Asian American Youthworkers

Scripture Intake

• Bible Reading Plans
• Listener’s Bible
• Bible Memory Plan
• Text yourself the weekly memory verse

Prayer

• Luther’s A Simple Way to Pray
• Ken Boa’s Face to Face: Praying the Scriptures for Intimate Worship
• Daily prayer through Scripture
• Valley of Vision
• Valley of Vision webpage
• PocketMod Prayers and PDF

Journaling

• EmailFuture.com

Life

• Randy Frazee’s Making Room for Life
• Gary Thomas’s Seeking the Face of God
• C. J. Mahaney’s sermon on A Biblical Understanding of Sleep
• Clayton’s Story

Next Steps

• Don Whitney’s Simplify Your Spiritual Life [his website: biblicalspirituality.org]
• Bonus link: Ben Patterson interview

The news has been again been abuzz with another high profile affair.  Although these seem like monthly (weekly?) occurrences, should we be surprised?

In general, society is (properly) against extramarital sex.  However, from my perspective, there is much less scrutiny given to premarital sex.

The apparent logic is:

“Once you commit through marriage, you should be faithful to your spouse.  Before you have a spouse, monogamy is a nice idea, but unrealistic.”

However, viewed another way, there seems to be little difference between extramarital and premarital sex: both are having sex with someone other than your spouse.

• Michael Jackson
• Magic Johnson
• Michael Jordan
• Mary Jane (Spiderman)
• Others?

So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom. (Psalm 90:12)

There will come a day when your childhood stars die.  Today two such stars passed over the oblivion.  Did we really think they would always be there?  There is only One who is everlasting.  Why do we exult in the temporal at the expense of the eternal?

Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God. (Psalm 90:2)

[free album]

I haven’t used youth ministry curriculum much in the past, but have preferred to adapt books or other material. However, there is a lot of good material out there. Here are six that I found; I’m sure there are many others.

1. Student Life Bible Study – I like Student Life’s stuff — their videos on knowing the Word are particularly good.  This is a downloadable 6-year plan which aims to take the students through the entire Bible.
2. Lifeway’s Known – Also a downloadable 6-year plan  based on a “comprehensive strategy for student spiritual development.” [review by Tim Schmoyer here]
3. Through the Bible – Biblical Theology for youth!  12 lessons which aim to help students navigate the Big Picture.
4. Teach Me Your Way – The first youth curriculum put out by Desiring God.  One of my friends was key in this, and she is solid theologically so my hunch is that the content herein is excellent.
5. Group’s Grapple – We are trying the downloadable version of this for our Jr. High right now.
6. Teach the Text – “A God-focused curriculum for preschool and preteens”

Related, here is an excellent post critiquing some aspects of children’s curriculum (which is applicable to youth and adults).

I wish there was a chart comparing youth curriculums based on content, activities, and theology (like this one comparing marriage books).

Note: I realize this seems like a total scam, but I was referred to it by a fellow Youth Pastor who vouches for it.

1. The People: I love working with the generous, hard working, and gracious people of CCCI.
2. The Study: I love studying the Scriptures. Period.
3. The Autonomy: I love crafting teaching series, workshops, retreats, etc. — and I love that I have the autonomy to do this.
4. The Flexibility: I love being able to largely work wherever and whenever is most helpful.
5. The Location: I love being able to travel almost everywhere within 15 minutes.

1. No, Jesus wasn’t white.
2. No, God isn’t a Republican.
3. You yourself actually cannot merit your way to Heaven.
4. Christians aren’t all judgmental.
5. Christians actually do want to use their brains.

Don’t waste your summer!  Read a book and change your life!  Below are 10 books on a wide variety of topics (indicated in the parentheses).  A star (*) indicates that while I have not read every book below, people I trust have recommended that book.

1. Don’t Waste Your Life by John Piper (Life)
2. When Sinners Say “I Do”: Discovering the Power of the Gospel for Marriage* by Dave Harvey (Marriage)
3. Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life by Donald Whitney (Spirituality) [note: I really appreciate Dr. Whitney's practical yet deep writings on spirituality.  Check them all out!]
4. Questioning Evangelism* by Randy Newman (Evangelism)
5. Tactics: A Game Plan for Discussing Your Christian Convictions* by Gregory Koukl (Apologetics)
6. Building a Healthy Multi-ethnic Church: Mandate, Commitments and Practices of a Diverse Congregation by Mark DeYmaz (Church; Race; Leadership)
7. A Simple Way to Pray by Martin Luther (Spirituality; Old Book)
   
8. Humility: True Greatness by C. J. Mahaney (Life)
   
9. Stop Dating the Church by Joshua Harris (Church)
   
10. For the Love of God by D. A. Carson (Devotional) [update: PDFs of both volumes available for free here and here]

Want more?  See this overwhelming list of lists that I’ve collected over the years.

Playing before surgery

Before surgery; waiting

Playing with her gown

Putting on her gown

Waiting before surgery

You all betrayed me

Not very happy with IV post-surgery

Resting in Mommy’s arms

Resting post-surgery

Video of playing before surgery

a quickr pickr post

… the church is not dying in America; it is alive and well, but it is alive and well among the immigrant and ethnic minority communities and not among the majority white churches in the United States.

via The End of Christianity? – Soong-Chan Rah – God’s Politics Blog.

[source]

The last of my grandparents stepped into eternity this morning.

It wasn’t unexpected: years of Alzheimer’s had foreshadowed her earthly end.  As Carson said in an interview with Driscoll [video here], when someone has Alzheimer’s, you say your good-byes much before their actual death.

Although you did not (probably) know her, you would have appreciated her tenacity and persistent pleasantness.  That is, not only was she was enduring in life (she is, I believe, the last of her friends to pass away), but she was ever pleasant and never bitter — despite the challenges of her life including losing a brother at a young age and living as a widow for nearly a decade.  Whether the latter was a quality of her era (where politeness was more cherished) or a characteristic bestowed by the Lord I do not know, but I am thankful for her presence in my life.

The vibrancy of life she exhibited is now eclipsed by the utter magnitude of life she currently experiences through the One who gives true life, the One who said, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies.” (John 11:25 NIV)

Youth Ministry Today – YMToday.com – Top 10 Improv Games – In the spirit of Whose Line Is It Anyway?!

Posted using ShareThis

I still remember when I first read about Linux.  It was an article in the New York times in the Spring of 1999.  “A free operating system with low requirements?!  Amazing!” were my thoughts.

As a result I gathered some old Pentium 75s and ordered my first distro of Linux.  While everything didn’t really work out that well–even a simple GUI needs a little more horsepower than a P75, I was hooked on the idea.  [btw, here are some resources for lightweight Linuxes: one, two]

Over the years I’ve enjoyed watching the maturation of Linux, and I feel that for most people Linux is a very viable choice.  However, there are three reasons I don’t use Linux (and, trust me, I’ve tried).

1. DevonThink – I use this information manager to plan series and archive resources.  I like the fact that I can throw everything from documents to movies in it.  I wasn’t able to find anything similar on Linux (and, yes, I did look at LinuxAppFinder.com)
2. Accordance – I know  about the Sword project, but there is no way copyrighted materials (like good commentaries) will ever be free.  Also, I know I could run a good Windows Bible program in Linux, but I’d rather keep everything in one OS to keep things simple.
3. Keynote – I present one to three times a week and like to use multimedia.  As of yet, I haven’t found the OpenOffice suite to be as equipped to handle such multimedia.

I’m open to switching, but just can’t find suitable alternatives for these cornerstone programs.  But for regular web/email/word processing, I’d heartily recommend Linux.

What does the Gospel lived out look like? Like this. [HT]

via The Source: Tuesday, April 14, 2009.

A few weeks ago I read an amazing article written by a non Christian college student who went undercover as a believer on a missions trip with Liberty University, reaching out to the “lost” people partying during spring break at Daytona Beach, FL. After a few paragraphs I was hooked. I read every word of the lengthy testimonial. This amazing article not only provided incredible insight into the mind of an unbeliever, it proposed glaring questions about the success of this kind of evangelism methodology.I immediately sent the article to my friend Greg Stier from Dare2Share and called him a few minutes later. Greg is passionate about evangelism and I respect his opinion on the subject. After a short conversation I told Greg, “You have to write an article responding to this article, because this article demands answers.”

A few days later I had an 8-page response from Greg in my inbox.

[read more]

Last May my doctor informed me that my cholesterol was a bit high and that I should lose 5-10 pounds.  I’ve never really tried to lose weight and was actually excited that I could — with the imprimatur of my PCP and using cool tools like 50MillionPoundChallenge.com no less! — try my hand at losing weight.

I was already exercising regularly and not eating absurd amounts of junk food, so what else could I do?

I had come across this site a while before and decided to eschew carbs as a result.  In short, I went from eating a sandwich for lunch to eating a hearty salad for lunch.  This combined with a summer full of classes (read: eating little) and an short-term missions trip (read: eating even less) seemed to jump start fat-burning mechanisms in my body.

Currently my goal isn’t so much weight loss, but eating real food.  I want to reprogram my mind and attitude toward food, if you will.  Slowly but surely I see this happening: when I see a fastfood ad, I cringe rather than crave.

I’m excited that this summer we’ll be starting a garden and participating in a community-supported agriculture (CSA) farm.  In addition, I can’t wait until it gets warm enough to grill outside.

Theologically, this has raised two interesting points:

1. Food is incredibly important in culture and, as a result, the Scriptures.  (Indeed, I wrote an entire paper on it tracing that motif through the divine drama!)  But being faithful is more important — so I’m not going to be legalistic regarding this: if you serve me a cookie, I will probably eat it.  (cf. 1 Corinthians 8 for a similar argument)
2. Avoiding bread and the like is interesting given the importance of bread in the Christian faith: Christ is the Bread of Life and bread is one of the elements in communion.

Excurses: If carbs are in fact bad for you, and bread is such a strong motif in Scripture, does this discount the veracity of the Christian witness?

Two things can be said in response: First, I’m almost positive they had a much healthier diet then compared to Americans today.  The relatively small amount of bread they ate probably had a much smaller impact than the voluminous carbs and junk food intake of our society.  Second, Christ fully entered into our context so much that He used the existing metaphors of the day.  Since bread was such a staple, He used that without giving a nutrition lesson.  The use of wine in the Scripture would probably draw out simliar arguments: too much wine is bad for you, but wine still finds a place of prominence in Scripture.

Everything’s Amazing, Nobody’s Happy