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I MOVED!

Ok. not physically, but this blog is no longer hosted @ wordpress. That might explain the interruption in your feed, but pls do hop on over to http://waynepark.com and subscribe via the orange “RSS” logo on the top right. I’ll just keep this one up and running for the sake of old friends till it tapers off, but I anticipate most traffic headed over the other way. See u round.

Are Korean Churches Capable of Being Missional?

Quick update: just finished an intense 7-week course on Biblical Greek which ranks among the top 5 hardest things I’ve ever had to do in my life, thus explaining my online reticence. But I look forward to using this vacation for some quality writing, and blogging well.

During the summer term we had a visiting lecturer @ Regent – Minho Song, a Korean pastor from Toronto who taught a class on the missional church in North America. I would have been thrilled to sit-in save for the fact that I was mired in parsing Greek verbs, and juggling two babies at home. Still, his class reverberated throughout the Korean community @ Regent, discussing if it is indeed possible for a church that is bounded within ethnic identity to be effectively missional in a non-Korean context.

Maybe I’ll Plant Again

Still fresh from licking my wounds after closing down missio (interestingly the last few posts have been about church planting) I find myself actually open again to the idea of planting again someday. Mind you, I would never ever plant again the way we did it before. Not to discredit our work and those who’ve travailed with us – not a second was wasted nor regretted in my view. But this baby’s got some mileage and if I’m ever gonna do it again, the process has to be a lot more efficient, more streamlined and success has got to be guaranteed. Because failure is just WAY too costly, and I’m not alone in testifying to that. Failure’s great – it teaches you things – but yeah – you’re not smart if you like to make the same mistakes over and over again.

Exorcising the Demons of Church Planting

While it’s still been only recently that we shut down missio (last December) it is an anniversary of sorts in that the prior summer was when it really started to hit home: This isn’t going to work. It was the pits. And while it sounds cliche, it’s true, failure in starting a new church is like experiencing a death in the family. It hurts for a long time, and does things to your head, messing up your confidence, shaking some of that youthful cockiness you may have once had. Perhaps it’s for so much good. But in the end it still hurts – and you wonder if you’ve got damaged goods.

Twitter, Iran, Tiananmen Square.

Yeah; that just about says it perfectly.

1ST WORLD RE-EVANGELIZATION: Chaplaincy

Starting a new series titled “1st World Re-Evangelization” where I’d like to muse on some thoughts about ministering in a 1st world context as a 3rd world immigrant (what some might call “third culture”). Especially what it’s like as a minority (Korean-American) ministering in a predominantly Caucasian context. I find it intriguing – and different in many ways. Hence, the title, 1st World Re-Evangelization. Also because it is the title of a class I’m taking now, “Empowering the Church for First World Re-Evangelization: Theological And Missional Themes” – so don’t deconstruct the title too much, I didn’t come up with it. It is however a chance to hash out both in-class and out, in theory as well as in praxis, what this idea of “re-evangelizing the first world” really means – as a Christian in a postmodern world and as a minority in a dominant culture context. Either way, a minority. So I turn my first thoughts towards the theme of chaplaincy. Specifically police chaplaincy, and our own local support officer program here in Bellingham / Whatcom County.

ANGRY ASIAN DUDE vs. COY ASIAN MAN: Reviewing “The Next Evangelicalism”

Soong-Chan Rah: Another Angry Asian Man?

Reading “Prof Rah’s” The Next Evangelicalism is like gargling with salt. It stings in the throat but at the same time clears the sinuses of the stuffiness and congestion of poorly thought-out racial dialogue. Sure, we like to talk about color-blindness, and melting pots, and model minorities, but do we know what we’re really saying when we talk about these things? Surely the Church – that glorious multicultural reality – is exempt from these faux-pas assumptions… Or is she? Perhaps a little deconstruction is in order – and maybe that aint such a bad thing.

GRAN TORINO speaks about Faith, Place, & Race

While I thought some of the acting was kinda kitschy and predictable, (yo holmes, I’m from the South Side, I represent) I found this movie pregnant with so many important themes. Faith, Place, & Race are three of them (and also happen to be the title of this blog) but it wrestles deeply with issues of urbanization, neighborhood, culture, and so many things. David Swanson gives a more complete review, titling it “urban exile” and I think that captures the essence of Gran Torino; being stuck in a place with people you don’t like and making the most of it. Staying put. And this is faith. What’d u think of the movie?

Wisdom From Tim Keller On Church Planting

I found this article terribly compelling (thanks to Daniel Eng for the heads up) – especially the following snippet – this has everything to do with defining * success * in church, or entrepreneurship, or just plain life:

Open Source Theology

Tech writer Clive Thompson calls Twitter "ambient awareness"

I’m re-publishing this as a convo about Twitter is jump-started by Time mag’s recent cover story on the 140 character cultural phenom. A friend dialogues about it (Twitter) here too. But specifically I am interested in Twitter’s implications for how we do church. I don’t mean so much using Twitter IN church, but the implications for end-user innovation in how we do church. Or be church. What if the church became “open-sourced” and congregant or laity-driven innovation? Original post here: