Click back in time and watch the 1-hour webcast about caregiving for my ailing Dad, as my brother and mother gave him the best care over his last 2.5 years. And here’s the short obit about his life. I also have a private memorial page for my Dad to which you’re welcomed to request access to view.

Though I wasn’t able to list it on Amazon as a free ebook (but I did list my eBook there for easier download), I can post it here as a free download.

• Download ebook in .MOBI format - for Kindle [instructions]
• Download ebook in .EPUB format - for iBook on iOS (iPad), Nook, Sony, etc [instructions]
• Read it online via Issuu or Slideshare

For me, it’s about the speed to publish. (so not everything is perfectly formatted; and this also gives me an opportunity for me to experiment and to learn digital publishing on different platforms)

The e-book that’s I’ve just published is a compilation of blog posts from my 12 years of blogging that will serve as the starting point for telling more about my life. I’ve dubbed it a “chronological edition” because the blog posts are ordered chronologically, and the book title is tentative. In the final edition, I think the ebook’s length will more than double in size, as I’ll be expanding on a number of issues, including: depression, bipolar disorder, career choices, and identity formation. As a bunch of blog posts, the ebook is obviously disjointed and not an easy read.

I realize that I don’t have a most sensational life story like some others who’ve  been published, be it a courageous battle with disease, growing up in adverse circumstances, turning from a life of drugs and/or crime, or going from rags to riches. On the one hand, I see myself as an average guy, and yet, I also know I’m terribly unconventional so it’s taken many years to begin to feel comfortable in my own skin.

My thinking about the book is to just tell the story and avoid being prescriptive. In that sense, it won’t be in the genre of self-help nor inspirational. The telling of the story itself is the point. Maybe this is a new genre? But I am eager to hear feedback from you readers as to how I can better shape this ebook to be of more help to people.

In the ebook, I explain more of why I’m writing this ebook and what’s prompted me to author at this stage in my life. So, please do download it, read it, and provide much needed feedback. Your voice matters!

Whether the final edition will be published by a traditional publisher or if I’ll be self-publishing is yet to be determined. Either way, it will be published and not perish.

In the 21st century, what ought to be published is no longer is prohibited by the market. (others who have self published: Ben Franklin, Ezra Pound, Emily Dickinson, Thomas Paine, Jane Austen, Walt Whitman, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Virginia Woolf)  And, I will make the final edition available in digital and print formats.

Here’s a list of churches on Pinterest I’d found, with a current count of pins when this list was compiled (please do add more) ::

http://pinterest.com/marshill/ Mars Hill Church (577 pins)
http://pinterest.com/foresthillpcusa/ Forest Hill Church (477 pins)
http://pinterest.com/uuca Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Atlanta (346 pins)
http://pinterest.com/wheatonbible Wheaton Bible Church (129 pins)
http://pinterest.com/fellowshippins/ Fellowship Church (76 pins)
http://pinterest.com/worthingtoncc/ Worthington Christian Church (58 pins)
http://pinterest.com/forefrontnyc/ Forefront Church (34 pins)
http://pinterest.com/bafchurch/ Bay Area Fellowship (4 pins)
http://pinterest.com/gopcmodesto/ (1 pin)

[update: added after original post went live]
http://pinterest.com/northviewchurch/ Northview Church via @brianbarela

At the moment, Pinterest is invite-only. Add a comment and I’d be more than happy to give you an invite.

Dave notes that innovations could happen on the fringe or in smaller contexts that are nimble to try new things (“some would insist that innovation happens at the edges… smaller churches often seed new ideas and innovations into the Christian ecosystem…”) but asserts how an innovative idea spreads requires influentials and influencers on a larger scale — “… pushing an idea across the broad expanse, from an obscure starting point… there is a need for ‘opinion leaders’ to get on board… the diffusers of innovation…” And those influencers are by and large leaders in very large churches. Size attracts attention.

Yet, once an influencer doesn’t mean always an influencer. Dave noticed this: “Old conference notebooks reveal to us that many of the 2002 thought leaders are no longer at the center of our ecosystem. Yet they built the steps to this year’s platform.”

And Dave explains why large churches are valuable to our society: “… large churches are the most effective and efficient bundlers of social capital in a community… the best equipped to mobilize large groups of people to use their time, talent, and treasures for purposes that make the neighborhoods better places to live… [even] across the world…”

The book anticipates a number of trends and even some speculations about the future of the American church. And even researchers of global Christianity acknowledge that what happens in the United States still has (disproportionate) influence around the world, even though the center of Christianity has shifted to the south and to the east. I’d interpret that as more people are becoming Christians in parts of Asia, Africa, and South America, but the financial capital is here in the US for the time being, and that can make things happen for a time. In the long run, sheer numbers of people will outlast sheer number of dollars, just a matter of time. Consider, what could Christianity look like in 1000 years, and with that kind of perspective, we won’t be looking just at quarterly numbers or annual reports.

I did want to react to 2 things mentioned in the book.

Firstly, financial transparency in the church. This one is a toughie in the church, and in the non-profit world for that matter. And there may well be a bunch of factors for this, some for bad reasons and some out of fear and ignorance. I believe that if we are truly children of the light and the light of the world that the church can be leading the way in showing how to disclosure finances more than any typical non-profit. In so doing, the church can show how to avoid jealousy about staff salaries and being above reproach in its use of finances. Perhaps I am being too idealistic, but I believe more in the power of good over evil, truth over silence, honesty over hiddenness. Criticism will surface anyways, and even more so, now that everyone has a (potential) voice over the Internet.  And I’d counter misperception with hard data rather than hiding data any day.

Secondly, what about the next Billy Graham? Dave writes, “Billy Graham, the Sequel: Who will be the next great evangelist with a worldwide impact? I’ve predicted for years that we’re likely to see a native of India or some other Asian country, fluent in English, who can appeal to the West.” I wonder if s/he would really emerge from the the East? History tells us that there have been great evangelists from the East, like Watchman Nee or Bakht Singh.

I’d say someone from China might have a better chance at being a global evangelist, and not just because I happen to be of Chinese descent. From sheer numbers, India and China will dominate the population numbers. And so much of the world economy and cash flow is finding a home in China, so much of the clothes and furniture and technology we use today is made in China (including this MacBook Pro I’m typing on.) Yes, that next global evangelist will be internet-savvy, and I’d say more than event-savvy or media-savvy, s/he has got to be social-media-savvy, so it’d look a lot more like reality-tv live-streaming than an on-stage inspirational speaker, tho’ s/he’d have to be quite the motivational speaker too.

[disclosure: I work with Leadership Network]

“You’re about to read a dangerous book…” — Steve Sjogren, author, Conspiracy of Kindness, Kindness.com.

“Can our churches have an impact on the community around them? What does it look like to be Jesus to a group of skateboarders? In his first e-book, Charlie Wear–ex-pastor, editor, lawyer–shares his fascinating insights and experience of what it looks like to be church outside the walls, to “be Jesus” to people without the religious trappings. If you want to maintain the status quo, don’t bother to read this book…” — Felicity Dale, simplychurch.com, co-author Small is Big.

This is Charlie’s story about himself, a “recovering pharisee”, and his adventures from being a burned out, divorced, depressed church dropout; more church life in which he accidentally became a pastor, trying to look good as a preacher; another miserable failure; then how, out of the ashes of his attempt at church, true ministry was birthed. … It’s about how God uses a broken man with a broken heart to take the gospel to places the traditional church could never go. If you’re tired of normal ordinary “church”, this will inspire you. — Robby Charters, author of Pepe

One particular quote sticks with me and keeps me searching my own heart: “I used to think I was a Christian, because of what I believed, how I behaved and perhaps, because of how my associates thought of me.” If you’re interested in being liberated from this brand of “Christianity,” get Charlie’s book. — Scott Bane

But you’ll need a Kindle to read the e-book (or you could use a Kindle app, I suppose.) How about this: Win a brand new Kindle e-reader by entering the contest below. Odds are really good that you’d win a copy of the e-book (100 winners). But you don’t have to take a chance and just go buy it for 99 cents.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

[this is a sponsored post + contest by Charles Wear]

I logged-in earlier and gave my points to boost the story of the cause to raise $$ to give hope to 2,000 kids via Joy Jars. You may have heard of Joy Jars, the inspiration of Jessie Rees who wanted to get 50,000 fans on her Facebook page to raise awareness and bring joy to other kids who have cancer. That page now has over 147,000 fans. So join in and use your free starter points and let’s brighten the lives of a couple thousand kids with joy and hope!

Partial transcripts – text of interview with Rick Warren at ABC News Blogs:

• ‘Coarsening of our Culture’ Concerns Me – “We don’t know how to disagree without being disagreeable… you can walk hand-in-hand without seeing eye-to-eye. And what we need in our country is unity, not uniformity.”
• Rick Warren’s Easter Message: ‘When You’re Going Through Hell, You Keep Going’
• Fundamental Differences Between Mormons and Christians
• ‘Inability to Delay Gratification’ at Heart of Economic Woes
• Uproar Over Tim Tebow a Sign of Regression
• ‘Newsweek’ Exploiting Easter With Religious Cover
• ‘God Hates War, but God Loves Every Soldier’
• Ministering to Trayvon Martin Community
• Contraception Debate About ‘Greater Principle’ of Religious Freedom
• Our Church Has Lost Over 250,000 Pounds
• Don’t Worry, Dogs Go to Heaven

[disclosure: I attend Saddleback Church @ Rancho Capistrano]

Running on the assumption that good news travels fast, this is a short list of “successful” ethnic Chinese churches that I hear about out of an estimated 1,200 Chinese churches [need your help! add a comment + add to this list]:

• River of Life Christian Church (Santa Clara, CA) and New Life Christian Church of OC (Irvine) [! even Celebrate Recovery in Chinese !]
• Bay Area Chinese Bible Church (Alameda and San Leandro, CA)
• Chinese Church in Christ (6 locations in San Francisco Bay area) – one of them being Jeremy Lin’s home church
• First Evangelical Church Association
• West Houston Chinese Church
• Chinese Bible Church of San Diego (multi-site church with 6 campuses)
• Mandarin Baptist Church of LA (they have a mobile app!)
• Crosspoint Church of Silicon Valley
• First Chinese Baptist Church, Walnut (Calif)

And I’ll call upon my colleagues, KAMR and KCCD, who are much more knowledgeable about the Korean American church world, to make a similar note about their context, since I’m not Korean, and I wouldn’t want to shortchange all the good things that may be happening among some 4,000 Korean American churches.

Innovation happens everywhere. And going across the pond, there are things stirring in mainland China too. Influential Chinese economist Zhao Xiao reported that there’s a church in China with 100,000 congregations, each consisting of average 50 people, so the total combined size is over five million. Though that’s not the normal way of counting church size, it’s worth noting as a different “innovative” model of church in our fast-changing world.

On a broader perspective, also glean from John Kao‘s series about the state of innovation in China (posted at CNN’s Global Public Square) –

1. China as an Innovation Nation - provided a portrait of China’s innovation drive, describing its scale and success model
2. Why is innovation so important to China? - the historical context for the centrality of innovation in China’s national strategy; the country that invented the compass, gunpowder and printing
3. Chinese innovation – paper tiger or king of the hill? - beyond the “black or white” rhetoric that characterizes much of the current debate on how real and significant China’s innovation drive
4. In search of the Chinese entrepreneur - ” with profiles of Aigo’s Feng Jun and Sundia’s Xiochuan Wang
5. Innovation war or innovation peace?” – potential for both conflict and cooperation in the U.S.-China innovation relationship
6. Engage China with guarded openness - be open to sharing information and to collaboration, but exercise prudence and caution

And what if I were to win the lottery and a large chunk of change? Here’s what I’d do (and by blogging it I’m going on the record, so that means you could call me on it if I deviate off plan)  –

• Set aside half for tax purposes
• Set aside 10% for as my faith expression of obedience of giving to God’s kingdom. It would go into a charitable fund and I wouldn’t give it all at once
• Do the math with a financial advisor to set me and family on a course of financial independence based on the standard of living we currently have (debt payoff implied)
• Set aside a world travel fund to go to 20 world-class cities around the world
• Set aside a hospitality fund for local & regional gatherings of all sorts – conversations change the world
• Launch a web-based webcast/netcast network for next generation voices– Asian, Latino, African American, Middle Eastern, multi-racial — to delve into real-life issues of family, race relations, mental health, vulnerability/shame, vocational empowerment, think pieces, social commentaries, globalization (not entertainment, not fashion, not celebrity gossip, not tech, not gaming, not politics)
• Launch a R&D “skunk works” lab for non-profit innovation with a bias for long-term impact over short-term results
• Start a publishing digital imprint for next gen leaders that need to be heard, not (only) those who can sell books
• Establish a giving circle / community fund for the dreams of next gen Asian Americans
• Host annual summits for gathering thought leaders that can advance needed change in: faith & race issues for evangelicals; next gen faith for minorities; minority philanthropy

Am I idealistic? You betcha!

Here’s the thing. You gotta play to win. I didn’t buy a lottery ticket. So this blog post is entirely hypothetical. What would you do if you won a large amount of money, hypothetically?

This American Life has retracted this story because we learned that many of Mike Daisey’s experiences in China were fabricated. We have removed the audio from our site, and have left this transcript up only for reference. We produced an entire new episode about the retraction, featuring Marketplace reporter Rob Schmitz, who interviewed Mike’s translator Cathy and discovered discrepancies between her account and Mike’s, and New York Times reporter Charles Duhigg, who has reported extensively on Apple. Ira also re-interviewed Mike Daisey to learn why he misled us.

As a journalistic genre, This American Life is committed to certain journalistic standards, and this one episode got away. On their blog with the press release, the Executive Producer and Host Ira Glass wrote:

I have difficult news. We’ve learned that Mike Daisey’s story about Apple in China – which we broadcast in January – contained significant fabrications. We’re retracting the story because we can’t vouch for its truth. This is not a story we commissioned. It was an excerpt of Mike Daisey’s acclaimed one-man show “The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs,” in which he talks about visiting a factory in China that makes iPhones and other Apple products.

Episode #460 explained more about the fact-checking after the airing of the original episode, its retraction, and an interview with Mike Daisey to seek an apology and explanation. I’ve listened to both episodes. Painful. (And what might Apple’s legal department be plotting?)

Daisey felt justified in doing what he does as a storyteller and believes his work is a legitimate exercise of artistic license. Sure, a scriptwriter has the freedom to create a work of art as movie or play or book by rendering a dramatization based on a true story. There’s a place for that. That place is not a journalistic-style radio show. Maybe Garrison Keillor? Or Jon Stewart? Stephen Colbert?

This kind of problem will keep aggravating the world of journalism as social media enables anyone and everyone to have a public voice. Everything is looking more like op-ed pieces. Journalism perhaps isn’t able to uphold as high a standard as it used to because of an accelerated news cycle in a 24/7 communication world, or maybe new media is revealing the subjective biases and inaccuracies of the reporters’ work.

I’ve had a few encounters with journalism, and news reporters (with news involving people I knew) did not get the facts nor details right. This recently happened in the OC Register and its February 23rd article Rick Warren builds bridge to Muslims. Rick Warren was forced to respond amidst an already busy highly-demanding schedule. First to clear up theological issues, in an interview with Brandon A. Cox and The Christian Post. Secondly, a line-by-line documentation of the factual errors in News & Views 3/10/12: ON RESPONDING TO FALSE ACCUSATIONS (also posted at ocregister.com), the Saddleback Church email newsletter. Some of the damage may be irreparable, as OC Register noted on 3/9/12 in Effort to reach out to Muslims stirs outcry. And media representative A. Larry Ross wrote up this article, Saddleback Church: Setting the record straight on outreach to Muslims, published at ocregister.com .

My hunch is that as media technologies keeps developing and maturing, the lines will only get more blurred. And, these situations are indicators of a shift of trust away from faceless institutions towards individuals in one’s social network.

Oh, and the dust hasn’t settled yet on Mike Daisey and his American Life episode. There’s more.

On March 19th, “… at a long-scheduled appearance at Georgetown University, Mike Daisey gave his first public talk since the news broke last Friday that This American Life was retracting the now-infamous episode featuring his work. Daisey is a complicated and conflicted figure, and, it’s hard not to feel complicated and conflicted about him and about his work. His talk last night provides a new dimension to the story that is now at the center of a scandal.” —The Atlantic Wire

So why does it seem like Christmas is a bigger deal than Easter? I have my own speculations and theories as to the reasons why, but I sure want to hear from you. Add a comment. Is it the presents? Is it the snow? Is it the holiday movies?

From this unofficial tally of worship services at 20 larger churches in Orange County, California, there were 99 for Christmas vs. 113 for Easter. So maybe Easter is bigger than Christmas for church-goers, and Christmas is bigger for American culture at large?

My family joyously celebrated Christmas at 10 churches this past December. Not sure how many churches we’ll celebrate Easter with just yet. But I am putting a spreadsheet together to begin scheming…

(cf. List of Popular Churches in the OC and Southern California)

All too often well-intentioned Christian ministry leaders / preachers / teachers / people give encouragement with pithy sayings and the quoting the Bible verses, without the demands of genuine compassion that requires entering in and walking alongside someone’s pain and confusion. (cf. Overcoming Anxiety: Dealing with Anxiety and Worry) If you’d not been schooled in the right-of-center flavor of Christianity, the answer to life is always: Jesus, Bible and prayer, not necessarily in that order.

Thank you Rhett for taking a whole different approach, a very personal one at that. By sharing your life and the things you’ve learned along the way, it draws me relationally and I’m freed to know that my own anxiety is not necessarily coming from a place of doubting God and I’m not someone to be fixed per se. And more than that, anxiety can be invitation from God towards a more rewarding faith.

My confession: This book came timely for me as I’d been simmering about anxiety in my life, not in a paralyzing manner from an overwhelming number of choices, but more of an annoying nagging feeling. My anxiety seems to be recurring about performance, and the discomfort of having to evaluate my work, or worse, to have others evaluate it. Whether I success or not, or could do better, or am celebrated for excellence, there’s that thing about performance evaluation that I just plain don’t like. That’s all I got to say about that right now.

[disclosure: I received a complementary review copy]

Get all the recorded talks (plus bonus content) from Verge 2012 for just $49 before Saturday 3/10. Rich and insightful messages you’ll want to digest and discuss with your group of like-minded zealous Christ-followers.