Is a child with Down Syndrome worth living?

We need to think about this before answering the question. In my college ministry, students asked me to give seminars on the topics they are interested. abortion is one of the topics. Al Mohler recently wrote an article on aborting babies with Down Syndrome. In the medical community and parents are facing huge moral, ethical, religious issue at hand. We just had a new born baby in July, 2009. During pregnancy, the doctor has given us an option to find out if the unborn child may have a Down Syndrome. We've decided not to find out. Over the resent years, the birth of babies with the Down Syndrome has decreased by 15 %. In the future a simple blood test find out a definitive diagnosis of one of more of the genetic variants of Down syndrome. More parents will receive the testing and will face the choice to abort the baby when the diagnosis suggests the risk of DS in the baby. Dr. Brian Skotko's (expert on DS)research indicating that 92 percent of women who learn they are carrying a baby with Down syndrome choose to abort the pregnancy. "As new tests become available, will babies with Down syndrome slowly disappear?" What does this say about our society's value on human life? Is a child with Down Syndrome worth living? Or, can we celebrate life with the Down Syndrome? Tell me what you think.

Public speaking

It made a good laugh.


Recently I came across the Top 10 Newscaster Bloopers at the Time.com. It is known that public speaking is one of the top fears for the most people. In the video, you can see as the anchor makes mistake one after another, his confidence simply vanished. While watching this video I laugh out loud real hard, but as a pastor preaching week after week, I understand some mistakes speakers make. I watched even a great anchor like Anderson Cooper had a blooper. I have to tell you, there are times when I feel so horribly did preaching, I would like to run and hide. Poor guy, I think I know how he feels.

anger, racism, depravity

Watch this video.


At this point, I don't care how well Serena Williams plays tennis. She showed such poor sportsmanship. In fact, it's not just an issue of sportsmanship, she completely lost herself and anger took control of her. Then I see something beyond not just sportsmanship and anger, but racism. The line judge was happened to be quiet Asian woman with completely reserved response. Serena's reaction toward the line judge was simply not acceptable. It was a death threat, "I will kill you." Even if it was a wrong call, such utterance shouldn't be made from professional athlete. I wonder if Serena Williams would have done and said the same if she was not the quiet Asian woman.

Grace vs. Judgment

Just the other day, I was going on my way to pick up my daughter. But I was there about an hour half early. So, I stopped at the Whataburger and took my Bible out and preparing last week's sermon.
I was eating my meal, meditating and taking notes, then, a few teenage looking guys walked in with their skateboards. One particular guy was wearing a gray tank-top, pretty wet with sweat, wearing a black baseball cap, and a red bandanna around the cap. Because it is a tank top, I could see hair stinking out in his armpit. Passing by him to get a refill, man, the armpit smell was just killing me.
I yelled at him, “put a T-shirt on,” actually I did that in my thinking. Then I observed him. during my stay at the restaurant, he was in and out taking breaks from skateboarding. He asked for a cup for water and drank water, and then some iced tea.
I realized than, I was ready to make some judgment on him in my thought. Then I asked to myself, “Why do we judge other so quickly?”

We pass judgment on others based on the style of clothes, the manner of speech, and the life experiences. People tend to be judgmental toward those who are different from them, those with different background, culture, and life-style.

According to the Unchristian, Christianity has an image problem: Non-church people from age 16—29 perceive the Christians as 1) anti-homosexual (91%) 2) judgmental (87 %), and hypocritical (85%). They see that Christians judge and ostracize others who are different from them.
We love grace. Grace is so attractive to many of us. We long for it. We anticipate it. We want to experience it. We want to taste grace. There is something about grace that we are drawn to it. Grace has this magnetic power that attracts us and amazes us. Jesus who did not condemn the woman who was caught in adultery is so gracious and attractive.

Indentiy or legitimacy in ministry?

Yesterday, I briefly tuned in the Nine Conference online where many presenters gave a short talks. For that brief moment of time, I listened to Skye who is an editor of the Leadership Journal, a Christianity Today publication. I thought he said something insightful. Often we hear question about the leadership and why it doesn't succeed. Is it because lack of strategy or low energy and motivation. What Skye said rings true to me. From reading somewhere, 70 % of pastors deals with feelings of inadequacy. I think one of the reason is that Leaders often compare with other leaders, particularly with influence and success stories. One measure of success is obviously number. pastors ask, "how big is your church?" So what happens is that pastors and Christian leaders equate success (number of people or influence leverage) with legitimacy of ministry. If a Christian leader who does not have strong influence on large number of people then his/her ministry (I am thinking small group leader, Bible study teacher, pastor of small church...) seems not legitimate. Often leadership is defined "influence." however, what I see is that some leaders are so bound by pressure to succeed often in resulted in number. Skye points out that outcome of ministry is not something that we create. We are called to abandon the outcome to the Lord. God is One who makes our ministry grow. We plant the seed and water it, then God causes it to grow. The legitimacy our ministry comes from ourselves as children of God. It is the identity issue, "Who am I?" If we are rooted in Christ as sons and daughters of God, then the power, strength, and motivation come from Him.

Funniest conversation

During our car ride our kids in the back always playing, talking, sometimes hitting each other. This is recent playtime between Isaiah and Ellie. They were playing a spelling game. Ellie had a list of spelling words for her class (it must have been her old paper in the 1st grade).
Isaiah goes,
Nuna, can you spell "Look?"
Ellie spells out, in reply, it is "l-o-o-k."

Isaiah asked her again, spell "whore."

While driving, we are thinking to ourselves, "what!" "how does he know this word?" But we didn't interrupt.

Ellie goes, "what is "whore?""
must be thinking to herself it must not be in the list.
"Whore," what's whore?"

Isaiah responds, "you know nuna, "whore," "h-o-u-r."
Ellie goes, "ohh, you mean "(h)our.""

It was a moment of good laugh.

By the way, kids learn so fast, especially what big brothers and sisters and adults do and say. Those of us around the little kids watch our words and deeds.

An ordinary guy can start a movement!

watch this video.

Future, Investment, it's backward.

What's wrong with policymakers? Cosby cries out "Stop cutting School funding!" Isn't what we have learned that education is the future of a nature?" I found it to be very wrong that it costs less than $5,000 a year to educate a young person but $33,000 a year to incarcerate someone. This is so backward. Many young people, who has not been invested and cared for due to many reasons, cutting school funding being one reason, end up being in jail, taxpayer's money spent when they are incarcerated. Just today, I read USA today, school budget cuts shut down sports. I can see that some schools spend way too much funding on sports. Our children need to on the field and something to do. Coming form youth ministry experience, far too many children are sitting in front of computer, not being able to develop interpersonal skills face to face, not to mention, exercising, lack in social activity. I am aware of that our young people have different ways of social networking through facebook and twitter. I believe that interaction with others face to face is needed. Anyway, issue that I see is that kids don't get opportunities because of cutting school funding, not invested in their education, end up in jail. And more fund is spent when they are in jail than in school. This is so backward. Where is investment for our students, the future? We adults must get involved in and invest into our children' lives.