ccm log 4

ministry is messy. that is how it is and that is how it should be. over the last few days, i have had to go through difficult conversations with people in leadership about discouragements and doubts regarding ccm. mostly about how one of the core members decided to give up on following Christ and another core member that has been struggling with depression, which has led to questionable leadership behavior in recent weeks. while these things might trigger thoughts like "this is to be expected of a dying ministry" or "this is proof that what we are doing is meaningless", i cannot help but feel a certain weightiness regarding my own life and walk with Christ. what can i do? as president, when i see this turmoil going on in leadership, the thought that i can't seem to shake is "be a faithful rock. be a loving shepherd". a calling to be an example to these broken people- even as i am broken- to show them what it means to sacrifice everything for the pursuit of God and to grow a heart for people's souls.

ccm log 3

contemplating life face

it has been over half a quarter serving with ccm and it feels as though i have only tasted the fringes of what God has planned for this ministry. while i entered the fray with the mindset of making disciples in the context of the general body members, it is becoming more apparent to me that i need to minister to my fellow leaders first before realizing that initial goal. i have grown to trust my team members over the past few weeks. i trust that they can get things done when i assign tasks to them. but ministry should never be just about getting things done. secret sin, spiritual immaturity, and biblical illiteracy is frequently portrayed in splashes of conversation during team meetings. and more and more, i get the sense that i am somehow an anomaly for having a "heightened" sense of spirituality and that others think it the norm since i am the president. whereas i think it to not be the norm for them to be leaders while not having the elementary disciplines of consistently being in the word and in prayer and seeking growth. of course, this is a way in which God has challenged me to trust in Him, that He can use us, flawed as we are, to achieve mighty works for the kingdom. and i am not complaining about the team that God has given me- they are my brothers and sisters and i love them each, not just for what they bring to the ministry, but also simply because of who they are in Christ, struggles and all.
but tonight i am being shaken- knowing what i know- i am being shaken. not so much in the sense of doubting whether or not God will accomplish great things in ccm or even in my own life, but rather in the sense of having nearly overwhelming sorrow for what i have heard. i don't know how to walk with someone who is on the path to apostasy...and i am mourning for that person.

ccm log 2

sometimes, things not going according to plan is a good thing.
always respond to emails, texts, and messages. be accessible!
praise God both in times of failure and in times of success.
pray for the people in your ministry. at least pray for two people a day.
make it known who signed up for which
responsibilities and hold them accountable.
don't be afraid to hope for a large turnout at events. our God is not small.
forgive one another for when mistakes are made.

ccm log 1

invest in a canopy for tabling next year
do an off-campus outreach event during week 1 since reserving rooms is impossible
get through logistics during meetings as soon as possible- rehearse what needs to be said beforehand
pray pray pray pray pray
be stern about being on-time for meetings- set an example by arriving early

summer sesh

along the coast is one place where i don't mind being stuck in traffic.

iqwerty

i want you to know that i am so very proud of you no matter what today brings. haha learn how to use powerpoint tho

shelter blankets

clean freak that i am

i'd rather sit around in a small circle of brothers and sisters than be alone in a crowded room full of strangers. while dwindling numbers may be on their minds and dwindling numbers begins to equate to poor fellowship, i don't think i would have found this place to be a home had this not been the case. i came in broken and hurt and had it been a larger group, i could have blended in as just another face. but here, my presence as a full person was impossible to dismiss. that is what i like about us. we welcome in the stragglers, the ones that know they want community, but simultaneously are acutely aware of the dangers that come with vulnerability.

bearing one another's burdens

love one another
serve one another
inspire one another
forgive one another

flame deluge

here my voice goes to ones and zeros. i'm slipping beneath the sound.
as the school year comes to a close, i can't help but feel as if i should
have a monologue or a soliloquy prepared about all of my experiences,
but i don't have anything. at the moment, there are just two things that
dominate my thoughts- unity in Christ and the fact that i am homesick.

warring states period

the past couple of weeks have been a trying time for me. i find it ironic how in my last post, i talked about being decisive and trusting God for the result and that has been the main thing i have been struggling with. i recently got admitted to uci, which stirred up a lot of emotions and confusions that i thought i had dealt with, or at least did not ever have to deal with again. pressures from home to go home and the friendships i've developed here in san diego tore me in a back-and-forth game of tug-o-war to the point where i felt quite immobilized, stuck, and unmotivated. i think my biggest internal struggle was dealing with bitterness towards my parents who initially pushed for me to go back to irvine, because from my perspective, it wasn't just a simple issue of finances. it was the issue of whether or not they trusted my ability to succeed in san diego where the schooling is more challenging and competitive. to my surprise, as i was thinking about these things, i realized that my frustration with my parents was not caused because their claims were absolutely wrong, but rather because there was some truth to what they were saying. if i were to honestly map out my mentality throughout the year and list my priorities, i would objectively say that honoring my parents and God through my studies has not been one of the most important things to me. i haven't been giving my best. and so, i told myself last week that the only thing that would fully convince me to go back home was if i could not prove to myself to be able to take full advantage of the education here with integrity and due diligence. basically, if this next month is another month in which i do just enough to get by, i might as well save my parents some money, because i could do the same exact thing back home.
with this somewhat new determination to strive for excellence in mind, i received a phone call from my parents at the beginning of this week. i doubted that they would have anything new to say to me and expected myself to be discouraged at the end of the conversation. but, they surprised me. my mom told me to stay in san diego. and at first, i thought "okay, that's wonderful, but it's probably just mom being soft on me, because she's mom. dad is not on board, right?" dad was on board. i was speechless- imagine all the scenarios i played out in mind in the previous week, thinking about all the points my parents brought up for irvine and against san diego, and the one scenario that i didn't consider happened. my dad told me that he prompted me to initially consider irvine so that i would think more about why i would want to stay in san diego. and it's true- i would not have thought about these things if i glanced over this decision making process and i would probably not be this determined to truly put in my best effort here.

dream turned dilemma

gintama is back :')

i remember back in high school, whenever youth group wanted to hang out, loitering around waiting for someone to make an executive decision for what we were to do or where we were to go was a prevalent characteristic of our time spent together. i remember it eventually caught on as a running joke that christine lin was not a good planner for hangouts, because she was too indecisive and while i joined in on the fun of teasing her about that quality, i knew that realistically, we all struggled to make decisions- big or small. from which college to attend to which place to eat after fellowship, our decisions were made to be weightier than they actually should have been as if our lives would go terribly wrong if we chose one thing over another. 

sometimes i catch myself getting frustrated when others are indecisive- perhaps because i'm impatient for an answer, but looking deeper, it is more likely that i simply don't want to make a decision myself. to make a choice, to say i am going with this instead of that, is in a way taking responsibility for the consequences of that choice. in my relationship with God, i often get frustrated too when He places me in situations where i have to decide what to do and the answer is not definitively prescribed by the bible. there is no audible "yes, john go to this place" or "no, that is not My will" that i can depend on for certain things that seem really important. the problem is this: i get frustrated, because in trying to "trust God", i am actually not trusting God.

let me explain. i have heard from many other Christians that deal with this issue to pray and wait. it is an exercise of trust to wait for an answer, but only if an answer is promised. if God said to me, "wait until october 3rd, (yes mean girls reference) 2015 at 10:47 a.m. and I will tell you who your spouse will be", i would be exercising trust by waiting until that day without looking for a potential spouse on my own. if that were the case, it would actually be disobedient of me to assess my relationship with any woman in my life with the intention of seeing how possible marriage would be, because that would mean not trusting that God would give me the answer by trying to find it myself. hopefully, by now we realize that God would never give us such an answer. and since an answer is not promised, it can be concluded that the appropriate exercise of trust is to actively make a decision and leave the results in God's hands.

in no way am i advocating rash decisions, however. and i'm not saying that we should cut prayer and waiting out of the process of decision making. instead, i would say as an extension, pray for wisdom and not for an answer. as for the time between being prompted to make a decision and actually making the decision- the waiting period if you will- make an effort to think realistically about the pros and cons, about what you genuinely want and need to do, and how you might glorify God through your eventual decision.

in some sense, we have been given a promise regarding our decisions. paul tells us in romans that God works all things for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purposes. good not meaning earthly comfort, but meaning our sanctification and His glorification. and we have every reason to trust in that promise. 

breakthrough

i have noticed for a while now that i am sometimes almost tired of talking with my brothers and sisters. or perhaps, i'm tired of hearing certain vocabularies in our dialogues- words associated with a desire to change. relationships, discipleship, loving on, being intentional, doing life together, and now even spontaneity. i love all of these things and it certainly is good that we are thinking about how we can make efforts to improve our community- and my problem with these terms is not that they haven't been flushed out in detail as if they have been idly vague and my problem is not with the frequency of their use in our conversations (although it gets annoying)- my problem is with the lack of genuine fruit. a lot of times, if not all times, it is just talk.
as a people pleaser, i am guilty of simply putting up a farce of politeness saying to old acquaintances "hey, we should meet up sometime" without ever having the intention of following through with my words. i always wonder every time i say those phrases what it would be like if i actually made an effort to do those things. in the same way, we say "we ought to be more intentional" or "church family does life together", but then often nothing happens to back our words- we say the things we say just because it has become expected of us. and claiming to want to do life together with someone is quite a bold statement in my opinion. when people say that they feel unwelcome or like they aren't receiving consistent care in the church, i don't blame them as much as the people who raise expectations of how community ought to be and then are not willing to take on the responsibilities that come with actually contributing to that community. i am being harsh, but i am not speaking to those who faithfully serve and i hope not to discourage those who are trying to serve and struggling to see the fruits of their labor. but i am speaking to those who fling around these popular terms in circular conversations to seem spiritual or to feel like they are making a difference just by talking.
although change comes about through conversations and exchanges of ideas, it is the natural order that action follows closely behind words. if you want to invest in the youth, just do it. if you want to serve under those who are older than you, just do it. if you want to share the gospel with a coworker or classmate, just do it. you don't have to meet with a group of brothers or sisters to tell them in extreme detail all of these things that you want to do for God. you can, but only share if you are certain that you will follow through. i'm not saying don't share your goals, even the ones that seem far off, for the purpose of accountability- that is not my point.
in summary, keep things simple: state a goal, serve faithfully (and quietly), and give God all of the glory. if you have a problem with what i purposely placed in parentheses, then think about why.

change for chumps

majin buu

i recently took some time to bike and explore around the campus last week. to think, it's been two quarters and i haven't gone on any kind of expedition to the unknown yet...i may be getting old. then again, the initial motivation for exploring campus was to go from market to market looking for a box of lemonheads, so perhaps i still have a little room left for growing up, huh? while i was exploring campus/wandering around stores, i found a new pair of sweats (very crucial for this upcoming quarter and life in general) and also bought a pink bouncy ball on a whim.

shot glass trio

i came back to my apartment after spring break to find that
it was overrun by fruit flies. and so, i youtubed how to create
a fruit fly trap. the trap required something called apple cider
vinegar (since fruit flies are attracted to the smell of rotting fruit)
and ever since i got it, i've been somewhat of a curious creature.
articles on line praise apple cider vinegar as some kind of cure-all
elixir ("like the ones in maplestory that cost lots of mesoz?!" says
middle school john with sparkly eyes and a quivering lip). because
i am a big goofball, i decided it would be a good idea to try some
without diluting it with water or juice. let's just say i think i have
stumbled upon a new punishment for those who lose games. it felt
like a whole was being burnt into my chest (probably not an
exaggeration seeing how the substance consists of acetic acid) and
then the burning sensation passed...down to my stomach. definitely
not one of my best rash decisions ever made.
in other news, my roommate has recently acquired a peculiar interest
in guns. like videos of people testing guns, the science behind guns,
and...the killing capability of specific guns. given the trajectory of our
relationship thus far, i'm probably going to be the first victim if he turns
out to be a campus shooter. are my fears irrational given the atmosphere
of campus shootings over the past few years and the stories behind those
shootings? i told my parents even before this gun thing that his
personality and lifestyle fit those of a campus shooter. but i'm just
assuming the worst. sigh...it's sad to see someone lead a life so isolated.

gear rising

snacks ready.
stacks of notebooks ready.
playlist of worship songs ready.
week 10, are you ready?
------------------------------------------------
lol yea week 10 was ready and he
brought his friend: finals week.
i barely got out of there alive.

on perseverance

i am weak, but He is strong. that is all there is to it and that is all that it needs to be. you will fail and you will doubt your calling, but God is good through it all.
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God is sovereign over your family just as He is in mine.

heidi & josef

questions on my mind lately:
1) do some of the Christians around me not think drunkenness is a sin?
2) is cussing a sin? i wonder if my stance on the issue has been swayed
by brothers and sisters exercising their so-called "freedom in Christ" to
do so without reprimand. is it only a sin if it causes someone to stumble?
3) is it ever acceptable to cut someone from your life? if so, when?
does it make a difference if that person is a believer or not?
4) are there requirements for me to be in the place of rebuking a brother
or sister other than the fact that the person is part of the church?
5) is one-on-one discipleship necessary for discipleship to happen in a
general sense? am i being disobedient to the great commission by not
currently having a consistent one-on-one discipleship relationship?
6) women.
7) how can i serve those around me now that i am nearing the end stages
of my transition to san diego? if i am not called to lead at the moment,
which gifts or talents can i still use to bless the people in my life currently?
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i realize that watching videos and tv shows and movies has become
an idol in my life so i'm giving up youtube and netflix for lent. after
one day without them, i'm thinking to myself "wow, i got so much work
done today. i'm, like, actually an efficient human being." praise God for
productivity and for helping me to focus on Him even more!

turning 21

probably the nicest shoes i've ever owned

thanks to my brother for this new pair of shoes and pants

california rolling

on the way back from the gym

functions

entitlement works a lot like a mathematical function. you have a certain input or effort and automatically jump to the assumption that a specific outcome will be the result. study a certain amount of hours and expect to receive a specific grade. work a certain amount of hours and expect to receive a specific wage. in some cases, these things are just functions, but sometimes we project these expectations on things that are not functions. human relationships, life circumstances, and our spirituality are just a few examples of where we do this. how many times have we so foolishly thought to ourselves things like "i treated this person kindly, and therefore i should be treated kindly" or "i took all of the right steps in life. why is this bad event happening to me then?" or "i'm serving in church, i'm reading the bible everyday, and praying all the time, but my relationship with God is not good"? it is when we start thinking in these ways that we are thinking like the world.

the world tells us that we deserve rewards for our efforts and defines anything that doesn't meet that standard as unfair. "it is an injustice to not get what you want!" the world screams with its fists in the air. and these ideas are so well-disguised. we have even managed to get the golden rule wrong at times. Christ says "so whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them" and we sometimes add "so that ___" (fill in the blank with personal benefits other then "God may be glorified") missing the principle.

but we know that the message of the gospel is essentially the inverse of what the world tells us to believe in. and this is perhaps why the gospel so often offends us in two ways in relation to our feelings of entitlement:
1) the gospel tells us that it doesn't matter how good we believe ourselves to be, because our works are like dirty rags. we are not saved by works, but by grace and we don't deserve it 
2) when we are faced with difficulty or inconvenience in our lives, we feel as if we deserve a better situation. the gospel reveals to us the gravity of our sin and rebellion against God and how we deserve so much worse

pastor pat preached on this topic earlier this week and the passage he preached from was matthew 20:1-16 (the parable of the laborers in the vineyard) link to sermon here. and while he was speaking, i was thinking about romans 6:23, which says "for the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord." when we begin to think like the world, we desperately need this sobering truth. what we have earned for our unrighteousness and the wage that we are entitled to is death. but praise be to God that He has shown us mercy.

looking back at the golden rule, i am convinced to say not only "treat others as you would want to be treated," but also "treat others as you have been treated." realize that you have been pardoned in the most significant way possible. you have been forgiven, and not just forgiven, but graciously invited into relationship with God. i think we can get into this mode where we get over our feelings of entitlement, but we stop there instead of going on to find God's purpose in those very situations that brought us to feel entitled. if we did that more often, we would see that all of those "bad" situations are truly blessings for our good and that it is all grace.
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this quarter, i have a few goals!
1) have a decent conversation with my roommate
2) work on "the playbook"- my game journal! i hope to record at least a couple games in there by the end of finals week.
3) finish reading "spectacular sins" by john piper
4) read through matthew, mark, luke, and john! i'm starting mark tonight!
5) keep up with exercise 5 days per week. last quarter i got lazy and sluggish

jump cancel

last quarter, i think the biggest subject of my personal learning was trust. not because trust was constantly hammered into my thought process through sermons and bible studies and life circumstances, but because in all of those things that made up my weekly routine, i was lacking it. trust in people, trust in myself, trust in words, and especially trust in God. when people asked me how i was doing last quarter, i usually would respond with "okay". just okay. like there was nothing going on good nor bad. when in reality, my emotions were a big hot mess, i was neglecting reading the bible and praying, and i felt unsatisfied with my time spent at church. at the end of the quarter, i just felt exhausted from carrying all the weight of my own thoughts and the confusion of what was truly bothering me or blocking me from going to God. i needed Him to intervene.

thankfully, He did through a long and painfully real conversation with kevin during break. when he asked how i was doing, i could have told him what i had been telling everyone all quarter, but he knows me too well. actually, i think he and a bunch of other people who went to college retreat
during summer had known for a while that i wasn't doing so fine. before school started in october, i told him that i was considering not going to church or fellowship for a short time while i was in san diego- the purpose being to reevaluate my own faith apart from the Christian community. at the time, i genuinely believed that i needed to take a step away from the church in order to think through some issues, but part of me also simply liked the idea of being alone. however, by God's grace, my mind was changed last second and eunice took me to church on my first sunday in san diego. my journey on getting plugged in shall be expanded upon at another time (stay tuned haha). anyway, i told kevin that throughout the quarter i had been neglecting prayer and my relationship with God in general and that i didn't know why. it was like there was a wall that hadn't been there before when i felt that reconnecting with God was much easier.

as the conversation continued and as kevin tried to help me sift through my thoughts, i had the idea to share with him about something that happened early last summer that struck me as the moment when i started feeling this spiritual roadblock. early last summer, a few of us drove up to joshua tree to check out the place where retreat would be held and during the trip, i was a total buzzkill. silent, staring off into space, and unwilling to interact- i was clearly distraught. and i never quite told anyone
why up until kevin and i talked during break.

most times of distress in my life can be traced back to some sort of family dispute- i hate it when my family members fight. and i say that not to put blame on my parents nor my brother, but more to illustrate my own character and my own weakness. it's strange because i can take a beating and i could care less if someone made fun of me, but the moment my family members argue, i crumble. but there were always times of sweet reconciliation and God would show Himself in our family by bringing us back to peace and reminding us to love one another.

it was in early june, maybe a couple weeks after my brother's wedding- i couldn't have been happier for him and i thought the time for celebration would last a while longer. i was at my brother's apartment, when my dad called him, apologizing...for "losing it" that night and that he couldn't stand
being with my mom anymore. about an hour after that phone call, i'm in my car on the way home thinking "what should i say when i get back?" it sounded so serious on the phone that i was thinking of what damage could have been done while i was gone. when i got home, it was dead silent. my
dad was in his office downstairs and mom was upstairs in her room.

by force of habit, i approached ma first- she's usually much easier to talk to than my father is. of course, i asked her what was wrong and what they were fighting about and she basically described an argument that i've known since childhood, saying all of these negative things about dad, how poorly
he treated her throughout the years, reasons x, y, and z. i tried to convince her to forgive dad, even if he didn't deserve it, because forgiving is part of obedience to God. but she told me that night that she didn't want to be a Christian anymore, that she would rather be a judas and betray Jesus if it meant not having to spend eternity alongside my dad. we talked in circles. i kept trying to reach her with the truth of the gospel, my foundation, which i built everything i knew upon. and one word after another, my efforts were shot down. while this was happening, i was praying to God in the back of my head, begging for the words to say that could turn my mom around. but she didn't turn around.

then, i went to talk to dad, hoping and praying that i would not get the same response from him as i did with mom. reasons x, y, and z came flying and all happened to contradict everything mom had just said. i tried to reach dad with the truth of the gospel too, except in his case, i made it a point to say that i desperately needed for him to be an example of a godly man to me in this situation. he always wants to be treated as the head of the household and so i told him that night that it was his responsibility to lead me. as i was saying these things, tears were coming down my face, because my heart was breaking for my parents. he said "sorry, john. i can't do it. i can't forgive her anymore. you know...even Christians divorce. and even Christians commit suicide". i begged God to change my dad's mind, but my plea had no effect that night.

at this point of sharing with kevin, he stopped me and felt it necessary to ask, "what do you know to be true? where was God in this situation?" and i never felt more clueless. fumbling for an answer, i responded "what- what do you want me to say? that God was with me?" in a fairly cynical tone.

"do you want to know what i think? i think, yes, God was with you and He was there for every single moment. He saw how much you loved your parents and the pain that it caused to see them that way and Jesus chose to join you in that pain. He was interceding on your behalf and on the behalf of your parents. He was there for you then and He is here for you now." we had an emotional moment right after he said that. two grown men tearing up in a chick fil-a on a tuesday morning- such a beautiful scene. by grace, i came to realize that morning that my fundamental problem- my spiritual roadblock- was that i didn't believe God showed up that night all those months ago. and as a result, i didn't want to trust in the power of prayer and i didn't want to go to church where i would be reminded of truths that i didn't want to accept.

by grace, i am here now with a deeper understanding about the brokenness of relationships in my life. and by grace, i am working towards rebuilding some of those relationships, especially my walk with Christ. this quarter, i hope that as the Lord draws me nearer to Him, i would be a blessing to those around me- all to the glory of God.

hair

before hair cut

after hair cut

moon rising

when i was little i wanted to be a farmer...real simple like.

but all of my best friends made fun of me for having that ambition.

probably because the image of a farmer is not as prestigious as

an astronaut or a doctor or a lawyer. but looking back, you know

what i realize? those twerps owed every meal they ever had to the

hard work of farmers. man, was i stupid for giving up such a dream.

man, was i stupid for believing i could even dream.