My Dental recommendation

Few people enjoy going to the dentist, but having a good dentist reduces the anxiety. I have recommended Dr. Steve Kumasaka to dozens of people, and they have all told me "THANKS!"

The office is next door to the Kaneohe Hawaii Post Office... not fancy at all... just below 808 Tattoo. Great cosmetic and family dentistry, and a Mac user, too!

Posted via email from Kahu Gary

Happy 35th birthday to Apple, Inc.

"It's no joke: Apple Inc. turns 35 today.

On April 1, 1976, Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Ronald Wayne (who 12 days later sold his share of the startup for a meager US$2,300) founded Apple Computer. As a newborn, Apple intended to sell low-cost, hand-manufactured microcomputer components to fellow members of the localHomebrew Computer Club."

http://www.tuaw.com/2011/04/01/happy-35th-birthday-to-apple-inc/

Posted via email from Kahu Gary

Is Twitter for Everybody? (businessesgrow.com)

Is Twitter for Everybody?
http://www.businessesgrow.com/2011/03/30/is-twitter-for-everybody/

Posted via email from Kahu Gary

A strong word for young believers

Posted via email from Kahu Gary

A thoughtful post on reconciling truth and grace

"Midtown Atlanta, Gay Men, The Closet, Churches, Jesus and Me"

http://www.shauninthecity.com/2011/03/midtown-atlanta-gay-men-the-closet-churches-jesus.html

Posted via email from Kahu Gary

The things you find online during random searches!

http://cogop.smugmug.com/People/InternationalPresbyters/International-Presbytery/14098194_FRrVL#1039304778_mjMtQ

Posted via email from Kahu Gary

Graphic Designer's Delight

http://gizmodo.com/#!5787712/a-garden-filled-with-typography/gallery/1

Posted via email from Kahu Gary

Graphic Designer's delight

http://gizmodo.com/#!5787712/a-garden-filled-with-typography/gallery/1

Posted via email from Kahu Gary

Still drink bottled water? REALLY?

"Compared ti a liter of tap water, producing a liter of bottled water requires as much as 2,000 times more energy."

—40days.bloodwatermission.com

Posted via email from Kahu Gary

Beyond QR Codes?

http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2009/08/03/bokodes/

Posted via email from Kahu Gary's posterous

Is Social Media just a fad?

Posted via email from HIM Tech Breakout Session

Receive donations on your ministry website

http://www.paypal.com

Posted via email from HIM Tech Breakout Session

Receive donations on site

https://squareup.com/

Posted via email from HIM Tech Breakout Session

Receive donation on site

https://squareup.com/

Posted via email from HIM Tech Breakout Session

Helping Japan (without money!)

Our hearts and prayers are with the people of Japan. Many of us in Hawaii have strong connections to that nation… family, friends, and business links. The economy in Hawaii is not very strong and many people have wanted to do something to help, but feel helpless because they just don't have much money themselves.

Here is a way you can do something that will make a big difference and cost ZERO.

Hawaii Air Cargo is collected needed items for Japan and has made arrangements with Japan Airlines to ship all collected items at no charge! If you have NEW or GENTLY USED blankets, coats, sweaters, warm socks, gloves or mittens in good condition we will receive them at REUNION CHURCH this Sunday morning at 10:00 A.M.  Brenda Carinio will coordinate this effort and take the donated items to Hawaii Air Cargo for shipment.

Open your closets and your hearts, friends, and clear out those barely-used cold weather items to assist those in need in Japan! A poet named Mary Oliver wrote, "Let everyone in the world who suffers take a day off." 

Posted via email from Kahu Gary's posterous

FRANCIS CHAN's latest message to the Cornerstone church

Posted via email from Kahu Gary's posterous

Guaranteed to cost me some friends

I know — I should keep my mouth shut sometimes, because holding strong opinions about controversial issues has caused me more problems, and lost me more friends, than I can list here. Having said that, here I go…

I love the social conscience and social consciousness of my younger friends in ministry. They promote the purchase of fair-trade products, decrying the exploitation of workers in producing countries, and they call for willingness of consumers to pay higher prices for goods to enable higher social and environmental standards. (Wonderful!)

They fight for an end to sex trafficking and the enslavement of young girls (and boys) who are used and discarded, and well they should.

They rail against the injustices and inequities of society — poverty, AIDS, racism… but seem blind to the societal evils that result from alcohol. There, I said it. Let the rationalizations begin. Tell me all the reasons why "drinking won't send you to hell." I agree. The old joke is, "Jesus turned the water into wine and conservative evangelicals have been trying to turn it into grape juice ever since." I know Christians — real, born-again, blood-bought followers of Jesus — who drink, and I am not judging their salvation or walk with the Lord. I do, however, wish they would take the blinders off and at least honestly speak out about the total devastation, the havoc that results from societies' love affair with alcohol. 

It seems that in a pendulum-swing reaction against the often legalistic total-abstinence conservative evangelical stance, many young leaders consider it both a badge of honor and a test of relevance to hang out in bars discussing theology over a micro-brew. It's part of the new ministry checklist:

[✔] Spiky haircut 

[✔] Scruffy five-o'clock shadow

[✔] Printed T-Shirt 

[✔] Tom's shoes

[✔] Cryptic tattoo(s)

[✔] Starbucks spot as office

[✔] Beer with the boys, so they won't think you are religious.

Integrity and intellectual honesty demands, however, that we speak out against the root causes of the evils that destroy lives, even if those root causes are our pet vices. 

I got a letter from my Compassion Sponsored Child, Felma, today. We exchange letters often. Every letter Felma sends me from Davao, in the southern Philippines, contains the same prayer request: "Please pray for my father, that he will stop drinking liquor." I love that child. I have been in her simple home, and met her family. The $38 I send to Felma through Compassion each month is a gift of love, and I don't begrudge it at all. One must wonder, however, what role her father's alcoholism plays in the poverty that grips that family. One must also wonder why we prefer to pretend not to see the effects of alcohol in our own middle-class, American world.

I won't weary you with the stats: you have access to GOOGLE. Suffice it to say the cost in healthcare resources, destroyed families, traffic-related deaths, violence and ruined lives demands that we admit that our social consciousness doesn't extend to the things we don't want to justify. So we text one another about the latest cause on our iPhones made by Foxconn and hoist a pint or two to show how free we are, blind to the inconsistency of it all.

Posted via email from Kahu Gary's posterous

The glamour of Delta travel?

When I was much younger I thought that the idea of traveling the world seemed really glamorous. Now that I travel a lot those illusions have been shattered.

I fly Delta when possible in order to accumulate frequent-flyer miles faster. I use a Delta American Express Card to buy tickets in order to gain 1 free checked bag per person in my party. I am a loyal customer, but I am starting to think there's no advantage to doing things that way. On the recent trip from HNL to LAX we were crammed into a Boeing 757-300, one of my least favorite commercial planes. In case you don't fly much, it is a long, narrow-bodied plane with 3 crammed seats on each side of a ridiculously narrow aisle. There are 200 passenger seats in coach, and two available restrooms. I'm not a math genius, but that looks like 100/1 ratio. On a 5 hour plus flight, assuming each person has to use the restroom at least once… some more than once, that tiny aisle is often jammed with people clustered near the restrooms waiting their turn. If you are one of the unfortunate people seated in rows 39 or 40, you spend the majority of your flight with the rear-ends of your fellow passengers near your face, since there is no other place for them to stand.

Delta has joined the ranks of other struggling air carriers, and no longer provides hot meals on those flights. They will sell you a high-calorie snack pack for $5 if you are desperate for food… and I use that term in its loosest connotation.

I am making at least two more trips this year, and the accumulation of loyalty miles looks less and less like an incentive; I will be carefully checking the airline schedules for carriers flying Airbus or other planes with more leg room, wider aisles, power-ports at coach seats, and modern entertainment options. As always, I will use seatguru.com to try to find the least objectionable seats possible.

I will kind of miss Delta… but not much.

Posted via email from Kahu Gary's posterous

Experiencing LeaderSHIFT Together

Enrollment is now open for our first leadership course, Experiencing LeaderSHIFT Together. Fueled by the drive to be bigger and better, today’s church has adopted principles and practices created by the corporate world. The result is a toxic mix of the spiritual and the secular, where success is measured in numbers and pastors are encouraged to become CEO superstars. Experiencing LeaderSHIFT offers insight into some of the heresies churches have mistakenly embraced.

Now you are invited to join the voyage away from the corporate mentality with Experiencing LeaderSHIFT. This groundbreaking resource will help you discover God’s plan for His church and your role in it.

 

This study is designed to guide you through the core principles of LeaderSHIFT. You will discover your place alongside other members of the body of Christ so that together you function as God intended.

 

What to expect during Six Weeks to LeaderSHIFT

 

This course consists of SIX weekly meetings. Each session will feature a DVD-video lesson, followed by group discussion. The class will alternate each Tuesday evening between Kaneohe and Waipahu for the convenience of all participants from across the island of O‘ahu. 

 

The Schedule:

Session 1 –
February 1 from 7:00–8:30 PM
Windward Worship Center, Kaneohe
The Zone of God’s Anointing

 

Session 2 –
February 8 from 7:00–8:30 PM
Mill Town Fellowship, Waipahu
God’s Plan for His Church

 

Session 3 –
February 15 from 7:00–8:30 PM
Windward Worship Center, Kaneohe
The Equipper

 

Session 4 –
February 22 from 7:00–8:30 PM
Mill Town Fellowship, Waipahu
The Server

 

Session 5 –
March 1 from 7:00–8:30 PM
Windward Worship Center, Kaneohe
Why We Need to Get It Right

 

Session 6 –
March 8 from 7:00–8:30 PM
Mill Town Fellowship, Waipahu
Team Ministry

 

There is NO FEE for participation in this course, but each participant must... 

• …purchase their own copy of the Experiencing LeaderSHIFT Together Participant’s Guide (GOLD COVER), ISBN #1434768104 available on amazon.com and other online book sources for less than $10. (You should order your book NOW.) 

 

• …commit to attendance at each of the six weekly sessions, arriving promptly on time.

 

• …participate in facilitated discussions and complete any workbook assignments.

 

Complete the enrollment form in the PDF below and return to:

Gary Langley

Hawai‘i Ministry Development Center

45-416 Kamehameha Highway

Kaneohe, HI 96744

 

...no later than 31 January 2011

Download now or preview on posterous

HMDC-Leadershift.pdf (599 KB)

Posted via email from Reunion Hawaii

Christian Leadership recommended reading

Someone this week expressed an interest in book suggestions in the area of Christian Leadership. I'm posting this list for him and others interested in the subject. Many of these books are from my Fuller Theological Seminary courses in the Master of Arts in Global Leadership (MAGL) program, while others are just from my growing library. A major part of Christian Leadership is personal spiritual formation, so there is some emphasis in this list on being rather than doing. (These are in no particular order.)

• Bright, John. The Kingdom of God. Nashville: Abingdon, 1953 
• DeRidder, Richard. Discipling the Nations. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1971.
• Kraybill, Donald B. The Upside Down Kingdom. Scottdale: Herald, 1990.
• Ladd, George, E. The Gospel of the Kingdom. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1959.
• Padilla, René. Mission Between the Times. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1985.
• Scherer, James. Gospel, Church and Kingdom. Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1987.
• Shenk, Wilbert, ed. The Transfiguration of Mission. Scottdale: Herald, 1993.
• Gallagher, Robert L. and Paul Hertig, eds. Mission in Acts: Ancient Narratives in Contemporary Context. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 2004.
• Glasser, Arthur F., Charles E. Van Engen, Dean S. Gilliland, and Shawn Redford. Announcing the Kingdom: The Story of God’s Mission in the Bible. Grand Rapids: Baker, 2003.
• Montgomery, Helen. The Bible and Mission 
• Briscoe, Jill. Jonah and the Worm. New Berlin, WI: Jilcoe/Hemp, 1983.
• Wright, Christopher J. H. The Mission of God: Unlocking the Bible's Grand Narrative. Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 2006. 
• Newbigin, Lesslie. Open Secret. Grand Rapids, Eerdmans, 1978.
• Van Engen, Gilliland, and Pierson, eds. The Good News of the Kingdom. Maryknoll: Orbis, 1993; Wipf & Stock, 2001.
• Ritzer, George.  Globalization of Nothing 2.  Thousand Oaks:  Pine Forge Press, 2007.
• Gibbs, Eddie.  Leadership Next.  Downers Grove:  Intervarsity Press, 2005; 
• Blackaby, Henry T., and Richard Blackaby. Spiritual Leadership: Moving People on to God's Agenda. Nashville, TN: Broadman & Holman, 2001.
• Hauerwas, Stanley. A Community of Character: Toward a Constructive Christian Social Ethic. Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1981
• Jenkins, Philip. The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity. Oxford ; New York: Oxford University Press, 2007.
• Lohfink, Gerhard. Jesus and Community: The Social Dimension of Christian Faith. New York: Fortress Press, 1984
• Thrall, Bill, Bruce McNicol, and Ken McElrath. The Ascent of a Leader: How Ordinary Relationships Develop Extraordinary Character and Influence.  San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1999
• Willard, Dallas. Renovation of the Heart: Putting on the Character of Christ. Colorado Springs: NavPress, 2002. 
• Clinton, J. Robert and Paul Stanley. Connecting: Finding the Mentors You Need to be Successful in Life. Colorado Springs: NavPress, 1992.
• Egeler, Dan. Mentoring Millennials: Shaping the Next Generation. Colorado Springs: NavPress, 2003.
• Johnson, W. Brad and Charles R. Ridley. The Elements of Mentoring. New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2004.
• Zachary, Lois J. The Mentor’s Guide: Facilitating Effective Learning Relationships. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 2000.
• Creps. Earl. Reverse Mentoring: How Young Leaders Can Transform the Church and Why We Should Let Them. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2008.
• Anderson, Keith and Randy Reese. Spiritual Mentoring: A Guide for Seeking and Giving Direction. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1999. OR 
• Toyama, Nikki A., and Tracey Gee. More Than Serving Tea: Asian American Women on Expectations, Relationships, Leadership and Faith. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2006.
• Clinton, J. Robert and Richard Clinton. The Mentor Handbook. Altadena, CA: Barnabas Publishers, 1991.
• Ensher, Ellen A. and Susan Murphy. Power Mentoring: How Successful Mentors and Protégés Get the Most Out of Their Relationships. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2005. 
• Debra K. Farrington, 2000. Living Faith Day by Day: How the Sacred Rules of Monastic Traditions Can Help You Live Spiritually in the Modern World. Perigee.
• J. Oswald Sanders, 1994. Spiritual Leadership. Moody Press.
• Jane Vella, 2002. Learning to Listen, Learning to Teach: The Power of Dialogue in Educating Adults. Jossey‐Bass.
• Etienne Wenger, Richard McDermott, and William M. Snyder, 2002. Cultivating Communities of Practice. Harvard Business School Press.
• Philip D. Kenneson, 1999. Life on the Vine: Cultivating the Fruit of the Spirit in Christian Community. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.
• Kouzes, James M. and Barry Z. Posner. The Leadership Challenge. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2003
• Clinton, J. Robert. The Making of a Leader. Colorado Springs: NAV Press, 1998
• Clinton, J. Robert. Leadership Emergence Theory. Altadena: Barnabas Publishers, 1989
• Trebesch, Shelley. Isolation. Altadena: Barnabas Publishers, 1997
• Kinnaman, Gary D. Leaders That Last: How Covenant Friendships Can Help Pastors Thrive. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books,
• 2003.
• McNeal, Reggie. A Work of Heart: Understanding How God Shapes Spiritual Leaders. San Francisco: Jossey‐Bass, 2000.
• McNeal, Reggie. Practicing Greatness: 7 Disciplines of Extraordinary Spiritual Leaders. San Francisco: Jossey‐Bass, 2006.

That should keep you busy for a while. I can post more... many, many more...

Posted via email from Kahu Gary's posterous