Rant of the Exiles

I went to a 3-day home schooling conference this week with Judy. Out of the 80+ moms who attended, I was one of three men (all dads) who participated in all the sessions. In one training class, our instructor kept referring to us as "ladies". Despite the gender inequity (which I was prepared for), I heard all kinds of creative ideas about how to bring up my children in the training and instruction of the Lord. That phrasing comes from Ephesians 6:4 and is a direct admonition to fathers, not mothers. From a biblical perspective, a child's education is the ultimate responsibility of dads. We may (and I do) delegate much of this responsibility to our wives but that doesn't excuse us from final accountability on how our kids turn out. Based on some comments I overheard from moms, I would say the majority of dads are disengaged from their children's education. This is not surprising.  Most fathers never get a chance to practice fatherhood before they become one. ...

Being an alpha male and being a good listener appear to be opposing ideals. But being a good listener requires a game principle called outcome independence. Here's a good primer on outcome independence from a Christian perspective (specifically for pastors!) and one decidedly not , but with gospel implications. Outcome independence means you stay focused on an important goal or process despite resistance. The Old Testament prophets including Jeremiah and Isaiah were HIGHLY outcome independent. They proclaimed judgment and repentance regardless of Israel's response. This principle will help a guy in every type of interpersonal relationship - as a father to his kids, as a husband to his wife/significant other, and as a man to his coworkers and peers. It is worth mentioning here that Asian American men in particular (and I'm preaching to myself here) would benefit greatly from learning outcome independence. Negative example: A couple days ago, I commented to Judy that she h...

I've been sabbatical since the end of May. With Sundays free, Judy and I took the opportunity to visit two churches this past weekend -  Westgate and Southbay . We went to Westgate's Saturday evening 6:40 pm service and Southbay's 10:20 am service. Both churches have exploded numerically in the past couple years. According to my friend's husband who is an elder at Westgate, they grew from 700 to 2000+ Sunday attendees since moving into their new worship center. Southbay's story is even more dramatic - I don't know the numbers but the church is barely four years old and to have four services in a large space is quite impressive. Clarity of values: Having read Simple Church , I understand intellectually the importance of making a church's mission and vision clear. But these churches are putting it into practice. Westgate is very intentional about publicizing their six40 discipleship process and various global/local compassion ministries. Southbay walks pe...