missions conference thoughts

This past weekend was the annual missions conference at our church here in Davis. Every year, we invite missionaries to come speak at our church from Friday-Sunday on various topic involving missions. This year, Henry Lu from COCM came to speak about missions in Europe, and his topics include Why Europe and Why Now?

A big part of the intention behind missions conferences are to mobilize people to action. Some will end up going, others will end up in a supporting role, but the goal of these annual conferences is to create awareness for missions (not that the awareness isn’t already there). Everyone will walk away from the missions conference with a different feeling in their heart. For some, it will give them conviction to go. For others, it may be conviction to stay and drum up support for the ones in the fields.

This year, the missions conference gave me a slightly different feeling than the ones described. I left church on Sunday with a general conviction that we focus too much on missions. Now before you start leaving angry comments, please hear me out. Henry Lu threw out a lot of statistics on Sunday (and for that fact, Friday too). All the statistics were very convincing in driving home one point: Europe needs missionaries.

Europe, the home base of many missionaries from years past, is deep in spiritual decay and now most people there do not have a good relationship with God. Well doesn’t that mean that we need to focus more on missions and not less? After all Henry is clearly mobilizing people to go to Europe for missions. Well, I’d say not really. I mean, yes, Europe does need missions, and it is a spiritual mess there right now. The statistics show that. But I beg you to look under the stats for a moment.

Let’s look at Henry’s main point from Sunday again: Europe, the home base of many missionaries from years past, is deep in spiritual decay and now most people there do not have a good relationship with God.

That, to me, is screaming that churches need to focus more on local evangelism more (more than they are now) and more importantly, this sad central point of Henry’s message (all weekend) shows just how crucial the church inreach ministry is. Yes, the great commission should be a focal point of the body of Christ, but we need to make sure that a large focus lies with making sure that the body itself is fed. After all how can we send if there are no senders? Europe should be a cautionary tale of what can happen if the inreach ministry is neglected.

Since Henry already covered how we can practically apply the topic of the missions conference to our daily lives, perhaps we should take a look at inreach ministries. Basically, serve in your church. Yea, it seems like an obvious statement, but it’s so important. If you’re not committed to a church, then find a church you think you can serve at, and start serving. If you’re committed to a church, find areas to serve (anything from leading worship and folding bulletins, to cooking church lunch and leading small groups, etc). In Acacia, it can be leading bible studies or taking a more active role in small groups. It’s great that we focus so much on outside ministries or other church ministries, but Acacia as a fellowship does need people to serve internally. Talk to core about bible studies or leading Friday night worship.

Don’t get me wrong, missions is essential to the body of Christ and should be a focal point of the church; however, it should be at the neglect of other important church ministries. It is vital that we look at inreach ministries with the same urgency as global missions.

Weekend Scientist | Mason Jar Observations – Week 4

Well, this is sad. Today I popped off the metal top to check on the waxpaper, and I see that the orange oils have gotten all over the outside of the jar...inside still completely clear. Four weeks in, the fluid should be a bit cloudy and orange. I think I will have to call this a bust and start over. I don't know if I should try to reseal and keep it going for a while, but I will definitely start a new batch pretty soon. There are still oranges on the tree outside. I think the method will just need to change a bit. Maybe instead of waxpaper I will need to use some sort of plastic to get a better seal on the rim. Hopefully the new batch will work better than this did =/

Disunion

These days we get news, viewpoints and opinions pretty much in realtime. If there’s a war going on in Egypt or Syria, we’re getting simultaneous newsfeeds from journalists and first-hand accounts from local bloggers. Well, this kind of information abundance wasn’t always available. 150 years ago, during the Civil War, newspapers would have journalists out in the field with the soldiers, but they wouldn’t get to file till a bit later. News and accounts were just not that readily available at the time due to technological restraints.

Well, apparently the NYT has found a way to remedy that. In the NYT Opinionator, a blog section of the NYT Opinion pages, they’ve created a blog called Disunion. Basically, it’s using contemporary accounts, diaries, images and historical assessments from the Civil War to create a blog that follows the Civil War as it unfolds. Having read (or skimmed) through most of it so far (they’re up to March 1862), I’ve found this blog to be quite interesting. I think I would equate this to the twitter retelling of the Christmas story in terms of applying current communication technology to historical events. Anyways, it’s pretty cool and it’s out there in case you want to check it out.

why do people change?

Recently I got dinner with a few college buddies that I haven’t seen since graduation, and we were able to catch up on old times and I got a chance to see what they were up to now. I actually enjoy seeing how much people change as opposed to what I remember them last being. And then, sometimes change doesn't seem all that good, and I actually prefer seeing them the way they were. In any case, recently I've been noticing a lot of change in my friends. I think it's probably the fact that we're in that transitional age range that I hear so much about.

It’s funny to see that one or two of them have settled down, gotten married and have kids. One guy who couldn't make it out now has two kids, and yet it almost seems like yesterday that I had to remind him canned corn and a miller-lite isn't “lunch”. Now he’s a responsible dad who is feeding his son healthy stuff (read: not corn/miller-lite combo).

There are times when I can't stand change. A lot of times, at Acacia, I won't be very aware that change is happening, and when it finally sneaks up on, I get surprised, and it takes me a very long time to get used to it. Other times, I see changes coming a mile away, but I just don’t want to deal with it. I understand that sometimes change is necessary, and people will make changes for a variety of reasons. I just need to know when it’s inevitable and accept it sooner rather than later.

One obvious reason is that as we move into a new phase of life, we have to change to adapt to the new roles and responsibilities of that phase. An example is moving to college, or getting married, or becoming a father. In my friend’s case, he became a father, and so he needed to adapt to that role by changing his food choices (among other things). A lot of guys I know start changing the way they dress when they start dating or when they get married. Of course, there are those few guys out there whose wives/mothers still buy them clothes (no judgment here).

well, if cookie monster can change his ways...

Another reason for change is because we need to adapt to a lifestyle that is better for us. A buddy of mine at work changed his workout routine because he felt that he needed to focus on cardio rather than building vanity muscles all the time. Others change the way they eat to be healthier. An example of this is cookie monster. Growing up, we were all used to seeing cookie monster down a plate or two of cookies with no problems. Apparently, these days cookies are a sometimes food for cookie monster and his new favorite foods are eggplants and fruits. Imagine that!

Of course sometimes change occurs to make us feel better. There is an old story about a little boy who went to the field with a baseball and bat. He tossed the ball into the air, saying, "I’m the greatest batter in the world!" Then he swung & missed. "Strike one," he said. He picked up the ball, examined it, and then threw it into the air again. As he swung, he repeated, "I’m the greatest batter in the world." Once again he missed. "Strike two," he said. This time, he stopped to examine his bat to make sure there wasn't a hole in it. Then he picked up the ball and tossed the ball into the air for the 3rd time. He repeated again, "I’m the greatest batter in the world," and swung with all his might and missed for the 3rd straight time. "Wow" he cried, "What a pitcher. I’m the greatest pitcher in the world!" Sometimes, we need to move the goalposts and declare a victory so that we can feel better about ourselves. Is this always healthy? Probably not…but we do it anyways.

Change occurs for a variety of reasons. We can change for self-help reasons such as healthy or sanity. We can also change to keep up with the environment that we are in. I guess for me, I just need to be able to handle the changes that occur because there really isn’t an alternative. Of course with the changes I don’t want to see coming, I still need to work on accepting the changes and move on. Hmm…baby steps I suppose.

fool me once, shame on you. fool me twice…

When putting together performance reviews, one almost has to neglect first time mistakes. After all, we’re all human, and we all make mistakes. Part of the improvement process that everyone has is that we learn from our mistakes (or the mistakes of others), and we try not to commit them in the future. Repeated mistakes are the stuff that tarnish performance reviews. This, of course, shouldn’t really come as a surprise to anyone (at least I hope not).

As I recall, the London Olympics were lauded to be the best games in terms of long-term sustainability for venues. One of the primary objectives was to avoid the pitfalls of Athens and Beijing, where most permanent Olympic venues were falling into a state of disrepair due to the fact that nobody was using them. This created long term sustainability issues for the host cities. The London games were going to be the end of that Olympic trend. They would achieve this through the use of newly built venues, existing facilities and temporary facilities. Some of the new facilities will be reused in their Olympic form, while others will be reduced in size and several will be moved elsewhere in the UK. The idea is that there would be no unwanted venues after the games.

Well, this morning there was an article in the NYT about the London Olympic stadiums falling into disuse. It’s been six months since the Olympics have ended, and the future of the main Olympic Stadium has yet to be determined. The original plan is now being deemed as faulty, as the original plan to downsize the stadium and use it as a venue for track & field competitions with room for 25,000 seats. When has a regional track & field event ever drawn more than a few thousand people?

As far as I can tell, London Olympic organizers are falling into the same pit that the preceding cities had fallen into. After all that pomp and hot-air about sustainability, we’re seeing pretty much the same issue repackaged for a different city. Hopefully Rio will have a better plan for 2016. Given the current trend, I’m not too optimistic.

Weekend Scientist | Mason Jar Observations – Week 3

yes, this little project isn't looking so hot. I think the combination of wax-paper and not tightening the top enough is causing too much of the alcohol to seep out around the lid. So far the only orange color change I've seen has been around the lid, whereas it should be going into the liquid down below the suspended oranges. I think by next week if the situation doesn't improve, I'm going to start a new one with a bit of a change in methodology. We'll see I suppose...