Rant of the Exiles

The hardest question for a pastor and especially a church planter, to answer is: How is your church going? It is a common question. It is akin to: How are you doing? It is also a loaded question. There are so many ways to answer and so many layers depending on the interest level of the listener, the social context you’re in, and if you had an oversized burrito for lunch. If it's a dinner party with a litigation attorney you just met, a brief one-sentence response can suffice. If it's in front of a fire pit with a good friend over whiskey, a more in-depth explanation is appropriate. The most challenging context to answer this question is around other pastors and church planters. Most pastors are polite to recognize the implications of the question. We tend to recognize the insecurities that drift around this line of inquiry. Since there aren't that many vocational ministers running around, comparison is inevitable. The biggest fear is the dreaded: "How many people atte...

Different expectations of conflict From a recent Facebook post: Working on a post about unsolvable problems in marriage: For those who have been married five or more years, on a scale of 1 to 10, how much expectation did you have entering into marriage that communication could resolve any conflict between you and your spouse? How would you rate that expectation now? People often enter into marriage thinking that most if not all their conflicts can be resolved. Women come into marriage thinking "I can make my husband a better man". Men come into marriage thinking, "My wife will learn to see things my way". This idealistic view of marriage does not survive contact with the enemy. Even for couples for whom the first years of marriage are conflict-free, raising children is its own brand of unsolvable problem. And then there's sickness and mental health issues, job changes, unemployment, moving, and shifts in friendships. Conflict in marriage is inevitable. A number ...

My oldest son is now a high school junior. Amidst ministry and raising four children, my wife and I haven’t devoted significant time to college research and admissions. In a panic over this, I recently went to the library and checked out six test prep books for the SAT, ACT, and PSAT. I was overwhelmed by how much stuff is out there and realized I should have started preparing for this years ago. I’m fully aware there are parents out there who have invested many hours plotting out their child’s path to elite college admission and don’t even have children yet.  I want to jump on the college admissions treadmills and start sprinting as fast as possible to catch up.   I ’ve learned enough about myself that w hen I ’ m caught up in this  frenzy, it’s helpful to pause and ask, “Why am I doing this?" That ’s exactly the question my friend and fellow UC Berkeley alum,  Iris Chen, has been asking about her kids ’  education.  She  has two young ...

A friend emailed me that Weight Watchers stock, which I own, jumped 80% today because Oprah was announced as a board member. The news gave me a distinct feeling of pleasure. Like I just won something. Like I had just accomplished something worthwhile. Up to that point I wasn't feeling so great because Mondays are typically tough for me. Like many preachers, I felt like my sermon the day before could have been better. It's the same as the Monday morning quarterback syndrome - I review game decisions that I wish I could do over again.  As a preacher of the gospel, I tell people their happiness is not dependent on circumstances but rather God's unconditional love expressed through Jesus Christ but most of the time my emotional life does not respond that way. I'm happy when things go my way and I'm unhappy when they don't.  I know I'm not alone in having my personal satisfaction depend on my surroundings but it's disturbing when it violates wh...

Getting guys to want to marry early is a tough sell. It's kind of like being in a door-to-door encyclopedia salesman in the 21st century. You're marketing a product that is antiquated, over-priced, and irrelevant. It's an almost impossible proposition for non-Christian men since our hook-up culture sells sex cheap and our divorce culture makes marriage expensive. It's a better bargain for women since early marriage avoids unique disadvantages (subject of a future post). It's somewhat more attractive to devout Christians since we don't consider sex outside of marriage as a viable option. I'm also guessing there are some cultural obstacles that make marriage unappealing to Asian American Christian men. I'm not sure what exactly those are but I've hinted at some possibilities .  Given all this, I do believe marrying early is a good thing for men. I got married a month after I turned 23. It hasn't always been fun or easy but ove...

I went to the optometrist a couple years ago and we were talking about our children. After talking about how challenging it was to raise her two sons, she sighed and said, "Well, its all about what's most important - making sure they're happy". I felt like vomiting. Somewhere along the way, many parents have come to believe their children's happiness is their responsibility. I love this recent article about the phenomenon and the key term in Lori Gottlieb's piece is generational narcissism. We have a generation of children obsessed about their own happiness. And they are a product of our parenting. What drives me crazy is well-meaning Christian parents have totally bought into this. It as if personal happiness is a right that parents are placed to guarantee for their children. Happiness is somehow some kind of godly virtue. Unfortunately, parents' pursuit of their children's happiness is a Christian heresy. There is nothing biblical about...