Speaker: Reggie McNeal

1. Missional Church: The people of God partnering with Him in His redemptive mission in the world.
2. Church was an “it”. We grew up with church being a “what”.
3. Church is a “who”.
4. How do we be THE church.
5. Plant THE church… don’t plant A church.
6. Release people to BE the church where they already are.
7. Be the church where you are already assigned.
8. Church is not a destination…
9. Why are there students who can’t read past a 4th grade level when our church is FULL of people who can?
10. How are we doing at blessing the world?

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Speakers: Alan Hirsch, Ed Stetzer – interviewed by Dave Ferguson

Ed Stetzer:

1. We are to reflect His glory and be transformed
2. You cannot LEAD what you do not LIVE.
3. Churches too often are holy merry-go-rounds. Lights, bells, whistles, attraction… but just goes round in circles.
4. We celebrate what we become.
5. You cannot love Jesus and ignore or marginalize His bride (the church).
6. The gospel isn’t something you get over… it’s something you live in.

Alan Hirsch:

1. How we measure something shows WHAT we value.
2. When we play it safe with the church, we aren’t being like Jesus.
3. We become insecure. We begin to fear each other within the church.
4. Love is to risk.
5. The only place where you can be safe from the disturbances of love is hell.
6. You cannot lead where you will not go. You cannot teach what you do not know.
7. You must risk failure to become a stakeholder in the outcome.
8. If we stay where we are, we will only produce what we’ve produced in the past.

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Speaker: Efrem Smith

Matthew 25 (starting at verse 31)

1. We are to have Kingdom URGENCY. This is evangelism.
2. We are to be ready. There is preparation work.
3. We are to be the bridesmaids of Jesus. To prepare the bride.
4. KNOW YOUR ROLE!!!
5. We need to be about Kingdom MULTIPLICATION. This is about discipleship.
6. We have separated compassion, mercy & justice… but God hasn’t.

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Speaker: Shane Claiborne

1. We’re not just told to make believers, but make DISCIPLES.
2. What we can learn from both liberals and conservatives is no matter what your ideology is, you can be mean.
3. Mother Theresa didn’t wear a shirt that said “Abortion is Murder” but she came alongside pregnant women and said, “we can do this together!”
4. Transformation takes more than just a good vision.
5. “Everybody wants a revolution, but no one wants to wash the dishes.”
6. The mega-church thing is so 1980’s. It was a good thing, but often-times, God does His work in the small things in your neighborhood.
7. Virtual communities: FB & twitter is good… but if you eat ONLY virtual food, you’re gonna die.
8. Transformation takes imagination.
9. We cannot truly recover ourselves until we help the community that made us sick recover too.
10. We’re just the asses that get to bring Jesus in.

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Speaker: Dave Gibbons

1. Transformation starts in the mind and is honed in GOOD community.
2. If Satan was smart, he’d put us all in a group and let us talk about the bible, then let us call it a small group. Then he’d let us go even deeper and let us call it community. When in reality, it’s just a farm.
3. Are we captured by movements because it’s the next big thing.
4. Movement of the masses vs. the movement of the Holy Spirit.
5. You don’t need the answers. You need the tools.

I’ve been avoiding this whole controversy due to the mere fact that there has been enough attention thrown that direction. I really didn’t feel the need to add to the noise. Also, I thought, “Who am I? Why does my opinion matter?” But when people started asking me more and more what my thoughts were, I realized maybe my voice DOES matter.

Long story short: Jud Wilhite & Mike Foster wrote Deadly Viper. Much of the Asian American Community were deeply offended by their use of marketing, which used kanji and martial arts illustrations. Words were expressed on blogs. Feelings were hurt. Jud & Mike (along with Zondervan) addressed the concerns as best they could. Plans to re-design the book were made. Everyone seemed to have come to a compromise. Then, instead of going with the plan, Zondervan pulls the book off the stands… indefinitely.

Now, everyone feels censored.

The Asian American community has blown up the blogosphere with their thoughts. You can read some written by Professor Soong-Chan Rah, Eugene Cho, DJ Chuang, Dave Gibbons and Kathy Khang. Then later I was quoted HERE by DJ Chuang… twice.  I highly respect ALL of these contributors, but I don’t necessarily agree with everything they are saying. My comments have been so scattered on different blogposts, I thought it would be better if I just compiled them all in one place. So here goes:

For clarity, I am Chinese-American. I didn’t even speak English until I was in first grade, but if you and I had a conversation, you’d never know that because I have NO accent. ESL classes were my best friend in elementary school. On my wedding day, I had a Chinese red-dress wedding AND an American white-dress wedding (with tea ceremony). Brian “purchased” me for $99.99. It felt like the longest day of my life. I know the Chinese traditions all too well, yet at the same time, feel as if I know NOTHING about my culture. Where does that put me? Always willing to learn, I guess.

I am DEEPLY saddened about the controversy surrounding this matter.

People were offended and hurt in this process. Brothers and Sisters in Christ (of the same race, of a different race, same gender, different gender) slung nasty words at each other while they fought for a side… fought to be heard. Ironic really, how this book was about character assassination.

The majority of the offended party has not even read the book. This is unfortunate because the premise and the purpose of the book is quite phenomenal and has changed the lives of many. The offended also saw an obscure Facebook video from 2 years ago that was unrelated to the book’s marketing and words flew. Even though the video was removed immediately once it was brought to attention, integrity was questioned.

The offended looked at the design and concluded it was a marketing gimmick when in reality, the book wasn’t about hijacking a culture… it was about using the Kung-Fu movie genre & Martial Arts as a metaphor for living a life with integrity.

I understand that some of the DV marketing was offensive. Not knowing some of the material was offensive doesn’t excuse the DV team from the FACT it’s still offensive. However, they were never given a real opportunity to rectify it before it all blew up in their face.

My biggest disappointment in all of this isn’t that I felt as if my Asian culture had been attacked… but that CHRIST’S culture had been attacked.

From the beginning, my frustrations weren’t with the DV camp… it was with some of the “offended” Asian American community. Am I saying they didn’t have a right to be offended? NO. Hear/read me clearly – God gave us ALL feelings for a reason. If we feel it, it’s real to us. Right, wrong or indifferent, it’s real. Our job is to communicate that out of love and grace so that restoration can take place. But from what I have read, that didn’t happen.

Matthew 18: 15-17 says:

^15″If your brother sins against you, go and show him his fault, just between the two of you. If he listens to you, you have won your brother over. ¹⁶But if he will not listen, take one or two others along, so that ‘every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.’ ¹⁷If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, treat him as you would a pagan or a tax collector.”

From what I saw… the offended jumped STRAIGHT to the last resort.

We’ve come a long way from when my great-grandfather was working on American train-tracks as a slave. We can talk to each other now respectfully and humbly without fearing for our lives… so let’s use our words to resolve issues of offenses… not attack back.

I’ll close with part of my comment on DJ Chuang’s most recent post:

I wish that DV didn’t get pulled. I wish the Asian-American community didn’t APPEAR so “overly-sensitive” and to be blunt… a bit selfish. But that’s where we are right now and I feel like I’ve got a foot in both camps. This CAN be remedied… but it’s gonna take communication… and some serious hugging.

“Brothers don’t shake hands… Brothers gotta HUG!”

Oh… and in case you couldn’t tell? I was NOT offended by ANY of Deadly Viper’s materials.