In Search of Kingdom Living

Today was the second day of Urbana. From the morning I had to deal with some bus stuff (skipped breakfast), and was unable to participate in the bible study. I caught the video of the Professor, the Student and the fish that was being used for bible study instructions – it was well put together. I do wonder whether the ‘journeying through DC’ perspective should’ve also been presented. Basically, the Professor, the student and the fish is an IV story created to show how we can engage the Word more deeply. For instance, as you dissect a fish, you discover layers upon layers of observations and meanings. The critique of this perspective in studying the Word, is that the fish is dead – and potentially, the Word is dead. So the newer IV bible study resource is ‘journeying through DC’, where studying the Word is like a trip through DC where you actually get to participate and engage in the trip of studying the Word. Hopefully I can join tomorrow and see where the bible study takes us.

After the bible study was the main session. The worship was great and they began to introduce worship from other languages and musical styles. Ajith exposited Ephesians 2:1-14 and this time I was wide awake. He truly has  a passion for the Word of God.

I found the skit especially relevant for me this time around (I’m just loving the skits – the camera/mics need some work though). It was a gay Christian speaking to one of the main characters. Their discussions were complex and flushed out a lot of different perspectives and issues surrounding this loaded topic. I’m already thinking it’ll be neat to play these skits (once they’re out on DVD) for church or CCF and have a conversation about it.

I tried to meet up with Ryerson CCFers for lunch, and it didn’t work out. We found NO PLACE for food. Will definitely have to find food much quicker the following days.

I ended up skipping my first workshop time (I had wanted to go to Justice 201), so I took my time with lunch, ordered a gourmet turkey sandwich at St. Louis Bread, then walked to the america center and checked out the exhibits and bookstore. Of course while at the bookstore, I bought a boxload. Thank God I bumped into Kelvin – he purchased another 10+ books and together, we dumped all our books into a big box that he carried back to our hotel (thanks Kelvin).

I bumped into Jon Chant who was working the floor as a proctor (his duties are to make sure everything’s ok for the exhibits), then bumped into Christina Lui and her friend Helen from UW. Bumped into my bro and he told me Albert Hsu was working in the bookstore. Albert wrote ‘the Suburban Christian’, so I definitely would love to have a conversation with him – I’m gonna go back to the bookstore tomorrow and see if I can find him.

My bro and I then proceeded to go to Shane Clainborne’s workshop called ‘the Simple Way’. It was supposed to be about monasticism, but he ended up enthusiastically/articulately sharing about his life (most stories were found in his book), and it honestly made me want to get up and live in downtown Toronto – not in a fancy condo, but somewhere of community, like Alexandra Co-op. I am definitely going to have to pray through this idea a lot.

Dinner was next and it was a crazy experience. I bumped into Vanessa Wong beforehand, and it was just overwhelming to see the lineups into our dinner location. It was pretty efficient the way they fed everyone. Supposedly they were feeding several hundreds every 9 minutes.

After dinner, I hooked up with Kathy Chang for the evening service. Worship was eclectic again. We sang in korean and spanish this time, and two hula dancers were dancing to a hawaiian song to God. Very sweet.

The first speaker of the evening was Oscar Muriu. He’s a pastor from Nairobi and he gave a wake-up call to North American Christians. The church in africa is alive and robust and our north american tendencies of ‘fixing things’ has resulted in a mindset of fixing Africa. Instead, the African church has more people coming to the Lord than the entire population of America. God is doing a new thing and the centre of Christianity is now in the middle-south. We need them to send missionaries to us, as the West is the place with declining numbers of Christians.

There were two issues that stuck in my head from his talk: first, is our western theology/missiology “messed up” (not exact wording, this caused quite a stir in the crowd) – “should the African Church drink from the poisoned chalice of Western Theology…”. Second, how can the Asian church help/serve us? We are pretty elitist to think that we know it all, so how can these 3rd world countries serve us with their so-called primitive ways? In my context, I’m thinking how can the cantonese/mandarin people serve my CBC culture? I’m struggling with this issue a lot and it is easier to say that they have no way to serve us, but rather are in our way. Having to be interdependent, having to see each respective culture as a part of the body is difficult.

The second speaker was a very charismatic black woman named Brenda Salter McNeil who could preach it. Her talk was about Gen 11-12, the issues before God’s blessings. Ch. 11 is the famous passage where the people of the earth were scattered. As God’s image bearers, we were called to bring his image across the world, yet we stopped to create an idol to glorify ourselves (tower of Babel). This still happens today, we stop in our journey, our purpose, we lose our passion, and we settle. This is demonstrated in the end of ch. 11 where Tamar and his son Abram were supposed to go to Canaan yet settled in Haran. That place would be where Tamar died, and God would call Abram to greater things and would bless him.

My main thought from her talk: am I settling for something/someone/some place? She asked us to name the place where we’re settling, and I couldn’t do it. This is something I need to think through a lot more carefully. I’m not sure if I’m settling for the comforts of my family, or my church, or my ministry – or is it more of a lack of direction?

As I’m back in my hotel room with Kelvin and David, we had a lengthy chat about the issues talked about today. Can there be true racial reconciliation in our Chinese Canadian Churches? I think if there were true interdependence from cantonese, mandarin and english ministries in the churches, we can demonstrate to the world the idea of reconciliation. I don’t know if it’ll happen soon, but I’m hopeful.