GlocalNet

I’ve really been getting organized for the new year, as well as working with our staff and other projects, so I’ve not had time to blog as much as I normally do.  I’m at DFW right now waiting on another flight.  My early one was canceled--lost a day of running for nothing! 

I’ve received lots of comments and emails on my blog of November 15--the last comment by Leonard--you have to read.  I tried to copy and post here, but I can’t seem to do it right.  So go read it. 

I’ve been speaking a lot on planting churches where you start with the society--not the church--where you focus on the disciple--not the preacher.  I say this stuff, people say amen and things like, that makes sense and this is so right.  But when there is Q & A, I often wonder if people realize how there is a new paradigm, but their questions are based on an old paradigm.  I’m asked this a lot, OK this is cool - so this gets more converts and how do I draw people into this?  They missed the whole point.  Its not just come and hear from them, but go and serve and love from us! 

If my primary goal is to get converts, then Bill Hybels was wrong in being honest and releasing Reveal.  Fill up the fish tank with guppies!  But, if my context is the whole of the kingdom, then evangelism is the first step--not the final.  So, yes, I want people to accept Christ.  No, THAT IS NOT MY PRIMARY METRIC!  If it is, then everything is about getting a crowd, getting them to pray the prayer and it’ll all work out somehow.  We’ve had at least 50 years of that.  Regardless of traditional, Innovative, Postmodern, we can all draw crowds, but are they becoming disciples. Therefore, is society changing?  If society is not changing, we have converts but not disciples.  Core to this are two questions.  Is the Gospel, when in and of itself, powerful enough to transform a person?  Answer--of coarse.  When the Gospel (of the Kingdom not just salvation) is planted in a community, in and of itself, is it powerful enough to transform that community?  YES.  History proves it. The Bible tells us about it and we long for it--which is from God.  If I focus on the …

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She’s her own person--she loves God--she loves kids--she loves her DAD--she’s funky! I’ve spent a week with her and had a blast.  Sad when she left, yet ecstatic over what she’s doing with her life. She wants to do something serving kids, and she will. In all that she does she laughs. NEVER, NEVER, NEVER stop laughing, Jill. We were talking about her major and what she wants to do. In many ways, she’s a lot like me.  Whatever position she has, she’ ll probably create it into something else. So have fun baby girl - Yo Dad!

I’m grateful for God and all He’s done to show me that He loves me and connect with me and allow me to be His ambassador.

I’m grateful for Nikki--what a woman!!!!!!! Ben & Jill & Ti - what marvelous, exceptional children that bring me joy every time I see them. Especially grateful for my new daughter-in-law Ashley--class act!

I’m grateful for my Mom and Dad and that my Dad came through his surgery really well. My brothers and sisters, nieces & nephews.

I’m grateful for NorthWood, a staff that is as good, if not better, than any group of guys and gals I know anywhere, anytime, any place where I have done life the past 23 years - where I live in community and on mission together with so many. Excited about moving our work up several notches in Vietnam, Mexico, and the inner-city. Oh yeah, and entering our new Worship Center.

I’m grateful for Nga, Dang, Bang, Jon & Vy, Tan, Thang, Sherman, Thuy, Song Binh, Dzung, former Prime Minister Khai, President Triett, Madam Vice Chairman of Lao Chai province, Mr. Cupp, Tuan, Hein, Elvis, Archie, Danny, the Luu’s, my motorcycle driver in Hanoi, Long, Chien, and hundreds of other Vietnamese that have blessed my life so much. May God allow us to live next door to each other in heaven throughout all eternity. I’m happy to help everyone with that one who will let me!

I’m grateful for Vision360--Al for not just talking ball, but using his background to launch a new way of starting churches - the pastors in the cities as we try to network, Steve, Paul, Brian, Tony, Paige, Shelia, and the rest of the crew. To get to put new concepts into practice in a new framework is a rare thing in Western Christianity.

I’m grateful for IGE, Institute for Global Engagement, Chris Seiple - you da man. Deep down, you’re a Texan. You have Yankee Intelligence with Texas hutspa. Top down, bottom up engagement making Christ visible, Christians relevent on the cruel edges of the world.

Global pastors I love Oscar, Bashira, Eddy, Suli, Samsung, Shawn, Robert, YKim, Chang, Jeffare, Layo, Gabriel, Steve, Sunday, Dennis, Dave the Irish, Erwin the Irish wannabe, Babingita, Victor, Mohan, and many others.

For this house and study that I can …

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Bob was in my office and noticed a poster I had made a few weeks ago.  It’s a picture of an old man sitting at a table looking satisfied with life.  To the side of the picture I put a saying that my 90-year-old grandfather once told me, “Don’t worry that your life will end.  Worry it will never begin.” Like most Grandfathers, I’m sure mine stole this from someone else… but it holds great truth nonetheless.

Each year, I watch Bob do a fantastic job of winding up one year and starting another with a Kingdom focus.  We have merged his process with wisdom from Bobb Biehl, Randy Allen, and others on our sister site.  Take some time to complete the four processes of the comprehensive review of your ministry, occupation and personal life and start 2008 with some very clear goals. Feel free to hack it and adapt it to fit your needs.
Here are the posts in this series:

Year End Reviewing Your Life and Ministry-Prep

Year End Review: Process 1 Self-Evaluation

Year End Review: Process 2 Team Response and Evaluation

Year End Review: Process 3 Captain’s Interview

Year End Review: Process 4 Writing Your Goals for Next Year

Church Planter? Senior Pastor? Mission Pastor? Business Leader? Turbo Training is for you! February 7-8, 2008 at NorthWood Church is the first of several Turbos in 2008! Click on ”Turbo” on the menu above for more information. See you in February!

The challenge of poverty and how to help the hurting is huge. As someone who travels the world and has been involved in that for more than a decade, I’ve come a long way in my thinking and have changed a lot. At first, I was huge into charity--just give them money and it’ll all work out. I found out that wasn’t true. I soon began to understand why development was better than charity.  It didn’t take long.

There are two new emerging, and I believe, healthy responses to the poor that should partner. Each has a part of the equation--neither has the whole enchilada. The first is the new monasticism, care for the poor while living in community. The second is business as mission.  Use your business as a way of engagement and outreach to see people developed and lifted up.

Business as mission is heavy on business and development--not quite as heavy on community which can lead to an industrialized and impersonal faith. The new monasticism is heavy on community and not quite as heavy on development which can lead to nothing economically and developmentally if there aren’t sound economic principles at work.

Both strands are committed to caring for the poor. Both strands are believers looking at new ways of engagement. The business guy doesn’t need to fund the community guy to live in the inner city. The community guy doesn’t need to think the business guy only has pockets to help him live his dream. Instead, they need to partner doing economic development together. Both should have big hearts, both should think developmentally. Now, that would be a partnership that would do some serious damage!

“We must . . . bring religious leaders and believers into a positive role in promoting economic and societal development . . . We must ensure everyone in society’s rights of equal participation of equal development according to law.” President Hu Jinto of China in his opening comments to the 2007 Party Congress. For China to mention religion at a party congress is rare, for it to be postive--this is a first. What are the implications? The world is changing! It has been changing.  It’s hard for those of us in the West to see it because we’ve had one paradigm of seeing the world for so long. Whether you trust the statement or not, the fact that it’s made publicly at the party congress is a major, major shift.

Having just returned from Vietnam and meeting with key leaders, many of us heard similar statements. As a matter of fact, endorsements of helping new Christians be clear about their belief from the government were made constantly. If Christianity was to be present, they want a healthy version!

Having read new book The Black Swan by Taleb, I’m seeing the truth of what he wrote. Change comes in jumps and then is slow for a good while. We must recognize the jumps. We aren’t even good at seeing the jumps in technology. We see the technology and use it in old ways. Newsweek and USA TODAY both recently wrote of how the guys at Google and Facebook and other companies are taking their young execs on global trips because there is no one they can find to train them how to think and process the current world. We are all too “old school” in our thinking of globalization. For them, it’s not a matter of having enough money to do “technology” but how to “use” the new technologies.

For the past few years, I’ve been harping on the fact that globalization is far more than economics or living in a “big” village--that it has it’s philosophy all to itself. It’s a very complex--not simple--philosophy where multiple philosophies and cultures traverse around a handful of syncretistic and/or pragmatic values.

While we, in the West, are dealing with issues of postmodernism, the philsophy of an affluent and disillusioned society, the rest of the world has a radically different philosophy. I get amused at …

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I was asked by someone in a previous blog about underground work in Vietnam and smuggling Bibles and my response to that - here is what I wrote.

“My call is to raise up local churches to be the missionary. Therefore, that means I want the person in the pew to go. If that’s the case I teach them to be disciples living out their faith using their vocation. Dine and dash evangelism can’t be the modus operandi of a local church if you’re going to engage the whole church. BTW, you don’t have to smuggle Bibles in Vietnam, they’ll even give you permits to print them. A lot of people are confused about what you can and can’t do in Vietnam.  It’s much more than you might think. You just have to respect their laws and work with them.”

One of the problems in the world today is accurate information and clear media representation, and not just secular but religious. There is no doubt that Protestants have had a tough challenge in Vietnam. Neither is there any doubt it’s improving dramatically. Some people want it to be there like it is here--overnight. We don’t even do it good here! Think of our response to so many Muslims in America since 9-11. There isn’t a huge outcry over that. They see it the same way.

There are people with agendas outside Vietnam as well as inside. Often, local situations are exaggerated or misrepresented in such a way that the facts and situation is exploited for personal gain.

One situation is the story that the government of Vietnam took over land because a Hmong person became a Christian. Not true. When the Hmong person became a Christian, they no longer offered worship to their ancestors on their land to which the other brothers and sisters who were animist demanded the land back so they could worship and appease the spirits of their ancestors. The law was brought in by the family--what does freedom of religion mean for the Hmong animist tied to the land who is trying to respect their ancestors.

BTW, the church is doing incredible in Vietnam and the north in particular. My heart was broken, though, as I was in a meeting and how they were recognizing churches a lot faster in one area, but several “denominations” from …

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Guys, I didn’t have access to a computer.  It was fun up in the mountains.  We got back to the Daewoo Hotel at 6:00am, I ran 3 miles--maybe 6, not sure, and then showered. Now at NoiBai Airport.  Believe it or not, they now have an executive lounge and it’s incredible.  Great, great visit with everyone.  Visited with Church leaders and community leaders. We laughed a lot and shared a lot.  Progress is being made--big time. I see things changing not just from the perspective of the government but from the perspective of those on the ground.  It was exciting to hang out with Vietnamese pastors like YKim, and to meet a lot of new ones, as well.  All of them say the same--things are changing.  Furthermore, the faith is growing here and without assistance from us, so much.  I love this.  I meet people who want to move here and do this and do that. I say, “let the Vietnamese alone, we’ll screw it up.” We should only throw gas on their fire, not try to start our own.  Some of the biggest headaches here are those created by those in the West.  It’s tragic.  They began to give legal recognition to churches and then every denomination showed up trying to claim the churches. It’s slowed things down and confused the believers here.  Let their churches be who they are.  The early church did pretty well without all those denominations jockeying and being competitive.  I do know this, watching how this government works and my tribe, I’ve come to discover there are so many similarities between the Baptist and the Communist.  As a matter of fact, I was with the Madam Vice-Chairman of a province and, being polite, I offered a toast, after her’s (mine had water not vodka).  To the Baptist and the Communist, may they continue to learn from each other!  We were filmed the entire time by 2 or 3 people, even relaxing, so I began to interview people about Cheerios.  I’d walk up to someone and ask, “Have you ever tried Cheerios?” If it were a westerner, I’d ask, “How do you like your Cheerios?” It was hysterical.  The videographers were very confused.  They wanted to know what Cheerios was code for!  Just stupidity my friends and having fun!!!!  Please, keep reading my blog, by the way.  NORTHWOOD, I gotta sermon this Sunday--don’t miss it.  …

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