And I'll be blogging there, probably, until the internship is over!
Two blogs are too much to handle for me.
WHOOT, adventures!
Saturday, November 13, 2010
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
Campus Gathering, 2010
I can't believe I'm here: Inter-Varisty Campus Gathering for all Canadian campus ministry staff and intern workers.
The leader asked us to ask Him: What are you celebrating? What are your needs?
I am celebrating
The end of old and beautiful seasons.
The start of new and unfamiliar seasons.
I need purity.
Of the self.
Of the Word.
Of the Spirit.
Of Jesus.
Simply Jesus.
Elsie said to me the other week, "you'll be the THIRD Korean person on staff with IV Canada!"
THE THIRD.
My roots are grounded deeply in all things Korean.
That's actually strange for me to say.
But being the third Korean person here, makes me realize how much of the unspoken Korean culture I took for granted.
Then someone else said, "You're the first intern from KCF to join Inter-Varsity."
I didn't even realize it.
It's true.
THE FIRST.
The pressure.
Then Murray tells us that last year there was one intern for the High School ministry, that it's been holding on, rather, hanging on a thread for quite some time now.
God is reviving this ministry. He is starting something anew.
I get be a part of something new. Something fresh. The beginnings of things.
The beginnings of Koreans working with Inter-Varisty.
The beginnings of the partnership that KCF and IVCF may build in the future.
The beginnings of a new wave of revival and empowerment in high school groups across Canada in the near future.
And so I dream.
What great hope!
What great vision!
But really, right now... I am completely freaked out.
Nervous?
Scared.
Inadequate.
Alone?
Young.
Ill-equipped.
I've been telling people all day that I feel like a frosh all over again. Hah!
Here's to my chance to be set apart.
Here's to a fresh start.
The leader asked us to ask Him: What are you celebrating? What are your needs?
I am celebrating
The end of old and beautiful seasons.
The start of new and unfamiliar seasons.
I need purity.
Of the self.
Of the Word.
Of the Spirit.
Of Jesus.
Simply Jesus.
Elsie said to me the other week, "you'll be the THIRD Korean person on staff with IV Canada!"
THE THIRD.
My roots are grounded deeply in all things Korean.
That's actually strange for me to say.
But being the third Korean person here, makes me realize how much of the unspoken Korean culture I took for granted.
Then someone else said, "You're the first intern from KCF to join Inter-Varsity."
I didn't even realize it.
It's true.
THE FIRST.
The pressure.
Then Murray tells us that last year there was one intern for the High School ministry, that it's been holding on, rather, hanging on a thread for quite some time now.
God is reviving this ministry. He is starting something anew.
I get be a part of something new. Something fresh. The beginnings of things.
The beginnings of Koreans working with Inter-Varisty.
The beginnings of the partnership that KCF and IVCF may build in the future.
The beginnings of a new wave of revival and empowerment in high school groups across Canada in the near future.
And so I dream.
What great hope!
What great vision!
But really, right now... I am completely freaked out.
Nervous?
Scared.
Inadequate.
Alone?
Young.
Ill-equipped.
I've been telling people all day that I feel like a frosh all over again. Hah!
Here's to my chance to be set apart.
Here's to a fresh start.
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
Absolutely.
Sometimes when we desperately go in search for God, we are desperately disappointed.
This is when our false and empty, selfish and prideful hopes and desires are revealed.
Our hopes for superficial, worldly and expiring comfort, for someone to save the day, for reassurance, for affirmation, for a certain emotion, a specific word, for a sign.
And sometimes when we go in search for God, we are utterly let down by all these hopes.
This.
This is when we wait.
This is when you become still and emptied.
This is when His love and peace which transcends understanding, when His Spirit, The Great Counselor, comes into our hearts and fills every void and brokenness completely.
Lover of my soul, I want to tell You
Only You have all of me.
There is no one else who has my heart.
Jesus, You have me completely, every breath that I breathe,
I am absolutely in love.
Jesus, I am Yours forever, all of me surrenders,
I am absolutely in love with You.
- Starfield, "Absolutely"
This is when our false and empty, selfish and prideful hopes and desires are revealed.
Our hopes for superficial, worldly and expiring comfort, for someone to save the day, for reassurance, for affirmation, for a certain emotion, a specific word, for a sign.
And sometimes when we go in search for God, we are utterly let down by all these hopes.
This.
This is when we wait.
This is when you become still and emptied.
This is when His love and peace which transcends understanding, when His Spirit, The Great Counselor, comes into our hearts and fills every void and brokenness completely.
Lover of my soul, I want to tell You
Only You have all of me.
There is no one else who has my heart.
Jesus, You have me completely, every breath that I breathe,
I am absolutely in love.
Jesus, I am Yours forever, all of me surrenders,
I am absolutely in love with You.
- Starfield, "Absolutely"
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
I'm learning.
I'm learning some difficult lessons from God these days.
And being obedient and CHOOSING to do the RIGHT thing, to live by the Spirit is hard, when my sinful nature and the world tells me to be angry, to get revenge, to hate, and to be hurt, and to be bitter.
But I'm trying to overcome with the Bible, and Jesus, and the Spirit of God... and by making some small and big choices to do what's right for the sake of God, and in the name of Love and Jesus.
And being obedient and CHOOSING to do the RIGHT thing, to live by the Spirit is hard, when my sinful nature and the world tells me to be angry, to get revenge, to hate, and to be hurt, and to be bitter.
But I'm trying to overcome with the Bible, and Jesus, and the Spirit of God... and by making some small and big choices to do what's right for the sake of God, and in the name of Love and Jesus.
Sunday, March 14, 2010
The Vision
By Pete Greig (England)
So this guy comes up to me and says "what's the vision? What's the big idea?"
I open my mouth and words come out like this.
The vision?
The vision is JESUS - obsessively, dangerously, undeniably Jesus.
The vision is an army of young people.
You see bones? I see an army. And they are FREE from materialism.
They laugh at 9-5 little prisons.
They could eat caviar on Monday and crusts on Tuesday.
They wouldn't even notice.
They know the meaning of the Matrix, the way the west was won.
They are mobile like the wind, they belong to the nations.
They need no passport.
People write their addresses in pencil and wonder at their strange existence.
They are free yet they are slaves of the hurting and dirty and dying.
What is the vision ?
The vision is holiness that hurts the eyes.
It makes children laugh and adults angry.
It gave up the game of minimum integrity long ago to reach for the stars.
It scorns the good and strains for the best.
It is dangerously pure.
Light flickers from every secret motive, every private conversation.
It loves people away from their suicide leaps, their Satan games.
This is an army that will lay down its life for the cause.
A million times a day its soldiers choose to lose that they might one day win the great 'Well done' of faithful sons and daughters.
Such heroes are as radical on Monday morning as Sunday night. They don't need fame from names. Instead they grin quietly upwards and hear the crowds chanting again and again: "COME ON!"
And this is the sound of the underground,
The whisper of history in the making,
Foundations shaking;
Revolutionaries dreaming once again.
Mystery is scheming in whispers.
Conspiracy is breathing.
This is the sound of the underground.
And the army is discipl(in)ed.
Young people who beat their bodies into submission.
Every soldier would take a bullet for his comrade at arms.
The tattoo on their back boasts "for me to live is Christ and to die is gain".
Sacrifice fuels the fire of victory in their upward eyes. Winners. Martyrs.
Who can stop them?
Can hormones hold them back?
Can failure succeed? Can fear scare them or death kill them?
And the generation prays like a dying man
with groans beyond talking,
with warrior cries, sulphuric tears and
with great barrow loads of laughter!
Waiting.
Watching: 24/7/365.
Whatever it takes they will give:
Breaking the rules.
Shaking mediocrity from its cosy little hide.
Laying down their rights and their precious little wrongs,
Laughing at labels,
Fasting essentials.
The advertisers cannot mould them.
Hollywood cannot hold them.
Peer-pressure is powerless to shake their resolve at late night parties before the cockerel cries.
They are incredibly cool, dangerously attractive…
Inside.
On the outside? They hardly care.
They wear clothes like costumes to communicate and celebrate but never to hide.
Would they surrender their image or their popularity?
They would lay down their very lives - swap seats with the man on death row - guilty as hell.
A throne for an electric chair.
With blood and sweat and many tears, with sleepless nights and fruitless days,
They pray as if it all depends on God and live as if it all depends on them.
Their DNA chooses JESUS - He breathes out, they breathe in.
Their subconscious sings. They had a blood transfusion with Jesus.
Their words make demons scream in shopping centres.
Don't you hear them coming?
Herald the weirdo's! Summon the losers and the freaks.
Here come the frightened and forgotten with fire in their eyes.
They walk tall and trees applaud, skyscrapers bow, mountains are dwarfed by these children of another dimension.
Their prayers summon the hounds of heaven and invoke the ancient dream of Eden.
And this vision will be. It will come to pass; it will come easily;
It will come soon.
How do I know? Because this is the longing of creation itself, the groaning of the Spirit, the very dream of God.
My tomorrow is His today.
My distant hope is His 3D.
And my feeble, whispered, faithless prayer invokes a thunderous, resounding, bone-shaking great 'Amen!' from countless angels, from hero's of the faith, from Christ himself. And he is the original dreamer, the ultimate winner.
Guaranteed.
Let the revolution begin.
Has it not already begun?
I remember You again.
Stir it up in our hearts.
So this guy comes up to me and says "what's the vision? What's the big idea?"
I open my mouth and words come out like this.
The vision?
The vision is JESUS - obsessively, dangerously, undeniably Jesus.
The vision is an army of young people.
You see bones? I see an army. And they are FREE from materialism.
They laugh at 9-5 little prisons.
They could eat caviar on Monday and crusts on Tuesday.
They wouldn't even notice.
They know the meaning of the Matrix, the way the west was won.
They are mobile like the wind, they belong to the nations.
They need no passport.
People write their addresses in pencil and wonder at their strange existence.
They are free yet they are slaves of the hurting and dirty and dying.
What is the vision ?
The vision is holiness that hurts the eyes.
It makes children laugh and adults angry.
It gave up the game of minimum integrity long ago to reach for the stars.
It scorns the good and strains for the best.
It is dangerously pure.
Light flickers from every secret motive, every private conversation.
It loves people away from their suicide leaps, their Satan games.
This is an army that will lay down its life for the cause.
A million times a day its soldiers choose to lose that they might one day win the great 'Well done' of faithful sons and daughters.
Such heroes are as radical on Monday morning as Sunday night. They don't need fame from names. Instead they grin quietly upwards and hear the crowds chanting again and again: "COME ON!"
And this is the sound of the underground,
The whisper of history in the making,
Foundations shaking;
Revolutionaries dreaming once again.
Mystery is scheming in whispers.
Conspiracy is breathing.
This is the sound of the underground.
And the army is discipl(in)ed.
Young people who beat their bodies into submission.
Every soldier would take a bullet for his comrade at arms.
The tattoo on their back boasts "for me to live is Christ and to die is gain".
Sacrifice fuels the fire of victory in their upward eyes. Winners. Martyrs.
Who can stop them?
Can hormones hold them back?
Can failure succeed? Can fear scare them or death kill them?
And the generation prays like a dying man
with groans beyond talking,
with warrior cries, sulphuric tears and
with great barrow loads of laughter!
Waiting.
Watching: 24/7/365.
Whatever it takes they will give:
Breaking the rules.
Shaking mediocrity from its cosy little hide.
Laying down their rights and their precious little wrongs,
Laughing at labels,
Fasting essentials.
The advertisers cannot mould them.
Hollywood cannot hold them.
Peer-pressure is powerless to shake their resolve at late night parties before the cockerel cries.
They are incredibly cool, dangerously attractive…
Inside.
On the outside? They hardly care.
They wear clothes like costumes to communicate and celebrate but never to hide.
Would they surrender their image or their popularity?
They would lay down their very lives - swap seats with the man on death row - guilty as hell.
A throne for an electric chair.
With blood and sweat and many tears, with sleepless nights and fruitless days,
They pray as if it all depends on God and live as if it all depends on them.
Their DNA chooses JESUS - He breathes out, they breathe in.
Their subconscious sings. They had a blood transfusion with Jesus.
Their words make demons scream in shopping centres.
Don't you hear them coming?
Herald the weirdo's! Summon the losers and the freaks.
Here come the frightened and forgotten with fire in their eyes.
They walk tall and trees applaud, skyscrapers bow, mountains are dwarfed by these children of another dimension.
Their prayers summon the hounds of heaven and invoke the ancient dream of Eden.
And this vision will be. It will come to pass; it will come easily;
It will come soon.
How do I know? Because this is the longing of creation itself, the groaning of the Spirit, the very dream of God.
My tomorrow is His today.
My distant hope is His 3D.
And my feeble, whispered, faithless prayer invokes a thunderous, resounding, bone-shaking great 'Amen!' from countless angels, from hero's of the faith, from Christ himself. And he is the original dreamer, the ultimate winner.
Guaranteed.
Let the revolution begin.
Has it not already begun?
I remember You again.
Stir it up in our hearts.
Sunday, February 28, 2010
Recurring Realization:
EVERYTHING YOU DO IS A
C H O I C E.
So choose wisely.
Keep your integrity.
No excuses.
Earn the outcomes of your choices,
Or pay the consequences.
C H O I C E.
So choose wisely.
Keep your integrity.
No excuses.
Earn the outcomes of your choices,
Or pay the consequences.
Sunday, January 3, 2010
Urbana Bus Eavesdropping.
They keep talking about short-term missions.
… and “follow-up”.
They want to make a tangible difference wherever they go.
“I mean it’s great and all that we’ll be the ones that gain from the experience but that’s not why I want to go. I want to make a difference.”
But that’s not what I learned from Urbana.
I learned that God makes the difference.
I learned that His agenda is his people.
Yes, their statements seem humble on the surface, but who are we to pick and choose where to serve, which organization to go with? Who are we to judge them as ineffective or proper or not?
Ramez Atallah reminded us that what is most important is obedience, not success.
I learned in Afghanistan that God will use whoever he chooses. Our job is to be obedient. What He does out of the work He does through us is not for us to see or know. If we are lucky, we are able to see His hand at work at all. And we do! And that should blow us away. And if we do not, then praise God anyway because we have faith that He is a God who has perfect plans. Who are we to question it? We can only be thankful to be a part of it.
Sundar Krishnan challenged us to question what God’s true agenda is.
We intercede and serve and minister to the oppressed, the poor, the blind, the naked, the fatherless and so forth. But we emerge transformed. Is that yet not the grace of God?
We shouldn’t feel guilty for the transformation God does in us. This transformation is not oppositely relative to the change that he did in the lives of those we serve and pray for.
It is always about the painter, not the painting.
A God who loved us, created us, transforms us is most definitely a God who loves, who created, and will transform the world.
Embrace transformation! Go serve, go overseas, and be changed. Be obedient, and trust in God’s successfulness. In the meantime, we must be faithful and obedient to the transformation God does in our lives.
If ever there was a man or woman who made a difference in the missions occurring around the world in history, it was because he or she first received the love and transforming salvation from Jesus Christ. Freely we’ve received, so freely we give.
… and “follow-up”.
They want to make a tangible difference wherever they go.
“I mean it’s great and all that we’ll be the ones that gain from the experience but that’s not why I want to go. I want to make a difference.”
But that’s not what I learned from Urbana.
I learned that God makes the difference.
I learned that His agenda is his people.
Yes, their statements seem humble on the surface, but who are we to pick and choose where to serve, which organization to go with? Who are we to judge them as ineffective or proper or not?
Ramez Atallah reminded us that what is most important is obedience, not success.
I learned in Afghanistan that God will use whoever he chooses. Our job is to be obedient. What He does out of the work He does through us is not for us to see or know. If we are lucky, we are able to see His hand at work at all. And we do! And that should blow us away. And if we do not, then praise God anyway because we have faith that He is a God who has perfect plans. Who are we to question it? We can only be thankful to be a part of it.
Sundar Krishnan challenged us to question what God’s true agenda is.
We intercede and serve and minister to the oppressed, the poor, the blind, the naked, the fatherless and so forth. But we emerge transformed. Is that yet not the grace of God?
We shouldn’t feel guilty for the transformation God does in us. This transformation is not oppositely relative to the change that he did in the lives of those we serve and pray for.
It is always about the painter, not the painting.
A God who loved us, created us, transforms us is most definitely a God who loves, who created, and will transform the world.
Embrace transformation! Go serve, go overseas, and be changed. Be obedient, and trust in God’s successfulness. In the meantime, we must be faithful and obedient to the transformation God does in our lives.
If ever there was a man or woman who made a difference in the missions occurring around the world in history, it was because he or she first received the love and transforming salvation from Jesus Christ. Freely we’ve received, so freely we give.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)