Our 11 year-old son Julian has been away at a summer camp down in NC for a whole month. He’ll be back at the end of this week. This is the longest he’s ever been away from home. His mother and I miss him but he seems to be having a great time so that’s good. He’s been writing letters a couple times a week. He has my decidedly bad handwriting scrawl and instead of writing “Dear Mom and Dad” he addresses us in the letter as “Parents” but it’s cute to see him describe his experiences. He’s having a blast amen to that.
At first I was worried about him going down there: whether he’d make new friends, whether mean kids would pick on him, whether he’d get homesick, whether he’d be safe, whether he’d make good decisions and not buckle under peer pressure. He’s an only child and perhaps because of this we’ve noticed he’s had difficulty in the past interacting with kids his own age. Kids acting silly like, well, kids sometimes frustrates him into having little meltdowns. But he’s got to be able to grow in those difficult situations. We can’t and shouldn’t interfere by trying to shield or protect him from every little thing that comes along.
We’re not done raising him he’s still just a boy. But this time apart is just a glimpse of when the day comes where our role as parents will naturally diminish and he’ll want to be his own man, left to find his own way in life according to his judgment and decisions he makes. So we try to raise him as best we can to respect himself and others and get along, to love and fear the Lord and make decisions reflecting as much. The rest we leave to God.
What occurred to me is that this journey is similar to our experience as Christians. As Christian parents or in a given ministry leadership role such as Sunday school teachers or oikos leaders, God has placed certain people in our care to shepherd them through their faith journey. To be a small part of someone coming to Faith for the first time is a beautiful thing. But there are many forces of this world that seek to undermine, discourage and distract them from their faith journey. We worry and fret over their well-being and want them to experience nothing but God’s love. But as we are all children of God and the whole world is under the control of the evil one we realize we cannot protect them from every dimension of spiritual battle. We are used by God to do His good work but at the end of the day we accept that their lives are in God’s hands.
There is a second part of the title verse of this column. When Jesus sent out his disciples in Matthew 10 as “sheep among wolves” to preach the good news he also cautioned them to be as “shrewd as snakes and innocent as doves.” I get the innocent part as being pure and Christ-like, but to be shrewd suggests there is a level of wisdom and discernment born over time and experience. His disciples were wise to the world but no longer of it. Perhaps the trials and tribulation one endures seeking Christ are part and parcel of the cross we bear daily. Amen to that.

From Pastor Mark’s Heart
August 9, 2015

Lots of babies being born lately. In the past year or so alone we’ve probably had at least a dozen or more newborn’s welcomed into this world in the English congregation alone. Our children are truly gifts and joyful blessings from God. But with parenting comes a great responsibility of raising them. There is a verse in today’s sermon passage about how we as Christians are storing up our inheritance in Christ by enduring the challenges in this lifetime. It got me thinking about inheritance and the “spiritual” inheritance we as parents are imparting upon our children in this life.
In our society inheritance is a firmly established custom and practice. Complex Wills & Estate laws exist to ensure and promote one’s ability to leave behind whatever material wealth one has amassed in life to one’s children and loved ones. It’s natural for a parent to want to provide a better future for their children than they had growing up. But as Christians there is the challenge of what we are bestowing upon our children in terms of our Christian Faith.
It’s fairly straightforward to assess whatever money and assets that remain after one’s death. Those materials things are carefully accounted for as the inheritance children receive. But in terms of spiritual inheritance, our individual Christian faith is not something that we can simply bottle up as an asset to be presented to our children after we pass on. The spiritual inheritance our children receive from us is a lifetime’s work of our love for the Lord expressed in our love for our children.
We receive unconditional love and forgiveness as children of God and yet condition our approval and acceptance of our children as we live vicariously through their successes and failures. God never required us to “earn” his love and acceptance. He just wants to have a relationship with us. We spend a lifetime killing ourselves amassing material things for the sake of providing for our children’s future security when what they needed most was to be loved. What they needed most was for us to stop for a moment and spend time with them as a witness of our love and faith in the Lord to provide all things.
One of my favorite passages is Psalm 127:1-7. Unless the Lord is present our labor is in vain. For

"It is in vain that you rise up early and go late to rest,
eating the bread of anxious toil;
For he gives to his beloved sleep.”

From Pastor Mark’s Heart
May 18, 2014

So the announcement was made last Sunday by the Pastoral Search Committee that Pastor Neil has been designated as NCFC English Congregation’s Acting Senior Pastor. This announcement was warmly received by the congregation as a whole. And judging by the congregational comments made at the reception following service many had thought he should’ve been made senior pastor all along and wondered why it had taken this long for the decision to be made.
I think the answer to that speaks to Pastor Neil’s sincere faith and deep-seated humility above and beyond any other worldly concerns. He never campaigned for nor positioned himself for any such lofty titles or authority. For the last two decades, he always simply wished to serve the Lord faithfully by thoughtfully and carefully shepherding those placed in his care throughout the years. He embraced the privilege to serve the Lord in the many various roles he served as deacon, elder and now pastor so selflessly without any regard for the consequence or sacrifice to himself.  This is a tremendous witness of the true measure of the man. Indeed, at the reception “pledges” of support and allegiance were made to him by those who held such high respect and admiration for him. He has been essential to our spiritual growth. It must’ve been heart-warming for Pastor Neil to receive back just a little of the warmth and support he and his wife and family have graciously given out over the years. Without him this church would no doubt look very different then and now.
I count myself as one of the many people Pastor Neil has encouraged and nurtured along the way. Although I have not known him for as long as many in our congregation have I feel as though I have a good sense of his character having witnessed the sheer effort, time and energy he invested in this church from the time I was a lay congregation member to now serving with him as pastoral staff.  The patience and grace he demonstrated while serving under strong leadership in previous years was truly remarkable.
And while we as a congregation may profess our commitment to Pastor Neil as now senior pastor, what I love most about that gesture is that it was never calculated or demanded by Pastor Neil. It’s my sense that his ministry was never about getting people to draw closer to him but rather, through his guidance and encouragement, we drew closer to the Lord. God gives us our will and purpose in life if we choose to follow it and there is no doubt He places special persons in our paths to prepare the way. Pastor’s Neil’s reluctant election to step into this senior pastor role as God has called him to, and once again set aside his personal comfort zone and desires, makes him eminently qualified for the position. amen to that.

From Pastor Mark’s Heart
April 6, 2014

So when Ed Boasso was the guest speaker at our church a couple weeks ago he was mentioning that in the last two years or so he found himself falling in love all over again with Christ Jesus. He was experiencing Jesus again through reading of Scripture and through fellowship and though praise and prayer. It made him both giggle and cry. I really liked that idea, that it’s ok for us to allow ourselves to be vulnerable emotionally. That we can experience Christ and reach a point of true authentic intimacy with Him, engaging Him in our heart and mind and relating to Him in our own way as the Holy Spirit leads us.
I think the challenge for us as Christians in spreading the Gospel to others is that there is an initial intellectual pursuit of God people have towards religion that can be a major hurdle to overcome in order to get them to experience Christ in a more personal intimate way. For example, I had a recent conversation with a client of mine. After a legal consultation about her court case the topic of conversation turned to religion. She was a non-Christian and proceeded to state, among other things, that she didn’t think the Bible was “fair” to everyone such as women. She believed in God but didn’t necessarily think any one particular religion completely articulated God as a higher power. This is a common occurrence, where people see the various religions in the world, such as Muslim, Buddhism, Christianity, and then conclude based upon their observations that they’re all talking about the same divine entity just in different aspects.
My response to her was that we have to be careful when we attempt to describe just who God is based upon the limitations of our human perceptions. It wouldn’t be a very awesome and powerful God if He’s reduced down to our worldly observations. In that sense God is unknowable to us as mere humans.
This is what I mean about how our minds create barriers in our attempts to draw closer to God. Non-Christians want the Bible to match up with what they see in the world according to what modern science and societal values have evolved into. They want the theology to make logical sense to them. They don’t see the Bible as a means to an ends of experiencing God but rather the end itself. They don’t see how God wants them to draw closer to Him through the Bible, not merely draw closer to the Bible. God wants us to draw closer to him through the fellowship, through praise and prayer.
I know that there are those in our congregation who initially struggled with the intellectual pursuit of Christ but eventually experienced incredible breakthroughs. Their initial intellectual understanding of God through Scripture was merely a gateway that opened up to a greater sense of God’s love for them. To see how they have been transformed and now have a genuine love and understanding of the Lord is a beautiful thing. That’s gotta come from God. amen to that.

From Pastor Mark’s Heart
February 23, 2014

There was an article this week from a church leadership website I subscribe to that discussed the intent of Sunday preaching. A visiting church consultant asked a church leadership team what the desired end purpose of preaching each Sunday was. Someone answered “Evangelism.” The consultant answered “Wrong!”
Another said “Teaching.” . . . “Wrong”
Worship? Fellowship? Ministry? Service?
“Wrong! Wrong! Wrong! Wrong!”
The consultant’s answer? “To bring people into an ‘experience’ with God.”
As I read that question in the article I was answering in my head “To draw people closer to God.” So it appears that my own response is somewhat aligned with that of this consultant in the article (whew). But I don’t mention the article’s conclusion because I necessarily agree or disagree with its points. But I do think it’s worth mentioning for the mere premise that not only is there an intentional purpose by a given preacher but there is equally an opinion and expectation by the listening congregation receiving the sermon message. I began to wonder if the two perspectives between the preacher and congregation are always in harmony of if they are ever in tension with one another.
Surely for many people at NCFC the above answers such as worship, evangelism and teaching are what they would answer as far as what preaching should be achieving. I would agree they are very important and worthwhile endeavors to strive for during service. So I can imagine it must annoy or slightly offend that some church consultant out there would say this is “Wrong.” I’m not here to debate those points or ask anyone to take sides. I bring this up to emphasize the point that we are all uniquely created and have distinct a separate personalities. We respond differently both emotionally and spiritually during service. As such we all will also relate differently to God as the Spirit leads us. For some, praise worship is a powerful moving experience that touches their hearts. But for others the intellectual theology of a sermon is what resonates mostly with them. And for others the fellowship and sense of community the service provides is how they “experience” God. And then when you combine the individual unique strengths and giftings of the preacher to this mix, why then you get my point: Sunday service can be a very layered and complex experience for all present.
We may make it that way, but God is not limited by any of this whatsoever. Although the means by which we are in communion with the Lord varies across different emotional and intellectual spectrums, God has the power and capacity to reach us where we are at in our lives. In His own timing and in His own way our hearts and minds are gradually transformed.
Perhaps there is a way in which to tie those responses in with the answer that the desired end purpose of preaching is “To bring people into an ‘experience with God.” Regardless of how, when and why people relate to Sunday service either emotionally or intellectually,  the important thing is that through each of those experiences along the way God speaks to us. And as a result we draw closer to Him. Hopefully there is harmony within that shared effort. Amen to that.

From Pastor Mark’s Heart
January 19, 2014

Wow, what a weekend with Dr. Shamblin that was last week. He was soft-spoken and laid- back yet you could definitely sense his strong conviction in the truths he shared that had been drawn from years and years in the ministry. He had his own unique ability to establish trust and authority as a speaker in a relatively short time with us in order to confront us with true insight and wisdom about our life struggles even within our Christian faith.
I especially liked his perspectives in two areas of our lives we often times struggle to make sense of: One, the significance of being in a spiritual “wilderness”;  and two, does God’s timing for exercising our spiritual gifting first involve being in the wilderness? I particularly liked his comments about how we should anticipate and understand the ministry challenges of being “sent into a mess” or else we will risk becoming discouraged or confused, or we will rationalize or spiritualize it as an attack to be resisted. There are plenty of instances in the Bible of persecution and suffering for those who followed Christ. We have a tendency to prefer to believe God’s discipleship today does not include those same sacrifices, humility and denial of self.
I’ve never before ever heard anyone say that one’s journey into a barren wasteland is God’s way of discipling and maturing us. We seldom ever associate difficult challenging times of crisis as being God’s intended purpose but as Dr. Shamblin cautioned us, “do not cut short your wilderness time with God by rebuking the devil and blaming man for being in the desert.”
Our human nature causes us to blame others for our lot in life rather than stop and embrace the experience and consider how it may be God at work. As Dr. Shamblin noted, it’s only once we are broken to ourselves that true birthing springs forth from barrenness.
Dr. Shamblin was noticeably emotional when he was discussing spiritual giftings. He had mentioned how earlier in his ministry he was in such great demand (his speaking engagements were at one point booked 3 years in advance and he travelled 9 months out of the year). But he now seemed to be preaching from regret over how one can tread on one’s spiritual giftings without realizing how empty and short-sighted that can be when no real foundation has been laid to truly develop and shape those giftings for God’s further purpose. Dr. Shamblin commented he had seen it many times where people were impatient in the exercising of their gifts and resisted the thought of being placed in the wilderness by God in order to be shaped and molded by Him.
It occurred to me that there are times when our frustrations over our current life condition are a result of our resistance to God’s (tough love) discipleship and we only perpetuate that cycle by rebuking it as a spiritual battle. Hmmmm, makes me wanna go rethink a lot of stuff about myself. Amen to that.

From Pastor Mark’s Heart
November 10, 2013

My wife attended a week-long mediation training course last month in order for her as a judge to effectively mediate settlements among adversarial parties to reduce trials. She shared a very interesting statistic regarding church that came up incidentally in her training. During one of the sessions the instructor was discussing the notion that people have certain biases that influence their future behavior. For example, people are conditioned with certain (usually negative) attitudes towards police or lawyers based upon a prior personal experience or what they see on TV. So a good mediator should recognize that people may come in to a settlement conference with pre-conditioned attitudes.
The instructor opened up the discussion by asking the class if anyone could give an example of a circumstance where people are already pre-conditioned to act a certain way. Apparently someone raised their hand and half-jokingly answered “church.” Surprisingly the instructor said not only was it a very good example, but he went on to add surveys have shown that church was the most frequent response. In other words, church service is the number one place people are most often conditioned to TUNE OUT! When my wife told me that it made me just shake my head. Gee, I know pastors will occasionally make a self-deprecating joke that no one may be paying attention when they preach but I didn’t realize the actual harsh reality of it.
I’m not offended or upset about it. I assume most people by and large are actually listening. I may be a little frustrated but if some people are tuning out during a sermon, we as pastors need to at least acknowledge this dynamic without getting judgmental or condescending. Many seminaries now train their students on contemporary church issues such as this. As a culture we are in a post-modern age of mass communication and information. Internet, smart phones, tweeting/texting and Facebook are all common media by which we divert most of our time and energy. Our attention spans have been reduced to short sound-bite snippets of information and then we’re quickly on to the next thing. Prolific online sermons of famous pastors and Bible studies place even less emphasis on the local pastor. We are therefore conditioned to receiving information in a very condensed impersonal manner. Studies have even been conducted on the human brain confirming that the average attention span is about 10 minutes. Needless to say this does not lend itself well to a pastor standing in front of a Sunday congregation and preaching to them face-to-face for 45 minutes.
So where does this leave us? As a congregation apparently some of you are already eyeing the door (or your smart phones) by the sermon opening before the pastor even feels like he’s just getting going. You may even be reading this column while I’m preaching today’s sermon. sigh.
Your response to all of this might be that people would be willing to stop and listen and respond more if the pastor was simply better at preaching and teaching. I agree the spiritual gifting will vary from pastor to pastor and that some may have a greater ability to preach than others. But my frustration in all of this is that it seems a tad unfair for this one-way judgment to always be pointed towards the pastor. I know I have a relatively short experience in the pastoral ministry and a much longer experience as a lay congregation member.  But my (kind and gentle) pushback as a pastor is that God forbid, no amount of entertaining bells and whistles that the media world feeds us ought ever distract from a Gospel message that sustains, comforts and provides with eternal gifts of Love and Faith. Perhaps wishful thinking on my part, but the Sanctuary could be just that- a safe harbor sanctuary of peace and communion with the Lord, free from distractions of this world. Amen to that.

From Pastor Mark’s Heart
May 26, 2013

There was a recent story in the news about a couple in PA whose 8-month old child died from medical complications. It’s always tragic in and of itself whenever parents lose a child. However, in this instance it’s even more complicated and heart-wrenching. The parents are members of a fundamentalist Christian church that believes in faith healing only. That is, they believe it is a definite sin to trust in medical help and pills. A quote from a sermon from that church’s website:
“Many profess faith in Christ, but do not act in faith on His Atonement Blood for healing, protection, provisions, and other life issues.”
They believe the Bible does not specifically permit Christians to use doctors or other modern medicine. They quote a number of Bible passages where doctors are referenced as being utterly useless or unable to cure sickness and interpret that in part as justification to reject medical treatment.
The infant died after a week of diarrhea and breathing complications. What’s even more shocking is that the parents were already on probation for involuntary manslaughter for allowing another one of their toddler children to die under similar circumstances 4 years prior. Both children died from minor medical complications that modern medicine could’ve easily cured. The parents instead chose fervent prayer which did not result in their children’s healing but in their deaths. It’s tragic those children never had any input as to the choices their parents made in this way on their behalf. Their 7 other remaining children have since been placed in foster care as a result of this tragedy.
One is tempted to be outraged at the perceived extreme neglect of the parents in this case. But to be fair, the parents were considered loving, caring and otherwise responsible parents. It was just that their religious convictions ran so deep in that they were taught to believe in Christ’s healing alone to save their children. The news article describes them as being deeply distraught over what is now the second loss of a child.
We’re confronted by two issues here: faithfully interpreting Scripture and also reconciling modern science with that same Scripture which was written over two thousand years ago. Most doctrines of biblical interpretation include the principles of historical context and common sense. For example, slavery existed in first century culture but we don’t tolerate it now. When Apostle Paul wrote about slavery in Ephesians he was not condoning slavery but attempting to emphasize the obedience a slave has towards his master as being similar to the obedience we should have towards Christ Jesus. Similarly, to interpret select Bible passages literally might mean that we are permitted to take an eye for an eye, or that we should all gouge out our eyes or cut off our hands if they cause us to sin.
The portrayal of physicians in Scripture as being useless or unable to cure sickness should not be interpreted as an outright rejection of medical treatment. In our 21st century culture we have the benefit of modern internal medicine that did not exist then. Doctors are capable of more than resorting to 1st century ritual and folk lore home remedies. To disregard life-saving medical treatment today is tantamount to a person refusing to eat because they’re relying on the Lord to provide physical sustenance. There was another case recently where a child died because the child was choking on a piece of banana but suffocated while the mother was gathering people around the child to pray.
These parents also disregarded state laws protecting our children from harm. They chose to disregard the Bible passages in Romans 13 and 1 Peter 2 that require us to obey the government and laws of the land. The parents’ disregard of the law will likely result in prison time not only for the violation of their current probation but also for the new offense. And the remaining 7 surviving children will be without parents and won’t likely be raised together in foster care. If an adult chooses to live his or her life according to such so-called fundamental beliefs then so be it. But I refuse to believe God intended for us to interpret Scripture in a way that results in tragic consequences to our children.

From Pastor Mark’s Heart
May 5, 2013

Pastor Jamie’s sabbatical has allowed the pastors more opportunities to preach more which is a privilege but an enormous challenge. Whatever so-called preaching skills we think we have from public speaking or even from seminary training matters not when it comes to truly speaking God’s word from the pulpit. I’m reminded one of our pastors once said the main priority of a pastor when preaching is to “get out of the way of the message.” Now I think I understand what he meant by that. There’s a balance between preaching according to what we think our training and life experiences guide us to but also to be discerning to what the Spirit is convicting us in our heart and mind to share with the congregation. Pastors each have their unique preaching style and personality but I constantly strive to remind myself that it’s not about me or my effort but about what God is doing.
A journal entry about Pastor Jamie’s 4/17/11 sermon also comes to mind. He preached then that sometimes we rely too much on the pastor to cater to our spiritual needs and wants without ever allowing ourselves to be confronted by God, who’s been present all along. It’s good and proper to have a level of respect and deference for the preacher. But sometimes we do have the tendency to expect an encounter with God through the pastor’s sermon when really He’s waiting to draw near to us all throughout the entire service. Our praise worship is not mere incidental background music to open the service but a time where God touches our hearts and minds through music in a way that goes beyond what the spoken word can describe.
Today we take Communion. This is another opportunity to come before God in confession and remembrance of how much God loves us and how desperately we need Him through his Son Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior. No other person is necessary to draw closer to God. It’s because of this carpenter’s son that we are free to rejoice and celebrate together in fellowship. Amen to that.

From Pastor Mark’s Heart
March 3, 2013

Recently During Bedtime Prayers with 9-yr Old Son:
Me: . . . and Lord I pray that I will be a better daddy tomorrow than I was today, and I thank you that I was a better daddy today than I was yesterday and I thank you for . . .
Son: uh, wait a minute, you weren't a better daddy today than you were yesterday.
Me: oh . . . sorry. (wife chuckling in the background)
I posted this the other day on facebook. It happened several weeks ago but has been yet another reminder to me of my ongoing personal journey of redemption and transformation. You gotta love how children can be so honest about their feelings- “Out of the mouths of babes” is the expression I think. I respect and also love my son Julian’s perspective.  He keeps me in check. I also think I have a lot to make up for.
You see for the first 5 years or so of his life I was very hard on him. In short, I was never abusive but in my mind I was giving him discipline and life lessons all in the name of “good parenting.” In actuality I was impatient, quick to anger and utterly crushing him and he was a sensitive little kid to begin with. This was the pervasive subtle sin in my life that had been ongoing for far too long.
Part of my testimony I’ve shared in recent years has been the realization that I was blind for so many years to certain deep-seated anger issues (mine were related to being an adopted Korean) that threatened my relationship with my son, my wife, friendships and anyone else I ever cared about in life. Well, I was so pathetically prideful and ignorant that it took 40- plus years and 3 years of seminary but I finally saw the light. I truly praise God for that, better late than never.
One time last year Julian and I were talking and I asked him what his earliest childhood memory was. I expected him to say something fun and positive like when we played baseball or when he learned to ride a bike. Far from it. He proceeded to tell me it was that one time (when he was about 4) and Mom was away for the weekend and it was just him and I at home. For whatever reason I got so angry with him that he had to stay in his room on his red racecar bed and he ended up eating a bowl of ramen for dinner sitting on his bed trembling in tears. Man, that just hurt when he told me that was one of his childhood memories. But I have to live with that and maybe I ought to as a reminder (and penance) of how destructive I acted towards the very things I held dear.
The only reason I can openly share these embarrassing moments is that I feel an assurance that God is now in greater control of my life. I’ve seen how my life was going walking apart from the Lord and it wasn’t pretty. I can’t undo the harm I caused to my relationships in the past, but by God I can allow myself to be broken of that awful perpetuating life condition from here on out.
I’ve since apologized to my son many, many times for daddy’s bad behavior, especially for the red racecar bed incident. We can at least talk about that now and even laugh it off a little too. Thank God that children do seem to have a greater capacity to forgive than we adults. But as I’ve learn from Scripture (1 John 3) I can apologize all I want with words but Julian won’t truly appreciate my love for him I received from the Lord unless I strive to provide “good parenting” with patience and grace over time through my actions and in truth. Amen to that.

From Pastor Mark’s Heart
 February 24, 2013