Tag Archives: reconciliation

Taize and Ash Wednesday

On Wednesday night this week, at 7 pm, New Life will host a Taize, Ash Wednesday service. I have been praying and pondering this possibility for over eight years. In the summer of 2004, Geri and I, along with our four daughters, spent a week in Taize, France with a monastic community of about 90 men. About 5000 young people from Orthodox, Protestant and Roman Catholic backgrounds also participated. I learned3 simple, powerful truths that week: 1. There is only one church and it consists of people from all three main branches of Christianity – Orthodox, Roman Catholic and Protestant. Brother Roger, a Lutheran pastor, founded Taize during World War 2 to be a prophetic sign in the midst of the Orthodox, Roman Catholic, and Protestant Christians killing each other on an unimaginable scale. What unites us is a personal faith in Jesus Christ and a commitment to Scripture as outlined in the Nicene Creed. This. Read more.

Undercities and Overcities: Behind the Beautiful Forevers

What is the churches’ task in the world? What does it look like to bring Jesus Christ to a community? A city? I received a glimpse of that through what turned out to be my favorite book of the year — Katherine Boo’s Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity. She reports on three years of her life lived in Annawadi, a slum 200 yards from Mumbai’s Airport in India. 3000 people from different castes, cultures, regions of India, and religions live there. Most go through rich people’s garbage to make a living. It is a true “undercity” as most do not have the language skills, education, social connections or caste privileges to find stable work in the “overcity” of Mumbai. By focusing on this relatively “undercity,” Boo provides a brilliant look at the complexities of poverty in global cities by examining just one small enclave. New York too. Read more.

Reading, Leadership and the Long View

Reading broadly is foundational to growing and providing good leadership. I love reading and am usually in 3-6 books at a time. They inform my development and preaching. The following is my answer to the question I have often been asked: Where do you find such unique, different kinds of books to read? The following are my 10 top sources for books: 1. Magazines and newspapers that review books – e.g. Books and Culture, Sojourners, NY Times Book Review, Oprah, USA today, Time, Newsweek, Atlantic Monthly. A Books and Culture article, for example, led me to read 2 books on prisons recently that profoundly impacted me. 2. Bookstores – Used and new, anywhere and everywhere. I love walking around, looking for anything that strikes my interest. 3. Libraries. I wander the aisles, looking at new arrivals, history, biographies. 4. Friends, mentors, therapists, other leaders – I ask them what they are reading and what has impacted them. For. Read more.

Bridging Barriers: Next Steps for New Life Fellowship Church

When I became a Christian my sophomore year in college, I was birthed into a community (IVCF) that linked the gospel and the bridging of racial, economic and cultural barriers. It was not a specific “calling” for some but a biblical mandate that filled us with visiona and hope. I see the Holy Spirit moving in a similar way today as large numbers of young people are passionate to build multicultural churches that demonstrate the power of the gospel. When Geri and I planted New Life Fellowship Church 22 years ago, we chose Elmhurst/Corona, Queens, as a strategic location for the church due to the fact that individuals from more than 120 nations live in the area. In addition, the neighborhood consisted then, as it does now, of poor, working, and middle-class New Yorkers. So while we recognized the benefits of such a location and desired to bridge the racial, cultural, and economic barriers for. Read more.

Freeing the Church from Western Cultural Captivity

This blog title comes from Soong-Chan Rah’s outstanding book entitled The Next Evangelicalism(IVP, 2009). I have given over thirty years of my life to the task of building racially, ethnically and culturally diverse communities, first as an Inter-Varsity staff worker and the last twenty-one here in Queens at New Life. Doing theology and leadership,within this context, has been a rich privilege. Along these years I have often felt the need to write a book about racism, reconciliation, and the church There is no need. It has been written by Soong-Chan. I highly, highly recommend it! The following are a few of my highlights from this well-seasoned, thoughtful work on the challenges before us around the world (and not simply the USA) as we seek to build churches that demonstrate the power of the gospel to bridge race and culture. The white, Western cultural captivity of the church is marked by individualism, consumerism and materialism, and racism. Less. Read more.

Building Healthy Multi-Ethnic Churches – Reflections

I wrote a brief article recently for Mark Deymaz that will appear in a book he is writing on diverse, ethnic Churches (Zondervan). It forced me to think through our history and what we have learned. The following is most of the what I wrote: Twenty-one years ago, when my wife and I planted New Life Fellowship, we chose Elmhurst/Corona, Queens, as a strategic location for the church due to the fact that individuals from more than 120 nations live in the area. So while we recognized the benefits of such a location and desired to bridge the racial, cultural and economic barriers for the sake of Christ, we underestimated the suffering this commitment would require for all of us of in leadership. For instance, I soon realized that our evangelical discipleship/spiritual formation model was too superficial to bring about the kind of in-depth transformation we would need to live in authentic community. There. Read more.

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