Articles

Luggage Lessons – Are you processing your life experiences?

January 26, 2011 By Daniel Im

Which image best reflects your life experiences?

I recently sat through an excellent workshop by Hugh Phillips and wanted to share one of my takeaways.

He mentioned how we all have luggage, which are processed experiences, and that our luggage will yield much wisdom and some of our greatest life lessons when they are reflected upon. This is wisdom! This is praxis! Character formation best happens through our life experiences. I love how Hugh mentioned that our luggage can either make us better or bitter, and that it’s ultimately our choice.

I want my luggage to make me better, so here’s my “work luggage” – how my most recent work experiences have shaped who I am:

Moving to, living in, and pastoring in Korea: I learned how important it was to place my trust in God, rather than people. Yes, people can be trustworthy, but we are called to love people and place our trust in God. Unfortunately, we too often love God and trust people. We have it mixed up.
- Jeremiah 17:7 – “But blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence is in him.”
- Matt 22:39 – “Love your neighbor as yourself.”
- Listen to this message by Wayne Cordeiro who unpacks this concept – http://media.enewhope.org/audio/W1046.mp3

The Best Way to Empower Leaders

January 24, 2011 By Daniel Im

While I was reading, Spiritual Leadership by J. Oswald Sanders (click on the link to read my book review), one of the questions I wanted answered through the book was this one, “What is the best way to empower volunteer leaders?” After all, volunteer leaders are critical to the health of a church and really, any organization that is dependent on volunteers. Personally, instead of merely delegating tasks, I have found that volunteer retention and satisfaction is higher when they are empowered to a role with responsibilities.

Why I ditched the M.Div…and am still a pastor

January 19, 2011 By Daniel Im

Back in 2009, I wrote a post entitled, “Where to go to seminary? A preliminary comparison between seminaries in Canada, the United States, and Korea.”

Since then, a lot of things have changed – especially my outlook regarding seminary and the usefulness of theological education. I touched on that topic briefly in my post, “The Future of Seminary.”

Well, after viewing some activity over those two previous posts, I thought I’d give my view as to where I think the future of seminary education is heading by explaining where I’m at. Namely, why I ditched the M.Div (Masters of Divinity) and am still a pastor.

Here it is…

Book Review: Together in Prayer – Coming to God in Community by Andrew Wheeler

January 3, 2011 By Daniel Im

Together in Prayer: Coming to God in Community by Andrew Wheeler is a great primer that explains what praying in community looks like. The book could probably be summed up in one sentence – pray to God, not to each other. If you want a good overview of everything this book has to offer, read the last chapter of the book. The appendix also has a neat assessment to determine how “prayer-friendly” your group is.

Wheeler is very systematic in unpacking what it looks like to pray in community – explaining both tips that will enhance group prayer as well as prayer practices that will actually hinder it. For example, he explains how we oftentimes direct our prayers at each other, instead of God by instructing, exhorting, sermonizing, counseling, and informing each other through our prayers. Here’s an example, “Father, may people who are far from you come to our church today. They need to hear your Word and realize their need for you, rather than pursuing their own selfish desires. They need to repent and receive Jesus as their Savior, to save them from a Christless eternity. Their lives need your touch; may they stop making excuses and come to meet you today.” Compare that prayer, which is directed more towards people than to God, with the following prayer. [Read more…] about Book Review: Together in Prayer – Coming to God in Community by Andrew Wheeler

A Community of Deal Seekers

December 26, 2010 By Daniel Im

This morning I woke up at 2:53 am to go to Old Navy to get a free Flip UltraHD Video camera! All I had to do was to show up early (the store opened at 4 am), spend $25, and then I would get the camera for free! Regular price on amazon.ca is $159.00, but on sale for $99.00. Check out the camera by clicking on the image.

The catch? There were only limited quantities.

So right after I woke up in the morning, I went with my father in law (he’s visiting for the Christmas season) and drove off to Old Navy. To my surprise, there were already tons of people there. So I quickly parked and rushed into line. It was quite exhilarating as others were also parking and rushing to line up as well!

Just as I got into the line, people started shouting to my father in law and I, “You’re number 28 and you’re number 29!” I thought it was a bit odd that they were numbering us, so when I asked why that mattered, they told me that there were only 30 cameras available for the first 30 customers!

WHOA!! Just as they said that, probably 3-5 people lined up behind us. [Read more…] about A Community of Deal Seekers

A Paradox? Are you going to rest during the Christmas Season?

December 14, 2010 By Daniel Im

Work, work, work, eat, eat, eat, shop, shop, shop, work, work work.

If you have no idea what I’m referring to above then you probably aren’t that familiar with the typical North American holiday season…especially Thanksgiving in the States and Christmas in Canada.

Let me flesh it out for some of you:

Christmas in Canada: We work, then eat turkey (or some other big feast), then we shop on Boxing Day, and then we go back to work.
Thanksgiving in the States: We work, then eat turkey (or some other big feast), then we shop on Black Friday, and then we go back to work.

So many of us look forward to the holiday season, yet squander the time off with so many “things” to do, that we go back to work only slightly refreshed…if even.

When we look at the creation story, we learn the idea of rhythms. [Read more…] about A Paradox? Are you going to rest during the Christmas Season?

Advent in the 21st Century

December 9, 2010 By Daniel Im

Check out this awesome video depicting what the advent would look like in the 21st century.

Merry Christmas!

Growing through Community over the Christmas Holidays

December 1, 2010 By Daniel Im

We all tend to spend our holidays in different ways. Some of us spend it with our families, others alone. Some with big Turkey feasts and others with mac and cheese or bbq chicken from the grocery store. However, the one thing that stays constant throughout the holiday season is our need for community.

Although this may be a pretty funny picture of me sitting all alone, and not being a part of the party, this is how a lot of people feel throughout the Christmas holidays. In fact, for some of your small group members, your group may really be the only family they have in town.

So here is a brief list of suggestions for your group to continue to grow through community over the holidays. Feel free to consider one, two, none, or all of them.

Our Lives In Numbers (Guest Post)

November 9, 2010 By Daniel Im

My wife just wrote an incredible post that gives a glimpse into our lives. With her permission, I thought I’d put it here 🙂

Oh la! Feels like I haven’t blogged in ages! Our family was blessed with an opportunity to go to Banff on a district-wide prayer conference. It was a wonderful time of relaxing, enjoying nature, and meeting new people. Also, our family needed this time together.

I was talking to someone I had met about our recent journeys of what had brought us to Edmonton. She insisted that I needed to write down things in order to remember everything that God has brought us through. Thus, I started to compile a little list in my head of things I wanted to remember. I ended up realizing that it had to do a lot with numbers. So, here are a few snapshots of some numbers that hold a lot more significance than we realize.

Our Lives In Numbers:

2 – the number of times we have sold almost everything we own in order to follow God’s calling/leading. It really wasn’t easy at all! I have learned that stuff is exactly what it is – “stuff.” It doesn’t define who you are or what you will become if you don’t allow it to. If you hold on too tight to your “stuff,” you will soon find out that it is actually holding tight on to you.

3 – the number of months we have lived in Edmonton; a place to finally call “home.”

– is also the number of weeks we had to leave Korea. That meant selling all of our stuff, getting rid of our lease (which we had signed for a year and if we didn’t find someone to take it over, we would have had to continue paying rent or risk loosing our $10 000 deposit), packing all our remains and saying our goodbyes. In a sense, we lost what we thought was “home,” only to later realize that “home” is where our family is and ultimately in Heaven.

[Read more…] about Our Lives In Numbers (Guest Post)