Imagine a tightrope strewn between two peaks. Underneath is a gently sloping valley.

A timid young man sheepishly takes the first step out. This first step is the least risky of all remaining steps for he is close to the beginning and can simply turn around and abort the mission. Further, the valley slopes ever so gently that were he to fall, it would only be a few inches. The risk is small.

But with each step he takes the risk increases.

Suddenly (or so it seems), he passes the Point of No Return. This is the spot about halfway across where to turn back would be longer than going forward, and where the valley is so far below that to fall would mean certain death.

Not to be melodramatic (too late?), I feel that is where I am in life.

A second career at this point is nearly out of the question. And the responsibilities/risks in my current state only increase.

The sanest choice is simply to

take

the

next

step.

Relationship with Self

Dangers of being colorblind described in Why we need Asian Americans.

Relationship with Jesus

“Asians are 5% of the population.. yet less than 1/3 of 1% of executive positions.. less than 1% of board positions.. even though Asians are better educated and make more money than any other group in America…” [source]

Asian Americans’ Rising Suicide Rates

A Family Suicide Risk in US Asians?

Relationship with Parents

Amy Chua’s Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother

Following Jesus without Dishonoring Your Parents

Relationship with the World

1 in 7 marriages are interracial — nearly 15% [source]

Eric Liu’s The Accidental Asian

7,000 Asian American churches in USA; 15.2 M Asian Americans [source]

Stats

• 86 percent of Asian Americans are high school graduates.
• 49 percent of Asian Americans are college graduates.
• 20 percent of Asian Americans have graduate degrees (M.A., M.D., J.D., Ph.D.).
• Asian Americans have the highest median household income of any racial group ($64,238). [source]

Other Resources

• Gospel Empowered Authenticity and Transparency Dr. Paul Kim – [Download MP3]
• Asian American Christian Thought and Theological History: Pastoral Implications for Diversity and Innovation in a Multiracial Church – Stephen Um and Julius Kim [MP3; The Gospel Coalition 2011 Conference in Chicago]
• Many more books and articles

IMG_0160.MOV Watch on Posterous

Sent from my iPod

Spoken word on singleness.

[ht: Dave C.]

Three thoughts:

1. How did they technically do this? How did they get the wireless mics to transmit that far? Further, how did they sync their voices to the DJ?  (Perhaps an in-ear monitor — or they are just that good!)
2. Notice the bodyguard that joins the procession at the beginning.
3. There is no substitute for free flowing — kinda like preaching without notes?

I had the same feeling when I heard of tableproject.org today.  It reminds me of mychurch.org, onthecity.org, beonebody.com, and some aspects of churchcommunitybuilder.com and other ChMSes.

No doubt there are differences between those listed above, but it will be interesting to watch how churches respond to all of these choices.

[update: related post on some of the above and another]

Just read an article on teaching 8th graders Augustine’s Confessions. Guess we were a little early.

[article link: http://www.scriptoriumdaily.com/2011/01/26/augustines-confessions-for-middle-schoolers/]

First, I asked Lapides whether it’s possible that Jesus merely fulfilled the prophecies by accident. Maybe he’s just one of many throughout history who have coincidentally fit the prophetic fingerprint.

“Not a chance,” came his response. “The odds are so astronomical that they rule that out. Someone estimated that the probability of just eight prophecies being fulfilled is one chance in one hundred million billion. That number is millions of times greater than the total number of people who’ve ever walked the planet!“

He calculated that if you took this number of silver dollars they would cover the state of Texas to a depth of two feet. If you marked one silver dollar among them and then had a blindfolded person wander the whole state and bend down to pick up one coin, what would be the odds he’d choose the one that had been marked?” With that he answered his own question: “The same odds that anybody in history could have fulfilled just eight of the prophecies.”

I had studied this same statistical analysis by mathematician Peter W. Stoner when I was investigating the messianic prophecies for myself. Stoner also estimated that the probability of fulfilling forty-eight prophecies was one chance in a trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion! Our minds can’t comprehend a number that big. This is a staggering statistic that’s equal to the number of minuscule atoms in a trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, billion universes the size of our universe!

“The odds alone say it would be impossible for anyone to fulfill the Old Testament prophecies,” Lapides concluded. “Yet Jesus—and only Jesus throughout all of history—managed to do it.”