This coming weekend the movie “The Da Vinci Code” will be playing in movie theaters all across the United States and around the world. Dan Brown’s book has struck a nerve with some of the evangelical Christians. In fact, there are a lot of Christians that are going to boycott this movie. If you have […]
AMI Meeting in LA
I arrived in LA late Sunday night (it was almost 3AM EST) for an AMI planning meeting. It is always good to get together with the other leaders to pray and fellowship. For the last 2 days, we have been hashing out some of the structural issues in AMI. It is sometimes draining but at […]
NU Church Plant Update – May
Right after our Sunday Celebration today, I flew out to Chicago to meet up with the launch team for the Northwestern church plant. Since I had a small window of time before my next flight out to LA, we had to meet somewhere close to ORD (O’Hare Airport). We ended up meeting at an Oasis. […]
The Marriage Curve
Yesterday, I was reminded of something in our Covenant small group (our married couples group). We are currently going over biblical principles of how to build a strong marriage. Let me digress for a second… I have been telling the single people in our church that getting married is the easy part but building a […]
Future-Thinking in Spain
I just came back from a strategic leadership conference held in the southern part of Spain. It was sponsored by Next Wave International, led by Mal Fletcher. They were specifically strategizing to reach Europe with the Gospel. It was an invitation-only conference therefore I was humbled when Pastor Robert Barriger asked me to join him. […]
2006 TC Summit
We just finished off our leadership summit. The leaders of our small group ministry and ministry teams got together to pray, plan and prepare for what God has set forth in our church. There was a different feeling in the air – with all the new and first time leaders, there was a sense of […]
Single Adults or Young Adults
As I travel to different parts of the world, I am realizing how America is greatly influencing the world. Of course, we need to note that not all of the influences are good. Even though we are influencing the world in various ways, with some level of humility, we have to acknowledge that there are […]
2006 Senior Class
I walked into the long anticipated meeting with the senior class a little late due to another meeting I had at another place. I really did not know what to expect. Usually my meetings with people are more one-on-one… and they are usually in a counseling context. The senior class called this meeting because they […]
Criticism
One thing I have learned over the years is that sometimes ministry and criticism go hand in hand. There have been many times when someone in our leadership team has said, “Pastor, did you hear about what this person said about our church?” or “Pastor, do you know what someone said about you?” If I […]
Getting a Second Opinion
My dad just recently went through eye surgery for his cataract. If truth be told, he should have dealt with this eye problem 10 years ago. But for various reasons, he decided to hold off until it got too unbearable. When he went into the ophthalmologist to remove the cataract, the doctor mentioned that since […]
Northwestern Meeting
Christina and I drove out to Northwestern University yesterday. It was a fun drive because we ended up reminiscing about our courting days. I couldn’t believe the number of times we went to the “rocks” to look at Lake Michigan… the number of drives down Lake Shore Drive and Sheridan Road. Then the million dollar […]
Easter 2006
It was a full house! We packed out Mendelssohn Theater. This year’s Easter Celebration was filled with exuberance and creativity. Our first church choir did a great job. The dance team’s presentation of the resurrection reminded me of my dance party days… I don’t know if my body can move like that anymore… haha! […]
Good Friday 2006
We decided to try something different this year for our Good Friday service. For the response time after the message, we asked people to pick up a candle and head out to the Diag (the center of campus). We put a big cross in the Diag for public display and we just ended up worshipping […]
Hosanna 2006
For the last four years, many of the churches in the Washtenaw County gathered together to worship the Lord on Palm Sunday. This year the worship gathering was special. The theme and focus of the night was: “All the Nations.” It was incredible to see all the flags that were represented. But the most enjoyable […]