21st Century Challenges of the Church

Dr. Scorgie of Bethel spoke at the 20th Anniversary Celebration of CBC last Sunday.  He presented a threefold challenge to CBC for the next 20 years:

      1. A deeper sense of God's presence must be prevalent in all of the church's ministries

      2. A deeper commitment in personal relationship with fellow brothers and sisters that actually fosters authenticity,  and the practice of accountability and mutual forgiveness

     3.  A deeper and more focused involvement in missions

I thanked Dr. Scorgies for his candid sharing.  This is indeed the message we, the 21st century churches, need to hear. 

Bioethics of the 21st Century

Fathering a child after you are dead

In August 2002, 19-year-old Sergeant Kevin Cohen was guarding an Israeli settlement in the Gaza Strip. At 7 a.m. he was shot dead by a Palestinian sniper. It was that bullet that killed Kevin and his dream, which he had related to his mother, Rachel Cohen, of one day fathering a child.

But this week, four years after his death, a dramatic ruling by an Israeli court means Kevin Cohen’s dream may very well come true.  Kevin's mom won the court fight to have ownership of her son's frozen sperms.  She then advertized for a woman to agree to be impregnated by it.  Mrs. Cohen is now waiting for the good news that maybe nine months from now she will become a grandmother. At last she will be able to look at her son’s picture and tell him he has a child.

Some readers' comments:

* This woman doesn't need a grandchild, she needs a grief counselor.

Currently Preaching

I am currently preaching a series titled: Embracing the Love of God

First two sermons preached:

     1. God is Love (Exodus 34:1-8; 1 John 4:8)

             Christians don't know the true nature of God's love.  We thought that God loves the way like we do, only more intense, more consistent, more persistent...  In fact God loves covenantally, whereas human loves contractually.  God's love is also tough.  Not knowing the nature of God's love hinders us from truly embracing the love of God.

     2.  Be Real (Luke 18: 9-14)

              Here I talk about the unconditional acceptance of God.  Very few Christians fully experience the unconditional acceptance of God, even though we know this doctrine well, because deep down we still struggle to maintain a vestige of self-righteous goodness about ourselves.  We are very innocent about the harm this would do to our spirituality, because it actually prevents us from experiencing God's unconditional acceptance in its fullness, which in turn hinders us to love others like the way God loves us.

              One of the key steps to help us fully experiencing God's unconditional acceptance we can learn from the tax collector of Luke 18 is to be real before God and man.  "Be real" is a step of self-acceptance, a step of facing the dark side of the self honestly, a step that gets rid of all the pretense of goodness.  The tax collector somehow in his life was driven to this point and he had an experience of Jesus' total acceptance.

              This is the first step to the path of truly embracing the love of God, because God's loves flows in authenticity.       

The third sermon is in the making.  The idea is for us to take the next step: accepting others as they are.  This is a step to allow God's love to flow through us, which will have amazing results...  May God help me with this sermon.   

What is spirituality?

Recently, Daniel said he is not spiritual enough to be a pastor.  That brings up a question in my mind: What is spirituality?  I found an answer by Yaconelli.  What do you think?

"Spirituality is not a formula; it is not a test. It is a relationship. Spirituality is not about competency; it is about intimacy. Spirituality is not about perfection; it is about connection. The way of the spiritual life begins where we are now in the mess of our lives. Accepting the reality of our broken, flawed lives is the beginning of spirituality, not because the spiritual life will remove our flaws, but because we let go of seeking perfection and instead seek God, the one who is present in the tangledness of our lives. Spirituality is not about being fixed; it is about God's being present in the mess of our unfixedness."

Evangelism, Urgent Still

Christianity Today has an article titled "What's Next?"  which is an appraisal of what will be the key issues for Christianity in the next 50 years. 

One part of it says, "There are 3.5 million churches worldwide, but fewer than 7 percent are evangelistic.  That's a huge issue now and will be for the next 50 years, according to leading evangelists who spoke to Christianity Today."

Alarming figure. 

I am glad GLORY is pushing for the Evangelism Explosion program.  We are doing EE in our second quarter now (in the Mandarin side).  We are proud to be in the 7 percent.  I am sad the percentage is so small.