adventures in bible study

So I preached at a Filipino church this Sunday; it's been a few years since my last sermon, if I remember correctly. I was to preach on The New Heaven and The New Earth in Revelation 21-22, which is of course a very safe and easy topic about which to preach. So, I borrowed a couple of commentaries from a pastor here and racked my brain to remember everything I learned in my Revelation class in undergrad with Dr. Allen. (Basically I remembered the importance of numbers, and yes, a good portion of my message was all about the number twelve.) I would've relied on my fancy seminary learnin', but my Acts-Revelation class with a professor who shall remain nameless was the worst class I had at Fuller, if not the worst class I've had since high school, which is saying something since I took a Malaysian Language class that was almost entirely in Malay (which I don't speak) while studying abroad.

Anyway... I worked on my words for Sunday over most of this last week, spending hours at a nearby coffee shop or the local Tim Horton's composing the message. In the end it turned out to be much more academic than I like, but with all the symbolism and imagery it was hard not to spend a lot of time explaining.

Now, when it comes to public speaking, I am a meticulous planner. I like to know all of the details about my venue and my purpose for speaking: to whom am I speaking? how long should I speak? should it be more serious, more light, more intellectual, more emotional? do I need a PowerPoint, and if so how detailed should it be? etc. etc. etc.

I didn't know most of those details going into this sermon. I knew that it was a church made up mostly of older Filipinos who speak English, that they had been going through the book of Revelation, and that a PowerPoint would help. I also know from previous experience and observation this summer that Filipinos, while being very lively and loud people at social interactions, tend to sit silent and stone-faced while listening to someone talk, so don't rely too much on audience feedback as a gauge.

So I was nervous going in, but I always get nervous before speaking, with a tendency to freak out directly before I speak and then calm down once I actually start talking. That Sunday morning we arrived at the school where the church meets about half an hour before Sunday School, which starts an hour or so before the church service. (Remember that Filipinos are typically event-driven, so actual starting times remain flexible.) And as I glanced over my sermon text around 9:40, the head pastor of the church approached me and mentioned casually, "You know that Filipinos like to do things at the spur of the moment, right?"

I froze. "Um, yes..." I answered tentatively.

"Well, could you say something about church, about how important it is to come together with others for worship?" he asked.

I relaxed. In my sermon I planned to talk about how church today should be a reflection of the New Jerusalem to come, so this idea should still flow with that added in. "Sure, you want me to add it into the sermon?" I replied.

"Oh, no," he laughed. "We need someone to lead the adult Sunday School. It starts at 10."

I stared back in silent response. "Um... how, how long?" I stammered.

"Oh, forty-five minutes, half an hour," he answered, smiling. "You can do that, right?"

At this point my eyes had probably grown to be the size of small plates. I said nothing, merely standing with my mouth agape. He clapped his hand on my shoulder. "You'll be fine. Talk about Hebrews 6 or something," he offered. He then walked away.

I wasn't exactly nervous at this point, I was more just shocked. I now had about twenty minutes to find a Bible passage, prepare some talking points, and think of something to say for forty-five minutes to a group of Filipinos mostly twenty or so years older than me who probably wouldn't be too keen on speaking up in a group. This is basically a culmination of every fear I have about speaking or teaching that had rolled into a tidy package and dropped squarely on my head.

So I looked up Hebrews 6, tried in vain to come up with a handful of profound points, and Sunday School got off to a start around 10:15, just me and fifteen or so people. I'm not going to go into the details of what happened in the lesson for it's just too painful. Suffice it to say that out of thirty minutes of the lesson, at least fifteen minutes consisted of awkward silence. It was without a doubt the most humiliating and humbling small group experience I have ever had.

After this fiasco I gave my sermon and it was OK, not my most wonderful effort but not bad either. The flexibility of the timeframe for the sermon actually proved to make me less nervous, as I felt more free to take my time, make my points, and move on as necessary. Usually I tend to rush through my sermons, so this was a welcome change. I also played a hymn on the violin, so I guess I had triple duty. Regardless how I personally did, the people were very gracious and supportive. After telling some people here about my experience, several of them gave me a very easy and welcome piece of advice: "Next time, just say 'no.'" I wasn't sure if this was actually an option, but now that I know that choice exists, I will probably be exercising it in the future.

I don't preach anywhere this Sunday (at least I haven't been recruited yet), so my next speaking engagement will likely be at a church retreat for Church in the One the following weekend. In the end, sometimes you just have to embrace the awkwardness and roll with it.

community vs. consumerism - ruminations on the suburban christian

I bought Albert Hsu's The Suburban Christian: Finding Spiritual Vitality in the Land of Plenty on a whim from The Archives Bookshop in Pasadena, CA, as I was simply looking for anything even casually related to my practicum so I could put together a bibliography to meet my academic requirements. The book also seemed like it would fit in well with a one-week class I took before I left for Canada called "Encountering the City," which focused on urban mission and ethnographic research. For something I purchased more or less based on their titles alone, I was amazed at how interesting and useful it was. Sometimes, I guess you can judge a book by its cover.


Albert Hsu brings up the interesting notion that suburban living represents a spiritual quest, a theme that incidentally was often referenced in my "Encountering the City" class. He suggests that the development of suburbia represents a spiritual quest on the part of its inhabitants: the never-ending pursuit of security, financial stability, community, a place to raise the kids, and so on - it’s all an expression of the "American Dream," with a nice house surrounded by a picket fence replacing the rural country homestead. The dream is a place that you personally own where you live that you don't have to share it with anyone. This is underscored by one of the more shocking asides I've stumbled across in any book:

"In the 1950s individualistic single-family houses were seen as the American antidote to communism. Communal housing was seen as suspicious and a dangerous step toward the loss of individual identity and freedom. So suburban developers and architects encouraged individualistic homeownership as an expression of American freedom and one way to fight the Cold War." (p. 39)

Wow. I might point out how ridiculous and reactionary this was, but weren't we encouraged to do our patriotic duty and go out and spend lots of money to reinvigorate the economy in the wake of 9/11? Oops, now I'm getting political. Moving on...

Anyway, suburbs are basically defined by two philosophies: consumerism and isolationism. It is functionally impossible to live in a suburban area and be self-sufficient - malls, strip centers, restaurants, and so on define the suburban landscape, whether you are in Mississauga, Pasadena (the Houston one) or Pasadena (the Los Angeles one). It is also rare to know your neighbors or interact with the local community much at all. This is why we have "commuter churches" where almost all of the members drive from other parts of the city and involvement with the local setting is slim if present at all. With personal cars and nearby freeways (not to mention cell phones and internet access to keep in touch with those who may be physically distant), why bother knowing the people physically close to you?

Hsu makes a wide variety of points that are still running through my mind, but one that has been encountering me during my practicum is the role of immigrant communities in shaping the suburban landscape. Speaking of how different ethnic and immigrant groups change the complexion of typically white suburbs due their frequently different living patterns, Hsu observes:

"Immigrant families with multigenerational households, including aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents and other relatives, demonstrate family values and identity not often seen in typical (white) American families, where relatives beyond the nuclear family rarely live under one roof. [...] Rather than asking immigrant families to conform to fragmented, isolationist Western models of suburban family life, it would be a collective benefit to our suburban status quo to be more accommodating to multigenerational and extended families. Such healthy cultural diversity has the potential of invigorating our communities with more dynamic ways of civic and communal life." (p. 43-44)

This strikes me because these are the housing patterns I have observed amongst the Filipino families I am encountering here in Canada. I am living with a family whose house is home to a mother and father, grandmother, one son, two daughters and a son-in-law. More than that, in this house and others I have visited it is common and normal to have visitors drop in unannounced or with little warning, sometimes spend the night, share food, and so on. The idea of "this is my house" appears to be conspicuously absent.

Being an introverted, private person (and one with a white American cultural background), this is not the kind of living situation where I feel most comfortable. But I think I have something to learn about being welcoming and understanding community. I may never live in a multigenerational home or have a proverbial revolving door of residents in my home, but I can learn to practice some of these principles. Another area where I am seeing this in Mississauga is in the role of house churches, where the communal expression of faith is not limited to a foreign building on Sunday morning, but is rather part of the DNA of the community, being shared between the people of the church in their own homes. I experienced this aspect of counter-cultural Christian living some with my church in Brownwood, where small groups were much more important to my weekly worship than attending Sunday service. That openness can go a long way to break down the isolationist, consumerist lie that we are defined by our possessions and by what we own.

The biggest challenge to Christianity in most suburban contexts is the temptation to be owned by the things that own us. It is the temptation to be content and comfortable with our space to live and our own things to have. I hope to learn more from my Filipino friends this summer about letting go of these material things that too often define who I am.

recapping week one

I have been in Canada for a week now, and have spent most of my time so far meeting lots of people and getting acclimated to the new surroundings. Everyone I've met has been very hospitable and supportive and willing to help and give me an opportunity to serve. I gave a devotional at a house church meeting last week and will be giving another tomorrow night, in addition to attending a wide variety of meetings, doing some heavy lifting at the WorldTeam office in preparation for renovations, and tagging along for a farewell party and a baby dedication ceremony at two different family's houses. In the coming weeks I'll be working mostly with a church body called Church in the One, which has its Sunday gatherings in a local mall.

The biggest adjustment I'm having to make so far is getting used to the Filipino sense of time. I am a very time-oriented person, meaning that I tend to take deadlines seriously, show up on time if not early to events, and get stressed out if I feel like I'm late or taking too long. This is pretty typical for most white Americans. Filipinos, on the other hand, tend to be event-oriented, meaning that deadlines and timeframes are flexible and that personal interactions take precedent over any schedule. (In Malaysia they call this "rubber band time," meaning time can be stretched as far as one needs.) For most of this week I have had to rely on others to give me rides, provide opportunities to serve, and so on, and my own ideas of when these things should happen or how long they should take don't fit into the equation. Overall, I think this is a healthy thing for me, but I'm definitely still in the state of adjusting and probably will be for a while.

Also, I'm definitely going to be well fed this summer - I think the biggest fear of the average Filipino is that someone somewhere is currently not eating. Every conversation is punctuated by the refrain of, "Have you eaten yet? You should eat something. Are you sure you're not hungry?" Filipino food is good though, so I'm OK with that.

oh, canada

And so I return to this blog after a long hiatus. I was driven away from blogging by schoolwork, and I come back for the same reason. I shall be chronicling my summer experience on this space, under the watchful eye of my faculty adviser and anyone else who cares to read. So, welcome.


Monday I arrived in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada, part of the GTA (that's Greater Toronto Area, as opposed to Grand Theft Auto). I am here to work with a network of churches, most of them small immigrant or multicultural communities, doing a wide variety of tasks. Some ideas that have been thrown around include leading small groups, helping with leader training, and preaching (possibly as early as this Sunday). So far I have been meeting some of the people with whom I will be working, setting things in place for what I will be doing over the next two months.

I can't say much because I don't know much yet as far a specifics go, but I will be giving fairly frequent updates and reflections on here. If you pray, please remember me and the people whom I will be encountering this summer. Thanks!