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SubscriptionsSites I Read
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| Okay, this is the last time I'm moving it... I promise!
I created a whole new website so now my blog is there and not at the blogspot.com site.
come visit my blog!
Allen's Blog
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| Not sure how much I'll post here...to see more serious musings go to Kingdom Come
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| Back from Cedar Campus... we had a great week.
I had great fun goofing around with people...
It was great to have all the leadership teams together (including House on the Rock!)...
The Joint Chapter Worship was a highlight. When it often feels like a formality...this time, there was a deep sense of unity and worship was off the hook!
I may jot more thoughts later but one more significant happening....
For the first time EVER, the students threw me into the lake! Yes, I got ambushed outside the dining hall by a bunch of guys and there was no escape. Students actually tried getting me a couple of days earlier but no dice... (I impressed them with my speed as I fled...haha).
So history was made at Cedar Campus this year. | | |
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As I end up at InterVarsity events around the country, it's been gratifying and encouraging to hear staff and students express appreciation for "Kingdom Come." However, sometimes, it's downright amusing what happens when they find out I wrote the book.
Weird, amusing, sometimes uncomfortable reactions people in InterVarsity have had when they find out I'm the author of "Kingdom Come":
"You look so young...I pictured you as, ummm, older...like..uh...Paul Tokunaga." (Paul is like 55 yrs old, looks...well...like a 55 yr old Japanese American man). :P
Realizing that he doesn't have a copy of my book on him, he holds out another book and says, "Can you sign THIS?" He's holding a copy of C.S. Lewis' "Mere Christianity" - My response: "Uh... I don't think I'm in the same league as C.S. Lewis..."
I had been hanging out with Victoria at a staff conference. She's new to staff and we were just goofing around, teasing each other, etc. Later, she comes back all sheepish and serious-like and says, "Uh... you wrote Kingdom Come? Why didn't you tell me you were like....BIG?" Turns out that her leadership team was in the middle of reading and discussing "Kingdom Come."
For an exercise at AA staff conference, we had to pair off to discuss the material being covered from up front. I ended up with a young staff woman from Canada. We introduce ourselves...and yeah, it comes up again..."Wait, your....OH MY GOSHHHHHHHH!!!!" She says this as she covers her mouth with her hand...
But just to keep me humble...
At Urbana, a good number of people had come up to me to express appreciation for "Kingdom Come." So as the week was winding down, I thought this was another affirmation...A woman taps me on the shoulder and says, "Can I shake your hand? I really appreciated your book." I smile and say, "Sure!" I shake her hand and sit down. I hear some whispering behind me and 2 minutes later, she taps me on the should again... With a sheepish grin she says, "Ummm...I'm sorry, I thought you were someone else." It turns out she thought I was Paul Tokunaga. :P
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| Last Saturday, for a discipleship class at NU, we watched a video of tony campolo giving an Urbana message back in 1987. Yes, 20 yrs ago!
On a personal level, I have a special affection for this message for I was THERE! Yes, a much younger Allen Wakabayashi was sitting in the audience listening to tony give his radical message of what it means to follow Jesus. What's more, Tony invited anyone who was willing to follow Jesus wherever Jesus would take them to stand. I stood. In fact, as we watched the video on Saturday, we were able to catch a glimpse of a much younger, skinner, baby faced Allen Wakabayashi standing in the Urbana Assembly Hall. Wow, it's hard to believe that this milestone in my life was 20 yrs ago! And back then, little did I realize that God would lead me into staff work with InterVarsity and to Northwestern University.
But what also strikes me is that his message is STILL so relevant. He talked about how our world has painted a cultural Jesus that is very, very different than the biblical Jesus. And he lays out some key ways in which following the biblical Jesus would dramatically impact our lives. He talked about areas such as wealth - tony's the one that said you can't be a Christian and own a BMW, a car that signifies conspicuous consumption in a world where people are suffering and dying. He talks about how following Jesus meant having our hearts broken by the things that break the heart of God. He talked about the need for the church to reach out in love to the homosexual community rather than marginalize them as outcasts. He basically laid out a vision for the Kingdom of God - rather than seeking to help people escape our world to get to heaven, to see this world become the kind of world that God always wanted it to be.
The only thing that has changed is the mission scene. Back then missions was all about us, in the West, sending out missionaries out "there" to the rest of the world. Now, as Phil Jenkins and others have revealed to us, the center of Christianity is actually not the West. Rather, there are more Christians in places like Africa, S. Korea, and Latin America. And they are actually moving out in mission to the rest of the world, including back to us! What's more, it's becoming clear that the West, itself, is in need of serious missionary attention. And biblically, it's all about partnership. Rather than us going out to raise up the "lowly pagan" nations of the developing nations, as if we were superior. It's more about us working in partnership with the global church, sharing our resources, mutually blessing each other with our gifts, so that the body of Christ would be built up and the kindgom advance throughout the world.
It's interesting to think that, back in 1987-89, I was willing to go to the ends of the earth as a missionary. But God called me to the university. And 18 yrs later, I am as passionate as ever about the mission God gave me. I still LOVE students, I still LOVE the university, and I still LOVE the mission of seeing the kingdom advance in and through the university. But the radical call of my younger days, the decisions I made at places like Urbana 87, are still with me - calling me to follow the biblical Jesus - to wrestle with stewarding my resources, to keep my heart soft that it might break at the things that break the heart of God, to care for the outcast and marginalized, to see this world become more of the kind of world God always wanted for it to be - these are all still pulsing through my veins. And no, I don't drive a BMW. | | |
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