Paul Anthony Wallis :: Friends blog

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Today I am starting a series on discipleship, following Jesus. I will be sharing some of my thoughts from Dallas Willard’s book The Great Omission.

What I like about this book, and some of the other books by Dallas, is his laser beam focus on discipleship and making disciples. Sometimes we try and make the Christian life quite complicated. And in some ways, it is. But it is refreshing to think about life as simply trying to follow Jesus closer. I trust that this series will aid in reminding us of our first calling.

In this series, I will just share some short thoughts from each of the chapters in The Great Ommission, and share a few of my own reflection on the chapter. So today, I will begin with the preface and introduction, because even it is rich with meaning.

Preface and Introduction

Willard starts off with a reminder that our calling is to apprentice Jesus and make disciples “of all kinds of people, submerging them in Trinitarian presence” (viii) and show them how to follow him. At the heart of discipleship is being transformed into His goodness, which is what the good news is all about.

I love how Willard introduces this book, he takes the well worn passage and Matt 28:18-20 and gives it a fresh perspective, and then ties discipleship to the good news. The good news is that Jesus redeemed us fully. He saved us from our sin so that we might have the power to become who God called us to become. Following Jesus is about transforming into His goodness and reflecting that in the world.

The next post in this series will be on chapter one, entitled discipleship.

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Emergent Kiwi (Steve) says the Dranes are blogging. Fantastic. I saw John a few months ago at the Aberdeen airport. Their blog is called 2ChuchMice. How nice for them to blog together.

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To all of you who live in Los Angeles or will be visiting this weekend, I wanted to let you know about a benefit concert and Christmas party that we are having this coming Saturday, hosted by Kairos Los Angeles and Artist @ the Fountain.

First of all, we regularly host concerts where we typically showcase local artist as well as raise money for social justice causes both locally and globally.  In our last few events we have focused on The Unembraced - helping orphans in the Turkana region of Kenya as well as The Invisible Children.

This event we are focusing on our local neighborhood, here in East Hollywood.  We have an annual toy giveaway, where we give away toys, school supplies and clothes to underprivileged children in the East Hollywood area.  Last year we had about 1,000 kids we were able to help.  We are looking to have the same amount of kids this coming year as well.  So this benefit concert is for these kids.

DETAILS ABOUT THE NIGHT

Band: A2C and the Zen Soul Band (R&B, Soul, Neo-soul)

Date: Saturday, December 6th

Time: Doors Open 7 p.m.  Concert Starts 7:30 p.m.

Advance Cost: $20 (Majority of proceeds go to help the underprivileged kids in East Hollywood)

Door Cost: $25

ABOUT THE BAND

Lead Vocals/Piano: A2C (Philippines)  Listen to some of their music at A2C MySpace

Drums: Ashwin Andrew (India)

Bass: Jamie Hamano (Japan)

Guitars: Kanghyun Bu (Korea)

Keyboards: Asun Lee (Korea)

Keyboards: Mingkyu Kim (Korea)

BG Vocals: Soo Jin Yoon (Korea)

BG Vocals: Hey Youn Chang (Korea)

BG Vocals: Elliott Wang (Taiwan)

The Zen Soul band was formed in 2008. The band consists of talented musicians all across Asia, including the Philippines, Korea, Japan and Taiwan. Driven by the fact that Asians are modestly represented in the music scene, Zen Soul is a movement to open doors for Asian talents.

What People are Saying about the Band

“In my 22 years in the music business, I have come across many talented artists, songwriters, performers, and musicians….but rarely have I come across talent that has all four of these attributes in one. I can honestly say that “A2C” fits this description. Blending deep-rooted gospel flavors with pop sensibilities, this duo truly has what it takes to become a mainstay in this re-emerging industry of ours…” -Darryl Swann, Grammy-Nominated Producer (Macy Gray)

“A2C’s mix of industry professionalism and raw talent will take them far…” -Ron Tish, Koke Kula Records Hawaii

“They are amazing. We should have been their front act…” -Martin Nievera, Philippine Concert King

“It’s very rare that you find siblings who can harmonize so wonderfully. They are both so young and talented.” -Marco Sison, Philippine Balladeer



“A2C a combination of true talent, spirit and soul grabs you inside…out. Experience A2C, they will rock you.” -Russell Tanoue, Photographer

Come, enjoy some music, some heavy hors d’oeuvres and support the underprivileged children in East Hollywood. Invite some of your friends too!



ABOUT OUR ANNUAL EAST HOLLYWOOD TOY GIVEAWAY

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I cant remember if we have been to Rhode Island or not. About 4 years ago, our family were passing by the top of USA again and wondered if we should finally go over to North and South Dakota since we had missed them when we went through in 1998-1999 in our Winnebago. We decided . . . NAAAAAAHHHHH!!! Maybe next time.

visited 45 states (90%)

Create your own visited map of The United States or try another Douwe Osinga project

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Dan Wallace has written some great thoughts about Dr Joe Aldrich who has Parkinson's Disease and is "slipping fast". Joe was the President of Multnomah when i was a student there. Once he pulled alongside me in his car as i walked back from chapel and asked me if i wanted a ride. I was really impressed that he was not above hanging out with students. We chatted for about 3 minutes and then we were back at the College. I thanked him for his great book "Life Style Evangelism" and encouraged him on his upcoming book that would later be called "Gentle Persuasion". At the time, I thought the second book was a little wimpy and should have been tougher. But I had just come from 2 years of intensive overseas work with Operation Mobilization, and had been a street preacher for 3 years before that so I leaned towards the more confrontational side of things.

Looking back, Joe was right and his book was a fantastic gift to the church. - It really is about relationships, loving people, eating meals and spending time and being there to make the good news known when the time is right.

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• Global Classrooms
  Going Off to College for Less - Studying in Europe

http://aholydiscontent.wordpress.com/2008/12/01/student-cpx-concentrate-las-

On January 16th students from campuses all over the country will be arriving here in Vegas for a weekend of training, affirmation, edification, and empowerment. Many of these students attended our two week CPx training in Kansas over the summer, and will be reuniting with their fellow student church planters to share stories of how [...]

Listening to Tim Keller on marriage.  His helpful description of the three components of a servant's heart are a great tool to assess the others focusedness of our hearts:

3 COMPONENTS OF A SERVANT HEART

1-Ability to hear crticism without being crushed
No need to defend self, trust rooted in God.
“A CRADLE OF SECURITY FOR YOUR MOMENT OF GREAT VULNERABILITY”

2-Ability to give criticism without crushing.
Speaking the truth in love. Relational context.
How can I be any harsher with this person than Jesus has been with me.

3-Ability to forgive people and really let it go.
Ownership of grace. Not punishing others for offenses committed against you.

 

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If you had a million dollars (and only a million), what would you do to help alleviate the pain of the current economic crisis?

Paul Watson asked this question on his blog a week ago. This his how I answered it.

I would "probably find a way to help the churches and mission organizations retool with an eye towards microbusiness and social enterprise in order to emerge from the recession equipped for long term sustainability. What about a million for 100 10k micro-loans for that purpose? Track all 100 of them and create a community blog so everyone can cheer them on and learn from them.

The need for churches and mission organizations to move from dependence to sustainability was one of my teaching themes in 2008 (Australia, Netherlands, USA, UK). Some of my thoughts can be found here. Cooperatives, Mission and the Fourth Sector, On Going Fourth. I don't think my sustainability message was taken very seriously during year, before the economic downturn, but am hoping that the new circumstances will create more openness to think again about how we do mission.

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Talk about David and the Web Goliaths. Look at me on the New York Times!

When I first discovered the internet in the mid 90's, the New York Times was my website of choice. Reading it for free, from my little cyber cafe in San Francisco, was an absolute blast. When I went on the web today, I found my blog headline on their paper [thanks to Blogrunner] and a stream of NYT readers coming over to my humble TallSkinnyKiwi blog. Gotta love it! God bless those NYT editors for their impeccable taste and faultless wisdom. God blessem, every one!

What post did they pick? They chose the post called Without God - which was a short Facebook message Alana Hurst from Portugal sent me today and asked me to pass it on.

PASS IT ON? HAH! I can do better than that . . .

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