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• Wearing Graphic Tees

  • October 18th, 2011
  • by Larry Lin

  I went to Baltimore over Fall Break to visit my girlfriend Van-Kim, who goes to grad school at Johns Hopkins.

  I also went to Capitol Hill Baptist Church that Sunday. It was the kind of church in which the men wear suits and the women sit cross-legged. I remember looking around and feeling a bit relieved that I had chosen to at least wear a buttoned-up shirt. And then Van-Kim pointed Trip Lee out to me. He was sitting in the pew right in front of me.

  So Trip Lee is pretty famous. I mean, if you have your own Wikipedia page, you probably get the status of at least “pretty famous.” In fact, his album Between Two Worlds was the first rap album ever to go #1 on the Christian Albums Billboard chart. And it even hit #10 on the secular Rap Albums chart. No big deal, right?

  Anyway, he didn’t seem too dressed up. He was wearing a backwards cap, a sweatshirt over a t-shirt, and jeans. I know it’s a pretty minor thing, but I remember thinking how awesome it was that he could defy his surroundings and stick to what he wore. I mean, how do you do something like that? [...more]

• Plan to Pray

  • October 12th, 2011
  • by Daniel Cox

  I was just now reading the chapter on prayer from Desiring God, by John Piper. The closing “Summary and Exhortation” moved me, so I thought I would share it with you. Here’s an excerpt from his exhortation:

  I close this chapter with an earnest exhortation. Unless I’m badly mistaken, one of the main reasons so many of God’s children don’t have a significant life of prayer is not so much that we don’t want to, but that we don’t plan to. If you want to take a four-week vacation, you don’t just get up one summer morning and say, “Hey, let’s go today!” You won’t have anything ready. You won’t know where to go. Nothing has been planned.

  But that is how many of us treat prayer. We get up day after day and realize that significant times of prayer should be a part of our life, but nothing’s ever ready. We don’t know where to go. Nothing has been planned. No time. No place. No procedure. And we all know that the opposite of planning is not a wonderful flow of deep, spontaneous experiences in prayer. The opposite of planning is the rut. If you don’t plan a vacation, you will probably stay at home and watch TV. The natural, unplanned flow of spiritual life sinks to the lowest ebb of vitality. There is a race to be run and a fight to be fought. If you want renewal in your life of prayer, you must plan to see it.

  Therefore, my simple exhortation is this: Let us take time this very day to rethink our priorities and how prayer fits in. Make some new resolve. Try some new venture with God. Set a time. Set a place. Choose a portion of Scripture to guide you. Don’t be tyrannized by the press of busy days. We all need midcourse corrections. Make this a day of turning to prayer – for the glory of God and for the fullness of your joy.

• Let’s see how deep the Rabbit Hole goes

  • October 5th, 2011
  • by William Poon
  I know that sometimes in my own life I might over analyze a lot of things and I’ll bring myself down into a deep hole of confusion. I confuse myself sometimes, though of course unintentionally. But there are times where I’m in the middle of doing something, I stop and think, “Why am I even doing this?” Which of course leads me into that rabbit hole of confusion. But I want to ask and maybe in the process confuse you a bit, to challenge yourself to think deeply about why you do the things you do. Let’s see how deep the rabbit hole goes.A lot of times when I sing praise songs, for whatever reason, I will, in the middle of singing think to myself, “how do I look?” Extremely narcissistic, I know, but it’s something that I know might have been unconscious thinking that was brought to the forefront of my mind. So from there, I might lower my hands, or stop singing, or even sit down. Then another thought will come up, “Do I look more spiritual like this? Do I look like I’m in deep prayer or thinking?” At this point, I’m being frustrated with myself because I know that I’m not even worshipping God anymore that this point, I’m more worried about myself, how I look and how I sound when I sing instead of giving God the glory. If I could, I would walk out of the room because I just would not know what to do anymore in my frustration. But then I would have walked out of every praise set I’ve ever been to.
  I think the same goes for prayer sometimes, we go to prayer meetings and sit down, waiting for someone to “pray,” we listen to their words, and in our minds, we go “I liked the way that sounded” or “That was deep” or “That was blasphemous, how could they say that.” We in turn, will think more on what we say “to God” before we say it, as if God is waiting to hear our speech. God knows our hearts, he knows what we want to say before we say it. We have made mantras out of little phrases and words that we like and think sound good. Are we even TALKING to God anymore? Do we LISTEN? So why is it that we fall into this continual trap? I believe it’s because we’re so caught up in being pleasers of men.

  For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ. (Gal 1:10)

  Let us go deeper in our thinking and ask ourselves this question. Have we confined ourselves to a man pleasing Christianity? Doing what we unconsciously believe will please men, and not God, our creator? I say that it’s okay to confuse ourselves for a bit, for the sake of shaking our minds and souls, coming back to the reality that we were made for God and not for man. Let us praise God, pray to him, and live our lives differently than the “Christianity” people have put a box around. Let us live scandalously in the ways of Christ, putting all else aside for the one true thing that matters, our devotion to the Lord. I’m still falling down the rabbit hole, anyone care to join?

• Implications of the Gospel

  • October 5th, 2011
  • by William Poon

  

  So we just got back from our Fall Getaway. It was really a blessing to be able to get away from the whole school thing and spend time not only out in nature and with friends, but to also be able to spend some time away from distractions and focus on God. At the getaway, we heard from Pastor Drew Hyun from NYC preach a sermon on the implications of the gospel. I’ve actually heard this talk before two years ago and still remember it to this day. I took some notes and wanted to share them with you. I’ll give you an outline of it here and go deeper into each of the points in future posts. There are 6 points in total. I would totally recommend you write down these points, memorize them, and even put them in places you so that you can remind yourself of these truths everyday.

  For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. – 2 Cor 5:21

  It is because of the righteousness of God that we can have his grace and be saved through Christ. These points come out of what it means to be saved by the righteousness that we have in Christ. The first two points are about what does this righteousness mean for us personally. The last four are what this righteousness allows us to do.

  1. Fully Loved
  2. Fully Accepted
  3. Nothing to Hide
  4. Nothing to Prove
  5. Nothing to Fear/Lose
  6. Allowed to Make Mistakes

  I hope that these truths will help you to grow in your faith and relationship with Christ, by whom you’ve been freed to be able to truly live your life for him.

• The Assassination of the Son of God

  • September 28th, 2011
  • by Larry Lin

  I recently watched this Liam Neeson movie called Unknown. Warning: I’m about to spoil it.

  In the movie, there’s a guy named Martin who gets into an accident and ends up unconscious for four days. After waking up, he discovers that another man has taken his identity, and there are people out to kill him. It also doesn’t help that he had lost most of his memory.

  The only help he gets is from this young female taxi driver named Gina, who repeatedly saves his life. But after the death of a close friend of Gina’s, she realizes that they are dealing with heartless assassins, and she becomes frustrated with Martin for dragging her into the situation. She also mentions that her entire family had been killed off by similar men. [...more]