The Q Chronicles

Moving

2013-11-13T10:18:00.000-05:00

I am moving my blog over to Medium, at least for the time being. Please come see me at: https://medium.com/@kyuboem

Thank you for reading!

Foreword, The Urbanity of the Bible

2013-10-10T12:00:00.000-05:00

[The following is the Foreword I wrote for The Urbanity of the Bible: Rediscovering the Urban Nature of the Bible and What it Means for Today, by Sean Benesh, an upcoming publication from Wipf & Stock Publishers. Used by permission.]

The writer of Hebrews pictures God as the builder and architect of the city that he has prepared for his people (11:10, 16)—God is the Urban Planner par excellence. The corresponding portrait of New Jerusalem is the culmination of God’s redemptive and creative work—a place of beauty, human flourishing, and joyous community where men and women eternally live in righteousness, justice, and peace with each other, as well as in worship, love, and obedience under the rule of their God and King; a place where God dwells forever with his people finally redeemed from sin and death; the place where the hopes and dreams of all creation are realized at last. This city is “the joy of the whole earth” (Ps 48:2). Through his urban planning and building activities, God himself has prepared the habitation, garden, and tabernacle that he always had in mind for us his creatures. It awaits those who seek God’s country—they will one day arrive at their destination, and finally say, “We are home.”

As God’s image bearers, the children of Adam and Eve have been planning and building cities from the very beginnings of the biblical story. Because of human sin and the resulting fall from shalom, however, the cities that we have built experience and promulgate corruption, unbelief, injustice, and death. On the other hand, because of God’s good urban plan, the city also gives refuge, nurtures creativity, enhances human flourishing, grants a more abundant life, and glorifies the divine Urban Planner after whose image we engage in city-building.

But I am getting ahead of the action. In the following pages, author Sean Benesh will be your able guide to this ages-old, ongoing story of the city. He will narrate the urban story of the Bible. He will make a convincing case that today’s astounding urbanization around the globe is part of the outworking of God’s urban mandate for his image bearers. He will connect the everyday work of the citizens for the common urban good to God’s desire to create an urban society that is just and compassionate, a city that is a refuge to those who are strangers and aliens. He will argue that the missio dei finds its context squarely within the divine urban design.

His voice is a welcome one. Christians in North America have long failed to see the city as a good place. Many joined the flight out of dirty, crime-ridden, impoverished and impersonal gothams that they deemed irredeemable. Those who did choose to serve in cities thought of rescuing the city dwellers out of urban conditions. Missing was a biblical vision of God’s good design for the city.

Now, in the early twenty-first century, the tide has turned on the public perception of the city. For young gentrifiers and hipsters moving into lofts in post-industrial neighborhoods, the city has become a desirable locale to live in. Churches, seeking to court them, have also moved into formerly struggling inner-city communities. But, often out of the newcomers’ sight, former residents who were unable to join the former flight out of cities because of their socioeconomic standing are being displaced, making room for coffeeshops and quirky eateries. Globalization and its attendant migration patterns have also brought floods of new immigrants from every corner of the world into the cities—endowing the urban communities transnational identities. Zooming out, we also note that we have recently crossed a vital milestone; there is now more people living in the cities around the globe than there are people living in rural areas. We live in an urban world.

In the midst of these great urban transitions, we wonder whether God’s people have developed a robust urban theology that will sufficiently shape and invigorate their witness among the nations in the city. There is much to catch up on and learn about how the Lord is moving his mission forward in our global, urban world, and how his church is called to witness to the gospel of Jesus Christ in our new urban context. Sean Benesh will help us to do just that. As a minister of the gospel living, working, and learning in a rapidly transitioning community in Portland, Oregon, his is a unique vantage point to perceive the ongoing missio dei. My prayer is that the Lord who has prepared a city for his people will use this book to edify and direct their conversation and ministry in the cities around the world today and into the future, until the culmination of history when we will at long last reach the city that is the joy of the whole earth. May the urban communities of our day reflect more and more that city of joy, and may the church seek that city in our urban neighborhoods today with more and more of all that the Lord has given us, to God’s glory.

Kyuboem Lee
Philadelphia

Why You Need to Learn Urban Mission: Reason #4: Missional Theology Needs Missional Practice (and Vice Versa)

2013-08-28T15:03:00.000-05:00

(Cross-posted from Biblical Seminary Faculty Blog)

Often, I find myself preaching to the choir with regard to urban mission--these folks don't need convincing that urban mission is an important and urgent agenda item for the Church and we need to do all we can to learn about urban mission if the Church is to be faithful to God’s mission.

But others will need more convincing. “I won't be moving into the city to live and minister there; my role is a pastor in a suburban church or a small town context. Why should I care about urban mission? My plate is overflowing as it is.” I will try to speak to them through this series of blog posts. If you are the choir, perhaps you will be find these posts useful as points of apologetics for urban mission. Past posts in the series:

Chances are, if you are reading this particular blog, you are a believer in the missional nature of the Christian faith. You are convinced that the Church in the West needs to rediscover its identity as a part of God’s mission in the world, and that it needs to come out of its fortress Christendom mindset into a mode of being in which it winsomely engages the world with the good news of Jesus by word and deed. You don’t hesitate to brand yourself missional and your ministry the same. So you’re missional. Now what?

Could “Missional” become another buzzword bereft of substance? Conceivably, one can proclaim one is missional without working out the word’s deeper implications. The Western mindset can be a hard habit to break. Theological positions (missional or otherwise) are arrived at and affirmed after a great deal of effort and time--all without leaving the realm of your mind. Are we engaging the world more in deeper, missional ways now rather than before the labeling?

Perhaps Urban Mission might supply few of the answers to the question, “Now what?” In the missional paradigm, pastors and other Christians living in the West are for all intents and purposes missionaries, because they too are living in an unchristianized society, a mission field. No longer do we see an essential distinction between foreign missionaries and the rest of us. Therefore, it follows that in order to live out his missional purpose, Regular Joe Christian should become more and more versed in what missionaries have been getting trained in.

This is the premise of Tradecraft: For the Church on Mission , by Larry McCrary, Wade Stephens, Caleb Crider, and Rodney Calfee (Urban Loft Publishers, 2013).They would like to see the local churches in N. America benefit in their missional calling by becoming students of the knowledge and experience gained by culture-crossing missionaries. According to the authors, “The most underdeveloped basic Christian skills are those related to missionary thinking and practice.” (p. 24) There are certain skill sets that should be included in the missional tradecraft--such as understanding and exegeting culture, ethnography, urban studies, and contextualization, among others. Urban Mission has been giving these areas keen attention for some time now and stocking the missional tool chest. The missional church is invited to take and use.

Missional practice (informed by Urban Mission, among other disciplines) therefore makes concrete missional theology--it is missional theology not only in the abstract, but enfleshed and holistic, with hands and feet, living in concrete contexts and real people, today. Without the practice (or the tradecraft), theology becomes formless; it is unable to engage the world in the full-orbed way that missional believers envision their faith as capable of being.

But the practice in turn also needs the forming hand of a thoroughly biblical theology, or it will lose its soul. Missional practice will merely become another human-centered effort to make the world a better place according to our own understanding, which is in the end finite and even potentially more destructive than life-edifying. Missional practitioners live and act under the authority of God and his revealed word. So they bring their tradecraft daily under the examination of the Scriptures, and re-situate themselves in the larger work of the kingdom, the mission of God.

This sets off a dynamic of constant conversation between theology and practice.One refines and energizes the other, and vice versa. And so the Church matures as it treads this circular path between praxis and theology; action and reflection.We call this the hermeneutical spiral; the spiral leads us closer to Christ.

Again, you are invited: take up the tools developed by missionaries and Urban Mission over the years, learn to use them well, and join the task of mission in the world.

Why You Need to Learn Urban Mission: Reason #3: Do Justice and Love Mercy

2013-07-19T06:05:00.000-05:00

(Cross-posted from Biblical Seminary Faculty Blog)

Often, I find myself preaching to the choir with regard to urban mission--these folks don’t need convincing that urban mission is an important and urgent agenda item for the Church and we need to do all we can to learn about urban mission if the Church is to be faithful to God’s mission.

But others will need more convincing. “I won’t be moving into the city to live and minister there; my role is a pastor in a suburban church or a small town context. Why should I care about urban mission? My plate is overflowing as it is.” I will try to speak to them through this series of blog posts. If you are the choir, perhaps you will be find these posts useful as points of apologetics for urban mission. (You can find the first post here, and the second post here.)

Micah’s well-known charge that sums up the duty of the faithful lists three commands: “To do justice, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God.” (Micah 6:8) This charge corresponds to the two greatest commands--to love God and to love neighbor. Loving neighbor, then, is not mere sentimentality nor random acts of kindness. Rather, love for neighbor specifically translates to the doing of justice and the practicing of mercy. In other words, justice and mercy is essential to Christian discipleship, not peripheral.

Urban mission has traditionally led the way for the Church in the area of justice and mercy. We can think of William Booth and his Salvation Army, which found its reason for being in the great social needs and sufferings found in the British cities during the Industrial Revolution. We can think of John Calvin’s ministry in the city of Geneva to lead relief efforts for the masses of wartime refugees and Thomas Chalmer’s leadership of diaconal ministry in the city of Glasgow. We can think of Mother Teresa in the slums of Calcutta and John Perkins in Mendenhall and Jackson, Mississippi. We could go on. The point is, ministry in the city has often pioneered justice and mercy efforts to love neighbor in tangible and strategic ways, and the field of urban mission has therefore much to teach the Church in this regard.

There is much to say as a follow-up, but for the sake of this post, I will briefly mention three thoughts:

One, the density of the city brings God’s people into much closer and more direct contact with human suffering and structures of injustice. Pastors in suburban and exurban communities regularly express how people who are struggling with poverty and lack of basic needs are often very hard to find in their communities. This does not mean poverty does not exist in the suburbs; it is however often invisible there to those in more privileged circumstances.

This closer contact with communities of need is a necessity for Christian spirituality. It keeps the faith real. These urban communities are where the Church needs to be at, not primarily for the sake of those the Church is serving but for the Church’s own spiritual vitality. Mercy and justice need to be an ongoing Christian practice, not merely something you do elsewhere during a mission trip. Remember, to do justice and to love mercy is not optional or an add-on to Christian discipleship; these are a daily lived reality in the kingdom of God.

Two, there is a surging interest in and activism surrounding social justice among young evangelicals, as evidenced at the recent Justice Conference. This is a welcome development in many ways; however, are the young activists drawing from and building on the experience and theology of older saints who have spent much time practicing and reflecting on justice? Sadly, the answer is often no. Evangelical churches who purport to be committed to the authority of Scripture have often withdrawn from the arenas of social justice. Without a thoroughgoing Christian tradition and theology of justice readily on hand, younger evangelicals may turn to what is more familiar in our culture--humanistic traditions of social justice that is devoid of a God-centered soul. This situation presents a challenge and an opportunity for Christian leaders to disciple a new generation in the faith; however, are they up to the task? Learning from urban mission’s rich trove of practical experience and theological reflection on justice and mercy, it seems to me, is a priority for everyone concerned about Christian discipleship in the 21st century.

Three, cities are where the cultural structures of economic, religious, and political institutions and networks are concentrated. These structures, or “powers,” can do much to foster a just and righteous society. But they are fallen, just as each individual human person is. Therefore they perpetuate grave injustices that rob the human community of life as God had intended for it. The field of urban mission is concerned with how the Church may engage these urban structures or powers for the sake of faithful witness to the coming kingdom of righteousness ruled by the just King. The question of how the Church ought to be salt and light in this urban world--how it will realize its world-formative vocation--is a vital and urgent one.

The call to do justice and love mercy requires a faithful theological reflection and thoughtful practice. The field of urban mission is an invaluable resource for the Church today.

(This is probably a good place for a commercial: I will be teaching an online course, “Justice & Mercy,” in the fall term. If you are interested in taking the class, please contact us. We will be exploring above themes and much more.)

Why You Need to Learn Urban Mission: Reason #2: One Word--Globalization

2013-06-08T07:14:00.000-05:00

A street scene in Flushing, Queens, New York City

(Cross-posted from Biblical Seminary Faculty Blog)

Often, I find myself preaching to the choir with regard to urban mission--these folks don’t need convincing that urban mission is an important and urgent agenda item for the Church and we need to do all we can to learn about urban mission if the Church is to be faithful to God’s mission.

But others will need more convincing. “I won’t be moving into the city to live and minister there; my role is a pastor in a suburban church or a small town context. Why should I care about urban mission? My plate is overflowing as it is.” I will try to speak to them through this series of blog posts. If you are the choir, perhaps you will find these posts useful as points of apologetics for urban mission. (You can find the first post, “Reason #1: It’s an Urban World After All,” here.)

This second post focuses on the phenomenon of globalization. There has been a growing attention given to globalization recently, especially in the area of economics. The term refers to a growing interconnectedness of the various regions around the globe, as well as to a growing global consciousness that we do, indeed, live in one world, not many. The cities around the world have been the engines that have driven globalization as well as the primary contexts in which it has taken place. Indeed, world-class cities such as New York, London, and Tokyo have been dubbed “global cities” to highlight their importance to globalization. Follow the huge sums of money rapidly flowing to and from these cities around the clock and you will see how these cities function as the central nodes in the vast and intricate global economic network.

But globalization is not only a movement of money. It is also a movement of cultures, peoples, ideas, and religions, from everywhere to everywhere.

Philadelphia’s Italian Market neighborhood was so named because it was populated by Italian immigrants. You can see the locale in the movie “Rocky” as that iconic albeit fictional Philadelphian runs through the neighborhood as a part of his training for the big fight. If Sylvester Stallone ran through Italian Market today, however, he would notice that those giving him high-fives will far more prominently feature Asians, Hispanics, and other ethnicities than those of Italian heritage. The many languages he would hear on its streets would include Spanish, Chinese, and Vietnamese, in addition to Philadelphia’s distinct variation on the English language. The food items and other cultural goods being traded in the market stalls will reflect this multi-ethnic diversity. Buddhist temples have sprung up next to Catholic Churches who are finding they now minister mainly to South Americans.

What you are witnessing in this relatively small urban neighborhood is the astonishing pace of globalization taking place in the world’s cities. The globe, with all its multi-various languages, ethnicities, and religions, is being concentrated into a few square blocks of a city. Essentially the same process is occurring in thousands upon thousands of urban neighborhoods around the world.

Consequently, the city has become mission’s new frontier. Of course, this is really not all that new, since cities have been the Church’s missionary destinations from the days of Paul. It can similarly be argued that globalization has always been with us (see, for instance, Marco Polo). What is new is that the recent acceleration and rise of globalization has forced the Church to reassess its missionary strategy in terms of the city.

Much can be said in this regard, but let me just point out this: Jesus has commanded his disciples to go into all the world, but in his sovereignty he has brought all the world to the city. During the great modern missionary movement, the North American churches have sent missionaries to all corners of the world; now, they need to redirect their efforts and send missionaries to its cities in order to reach the world. Better, the churches need to re-imagine how they may once again become God’s missionary people among the nations—literally—who are coming to their cities.

These are amazing opportunities for the kingdom emerging in the cities today that the Church simply must not miss. Glimpses of the missional possibilities come from stories of work being done among immigrants who now call US cities their home. By reaching the immigrants, Christians have been able to not only gain openings Stateside but also successfully reach communities in the immigrants’ homelands halfway around the world with the gospel.

Again, we are reminded that cities are nodes in the global network that is ever growing in its depth and breadth. When the gospel finds meaningful connections in these nodes, there are global redemptive ripple effects. Think of the thrilling global missional possibilities when churches and individual Christians who form them re-envision their mission in light of the ever more urgent task of reaching the cities for Christ.

Overheard in the Lee Household, Part 6

2013-05-02T16:56:00.000-05:00

1/30/13: Theo's home sick.
Amoz left this for him before he left for school.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5

Amoz: What's that when you get something you don't deserve? Theo, I gave you grace! You should be in joy! (4/19/13)

Amoz: Dad, who is Spider-Man's archest enemy? (4/18/13)

Theo: That stinks; who farted? Oh wait, it was me. Excuse me. (4/14/13)

Theo: I love Amoz even when he farts. (3/26/13)

[Contribution from our friend Eunice]
me: theo, i'd vote for u to be president of the united states depending on what u stand for.

theo (4yo): i stand for bananas. (2/13/13)

It's trash day. / Theo: Yay, so there's no school? (2/12/13)

Theo: Can we please stop talking about Phineas and Ferb? Let's talk about you. Where does money come from? (2/11/13)

Christe: New York is The City that Never Sleeps. Theo: Oh yeah? Then why does Zoe [our friend in NYC] have a bed? (1/19/13)

Theo: Amoz, why are you always mad with me? Why are you always mad with me? / I'm not always mad with you! / You're mad with me now. (1/4/13)

Amoz: There are people who don't like to eat meat? Wow. That's just sad. (12/9/12)

Amoz: Mommy, who do you love more, me or God? Oh wait, that's a hard question. (12/9/12)

Theo: Daddy, are you the tallest in the house? / Yep. / And I'm the shortest. That means I'm the cutest? (12/7/12)

I wouldn't be a good mommy if I gave you candy all the time, Theo. / That's OK, I'll still think of you when you're in jail. (11/28/12)

Theo: Mommy, are you afraid of Bowser? He can lock you up in the cage with Peach. But, I'm not going to let that happen. I'd go Super Theo. (11/27/12)

Hi Dad! / Hi, Theo. / No, Daddy, I'm talking to my invisible Lego daddy. (11/21/12)

Theo: Thunder plus underwear equals thunderwear. (11/14/12)

Theo (sticking his foot out from the stairs into the living room): Mommy, do you see my foot? It means I love you. (11/4/12)

Amoz: Can I have a DS? It's D-Yes, so that means Yes, I can have it. (9/9/12)

Theo: Amoz, can you throw this in the trash? / What is it? / It's the nail from my big toe. (8/27/12)

Theo, playing with new glider toy: The good news is... flying. The bad news is... crashing! (8/11/12)

Theo: I don't mean to do it, but I keep doing it. I'm a tantrum monster. (7/6/12)

Theo: May I have some water? I mean, a juice box? I mean, a Popsicle? (7/5/12)

Theo: When I grow up, I want to be a grown-up. (6/6/12)

Theo: I wish food could talk. / Why? / So I could talk to them. / What would you say? / Hi. (5/23/12)

Amoz: Mommy, don't wake up until I tell you. Remember, it's Mother's Day. (5/13/12)

Theo: There's a Yo in my name. Thee-Yo. (4/24/12)

Theo: That's a mint, for making your brain fresh. (4/10/12)

Why You Need to Learn Urban Mission: Reason #1 - It's an Urban World After All

2013-05-02T13:44:00.001-05:00

(Cross-posted from Biblical Seminary Faculty Blog)

Often, I find myself preaching to the choir with regard to urban mission--these folks don’t need any convincing that urban mission is an important and urgent agenda item for the Church and we need to do all we can to learn about urban mission if the Church is to be faithful and fruitful in God’s mission.

But others will need more convincing. “I won’t be moving into the city to live and minister there; my role is a pastor in a suburban church or a small town context. Why should I care about urban mission? My plate is overflowing as it is.” I will try to speak to them through this series of blog posts. If you are the choir, perhaps you will find these posts useful as points of apologetics for urban mission.

1. Demographically, it’s an urban world.

The first reason the Church needs to become more educated in urban mission is that our world is an urban world that is becoming more urban even as you read this.

According to UN Population Division, some time in 2007, for the first time in history, the number of people living in cities surpassed the number of people living in rural areas. The rapid narrowing of the gap before then took place during the 20th century, when the global urban population rose from 13% (220 million) in 1900, to 29% (732 million) in 1950, and to 49% (3.2 billion) in 2005. By 2050, according to UN’s estimates, over 6 billion people (2/3 of total population) will be urban. It is an urban, and an urbanizing, world.

It follows, then, that if you believe that a core identity of the Church is its "sent-ness" to the world, you will also believe learning to reach the world’s cities is a top priority for the leaders of the Church. The Church ignores the rapidly growing city to its detriment.

2. It’s an urban world because of the city’s influence.

Not only is the city important demographically, it is also important because of its influence. Case in point: in the article “Gay Marriage and the Power of Cities to Change the Country,” Emily Badger argues the reason that tide of public opinion has turned so dramatically in favor of gay marriage recently has been in large measure due to gay activists harnessing the power of the cities to influence national society as a whole. Church leaders, take note.

Instead of seeing the rural and the urban as a dichotomy, the Church will need to see the city as culture-making centers of influence for the larger society. Indeed, urbanism as a cultural force is very much a reality in suburban and rural areas. Think of the large footprint of communication technology (TV, movies, Internet) on present-day rural life, say, or the rapidly growing presence of new immigrants in places like Allentown or Lancaster (places you wouldn’t have thought as big cities), and you start to grasp the totalitarian scope of urban influence.

Suburban and rural areas are not nicely sealed off from the influence of the city. Instead, these areas are vitally linked to the city. The influence of the city has only increased with the rise of globalization. Global cities and massive metropolitan areas are exercising greater and greater control on the way the world lives, in areas such as economics, migration, and culture. Church leadership should be taking this social dynamic seriously if it wants to reach the world, or even simply its own backyard.

3. It’s an urban world because the Bible tells us so.

Ray Bakke has famously said, “The Bible begins in a garden, but ends with a city” (in A Theology as Big as the City, 1997). It can further be argued that the garden itself holds the seeds of the city, or is a city in its infancy. The cultural mandate of Gen. 1:28 is an urban mandate to humankind as a whole (Conn & Ortiz, Urban Ministry, 87) that we see developing by God’s sovereign design and under his redemptive rule throughout the unfolding narrative of Scriptures. The urban mandate finds its culmination in the New Jerusalem of Rev. 21 and 22, which was secured by the salvific work of Christ. I refer you to Conn & Ortiz’s Urban Ministry, Part 2, “Biblical Perspectives,” for a much fuller examination of this biblical story. Their treatment will bring you to a place where you can begin to grasp the grand vision of God’s urban intentions and the coming of his kingdom in the cities around the world. The world, both now and after, is urban, by God’s sovereign design.

As servants in God’s kingdom, those who are in positions of church leadership and those preparing for such positions need to give urban mission their attention, and seek to learn the body of knowledge this field has garnered. Such efforts will prove to be invaluable for kingdom mission in our urban world.

Urban Mission Google+ Community

2013-04-18T15:17:00.000-05:00

On a whim, I just created a new Google+ Community, "Urban Mission." [Tagline: "Christians in mission in the cities around the world." Description: "This community serves Christian practitioners and thinkers who desire to see the kingdom of God advance in the cities throughout the world."]

You might be interested. If so, please join us! I hope to have some good interactions there in the coming days for the sake of the kingdom.

Journal of Urban Mission Volume 3 Issue 1

2013-04-03T18:51:00.000-05:00

I serve as General Editor for the Journal of Urban Mission, and we just published a new issue. Check it out at JofUM.com. Here is the introductory letter that I wrote (which you can also see here):

It gives me great pleasure to publish Journal of Urban Mission, Volume 3, Issue 1. We have had a long hiatus since the last issue--such is the reality of working at a project as a labor of love. Nevertheless, it is gratifying to finally share with you the fruit of our labor that has been long time in the making. We continue to pray that the thoughts and stories shared in this Journal will promote the mission of Christ's kingdom in the great urban centers around the world.

In this issue, Celeste Chen reflects on her experience ministering to sex workers ("Rewriting the Story of the Exploited: The Gospel for Sex Workers"), a population much exploited and marginalized. What spiritual dynamics are involved and how does the gospel of Jesus Christ speak into this context and bring about healing?

Karen Angela Ellis (in "Identity Satisfaction in a World of Cultural Dissonance") also explores the gospel dynamic that is at work within members of subdominant culture, especially women. She is concerned with equipping the church lead the way towards identity satisfaction and a theology that takes seriously, and truly celebrates, our ethnic and cultural diversity.

From another vantage point, Randy Rowland offers the urban church lessons learned from his experience forming regional ministry clusters in the Seattle area. His Case Study, "Seeking Synergy: 8 Steps to Forming a Ministry Cluster," will be a welcome practical help for those seeking guidance in partnering for the sake of kingdom ministry in an urban region.

Also hailing from the West Coast, U.S.A., is Sean Benesh, who is concerned that evangelicalism develop a more robust theology of place ("Pilgrims and Place: Reflections on Geography and Theology"). It has been a long realization on the part of missionary practitioners that the local context must deeply inform our theologies and therefore our ministry practices; we ignore our place to our theological and missiological peril.

Last but not least, Coz Crosscombe writes from his experience working in the inner city neighborhoods of Philadelphia and critiques the prevalent missionary model of Outsiders entering urban neighborhoods, and proposes another way forward, in his article, "The Outsiders and Their Role in Urban Mission."
We offer this issue with the prayer that they will stimulate, edify, inspire, and encourage the great works going on in the cities around the world. May the Lord receive glory.

I would also like to express that much thanks are due Matt Lin and Andy Kim, fellow urban practitioners and friends to me here in Philadelphia. Without their collaboration and encouragement, this issue probably would not have come to being. I am deeply grateful to the Lord for their commitment to the kingdom and to me.

Please communicate with us regarding the way forward; we welcome your input, conversation, and mutual edification that leads to the kingdom of God advancing in the teeming cities around the world. And thank you for your partnership, interest, and service to the Lord.

Shalom,
Kyuboem Lee
Philadelphia, April 2013

If you are interested, please sign up to receive JofUM News on our Email List. Thanks; I would appreciate it!

18 Tweets After The Justice Conference 2013 (Plus 1)

2013-02-28T07:26:00.000-05:00

Noel Castellanos, John M. Perkins, and Leroy Barber
at The Justice Conference 2013

[Updated 3/5/13 with Bonus Tweet]

The 2013 Justice Conference took place in Philadelphia's Pennsylvania Convention Center last weekend.

Several thousand justice-seekers from all around the country (and the world) gathered to sit at the feet of the likes of John M. Perkins, Nicholas Wolterstorff, Ken Wytsma (the founder of the conference), Eugene Cho (One Day's Wages), Gary Haugen (International Justice Mission), and many others.

It was a great time for me to connect with friends old and new, and get a pulse on what is happening in the Church with regard to Justice.

I was witnessing a movement. Most of the attendees were in their twenties. Nicholas Wolterstorff observed that there was a time when getting 25 people together to talk about justice would have been a success; now, he had a crowd of a few thousand before him.

The conference has stimulated me to write down takeaways and thoughts, and share them as tweets. Here they are, collected together:

#justice2013 takeaway: Pastors, something is happening with young Xians re justice. Are you being equipped theologically to guide them?
#justice2013 takeaway: Justice is an optional part of gospel ministry only if justice is an optional part of God's character.
#justice2013 takeaway: Pastors, if your gospel lives only in the individual moral sphere, you will lose the new generation. And the world.
#justice2013 takeaway: There is a profound & urgent need for theological education (specifically pastoral training) for shalom.
#justice2013 thought: How will the Church keep "justice" from becoming merely a commodity the privileged can indulge in?
#justice2013 thought: What transformations will theo ed institutions need to undergo so they can raise up leaders for communities of shalom? [This one got some interesting discussion over on Facebook; take a look.]
#justice2013 thought: If there is 2 b theo ed 4 shalom->churches of shalom, what must happen 2 overcome injustices in higher ed? Ordination?
#justice2013 thought: Activists need pastors & churches who connect their work 2 gospel, else they r n danger of getting co-opted by world.
#justice2013 thought: The Church must persistently draw the connection between justice and gospel, else we will be left w a secular justice.
#justice2013 thought: The Church must persistently draw the connection between justice & gospel, else we will be left w sth less than gospel
#justice2013 thought: If justice is to reign Xians must upend postcolonial relationships in institutions, churches & yes justice ministries.
#justice2013 thought: To commit to justice means a lifelong journey of repentance from apathy, paternalism, privilege-seeking & triumphalism
#justice2013 thought: 2 commit 2 justice = pursuing just partnerships across racial, cultural, socioec boundaries; 2 b more than urself.
#justice2013 thought: 4 justice 2b true, main action has 2b @ the grassroots, not in the stratosphere of privilege; bottom-up, not top-down.
#justice2013 thought: Justice must be firmly grounded in the gospel. It will save us from messiah complex, burnout, reliance on techniques.
#justice2013 thought: Preaching w/o justice doing isn't good news; justice doing w/o gospel sharing isn't in the end loving.
#justice2013 thought: Justice doers, beware of exploiting hurting 4 celebrity & feeding god complex. You too need 2 answer 2 a just King.
#justice2013 thought: Don't be in love with the idea of yourself doing justice; be in love with the just King.
[Bonus Tweet] More #justice2013 thought: Biblical theology of justice may keep word & deed, individual & social, godliness & justice together in Jesus.

More thoughts and discussions will come, surely--I invite your conversation. But talking should also mean walking; here's to seeing more God-glorifying justice-doing in our world.

Reflections on Advent and Our Violent World

2013-01-09T21:58:00.000-05:00

(Cross-posted from Biblical Seminary Faculty Blog)

On Friday, December 14, a gunman walked into an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut, and shot and killed 26 people, 20 of them children ages 6-7. All day long, I heard the emerging details of horror over the news. Then, that night, our family attended our 6-year-old son’s school Christmas concert, and watched children, many of them ages 6-7, sing worship songs to God who was born to us as a little baby boy.

In one single day, I was confronted both with news of unspeakable horror, and with news of great joy and hope--both involving little children. Both news was true. This world is wonderful and beautiful, filled with amazing joy and grace, but this world is also terribly and horribly broken, filled with incredible suffering and sorrow. Perhaps none could tell us better than the children. The gospel message of Christ declares both sets of news are, indeed, true.

I was thankful for the Christmas concert, because it enabled me to see this atrocity and all the other atrocities that go on in our fallen world through the lens of the Advent. Our world and our hearts were so lost in darkness that God himself needed to come and save us into his light. All the great Christmas hymns say so:

No more let sins and sorrows grow
nor thorns infest the ground:
he comes to make his blessings flow
far as the curse is found...

There have been a few things I’ve been meditating on since the shooting. The conversation about gun control and right to bear arms that comes up in times like this is an important one to have for us as a society. But for this post’s purposes, I’ve focused on some other things.

One has to do with my own participation in the fallenness of this world, and the need for my own redemption. The first reaction I had to the news from Connecticut was one of revulsion: “What kind of a sick, demented person would do this?” But that is too easy. It is a way of depersonalizing this evil as something “out there,” apart from me.

But if we are truly honest, if we have been attentive to the signs that crop up again and again in our lives, we have to admit that the seeds of death and horror live within our hearts too. I’m thinking of the anger, the frustration, the feeling that you’re the victim, the self-centeredness. You may know that you are a sinner in theory, but from time to time the doctrine of depravity actually comes to life, in our angry words of retaliation, in the boasting, in the put-downs, in the complaints of “Why me?”, and in the unnecessarily angry yelling at the kids.

These dark forces don’t always come out full-blown, thank God, but we know they’re there, lurking in the shadows of our own hearts. So the gunman is in a way a reflection of our flesh. It’s terrifying to admit that, but it’s what the Bible teaches, and it accords with our own experience. We are wonderful and beautiful in many ways, but we’re also broken and capable of so much fallenness. We need a redemption that is much deeper than a tighter hug for our children. We are in need of confession and repentance for our own fallenness. As the saints of old have prayed, “Forgive us my sins and the sins of my people.”

Two has to do with how this shooting is, tragically, not all that extraordinary. This particular mass shooting was especially a shocker because the victims were young children. But we forget that mass horrors against children occur everyday all around the world.

We think of the civil wars in Congo and Syria. We think of suicide bombings in Iraq. We think of casualties of war in Afghanistan. Closer to home, we think of young people’s lives, many of them small children, lost to violence in our inner city neighborhoods. Some have wondered why the loss of the lives in Connecticut have provoked more outpouring of emotion and support than the losses experienced in other places.

The Newtown shooting was an evil that should not have been, but so are the acts of violence committed against children everyday all around the world (or even close by in our own cities) that too often go unnoticed and unmarked by many of us. Evil should never become banal; tragically, it has, except for a few stories here and there that capture our attention for different reasons.

May the Newtown shooting awaken God’s people to the horrors of our world, break our hearts, and give us fuel for petitioning the Lord persistently for justice and shalom to finally reign, instead of going back to business as usual. The message of the Advent is one of God who came to war against the evil going on everyday in our world, not one of inoculating us with a sentimental message of peace, peace, when there is no peace.

Three, God is not immune from violence. More accurately, he willingly condescended to share in our suffering at the hands of violence. We remember the slaughter of the innocents at the hands of a power-hungry King Herod. We remember the torture of the Messiah at the hands of soldiers. We remember the cross where God experienced a violent death and the violent loss of a loved One.

But we also cannot forget the empty tomb and the Spirit that the risen Christ has given his Church so we may struggle against the kingdom of darkness. We cannot forget the new world coming where death will have died its final death.

The Advent reminds us of all this and much more. There is a deep mystery to the message that God became flesh and blood so that it can be broken and it can be shed for the sake of rescuing us from this world of violence.

So seeing those children sing songs of worship to the baby Savior, that night after a day of darkness, gave me reason to be thankful in the midst of our brokenness; to strengthen my resolve in the struggle against the darkness in the world and in my heart; and to worship the God who came down to a world such as this. We don’t need to turn away from the horrors that inhabit our world and our hearts. Instead, we go to the Star of the Advent, and receive healing, hope, and courage. We are sent back into our violent world to be his light until his return.

How the Church Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Post-Christendom*

2013-01-09T11:03:00.001-05:00

(Cross-posted from Biblical Seminary Faculty Blog)

Recently, Richard Stearns, the President of World Vision, wrote “Goodbye, Christian America; Hello, True Christianity” in The Huffington Post. He joins a growing number of evangelical voices calling on the North American church to wake up to the new reality of Post-Christendom and abandon the strategy of clinging to a world--the “Christian America”--that is passing away. Specifically, he advocates a shift in the church’s strategy, from trying to protect the symbols of Christendom (the Ten Commandments displayed at courthouses, public prayers in schools, etc.), to a missional engagement with the world and seeking shalom--the “love your neighbor” variety of Christianity. The story of a Tacoma, Wash., church that switched its focus from opposing the secularization of America to advocating for the hurting in Lesotho, in the process partnering with its neighbors, even with those who would have been its foes in the old paradigm (the gay community), provides a model to emulate.

Understandably, the prospect of such a direction is a cause of anxiety for many. It sounds too much like a surrender to the forces of secularization and liberalism. Ghosts of hard-fought old battles haunt the evangelical consciousness still. Dangers of apostasy seem to loom down this road.

However, are there positives in the new developments to be gained for the North American church that is committed to the exclusive claims of the gospel of Jesus Christ? I believe so. Here is a brief sketch:

One, the church has an opportunity to be purified from a Babylonian captivity to power and privilege. The effort to preserve the symbols of Christendom can betray a dependency on the tools of the kingdom of this world. But once the church renounces the pursuit of laws and powers that buttress its position in society, it is able to regain its proper role as a pilgrim and stranger in this world. It would be a transition from a triumphalist church to a suffering church. Such a role would better reflect the counter cultural nature of the kingdom of God.

Two, the church has an opportunity for a renewal of its mission. Evangelicalism has historically chosen the ministry of words over against the ministry of deeds as its focus. The general feeling has been to see social justice, for instance, as belonging in the domain of the liberals. Bible-believing churches focused on preaching the Word. This tendency to dichotomize word and deed has caused much damage to the cause of the gospel mission. But with the changing of the world, there can be a rediscovery of the holistic gospel mandate. I say this with the caveat that the pendulum can swing to the opposite extreme among many younger evangelicals, and the imperative of the preaching ministry can be the casualty. The new evangelical consciousness can too often embrace the adage, “Preach the gospel, and if necessary, use words.” Such sentiments are reactionary and will need nuanced balancing. However, a more fully orbed vision of the gospel is a welcome development.

Three, the North American church has the opportunity to deepen its communion with the worldwide church.For many years, the NA church has been the giver, not the receiver--of theology, material resources, technical know-how, leadership, and so on. The changed landscape more properly sees the NA church as having a seat among a plurality of peers, not at the head of the table in the communion of the global church. This development better resembles Paul’s vision of the one body of Christ made up of various members, and that is something to be celebrated.

I do not mean to suggest that the road ahead is not filled with tremendous challenges. The church will need to refocus its efforts on a robust theology of mission. Christians in Post-Christendom cannot rely on old answers to remain faithful in the new landscape, but pursuing Christ into uncharted territory has tremendous risks. Our most pressing theological agenda will be to navigate these waters.

The church must be faithful to its calling to proclaim in the new reality that "there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12) and do so with full recognition that the world it must love, and which the missionary God loves, is no longer a "Christian" one. However, one thing that the church cannot do: bury its head in the sand of the old Christendom. Instead, the church in exile will need to accept its calling to sing a new song in a strange land.

*The title doesn't reflect the current state of affairs; rather, it is a crude attempt at being "with it" through an obscure pop culture reference. Please accept the author's apologies.

Photo: Howell Park

2013-01-09T10:28:00.001-05:00

Howell Park, originally uploaded by kyuboem.

It looks like one of my photos got on Flickr's Explore. Explore is a way Flickr showcases its most "interesting" images. I don't know how they determine what's interesting or not. I've seen plenty of beautiful and interesting images that never get on Explore. (My Flickr favorites) But it's nice to be recognized and gain some exposure.

The image is from a local neighborhood park which is tucked away from the street and is sort of a neighborhood secret. A wonderful discovery in our inner-city neighborhood!

I used my iPhone's Hipstamatic app; Tinto 1884 Lens and C-Type Plate Film.

Slideshow: Germantown Hope, Looking Back from Dec 2012

2013-01-09T10:20:00.002-05:00

Here is a slideshow of photos from the last 10 years of Germantown Hope Community Church. (I can't believe G.Hope will be 10 years old this spring.) It was supposed to be shown at our annual New Year's Eve Talent Show, but due to technical difficulties, it wasn't. But you can see it here now! Enjoy:

GHope Looking Back from Dec 2012 from Germantown Hope on Vimeo.

The Bi-Vocational Pastorate: Vital Questions

2012-08-03T08:43:00.001-05:00

"Wall 36B" | Philadelphia | 2012 | © Kyuboem Lee

(Cross-posted from Biblical Seminary Faculty Blog)

There is an obvious interest in the topic of the bi-vocational pastorate--quite a few readers have contributed their comments on the previous post. I very much appreciate them; thank you. These responses have jogged more lines of thought that I believe could be helpful for us to explore further.

As I’ve stated in the previous post, we will probably see a rise of bi-vocational pastors because of the economic pressures and the changes afoot in our world. Going from a full-time pastorate to a bi-vocational model can be a difficult transition, fraught with many challenges for the whole congregation. But that means it can be a wonderful time of growth, too. One commenter asked a question that is surely on many people’s minds: If the pastor transitions from full-time to bi-vocational, won’t the ministry suffer, simply because the pastor has less time for the ministry?

As a response, let’s consider some vital questions:

One: Is the pastor being compensated enough? That has to be the first consideration by the congregation. According to this post, many pastors are not.

A recent study conducted by The National Association of Church Business Administration points out that the average American pastor with a congregation of 300 people earns a salary of less than $28,000 and that one out of five pastors has to moonlight for supplemental income. The study also indicated that only 5 percent of American pastors earn more than $50,000 a year, and 14 percent earn less than $25,000.

Clearly, something needs to give. If congregations are not able to support an adequate wage for the pastors and their families, they need to support the pastors in other ways--one way is to allow them to go bi-vocational. It could be that a pastor is overly in love with money and possessions, and is being overly demanding of a higher income. They will need to be gently challenged, accordingly. However, more often than not, pastors are people who have made tremendous personal sacrifices for the sake of answering the call, and, if so, congregations will need to recognize their service and let them support their families adequately. It will involve a change for the whole congregation, as we will see, so it won’t be an easy transition. But it will be a necessary one.

Two: Can the church leadership as a whole embrace a team approach to the ministry? If the full-time pastor transitions to a bi-vocational role, pastoral responsibilities will need to be shared. Leaders will need to be developed, and they will need to assume different roles. We are thinking more of a team of shepherds, instead of a CEO and board model.

There is a good biblical precedent for this approach. In Acts 6, when a vital ministry was in need of good leadership, the apostles installed the first group of deacons so they might oversee the distribution of food to widows. This freed the apostles up to devote themselves to the ministry of word and prayer.

Pastors, elders, and deacons need to consider how they could work better as a team of leaders. Some in the church, other than pastors, are gifted in pastoral counseling, but haven’t assumed a role that fits their gifting. Same with mercy ministry, envisioning, visitations, etc. Surely there are leaders in the church better gifted to lead a building program than the pastor? They will need to assume leadership roles, and others will need to follow their lead. This will free up the pastors to focus on the ministry of word and prayer.

Preaching is also a work that can be shared among the church leadership. In my church, there is a group of elders and deacons with whom I share the preaching work. I work with them to prepare the messages, and they grow in their abilities through experience. Training is built into this model.

That leads us to the next question.

Three: How will the church train and raise up leaders for the new paradigm? The elders and deacons will need training for church leadership, much more than what may currently be expected of them. This doesn’t mean that they will need an M.Div. But they will need a theological education. The pastor, who usually does hold an M.Div., may now need to fulfill the role of trainer and coach. The pastor's main role would now shift to raising up other shepherds within the body of Christ. As the one who holds the most advanced degree in theological education in the congregation (usually), the pastor can lead an in-house theological training program.

There can be a lot of exciting creativity that can come into play when building such a training model. Other local pastors can be called on to share the teaching, and build a local team of trainers. Every pastor will have their own unique gifts to bring to the training process. An exciting by-product could be a shared sense of mission among these churches, directed to the local community.

This may mean, however, that the pastor gives up being the primary face of the church. The preaching and other ministry roles will need to be shared among the growing group of shepherds, and this group will collectively assume the role of being the face of the church. This can be hard to pull off if the expectation has been that the pastor is The One everyone comes to see and hear preach on a Sunday. There will need to be a shift in the church’s vision.

Another implication is a corrective to the current model of church leadership development. The typical route to the pastorate has been this: An individual experiences an inner sense of calling. The individual enrolls in a theological seminary. Upon graduation, a church that is in need of filling a pulpit calls the graduate into ministry. Such an approach has left too much to the individual’s initiative and private devices. Where is the church body in the process? A much healthier approach would be to for the church to observe the individual’s character, faithfulness, and abilities, as they serve as a lay minister in the context of the church. The candidate would receive training by the pastor and through experience. By the time ordination comes around, the whole church should be able to enthusiastically affirm God’s calling on the individual. There is a much greater emphasis on the outer sense of calling. Then the church would not be looking solely at a person’s GPA; the church would have the candidate’s whole life to base its judgment.

Moving away from the professionalization of ministry to the priesthood of all believers in this way can be a very healthy process of maturation for the whole church. Every believer will be called on to do the work of ministry and to exercise faith for the life of the church. There will be a greater participation and a more robust discipleship.

As you have more thoughts, please share. The give-and-take is good for developing these ideas.

Deacons: A Gift Lost to the Church?

2012-05-30T10:39:00.001-05:00

(Cross-posted from Biblical Seminary Faculty Blog)

“This was truly amazing to me,” said a student during the recently-concluded “Justice & Mercy” class. He was referring to a section in one of the readings, Timothy Keller’s Ministries of Mercy:

Under Rev. Thomas Chalmers... [the Church of Scotland’s parochial system of deacons assigned to parishes to take care of the poor within them] was restored in the church of St. John’s, Glasgow, during the early 1800s. His parish included 11,513 residents, of which 2,633 were members of his church. Four thousand of the residents were completely unchurched. The entire area was divided into “quarters,” each with a deacon over it. Each deacon’s job was to keep the Session (the elders) informed about the economic conditions in his quarter. He was to help the unemployed get work and help uneducated children get schooling. When a family was found in need, he was to seek out resources within the neighborhood. If there were no other options, the family was admitted to the poor roll. The statistics from one year show 97 families on the relief rolls of the church, from an approximate total of 3500 families in the parish. (Ministries of Mercy: The Call of the Jericho Road, 2nd edition. Phillipsburg, P&R: 1997, 88)

“This was in the 1800s!” he exclaimed.

If we were to rely solely on what we see around us now as “the way it’s always been,” then we would be missing out on the rich treasury of ministry that the office of deacons has been for the Church throughout its history. Growing up in the church, I certainly didn’t know what the deacons did. Only later, through the study of Scripture and urban mission issues, did I discover what was lost to the past.

Acts 6 teaches us that the first deacons were ordained to administer the mercy ministry of the Church. Stephen, one of these first deacons, was no mean spiritual leader among the apostles and disciples--in other words, the office of deacons was not a secondary office in the ministry of the church. Calvin’s Geneva was a city whose poor and hurting were served by a well-organized team of deacons. (See The Constructive Revolutionary: John Calvin and His Socio-Economic Impact, by W. Fred Graham.) The example of the deacons in Chalmers’ church in Glasgow is recounted above. We can tell countless other stories from the annals of Church History. These paint a portrait of a Church vigorously engaging the hurting and broken world through robust and concrete acts of compassion.

So what happened?

In his endnotes, Keller offers one explanation--the churches in “The New World” faced a separation of Church and State and a plurality of denominations that didn’t make it easy to organize a systematic and comprehensive diaconal ministry in its cities--a state of affairs quite different from that back in Scotland, where the Church of Scotland was the Church. Nevertheless, the Presbyterian Church, for example, had always intended that the Church become, once again, “the friend of the workingman” (92).

The church, it seems, never quite got there, and forgot all about it. Instead, the Christian community in USA got embroiled in debates--ministries of word vs. ministries of deeds, Liberalism vs. Fundamentalism, political progressivism vs. political conservatism, and any number of combinations thereof. It seems that we’ve managed to lay asunder what the Lord has brought together. As a result, the office of the deacon has been devastated and left anemic.

As the new generation of Evangelicals--with a new sense of social justice as a vital component of Christian discipleship--rises to the fore, the church in USA is again in danger of debating diaconal ministry to death instead of leading the way and forging a healthy, holistic gospel witness of word and deed as the way of life for the Church (as opposed to outsourcing diaconal ministries to non-profit organizations--needed, yes, but not to be at the forefront of a comprehensive gospel witness as the Church is to be). Not welcomed by “biblically faithful” churches, they may turn to (indeed, already are turning to) other entities (some Christian, some not) to carry out what they see as a mandate from the Lord.

But the biblical witness and Church History provides us with a different picture. The cause of the kingdom would be well served if we learn from these neglected treasures, and endeavor to reinstate the office of the deacon to its rightful place in the mission and life of the Church. Then we would be in a better place to carry out the wishes of Jesus who said to his disciples, “...let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.” (Matthew 5:16)

Overheard in the Lee Household, Part 5

2012-04-05T07:17:00.000-05:00

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4

Amoz, while we were dropping him and Theo off at the grands' for a few days' stay: Can you leave now so the fun can start? (4/4/12)

C: No, I'm not over 39. But Daddy is. Amoz: And he's still living?! (3/24/12)

Theo (need to know Power Rangers: Jungle Fury to get this one): Spirit of the Teddy Bear... Attack! (3/22/12)

Theo: Can you please stop talking? I'm eating my apple, and I can't hear my apple crunching. (2/20/12)

Theo, you're cute. / No, I'm awesome! (2/15/12)

Amoz: Don't swallow that pit, Theo. I don't want you to die. Then I'd have to get a dog. (2/6/12)

Amoz: When I grow up, I want to have a mustache. And, I'm going to have armpit hair. (1/20/12)

Amoz: Daddy, you hold my candy cane while I do my homework, since Mommy does everything around the house. (12/12/11)

Theo: I'm gonna take off my sock, and it's gonna be magic. You'll smell my toes and they're going to stink. (12/11/11)

Theo: Mommy, I wish you were a little girl; then we could play together. And you could be my girlfriend. (11/28/11)

Amoz: I'm going to be so bored at Thanksgiving. Can we go Thanksgiving trick-or-treating? (11/22/11)

Theo: Put the TV on, and I'll snuggle with you. (10/28/11)

Theo: Why don't chickens wear pants? (10/24/11)

Theo, where are your pants?? / They're invisible pants. (10/14/11)

Theo: Why do people call other people dogs? ... Hey, dog, I finished dinner! (10/13/11)

Theo, where are your pants?? / They died. (9/14/11)

Theo to our friend Val: Do you have any dogs or cats? / No, do you? / No, we have 2 tables and 3 couches. (9/13/11)

Are You Dealing With Your Ethnocentrism?

2012-03-14T06:58:00.000-05:00

Cross-posted from Biblical Seminary Faculty Blog:

I was getting ready for the upcoming Biblical Seminary class on Anthropology, reading a course textbook, Charles H. Kraft’s Anthropology for Christian Witness (published by Orbis). This work, first published in 1994, is an indispensable work for understanding culture from a missional perspective, and therefore is essential reading for anyone who is committed to a thoughtful communication of the gospel and an effective kingdom mission. However, it does show its age. Our world has changed in some dramatic ways since he penned this work--in a word, globalization.

Kraft states a major purpose of anthropological studies as safeguarding our Christian witness from “the enemy within us--our own ethnocentrism” (xiii). A great benefit to understanding culture is that we begin to be self-critical in matters of cultural presuppositions--a vital skill in engaging cross-culturally. He goes on to explain, “One of our major aims in this approach to the study of anthropology is to learn to protect the people of other societies from our own inclination to make them like us” (2). The application for the missionary from the West is obvious, but Kraft also had this to say for international students from the Two-Thirds World: one, the study of anthropology can help you overcome the cultural inferiority complex that arises from being a student in a western education system; and two, it can give you the corrective needed against looking down on the traditional segments of your own home culture (3-4).

These are wonderful words from a major figure in contemporary missiology reflecting on the checkered history of modern mission that anyone who is involved in cross-cultural ministry needs to heed seriously. But in our globalizing world, where various cultures (outside the traditional Western hegemony) are ascendant, the applications need to be made even more broadly than to Western cultural chauvinism. For instance, should the same warning against ethnocentrism be sounded to missionaries from South Korea, who are now found in every corner of the globe? What about its application to the immigrant pastors from Western Africa ministering in Queens, New York, one of the most diverse places in the world? And what of the African-American and Hispanic Christians living and serving in North American urban neighborhoods which are now home to increasing numbers of new immigrants from places such as Cambodia, Middle East, and others? After all, Western white culture does not have a corner on ethnocentrism, just as it does not have a corner on biblical theology.

This is not to say that the legacy of the recent Western predominance in Christianity does not loom over the global church’s present-day missional endeavor--to deny its influence would be to deny reality. But there is much that anthropology can teach every one of us about our own brand of ethnocentrism, no matter what part of the world we come from or what culture nurtured us. And it is crucial that we struggle with our own ethnocentrism, especially now when we are confronted by a global world in which diversity is the norm, if we are to have a credible Christian witness. It is a tragedy that Christianity is too often being promoted and practiced as a tribal religion when in fact it is a uniquely global religion, with a unique appeal to our global world.

The good news is that Christianity is a global religion par excellence. Translation is built into its Scriptures (as Lamin Sanneh has pointed out so well, contra Islam which does not allow for translation and sees only one culture--the Arab culture--as sacred); Christianity’s redemptive history is marked by God’s covenant expanding, gathering and including all nations; and Acts as the history of the first Christian mission is a story of the gospel traversing cultural barriers, a trajectory that the church is to continue on until the consummation of history. This global nature of Christianity challenges our ethnocentric tendencies, which we all have within us, and turns us outward to embrace the other. It is a blessing of the gospel.

So, anyone want to sign up for future Anthropology classes?

Training the Pastor-Missionary

2012-02-08T08:28:00.001-05:00

Cross-posted from Biblical Seminary Faculty Blog (with some editorial changes):

Ministry paradigm in the West is undergoing a massive shift today because of numerous forces at work in our global world. One of the paradigm shifts has to do with how ministry context has changed from a Christendom model (in which Christianity is the assumed predominant worldview) to a mission field model.

It's not just that the majority culture has changed--to be sure, younger generations of white Protestant descent (and the more privileged children of immigrants and minorities who go to colleges with them) now live in a thoroughly postmodern milieu, unlike most of their forebears. It is also that the Western urban world has become thoroughly pluralistic, largely through huge people movements that have swept across the globe. Our culture is no longer simply the product of a long history of "Western civilization"--it is also the product of African, Muslim, Indian, East Asian, South American, Eastern European...and other, civilizations. I am grossly generalizing here, of course--each of the categories mentioned hold multiple varieties that see themselves as quite distinct from other expressions. But you see my point. For today's pastor, the ministry context has transformed from one that could safely be assumed as fairly homogeneous (notable exception used to be the black-white divide, but not many crossed that) to one that is dizzying in its variety, and in which one cannot ever assume that Christianity is predominant or even understood. Indeed, the gospel has not reached many of the nooks and crannies cropping up in the Western world--and these nooks and crannies are growing rapidly.

This paradigm shift in our ministry context should signal a paradigm shift in how we train pastors. It is not enough to simply train the pastor for a postmodern audience. Our world is simply not that homogeneous. How will the church equip the next generation of leaders for the task of proclaiming the gospel in the global world that is even now upon us? A simple answer is: pastors in the West need to be trained more like missionaries.

In the Christendom paradigm, pastors have been trained mostly in systematic theology, biblical studies, (Western) church history, and homiletics. Other practical theology categories may have included church governance, prescribed by the seminary's denomination. However, foreign missionaries (even this is an outdated term in the new context, as is the term “home mission”) had more awareness of their need to understand different cultures and to communicate the gospel cross-culturally. They were trained to work outside Christendom and to be students of people who inhabit a world that is quite different from that of the missionaries', for the sake of the gospel mission.

Hence, there has been much attention paid to anthropology among missionaries. Pastors ministering in today's world will need to be diligent students of people groups and cultures. It is a dangerous thing to make assumptions about the people God has called ministers to--ministry can very easily backfire and ministers may find they have not been faithfully representing Christ to their people because of their misconceptions and unaddressed prejudices. Just as seeking to faithfully interpret Scriptures is a priority for pastoral ministry, faithfully interpreting people and their cultures is a priority--this has always been true, of course, but our new situation is forcing us to learn this lesson.

Missionaries have also been quite aware of their need to effectively engage in mercy ministry. Many missionaries have operated in contexts of physical need and simply sought to meet these needs in the name of Christ. Such proclamations of the kingdom in deed have brought credibility to the preached words of the gospel. As Christian developers have grown in understanding of their work, they have learned that indigenous leadership development was priority. More than simply addressing physical needs through relief efforts and giving money, they have come to recognize the importance of working with indigenous leaders, affirming their dignity, and developing local human resources for longterm development. As the old adage goes, "Give a man a fish, feed him for a day; teach a man how to fish, feed him for life." (There is much to learn here for the work of discipleship--without minimizing the importance of preaching, a renewed emphasis must be placed on developing homegrown leadership who will take the ministry deeper into the culture and adapt it for the ever changing context.) The church in our global world needs to reclaim this calling to be ministers of mercy in a hurting world and become students in effective diaconal ministry.

Missionaries have been students of other religions. They had to be, if they were to understand their people and communicate the gospel effectively. The same is true now for pastors in the Western context. Their neighbors are Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, animists, atheists and agnostics of all stripes and varieties. We cannot have merely a traditional approach to other religions--philosophical method of disproving the legitimacy of other religions--either. We will need a robust biblical theology of understanding the religious phenomenon as well as socio-historical and political understanding of different faiths. If we are to engage people of other faiths and plant the gospel in these other contexts, we will need to be prepared.

Last example for this post--no doubt this is only a preliminary list we are making here: Missionaries have been students of contextual theology. Theology, many missionaries came to realize, is a human activity carried out within lived cultural contexts, not apart or above it, done within a purely theoretical realm. (You will notice the Platonic predominance over Western thought at work here.) Missionary history is replete with examples of missed opportunities and sometimes abject failures in communicating the gospel because of the missionaries' unexamined beliefs in their own received, Western, contextual theologies and faithfully seeking to reproduce these in non-Western, missionary contexts. Therefore, today’s minister must be a student in the art and science of contextualizing theology--faithful to the revelation of the gospel in the Word of God and faithful to human contexts this revelation comes to address. This has always been the case, but is especially so in our shifting and multifaceted cultural context.

In light of the current paradigm shift, there needs to be a corresponding paradigm shift in our training of pastors. Mission courses that have for long been treated as electives need to become required courses.

Many of you readers have no doubt come across situations that have needed the traditional roles of pastor and missionary to coexist. How have you seen this to be the case?

Is Talk of "Incarnational Ministry" Legitimate?

2012-01-09T12:07:00.000-05:00

Cross-posted from Biblical Seminary Faculty Blog:

Among urban mission circles, there has been a history of utilizing the phrase “incarnational ministry” to speak of re-neighboring as a mission strategy. Christians who have sought to serve impoverished inner city neighborhoods would move into those communities to not only minister to those communities, but also to become a neighbor in every sense of the word, and minister with the community. Christian community developer Robert Lupton has termed this re-neighboring strategy: “return flight.”

The theological impetus was found in the Incarnation--the central Christian teaching that the eternal Word of God, the second Person of the Trinity, became flesh in the person of Jesus Christ. God the Son took on the human condition fully by fully becoming human yet still remaining fully God. By the time you read this, Christians worldwide will have recently celebrated the Incarnation at Christmastime. And thus, as Christians, we follow Jesus, the eternal Word, who “became flesh and blood, and moved into our neighborhood” (as Eugene Peterson translates John 1:14 in The Message).

But is such language legitimate? After all, the Incarnation is a never-to-be-repeated event centered around the one and only God-man Jesus Christ. We declare that there is no other name under heaven by which we are saved. We believe in the utter uniqueness of the one Mediator between God and humanity. Who could be like him, and who could do what he has done? If we talk about “incarnational ministry,” doesn’t it take away from the once-and-for-all nature of Christ’s Incarnation and his utterly unique nature as God-man (his hypostatic union, in the language of the creeds)?

A very good question, and one that needs to be answered much more fully than a blog post is able. But let me offer just a couple of beginnings and sketches of ideas in response which deserve much further treatment.

One, the nature of the church is unique in a way that is analogous to the unique nature of Christ. New Testament at various places calls the church “the body of Christ.” This is more than a figure of speech--it speaks of the unique nature of the church as the bodily presence of Christ in the world now. Christ, the Head of the church, resides physically in heaven, but his body, the church, imbued with his Spirit, lives and acts as Christ in the world. That’s why Luke can say as he begins the Book of Acts,“In my former book [the Gospel of Luke], Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus began to do and to teach.”

The implication, of course, is that the subject matter of Acts is what Jesus continued to do and teach. But Jesus doesn’t make a physical appearance in Acts save in a few short paragraphs here and there. What could Luke mean? He is referring to what Jesus continued to do and teach through the church and through his Spirit who descended on the church at Pentecost and continues to indwell his body of believers now. The creation of the church, it could be said, is the whole point of Jesus’ work of redemption--so much so that Paul in Eph 3:8-10 declares that the work God is doing in and through the church is the mystery which has been hidden in the ages past but is now being revealed.

The church is indeed a marvelous creation. It is a group of fallen and fallible sinners, marred image-bearers, that is nevertheless indwelt by the very Spirit of God. It could even be said that the church has these two natures in hypostatic union, in much the same way Jesus was both fully God and fully man. The church is, in other words, a mystery that elicits the same kind of wonder and awe that Paul demonstrated in the Scriptures.

Two, the church is commissioned and sent into the world in the same way that Christ was commissioned and sent into our world. In John 20:21, the resurrected Christ breathes the Holy Spirit on his disciples (the church) and declares, “As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.” The mission of Christ continues in the ongoing mission of the church. And the way he was sent is to be Immanuel, God’s very presence with us--in other words, Incarnation. There is an analogy here for the church’s own sentness. As Jesus was the Word of God made flesh among us, so the church is Christ made flesh in the world.

To be sure, the church is not Christ himself... but we represent him; we are his ambassadors; we mediate the Lord and his revelation to those who need his redemptive work to be operational in their midst. So we cannot to carry out our mission in the ways that seem best to us. Rather, we are to carry out our mission in a way that is analogous to how Christ carried out his mission while he was bodily present on earth. In other words, we are to be incarnational. Thus we do not broadcast words only; in order to proclaim the gospel, we move in and get close to those we seek to serve and reach. We establish friendships and we participate in the life condition of those we have been sent to. We establish solidarity. We weep with those who weep and rejoice with those who rejoice. We become all things to all men so that by all possible means we might save some (1 Cor 9:22). That’s incarnational language.

One of the implications is that the church is commissioned to practice contextual theology. Because the God of the Scriptures is not a God who dictated his revelation from his heavenly throne room but rather a God who revealed himself in the most intimate way, by becoming one of us and embodying his revelation in the person of Christ, we as Christ’s body must go to the world and seek to theologize from within the cultures and neighborhoods and social groups, not dictate what God is like from the outside.

Much more needs to be said--the implications are tremendous!--and hopefully I will have more opportunities to do so in the future. But for now I hope I have demonstrated grounds for the legitimacy of “incarnational ministry.” And more than that, I hope I have whet our appetites for the manifestations of such wonderful theological treasures becoming enfleshed in our own churches and in our own lives, so that the mission of God may be realized among us to his glory.

The Strengths of the Bi-Vocational Pastorate

2011-11-30T05:22:00.001-05:00

(Cross-posted from the Biblical Seminary Faculty Blog; I will be contributing there about once a month)

The bi-vocational pastorate is on my mind a lot lately. With the changing economy, we increasingly hear of the portfolio career—it’s “what’s trending now.” And relatedly, I am hearing more and more of a rise of the bi-vocational pastor—I hear anecdotes of them coming from all corners of the US. Of course, many inner city pastors and immigrant pastors have been carrying on bi-vocational ministries for many years, but now it seems bi-vocational ministries are cropping up in the middle-class neighborhoods as well. In the world of mission, there has been a well-established tradition of “tent-making” missionaries, following in the footsteps of the original Apostle to the Gentiles, Paul. Finally, bi-vocational ministry is on my mind a lot because I have become a bi-vocational pastor myself.

Having planted a church in an inner city neighborhood in Philadelphia with the generous financial support of our denomination, we graduated from the grants a few years into our church planting effort. However, our mission of reaching our economically challenged community has not led our church plant into affluence, and I’ve had to become more and more bi-vocational.

I should carry out more research and back this up with some hard data, but I suspect that I am not alone, and we will see a rise of the bi-vocational pastor in the future. Why?

We live in a post-Christendom world. The church’s influence on society isn’t what it used to be. This is not necessarily a bad thing. The church has an opportunity to rediscover its identity as a missionary body, if it no longer holds the position of landlord of this world. Instead, we are, and have always been, strangers and aliens here, witnessing to the city of God to come. But in a post-Christendom world, the necessity of the clergy is no longer assumed. It will be harder and harder to keep funding a large class of full-time pastorate.
We also live in a post-denominational world. We are seeing a decline of churches in matters of giving and availability of resources. The economy is bad, but denominations are seeing bad times too. Grants for church planting work are way down. We have to do more with less.
We live in a global world, where the global cities are teeming with immigrants. Christians are a significant part of this global migration movement, and many of them support themselves with other jobs and carry out their calling into ministry—this is how they are able to carry on sharing the good news of Jesus in their new homes.

Bi-vocational ministry is a hard road to take—there is the toll of carrying out double duty, the financial insecurity, the pressure on the family and the church, the potential to be divided. Many sermons won’t have polish. However, I also see that there are some surprising benefits to going bi-vocational.

It forces us to develop the other gifts in the church. Often, pastors haven’t developed the other gifts in the church because… well, they didn’t have to. They could carry out the work of the ministry by themselves. When pastors become bi-vocational, however, they are forced to depend on others to carry out the work of the ministry, and leadership development becomes a priority. One of the battle cries of the Reformation was “the priesthood of all believers.” Bi-vocational pastorate may more fully realize that vision.
It also forces us to be creative in our church models, and develop ministries that are much better suited to our contexts. In order to more effectively reach our world, we need church models that are more nimble, flexible, adaptable. We may need to adjust our expectations and visions, because our current ministry models may be better suited to a Christendom of the past than to our world now. For example, mega-churches are certainly effective in certain contexts, but they will prove to be a bad fit in many post-Christendom contexts—contexts that are becoming increasingly prevalent.
The bi-vocational pastor can potentially become much more incarnational. The pastor becomes one of the “working stiffs” who (really) shares in the joys and sorrows of those we are seeking to reach.
It can mean great opportunities for evangelism. In the older model, pastors have been cloistered away among the churched. In the bi-vocational model, the gospel messenger is loosed into the world, for the pastor is now constantly interfacing with relational circles that used to lie outside the reach of the pastorate. Pastors are not just servants of the institution called the church; they are also missionaries of the kingdom who have the gospel to share with the world.

For better or for worse, I see the rise of the bi-vocational pastorate in the future. This development entails great challenges, and the church will need to re-examine how we carry out theological education, models of ministry, allocation of resources, among other things, in the light of this shift. But it can also mean great opportunities for the kingdom. Church leadership and theological education institutions would do well to examine the implications of the bi-vocational pastorate, and those called into ministry would do well to consider it a path worth taking.

G.Hope Work Days

2011-11-12T10:41:00.001-05:00

Here's the latest piece of news over on Friends of Germantown Hope:

Last Friday and Saturday, G.Hope held two Work Days to give some much needed TLC to our well-worn building. Kurt, who runs a contractor business and serves as an elder, organized the time. Various members pitched in and gave their time, some of them whole days, taking time off from work, working alongside each other, in a true community effort. Kurt's in-laws also traveled up from Maryland to give us a full 12-hour day on Saturday. As a result, we now have a worship space that feels brand-new. Moreover, through this process, we were able to get back in touch with what it means that we are a missionary body called together to serve alongside each other in this place. For this, I am grateful and encouraged.

Here's Kurt, leading the way:

Here are his in-laws, Vicki and Alton:

And here is the very nearly finished product:

You can find more photos from the Work Days here.

On another note, thank you to those who have joined us in our 50/50 Campaign. We are grateful for your financial support--you enable us to continue our ministry in a place without many resources. We still have a long way to go, though. Would you consider becoming a part of our team of givers and join the 50/50 Campaign? Details are here.

On still another note, this time a more personal one, my family has been blessed by so many of you who have stepped in and supplied our needs in such varied ways, be they spiritual or physical--through intercessory prayers, financial gifts, words of encouragement, times of friendship, and even an interest-free loan for car when our old one died. They were all right on time. You remind us that the kingdom of God is bigger than we could imagine, and that we can depend on our Father to supply all our needs. Thank you for being the Church. May the Lord supply all of your needs as well, according to his glorious riches in Christ.

Until next time.

Shalom,
Kyuboem Lee

Where Wissahickon and Ridge Ave Meet

2011-11-04T14:47:00.001-05:00

Diallo and Kaheem

2011-10-18T12:49:00.001-05:00

HIP_340476668.644585, originally uploaded by kyuboem.

Overheard in the Lee Household, Pt. 4

2011-09-02T15:23:00.001-05:00

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

HIP_335317642.401249, originally uploaded by kyuboem.

It's that time again! Here are the latest from Amoz and Theo, especially as we celebrate (that's right, parents; it's OK to celebrate) the kids finally heading off to school. You will notice that Theo has become much more talkative and a lot more expressive about his own ideas.... Back to school... It's the most wonderful time of the year....

Theo, I'll buy you a new Beyblade when I'm 6. / Where will you get the money? / Well, aren't there any jobs you can get when you're 6? (8/29/11)

When I grow up, I'll be a hunter. I'll hunt for my food. Like chicken. (8/27/11)

(Theo edition): I want to play baseball and be in Phillies. Then Phillie Phanatik will hug me. And kiss me. (7/27/11)

(Theo edition): Mommy, you know what I don't like? / What? / Barbies. (7/26/11)

Theo, what do you want to be when you grow up? / I want be Amoz. (7/25/11)

You don't have to go to the hospital if you're just sick. Only if you have a broken arm or if you're going crazy. (7/5/11)

I have to button up my shirt because I have a dragon tattoo on my chest, and I don't want people to know I belong to the... DARK SIDE! (6/15/11)

Mommy, why do you have mud on your face? / To look pretty. / Well, you don't look that pretty. (6/13/11)

And pick up that tennis ball canister. / It's called a blaster dookie bazooka. (5/30/11)

...and the best gift you could give on Mother's Day is be really good./ Is Mother's Day only once a year? (5/8/11)

_____ doesn't like me. / She likes you; she's always hugging you. / *That* is tackling. (4/17/11)

(Theo ed): Mommy, come fart with me! (3/20/11)

The flowers are blooming! It's springtime! / Does that mean there's no school today? (3/14/11)

Why don't MarioKart characters wear seatbelts? (2/25/11)

I'm preparing a romantic dinner. / ? ...You're preparing a gigantic dinner? (2/15/11)