Superhua

Tomorrow we start our YouPick sermon series.  From mid-December 2008 to mid-January 2009 all were invited to submit and rate questions on our website.  The top four questions would then form the basis for the four sermons in February 2009.

This concept is not original.  :-)

Mark Driscoll at Mars Hill did something similar one year ago:

So did Southeast Christian Church [swag here]. 

Special thanks to Fivestar module for helping make this happen!

You can follow along here.

Gmail Bliss, originally uploaded by superhua.

It is difficult to describe how peaceful this feels.

Thank you to Inbox Zero.

If you were forced to leave your current field of work, into which field would you venture?

Overall I enjoy my job immensely.  But if I had to do it all over and find a different field of work, here are three that come to mind:

1. Physician – No doubt the life of the 21st century physician is difficult and places a tremendous strain on the marriage, family, and life, but physicians are able to meet people’s needs in a way that few others can.  I know we were so thankful for the good medical care we received during Micah and Elia’s birth.  A good physician and nurse makes all the difference in the world.
2. Chemist – Although I’ve only taken one or two chemistry courses, I enjoyed the balanced mixture of math and science found in chemistry.  In addition, the opportunity to experiment and explore would be fulfilling.
3. Flower Delivery Man – Most people are fairly happy and thankful to receive flowers; why not be that harbinger of joy?

Two fields I would deliberately eschew:

1. Business – I’m thankful that so many of my friends enjoy business because we need good people like them in that field.  I simply cannot see myself in that setting, however.
2. IT – Although I enjoy technology, I enjoy it as a hobby and not as a profession.  IMHO, everything changes when it becomes your livelihood.

Grace, Micah, and Elia were sick this week.  This is how we felt about it:

See here for a response.

For a while I’ve been contemplating switching from the NIV to the ESV for preaching and teaching.  Increasingly I’m finding their more literal rendering (chart) more satisfying to bring out the nuances of the text.

For example, while reading Mark 5 I noticed the theme of begging or entreating in vv. 10, 12, 17, and 18.  Both the NASB and the ESV use the same word consistently (NASB uses “entreat” and the ESV uses “beg”).  As a result, one can easily trace that theme.

The NIV, however, uses “beg” three times and then “plead” once.  Why?  Does this not obfuscate this thematic thread?  (Certainly, context shapes meaning and the Greek word behind “beg” can mean different things in different contexts–but because all of this occurs in the same chapter, it would seem prudent to use the same word throughout!)

By teaching from the NIV one is forced to operate on a thematic level rather than on the word level.  

I’m not trying to hate on the NIV–it has served me well and can be very helpful — in general, I appreciate how they’ve tried to make Ephesians a bit more readable.  :-)  But I just wish they were consistent in their renderings of the same words in the same pericope.

Bonus: Fascinating (at least to me ) how much the beg motif is found in this chapter as compared to the entire book of Mark:

A number of years ago my friend (who was studying at Dallas Theological Seminary) recounted how his preaching classes highly emphasized the memorization of sermons. For some odd reason that blew my mind: How could anyone memorize a sermon?!

I tried it a few times and somehow got through it. The freedom from preaching without notes was only achieved through countless extra hours of slaving over the outline and was always a bit tenuous–as if I was walking along the edge of a knife the entire sermon.

Although I shelved the idea, it continue to linger in the back of my mind.

Finally, in the Spring of 2008 I read two books on preaching which both advocated preaching without notes. Further, I took an American church history course in which we discussed the progression of Jonathan Edward’s own preaching. As I understand it, although Edwards began with strict manuscripts, he eventually moved to a much more freeform style as he saw the effect and power of the Holy Spirit. (You might remember the Edwards was part of the First Great Awakening.)

I was sold.

After preaching without notes for a number of months, I cannot imagine going back. The freedom to do away with a lecturn and look the congregation in the eye is priceless. The connection is much more palpable.

I used to mind map out my sermons–and probably would if I was guest preaching in a different setting. However, I have found that if I carefully organize my slides (of which I can preview the next slide using a dual-monitor setup in Keynote–the same can be done in Powerpoint), I get enough of a prompt in case I forget.

If you preach, I encourage you to try preaching without notes.

Working on the background of the church website; view and vote now.

In terms of race:

1. Do you think of me as Asian or Caucasian?
2. Do you think of Obama as African-American or Caucasian?