Author: Eugene Cho

Pastor. Speaker. Christ Follower. President of Bread for the World. Visionary at One Day's Wages. Founder & Former Senior Pastor, Quest Church.
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“Umm, I didn’t ask you to give up coffee or chocolate. I asked you to surrender your life.” – God

foam

We are now in the Lenten season and let me begin by first sharing the conclusion of my post in case you have an attention span of a 2-year-old:

Lent isn’t about you
or about what you’re giving up.

But we’ll get to that soon.

For those that might not be familiar with Lent, it is the 40 day period (not including Sundays) between Ash Wednesday and Holy Saturday that has traditionally been a time of preparation for those who were preparing for baptism and later expanded to include the larger Christian community.  It marks a time of prayer, penance, repentance,  humility, self-denial, and soul-searching as one draws closer to the Passion of Christ and ultimately, culminating in the celebration of the Resurrection. You can check out my sermon to get a crash course on the history of Lent – and how it started (likely) as a 2-3 day event and eventually became a 40-day rhythm by 325 AD at the Council of Nicaea.

I appreciate the Lenten season for many and various reasons. In fact, the Lenten season is important to me because it helps me create rhythm in my life – something especially helpful when busyness, chaos, randomness, clutter, and lots of noise inundate my life. I deeply appreciate Lent because it helps me prepare for Passion Week  – the final week of Christ. And while we know Easter brings upon us the celebration of the resurrection, I am grateful that the Lenten season more thoughtfully and deeply prepares me for Crucifixion Friday or known by most as Good Friday.

This year, I’m choosing – along with some other things – to give up “coffee” during the Lent season. Trust me, for someone that runs a cafe, has his offices in a cafe, and has access to Stumptown Coffee, this will certainly be a “test” of self-denial.

But even after acknowledging that I myself am “giving up” coffee during Lent, I’m ambivalent and reticent about how vogue or easy Continue reading ““Umm, I didn’t ask you to give up coffee or chocolate. I asked you to surrender your life.” – God”

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Supporting women in all levels of church leadership.

I support women in all levels of leadership in the Church.

I did not always have this “view” but after years of praying, wrestling, discussing, listening, fasting, and praying some more, I came to this conviction some time ago and while it has been questioned, pushed back, and tested, I remain convicted. It is a view that endears me to some and umm, makes me a quasi-heretic to others.

[Insert ‘Farewell Eugene Cho’ joke here...]

But wherever we stand, kneel, or sit on the “issue”, we should all agree that our convictions and beliefs are not formed for the pleasing and pleasure of people. We seek to faithfully serve the Lord. And while it may tempting, we should also agree to never vilify or demonize those who have different views – even while acknowledging and contending for our convictions. For such reasons, I would never disavow a Christian or a colleague for having a different view and would hope that they would extend ‘egalitarians’ that same grace. Ultimately, we serve the same Lord and preach the same Gospel!

It would be erroneous for me to say that Asian culture is entirely proned to be against women but I can share my personal experience that as a young Korean man, I was influenced – partly through the Confucian culture and worldview that women were born to serve their fathers as young girls, their husbands when they got married, and their grown sons when they were older mothers.  Their lives and purpose – in part –  revolved around men.

As a believer of the Christian faith, I learned – in bits and pieces (both in subtle and occasionally in direct ways) that women should be our “partners.” They should be quiet, submissive and know their place.  Obey and honor their fathers, love and submit to their husbands, and raise godly sons and daughters.

Well, I guess this is the serious, biblical, and theological entry in response to the satire entitled – 10 reasons why men should not be ordained for ministry.  And to give you a little context, this is what I wrote in an earlier post about supporting women in ministry: Continue reading “Supporting women in all levels of church leadership.”

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please don’t do this disgusting thing

After reading the ruling of the courts recently that Westboro Baptist Church’s protests during funerals and others places are constitutional, I’m seriously contemplating starting a website called

Christians Against Christian Jerks

I wonder if http://christiansagainstchristiansjerks.com is available.

I’m not timid in saying that I really dislike them people. Sorry.

You’ve heard me already write and rant about the paradox of Christian jerks:

…“Christian jerks” are a tragic paradox – especially when they think they are doing the Kingdom a great favor.

Let’s contend for the Gospel but let’s not be jerks in the process. Nowhere do I read in the Scriptures, “Contend for the gospel as a jerk.”

But watching this video (below) this morning, Continue reading “please don’t do this disgusting thing”

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how to start your own non-profit cafe

 

One of the most common emails I get is about Q Cafe and it goes something like this:

How did you start Q Cafe?

and then it escalates into about 50 other additional questions. Q Cafe opened its doors in 2002 and during that time, there weren’t many folks to ask simply because there weren’t many who were doing these kinds of things. In the first couple years, I genuinely tried to be a good dude and attempted to answer those questions but eventually, I couldn’t sustain it. I stopped responding to most of the emails or at best, I responded with my infamous “Haiku Emails”…

Hey.
Your vision is cool.
Go for it.
Hard work.

And indirectly, I ended up being a jerk not because I’m a jerk (or at least, I hope I’m not) but I just couldn’t answer all the emails and our other cafe staff are stretched as it is. This is why we’ve tried to pull some resources together to be of some small assistance and encouragement to folks.

I ended up videotaping a Q/A session Continue reading “how to start your own non-profit cafe”

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what the hell!? making sense of the fiasco with rob bell, john piper, and a book we’ve yet to read.

Sorry, I thought this was a funny and appropriate title for this post. Maybe not.

I am doing the world a huge favor because I know that no one has heard about the brouhaha that transpired this past Saturday over some dude named Rob Bell or rather, a book he’s written that is yet to be released and Gospel Coalition, John Piper, and the legions of “new-Calvinists” that see it as their convictions to defend and contend for orthodox Christianity. [Read Part 2, The Most Important Thing.]

So…this blog post about Bell’s upcoming book  pretty much declared Bell to be a universalist and that was the match that set off the firestorm. Perhaps, we should add Rob’s book to our list of Christian books that should NOT be published. 😉

What are your thoughts about the fiasco?

As usual, here are some of my random & vomitaceous thoughts:

Rob is a friend…

Now, let me go on the record and share that I like Rob. I’ve blogged about him – with praise and pushback. We’ve emailed several times. He’s shown some tweet support for One Day’s Wages. In short, I’m proud to call him a friend and a brother in Christ.

So, it pained me to see so much venomous stuff being written about Rob.

Me like the Universalist Post

This might be hard for some of you to believe Continue reading “what the hell!? making sense of the fiasco with rob bell, john piper, and a book we’ve yet to read.”

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moving beyond the janitor’s closet

Dear Quest,

Thank you so much for your partnership in the gospel.

I am so proud to be one of your pastors and to have had the honor of planting Quest Church almost 10 years ago. This past Sunday, while Pastor DeAnza was preaching a spirited message at Quest from our ongoing study through Philippians,  I had the joy of visiting and preaching at the Burmese Karen Churchplant in Kent, Washington. On their behalf, I pass on their sincere greetings.

Several years ago, Quest helped plant this church and it is in part because of your prayers and generosity that allowed us to have a small part in birthing this beautiful church through our Quest Churchplanting Foundation.

This church and community did not exist 3 years ago. In fact, the majority of them are recent refugees and have entered this country in the past couple years. This past Sunday, I asked – before my sermon – how many of them had arrived to the United States in the past year and it appeared that over half of the nearly 150 people raised their hands! Many of them were living in refugee camps…and how amazing it must be that a church community was here to be their fellowship and support.

But for a second, I want to encourage you to think Continue reading “moving beyond the janitor’s closet”