Do You Identify with 1 Of These 3?

“For the Lord your God has blessed you in all that you have done; He has known your wandering through this great wilderness. These forty years the Lord your God has been with you; you have lacked nothing.”
Deuteronomy 2:7 NASB

Are you an absolute believer, spiritual wanderer, or “none”? What’s the difference? An absolute believer is someone who knows precisely what they believe without a doubt. A spiritual wanderer is a person of faith who still has questions, doubts, or struggles with their beliefs. A “none” is someone who would consider themself “spiritual but not religious,” unaffiliated with any organized religion. 

For those who are absolute believers, I think they’re missing the point. Faith was never about having all the right answers. When confronted with difficult questions, Jesus rarely gave straightforward answers; He typically responded with a parable or another question. And those who identify as “nones” or “spiritual but not religious,” there’s a danger in becoming socially indifferent or less altruistic than those who are religious. If you don’t believe me, check out this recent article from The Economist.

After nearly 20 years of being a spiritual guide, I resonate more and more with being a spiritual wanderer. The older I get, the more I realize how little I know. My spiritual quest for learning, discovery, and enlightenment never ceases and grows increasingly curious. And I know that many in our community feel this same way. This is why the mission statement for Perch.Church is “a hospitable community for spiritual wanderers.”

Not all who wander are lost.
–J.R.R. Tolkien

Do You Judge the Unvaxed?

“Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.”
Matthew 7:1-2

I have a brutal question for you: Do you judge the unvaccinated? Honestly, I judge them all the time. After 1.5 years of living with this vicious pandemic, I still cannot understand how someone would willingly choose to be unvaccinated. Thousands of Covid vaccines go discarded everyday in the U.S. because people still refuse to take them. What’s even more incredulous is that some of my co-workers at the hospital are still unvaccinated. The HOSPITAL! Where we’ve seen hundreds of patients die from Covid. When I hear about some of these things, all sorts of explicit pejoratives run through my mind… most of which are inappropriate for this email.

Yet, when I actually sat down and asked some of my colleagues who chose not to get vaccinated, I became a bit more sympathetic to their perspective. I know, right? There are probably some of you who are judging me right now as you’re reading this. But let me give you one example. I have a Black male co-worker who educated me on the fraught history Black Americans have with vaccines; some “vaccines” have been used as poison to kill some Black Americans pre-Civil War. Also, newly abducted slaves were forced to take these strange shots so that they could be sold at higher price at slave auctions. Here’s a helpful article to help understand how vaccines can be viewed as medical colonialism.

I have no personal negative history with vaccines, so I had no reason to hesitate getting the Covid vaccine. So who am I to judge? Furthermore, I probably do many things that other people would not understand. Actually, I’m 100% certain I do some strange things that people would not get. I deserve to be judged just as much as the next person. I am grateful that a God who has every right to judge and condemn me chose to forgive, love, and embrace me instead.

Pray for Haiti

The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit.
Psalm 34:18

We live in a wild, wild world. This past week has been devastating with the government takeover in Afghanistan and the disastrous earthquake in Haiti killing over 2,000 precious lives. I don’t know about you all, but I’m perpetually distraught, disturbed, and disrupted by all the terrible things that have been happening in our world the past few years. The one question that keeps recurring in my mind is, “How can this world be so full of beauty yet so full of violence?”

It reminds me of the sage words of writer Annie Dillard from her book Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. “We wake, if we ever wake at all, to mystery, rumors of death, beauty, violence... The world is wilder than that in all directions, more dangerous and bitter, more extravagant and bright. We are making hay when we should be making whoopee; we are raising tomatoes when we should be raising Cain, or Lazarus.”

The only truth that continually gives me any semblance of encouragement these days in knowing that God is near those who are brokenhearted and crushed in spirit.

Perch.Church will be making a donation toward disaster relief for Haiti. We encourage you to do the same through a trusted charity like Compassion Int’l, UNICEF, or Mission of Hope.

Don't Sleep on Toxic Leaders

For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have One who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet He did not sin.
Hebrews 4:15

On Tuesday I had my first major surgery performed on me. After living with a herniated disc and sciatica for 4+ years, I finally decided to take a more active step in healing. I arrived to the surgery center at 6am, put on the gown, lied down on the gurney, then they put an IV in my arm. The anesthesiologist said, “You might a slight sting,” and as soon as I said, “Oh yeah, I feel it,” I was gone. Next thing I know, I was in the recovery room two hours later with a patch on me and pain in my lower back. 

I was thinking about this the past few days as I was resting and recovering this week, I put a lot of trust into my doctor’s hands. When I was unconscious for two hours, my surgeon could have done anything to me. He can make me paralyzed, he can take advantage of me, he could literally kill me! Obviously I trusted his skills, his care, and his leadership a lot to be able put to sleep. I was able to go to sleep under his leadership because I utterly trusted him.

If there is a leader you work for who is toxic, you cannot go to sleep on that person. You have to be mindful, keep your boundaries, and act Christlike. There will be situations under toxic leadership that will test you, stretch you, and push you to the edge. But they might even be opportunities for you to grow in your integrity, your inner sense of value, and even grow in your faith.

Getting Older

“‘For in God we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are God’s offspring.’”
Acts 17:28

I have been trying to pay better attention to my body as I grow older. Now that I’m in my 40s, my body doesn’t move as well as it used to. I know I’m getting older because I can injure myself from mundane tasks like tying my shoes or putting away a heavy pot.

I’m reminded of my age and futility everyday while I watch my own kids grow. As they get older, they’re getting taller, stronger, and more coordinated. As I get older, it’s the exact opposite. While my body has stopped developing many years ago, the ways I can and supposed to grow is in my heart and spirit. Fortunately, in the ways that I feel my body deteriorating, I can feel my heart and spirit still developing through the years. As long as I stay intentional about my emotional and spiritual health, I will never stop growing.

“Maturity involves the synthesis of all you’ve learned. It’s the time of the soul, the essence of all you are. The adolescence unleashed the mind, childhood the heart, and the birth cycle the body, maturity brings out the soul.” –Gabrielle Roth

Failure Wins

Trust in the Lord with all your heart; do not depend on your own understanding. Seek His will in all you do, and he will show you which path to take.
Proverbs 3:5-6 NLT

“The person who fails the most wins.”
–Seth Godin, serial entrepreneur and bestselling author

How many paths have you gone down only to realize that’s not the way you’re supposed to go? If you have, you’re probably on the right track. Our Western culture tends to teach us that failure is loss when in actuality failure is an essential part of maturity, release, and self-discovery. How many times did God get rejected by Moses before Moses accepted the call to lead his people out of slavery? How often did Ruth get dejected by society until she discovered her true calling? How many people rejected Jesus whom were the very people He vowed to love?

In order to know the right path to go, we have to encounter a series of ‘no.’

"Dreams" by Langston Hughes

“‘In the last days,’ God says, ‘I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young will see visions, and your old will dream dreams.’”
Acts 2:17

Hold fast to dreams 
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.

Hold fast to dreams
For when dreams go
Life is a barren field
Frozen with snow.

“Dreams” by Langston Hughes

True Community or Pseudo Community

“Though it is the smallest of all seeds, yet when it grows, it is the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds come and perch in its branches.”
Matthew 13:32

Have you heard of pseudo-community? Psychiatrist M. Scott Peck popularized this term in the 80s when he laid out the Four Stages of True Community. It is when members are extremely pleasant with one another and avoid all disagreement. People tend to withhold some truth about themselves and their feelings in order to avoid conflict. Individual differences are minimized, unacknowledged, or ignored. The group may appear to be functioning smoothly but individuality, intimacy, and honesty are neglected. Unfortunately, most communities people experience fall into this category. Yes, even most churches.

As we gather together this Sunday at Honeybird in La Cañada, we will explore this concept of four stages of true community together and why we felt strongly to create Perch as a hospitable community for spiritual wanderers.

Ikigai

God has filled them with skill to do all kinds of work as engravers, architects, embroiderers of fine linen, and weavers—all of them skilled workers and designers.
Exodus 35:35

ikigai: the Japanese word & concept meaning “the reason for being.”

I recently learned this word. Have you heard of it? Learning new words and concepts in different languages helps us broaden our understanding. The fact that this word exists in Japanese and not in English tells me that many Japanese people have wrestled with this concept in great depth. Perhaps when a teenager, college student, or young adult is struggling with what to do with their life, they start with one of the four big circles… “What will pay me?” or “What am I good at?” Maybe if you’re fortunate enough, you can begin approaching one of the overlapping areas like “Vocation” or “Mission.” Very few people in the world achieve the center of their ikigai, or in other words, how God designed them to be in heart, mind, body, and spirit. May you continue to find and pursue your own ikigai as you live out your days.

Self-Awareness Paradox

For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
1 Corinthians 13:12

I have known a thousand scamps; but I never met one who considered himself so. Self-knowledge isn’t so common.
–Ouida

Self-awareness is a tricky thing. The people who seem to have themselves all figured out are often completely oblivious to how they truly are. Likewise, the people who are on that constant journey of self-discovery are often the most self-aware. Healthy spirituality is all about bringing about more and more self-awareness because true faith does not happen in a vacuum. This is why we need communities of faith; spiritual siblings act as mirrors for each other reflecting and highlighting each others’ beauty and grace while concurrently supporting and spurring each other towards goodness and love.