Friends

I think one of the most frustrating things I've come across is trying to meet up with friends.
The reason it's frustrating is that I want to hang out with them, and see them, but it's just hard to.
I don't think anyone outside of being a pastor, really know how busy a pastor can get in their schedules.
You have people (ignorant ones, might I humbly add) who say, Oh, being a pastor isn't that bad, they only work one day out of the week. (insert groan here.)

I knew I was going to be busy, but I never expected to be this busy.
As soon as one big event is over, we're starting to plan for the next one.
Some times, things get so busy, I lose the sight of God. I always found that ironic, but it happens to many of us quite often.

It's also hard to meet up with people because all my friends have the weekend off, and weekends usually are busier than the rest of the week.
And on Saturdays, I'm reluctant to go out, because I need to just prepare my heart and mind for Sundays.

I'm thankful that I got married before I started full time ministry. I don't know how I'd find the time to date if I weren't.

But you know, I feel as a pastor, I need secular friends. I need friends who are not in the ministry. The friends that I do have in ministry, when we start talking, we start talking about church related things.
Some times, I just need to sit back and complain how the Redskins are screwing things up.

How do other pastors fare in this situation?
Is it because I'm still young that I try to have some life outside of ministry? And I don't mean life outside of ministry meaning that I divulge into debauchery. Although that would be cool... just kidding. I mean just hanging with good friends and not having to discuss what's going on in church. I feel at times I need something like that to keep my sanity.

If it doesn't rain today, I'm going to head out and play basketball with a few of my friends.
I haven't seen any of them for about 2 months now. I'm so paranoid since I've been injured so many times in the past 9 months. Well, 3 times. I went to the ER 3 times in the 9 months. Before that, I've been to the ER 2 in 25 years. If it's even sprinkling, I'm going to have to wait to play basketball. Anyway, I have a long week ahead of me.
Yay.

Joel Osteen

What do you think of him, and preachers like him?
I have mixed feelings.
Every Sunday morning, as the wife and I get ready to go to church, I turn the TV on to watch Joel Osteen. I don't know why I started doing this, but it's been about 3 months that I have been doing this.

I just don't know what to make of him and others like him. For me, his messages rarely go deeper than the surface of the scripture that he is using. It's very seeker oriented, but it never seems to have an outlet to go deeper.

But here's the most disturbing thing that I've noticed about his telecast last Sunday.
He doesn't seem to have a cross in the church. Maybe he does and it just doesn't show on the screen, but what I do notice is a big globe rotating in the background.
You may not think it's a big deal, but it struck me a little odd.

And I think that's one problem I have with Seeker Friendly churches. Most of the seeker churches do a good job of providing ways to go deeper in their faith, because one can't always be a seeker.
But a few churches don't provide ways to get deeper, and I feel, at times, they replace the cross with something easier to handle and carry. A church here doesn't have a cross at all, instead they replaced it with a dove.
Sure I may be reading way too much into this, but it just felt odd.

If anyone stops by and reads this, let me know what you think.

Korean News

I do not appreciate the Korean News people.
They're irresponsible in their reporting.
I just think that their ethics are different from ours.
Their news broadcast seems to run with the ethics of National Inquirer and what not.

Last night, they reported that it might be possible that the parents of the VA Tech shooter committed suicide. Giving them credit, they didn't say that it happen, but that it may be possible that they had.

The scary part of that is, it can be so true, you know with the whole honor/shame aspect of the Asian culture.
But I still don't see why they needed to throw that out there if it wasn't a confirmed report.

A part of me felt like it was a subliminal message to the parents from the Korean community to end it all.

The Koreans have a powerful way of shunning people and deeming them outcast.
Wherever they go now, the family will never receive business from ANY Korean customers.
I served at a church in that area for 3 years.

There was an instance when a cell group at the church shunned a family because that family's kid did not go to a "prestigious" school. Yes, many Koreans can be that shallow and trivial. And that wasn't an isolated instance. Things like that go on all the time.
I had a student who received a 1420 on her SATs (before the 2400 format) and was deemed by her parents a failure. They demanded that she take it again and score higher.

Anyway, here's something else that I am concerned about.
About 5 years ago, US military stationed in S. Korea accidentally ran over 2 girls with a tank. It was an accident, but there were strong protest. They picketed outside of the station daily and demanded that US leave Korea.
One could argue that the current President of Korea was elected due to his diligent presence at the picket lines. The Army and the US, i believe, paid the two families.
Now, a Korean citizen went and killed over 30 people.
Could there be any backlash?

It was a senseless tragedy. Incredibly sad.
But i hope that in the aftermath of all of this, we don't make the situation any more tragic or sadder.

On the Move?

We're not happy with our home right now.
The wife has been having "allergic" reaction to the place.
I think it's partly psychological. She thinks the house is really dirty, so she's getting these weird rashes. The doctor first thought it was bird mites or scabies... then further test showed that perhaps it was some fungal infection. We still don't know, just that it's going away.

So today, i'm going to go to our realtor to see if he can shorten our lease anyhow.

I feel bad asking but we need to. And we pray that he'll let us out early.

We'll see.

Rev. Sharpton and Jackson

Please, please, please for the love of God, go away!
Some times, I wish they were not referred to as "reverends."
Is it just me, or whenever they are "outraged" by certain "injustice" they come to the forefront just for camera time?

Take the latest incident where the "Reverends" are out in the media. They feel that Don Imus went too far for saying the word "ho."
Why are they attacking only Don Imus? Or say, only Michael Richards for the use of the "N" word?
If they find it offensive in one area, then it should be offensive all around.
You can't be offended just because a white person says "ho" to black women. You should be offended when anyone refers to anyone as a "ho."

It seems like when they know the media will run with a story, BOOM, there's Sharpton and Jackson.

Do they even really speak for "Black" America? A lot of black people I know can't stand them.

Here's my biggest problem with them:
Instead of going to where the media is, why not bring the media to them?
What I mean is, instead of charging towards such a minor incident, why not go down to the south and raise awareness for illiteracy? Why not go to the ghettos of America and fight for their rights?

Maybe they do do that. I don't know.

But every time I see either of them on TV, it always seems like they have a hidden agenda which to me is: Everyone look at me!

In Other News...

A couple of months back, I had a conversation with the Hawaii District's youth coordinator. He was telling about things that he was planning on, but had a hard time to getting church's to commit. He asked if we could come (i think he used to be a member of the church i'm serving).
We had something that we've been planning for months, so we couldn't commit either. He felt discouraged and starting telling me how tough this position was and he think it was time to quit.
I had no idea why he was sharing this with me.
But after our conversation, a thought popped in my head.
I had this crazy notion that maybe if he did quit, i could do something with that position. I told myself that was ridiculous. How in the world could I balance that AND doing full time at AKUMC? It seemed impossible.
But the thoughts wouldn't go away. Instead, it'll be nagging at me.
For example, out of nowhere, while reading a book on youth ministry, another thought popped into my head.
What if I held some sort of workshop for the youth leaders of the UMC in Hawaii? Pass along my readings, pass along what I learned in seminary and encourage them to start going to National Youth Worker's Convention and giving them ideas and resources.
I played with that thought, and of course, I concluded with: I don't (and won't) have time for this. Which I strongly believe.

I haven't thought about any of this until today.
Out of the blue (isn't it always 'out of the blue'?) I get a call from someone at Christ UMC. She tells me that she is an elder and is part of the District Committee.
I had no idea what she wanted with me until she dropped this bomb:
The committee was discussing it, and your name came up. We want you to serve as co-director of youth for the District of Hawaii.

WHAT???

So, there you have it.
God works in funny ways.
My first gut reaction was: I don't have time to do this...

But I think the first thought was put in my head by God.
I've said earlier that I think God has big plans for the youth in Hawaii, and our little island in general.

The more I thought about it in the past hour, the more it make sense to me that this is part of my calling from God.
I don't want to do this, but the possibilities excite me.

Of course, i have to be in prayer over this.
I told the elder, I need to ask my senior pastor first, in which she replied: "Oh, we already briefly talked to him about it and he seemed very excited over it." (great.)

I then told her, please give me time to pray over it.

I'm excited about this and at the same time, scared.

But if this is truly what God wants me to do, then I have nothing to be afraid for God will go with me.

Whew

Man, what a busy busy week.
I feel exhausted.
I think in the past two days, I only got about 6 hours of sleep. Maybe a tad bit more.
For some reason, Easter and Christmas seem the busiest.

I kid, of course.
But it was a good busy.
I'm tired, and i'm exhausted, yea.

But today, I got to worship and celebrate the Risen Lord with the youth and young adults of our church.

I look forward to (somewhat of a) day off tomorrow... er today.

S-S-SPIDER!

Last night, the Wife and I were watching TV.
All of a sudden, the Wife says to me, "Did you see that?" pointing to the wall behind the TV.
I didn't see anything. As I turn to tell her, "There's nothing there" I see something moving fast from the corner of my eye.
I looked back at the wall.
And there it was.
A spider. A huge spider. With its legs, it was at least 3 inches wide. That's a big spider.
And here's the dilemma.
I hate spiders. I hate them as much as I am afraid of them.
This one time in seminary, there was a spider in my room. I couldn't kill it.
So I went around the dormitory trying to find if anyone was there. The only person I could find was a female student that was in my covenant disciple group. I... had to ask her to come into my room and help me dispose of the spider.
I had no pride left.

So the Wife and I are staring at each other, while I can feel the spider burning eight holes in me with its eight eyes.
I can tell by the look in her eyes, she's expecting me to kill this spider. And she can tell from my eyes that I'm scared of this three inch monstrosity.

But being the dutiful husband, I grab my slipper and start walking toward the spider.
As I move toward the spider, the spider moves closer, on the wall, towards me.
I was three feet away from the spider, and I can't decide what to do.
I can't move towards the spider, because I'm afraid it'll jump and eat me.

So I did what I thought was the most logical at the time: I threw the slipper at the spider. I hit it. But not hard enough. It ran under the love seat.
Since the wife couldn't lift the love seat, it was now her responsibility to kill the spider, as I held up the love seat.
She missed.
The spider now crawled under the bigger couch.

Great.

So I look behind the couch, and the spider is not under the couch, but it's on the back staring straight up at me.
The wife is yelling, "Do you see it?"
And I just stare into the eyes of the spider.
It's either him or me.

Without breaking eye contact, I grab a curtain pole that was not set up, and start slamming away.

I did it!
It was dead!
I was victorious! .... Until i realized one of us had to dispose of the smashed and crunched up spider lying on the carpet.

So using that same pole, I tried to brush the spider onto the newspaper. But the newspaper was too thick for the spider to slide onto.

Eventually, the wife got frustrated at my slow pace and unintelligent method and was able to get the spider into its final destination: the toilet.

We flushed the toilet.
And I saw my former foe going in circles, deeper and deeper to his final destination.

When it was all said and done, I couldn't leave the bathroom.
Every time I flush an insect or spider down the toilet, I'm always afraid that it'll crawl back out.

I waited.
Nothing.
I flushed the toilet again, this time, just put a couple of sheets of toilet papers so that if the spider somehow came back alive and started crawling out, it'll get caught by the incoming toilet paper.
I waited again.
Nothing.

I was satisfied.

Me: 1
Spiders: 0

I hope this is the last encounter with spiders that big.
But something tells me it's not...

NUMB3RS

There was something that a previous pastor used to always tell our kids and it frustrated me so much.
He kept asking our kids to bring in friends, new members to our church. Each Sunday, during announcements, if there wasn't anyone new, he would say "c'mon guys! We need to start bringing people. If we don't bring new people, our ministry is a dead ministry! We're dying!"
I can't tell you how much it upset me to hear that.

It almost wanted me to ask what was his purpose of his ministry? To make it physically big as possible?

For all my seminary career and so far in my ministry career, numbers has been the last thing on my mind. Blame it on my professor of youth ministry and Doug Fields, but I've been putting extra effort into not thinking about number.
If i hold an activity and event, i don't think it's a failure if 2 people show up. Sure, i'll be disappointed, that's natural, but if we fulfill the purpose of the activity and event through those 2 people, then what we aimed to do was a success.

I'm not saying that having a big church is wrong or not. But we shouldn't deem a church more "successful" if they are bringing in 3000 members compared to the church down the street who has 30 members.

My focus has been to have a growth spiritually with our kids. If God chooses to bless us by having us multiply in numbers, that's great! If we stay the same size yet we are becoming more mature in our spirituality, that's awesome!

That's a hard mentality to keep with my church.
I think the elders and the pastor expects some physical growth within the first year of my ministry here to see if i'm doing my job.
It saddens me that some have to think like that.
I know i'll hear grumbling if our youth size stays the same for the next two years. the saddest thing is that they'll never know how God is working through those youth, because all they want to see is physical results.

I honestly don't know the exact size of our youth group and many people don't understand why i don't know.
I like to keep it that way, for many reasons.

Oops, must get ready for tonight.

My Court Date

Earlier this month, I received my first speeding ticket.
But it shouldn't count because it was so unnecessary and unfair.
We were going down this road, which is a downhill.
There were three cars, literally, surrounding me. It's a two lane road, so i had a car in front of me, next to me and behind me. We were ALL going the same speed, which was about 40 mph in a 25 mph zone.
Then at the bottom of the hill, we see two motorcycle cops with laser guns, so naturally all of us slowed down immediately.

As we're passing he signals me to pull over. So I did.
And when i pulled up to him, he asks his partner "Hey, is he the one?" which infuriated me.
I thought, since he wasn't sure and we were all going the same speed, he'd let me off with a warning. Nope.
He gave me a ticket for going 41 in a 25 zone and the ticket came out to 137 dollars.
Great.
So I mailed in the ticket and said I wanted to contest it in person, because i really felt that i was done wrong.

Yesterday at 9am was my court date.
And i had no idea what to expect. This is my first time at court.

It's finally 9, the judge walks in, we all stand up, blah, blah, blah.
Now i'm getting my defense ready.
I was going to tell him that the cop wasn't sure it was me, because he had to ask "Is he the one?" Not only that, but I was going with the flow of traffic.
Any good driver's ed teacher will tell you, it's safer to go with the flow of traffic than it is to obey the speed limit. Accidents happen when drivers go faster or slower than the flow of traffic. So if the flow of traffic is going 40 at a 25 zone, it's safer to go 40.

My name is called up, and I go to the front. He asks me, for the record, to state my name, i do so.

Then he goes over my file and asks, do you admit or deny the charge.
And i had to think. I did go 40, there's no doubt about that.
I told the judge, I admit the charge.
Then he just said, "Okay, since you admitted, i'll knock down you fine. Instead of 41, i'll mark it down to 30 in a 25 zone. Take a seat and wait for your papers."

I ended up paying $25 for the ticket and $47 for court fees, which is still less than 137.

But it got me thinking.
How many times do we justify and find excuses for the things we've done wrong?
I was happy with the decision.

And we should just ask for forgiveness, instead of trying to justify our actions.