Name:Lix Country:United States State:California Metro:Los Angeles Gender:Male
Interests:NBA statistics following, short story reading (particularly O. Henry), new sport learning, kite-flying, meaningfulness & aerial photography. Expertise:OTTer caretaking, map reading, data plotting, technical orating, & trivial doodling. Occupation:Engineering Industry:Engineering
long time no write but i just want to record some thoughts
while shopping with Frances, pondered the long wait women have for restrooms. thought about how to improve women's shopping experience...idea: why not have indicators just like how some parking structures have showing the # of available spots on each level...but instead of available parking spots...available stalls...better yet...a live video feed outside each restroom showing the length of the queue so women know where there is an open restroom..fundamentally to improve efficiencies & reduce bladder stress, provide information.
spent the morning at caltech listening to some pundits talk about entertainment and technology...not of particular interest to me but i plan to attend the caltech / mit enterprise forum regularly. posed question to panelists: considering the success of the wii, is the entertainment industries (video games, movies, tv, etc.) more receptive to sensor technology, and consequently are technology firms more eager to work with the entertainment industries? panelist answers: not much meaningful stuff. =(
i'm kinda bored with life at the moment a bit. but i watched a good lecture on energy here.
i heard about how kanye west rushed the stage and complained about not winning a music award. that's pretty self-absorbed.
interestingly enough, al gore won the nobel peace prize. i am not necessarily against his winning but an inconvenient truth made the terrible mistake of misrepresenting natural variation (high # of hurricanes in a year) for meaningful information (rise in global warming). the wsj had a good article about who SHOULD have won the nobel peace prize. good read.
i want to be more intelligent without being a jerk. i think there is good reason why people outside the church view us as uninformed.
I have enjoyed (immensely) teaching God’s
Scriptures to the juniors, junior high schoolers, high schoolers, collegiates,
and post-collegiates at my church for the past six years.Most likely, they do not internalize the
majority of the teaching. In part, I do not want to be overly concerned.Doing so moves me toward a performance
mentality.However, I should still be
concerned about the way I teach.Does
it remove barriers or does it add obstacles to the learning process?Over time, I have improved on the former and
tried my best to prevent the latter. I have developed a set of
methods/attitudes with how I teach (pardon the sinister lingo that
follows):
Scheme I clandestinely glean
what issues my students are dealing/struggling with (by dialoguing with them in
informal settings) and I teach with an agenda to address them. That does not
mean I do eisegesis (read into Scriptures my own interpretation) but rather I
choose certain Scriptures that are relevant to the issue/struggle.
Encounter
I try to get the group as close to the text as possible.This takes a variety of forms.I may make the group study a painting, watch a
movie clip, act out the text, or draw their depiction of the text in order to
make them pay attention to the details.Essentially, I maneuver them to practice observation and apply
that skill to reading Scriptures.
Poke I probe and prod the group
and do my best imitation of the Great Teacher who queried his listeners
strategically.I avoid questions that
evoke pat Sunday School answers like "Jesus", "God", and "Bible".Unfortunately, the church
culture that most of the learners grew up in does not lend itself quite well
with open-ended questions so I have to be strategic in how I frame questions in
order to draw out meaningful insights-and believe you me there are some great
insights lurking in the minds of my church community.I relish the times when I do not do the majority of the
talking.I am not a didactic learner
so I lean heavily towards teaching in a non-didactic manner.Nonetheless, I do believe didactic teaching
is useful (but over-used)and didactic preaching is essential.
Subvert I take examples from
culture or popular misunderstandings of God and I explore them to eventually
expose their falsehood in light of the overarching story that God weaves
throughout Scritpure.
I have a lot to
grow as a teacher though.I need to
better unfurl to learners how they can exercise their faith and live out the
gospel concretely.Here are some of the
learners that I have had the privilege of teaching...and no I did not teach them what they were doing in the pic.
Why I want to be a Calvinist: I fully submit to the idea of God’s Sovereignty and His
Grace There are strong Calvinist voices at my church whoappear more certain of their doctrine and
that appeals to my militant side.
Why I don’t want to be a Calvinist: The
majority of the Calvinists I have met/heard sound very arrogant.(This is ironic since they hold very dearly
how God reigns supreme and we should be humbled by that.) The Dutch Reformed
Church (a bastion of Calvinism) in South Africa twisted basic doctrine about
predestination into a policy that was the root of apartheid.
Why I want be an
Arminianst: The majority of
Arminianists that I have met/heard, like this guy, are gracious, humble and
genuine people…people I would rather mimic. I think Arminianists place more
emphasis on God’s abundant love and that’s a little more attractive to my
fluffy side.
Why I don’t want to be an Arminianist: I would probably be labeled a
heretic and not allowed to teach at my church. I hold to the perseverance of the saints dearly.
So the truth is, I would rather not frame my
theology in terms of an “-ism” but if pressed, I am probably a closet Calvinist
who wished he were an Arminianist. Those are my true colors.
Saturday This Saturday, at Home of Christians on Hacienda Blvd., there will be a fundraiser called Project Poverty. We will be raising money for various organizations and raising awareness about poverty in our world. I'm stumping for kiva.org and Open Doors USA.
5 + 2 = 7 While Gavin and I were chatting yesterday, we realized there should
be two additional “languages” added to the much muttered “5 love
languages”.In addition to affirming
words, quality time, receiving gifts, physical touch, and acts of service, the list should also include words of rebuke and play.
There are those who feel really cared for
and loved when others confront them (in a lovingly truthful way of course)about wrongs they have committed.Consider Proverbs 27:5, “Better is open
rebuke than love that is concealed.”
With others, enjoying fun together, joking around, or giving punches is
the way they express affection.It is
what happens when guys wrestle each other or when practical jokes are
played.It is a little different than
quality time in that it’s more active and it generates more camaraderie than
emotional intimacy (but the two are not too distant).Play is also a little different than physical touch because it
doesn’t have to include it but often times does.So I propose enlarging the set to seven languages instead of
five.
Hard Heart As for my last post, I have been
convinced from this article, that it was written poorly…leaning towards hijacking the season of
mourning for my own polemic against the likes of MacArthur.My heart is still so hard against the likes
of him and his crowd.
seven days ago something terrible happened about this time. like so many others, i am saddened about the events at Virginia Tech. i pray that something like it will not happen again. but it happens pretty regularly in the mideast. palestinians are crowded in a corner with angry brooding hearts as American Christians are too busy pounding revelations with their insistence on the premillenial importance of the political existence of Israel. i don't have the answers to it. all i know is that i am called to reach out with what i have to people around me who might feel alone like Cho Seung-Hui. his story is so similar to the story of Cain...a brooding self-pity that leads to destruction. it is so similar to the story of the suicide bombers and Columbine killers. violence is so attractive to me sometimes...but redemptive violence is a false myth and our culture elites heap accolades on OldBoy and we flock to 300. i know redemptive violence is a myth because Jesus subverted it on the cross and that truth is not preached much in our churches. we're are so more apt to preach about how silly someone else's non-important doctrine sounds or how listening to certain music corrupts us. i'm tired of it. let's face it, we, as the church fail and we failed miserably with Cho...and we do it constantly. how convenient of us to ignore "
The violence of the wicked will drag them away, for they refuse to do what is right." (proverbs 21:7). i wane poetic.
