to my slave; perhaps through her I can build a family.’ And Abram agreed to what Sarai said” (Gen 16:2).

Spiritual leaders understand that there are two different ways to understand time in the Scriptures.

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The Paradox of Ambition and Faith

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ambition mountain

A 7-Eleven Vision for Church Planting

“What’s your vision for the orphanage and for Thailand?” I asked the pastor of the orphanage.

“You know, whenever I think about you Koreans and South Korea, I get mixed feelings.”

I was starting to think that I shouldn’t have asked this question in the first place.

The pastor continued, “On the one hand, I’m astounded as to the spiritual transformation God can accomplish in a single country over a short period of time. But on the other hand, I’m upset because 100 years ago, Korea and Thailand were basically the same country—rural, economically challenged, and spiritually lost.”

After giving a sigh of relief, I paused, wondering whether I should interject, but then the pastor continued.

“Have you noticed that there are 7-Elevens pretty much on every street corner in Thailand?” asked the pastor.

I nodded.

“I have this dream that God would do such a transformational work in Thailand that, instead of 7-Elevens on every street corner, we had churches. And I want that work to start here in the orphanage with these children,” explained the pastor.

As I walked away from that conversation, I thought to myself, now that’s ambitious.

The Paradox of Ambition and Faith

What does an entrepreneur dreaming up a new solution for the next greatest app have in common with that pastor in Thailand dreaming about planting churches on every street corner?

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