Daniel Im

Pastor + Author

Books

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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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.”
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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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Unity vs Uniformity: A Key Issue for Urban Ministry

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urbanministry

Is your mission to fulfill God’s purpose? Or is it your fame within God’s purposes?

This is a valid question for every Christian leader, but as Dhati Lewis states in his book, Among Wolves: Disciple-Making in the City, it’s especially important for leaders in the urban context.

What is Urban?

As sociologists Gottdiener and Hutchinson explain,

At the beginning of the twenty-first century, more than 3 billion persons—about half of the world’s population—lived in urban areas. By 2030, this number is expected to increase from 3 to more than 5 billion persons—some 60 percent of the total world population. This will be the first urban century in human history.

In the face of this emerging reality, Dhati and his team—through the church he’s planted, and the ministry he leads—have developed a strategy for indigenous disciple-making in the urban context. They’ve done this by embracing both density and diversity in the city context, and by creating a culture of effective disciple-making.

By 2030, 60 percent of the world is expected to live in urban areas.

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Urban ministry is not the same thing as inner city ministry to the homeless.

Ministry to the homeless that happens in the inner city is definitely urban, but there are other dimensions that must be taken into account. For example, when a neighborhood is undergoing gentrification, you’ll have a ton of socioeconomic diversity.

Extreme poverty can be right beside extreme wealth.

For example, a family who has owned their house for generations may be forced out of their gentrifying neighborhood because they can’t pay the rising property taxes. Sure they might make a lot on the sale of their home, but where will they move? Their life and community are right there…and it has been there for decades. Is that fair just because some developer wants to build condos and make a quick buck?

Complex issues like gentrification and the mixing of socioeconomic classes are one of the many reasons Dhati defines urban as a combination of two words: density and diversity.

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