Road to Recovery

About a year and a half ago, I joined the executive team of the Chinese Mission Convention's youth program as the small group coordinator. I had served as a small group leader at this convention back in 2010 and 2013 and was psyched to be able to serve behind the scenes from the administrative side. Compared to being a small group leader, the challenges of being on the exec team are very different but rewards are very similar.

As a small group leader, you mainly interact with your assigned small group. Whether you have a younger or older group, the challenges are fairly the same:

What if my group is too rowdy? What if my group doesn't get along? What if someone talks too much? What if no one talks at all? How do I create a safe environment for people to be vulnerable? How do I build a community within the group? How do I cater to the physical, emotional, and spiritual needs of my group?

From the administrative side, the scope is sometimes (as expected) much wider and sometimes very specific:

Parent A is looking for their child. Which small group is he/she in and where are they situated?

Student C disappeared after lunch but mentioned she wasn't feeling well, how do we calm the SGL down and distribute resources to find the student?

5 kids have bloody noses and another has scraps from tripping while trying to parkour (lol). Deal with it.

Are workshops running smoothly? Do we have tomorrow's events planned out yet? Do we have *today's* events planned out yet? How is tonight's game going to be run? Do the small group leaders have everything they need to do their job?

Ultimately, during the convention, our small group leaders are the stars of the show. The exec team has the privilege of preparing and making sure things fall in line to give our SGL's the context to engage with their group. From getting workshop leaders to coordinating with the guest speakers to creating and judging instagram challenges, it's all for one purpose: can we challenge our youth to question and live out their belief in the gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ crucified for the forgiveness of our sins and for the glory of God the Father? Can we create a space for the Holy Spirit to unleash our youth from the chains of a works-based salvation to live and glorify God in a grace-based salvation instead?

To that end, I had the joy of preparing and running two speaker panels, one with our main guest speakers(Kenneth Bae, Jae Jin, and Erik Fish) and one with two men from a local transitional house to engage our students with different perspectives of God's hand in different fields of ministry. I also coordinated soup kitchen service projects for all our seniors to go on as well as the creation of over 400 care packages that were distributed to 5 different shelters around Baltimore. All the while, answering parent's questions and briefing our SGL's every morning and debriefing and getting feedback every evening.

Looking back, I'm extremely proud of what we were able to accomplish but there were many things that I ended up doing last minute preparation for. As a result, I didn't get to sleep very much (several nights, I slept after everyone else in my room and left before they got up in the morning), I didn't get to talk and care for my SGL's throughout the day because I was too busy preparing for the next thing, and I didn't listen to a lot of our sessions because of the same reason. If it weren't for the love and prayers of friends, my SGL's and the rest of the exec team, I don't know if we could have accomplished all that we had. But God clearly had better plans for us.

Speaking of things that could have gone badly but ended up working for our good, many of our students did not agree with the sermons preached by our main speaker, Erik Fish. Erik is best known for teaching evangelism that is based in scripture but without the trappings of established churches like membership class, formal baptisms, leadership structure, etc. Having talked with him more personally, I believe he is a brother who loves Jesus and wants to share him with as many as possible. In the words of Paul in 1 Corinthians 2, "I did not come...with lofty speech or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified".

Erik shared an awe-inspiring testimony of answered prayers, instantly changed hearts, miracle healings, and demonic possessions.

Unfortunately, all this doesn't mesh very well with youth who grow up in the strict structure of the Chinese church, let alone Asian culture in general. We had many students who had never heard of spiritual warfare and demonic possessions before and were now terrified. Other students were skeptical at the miracle healings because they had been taught those don't happen anymore. Still, other students began to doubt their faith, believing that if they truly believed in Jesus as their savior, they would have similar testimonies of conversions like Erik did. All this led to our SGL's fielding unexpected questions and challenging situations as well and simply added to the frenzy of the convention. But again, God had much better plans for us.

The silver lining in all this is two-fold. First, everyone eventually learns that even within Christianity (especially within Christianity), there are many different perspectives that should not detract from the central belief that Jesus died for the forgiveness of our sins and our confession of Him as Lord renews hearts and changes lives to live not for ourselves but for the ultimate glorification of God. This is primary and is a necessity. In everything else, we have liberty. I believe this was a great time and the perfect context for the youth to engage with this idea.

Secondly, the disagreements and doubts that were raised during the convention caused many students to begin the tough process of considering and concluding for themselves what their own beliefs were and where they stand in terms of their faith/trust in Jesus as their Lord and Savior (even that phrase, "Jesus as Lord and Savior" needs to be chewed on for a long time). Again, I believe CMC was the perfect context for these questions to be raised.

The best part in all this, the workshops, the community service, the sleepless nights, the caffeine dependency, and the unending prayers for strength, is that on the last night, after staring Francis Chan in the face and nodding off, I woke up and watched small group leaders and youth program students approach the front of the room in a response to a call to missions/full-time ministry. Now, to be frank, it was only a handful of individuals compared to the 400+ total students in the program. But to be able to see God at work despite our flaws and despite our tiredness was extremely humbling. I told myself in that moment that if I could do this...work to create a space for God to work in the lives of my fellow brothers and sisters...every day, it would be worth any sacrifice.

I decided last Sunday that I would come home instead of staying in St. Louis and I have to say, I’m really glad I did. I’ve been able to spend a lot of time with my family and close friends.

But this is also a time where I’m officially outside of the Christian bubble I’ve made for myself both at CMU and in St. Louis and I’m just super humbled by how God was, is, and will be. It’s because being in the presence of non-Christians who have been such a huge part of my life...and failing (in my eyes) to uphold what I think is the “right” way to evangelize to them is...frustrating. Very frustrating. It’s like I give in to the world around me. I shrink back when a glare or a passive aggressive comment. I hold my tongue as we reminisce about our past and boast about our past sins. Heck, I join in with their boasting just to add to the conversation.

I see brokenness and a yearning for God and I choose to take a step back and tell myself there’s nothing I can do. It’s like the love of Christ isn’t so real that I truly would like to share it with everyone around me. And if that’s the case, what am I even doing with my life? I can be active in church and carry my bible around and look holy but it will never hide the deceitfulness and wickedness of my heart. 

“Oh, who can save a wretched man like me?!”

So many things..so many many things. I guess a good old list never fails.

1. Went to New City Work Day with my roommate and got to do some work with a local church helping refugees in the St. Louis area. After answering some of his questions about Christianity, I just felt...helpless...wholly dependent on the Holy Spirit to speak through me. Praying that God would continue to grow me as a Christian and as a man. (still vague..i guess I’ll try and find time to elaborate or something eventually)

2. I was really gung-ho about doing things at the church that I’m attending (henceforth referred to as The Crossing) but after talking to a lot of people, I realize I have to take a step back and learn to love the people that I seek to serve first. There’s a lot that I still want to do but I think I’m more patient in seeing how God is working and how I can contribute to that instead of trying to pave the way for how *I* want to do things. Praying that I won’t lose all my motivation by taking a step back.

3. We have a lot of people at the Crossing that work at Boeing. I’ve been thinking about asking one of them to disciple me. There’s not formal discipleship structure within the church so I’m not sure who I should talk to first about it. I should also pray about it instead of just thinking about it too.

4. I’m going on an Asia trip with some friends from school and I said I would plan with them while I was at CMU but I got swept away with all the stuff going on for graduation. Gotta work on priorities. I definitely prefer throwing myself at seas of people over sitting down and doing something like planning and both are definitely productive in their own ways but there has to be a balance there.

5. It was so great to see all my friends graduate this past week and I’m really lucky to share all their happiness with them! Our good byes are not forever and I know that the bonds that we have transcend this world and at the very least I will see them when we’re brought back together in the end of days.

That being said, there are so many people that I love and care about but whenever I end up moving (whether it was to CMU or to St. Louis), I just distract myself and fill my life with other people. Gotta find a way to keep in touch with everyone because even the ones that have had a huge influence in my life fall to the side (in a sense). It’s not fair to them and it’s not loving on my part.

6. So many problems, so many reflections..and I still gotta pack lunches for me and my roommate before I go to sleep. woot. hooray for tumblr for letting me just throw my thoughts around.

Everyone told me it’d be like this. That it’d be harder to make friends, but what about prayer? That’s been the focus for our pastor for the past month or so: praying boldy, praying for people we dont know, intercessory prayer, but what about praying for one another?

One thing I definitely miss about PCC are the times we prayed as a congregation. Was it awkward at times? Definitely. But it was a great way to share your life with the congregation. Prayer within ACF was pretty boss in my opinion too, just being able to share life with your small group is also something I miss...although I’m okay with lowering my standards of fellowship from college..maybe.

It’s not that people aren’t friendly or anything. And maybe it’s only because I’ve only been around for a month, but I don’t think we really know each other enough to support and encourage one another, which is sub-optimal(very).

Ultimately it comes back to “what does a Christian community look like?” and as much as I want the leadership to do more, its still an individual’s responsibility to get to know the rest of the community.

I have all these ideas for prayer meetings, accountability, discipleship, sharing books, small group topics, etc. and I’ll be sure to let other people know how that all adds up to building each other up. But until things come together, until our church can truly get behind these things, I’ll just keep loving and meeting up with people.