I was reading a quote the other day by William Temple (1881-1944). He wrote, “The principle of sacrifice is that we choose to do or to suffer what apart from our love we should not choose to do or to suffer.” For some reason, this quote really spoke to me. First of all, love is […]
Small Group Blessings
Today after the 1st Sunday Celebration, one of the small groups in our church gathered Christina and me together to present us with a gift. They surprised us with two tickets to see the opera “The Marriage of Figaro” in the Detroit Opera House. I was so ecstatic! I LOVE opera. I know how expensive […]
AMI General Conference 2007 Update
I guess one of the ways to stop me from blogging so frequently is to cut off internet access 🙂 It has been hard to get internet connection (I need one of those internet PC cards) and also the conference has been busy. I am finally at a Panera Bread and writing up this post. […]
Christmas Song Already?
Yesterday, I was listening to a Christian radio station and they were playing Christmas songs (particularly songs about the Nativity). At first I was like, “Already? Isn’t it too early?!” Then I was thinking maybe the Christian radio stations wanted to beat the commercial market on advertising for Christmas. Then today, they mentioned that there […]
AMI General Conference 2007
I will be heading out to California for the AMI conference today. The Trans-Local Team (TLT) and I are meeting a few days early to take care of logistical things for AMI. We have been praying for this conference. The leaders of AMI want to see a time of refreshment and […]
International Sunday Celebration
Tomorrow, we will have our first-ever international Sunday Celebration. This has been 10 years in the making. I have always wanted to have a service where we can sing worship songs in multi-languages and to read Scripture in various tongues. It is going to be exciting to cap off our Missions […]
Missions Week 2007 Update
Wow… what a weekend so far. I dropped off Dr. Tennent at the airport and as I was driving back and reflecting on the last couple of days, I couldn’t help but to think about how faithful God has been to our church. Last night, God used Dr. Tennent to remind us about the suffering […]
Mission Possible: Multi-Ethnic Churches
For the last 11 years, we as a church have been trying to develop a multi-ethnic church. Even though we are not exactly where we want to be, we are committed to making some progress in this area. This is probably one of the hardest goals for a church to reach. Through various sermons, talks […]
Application of God’s Word
There is nothing more encouraging for a pastor than to see their members apply God’s Word into their lives. Tonight, I ended up meeting up with a member who just wanted to get to know me more… translation = who are you behind the pulpit 🙂 It was awesome when the person expressed that they […]
Comedy Showcase
Once a month our married couples’ small group tries to do an activity together. It is a great way to build biblical community and deepen our relationships with one another. Yesterday, we decided to go to a comedy show. Christina and I have always wanted to go to a live comedy show; therefore it was […]
A Victim of Lust
It is interesting how religious people deal with the issue of lust. We know how secular people and pre-Christians deal with it. But when the issue of lust becomes the main topic of the day for religious people, you find it some fascinating perspectives. There was a news report by the Associated Press that appeared […]
Crucial Component of College Campuses
I was away the last 2 days visiting a college campus. I went out to scout the campus for a possible church plant in the future. As I was walking around, I couldn’t help but to get convicted about the important role college campuses play in the overall purpose and mission of God. As I […]
Missions Week 2007
We started off our annual Missions Week. This is a great time for our church to really focus in on the heart of our church and the bigger purpose of God. Every year, I am humbled to see how a concentrated time of tapping into God’s heart can produce life transformation. […]
UG Retreat Reflections
I have been terribly behind in my e-mails and even in my blog posts. I think all the back-to-back revival meetings and retreats are finally catching up with me. But I would not trade what I have witnessed and experienced for the world. This past UG retreat in Chicago was a fresh reminder for me […]