Rant of the Exiles

An atheist is someone who denies the existence of God. This is different from an agnostic - someone who is unsure or undecided about the existence of God. And my point is the average atheist is smarter than the average Christian. And its mainly because you have to be intelligent and well-educated to qualify for atheism. There’s a couple different reasons for this. First statistically, let’s say the U.S. has around five to six million atheists whereas there are at least a hundred million professed Christians in this country. So when you're talking about atheists, its a pretty small sample size relative to the number of Christians. Its also hard to identify atheists because they don’t usually have some short of regular gathering. What I’m saying is there are probably ten times as many smart Christians as there are smart atheists but there’s just so many other Christians who are not smart and they bring the curve down. But most of all, its because atheism is an intellectual lux...

I've been in the Chinese church for a long time. It's not easy at times. I often wrestle with feelings of contempt towards Chinese culture. Like many immigrant churches, we have lunch together after worship service on Sundays. It is a loud, disorganized, chaotic affair. Both children and elderly push and shove their way to the front of the line for pizza. It could be the scene in some developing country. As an Americanized Asian, I survey the traditional Chinese dining experience with disdain and revulsion. Why do Chinese people have to eat and talk so loud? How come dining ambiance doesn't matter more? Today was a little bit of a breakthrough. The sisters group of our church, composed mostly of first-generation stay-home moms, invited me to join them for their hot pot lunch. I used to hate hot pot. But recently, its been making a personal comeback. I always thought it was revolting to deal with raw food. And even more disgusting to have to fish around for it with ever...

While we stayed at my parent’s house (they were gone on vacation), a contractor friend from church and his team completely redid our kitchen/family room in 12 days. It was a frenzied process but they did a fabulous job. Our contractor is overseas-born Chinese and so are all the vendors he works with. The Chinese approach to remodeling has an interesting value premise – to maximize broad appeal at minimal cost. That means a kitchen product should look expensive but be extremely cheap to purchase. The other aspect to status appeal is that the product should be popular - the more common the look, the greater the appeal. Chinese people don’t like being different. For example, the Chinese cabinet store has only five different cabinet styles/colors. We were encouraged to upgrade to cherry-style because guests will notice how classy and costly they look. In response to a color choice, our friend responded, “White is hard to clean. Only Americans who don’t cook pick that”. That’s the las...

I am constantly in awe of how adoption is intricately woven through the gospel. My buddy Travis Marsh spoke about adoption at my church this past Sunday. His family represents three generations of adoption. The gospel is woven into the fabric of his story. He talked about the brokenness inherent in adoption. Without pain and suffering, adoption would not exist. Adoption is necessary because families break - a single mom is unable to care for her baby, birth parents die or run away, or any of a myriad of circumstances can create a need for a new family. In the gospel, we're all from a broken family. The family of Adam is screwed-up. This past week, I realized that I like to lead when I feel competent and like to follow when I feel insecure. I vacillate between those two extremes depending on my mood, which can shift by the hour. My leadership mindset is weak and self-centered. I am dysfunctional and I come from a dysfunctional family. Adoption is the process of leaving one family an...

I ran an idea by a mentor friend of mine. I told him that for Asian American Christians, shame is the elephant in the room. We hide from each other and God, afraid to fully reveal and expose our vulnerability. We operate in fear of disapproval and humiliation. He disagreed. Shame and saving face are issues but the biggest problem Asian Christians face is recognition of sin. He recounted a conversation with an overseas-born pastor. "I don't struggle with sin" the pastor told him. I'm inclined to agree with my friend that recognition of sin is the primary issue. Nothing in the gospel can happen without acknowledging our wickedness. And its true that most of us high-achieving, moral Asian American believers have a superficial sense of our depravity. But I wonder if shame and recognition of sin are close to the same thing. I was in a meeting recently where a person said he was hurt by another's comment. The meeting went silent after that statement. Out of awkwardness...

In most things, I love being coached. It wasn't always that way. In high school, I had some poor coaches. After playing a mediocre game, my water polo coach would yell, throw chairs, and curse at my teammates and me. Playing for him felt like living in a pressure cooker that might blow up any second. I have my own issues too. I often resent being told what to do. Most of all, its tough to hear that you're not doing something right. Its painful and annoying to have someone get in your face and tell you that your performance was sub-par. Two years ago, my brother-in-law taught me how to throw a football. He's a good teacher and a former athletic coach. He was very patient and gave me good feedback. You can watch a Youtube video about throwing a football but the video won't tell you that your arm is not going back far enough or that your shoulders aren't square. The feedback is precious. This article by Atul Gawande talks about coaching at the highest levels of perform...

I saw this book at my friend George’s house and had to take it from him. After preaching through Genesis and marveling at how Adam was with Eve and said nothing while she was tempted, the title jumped out at me. Its written by Dr. Larry Crabb with Don Hudson and Al Andrews . It’s a book about manhood. I love reading this kind of stuff. They awaken a hunger inside me. The awesome thing about this book, in contrast with a book like John Eldredge’s seminal “Wild at Heart”, is that there’s very little chest-thumping, outdoors/nature glorification, and references to popular movies. Manhood is not about raising wild boys, backpacking up steep mountains in Colorado, and re-enacting Braveheart movie scenes (I actually loved Eldredge’s book but his physical imagery gets a little tiresome). There’s something more powerful illustrating truth here – the true, personal stories of the authors and imagined stories that are a composite of the hundreds of men these authors have counseled over...