Daniel Im

Pastor + Author

Articles

Making Idols

By

From Judy Baxter

We all tend to make idols. So to prevent ourselves from doing so, it’s important to understand from what we are manufacturing our idols from.

  • Things that entice us
  • Things we fear
  • Things that we trust
  • Things we need

Whenever we make idols from these things, we are basically rejecting God.

“The only antidote to such idolatries, and therefore the task of biblical mission, is to lead people back to acknowledge the only true and living God in all of these domains.”

– Christopher Wright, The Mission of God

 

Spiritual Warfare and Mission

By

“Our missional motivation, therefore, needs to be carefully examined. Spiritual warfare is not a matter of triumphalism pervaded by a horrid spirit of gloating superiority, in which we become obsessed with “winning a victory.” Rather it is a matter of deep compassion for those oppressed by the forces of evil and idolatry – with all their attendant social, economic, political, spiritual and personal effects. We battle with idolatry because, like the God whose mission we thereby share, we know that in doing so we seek the best interests of those we are called to serve in his name. We combat idolatry not only to glorify God but also to bless humanity. Spiritual warfare, like all forms of biblical mission, is to be motivated by and exercised with profound love, humility and compassion – as modelled in Jesus himself.”

– Christopher Wright, The Mission of God

What does success look like in ministry?

By

Photo from (c) eye4deep

“When pastors don’t have rich spiritual lives with Christ, they become victimized by other models of success—models conveyed to them by their training, by their experience in the church, or just by our culture. They begin to think their job is managing a set of ministry activities and success is about getting more people to engage those activities. Pastors, and those they lead, need to be set free from that belief.”

– Dallas Willard

Click here for the Christianity Today article.

Groups Promo Winter 2011 Strategy

By

For our Winter 2011 Groups promotion, I printed our logo on both sides of a piece of paper and hung them around our whole building. I did this at our Beulah 98a Campus.

I then produced three different films asking people if they were part of a group, why or why not, and if they can encourage others why they should join a group. Check em out.

Week 1:

Week 2:

Week 3:

Book Review: A Community of Character – Stanley Hauerwas

By

This is an analytical book review of Stanley Hauerwas’ A Community of Character: Toward a Constructive Christian Social Ethic.

Stanley Hauerwas is the Gilbert T. Rowe Professor of Theological Ethics at Duke Divinity School and he holds a joint appointment with Duke Law School. Hauerwas’ Methodist roots and diverse education and work experience contributes to an ecumenical theological stance that is not liberal (12). In addition to his ecumenicism, he is cross-disciplinary, as “he is in conversation with systematic theology, philosophical theology and ethics, political theory, as well as the philosophy of social science and medical ethics.”

The thesis of this book is that Christian morality and ethics can only make sense and be applied to one’s life when one is living within the continuing narrative of the Christian story. As a result, Hauerwas frames everything he writes about in this book around the concept of narrative because without narratives, there is a loss of community (18).

  1. This book is essentially divided up into three parts. The first part addresses how every community needs to be rooted in a narrative. For Christians, Jesus and the Kingdom of God is the narrative that forms the church (50). Furthermore, it is the Christian’s belief in the authority of Scripture and God that enables the church to be the contrast model/community to a society that does not value authority.
  2. The second part of the book continues to emphasize the importance of narrative in understanding the church since Christians are a “storied people” worshipping a “storied God” (91). Hauerwas claims that Christians need to cultivate hope and patience in their life in order to be a contrast narrative to this world (128). For the Christian to grow in character, it is crucial that he/she learn to participate in the story of the people of God, rather than just hear about it (152).
  3. Consequently, the first two parts set up the theoretical basis for the third part, where he applies the concepts addressed in the first two parts to discuss what kind of ethic the church should have toward the family, sex, and abortion. His discussion is framed around the fact that one cannot separate one’s views on the family, sex, and abortion from the greater narrative of the church.

I love the way Hauerwas decides to address the family, sex, and abortion in the last section, since these are the pressing ethical issues that the church needs to be firm on, in order to be a contrast society.

[Read more…] about Book Review: A Community of Character – Stanley Hauerwas

Being Missionaries to Our Cities – Soma Communities

By

I haven’t seen any other video that has moved me and reflected my heart’s calling more than this video.

I know that God has called me to be involved with church planting, and this is what it’s about. You have to see this.

These are my favorite quotes from the video:

  • “If you don’t have multiplication at the end of what you are supposed to do then you won’t actually do what you’re supposed to do”
  • “A lot of churches have become orphanages. They know how to have babies, and they have a couple of fathers and moms for all the babies, but not enough to care for them all. And not enough to send them off to have their own families.”
  • “My exhortation to church planters is, if they don’t have that kind of love for the people that God has put around them, then they gotta ask God to give them a bigger heart coz this isn’t about them. It’s not about their church or their successes, it’s about God’s glory and the lost people who don’t know the love of their Father.”

Enjoy:

Soma Communities – Tacoma, WA from Verge Network on Vimeo.

Stop Motion Film “Zero”

By

Watch this Stop Motion Film “Zero” that considers how we treat one another and where learned judgment comes into play.

It won the “Best Short Film” at the Naples International Film Festival, and other awards at over 10 other festivals.

Zero from Zealous Creative on Vimeo.

Integrating Two Sides: Mary vs Martha? Or, Mary and Martha?

By

I cannot recall the last time I have ever heard anyone teach or preach about being Martha – myself including.

When reading Mirrored Reflections: Reframing Biblical Characters, ed. Young Lee Hertig and Chloe Sun, Beverly Chen went to lengths to show the importance of integrating both Mary and Martha’s characteristics in our lives. Chen explains how Mary’s strength of inward spiritual formation actually flows naturally into Martha’s strength of hospitality and outward ministry.

Personally, I tend to identify more with Martha – not necessarily in the aspect of hospitality, but in the aspect of valuing doing more than being. From both my Korean and Canadian culture, I constantly feel the pull toward producing, succeeding, and accomplishing things. However, one thing that I have learnt is the necessity of coming to Jesus Christ first before even thinking about doing anything else. As a result, in that sense, I am like Mary.

Who are you more like? Mary or Martha? Or both? If both, in what capacity?