Raising the Bar: Loving Disagreement Book Review
The faith that helped our parents and our families survive in this country can sometimes be at odds with the growing faith of the younger generation that looks around and is asking, “How can my faith impact the world around me?” It’s a complicated question.
Advent in the Midst of Suffering, Part II
This year, I will hope in the face of suffering and tragedy. Not because it’s easy, and not as a trite answer to make the darkness of suffering go away. But as a declaration that my Savior’s life from womb to tomb and beyond truly did conquer darkness.
Advent in the Midst of Suffering, Part I
At Advent, we ask, where is the light? What can the birth of a baby really do in this incredibly thick darkness? How do we hold on to the flickering light of Jesus’ birth without repeating rite sayings and spreading toxic positivity?
Freed from Fearful Timidity in Order to Flourish
Pastoring has been the soil on which I have met the Lord, over and over again. This calling invites me to be saturated in God’s presence and in God’s Word, year after year. It stirs up all of my insecurities and fears and my imposter syndrome, and those things become the ripe soil on which Jesus meets me, over and over again, to speak his words of love.
Why is Joining a Small Group So Hard?
If we need to build community, we must start being generous with our time. The best relationships grow when we give ourselves sufficient time for the conversation to flow and linger.
The Provision Of Rest
I had grown accustomed to spending my life in hyperdrive, running from one task to the next, so I could do more, be more, and make my family proud. Suddenly, I could do nothing.
Gifts of the Asian American Church
Perhaps we have been content to be spectators in our own homes, mimickers of our neighbors, and borrowers of their blessings. And I wonder: What would it take to make us care? If our resignation is learned behavior, a consequence of our unique structural disadvantages, how can we unlearn it and become brave?
We Are Not Immune: Lessons from a Mental Health Crisis
The compounded stress, physical strain, lack of self-monitoring, and dearth of healthy Christian friendships finally imploded on me. I could no longer sleep. Like a jammed switch continually set to “on,” my brain refused to shut down. For five months, it seemed all I could do was lie down at night and stare at the ceiling.
Beyond Essentialist Understandings of Asianness in Multicultural Liturgy
There is a place for multicultural celebrations that put Asian cultures on display; but, if we exclusively celebrate this form of liturgy, we run the risk of feeding into the stereotype that Asian Americans are forever foreigners.
Who is the Jesus of Advent?
The God of Advent is not a God of wealth, privilege, or status. The God of Advent is lowly–identifying with a forsaken place of our world.
Those Who Walk In Darkness
This holiday season, may we rest in the knowledge that the God we worship is not one who is intimidated by our suffering.
Inhabiting the Hole of Advent: Transfiguring Asian American Futures
What if the problem is not our perceived foreignness at all, but our perpetual propensity to play the game? Maybe the way out of this perception is not ultimate economic empowerment, but a transfigured desire that perpetuates the possibility inherent in the empty space of Advent.
'Mixed Blessing' - One and a Half Years Later
God has plans for us…plans that are sometimes very different from our own goals and strategies.
Opening Our Hearts to Lament
Whenever a racial tragedy happens in our country or around the world for that matter, our posture of heart as a family is to first respond with lament. My family laments every time a life is lost because every person’s life has value and meaning.
One Year Later
And one year later, I find myself also holding 제사 for these women who were killed—I did not know them personally, but they were my ummas, my imos, my sisters. I want to remember them and I want them to be remembered—not for how their life on earth came to an end, but for how they lived.
Reading the Bible Beyond White Masculinity: Author Q&A with Pastor Dan Hyun
So many Christian books are written in and for White male voices. What would it look like if that was not the assumed default? In this author Q&A, we talked with Pastor Dan Hyun about his recently released book The Bible in 52 Weeks for Men: A Yearlong Bible Study Companion and how he wanted to use his Korean American perspectives and experiences to encourage us to engage the Bible and masculinity in and through our cultural backgrounds.
White Christmas & Asian Advent
Resurrection in Tragedy: The Asian American Diaspora and The Lynching Tree
Cultivating an "Even If" Faith: An Interview with Mitchel Lee
Even if God's goodness to me didn't look the way that I thought it should, I'm going to worship him because he's worthy of worship.
More than "Biblical Manhood and Womanhood"?
The Bible has always showed me that I don’t necessarily need to adhere to the patriarchal structure of society and it was the Bible that helped me understand my value as a woman.