Daniel Im

Pastor + Author

Multiethnic Ministry

Prophets of a Future Not Our Own – Oscar Romero

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Here is an amazing poem attributed to Archbishop Oscar Romero. Enjoy!

Wikipedia
Wikipedia

It helps now and then to step back and take a long view.

The Kingdom is not only beyond our efforts,

it is beyond our vision.

We accomplish in our lifetime only a fraction

of the magnificent enterprise that is God’s work.

Nothing we do is complete,

which is another way of saying that the kingdom always lies beyond us.

No statement says all that could be said.

No prayer fully expresses our faith.

No confession brings perfection,

No pastoral visit brings wholeness.

No program accomplishes the Church’s mission.

No set of goals and objectives include everything.

This is what we are about.

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Ethnicity and The New Creation

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*My post here was originally published on Aug 27, 2015 in The Gospel Project.

In movies like Memento or Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, the story is told in reverse—we call this technique the reverse chronology method. As counter-intuitive as this method might seem, movies that start with the end can actually be quite compelling, if not more so, than the traditional method of going from start to finish. This is because you’re placed in the seat of an investigator when the first scene of the movie is the end or the climax. You know something that the actors don’t, and you are trying to piece together the actions that they will take, in order to get to that end.

In the same way, you and I are living in a reverse chronology story. We know what is going to happen in the end—Jesus will return and he will usher in his new creation. His kingdom will fully come and be fully realized here on earth as it is in heaven. However, today, we are living in a moment where the kingdom is here but not fully here. We see evidences of God’s fingerprint and his new creation taking shape, but we can’t fully experience it until Jesus returns. As a result, we are living in a time of tension – we are straddling between the now and the not yet. We know what the end will bear, but today we still need to bear through the trials and struggles of this world. We know that in the end, there will be no more tears, grief, crying, pain, and death (Rev 21:4), but today, we face those harsh realities even more so than ever before. The future vision of this new creation is most clearly outlined in Rev 7:9-10.

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My Hope for Beulah, the Local Church and Edmonton

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edmonton

Whenever I pray, “God may your kingdom come and your will be done,” I’m not just going through the motions and praying some sort of ritualistic prayer. Nor am I praying it and hoping that God would do that through someone else in some other place. Since this is a part of the prayer that Jesus taught us to pray, I have confidence that he is doing “something” when we have the audacity to pray that prayer with sincerity and faith. And I’m convinced that God chooses to do that “something” through you and I – through the church.

Let’s face it. The local church can be dysfunctional because we are the local church and we can all be dysfunctional. Regardless, I have full faith in God’s redemptive power and his desire to usher in his kingdom through the local church.

God wants to usher in his kingdom through the local church.

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When I came to Edmonton, Alberta, Canada to serve at Beulah Alliance Church in 2010, I wasn’t just coming for some job. I came because I was convinced that Beulah was all about God’s kingdom and his mission. After all, since its birth in 1921, over 60 churches have been planted out of Beulah.

And now that God is leading us into a new season of ministry, I’ve been spending a lot of time reflecting on this question,

“What gives me hope that Beulah will continue on this trajectory and be a transformational kingdom agent in Edmonton and beyond?”

Here are some of my thoughts:

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How to Create a Missional Culture at Your Church (BLESS Pocket Guide)

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How can you create a missional culture at your church?

The big challenge and task for churches that are serious about creating a missional culture and participating in the mission of God, is how to normalize mission and missional engagement in the lives of her congregants.

Do you inspire your church to action with a sermon? Do you equip your church with skills and knowledge with a seminar? Or do you employ an apprenticeship model? How is it that you can best call your church to significant city-impacting, gospel-driven and spirit-empowered missional engagement?

The answer?

You need to normalize it.

You need to make missional engagement as normal as motherhood and apple pie. Don’t make missional engagement sound like something that only missionaries are called to do. Make it natural and an assumption for every disciple. In other words, if you’re a disciple of Jesus, then missional engagement is just a part of it.

If your church is serious about the mission of God and multiplying, you need to normalize mission.

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I want to commend Community Christian Church for producing a fantastic acronym to normalize mission – it’s BLESS. You can find Dave Ferguson’s article and video on it here from Verge. You can also watch Jon Ferguson explaining it here.

Part of my role at Beulah Alliance Church was to lead the church and all the campuses in their missional engagement. And in order to raise the missional culture at Beulah, I needed to give the congregation a tool to normalize mission. Out of all the tools out there, we decided on BLESS because of its simplicity and its ability to make mission seem easy.

Read this article for 5 ways to create a #missional culture in your church

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So here are a few things that we did to create a missional culture:

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Different Leadership Styles for Different Cultures

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Are you aware of your cultural biases? Are you aware of how they affect the way that you lead? Do you understand that your way of leadership may be so infused with your cultural biases that you may not be able to lead beyond your existing culture?

Since I am a Korean-Canadian who has worked in several different cultural contexts in different parts of this world, I am keenly aware of my own biases and those of others. How aware are you?

Did you know that British linguist Richard D. Lewis charted out the different ways that leadership happens in different cultural contexts around the world? He does this in his book When Cultures Collide.

Check out this great summary article on Lewis’ book and a chart of the 24 leadership styles that Gas Lubin wrote on Business Insider.

when cultures collide