Christopher Kwon > Recent Status Updates

We offer it (the five thresholds framework) as a discernment tool, something to help you ask good questions. As you seek God for wisdom about what your non-Christian friends need, you are in a great learning posture. Our hope is that as you use this tool with the Lord and your community to understand your non-Christian friends and neighbors more clearly, you will grow in servant evangelism.

By living out the kingdom in front of our friends and inviting them into safe places where they can stretch their seeking muscles, we can help demystify the seeking process and help them enter the seeking posture.

We have found that we can help our (curious) friends become open by being (prayerfully) patient and by challenging them. Both are important.

This tenuous dance of "suspending disbelief" and daring to try on what it could be like to believe what Jesus says sometimes takes time. And we need to be patient with that. They need to know that we are their friend regardless of what they decide. They need to know that we like them even as they are, not only if they change. And sometimes they just need space.

a principle we have seen again and again in our postmodern friends who have come to faith: before actively seeking God and considering becoming a follower of Jesus, they had to become open to change in their life. And becoming open to change is much harder than it may seem on the surface. It is actually a heroic, mysterious, deep thing.

In the end, even if you are encouraging questions, using parables and living curiously, it is important to remember that curiosity grows over time... Often the soil can look barren and unworthy of the sweat and toil, but as we dig and help uncover their curiosity we will find rich patches of ground for seeds to take root and sprout new life.

Not only would it behoove us to learn and use the parables of Jesus and all they contain, but we also could do a better job of noticing the parables all around us today … we should practice the regular habit of noticing parables all around us and learning how to use them to provoke curiosity about Jesus.

One of the greatest acts of love we can give is to ask good questions and help our friends learn to ask more questions for themselves. We live in an age of too much info, too few good questions. Let's be the ones to ask great questions. Spark curiosity wherever you go, just like Jesus. Let's be like Jesus: let's ask intriguing questions that help our friends think about life from angles they have never considered.

We combat the temptation to argue and push away through opening our arms in hospitality. Come and see, we say. And in this way distrust begins to melt and trust is built in unimaginable ways.

Following Jesus' lead and being a learner means that we too ask good questions, even of those who are annoying or distrustful. He is fully present and captivated by them, their story, their yearnings, their needs. He listens to their "whole story" and shows us how to be intrigued with each person's uniqueness. Instead of cringing and feeling bruised by their distrust, we must lean into them and learn.

These foundational lessons about conversion have been freeing for us to learn. Understanding the mysterious nature of the path has freed us from activism and ushered us into a humble place of wonder and prayer. And understanding the organic nature of the path has freed us from the frustrations of one-trick evangelism and empowered us to get involved in the specific unfolding mysteries of our friends.

There are five significant shifts that tend to go on in postmodern folks as they come to faith. 1. Moving from distrust to trust 2. Moving from complacent to curious 3. Moving from closed to change to open to change 4. Moving from meandering to seeking 5. Crossing the threshold of the kingdom itself

While it (Jesus’ Parable of Farmer Sowing Seed) affirms the hidden nature of change (it happens at night when no one is looking), it also shows the natural, organic process that change follows (first seed, then stalk, then head, then the crop is ready).

As kingdom farmers in postmodern soil, we must welcome this mysterious nature of that path to faith. In fact, there is something spiritually liberating when we admit and declare what is beyond us and where we are powerless. It is impossible for us to predict why some of our friends will choose Jesus and why others just won't. We don't know which seed will take root and which will bounce off the hardened ground.

Our (devil) cause is never more in danger than when a human, no longer desiring, but still intending, to do our Enemy's (God) will, looks round upon a universe from which every trace of Him (God) seems to have vanished, and asks why he has been forsaken, and still obeys.

We (devils) want cattle who can finally become food; He (God) wants servants who can finally become sons. We want to suck in, He wants to give out. We are empty and would be filled; He is full and flows over. Our war aim is a world in which Our Father Below has drawn all other beings into himself: the Enemy wants a world full of beings united to Him but still distinct.

I've also learned that, no matter what you believe, everyone dies the same way. I've seen just as many patients who aren't religious and don't believe in an afterlife have end-of-life visitations from loved ones as I have those who do believe in a life after this one.

What I do think is important, though, is finding inner peace and happiness—-whatever that means for you. In my experience, the people who are happiest at the end of their life are those who have achieved a sense of peace in regard to how they've lived, and who are comfortable in their belief about what comes next.

Consider what you're passionate about, get busy learning about that area of interest, and offer your time, talent, and treasure. God might want a dramatic change of scene for you or a dramatic heart change that opens opportunities where you already are. When we are fully devoted to Christ—whether we serve as a missionary, a stay-at-home mom, or a CEO—we are all in full-time Christian service.

if we seek to solve all of their problems for them, we become more likely to create a harmful dependency than a lasting solution. We can advise, encourage, help, and provide some expertise they may lack, but the community should lead and direct its own change. When a community takes pride in and ownership of its accomplishments, the solutions are more likely to be sustainable, and we can work ourselves out of a job.

Because poverty is a complex puzzle with multiple interrelated causes, solutions addressing just one or two pieces of the puzzle will not fundamentally change a community trapped in poverty. We have to help communities address their challenges on multiple fronts: food, water, health, education, economic development, gender, child development, and even leadership and governance.

Effectively addressing poverty requires cultural understanding, technical expertise, and a great deal of perseverance. It takes wisdom and experience to recognize the difference between the symptoms of poverty and its causes. The simplistic solutions brought by the well-meaning church had managed only to put short-term band-aids on problems that had much deeper causes.

We are right to help, but we also need to help in the right way. In the complex system of poverty, well-meaning efforts can have unforeseen and unintended consequences in another area.

seeking to understand their unique circumstances and identifying lasting solutions tailored to their unique needs. It's about listening and equipping— not dictating answers or "fixing" the problem ourselves. We help the community to own their own future-because the best way to change a child's life is to change the world they live in.

experience shows that the best way to fight poverty is to empower people to shape their own future—to treat the causes of poverty and not just the symptoms. To do this, we have to make a long-term investment in communities

Dont fail to do something because you cant do everything…. A small act, done with great love by ordinary men and women, can change the world.