Daniel Im

Pastor + Author

Articles

Becoming Fluent in the Gospel

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Three months…

It was going to be three months of doing my own laundry. Three months of cooking my own meals. Three months of working a real job. And three months in French…

It was the summer before my senior year in university, and I had signed up for a three-month mission trip with Campus Crusade for Christ. It was called Montreal Project.

The idea is that we would learn how to see life as mission and mission as life.

During the day, we would work a real job. During the evenings, we would be discipled, disciple others, and evangelize. On the weekends, we would do outreach and bless the community.

It was a missional missions trip before missional was cool.

Do you see life as mission and mission as life?

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Instead of just seeing the mission field as “over there,” we learnt how to see it as also “being here.” After all, the nations had come to us, and I was living in one of the most unreached cities in the Western world.

However, it wasn’t until the end of the third month that I began to understand the importance of fluency.

No I’m not talking about French—as important as that was for the mission’s trip. I’m talking about fluency as my friend, Jeff Vanderstelt, defines it in his latest book, Gospel Fluency.

I believe such fluency is what God wants his people to experience with the gospel. He wants them to be able to translate the world around them and the world inside of them through the lens of the gospel—the truths of God revealed in the person and work of Jesus. Gospel-fluent people think, feel, and perceive everything in light of what has been accomplished in the person and work of Jesus Christ.

They see the world differently. They think differently. They feel differently.

When they are listening to people, they are thinking, “How is this in line with the truths of the gospel? What about Jesus and his work might be good news to this person today? How can I bring the hope of the gospel to bear on this life or situation so this person might experience salvation and Jesus will be glorified?” (41-42)

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We Fail. Jesus Restores.

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When have you really enjoyed making a mess?

Making a mess in the kitchen is one thing. Making a mess of life is quite another. I can clean the kitchen to the point you’d never know I was in there. But when I make a mess of my life, I can’t just wipe away the evidence—or the consequences—with a good disinfectant.

Have you ever found yourself at rock bottom?

It may have been because of an inappropriate relationship, a string of lies, or a temptation or habit that seemed to gradually take over everything in life. At that moment, you stand at a crossroad. Do you continue down the road you’re on, continuing to repeat the mistakes because the pain of changing seems greater than the pain of remaining the same? Or do you look to Jesus for a way out?

Have you ever found yourself at rock bottom?

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Peter, one of Jesus’ closest disciples, knew what it meant to mess up. He failed in a big way. But Peter’s story also offers us encouragement and points us to the way out—a fresh start in Jesus Christ.

Let’s take a look at John 18:15-18, 25-27 from the CSB translation,

15 Simon Peter was following Jesus, as was another disciple. That disciple was an acquaintance of the high priest; so he went with Jesus into the high priest’s courtyard. 16 But Peter remained standing outside by the door. So the other disciple, the one known to the high priest, went out and spoke to the girl who was the doorkeeper and brought Peter in. 17 Then the servant girl who was the doorkeeper said to Peter, “You aren’t one of this man’s disciples too, are you?” “I am not,” he said. 18 Now the servants and the officials had made a charcoal fire, because it was cold. They were standing there warming themselves, and Peter was standing with them, warming himself. … 25 Now Simon Peter was standing and warming himself. They said to him, “You aren’t one of his disciples too, are you?” He denied it and said, “I am not.” 26 One of the high priest’s servants, a relative of the man whose ear Peter had cut off, said, “Didn’t I see you with him in the garden?” 27 Peter denied it again. Immediately a rooster crowed.

Peter had been through a lot on this particular evening:

  • The last supper
  • Failing Jesus by falling asleep in the Garden of Gethsemane
  • Witnessing Judas’ betrayal
  • Fighting the temple guards
  • And watching Jesus allow Himself to be arrested and taken away

None of these events excuse Peter’s denials, but they do help us recognize that he was surely exhausted and confused. His whole world had been turned upside down. Still, after all the disciples initially ran away from Jesus’ arrest (see Matt. 26:55), Peter at least made an effort to get near enough to see and hear what was going on—as long as he could do it undetected.

Question: What emotions would you have experienced in Peter’s situation?

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Broken Vessels

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Brokenness and pain.

Unfortunately, both are universal in our experiences as human beings. We may have been hurt by a love that ended prematurely, by abandonment and isolation, by chronic illness or death, or by circumstances we bring on ourselves through our sin and failure—but we all know what pain feels like. It feels like something has been broken inside us. It feels like we are broken.

Like clay jars, we’re fragile. We can be easily broken—but we don’t have to remain “broken vessels.” We’re never beyond the healing and redeeming power of God. In the face of failure, God responds with restoration. In spite of our shortcomings, God will work in and through us. In the midst of our circumstances, God will help us endure.

You’re never beyond the healing and redeeming power of God.

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Yet God doesn’t stop there!

He uses us to speak into the lives of other “broken vessels.” He uses our experiences with His grace and power to comfort others. He desires to use us to help our neighbors and loved ones encounter the God who brings hope and restoration.

Now we have this treasure in clay jars, so that this extraordinary power may be from God and not from us (2 Cor. 4:7).

We are broken vessels, but this great treasure—the good news of Jesus Christ—shines through our brokenness. And that’s a truth worth celebrating.

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5 Ways to Find Your Way Back to God

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What happens when you search for God with all your heart?

According to Scripture and personal experience, you find God.

You will seek me and find me when you search for me with all your heart. (Jeremiah 29:13 CSB)

Is there a pattern for this journey back to God? Or is everyone’s journey unique?

The answer is a resounding, yes. Yes there is a pattern, but everyone’s journey is also unique.

In Finding Your Way Back to God, Dave and Jon Ferguson have uncovered five universal awakenings that humans journey though as they find their way back to God. And as you’ll see through the stories that I’ll share from the book here, everyone’s journey is truly unique. So buckle up and get ready. These stories will help you see that as much as we need to find our way back to God, “God wants to be found even more than you want to find him.” [1]

God wants to be found even more than you want to find him.

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1. Awakening to Longing: “There’s got to be more.”

Each of the five awakenings are summarized with a prayer. Here’s the prayer for this first awakening,

“God, if you are real, make yourself real to me. Awaken in me the ability to see that you are what’s missing from my life.” [2]

Let me share with you one of the stories from the book that perfectly illustrate the way that we can find our way back to God through this awakening to longing.

Several years ago I had dinner with my friend and mentor Bob Buford. For much of his life, Bob ran a successful cable television company. After his son, Ross, tragically died, Bob came to a point in his life he called “Halftime.” He wrote a book by that title that tells how he moved from focusing on success to focusing on significance. What Bob said at dinner has stayed with me ever since: “One of people’s great fears is running out of money, but that’s not their greatest fear. Another significant fear people have is the fear of dying, but that’s not people’s greatest fear either.” He paused and said, “Deep down, our single greatest fear is to live a life of insignificance, to come to the end of our life and feel like we never really did anything that mattered. That is our greatest fear.”

Are you feeling like you are stuck in the same old, same old? Do you have a gut feeling that there’s got to be more? Author and theologian Frederick Buechner points us in the right direction when he says, “The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.” [3]

The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.

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2. Awakening to Regret: “I wish I could start over.”

“God if you are real, make yourself real to me. Awaken in me the possibility that with you I could start over again.” [4]

In this second section of the book, there is a compelling story about Scott and Kirsten, and the changes they chose to make after awakening to regret.

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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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