Nobody loves loves change. But it’s a fact of life. And for the Yangs, we just experienced a huge fact-of-life bomb. This past week life got real for us.
GRACE ONLY APPLIES WHEN LIFE GETS REAL
In the last seven days we,
- left Toronto and a beautiful community filled with friends and loved ones
- arrived in Chicagoland with few connections and a lot of uncertainty
- unpacked a 26” foot trailer
- are trying to make a strange house a home
- I ramped up my study time for my PhD
- and I started a new job
All these changes feel like little incisions into our soul. The Physician says it’s for our own good. His grace has done a good job numbing a lot of the pain that comes with spiritual surgery.
We’re already seeing the potential God has for us in this move. It’s been difficult for the family, but already the boys are venturing out to make friends and to enjoy our neighborhood. And Linda is dreaming again about school and doing ministry in a new way.
Because the Kingdom of God comes with repentance, it must also come with change.
And we’re learning to embrace it.
NORTH AMERICA IS CHANGING
Yesterday we announced my new position as the Director of the new Send Institute—a think-tank for church planting and evangelism in North America. I’m very excited to work along Ed Stetzer at Wheaton College and Jeff Christopherson at the North American Mission Board. Both men have influenced me greatly in my church planting call. So I’m a little star-struck and completely humbled to have this opportunity to work with them. But more importantly is that I get to learn from them.
Read the press release here.
As I return to America, I bring back with me so much insight that I gained from living in Canada. (I gained other things as well. I was guest teaching in Stetzer’s class at Wheaton College yesterday and during a break, he says to me, “This is great stuff, but stop apologizing.” You can take me out of Canada, but you can’t take Canada out of me!)
America has a lot to learn from Canada. Lots. And yes Canada, there are still some things you can learn from America.
As I wrote in my press release, times are changing. I believe North America is changing fast and it’s being repositioned and repurposed in the world. And if we can manage to sift through the extra noise of political talking heads, the lure of consumer culture, and the pride of religious knowledge—we’ll find that God is at work in the real life issues of our day.
It’s exciting to think that future churches and institutions will be birthed in the midst of this change.
Because the Kingdom of God comes with repentance, it must also come with change.
And North America, especially the Church, must learn to embrace it.
Change is a sign that life is getting real.
And that just means that the Kingdom of God is coming even more.
