ST. LOUIS, MO — The snow has spiced the ground like salt, and the temp is nine degrees below freezing. I’m cold. But God isn’t.

And He is gathering 16,000+ here for the Urbana 09 Student Missions Conference to hear from leading practitioners and theologians about what He is doing throughout the world.

If you’re Asian American or Asian Canadian and here at Urbana, there are some gatherings I want to make you aware of:

Asian North American Ministers’ Gathering (co-sponsored by InterVarsity and L2 Foundation). On Wednesday, December 30 at 2-2:45p, pastors and ministry leaders are gathering to discuss the potential for church-parachurch partnerships to bless cities throughout the country. We’re meeting at the Kingsbury room in the Renaissance Grand Hotel, and Rev. Sabrina Chan, DJ Chuang and myself are co-leading.

Pan Asian North American Student Lounge. If you just want to receive prayer, grab some bubble tea, connect to the internet, or just kick up your feet and unwind, this is a great place for you. Throughout our time at Urbana, the Lounge will host special guests and presentations, so don’t miss out! It’s located at the Holiday Inn Select.

And you can find me leading a seminar on True Story on Monday, December 28 at 2p — which is also an Urbana book of the day! — and on Tuesday, December 29 at 2p on “Decision-Making and the Will of God” for the International Students Track.

Hope to see you here!

I’ve been invited to lead a workshop at the National Outreach Convention 2009 on The Big Story. And Tell It Slant is the first stop on the NOC’s blog tour. They’ll post some questions, and I’ll reply to their questions and any that you might have throughout the day. So ask away!

I’m excited that Christianity Today picked up The Big Story! Yeah, that’s me on the left at La Jolla Cove.

Here’s a link to an interview that appeared in the July 2008 issue. They just posted it online today, but they didn’t include the graphics that are found in the print version. (Update: Christianity Today has graciously given me permission to post the print article online in a PDF format, “just this once.” A big thanks to CT, and I’m glad you’ll get to see the great art direction behind the article. Right-click here to download it.

You can also see a three-minute version of The Big Story in action, and if you’re still interested, you can also take a look at its sequel.

A huge thanks goes out to Andy Crouch for the interview. And for those even more interested, I’m also interviewed at an online magazine called StudentSoul.

Here’s something great. InterVarsity’s Southeast Region — which includes Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, and Lousiana — adapted The Big Story for their context. It’s the same core message, but with a different flavor and much tweaking and tinkering. I’m envious that they had the luxury to create an eight-and-a-half minute version — they can therefore fit a lot more. This video may appeal to those who wanted more biblical language in their presentation of the Christian faith.

Kudos to Eric Peterson and his team for creating this. And the original version can be found here.

My pastor asked me to give the Good Friday talk. And I’m thankful.

For one thing, it forced me take a closer look at the Christian calendar. I grew up in a Korean immigrant church in the suburbs of Seattle. Sure, it was Presbyterian, but it was also marked by a Korean spirituality: they spoke in tongues, believed in prophecy, and prayed with vigor. In that way, it was much like a charismatic church, except that they sang more hymns and the crazy stuff never showed up on a Sunday. But it definitely wasn’t a typical Presbyerian church.

In terms of the Christian calendar, the Big Two always made it in: Christmas and Easter. I mean, how else were we going to satisfy our materialistic urges, right? But I didn’t know about Advent and Lent until I went to college. And Pentecost, the birthday of the Christian community, got no mention. Shouldn’t we feel sorry for poor ol’ Church? Imagine how you’d feel if someone forgot your birthday every year?

I only learned about Maundy Thursday recently. I had to look it up on Wikipedia. The day before Good Friday, Jesus and his students were having their last meal together, and he wanted to them to become the kind of community he’d always envisioned and lived out. So he gave them a new command: to love one another. That’s where Maundy comes from. It’s from the Latin, mandatum which means “command.” It’s where we get the word “mandate,” but Mandate Thursday or Command Thursday just doesn’t ring off the ear like Maundy.

So it was Good Friday and I was still praying and racking my brain for one passage to teach. (I like to teach out of one passage instead of many: you can only have so many plates spinning before they all hit the floor.) I needed a passage that would speak about Good Friday without jumping ahead to Easter Sunday. That’s hard to do.

Then a story laid itself down in front of my path of thinking: a few years ago, I was up in the Sierra Madre foothills at a Passionist retreat center. The grounds are hidden in a residential neighborhood, but after driving through the gate and up the road, the grounds are idyllic and well-manicured. It’s tear-jerkingly gorgeous at sunset. (At night, however, the rooms and hallways can be a little scary: sculptures and crucifixes of bleeding Jesuses hang everywhere. It felt like a scene in a bad horror film.) But the place is perfect to spend time in reflection. I spent two weeks there, learning about the connections between spirituality and ministry, because it’s amazing how quickly those two strands which were meant to be intertwined often become severed.

One afternoon, the priest (we called him “Father,” at any rate) that ran the center walked us through the Stations of the Cross. I’ve never heard of them before, but they’re supposed to help us reflect on the Passion of Christ. The Latin passio means to suffer, and we were to think about his sufferings (Ah, it clicked: a Passionist retreat center.)

We walked up to the first station: white bricks protruded from a red brick background to make a portico. This represented the courtroom. On the left of the portico is a stone relief of Jesus being condemned by Pilate. The priest made some reflections about this scene, and then ended with a question, “Where have you felt condemned?” And then he gave us some silence.

But, shouldn’t we reflect on Christ’s condemnation? I thought.

We followed a path through the grove to the second station: a similar red brick structure, except in the middle, it only had a stone relief of Jesus. He’s given a cross to carry. And after some reflections the Priest asked, “What burdens are you carrying today?” Then more silence.

But, isn’t this about Jesus?

Then we walked silently along to the next station, and this time the relief portrayed Jesus falling for the first time. And after some reflections, the Priest asked, “What are the ways you’ve fallen?”

And finally, I got it: we weren’t just being thankful for what Christ has done, we were participating with Christ in what he was doing.

As a protestant, when I watched, “The Passion of the Christ,” I sat in the theater after most everyone else filed out, shaking and sobbing with gratitude for what Jesus has done. He died for me, so that I might have life. But this movie, at its core, is a Catholic movie. Mel Gibson patterned his film after the Stations of the Cross. So when many Catholics watch it, they are connecting their own lives with the Passion of Jesus. In Christ, they die. And both views are true.

I still use other passages in the talk, but Luke 9:23 becomes the core one. In light of the Stations, it started to make much more sense: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will save it.”

Good Friday isn’t just a memorial, but an invitation: to die each day in Christ, so that we might truly live. All that is junk within me, I allow to die with Christ. So that who I’m supposed to be, in Christ, can truly live. And again I’m thankful, not only for what he’s done, but what he’s doing in me.

Thank you all for your comments on the original video. I appreciate the encouragements. And I’m thankful for those who offered suggestions and input. Most of your objections are already covered in the upcoming books, True Story and Based on a True Story. At the same time, I can see the need for a bit more clarification at points.

So, here’s the sequel. In the original video, the presentation ends with a question. It asks the listener to identify with one of the four circles. And then stops.

This video is what I might say afterward. I include all four responses in this one video (instead of making four different videos), but normally I would just present one and then invite someone to follow Jesus. Many of you felt that the original presentation was lacking in certain ways, and rightfully so, because it wasn’t complete. It was hard to capture the entire presentation because it’s supposed to be more like a conversation, but here’s my attempt to close the loop.

You can also download the audio and video for your computers and iPods as well.

Hopefully, I won’t need to make this into a trilogy.

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Update: the Southeast Region of InterVarsity revised The Big Story for their Bible Belt context, which tends to be more churched than where I serve (California, baby!). For those that wished I used more biblical language in the presentation, this might be a welcome revision. Much thanks to Eric Peterson and his team.

Update 2: The write-up article is no longer available because the short format allowed for too many misunderstandings. For a fuller treatment, please check out True Story: A Christianity Worth Believing In (for believers) or Based on a True Story (for seekers). A study guide for True Story is forthcoming through InterVarsity Press.

Update 3: The Big Story was featured in Christianity Today, and they have graciously agreed to let me post a .pdf version the article, “just this once.”

2008 Nominee for Outreach Magazine’s Apologetics Resource of the Year. The book — True Story — is available through Amazon and other booksellers.

Free study guide available for True Story from InterVarsity Press.

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Here’s my attempt to explain the Christian faith… in three minutes. Crazy, right? InterVarsity asked me to do it, and here’s the result. I wanted to present a more holistic faith — something closer to the gospel that Jesus taught. This was unscripted, and of course, many details will be painfully left out in such a short amount of time. So it’s not anything close to a perfect presentation. But it forced me to make it concise, so I appreciate the assignment — though I would never share it this quickly in person.

This material is adapted from my books: True Story: A Christianity Worth Believing In (for believers) and its companion booklet, Based on a True Story (for seekers). Both are coming out through InterVarsity Press in April 2008, and you can find a blurb on the book at the IVP website. Half of the royalties of the book will go back to the ministry of San Diego InterVarsity, so please pick up a copy when it comes out!

I’d love to know what you think of this. And if you like it, would you click the image (though not directly on the play button) and rate it at YouTube? Or post it, if you like. It would help get the word out.

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Downloadable (September 26, 2007): I’ve been asked to make this presentation available for iPods. So now, you can download it into your iPods or your computers. Just right click either audio or video, and download away.

A sequel (January 31, 2008): A sequel has been made to this video. Check it out!

Write-up removed (October 23, 2008): The write-up article is no longer available because the short format allowed for too many misunderstandings. For a fuller treatment, please check out True Story: A Christianity Worth Believing In (for believers) or Based on a True Story (for seekers).

In Christianity Today (November 25, 2008): The Big Story was featured in Christianity Today, and they have graciously agreed to let me post a .pdf version the article, “just this once.”

Bible study (February 24, 2009): Christianity Today published a bible study on the Big Story. It’s not free, but available for download.

Free study guide (June 15, 2009): InterVarsity Press released a free, downloadable study guide for True Story. It’s ideal for small groups.

BANGKOK, Thailand — 2549. Is it the number of Starbucks stores in Bangkok? Or perhaps the number of older farang men holding hands with significantly smaller Thai women? Or maybe it’s the number of times Thai people say khrap or kha in a given day? (Depending on your gender, you can use one of the words at the end of a sentence to be polite, or use it as “yes” or “uh-huh” throughout conversations.) Or maybe it’s the number of portraits of the King of Thailand strewn all over the city? Or it could be the number of welts left by mosquitos who have drunk deeply from our veins?

No, instead it represents a stitch in time. Little did we know that when we came to Thailand that we would be transported exactly 543 years into the future. Here, the year is 2549, two-thousand, five-hundred and forty-nine years after the birth of Buddha. And if you’ve ever visited an ultra-modern mall, restaurant, café or movie theater in the heart of Bangkok, you would also think you were transported to the future. Yet at the same time, if you hung out here in the slums, you also would remember that you were in 2006, among the poorest of the world.

While here in Thailand, we’ve floated back and forth between 2549 and 2006. In 2549, we worship in an air-conditioned penthouse with expats, overloooking the wealth of the city. In 2006, I watch my friend Dave tell a drug dealer that God loves him as another dealer cups two slaps to someone’s face across the table, while a third is passing saran-wrapped blocks of marijuana under the table. In 2549, we witness a vision passed onto Seoul expat business leaders, inspiring them to invest in low-income communities in Northern Thailand. In 2006, I’m teaching a new way to share the Gospel to indigenous Thai house church leaders in four slum communities — and they saw why it’s good news for life now and for the world! I almost cried. In 2549, I’ve been catching a vision for the world. In 2006, I’ve been catching the heart of the Kingdom.

So I’m thankful for time travel (and plane travel, for that matter) — for in either date, we’ve had front-row seats to watch what God is doing here.

BANGKOK, Thailand — Sawadii khrap! Greetings from Bangkok — and Jinhee and I both feel that we’re getting to see a side of Bangkok others rarely do.

Walk with us across a busy street on an overpass. It’s muggy, over 90 degrees with sweat on us like paint on walls. Head to the 7-Eleven, but don’t be tempted by its air-conditioning inside. Go to its left and down the alley. Keep going through the parking lot of a golf range, and walk down a narrow garbage-strewn path between the fence of a soccer field and the barb-wired wall of the golf range. Then you’ll see the sign to Dave’s community, Permsup, way off the beaten path and out of Bangkok’s sight.

Permsup is a squatter setllement built on stilts over moss-covered standing water. Balance yourself as you walk across planks on concrete which serve as the community’s sidewalks. Go past corrugated metal rooftops, lounging people, sleeping dogs, and bass-bumping stereos. Even in the place like this, electricity, running water and the ever-present boob-tube are readily accessible. The noise can make for sleepless nights.

In the middle of this labyrinth is Dave’s place, a two-story home that shakes under our steps. Piles of garbage on the water’s surface send their greetings through the gaps between the wooden slats of his floor. Jinhee and I need to adjust, but for Dave, this is home.

He’s here to meet Jesus. And to be Jesus. So we hang out with Dave’s friends, and they now know Jesus too. But instead of us serving them, Jesus serves us with mangosteen, thai iced teas and lots of laughter — one of Dave’s friends does a dead-on impression of a Korean man cursing. Here in the slums, Jesus is among us.

It’s selfless work, not glorious by any standards. Life slows down, and sometimes gets lonely. But Dave prefers to be here than in the luxury of Siam Paragon, Southeast Asia’s largest mall in the heart of Bangkok. He can’t wait to be back here in Permsup, back at home.

I’m speaking on worship twice in the next few days, and so I’ve been doing a lot of research on it. (Sing: Google it, just a little bit…) One cool thing I did learn today was that our word worship comes from the Old English weorthscipe which means “worth-ship,” the homage given to something because it is worthy. But to be honest, it gets frustrating reading what many others write on it.

For one thing, few people use the word the same way. Some people use it to talk only about the musical experience of the gathering of God’s people. At the other end of the spectrum, others use it to talk about the entirety of our lives. All of life is worship, and it’s true. But the loose definitions aren’t always helpful.

But what’s harder to swallow is the bitter pill of the debate, whether its hymns versus contemporary choruses or celebration versus silence or liturgical versus spontaneous or charismatic versus orderly or drums versus acapella or choir robes versus casual or red hymnals versus blue or candles versus flourescents. Sunday worshipers, after the final prayer, transform miraculously into armchair critics saying things like, “Wasn’t Jessie was off-tune today?” or “Or that third song didn’t meet me.”

To add, an article I read in a recent issue of Christianity Today called “Raising Ebenezer: Why We Are Misguided When We Modernize Hymns” is more energy spent in the wrong direction (though I respect the author very much as a lover of Jesus). Not only does he press against the modernization of hymns (is it really that bad?), but he then also goes further to criticize new songs that merely borrow the hymn’s title like “Jesus, Lover of My Soul” yet choose to go in a different direction than the original. Is God upset if the author borrows the title and takes the song in a new, heartfelt direction?

I love hymns, don’t get me wrong. And I love contemporary worship music and Black Gospel. (I like the latter more.) I’m open to other forms of musical worship too, whether it’s Merengue, Country, Ska, Punk or Hip-Hop. I just don’t think God gets caught up in the same details we do. Even Old Testament laws for worship weren’t legalistically strict — King David ate consecrated bread without punishment. Jesus — when he saw that the woman had broken a jar of expensive perfume over his feet and started to dry them off with her hair — probably didn’t care whether she used an alabaster jar or a granite one, whether she wiped rightward or leftward with her hair, whether she used Herbal Essences or Vidal Sassoon that morning, or whether she cried two tears or 20. He looked at her heart and saw pure devotion, unabashed and shameless — and blessed her for it. Her act was so holy, it is remembered three separate times in the Bible.

Worship should bring Christians together, but it’s often the very thing that pushes people apart. Therefore, we need a different kind of dialogue, one that appreciates and affirms, so that we can offer something that is worth-ship, something that is truly worthy.

I’m not always a fan of “Christian” music. But, while I was in college in the early 90′s, the Christian worship genre was really starting to take off. Gone were the hokey campfire choruses: they were replaced with thoughtful lyrics and an expectation that you would palpably meet God. (Some would say they’re still hokey.) During ths time, David Ruis’ songs like “Let Your Glory Fall” and “You Are Worthy Of My Praise” were helping us enter into God’s presence.

So I was understandably excited when I heard that David Ruis would be leading worship at the Vineyard conference I went to yesterday. I was ready for the old school jams, ready to be nostalgic about the good old days when faith was naive and zealous, as compared to the often confusing and world-spinning thing called faith I have today. But where I was expecting something familiar, I instead was plunged into foreign territory. I didn’t know that I’d be needing a passport.

Most notably, while we were singing a new, intimate song influenced heavily by Gregorian chant, the instruments peeled away so that all that was left was the soft drone of keyboard-produced male voices. It smelled more Buddhist than Gregorian. Then, confirming my suspicions, Ruis picked up a meditation bell and rang it four times, pausing in between each strike to let the vibrations bounce around the room.

I was jarred. As an Asian American, I know that sound. That shouldn’t be here, right? But I was confronted yet again about how small I make my faith and my God.

I like to consider myself open-minded, open to new avenues and expressions of faith. Perhaps in some pride or rebellion, I sometimes wear this attitude like a badge, letting the fundamentalists know that a new sheriff is in town. But there I was, like an old-timer raising a cane against rock music in the sanctuary yet forgetting that many melodies for my hymns were stolen from bar songs. I forgot that God is bigger than the sound of a stick striking metal — it’s just a sound. And that sound is being redeemed, a form of worship borrowed from another culture and reoriented back to God. Too often in history has our faith been taken for granted, unexamined in its cultural, Western European and Enlightenment wrappings, so that when we approach other cultures, we end up obliterating them with ours. But every culture has something of the image of God in it. And finding the God-planted story in other cultures will help each person get to walk with Jesus without having to reject their own communities. Instead of rejecting culture, Jesus redeems it.

So, that bell — that sound — was being transformed before my eyes yesterday. It has helped others meditate on spiritual realities in the past, even if another religion co-opted a cultural practice. Yesterday, however, it rang for him.