Missional Reflection #1: A Trifold Conversation

This book  shows even with our best intentions at being a Church engaged with its community that we still often are caught in a self-centered monologue on church concerns: how has the church lost its way in mission, how does church leadership need to reform, how do we become an outward-focused church? Taking on the perspective that any solid missionary to a foreign country must also look equally at 2 other conversation partners along with the church: the culture and Scripture.

Imagine you are sent to be a missionary to Japan. If you were a missionary worth your salt, you would become a learner of that culture and language and keen on finding Scriptures that could interface with the cultural context you find yourself in. You would also interface with the Church in Japan but since Japanese Christians only make up less than 1% of the country, spending all your time with the Japanese church would be missing out on what's going on in 99% of the population.

Why should the approach you take going to Japan be any different when we are here in the local community? And yet, we typically start with the church as the focus of our conversation when it comes to viewing our faith here at home. Sitting with neighbors and people in the community to actually listen to their needs and hopes typically isn't part of the outreach strategies of the local church. We are too used to wanting to be in control, and too used to talking about our own concerns and desires (like, "how do we get them into our church?").

One of the stories talked about a pastor interviewing his congregation about his leadership in various areas. One of the participants, a member of that church and seminarian involved in their community outreach program told him after a long silence her views on the church's overall community engagement: "From what I've seen, the church is closed to the community. We push the annual denominational missions offering. To some extent we push Samaritan's Purse. But when it comes to a local child in the community, we're less likely to help...I visit a lot of the churches in this area through my volunteer work. I think ours, like most, is self-absorbed."Ouch!

We will be less self-absorbed if we allow our conversations to go beyond just talking about ourselves. More thoughts on that at a later post about this book.

LIFT Garden Work Day, 3-3-12

Planting with students and Next Gen Rotarians

On Saturday, March 3, 2012, over 50 students, family, Rotarian volunteers, and school district employees came to help install an organic garden at LIFT (Learning Independence For Transition) school on 3rd Street and Commonwealth, a new program for special education students from 18-22.

This work day was a culmination of a collaborative project that started out as an idea last Fall. As the project lead I felt especially proud of the many partners who donated time, money and resources into this garden. The more names on the plaque, the better.

In the book Building Communities From the Inside Out, community development "is the process by which local capacities are identified and mobilized. This mobilization mainly involves connecting people with capacities to: other people, local associations, local businesses, local institutions, capital and credit." We accomplished this garden because we reached out to people with access to all of these areas, whether it was a connection to Home Depot, Alhambra High School's wood shop class, the church neighbor bordering this garden, our awesome connection to free compost through Vons Grocery Stores, a grant, and of course the Rotary's capital and volunteer backing.

 While it's definitely a slower process to involve more people, the results are much more satisfying not just in terms of cost, but in terms of ownership. The best part has been walking with the students in helping them plan the garden, fill the beds with the compost, and plant the first crop during the work day. And in the immortal words of Hannibal from The A-Team, "I love it when a plan comes together."

2012 Prayerwalk Testimony

Praying in front of Alhambra City Hall

Pastor Jimmy Tam of Sunrise Christian Church in Alhambra shared some of his reflections on our annual prayerwalk two Sundays ago as well as his journey to seeing the importance of prayer in seeing our community transformed.

The 2012 Alhambra City Prayer Walk was a day that I really looked forward to with great expectation and excitement. To me it was not just an event, but a crucial step in pursuing the vision of city transformation and spiritual revival. I am convinced that God’s requirement for sending us revival is for all His people in the city to come together for united prayer. For Alhambra, it happened on 2/19 Sunday at 1-3pm with over seventy brothers and sisters from different churches, ages, ethnic backgrounds, and languages. I was so honored and excited to be a part of this strategic spiritual alliance. 

As we gathered and started our prayer walk in the center of the city, I felt a sense of excitement, spiritual passion, faith and unity among us. As we moved from one station to another, the presence of the Holy Spirit was getting stronger as our brothers and sisters prayed more fervently. Another wonderful experience of this year’s prayer walk was that each individual would pair up with a fellow Christian from another church as prayer partners. I was very touched and encouraged by the compassion and love of my prayer partner Mike from Gateway Community Church for his earnest intercession for the people, the government, and the churches of Alhambra. I was convinced that our passionate prayers had not only touched God’s heart, but they were the actual expression of God’s compassion and vision for the city.  I also believe that the spiritual effect of this year’s Alhambra Prayer Walk would continue to bring transformations to both the spiritual and physical realms of our community.

My journey into the ministry of prayer and the starting of the Sunrise House of Prayer in Alhambra began about three years ago. As I met different individuals and families in our community, I began to see the needs and brokenness of the people. I saw bondages and brokenness that result from drug and gambling addictions, materialism, divorces and broken families, depressions and homelessness. Even though there are quite a number of churches in Alhambra, we have not been able to make a significant difference and impact in bringing healing, freedom and transformation in these people’s lives. Many of them are still waiting to be touched by the love and power of Jesus Christ. As I researched and learned from the examples of city transformation in different parts of the world in recent times, the number one common factor for transformation and revival to take place is PRAYER.  

Prayer, especially citywide united prayer, is the way God uses to manifest His love and power.  I began to realize that due to the lack of extended passionate prayers, the ministry works that I did produced very little long-term spiritual results. But as we started to pray more, we started to see amazing transformations in people’s lives. By God’s grace, we are seeing drug addicts set free after a miraculous encounter with Jesus through prayer, and couples on the brink of divorce and suicide due to the husband’s longtime addiction in gambling restored to hope, freedom and reconciliation within two months of desperate and united prayers. I am now very convinced that nothing else we do can be more important and more influential that prayer.  I pray that the Church in Alhambra will come together as one to pray more often and in greater numbers in the days to come. If this happens, city transformation and revival will come to Alhambra soon.

True School Reform?

I met with the principal of Fremont School (K-8) last Friday, and was struck by her desire to want to create a better learning environment for the students but plagued by an aging campus and limited budget. We had a good chat about possibilities local congregations in Fremont's school boundaries could partner to help out.


I know enough of my Christian peers with young kids who are considering or have moved to a better school district, chosen homeschooling, or are putting their kids in private Christian schooling. I had one co-worker from another city  tell me that sacrificing his kid's education to a bad school was not on the list of things he wanted to sacrifice anymore (and his family sacrifices a lot for the good of their city).

I don't want to judge my friends who have made all of the above choices. I would feel ambivalence too if I didn't already live in the "best" K-8 school in our district (not planned, just worked out that way). I can't say I wouldn't have done the same if given the chance and resources. And I know many also made their decisions because they feel that their faith will not be supported in the public school system.

But I wonder if our choices as a whole become another form of capitulation by the Church to reinforcing the sacred-secular split in our society. The local school becomes irrelevant, competition, even the enemy in some ways.

If the Kingdom of God in Christ is the best, brightest hope we have in the world, it must permeate all sectors of our society, especially our institutions and including our local schools. Even if we've made the best choice for our own kids, should the Church abandon the rest who can't do the same? If we believe that true school reform will somehow be wrapped in who Jesus is and his mission to the world, we must realize that it will take more than even the greatest individual Christian teachers, administrators, parents, students who faithfully slug it out in an often challenging environment--the  Church community must be there as well.

City of Alhambra Prayerwalk, Sunday 2-19-12

Come and join us for our annual City Prayerwalk! Pray with other Alhambra congregations for the City of Alhambra, where we will pray for all the aspects of our community in the downtown Civic Center: City Hall, Police/Fire, schools, the courts, local churches, businesses, etc.

Time: 1:00 - 3:00pm

Start/End location:

Alhambra True Light Presbyterian Church

20 W. Commonwealth Ave.

This will be our 8th annual City Prayerwalk, and we are excited about the possibility of getting more congregations coming together to pray for the City! We hope you can set aside 2 hours aside to intercede for the City of Alhambra. For more info, please e-mail me at jessec@kingdomcauses.org 

Alhambra City Prayerwalk Reflection 3-6-11

It's been 2 years since Kingdom Causes did the Alhambra prayerwalk in the downtown core. On a sunny and mild Sunday afternoon, about 40 people from 5 local congregations came to pray for the city of Alhambra.

Starting from Alhambra True Light Presbyterian Church, we went to stations along approximately 1 mile route: Municipal courts, churches on Commonwealth, Alhambra High School, City Hall, Civic Library, Police, businesses, a local Christian counseling agency and the federal government (post office).

What I appreciated from people who walked and prayed was how they noticed things I didn't notice--"why didn't we pray for that big bank on the corner?"
"We should be praying for that Planned Parenthood across the street"
"I didn't realize there was all these night clubs!"

Prayerwalking is just as much about noticing things to pray for en route as it is predetermined stations. We think we know a place, but often times are just driving through, too fast to notice until we slow down and see things up close and in the mode to notice (in the mode of prayer!). This slowing down is a good thing for us as we enter Lent on Wednesday: noticing things we wouldn't notice, noticing what Jesus saw as he walked towards the city of Jerusalem with his disciples.

Thanks to all who participated and promoted the City Prayerwalk!

Shalom for Everyone

Greetings for the New Year 2011!

I've been reading Robert Linthicum's book Building a People of Power. He does a great job at talking about the biblical concept of shalom as what a God vision for the whole world is to look like.

We talk a lot about shalom when we talk about Kingdom Causes to churches and people of faith. After all we use Jeremiah 29:7 a lot in our conversations: "Seek the welfare (shalom) of the city." But what I didn't think about is that shalom is for the "haves and have nots," and Linthicum does a good job at showing these two are intertwined for shalom to be whole (and biblically speaking, the two themes are brought together in the book of Deuteronomy).

Shalom for the "have nots" is a message of liberation, salvation, of setting free. Shalom for the "haves" is of celebration for security and of wise management of all God has given. As Linthicum says,

The biblical message on shalom is that it is for both the haves and have nots. It is both for those who lack power and are in need of liberation and for those who hold power and seek to appropriately manage the resources God has placed at their disposal...One of the essential tasks of the church is to bring together through Christ those searching for liberation or salvation and those who are the managers of society and seek security, so that they might work together to build shalom that is truly just and equitable for all, that brings people in to an ever-deepening relationship with God and each other, and consequently contributes to the formation of society as God intended it to be lived.

Couldn't have said it better myself! Here's to seeking shalom and bridges between the haves and have nots in Alhambra & Monterey Park for the New Year!