Daniel Im

How to Get People to Serve in Your Church

June 19, 2018 By Daniel Im

William Wallace, Melinda Gates, Hitler, Elvis Presley, Billy Graham, Nelson Mandela, Bono, and Jeff Bezos.

What’s your off-the-cuff reaction when you hear those names? Do you think of similarities or differences? If you could group them together with one word, which one would you use?

Would the word “leader” come to mind?

Now you may or may not agree on how effective each one of those individuals were (or are) as leaders, but it’s clear that when they acted, people followed. They led and history is different because of it.

When leaders act, people follow. And history is different because of it.

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While William Wallace led with passion to secure Scottish freedom from the English, Melinda Gates has led with compassion to give away more money than most people can even begin to fathom. While Hitler led the Germans with an authoritarian grip, Elvis Presley led with his charisma and rolling tunes.

Haven’t you ever noticed that as quickly as you can name leaders, you are able to name different attributes that make each of them uniquely effective? This is because there is no silver bullet to leadership. There is no common set of characteristics that—when put together—produce the end result of a leader.

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

May 24, 2018 By Daniel Im

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.

Just One More

May 22, 2018 By Daniel Im

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?

[Read more…] about Just One More

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

May 15, 2018 By Daniel Im

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.

Change or Die: A Few Steps to Effectively Introduce Change

May 8, 2018 By Daniel Im

“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.