The Tim Ahlman Podcast
The Tim Ahlman Podcast is your go-to resource for inspiring conversations that equip leaders to thrive in every vocation, inside and outside the church. With three primary focuses, this podcast dives deep into:
Leadership: Learn from experts across diverse fields as we explore how their insights can shape and sustain a healthy culture in the local church and beyond. Over 60% of listeners expressed a desire for practical discussions on cultivating thriving environments—and that's exactly what these conversations will deliver.
Learn: Engage in deep theological discussions with scholars who illuminate how Christ is revealed on every page of Scripture. Together, we’ll bridge theology to the realities of a post-Christian America, ensuring practical application for today’s world. This segment aligns closely with the themes of the American Reformation Podcast and resonates with the 60% of you who crave more exploration in this area.
Live: Discover healthy habits that empower leaders in all vocations to become holistically healthy. As followers of Jesus, we’re called to lead not only with faith but also with physical, emotional, and spiritual well-being.
Join Tim Ahlman as we navigate leadership, learning, and living with purpose, so you can lead with strength, wisdom, and a Christ-centered vision.
The Tim Ahlman Podcast
Unraveling the Complexity of Immigrant Experiences in the Church with Dr. Eugene Kim
Are you ready to traverse the intricate landscape of immigrant experiences within the American Christian Church? Join us as we engage our guest, Dr. Eugene Kim, in a dynamic discourse exploring the subtle evolution of church practices tailored to the needs of generations of immigrants. Together, we uncover the progressive emergence of second-generation English ministry churches that are creating a welcoming haven for those who lack a place to celebrate holidays, spotlighting the critical role humility and cultural understanding play in this context.
Our journey doesn't stop there. With Dr. Kim, we delve into the profound impact of language learning, embodying Christ's humility, and the effects of global advancements on church dynamics. As we examine the American church's swing toward a non-denominational model, we ignite intriguing debates around identity, branding, and the indispensable need for humility when uncovering our 'brand' within the community. Drawing on cherished LCMS roots, we reflect on how this heritage can offer a steadfast foundation within God's mission.
Lastly, we contemplate the essential role of character within leadership and the church's responsibility in bettering humankind. Diving into the Biblical concept of the 'Rule of Firsts', we connect it to the poignant story of Abraham and Isaac while exploring societal versus scriptural definitions of love. Considering the church's influence on individuals, especially in terms of gender roles, we emphasize the need for confession, absolution, and vulnerability within the church. Join us and Dr. Eugene Kim as we journey through these insightful and transformative discussions.
Hello and welcome to the brand new American Reformation Podcast. We long to see the wider American Christian Church fall more in love with Jesus by learning from the practices of the early church and other eras of discipleship multiplication. We want to hear from you, make sure you comment and leave a review, wherever you're watching or listening, to tell us what God is doing in your life or how you feel about today's conversation. Lord, have your way in us. Let's dive in.
Speaker 2:Welcome to the American Reformation Podcast, tim Allman. Here and today I have the privilege of getting to hang out with a brother that I met at a leadership gathering in St Louis, but we're partners here in the Pacific Southwest District of the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod. The Dr Eugene Kim has a fascinating story. Shanghai Missionary for 10 years, he's worked for the last six years as a professor in leadership and organizational change at Concordia University in Irvine, california, and he got his PhD at UCLA in comparative education. So thanks so much for hanging with me today, eugene. How you doing, brother?
Speaker 3:Good Thanks for having me, Tim.
Speaker 2:Oh man, this is going to be great. Any question how you praying for Reformation in the American Christian Church?
Speaker 3:Wow this is a big ask, right?
Speaker 2:It is a big one, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:No, I mean we could. The list is endless what we could be praying for. But I think, on a personal note, you know we were most concerned about our neighbors right Our Jerusalem and Judea, and even into Samaria. Even as we think about the ends of the earth, we're most concerned with our neighbors, our community, the people we love, the people around us, and I think that the people that are on my heart in relationship to the American Christian Church is the not only the recent immigrants, but the children of immigrants. I think that we have a great opportunity here to see the ends of the earth come to us in this day and age where people are mobile, where people are moving around, where people are able to do so and not only just move here but to be sojourners, be wanderers in this place.
Speaker 3:We have a lot of transiency, even amongst sort of our population, our native population here in the US, but especially for immigrants who are coming here to find sort of their own future and find their place here. I think we're seeing a lot of movement in terms of where people are and where people are going, what people are doing. People are moving from job to job, people are moving from city to city, complicated by things like the housing crisis and rising interest rates and all that, and I think that that's a burden that I think that particularly the Lord has put on my heart, to pray for them and to work alongside them, and I'd love to see us be a place of belonging and be a place of welcome for again, not only the immigrants, but the children of immigrants, the Latin Americans, the Korean Americans, the African Americans, those that have complex identities. They're looking for a home and yet that's complicated by being neither from their country of origin nor being fully comfortable in their skin here in the US, and so I think there's a real opportunity for us.
Speaker 2:Oh, for sure. So English speaking, primarily right when you're talking. Maybe second generation immigrants, yeah, I would say so.
Speaker 3:but what's interesting about immigrants and children of immigrants? You know, you might have heard from Latino circles that the difference between a first generation Mexican American and a fourth and fifth generation Mexican American, it's almost like night and day, it's like it's not just a shade of gray, it's like black and white for a lot of them, and there's a lot of miscommunication and misunderstanding even amongst those populations and there's some bad blood and bad history there as well too. And so, you know, when we look at the question of things like language, when we look at the question of heritage and culture, I think it is complicated. I think there's more of a spectrum rather than, again, I made sort of the assumption that there's like this first generation fifth generation gap, but in between you've got second, third, fourth as well too, and it's complicated. There are even in my circles we talk about people being 1.5 generation.
Speaker 3:Right, people that have immigrated to the US. Themselves are immigrants, but they came over maybe when they're in elementary school, so they've got more of the language from their country of origin, but they are definitely fluent in English and very well versed in Americana. If you would say you know things like, you know what are the popular TV shows of their age. You know what's popular on pop radio, so you know those kinds of things where identities are less about. You know are you from this particular group, but rather where do you sit along that spectrum?
Speaker 2:That's so good. So you and I are both members of the Lutheran Church of Missouri Synod and largely European, anglo. You know Caucasian descent, and we're we're trying connected to the cross-cultural ministry program formation. The CUI definitely tries to reach into a variety of different cultural groups and raising up leaders from a number of those groups. Well, what words of wisdom would you have for us in a church body like ours, as we try to move toward this more? Hey, I mean just looking at Southern California right, all the different cultures and languages that are spoken there in that region.
Speaker 2:I guess this is my question how open do you and I like that 1.5 generation? How open is that? And I'm asking for a generality here how open is that 1.5 generation, maybe Mexican American Christian? How open are they to having more cross-cultural expressions of what it means to be church, or do they primarily design I think there's some differences in Latin America to the Asian culture as well? How open are they to saying, wow, this could be a church that welcomes a variety of different people from a variety of different backgrounds? Are you seeing more of an openness or were they rather, hey, let's stay with the. And I asked for Mexican American Christians, would they rather just stay in that group? Is there comfort there? So just asking a very general question what are your thoughts as you educate us, brother?
Speaker 3:I would probably first say that I'm not an expert in sort of the current heartbeat of the Mexican American Christian experience per se. I would say I've read on the topic and I know about sort of intercultural relationships in general. I can speak to that. But speaking sort of from the Korean American experience, if I may, what's interesting about the Korean American experience is you have Korean churches that cut across denominations right. You have Presbyterian Korean immigrant churches, you have Lutheran Korean American churches, you have Catholic Korean American churches that are composed comprised primarily ethnically of Koreans primarily and their language right that they use in the church the vernacular is Korean in general. But what's interesting about that and again this speaks to sort of that that the fluidity of that identity is you have the children of those immigrant Koreans that are in the same church but they're going to schools that only use English and so they are increasingly less and less fluent in Korean, and so what they do in the church is they almost bifurcate Korean language, preaching an instruction for the parents and then English language preaching an instruction for the children. So they have youth groups and Bible studies that are completely in English and then you see, in between you have these college groups within these Korean immigrant churches that are typically in between, because college groups could comprise both Korean Americans that have grown up here in the US, born in the US, went to K through 12 in the US, and then you also have the international students that are coming from Korea, that are in that mix as well too. So in those situations oftentimes you have a mix of Korean and English and it's really interesting how those different groups and groupings, how they interact with one another, how they learn from one another, but also maybe they sometimes struggle with one another because they come from completely different cultural backgrounds and mindsets.
Speaker 3:One of the interesting things is as those children and even college age students, as they grow into adulthood and as they gain more and more independence and maybe they move to a new city, they become as old as their parents were when they were in elementary school or high school, but they don't fit into the Korean immigrant church because they don't have that language fluency or they don't have that sort of Korean Christian culture that's embedded and I think you were speaking to that in terms of the Mexican American experience in the Christian church and so where do they go? Well, they end up sticking around in those college groups. I mean, they're like 30, 35, and they're hanging out with college students still because there's nothing for them. And so what's happened over time and this is how I'm speaking of maybe a few decades ago, when I was growing up now what's emerged is a lot of these college groups have become what's called English ministries of Korean churches, which is interesting.
Speaker 3:In the US we have things called English ministries and then these English ministries literally they call them EMs. There's an acronym for them. Sometimes you might have heard of it or not, but it's pretty prevalent amongst immigrant churches. When you look at immigrant churches, oftentimes they'll have their EM department, their English ministry department, and so what happens eventually is they grow more and more independent and then a lot of times, quite often, these EMs then splinter, often become their own independent church.
Speaker 2:Sure, yeah, I was going to ask. Yeah, do we have a number of those in the Missouri Synod, do you know?
Speaker 3:I don't know of any in the Missouri Senate, but across other denominations, whether Methodist, baptist, you know, assemblies of God, presbyterian, it's quite common, especially those that have roots in Korea. So church denominations that have strong roots in Korea oftentimes are the ones that are a little bit more established in terms of the Korean American base here. And so what you see is again these, these young people, splintering off. But what's interesting is that they are, they have their own culture, but in a certain sense they are almost a historical. They're almost starting as a new sort of founding movement, because they don't base their church governance and politics, they don't structure their organizations, they don't hold to sort of the same traditions as the Korean American church, but neither did they grow up in sort of what we would, what we would call internally as Korean Americans, what we would call the American church, although it's they're all American churches really, but the, the traditional American church, they have neither, and so they're almost like emerging church movements, where they're coming up with their coming out of and they're establishing their own norms.
Speaker 3:And so, again, I think that there are young people that fit into this group, that fit very well to this group. They have to sort of have. They have to have enough of their cultural heritage to be able to identify with that type of church because they're largely ethnically based, or, if not ethnically, like pan ethnically, so I would say like Asian, as opposed to just Korean American. Second generation English ministry splinter off church movement groups, right, and so there are people that fit into that and people that don't, and so there are those that will not have a place then. So they don't have a place in that particular body, but neither do they feel comfortable, for example, in a predominantly white congregation or even a multi ethnic congregation, because that wasn't their norm growing up, that wasn't what they grew up or grew up into as Korean Americans or, as you know. Again, you could name any, you can add any other ethnicity to American and you might see something similar to.
Speaker 2:Wow, this is. This is fascinating. I had no idea we were going to go here, but this is a little bit. So what words of wisdom do you have for us as church leaders, as we are? There some strategic opportunities for us as a church body to engage in that. One point five generation you've been talking about.
Speaker 3:No, again, I don't know if it's emerging, classified as wisdom, but some of my thoughts on it are that, you know, we have the unique opportunity of having that a sense of grounding, right, we have a confidence in who we have become as a church body and we have the history of both successes but also conflict and dealing with those and resolving those and rising from those. And so I think we do have something unique to offer as a church in America, both for all those populations, right, whether the first generation, you know, as I mentioned. You know the world is coming to us. You know, and you see a lot of young professionals. You see a lot of college-age students come to us, even younger now. They're coming from high schools now or even from elementary and middle schools coming to the US to study here.
Speaker 3:We have the opportunity as a church body to offer up places where people can learn more and feel like they're invited and welcome. You know, when holidays roll around, that's a great time for people who have families here and friends here, but for the immigrant and for the stranger they don't have that, and so there's a really unique opportunity for us if we can identify that need and identify individuals that we can reach out to and say hey, you know, do you have somewhere to go for Thanksgiving? You know there's quite a large number of young people that or maybe not even young that fall into that category of not having a place, and so I think that extending ourselves and thinking about hospitality and thinking about how that's part of mission, I think could really open the doors for the church.
Speaker 2:Oh, Eugene, I love this man. So we have a lot of questions around leadership and change and this is a great opportunity for the church to evolve to reach our neighbors. You talk about change management and I look I've been fascinated with a number of the books got behind you right now. I'm a fan of a lot of them. I see Lean Startup over there. How much is the Lean Startup model kind of needed to engage cross culturally? And yeah, let's just just just hang on that for a second. I mean we're gonna have to have a fair amount of humility, right, we have to come in with man. Just I don't know what I don't know and I know Jesus knows me, he knows us, but man, I just don't know a lot of what it means to relate to your culture.
Speaker 2:I spent a week with pastors in the Lutheran Mexican or the Mexican Lutheran Synod it's kind of a reboot down there with PLI, Pastoral Leadership Institute International, Scott and Laurie Ritchie. It was so, so fascinating. But, man, I'm I'm learning all new. I'm actually learning Spanish now, trying to get closer to fluency as we move into because they're our neighbors to the south, right as we move in this relationship for a number of different years, but, my goodness, it is a humbling experience and a really exhilarating adventure to work cross culturally and I guess my biggest prayer is that our, our church body, has the humility and that kind of Lean Startup model to not just come in with a heavy hand Kind of this is the way we do church, but to say no, no, no.
Speaker 2:There's certain things that we hold with a closer, or Jesus in the gospel, the story of scripture, of which we're connected, but yet how that story gets translated into your respective culture, that's going to require, that's going to require a fair amount of change and humility, for for me and for us and I pray, the Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod leaders, pastors, etc. Have that sort of humility. So anything as it relates to the Lean Startup mindset that we need to have as we engage cross culturally.
Speaker 3:Well, I think, just responding to what you just said, you know I really appreciate and honor your ethic of humility and I think it's that character piece that starts first. Right, it's. You know, when you talk about learning a language, oftentimes it could be utilitarian. We've got, you know, bible translators, we've got missionaries that that learn cultures and language in cultures, in languages, in order to write, and so there is that, that utilitarianism, that that transactionalism. Right, that's implicit in the reason why we're doing it. But I think a lot of us are missing the point of, like Christ's incarnation, that he was both here to serve us, but he was also here to empathize with us. He felt what we felt, he lived what we lived and it was his. It was him shedding that power and saying I'm going to put that aside and I'm going to struggle with you. You know I'm going to be with you in the dirt, and I think that that, that ethic of humility, I think, is what's really critical as we think about how do we reach our neighbor. It's when I learn a language, I am doing it to both honor the person that I'm engaging with, but that act of learning a language is richly cultural.
Speaker 3:When you learn a language. A language is embedded with the history of that people. It's. It is embedded with the, the tears and the laughter of that people. It is embedded with the values, what's important to those people. It is embedded also with their aspirations, what they, what they dream of becoming, and so it's all of that all put together, like language is such a rich and beautiful thing, and oftentimes, when we forget that, we forget that it's not simply something used in service of a transaction, but rather that it is something that's transformative.
Speaker 3:Right that learning a language changes us, it, it enriches us, it beautifies us because we get to be a little bit closer to, I think, what heaven is like, where we speak a heavenly language, where we get to understand one another. Because once you understand a culture's language, a people's language, you're understanding those pieces of them that go deeper than the surface, than their skin color, than the food that they even eat, and their, their, their norms and behaviors. You go beyond that right To their expression, to their identity, and I think that that's a humbling act in and of itself and it is an absolute necessity for us reaching out to our neighbors, reaching out to you know again, our, our, our samarias, and to the ends of the earth. It's essential that we take that position of humility exactly what you're talking about. So I love that. I know I didn't answer your question about lean startup, but that's where my mind was I love it, I love it, so.
Speaker 2:so do you think there? So every nation, you got me thinking eschatologically. Now, eugene, every nation, tribe and tongue, gathered around the throne, and do you think there will just be complete, this complete ability to understand one another and then uniquely respect one another's unique languages into eternity? Or do you think there will be one? I've never actually deeply thought about language as it relates to the eschaton, when Christ returns. Any thoughts there? Maybe we got to speak a little beyond scripture, use our imagination a little bit as it relates to Revelation 21,. But it's okay, yeah yeah, absolutely no.
Speaker 3:I mean, I, you know, I don't think about that too often. You know, when we think about heaven it tends to be, we tend to end up with a lot of conundrums. Right, there are a lot of questions we can answer about it. Number one, because scripture doesn't speak to it. But number two, I think our minds are limited, and the way that we view heaven, when you look at scripture and you look at like descriptions of the end times, or when you look at descriptions of angels and even of Jesus Christ in heaven, with the swords coming out of his mouth and eyes of fire, I don't think it's a literal representation of Christ. Right, there's, there's something there that we can't capture in words or neither with our human minds, that we're trying to express it in a way that makes sense to us or in a way that that we're feeling and experiencing that experience, right? And so I think that to a certain degree, I think it's it's impossible to know what that's going to look like. But if I were to imagine, you know, we're getting to a point in human society where technology has advanced so quickly and so rapidly that we are at the cusp of having universal translators that are either worn on our ears or that eventually might even be connected to our neural network somehow. I believe that we're at the cusp of that, that we're at the cusp of maybe even having like translation that goes beyond human language. Right, that we're at the cusp of maybe.
Speaker 3:You know, I've been talking to my daughter, who's in the AI space, about getting into different areas of entrepreneurship, and I've she loves dogs, she loves animals, and I told her, you know, combine your passion with, you know, a an emerging market, and I said, why not a dog translator? You know, you might have seen the movie Up with Doug the Dog, you know, and he's that translator leash around his, around his neck, and I don't think we're that far away. There are attempts at getting there. There are devices now that that don't quite do it, but that are getting closer and closer to that goal, and so I think that you know, at a human level, if we can do it with animals, you know, I think we're very close. You know, with things like Google translate, with with different devices that are out there, we're getting closer and closer to the point at which we can immediately translate from one language to one another.
Speaker 3:Having said that, that is not what heaven is. I think that any kind of human to human translation is just as limited as translating God's heart to written form. As much as there is disagreement about how we interpret the Bible, there, I think is an acknowledgement from most people that are serious about theology that we probably have a lot of it wrong, right, that we're sort of doing our best, guessing, because we're like children trying to understand the infinite mind of God, and so I think, again, that speaks to humility, right, I think. With that in mind, I think there is this future in heaven where we will be in a state of understanding and empathy, that it will be perfected in a way that I have no idea how that's going to look like, but it's going to be something amazing and beautiful.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. Thank you for going down the AI track too. It's fascinating. I want to hear about your time in Shanghai as a missionary and then kind of piggybacking. There's so much you know, I hear Russia, china kind of enemy and things like this. Economically there's this battle and things like that, and so I think even the American Christian Church we can have this. We look down on our Chinese brothers and sisters and at the same time we're like we know the church in China is just exploding like house churches there's even in the midst of communist China and persecution if you will and you could you may have some stories there the gospel of Jesus Christ is just going forward in such a magnificent way that we can't help but take notice and say praise God. So what did you learn as a missionary in Shanghai for your 10 years and what is the American Christian, largely in the LCMS context, what do we have to learn from our brothers and sisters in China?
Speaker 3:Well, that's a big question too. I think during my time there, I think one of the things that I really learned was that I have a lot more to learn. I think that, as you mentioned you know, the church is growing in China. Not only is it growing in numbers, it's really deepening as well too, and they're establishing. They are very non I hesitate to use the word non-denominational because it's not really painting the right picture of them. Because we talk about non-denominationalism here in the US and there's a certain understanding of what that means In China, because of the way that the government has oversight over religion there, denominations are illegal.
Speaker 3:Now, you know, house churches are illegal as well too, and there are sort of denominational denomination denominational I'm not saying that right oriented churches in China. Missionaries from other countries have gone out, and when they plant churches, when they disciple people there, they tend to lean into those denominations. But because of the way that the government both oversees religion there, but also because of the roots of the Chinese church as being very much independent from sort of missionary bases overseas, they have been very, very careful about taking on denominational identities, and so one thing I think we can learn from that is that denominations are, on the one hand, necessary and important because we do have real disagreements about scripture, we have real differences about worship and you know salvation and issues of concern. But at the same time, I think that we can learn a lot from the Chinese church, in that they do not allow those differences to create impenetrable barriers. There are differences in groups in China as well, but you get less of a sense of that. You don't walk into a church there and ask what denomination is this? And I think that to a certain degree, I think our millennials, our Gen Zers, are moving in that direction as well too. I think number one again.
Speaker 3:So now I'm going to use the word non-denominational in the US context, the non-denominational sort of church movement. You know we can't call it a denomination because it's non-denominational, but as a church movement it is one of the largest growing movements in the US. I think the only other two denominations that have grown in the last two decades are the assemblies of God and I think it's the PCA. Those are the only two denominations that have seen consistent growth in the last two decades. All the other mainstream denominations in the US have been in decline, including ours, and I think that we need to ask yourself that question, right, like, who are we and who do we want to be?
Speaker 3:Do we want to lead with your entering into a Lutheran church? And so? Know that and you know you got to check those boxes, or is it? You know, this is a church that loves Jesus and we believe in certain things, but we're a church that believes in Jesus. You're welcome here. You know, what do we want to lead with, right? What do we want to say is what do we want to hang on our walls as our nameplate, right?
Speaker 3:And I think a lot of times we confuse the organization and our sort of our identity with who we are and who we are. We are, we're love, we're, we're disciples of Jesus, we're, we're, we're people that are loved by God and forgiven by God and therefore we can love the world. You know it starts with grace. You know we're all about grace and about how grace overcomes and satisfies the law. You know, and if we can hang, hang our identities on that rather than on hey, this is my, this is, you know, here's, here's, here's who I am. This is what it says on my business card. You know, I think that we could learn that from the Chinese church that they don't lead with that, that they don't. You know again, identity is really important. I'm not saying please don't get me wrong it's not not saying to nominate, we should do away with denominations, but what I'm saying is maybe we don't lead with that.
Speaker 2:I agree On so many levels. We actually as a congregation here, eugene, walk through kind of a brand modification. It was a complete rebrand, but we recognize that we were Christ Greenfield with apostrophe s Lutheran church in school and people, our target market, a lot of young families here. A lot of them D-Church, never-churched, something along those lines. They're attracted to our preschool because we're taking care of their kids. It's great. But they didn't understand what Lutheran even meant.
Speaker 2:And Lutheran to some because the ELCA is in the news from time to time and Lutheran was seen as maybe not biblical or liberal. And so we put together a value set and it's Jesus reshapes all of life. It's gotta be about him, for him and by him and to him and him. All things hold together right. And then it's biblical truth roots us, it's about the narrative of scripture. And then our third value set and this is very intentional obviously was our Lutheran heritage grounds us. It is the soil in which we've been planted, but we've been planted into the fertile streams of God's word connected to the person and work of Jesus. So Jesus, bible, lutheran is kind of the way we talk about it and that's for the lifers in the LCMS. That was kind of a gut check are we even Lutheran anymore? And then.
Speaker 2:So we had to talk about that and then it really led toward why does the church even exist? Does the church exist to just self-propagate? No, no, no. We exist because the mission of God exists, of which we're a part. We've been incorporated into that mission and it's amazing how lifers, in a church, we have to be the selfish, prideful we're better than other, no matter what the people group is or denomination is. That is firmly rooted in our sin condition, eugene, right To differentiate ourselves over and against others as closer to God. I mean, that's the height of sin. And the best parts of Lutheran theology you recognize were poor, miserable, wretched sitters If we got any kind of label at center, far from the grace of God, and only by his work have we been brought near. So yeah, that's very interesting and I would love to have a deeper dive conversation on, because now you're leaning into brand. Does the Lutheran Church of Missouri Senate I'm not saying we do, but we should probably consider it Need to consider the role of Brandon, I think there's. What do we front is really what you're saying? What brand do we initially move out into the community? Is it the cross of the Lutheran Church of Missouri Senate, or I think the cross is a great thing to go before us, but I just think there's more humility and a deeper conversation that needs to be had.
Speaker 2:We were having some of this conversation, weren't we, eugene? In partnership with the Lutheran leadership gathering, maybe, since I bring that up, what was your takeaway? So were you kind of surprised to be brought into Concordia Publishing House? So a little bit of backstory Concordia Publishing House, in partnership with the Lutheran Church Extension Fund, are exploring not just a leadership literature line, but maybe a deeper avenue platform for Lutherans and I would say, to even have more of these sorts of conversations, these humbling sort of conversations, and how we lead our existing organizations and obviously lead them in mission to reach people with the Gospel of Jesus. What was your big takeaway, though, from that leadership gathering?
Speaker 3:You know, first of all, I'm just so impressed impressed by the people gathered around that room and just their willingness to take time out of their busy schedules to come and be a part of this. I mean, it's basically just people getting around a table and just talking about this. There were no specific objectives, no outcomes, but it was just people interested in this topic, recognizing the need for a new type of leadership for this church into this next century, for this next generation, and I think that that speaks to their commitment, speaks to again let's just continue to say their humility, the willingness to learn from one another and engage. I think it also speaks to the awareness that the church isn't where it needs to be. And then, finally, I would say it speaks to the openness to be able to see that we don't have to just write books about the Bible, that the centuries-long struggle that we've had with science, with learning, with knowledge, I think that the church is in a special place right now, where we've got enough of a groundswell of people that understand that you know what, just because we're Christians doesn't mean we have to reject science.
Speaker 3:And I think God calls us to something better than that.
Speaker 3:I think he calls us to engage with it, to learn from it, to use what is useful and use what is beneficial, and to be open to even working with secular ideas, secular even groups and individuals working across that aisle to be able to benefit not only the church but humanity.
Speaker 3:I think there's a way that we do that in a winsome way, in a way that builds bridges and in a way that really builds towards a future, rather than just looking at it as what is the RLOI on our church membership.
Speaker 3:So I think that there is a different way of thinking about this that I think was embodied in the group of people that were there just brilliant people, but again, people that are engaged in the world and with the world even though they're not of the world. And I think that we can always sequester ourselves, we can always circle the wagons and just fend off the enemies that are coming over the walls, but that how that ends. We have cases like the Alamo and many other cases of where people try to coister themselves in castles. That doesn't bind well for people in general. So I think that we're at a moment in history in church history, but in human history where the church can really be engaged and an active participant in the betterment of humanity, not again, not just the betterment of the church, but the betterment of humanity, and that way that's part of the gospel of Christ.
Speaker 2:Yes, amen. Couldn't agree more. We have a number of folks that are walking through training here at our congregation, and some of them may serve in a bivocational or full-time vocational manner, and the training that we have is competency-based theological education, Eugene, and it balances character, content and craft.
Speaker 2:And you could kind of see three concentric circles. And what I hear you talking a lot about is if we miss on character, the heart of Christ, the humility of Christ, the care for others, the sacrifice of Christ, if leaders don't lead from a place of the character of Christ, you could have all, and this is what Paul says in First Corinthians 13,. Right, I mean, you could have all the knowledge, all the wisdom, all the whatever, but, man, if you've lost love, you've lost it all. Fascinating exegetical point recently Love to get your take on. This was the rule of firsts in the Old Testament. This is connected to the story of Abraham and Isaac, and Isaac loved his son. It's the first time that love is actually used. And so right there, god, from the very beginning, is saying that love is going to equal sacrifice, or love requires a sacrifice and greater love than John 15 has no one than this, than that someone lay down their life for their friends.
Speaker 2:And I'm praying for this character within the church that, whether you're connected to the church or not, you're my neighbor and I love you and I would give because Jesus gave his life for me.
Speaker 3:I would, if necessary, give my life for you Anything to add toward that need for the character of Christ Eugene in this day and age, absolutely yeah, from a young age I've grappled with what love is and grappled with how that gets defined, particularly in society, and one of those words has consistently been sacrifice, which you just pointed out. The other word for me is commitment, and commitment of the unconditional type. I think it's one thing to say I'm gonna give my tithe and it's another thing to say I'm gonna give a tithe even when times are hard, even when I'm struggling. It's also a different thing to say my tithe is not 10%, my tithe is everything I've got.
Speaker 3:So sort of the widow's mites approach, and I see the widow's mites as a great example, not because it is sort of the picture of who we need to be we don't all need to be a widow and we don't all need to donate mites but what I see in the widow is a snapshot of who she is.
Speaker 3:That widow is not giving of her poverty because it's the end of her life and she's just like giving the rest of what she's got she's gonna often die somewhere but rather that she is living out that life of sacrifice daily. That that's implicit, that's part of who she is in her relationships with her friends and family. That's part of who she is in relationship to her neighbors and to the strangers, and to the orphan and to the outcast. That is who she is, as a child of God, as an image bearer of God. That's who she is. It's not a act that we're looking to imitate. It's her character, it's her essence. And, again, if we can root our identity in those kinds of traits and instead of these labels, I think that the church would be in a bit in a different place.
Speaker 2:Now you're talking habits, eugene. Our holy habits get shaped by our identity and God, you know, this isn't, and this is where legalism gets just shot down right, this isn't you have to, because you know. No, no, I'm the type of person that gives. Why? Because God's given to me. I'm the type of person that shows up and offers my best in the workplace because God has worked it all out for me and it really is at our core. I can get into health and wellness space here too, but I'm the kind of person that is still an athlete that honors the temple, the Holy Spirit that God gave to me. I feed my body, things that are going to help me function on behalf of my neighbor, you know.
Speaker 2:So it all goes down to our baptismal identity. That's deep, deep theology, but I think I think that will that communicates in our culture today. People want to live fully alive and they recognize the assaults of the world that keep them distracted and divided and discouraged and depressed. And man, jesus is the answer. It's not a simplistic thing by any stretch, but will Jesus people enter into the journey of the pre-pagan to the pagan, to the pre-Christian, everywhere along there, and just recognize our common humanity and our need for a new identity, and obviously we have a lot to say as it relates to our identity in Jesus. Anything, though, as it relates to habits and identity. Did anything ping in your mind there?
Speaker 3:Well, I don't know how else to put other than the way you just did. You know that we oftentimes focus on the external and the behaviors. One thing that strikes me is how and this is not an implication of any one church body, I think it's just the church in sort of a universal sense that you know we hear this often enough that the church is not a place where you go to because you're perfect. It is just the opposite we go to churches because we're not perfect and we need forgiveness and we need Christ. But I think that in practice that gets lost. And I think in practice what we end up doing is we end up wanting to pad our resumes, our spiritual resumes, before we walk through those doors and I lament.
Speaker 3:I lament the friendships that I've had over the years that have fallen to the wayside, not because of lack of effort, but because they are too embarrassed to show up, because they feel like they don't match up or measure up. And you know, the message that I try to impart is you're always welcome, you're always accepted, you're always loved, but that doesn't change the message that they're hearing from everyone else or that they feel like they're receiving from everyone else. That, no, you know, if you want to be part of this group, if you want to carry this identity, you need to be a better person. You know you need to live it out first, improve yourself If you want to be part of us. And I think that it's not necessarily something that's preached necessarily directly, but it's something that people feel. And if people are feeling it, then that's a reason for us to reconsider what's going on in the church.
Speaker 2:Have you heard the differences between? I totally agree you got to look like this and act like this before you can truly get in. And there's just a lot of sociology and it I think it's a product of the fall that leads us to compare and contrast ourselves over and against better or insufficient in comparison to other people that women. So there's some gender work that's been done with. This is. And this leads toward the vulnerable conversation.
Speaker 2:You know, I'm gifted but I also got some gaps and some of those gaps are hardwired into what it means to be a man or what it means to be a woman, but women in general are feeling like they're insufficient and there's just so much and the comparison culture today. And so how does the gospel come? No, you're, you're sufficient in Jesus. You're His, his princess, his queen. He loves. He loves you so much and it doesn't matter how you look or whatever. So that's the word of the gospel that that comes. But then men are our cross, if you will, is to be seen as as weak, you know this so it leads sort of lack of a vulnerable conversation for men.
Speaker 2:Men don't often have deep, deeper conversations about what's going on in their soul. They don't want to be interpreted as weak. So can the church set up a place where men can have honest, real, vulnerable conversations about sin and struggle and how they're trying, as a husband and father, feeling like they're, they're failing, and then receive words of of confession and absolution? I've been on a confession and absolution kick for a long period of time, Eugene. I'm just. I really feel like all of life is confession and absolution and the quicker we get to confessing I'm not who I should be, and praise be to God. Jesus isn't finished with me yet. He's still completing that work that he began in me and the whole thing is grace because of the cross and empty tomb of Jesus. But have you ever? Have you ever thought about the differences of what is confessed between the genders, or just confession and absolution in general, that topic and how that's needed for the church, not just in our interaction with one another but our interaction with the world, correct, yeah?
Speaker 3:Yeah, well, I think that I can't speak to the the the gender question, but in terms of absolution, confession, absolution I I'm there with you, you know. I think that those who have been forgiven much will also forgive much. You know, like our character is shaped, not because we've determined that we're going to be that type of person necessarily. Our character is shaped because of God's work in us and our invitation for him to do so. I think that's our choice. Our choice is letting him in, letting him do what he's going to do in us. That's so beautiful and amazing.
Speaker 3:And oftentimes we get in the way of that. Oftentimes we reject it, oftentimes we say that's for someone else, that's not for me, or I'm good enough, or I don't need that. And I think that maybe that's something that you're, maybe perhaps tangentially you're speaking to that, this, this notion of needing to appear or needing to be stronger than we actually are, and whether that's on an appearance level or whether we've actually convinced ourselves that we actually are. I think it's that lack of dependence on God and lack of our trust in God that leads us to a place where we don't get to confute confession and if we don't get to confession, we don't get to absolution. But in this is we sort of talk about this in relationship to the law and gospel. Oftentimes we, in our push to be distance ourselves from the law, we oftentimes minimize it so that the gospel stands without it, and I think that the complete picture really is that the gospel exists because there is the law right, that we need forgiveness because there is sin Right, and I think that that balance is really difficult to strike as a church.
Speaker 3:I see church is going the wrong way with this. You know all the holiness movements and you need to, you know, be this righteous person, because they know that's how God approves of you. To the opposite, where it's cheap grace, where it's just everything goes, you know everything's fine. You know we'll accept you and all that you do and all that you are, to the extent that you know you could do things that really are hurtful to others or even, you know, on a deeper level, hurtful to God and to yourself, and we'll just say that's okay. So I think that there is a balance there.
Speaker 3:I'm not, I'm not. I don't feel like we have the time to get into that too deeply because there's so much there to unpack, but I think it relates to our question of how are we missional? Yeah, when we talk about our message, right, what is our message? And I think that when we talk about absolution, I think that the word absolution, I think, is to me perhaps a better way to describe God's work in us than simply the love of God. I think the love of God can be painted in many different ways, but I think absolution comes with the, it comes with the necessity for us to be forgiven, that there's something to be forgiven.
Speaker 3:And so you know again, maybe again you know, I don't want to, I don't want to believe at the point, nor do I want to degrade what you know, the beauty of the word love, that you know that the Bible paints for us this agape, love that's unconditional and sacrificial. But I think that you know grace is such a better word to describe that, the God and human interaction than just love, just because love is used in so many different ways in our society and it's been so cheap, and so grace in in in implies the need for something that we don't deserve. Right, that it's, it's something just so good and so beautiful and it's what we need, because we have a need, as opposed to, again, just a cheap gospel or cheap love.
Speaker 2:Eugene, jesus has deeply blessed you and given you such an active mind. Brother, you are a gift to the body of Christ and it's an honor to call you a friend. And yeah, we're gonna have to. There's so many other things I'd love to talk to you about. We're coming down the home stretch. The last question there's a number of Lutheran leaders and maybe pastors and other church leaders that are listening and and the world is just so crazy. Culture is changing and we're trying to engage. What word of wisdom? Because I think all of our churches, organizations, are at a certain certain level of change. Management is necessary right now. So what word of wisdom would you give to the leader who's trying to shift a culture, maybe from internal to external, from reaching one people group to reaching another people people group, just going on mission rather than just sitting and getting? We're getting going what, and that requires some robust change. What word of wisdom would you have for that leader in leading change within the church? Just one or two bits of wisdom.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you know. I would say, you know, and I haven't said this enough is, you know, let's, let's make sure that we're depending on the spirit, you know, let's listen to the spirit Number one. And the spirit does not give us, you know, god does not give us a spirit of fear, but of or of timidity, you know. But you know he gives us a spirit of power and I think that implicit with that power is the invitation to take risks, to take risks when we feel that God is in it and God is leading us to something. So, again, depending on that leading in the spirit, making sure that we're, you know, fact, checking ourselves right, like we've got to go back to scriptures, we've got to go back to our church traditions and make sure that we've learned the lessons we need to learn in order to do these innovative things. And I'd say the third thing is, after we've accomplished those things and again, you know the conversation we had about character and that internal peace as we look outward I would say, let's, let's invite God to speak through the donkeys, let's invite God to speak through the, the things that we may write off as not being from God because they're not written in scripture, but there might be wisdom there, because even the rocks cry out in praise to God. God is the creator of all things and all truth. And if that's true, and if we're discerning, and if we're, if we depend enough on God's spirit to lead us into that and remain true to the holy scriptures, then I believe that there's so much opportunity there for us to learn from things like lean startups or organizational change. I think there's so much out there that we can learn from that we cast aside because, oh, that's what business people do, or that's what scientists do, or that's what the people of the world do, and so I would say, just remain curious, remain opening, curious.
Speaker 2:Spirit dependence. If you want to summarize what Dr Kim just said, spirit dependence, higher tolerance for kingdom, expanding risk and then seeking wisdom. I'd just say first article, reality wisdom that is present both within the church and outside of the church, because the earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof. This has been so much fun, eugene. How can people connect with you if they desire?
Speaker 3:You can reach me by my work email eugenkimedu.
Speaker 2:And we're praying for CUI and the mission there. So many amazing people who are getting after it and seeking to put into practice so much of what we just talked about today. So shout out to Concordia University in Irvine, california. This is the American Reformation podcast sharing. Is Caryon, please like? Subscribe, comment. Wherever it is you take in your podcast? I'm a Spotify guy. Are you a Spotify iTunes? Where do you take in podcasts? Or do you even listen? Dr Kim, do you listen to podcasts? I do? Yeah, cool, on iTunes or Spotify. What do you do?
Speaker 3:Just a variety of different things. People send me different links, so just different links.
Speaker 2:Yeah, right around and around. So, whatever it is that you're taking these in, I pray this was an edifying conversation to you, that the joy of the Lord is your strength and that you recognize every day as a gift and this is a good day. Go by the power of the Spirit and the Word, make it a great day. Thank you so much, dr Kim. This was fun. Amen, thank you.