Winning isn’t everything, losing is. One of the biggest faults that I point out in my 11-year old son is that he is a sore loser. Whether it be striking out in a baseball game or a simple argument with his sister, he has a hard time losing. He wants to win, and for the better part of his life, things have come easily for him. One thing I’m confident about is his self-confidence.

But I’ve learned in parenting: When you find a glaring character fault in your child, you are glaring at yourself in the mirror. The little kid that looks just like you is like you.

At my middle age of 41, I’m learning lessons on losing. By and large, by God’s grace, the first half of my life has been filled with many wins in life. I’ve been raised in a loving Christian family, been granted a B.S./Ph.D./M.Div., been blessed with a wonderful wife & kids, a ministry and co-workers that would be the envy of many, and many more reasons to be grateful for life. But a dangerous byproduct of disproportionate self-confidence is that it leaves little room for confidence in Christ.

And so I’ve been thinking: Perhaps in being caught up with winning, I’ve lost out on the lessons of losing. After all, everyone will lose; even the best of winners will lose one day, if not every day in ways unknown…

Dr. Henry Cloud writes about losing well in his book, Integrity,

“[...] most important, the difference between winners and losers is not that winners never lose. The difference is that winners lose well, and losers lose poorly.”

I think the biggest winners are those who learn the painful lessons of losing well early on. In losing, you lose your pride and gain a chance to receive the gift of humility. And the humbler you are, the easier it is to “never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world” (Galatians 6:14).

In life, people rush to pat winners on the back with a big “Congratulations!”  But now, I would much rather say to the loser, “Congratulations on your defeat because you’ve won an opportunity for Christ to be the Victor in your life!” I’m thankful all the more that God’s forgiveness, salvation, and love are all free to everyone in Christ. And that makes a loser like me (and you) a big winner of God’s amazing grace.

1 Peter 5:5-6 “Young men, in the same way be submissive to those who are older. All of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, because, ‘God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.’ Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time.”

This past week just flew by!  Here’s a sampling of our daily routine for your amusement:

• Go to the Rec Center to exercise for an hour.
• Eat & hit the books at the library for 5 hours straight.
• Eat & go back to the library for another 5!

You might be wondering, “What kind of torturous R & R is that? I thought a Sabbatical was supposed to be rest & relaxation?“  Well, in case you don’t know, we are professional nerds to the n-th degree.  In fact, we rank in the top 95.7th percentile of nerds and are diagnosed with HBS (”Heavy Butt Syndrome”).  When we study, we feel God’s pleasure! We’re thoroughly enjoying our R & R before our kids arrive in a couple of days.  And when they arrive, they’ll sit with us and join in the family fun as Kristen studies for the PSAT and Taylor his LSAT.

Honestly, we’ve been really enjoying our time reading and reading.  We’ve been plowing through the Bible and are half way through.  Since I’m an audio-reader, I listen to an mp3 of the Bible while reading/highlighting the text on my Bible.  It allows me to keep a good pace, especially through all the tricky pronunciations of names.  Before each book, I get a nice overview from How to Read the Bible Book by Book: A Guided Tour by Gordon Fee & Douglas Stuart.  And while I am on the treadmill, I listen to Old Testament Survey Class Lectures by Dr. Stuart (I took his class during seminary but it is available free through http://www.biblicaltraining.org).

We also finished some secular books that have interesting implications for ministry and leadership: Malcolm Gladwell’s Blink and The Tipping Point (we became fans after his Outliers).  Perhaps even more relevant is Dr. Henry Cloud’s Integrity: The Courage to Meet the Demands of Reality (which I read in one sitting on my Kindle).  But don’t let the title fool you; it is actually more than just ethical or moral integrity. Integrity is about the kind of character that:

1. Creates and maintains trust
2. Is able to see and face reality
3. Works in a way that brings results
4. Embraces negative realities and solves them
5. Causes growth and increase
6. Achieves transcendence and meaning in life

There are a lot of lessons that I need to apply to my life and ministry and I’m sure I’ll be posting more about it later.

We’re having other fun as well.  Once in a while we watch an episode of The Waltons (yes John-Boy, it’s that old 1970’s TV show!).  I grew up watching that when I was a kid, and so I bought the DVD of the first season a while back so that our kids would know why I like to wear old-fashioned clothing! We also ventured out to Chinatown and had a blast at Yaohan plaza (which is Ranch 99 raised to the 3rd power). Susanna found all kinds of exotic foods that she remembers from Cambodia. Thankfully, we passed on durian, fresh frog, and soft-shelled turtles.

Exotic Rambutan fruit from Thailand in a Chinese market in Canada!

Posted in About Life, Leadership Lessons, Ministry Lessons ]]> http://joongwlee.wordpress.com/2009/06/27/wk2-r-r-read-read/feed/ 10 joongwlee Study 2 study3 yaohan shop3 http://joongwlee.wordpress.com/2009/06/20/wk-1-get-ready-get-set/ http://joongwlee.wordpress.com/2009/06/20/wk-1-get-ready-get-set/#comments Sun, 21 Jun 2009 07:18:45 +0000 joongwlee http://joongwlee.wordpress.com/?p=984 ]]>

Last Monday, we finally left Davis around 8:30pm after saying “good bye” to the many Waypoint members who stopped by to wish us well.  They made a farewell tunnel through our living room, into our kitchen, through the family room, and out to the front lawn! We are very grateful to everyone for encouraging us through this Sabbatical with your prayers, encouragements, and gifts/goodies.  We are richly blessed…

By midnight, we made it to Yreka where we checked into a motel for a quick sleep and were on the road again at 7am to cover the balance of 900 miles to Vancouver. I drove most of the way, while listening to an audiobook of Chuck Colson’s book, The Faith, while Susanna quickly finished the book, Blink. At the border, a Canadian immigration officer asked me, “Will you be working or teaching in Canada?”  To which I replied without blinking, “Nope; I’m here on a sabbatical — I’m not supposed to do those things!”

We arrived at our dorm 24 hours after we left Davis and I unloaded the minivan all by myself.  But after the 8th box, I wished we had packed Timothy, Ming, and Jacob in our minivan (they helped me load back home).  But being the macho man that I am, I unloaded the entire minivan without crying or whining.  (I nearly pulled several muscles, but I figured I’d have the next 8 weeks to recover!)

It took some time to get things set here since we couldn’t bring up everything.  The night of our arrival, we went to Wal-Mart to get important necessities like ketchup.  It was strange not buying in bulk quantities since it will be just the two of us for the first couple of weeks.  (Our kids will join us at that time after their youth retreat.)  Since it’s just the two of us, I’m gladly volunteering to do the dishes every day.  (That will change when I get to pull seniority on our kids.)

We also went to a special seminar by Prof. Darrell Johnson at Regent College entitled, “The Glory of Preaching: Participating in God’s Transformation of the World.“  His thesis is this: (and I’m quoting him here)

“When a human being [imperfect, broken, multi-motivated, sinful-in-process-of-being-made-whole], open Bible in hand, stands up before a group of other human beings [imperfect, broken, with all kinds of needs, bombarded by many voices, under many demands, sinful-in-process-of-being-made-whole], and says [however imperfectly, inadequately, yet as faithfully as possible] what the Living God is saying in the text to which the Bible is opened, something happens [something transformative].”

I was so pumped up after his lecture that I wanted to drive back down to Davis to preach!  He also challenged us to find in every text of the Bible an opportunity to encounter Jesus.  As a result, I’ve been spending several hours each day reading the Bible, starting with Genesis, and it has been good, very good…

Finally, some of you will be happy to hear that Susanna and I are putting that gift membership to the Rec Center to good use.  As proof, here is a picture of the two of us on treadmills going really fast.  It’s so fast that it’s blurred because we’re warping time, bending light, or pulling your leg! 

Running so fast, it's blurry!

Our family will be on a Sabbatical at Regent College in Vancouver for the next two months.   Some churches give Sabbaticals for their pastors every 7 years, some churches every year, and some churches just let the pastor get the rest in Heaven (after all, we’ll be at rest for all of eternity, so what’s the hurry, right?).

I’m taking this Sabbatical after 11 years of ministering here at Waypoint Community Church.  To tell you the truth (and pastors need to do that), it has been a challenge leading a church.  I look back to my days as a professor and recall how easy it was just teaching chemistry and doing research 60-80 hours a week; that was a piece of cake with ice cream on top!  Being a pastor is a 60/60/24/7/365 job where every second matters…

Many a times when my cell phone rings, I pause and take a deep breath before I say, “Hello?”  It’s because every call might be from a person struggling in faith, battling some urgent crisis, or someone desperately in need of a Savior, the Prince of Peace.  Such is the calling of a pastor, ministering in a sin-impacted world.

Sabbath rest is what I need to experience, especially since I’m supposed to rest, rejuvenate, recover, read, restore, etc.  That means I should not worry about what will happen back at Davis.  Fortunately, while I am away, Pastor Timothy and the rest of the directors will take good care of ministry.  And Jay & Cathy’s family will be taking good care of our house.  And I can be at rest because Jesus will take good care of me…

Please pray for us while we are gone and we’ll see you in mid-August!  (BTW, I am planning on updating this blog on a weekly basis to let you know what’s happening up there.)

(I’m sorry for shamelessly being proud of my daughter in this post.  I’ve made fun of her here and there on my blog, so to be fair, I ought to say some good things from time to time.)

Last night, Kristen had her graduation celebration from junior high school. In the past years, they only had an awards ceremony without much fanfare.  But this year, the leadership class organized a more formal graduation celebration. Kristen was one of the student organizers for the event and stayed up until 2:30 AM Sunday night planning for it, including designing the invitation cards to the teachers, a thank you bouquet for the principal, a graphic design for the backdrop, and many other logistical details! (Remind you of someone?)

During the departmental awards segment, I was secretly hoping that she would win the science or math award.  I got my camera ready in video mode to capture that moment, but alas, she didn’t get it!  (I was hoping that she got my genes since I received the top math student award in my junior high.)  Instead, Kristen got the leadership gene from Susanna and received the school’s leadership award.  She was involved with leadership for two years and organized many of the school’s events with Excel spreadsheets galore!  (Yes, she got a few templates from Susanna, and in a few years, she’ll tackle being the food czar for G-Live!)

The other award she got was “The Husky Award” [their mascot is a husky],  selected by the staff for “demonstrated excellent character” where the criteria includes “being a positive influence on others, honesty, hard work, good attendance, good behavior, and service to others.”  It turns out that this is a big award and her name will be engraved on a permanent plaque in the school office!

But I was even prouder for this…  Background info:  Last week, I got mad at her for wanting to wear a dress for a dinner banquet which was way too short – it was above the knee by a couple of meters!  (I kid you not, that is how I felt!) I immediately made her change her attire and her attitude of complaining and whining.  Yesterday, to my surprise, I found out that she actually made a dress for this graduation celebration — one that I would approve of.  She had an old dress that didn’t fit her (but fit my knee criteria), and so she borrowed a sewing machine and sewed on a top for it!  It turned out great: It was modest, looked very fashionable, and didn’t cost any extra money.  I was so proud of her that I wanted to go out and buy her a new dress! Instead, we settled for Quickly’s tapioca drinks after the ceremony, supersized for everyone. 

Kristen, for such demonstrated excellent character, your name is permanently engraved in my heart as a wonderful daughter…

Recently, we at Waypoint Community Church had a representative from The Gideons International share with us their ongoing work in distributing Bibles worldwide.  (We’ve hosted them every other year or so.)

The other day, I got a “thank you” letter from Mike (who came and shared with us the stories) and wanted to share some portions with you:

“On behalf of the local Yolo County Camp and the Gideons International, we want to express our sincere thanks to your entire church congregation for their partnership with us.  [...] The offering of $1382.00 is awesome evidence of the love your congregation has for the lost.  [...] This offering will enable the Gideons to purchase and place 276 Bibles, or 1063 New Testaments, in the hands of the lost throughout the world.”

I’m so grateful that we were able to help out in this way!

Let’s pray that these Bibles will get to the hands of those who are searching for the Truth, the Way, and the Life,…and that they might ultimately find Jesus Christ!

QUESTION AUTHORITY was the famous bumper sticker slogan I was confronted by when I arrived at UC Berkeley back in the 80’s.  Being a foolish freshman, I never questioned where that bumper sticker got the authority to make such a bold statement in the first place!

Without question, many people are still questioning authority.  But upon closer examination, it’s really selective authority questioning, where you are the ultimate author(ity)…

When I was teaching chemistry, I was never questioned, “Professor Lee, I disagree with your teaching of PV = nRT.  I think it should be PVn = RT.”  Such a person either doesn’t know much chemistry or has dyslxeia.  But interestingly, when I preach/teach the Bible, there are some who object, “Pastor Jonathan, I disagree with your teaching on what Christian living should be…“  I am often tempted to question back, “Well, upon what basis do you disagree? Upon what authority? Upon what authority as a Bible scholar or decades of personal godly maturity do you raise that question?”  (But it’s also interesting that people hardly ever question authority when it doesn’t make uncomfortable demands on one’s lifestyle.)

On authority, C. S. Lewis reasons with us in Mere Christianity (p.62):

Do not be scared by the word authority.  Believing things on authority only means believing them because you have been told them by someone you think trustworthy.  Ninety-nine per cent of the things you believe are believed on authority.  I believe there is such a place as New York.  I have not seen it myself.  I could not prove by abstract reasoning that there must be such a place.  I believe it because reliable people have told me so.  [...] Every historical statement in the world is believed on authority.  None of us has seen the Norman Conquest or the defeat of the Armada.  None of us could prove them by pure logic as you prove a thing in mathematics.  We believe them simply because people who did see them have left writings that tell us about them: in fact, on authority.  A man who jibbed at authority in other things as some people do in religion would have to be content to know nothing all his life.

Recently, those taking a discipleship class at Waypoint Community Church were reminded of the “4 Sources of Authority” (Survival Kit: 5 Keys to Effective Spiritual Growth by Ralph Neighbour, Jr.) where the greatest and ultimate authority ought to be the Scripture, the Word of God, the Bible.  The authority of Scripture is far more trustworthy than experiences, intellect, or tradition.  (And I might add “feelings” to this list of inadequate authorities.)

I’d like to hear from you on this:  Why are some people so inclined to question authority, especially Biblical authority? (i.e., the authority that the Bible has over life and faith)

We wanted to do a quick poll for Waypoint Community Church to get an estimate of which Summer Session will be more populated.  It will help us with scheduling all the fun and exciting events & activities.  Thx!

POLL RESULTS: (as of 6/2/09)
85% During BOTH Summer Sessions 1 & 2
7%  Won’t be in Davis at all this summer
5%  Shorter than a summer session duration
3%  During Summer Session 2 (8/3 – 9/11)

So it looks like many of you will be here all summer long!   We’ll be sure to have lots of cool fun!  

Sharing is good. Our folks at Gracepoint Fellowship Church have been putting together some good resources. (And they’re free so they’re very good!) I’ve compiled them here along with some other good free resources on the web: (I’ve added these on my sidebar to the right.)

Free Christian Audio Books: http://christianaudio.com/free_download.php

• For those who like to read without holding a book!
• A new free book every month! (Be sure to put in the coupon code per their website.)

DT Sharing: http://www.gracepointdevotions.com

• Daily Devotional sharing by various Gracepoint & Waypoint staff posted Monday – Friday.
• They also got me & Susanna to post weekly on it!

Q/A Re: Christianity: http://gracepointforum.blogspot.com

• “A forum where tough questions about the Christian faith can be discussed.”
• Tough questions on Sabbath day, what is the soul, etc.
  

Food: http://www.dishgracepoint.com

• “Recipes for large groups at affordable prices – a key component to fellowship.”
• Try out these recipes…and invite us over when you do!

Humor: http://www.disgracepointonline.org

• “Because laughter is the best medicine, right after Chinese herbal medicine and acupuncture and Western medicine.”
• Good, wholesome, and fun – Entertainment the way it should be!

Video Collection: http://www.gracepointvideo.org

• “A collection of videos produced by members of Gracepoint Fellowship Church, from our various ministries, as well as other videos found on the web.”
• A convenient one-stop “best of the best” (so you don’t waste a lot of time on YouTube!).
  

Misc.: http://waypointcc.org/devotionals_links.php

• A compilation of other good internet resources linked on our church website.
  

Last night, after Koinonia Bible study, the guys went to play basketball.  The “oldies team” beat the undergrads in a very close game!  As we headed home, I was inspired to write a poem after seeing Sam in the dimly lit parking lot leaning against his minivan as captured in this picture and poem…

An Old too Sam

I know a man called Sam,

he is a man who can!

He was a Superman,

but push a minivan??

He thrilled this B-Ball fan,

but leg cramped up — oh man!

I know a man called Sam,

he’s now an old, old man.

Sam, be sure to stretch before you fly in the sky again.  Welcome to the oldies team!