Photo by Reuters So much has happened in our 3 months in Indonesia. Not only in terms of the church plant, but we have been welcomed by a terrorist bombing in Jakarta, an earthquake (that we actually felt), and now another earthquake in Sumatra Island. The death toll is slowly rising […]
Enough is Enough
Photo by pdesigner.com I don’t know how many of you have been following the news this past week, but there are a lot of global things going on right now. Recently, the United Nations (U.N.) had their 61st General Assembly session in NYC. Not only was this meeting a bit tense […]
Making Changes
Photo on Flickr Even though it has been a little less than 3 months since we have been here in Indonesia, God is showing us a lot of different things. By His grace, God has allowed us, not only to transition well, but to reinforce a lot of the values that […]
The Concept of Personal Space
Photo by Reuters As you can tell from the picture above, things are crowded in Indonesia. This picture describes not only the massive amount of motorcycles on the road, but also the chaos on the streets as people are all trying to get home for the Hari Raya Idul Fitri holiday. […]
The “I” in Idolatry
Photo by Anne Elliott The American Heritage Dictionary defines “idolatry” as, “blind or excessive devotion to something.” It is interesting that throughout the Bible one theme that keeps on coming up is the topic of idols. It is germane to who we are as God’s people. God created us to worship […]
True Freedom
Photo on Diane Beeler website In class yesterday, we had a good discussion on the topic of freedom. I challenged the students to think about the true meaning of freedom as we were going over the Old Testament. I pointed out that we see the plight of humankind constantly disobeying God, […]
Kanye West and Manners
Photo by Getty It has been a couple of days now and I was debating whether to write some of my thoughts on what happened at the MTV Video Music Awards (VMA). At first I wasn’t going to write anything, but then I decided for the sake of reinforcing the values […]
Producing Racist People
Photo by Smart Expressions There was an interesting Newsweek article entitled, “Is Your Kid a Racist?” It caught my attention to say the least. What parent wants to raise their child as a racist? I guess there are probably some but that is for another blog entry. If a parent knew […]
The Greatest Ever
Recently, in light of Michael Jordan’s induction to the NBA’s Hall of Fame, I was reminded of the inspiration Michael Jordan has been to so many people who played and play the game of basketball. It is hard not to get a bit nostalgic, since I grew up in Chicago. I still remember in […]
The 8th Year Anniversary of 9-11
Photo by Derek Jensen It is hard to believe that eight years have passed by since the September 11th terrorist attacks on the United States. It seems like a distant memory. As every year passes by, more people will either get numb to what happened or they will feel distant from […]
Doing the Father’s Will
Photo from Craziestgadgets This morning, I was reminded of this quote from Charles E. Hummel’s book, The Tyranny of the Urgent: “Jesus did not finish all the urgent tasks in Palestine or all the things He would have liked to do, but He did finish the work which God gave Him […]
The Impact of One Person
This week has been a sobering week for me – not only in trying to prepare for the Inaugural Sunday Celebration, but more importantly because I attended a funeral service for a woman that I just met once. It is hard to believe that a person that you have only met once can make […]
Success Cannot Measure Us
Photo from csuohio.edu We live in such a success oriented culture, not just in the States but even here in Asia. I think it starts when we are young. When we do well in school, in sports, and extra-curricular activities our parents and friends praise us. When we win awards and […]
Back to Preaching
Photo by Barry Dean This Sunday, we are going to have our Preview Sunday Celebration here in Karawaci at 10:30AM. This is the service before the official inaugural launch on September 6th. The team and I are so excited to get things officially started. Even though we have started LIFE groups […]