CityFellowship | Union Square NYC » random thoughts

what do you live for?

ljkim — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 01:03:56 +0000

Here’s a little spiritual homework assignment that can change your life: take out a piece of paper (or open a new doc file) and write out in one sentence “what” you live for. What is it that if you did not accomplish, your life would be a waste – and if you do accomplish, even if you lose everything else, you will feel you’ve been successful. Take some time with this. The hard part is you ALREADY have an answer to this that you never admitted to yourself or put into conscious thoughts. Then when you’ve done that, beneath it, make a list of things that you DO during the week, and explain how they go toward doing “what you live to do.” This is to double check: the majority of things you DO should be related to what you wrote for “what you live to do”… If it doesn’t then go back and reconsider what you put down in the first line, to see if there might not be something else you’re really living for…

Now we know things go wrong when people live for the wrong things… even if they’re “good” things, unless they’re things really worth living for – we wind up not really “living.” So we want to think about this and live for something WORTH living for… At this point, maybe you’re expecting me to tell you what you should live for – but I’m not… Instead let me ask you: what do you think Jesus would say? Feel free to leave your thoughts in the comments section…

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what you see…

ljkim — Sun, 13 Nov 2011 13:55:40 +0000

Things are not always as they appear. Everyone else might look to you like they have it all together: they never get lonely or scared or bitter, they have no issues… But the reality is different from appearances… And because we can’t see what’s really going on underneath – when it comes to other people – it sometimes encourages us to pretend that we’re “okay” too. But the truth is underneath the cool spider costume, you’re broken, tragically flawed, in need of God. The spider ain’t real, it’s a costume and an illusion. In the same way, a lot of what we show on the outside is just an illusion, and the first step is to admit that… Take off the costume sometimes, and spend some time with two legs. That’s what fellowship is about: real people without costumes.

[Btw, as far as Halloween costumes go, this is one of my favorites - and although we do value "being yourself" at CF, if you want to come sitting on a fluffy spider, that's fine with me!]

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Advice & the Bible – or why I read…

ljkim — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 20:21:08 +0000

People LOVE giving advice. Someone whose life is in shambles will gladly give younger people advice on how to live, and then authenticate it with “trust me, I know from experience…” Single people love giving friends advice about relationships. People with entry level positions are quick to give younger people career advice. And there’s no harm in this… It doesn’t hurt to get another opinion: even a broken clock is right at least twice a day… But as long as you’re open to advice I really think the Bible has some good things to say… Now I totally understand when someone hears one point of view, but decides to do something else… At least they were open to listening to it, right? And it’s up to you to choose what YOU will do – and besides we all learn from a bit trial and error – they’re our mistakes to make… But what I am NOT okay with is if someone doesn’t even know what Bible’s advice might be… God should know a thing or two – and if your stupid friends (because we’re all stupid sometimes!) can give you life advice, then surely we ought to be open to what the Bible might say…

The nature of God’s advice is that it’s often easy to miss. Because it’s usually not what you were thinking, or what your friends were thinking – it’s not a matter of choosing between extremes or available options – it’s usually coming from a completely different mindset than what we would think… It’s the narrow road that’s easy to miss, and easy to accidentally veer off when there’s an intersection – so we need to look for that!

And the Bible is not an easy book to read in: It talks about people from different times and cultures, and how God interacts with them. It very rarely speaks directly to the reader – it’s always speaking to other people… But in the process it shows us things about “us” and about God, what’s broken in the world, and what we need to do… So we read about other people to learn those things that apply to us…

So what’s God’s advice for YOU right now? You know what your parents think – what your friends think… Let’s find out what God thinks… Not what some pastor (or I) think – but what does it really say and what does it really means for us today?

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Cats, Dogs, and Conversion

ljkim — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 23:32:12 +0000

It would be awful to be a cat in a dog world and be expected to live like a dog…if you were a cat! And likewise it would be awful to try to live like a cat…if you’re a dog (or a monkey)! So live and let live is a good motto here… Don’t try to convert other people to your way of life: “it’s great that it works for you, but it’s not for me,” says the monkey to the dog and cat. So if you look at super traditional Bible Belt Christians, and think, “that’s NOT for me!” You’re right! THAT is probably not for you… Or if an urban hipster type sees a Latin Charismatic church and thinks, “that’s NOT for me!” He’s probably right! But…that doesn’t mean that GOD is not for you. God isn’t out to turn dogs into cats or monkeys – the kind of conversion I think God is after is to take stray dogs, and give them loving homes and food and shelter… to convert them from “strays” to “rescues.” Same with cats.

The life and mindset of a stray dog is completely different from that of a rescue in a good home. And in its stray-dog mindset, the stray dog might even think it prefers to be a stray… But it’s wrong. It is qualitatively better to have a good home. A dog with a good home not only has the food and shelter and care it needs, it knows what it’s like to be both inside and outside, and gets access to places it could never have known before. We’ll leave monkeys out of this for the time being because I think they are better off in the wild.

Back to people. Here’s what I’m proposing: IF there is a God who loves you (which I’m sure there is), then it is better to know this God – to learn from Him and follow His ways – than it is to continue as a stray… <– This is the kind of conversion God is after. It doesn’t make you less “you”, but more…

So dogs that like to run will like to run even more when they’re well fed and well rested… Cats that liked to hunt will like to hunt even more when they have a home they can dominate. Passionate intellectuals will be even more in pursuit of understanding and truth… Artistic feelers will be even more in search of the sublime. Which is why looking at the notable Christians in history, you find them in all shapes and sizes…

C.S. Lewis, a literature professor and working man’s intellectual.
J.R.R. Tolkien, an English Language professor and inventor of his own languages.
Soren Kierkegaard, pastor and philosopher who influenced the early existentialists.
Simone Weil, French intellectual feminist and political radical.
D.M. Lloyd Jones, Welsh surgeon turned pastor.
Anne Rice, author who can’t stand what the word “Christianity” means today and no longer applies the word to herself… yet still loves Jesus.
Shusaku Endo, student of French literature and Japanese author.
Francis Collins, Geneticist, Director of the NIH, headed the Human Genome Project.

Although these Christians are all authors, and so have that in common… Even so they’re extremely different and diverse and wonderful and unique – and all of them experienced “conversion…”

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One surprising characteristic…

ljkim — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 16:53:04 +0000

One surprising characteristic of God is his “meekness.” It’s the Greek word “praus” that we translate “humble,” “gentle” or “meek.” It’s the word used to describe an animal that is friendly or tame. The opposite of being meek is to be fierce. So on nature programs, large whales are remarkably MEEK. They often come right up to small boats and nudge the hull with their backsides… One hiccup could send the entire boat flying, but they are gentle. In the dog world, many pitbulls that are meek as well. The breed of dog gets a bad name for how fierce they can be, but with the right owners, they are easy going and playful – quick to forgive a child’s stepping on their tails or pulling their ears. In our world, we tend to confuse meekness with weakness. But the pitbull is not weak, neither is the whale. Small dogs, teacup terriers, don’t need to be meek – they can be fierce and cause no harm because they are weak to begin with. But meekness is a quality that can only be added on top of a great strength.

So we talked about meekness as a characteristic of God’s people – Moses was the “meekest man on earth,” meekness is also part of the fruit of the spirit in Galatians 5… But what we often overlook is how meek God is. Christians play up how fierce God CAN be in trying to assert his significance – but if you only believe that you’ll miss one of his main attributes.

God is not fierce. He’s not “in your face.” He doesn’t bite you when you step on his tail or pull his ears. Many people have shaken their fists at him like three year olds’ pulling on the ears of a pitbull – but God didn’t bite them for it. Many people say “if God exists, he should DO something to prove it to me…” and yet God doesn’t force anyone to do anything… He gives just enough proof and reason so that if someone wants to know, he can be known – but otherwise he doesn’t hunt you down…

Sometimes people FEEL like God is hunting them down. But that’s mostly metaphorical, and even then it’s with the greatest gentleness, otherwise we’d be crushed. Instead he mainly draws us with his meekness, let’s us come (seemingly) on our own terms, allows us to make foolish demands and silly threats, to say and think things that are blasphemous or wrong… Because one day we’ll be wise enough to understand that this is what you do when you love someone. Love comes with meekness, a willingness to go along with things, and patience. “Come to me all who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest… for I am meek and lowly (easy going) at heart. And you will find rest for your souls… For my burden easy and my yoke is light.”

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Following Jesus is a whole brain affair…

ljkim — Sat, 22 Oct 2011 15:57:25 +0000

One of the contemporary books on a short list of: “books I think everyone should read” is Dan Pink’s A Whole New Mind… But it was really J.R.R. Tolkien, with his disdain toward the “machine” that introduced me to this idea that something is (partially) wrong with the way we have learned to think and reason – that it was somehow incomplete and dangerous, unless we let the other part in… that we often filter out the very things that we most need to see. Anyway, take a look at this video narrating a talk about the “divided brain” by Iain McGilchrist.

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A salute to dorky Christians

ljkim — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 20:29:02 +0000

You know who you are. You’re not really part of the cool crowd. You were never considered “the life of the party.” Your friends do dorky things like host LAN parties. When you go to Vegas, it’s usually with your relatives, and you go mainly for the food. You’re not angry. You’re not filled with angst or regrets, or violent mood swings. You don’t curse a lot. You don’t drink to get drunk, and you don’t like feeling sick or dizzy. You don’t make out with strangers or hook up at parties…or dress or act in ways that might imply that you do. Your friends think you’re boring. To all the dorky Christians out there…I salute you! You may be uncomfortable at parties sometimes, but you’re comfortable with yourselves, and your conscience is pure…and that looks awesome to God.

It’s the Christians who want to be hip, sophisticated, the ones who want to be “on top” that wind up compromising themselves. They wind up following other winds – and have trouble hearing Jesus. They think they are “being themselves” but really they are being what their peer culture wants them to be… And slowly their hearts get filled with small regrets and sadness and shame…and empty things that once looked sparkly. Instead of having Jesus be the cool thing about them – they ornament themselves with other cool things…not realizing they’re pushing Jesus aside in doing so.

But dorky Christians are free to follow Jesus. Free to be themselves. Free to really do the things they want to do. And in doing so they’ll miss out on all the “cool stuff” you see in movies like throwing up in public bathrooms, or making out with strangers, or other things they will later regret. They also miss out on all the fun of pretending to be people they are not, and trying to live up to imaginary ideals of what they should be like. That’s okay – it leaves them more time for the stuff they ACTUALLY think is fun – and for doing the stuff that God delights in… They get to know the peculiar joy of doing stuff that delights God, and makes people in heaven applaud… And this is really WORTH all the crap they’re missing out on.

[PS - I'm really talking about "intent" here - there are lots of dorky Christians who's friends or enemies (!) think they're cool... So the Pharisees probably though St Paul was trying to be cool appealing to Gentile culture - but really what he did made him dorky in both Jewish and Gentile cultures... And Paul's supporter's probably thought he was cool in a way too because he was doing God's bi-cultural mission there... But really he was being true to his own identity/gifts and God's calling for him...]

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What kind of stuff does it do?

ljkim — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 00:34:42 +0000

[~~Another video of the same cat, doing stuff...~~ Really? is this what it's come down to??]

Living faith makes you DO stuff. But what kind of stuff does it do? I’m NOT going to try to say what you should do – I don’t know what *you* should do right now… But to give you ideas and clues as to what living faith looks like, here are FIVE general ways I’ve seen faith at work that can work for you too…

#5 – Giving away money to serve a real need. I’m not talking about handing out a few bills to people asking for money on the street – I’m talking about giving away a significant portion of your income to fund something that you are sure God is into… Like building schools for young women in Muslim countries, or supporting refugees, famine victims… Or even supporting Christian teaching ministries that need support. Anyone can give money out of guilt and obligation – but faith makes people see their money as an opportunity to make Jesus-things happen. Money can’t buy happiness (for oneself), but it can be an answer to other people’s prayers when we use it well.

#4 – Praying for coworkers (or classmates) and helping them to know God – inviting them to a church that might help them to know God and grow while blessing others. It’s normal to keep different parts of your lives separate in our culture – but faith makes people see their work lives as an opportunity to expose people to a Savior God.

And along those same lines: praying for neighbors, people who live right next to you, and endeavoring to be a good neighbor to them. It’s easier, living in NY, to stay away from your neighbors – but faith makes people see neighbors as eternal souls longing for God.

#3 – Keeping your commitments (promises) to God, even when they’re hard to keep. When we don’t have faith we see God as easy to cheat on – He never seems to call you on your BS. But when we have faith, our commitments to God are more important than commitments to work or friends – and are worth keeping regardless of how much it costs us – because our faith informs us that God is the source of these gifts to begin with, and He’s worth it.

#2 Give your time and energy to people who can benefit from it – when you could be doing something more fun/profitable for yourself. We like to think of our time as “our own.” But faith makes people think their time belongs to God for doing Jesus-y stuff.

#1 But DO something…even if it turns out to be stupid. It’s natural to want to wait and do only “useful” things – but real faith isn’t afraid to make mistake, to repent and try again… So it’s always doing something. We try to avoid the dumb stuff – but we don’t allow the fear of making a bad decision paralyze us from doing SOMETHING.

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Flexible imagination…

ljkim — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 13:18:12 +0000

Many people who grow up as older brothers don’t know how to play the part of younger brother. Many people who are positions where they get to give the orders often don’t know how to cope in situations where they have to take orders. That’s why it was so amazing when a Roman officer (in Luke 7) came to Jesus, and instead of trying to order Jesus around, demand things of God – said he understood how real authority works. “Jesus, I’m not worthy for you to come to visit my house…but just say the word and I know my servant will be healed.” He understood that although he had some authority in the Roman army, that God had authority over him, and even over things like an illness.

The best big brothers are the ones who’ve had practice playing little brothers. The best commanders are the ones who’ve had a lot of practice being foot soldiers. The best customers at restaurants are the ones who’ve waited tables themselves. And the best waiters are the ones who’ve been customers.

Now we can’t do everything and actually have all the experiences sometimes – but faith enables us to have a flexible imagination that puts us in other people’s shoes. That does for others what we would want if we were in their position. I guess we can file this one under: how real faith makes us better… So here’s what you need to do today: love your neighbor as yourself.

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What’s it worth to you?

ljkim — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 12:57:35 +0000

I’m not a fan of dancing or traveling, so if I had to wait in long lines to do either, I’d rather not go. But I like movies, so I didn’t mind standing in line in the rain to watch the documentary Senna on the opening weekend. It’s all a matter of what something is worth to you. And I know I’ve mentioned this before – there’s a part in Genesis where Jacob works for Laban seven years in order to marry Laban’s daughter, but because he loved her so much the years felt like nothing. She was worth it to him. People complain about walking a few blocks to work or a doctor’s appointment but then walk ten times the distance to visit a restaurant they heard of in a foreign country. It’s not really about sacrifice, it’s about what it’s worth to you. So every day – and every Sunday – you get to see what God is worth to you. Is he worth the cost of being patient with people? Is he worth taking a chance for? Is he worth just getting up early for? Is he worth serving wholeheartedly? Is he worth worshiping?

Every now and then our heart’s valuation model of God goes askew. We start to think and act as though he’s worth less than we know (in our minds) he is. So every now and then (once a week, usually Sunday) Jesus followers consciously readjust. We call it repentance. Not just repenting of small sins that we regret, but realigning our valuation of God, which realigns our valuation of everything else…

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