Keep us from just singing.

Saturday, February 13, 2010

Light the fire again

Don't let my heart grow cold
Don't let my vision die

Lord, light the fire again

Tuesday, January 5, 2010

This is a site for praying, heartdumping, and braindumping, and eventually distilling these into plan of action and obedience, as we seek God's heart for reconciliation for our church and for all the world. May we encourage one another as the Spirit cultivates our hearts for the things of His, and affirms and refines our vision.

By this we will know

These are some confirmations that we confidently seek from God in this process, and prayers that Rebecca and I will continue to lift up until we receive or until He otherwise unburdens our hearts.

Adoption of the vision by the church.

While the call to short-term missions is a personal one for both Rebecca and me, we hope to be sent by our unified home church. To realize this team, we would begin the praying and planning even now, but desire to submit the vision to church leadership in hopes that it would be a top-down initiative and the church's calling, not a divisive pursuit belonging to a subversive few.

Intergenerational interest and commitment.

Implied.

The bearing of specific fruits from this faith.

For a former believer in God to reopen to Him.
For someone who has left LWEC due to generational or congregational conflict to return.
For someone who has left LWEC to seek a more missional church to return.
For a family to believe into Christ.
For students to gather in prayer for their parents.
For regular one-church prayer meetings.
For a cross-cultural STM trip.
For a missions team that would include:

A student with non-Christian parents.
Someone who has never participated in STM.
Someone who has participated in STM.
A student AND his/her parent
An adult from the Chinese congregation who has had limited interaction with youth/ECHO.
Someone who feels like they have never served in an "official" capacity.
An engaged or married couple from both the English and Mandarin congregations.
Someone from each decade of life between the ages of 10 and 70.
Gender balance.
Someone considering baptism.
Someone who attended CCMC prior to the Naperville plant.

Why intergenerational?

To encourage church unity via cross-congregational and intergenerational reconciliation.
To obey, send, and go not as distinct congregations but as one church joining in prayer, preparation, fundraising, etc.
To request not merely the approval or permission of "the other" congregation but full support and participation.
To invite families to participate.
To heal generational and congregational wounds.
To promote prayer and missions as one church, and to see how these are mutually promoting.
To affirm that God calls and uses His children at any age, and that according obedience is necessary at any age.
To allow that God calls people out of every stage, not (for example) just those transitioning out of college to consider their vocations.
To convey to the missions field God's relevance to several walks of life.
To put our supposed Asian American strengths such as community and self-sacrifice and honor to refining fire in a team context.

Why cross-cultural?

To challenge LWEC to step out of our ethnocentrism.
To distinguish our Asianness from our Christianity, that the latter might not be reduced to culture and religion.
To understand cultural blessings: How God has uniquely gifted the Asian American.
To understand cultural sins: How we as Asian Americans uniquely fail.
To encourage ethnic diversity within LWEC, especially in the English-speaking congregations.
To require a greater (or at least a different and new) dependence on God as we obey him in unfamiliar ways.
To promote more equal footing--linguistic and cultural--among missions team members.

Why missions?

To obey the Biblical mandate for missions.
To enter our new building with the awareness that Church is much bigger than our four walls.
To see God at work elsewhere.
To test our willingness to go.
To allow exploration of God's heart for missions and what it means for us.
To invite some of our members to live under their means even if only for a short term.
To challenge some suburban Asian-American Christians to change and simplify their lifestyles.
To set an example to Naperville Asians and Naperville churches.
To make missions opportunities available and accessible in our church.
To realize and develop the missional heart of our church.
To experience and see the power of prayer.
To demonstrate that individual callings can be brought before the church for refinement and support and edification.