djchuang likes to journal

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Just returned last night 11pm from part 1 of family vacation in the San Francisco Bay area. Now for part 2 of family vacation here in South OC or thereabouts, mostly father & son time until the 4th. Come by our 4th of July BBQ + Swim + Fireworks in Aliso Viejo, any time after 3:00pm; contact me for location and directions. We’ll have incredible view of local fireworks b/c we overlook the town center and park. Back in office on Monday 7/7.

To honor my family by giving them my full undivided attention, I did not pre-schedule any meetups with people, though I did see David Liu [his wife blogs more than he does + team member of scrapbook supplier Maya Roads], Tim Tseng, and Bruce Reyes-Chow [newly elected Moderator for PCUSA] along the way. Plenty of back stories, but I’m on vacation, so the stories will be part of our family memories but not permanently recorded in cyberspace.

Made a spontaneous stop in Silicon Valley. Took some effort, but did get entry into Googleplex (Google’s world headquarters), courtesy an old friend from Carolina days. Walked around the Google campus for about half an hour on an unofficial tour with our (lawyer) host in sandals. I love unofficial. What an amazing place, love their very distinct very cool corporate culture. Don’t know how much of Google work life has been game changer for other companies. One can only hope and dream and vote for change.

At Googleplex, stopped by Google Store for a very soft bamboo t-shirt. Coolest visual was a rotating earth with dots eminating into space, representing web searches from around the world.

Other exclusive family memories: 2 hotel nights free courtesy HHonors. Pyzano’s Pizza. Wall-E on opening night. Rides on BART and Muni buses. Exploratorium. Saw 100s doing CityChase [NOT available in LA]. Tom’s Cookies. Kite flying at Crissy Field and Marina. Napa Valley. Buckhorn Grill. Golden Gate Bridge. Fisherman’s Wharf. Barney’s Burgers. Cafe Do Mundo. Select photos here and here.

Originally published at djchuang.com. Please leave any comments there.

Here at NewSong Irvine for Church 2.0 Forum, coordinated by Greg Atkinson of churchvideoideas.com. This is my live blog, courtesy free wifi with good throughput at NewSong –

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I like connecting people to people. There, I’ve said it. Whether it’s people to God, people to resources, people to churches, people to places, it’s listening people’s question and connecting to what they’re looking for.

In a recent conversation, someone moving into the Irvine area is looking for a church. He’s been checking different churches out, but hasn’t yet found the right one. Ingredients that he’s looking for: a Bible-teaching church, a strong children’s ministry, fellowship with other Christians, a place to serve, and not too loud. A church like Bent Tree Bible Fellowship would be ideal, he said. It’s a kind of healthy church that feels like home (for certain evangelical Christians).

I ran through my mental rolodex and here’s what I came up with (in no particular order). But comparatively few right there in Irvine, surprisingly. There are plenty of great churches in Irvine, granted, but not sure all fit the description above. Perhaps you know some others.

Saddleback Church (which does have an Irvine campus now)
Rock Harbor [disclaimer: my home church]
NewSong
Mariners Church [William Young, The Shack’s author, will be there next week!]
Pathways Church
Irvine Presbyterian Church
Harvest Community Church
Ambassador Bible Church
Calvary Chapel
The Crossing
Ev Free Fullerton
Newport Mesa Church
Riverview Church (OC campus of Australian church)
Great Park Church

(I think you can leave out that the Bible-teaching churches that are too vocal about the faults and problems of other good evangelical church’s practices.)

I’ve indexed more than a dozen church directories and search engines here — great reference there for anyone looking for a church anywhere. [update] brand new website just launched by Jon Acuff -> Can I Wear Jeans? at caniwearjeans.blogspot.com for a directory of candid church reviews, cf. read back story from Steve Knight

(Update from #pdwc08 worshipconferenceblog.com) spread the word- contact COX cable to add the Gospel music channel in Orange County!

Originally published at djchuang.com. Please leave any comments there.

I met Daniel Im at the Awaken Conference this past April, and enjoyed a very engaging conversation with this next gen leader. It always excites me when I meet someone with new ideas and isn’t a cookie-cutter person living out a predictable narrative. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. I don’t know if he’s bilingual as he ministers in bilingual Montreal, Quebec, (i.e. English and French), but he did start blogging and I want to share a lil’ link love.

Like Daniel, I’m a big fan of StrengthsFinder. (I also like the Birkman Method, but that’s an expensiver tool b/c of labor-intensive consulting fees.)

Daniel shared some good thoughts about his achiever theme in this post titled Competition vs. Achiever. He’s got an achiever strength theme, which I thinks makes it easier to figure out the value he adds to an organization. I got a more unusual mix: ideation, input, strategic, adaptability, woo.

But, here’s my dilemma — I don’t get motivated by competition nor by achievement. In a goal-oriented, accomplishment-celebrated, free-market-economy, make-a-difference kind of a world, I don’t have an easy time discerning my ideal job description, overall end game, nor setting life goals. (contrast with Mark Batterson’s ambitious life goals) I don’t feel bad about this (or, I feel less badly about it, over time), but it is very much a personal dilemma.

Ironic thing is: I’m the oldest of three boys in my family of origin. You could say that I’m the embodiment of more complexities and contradictions than the average bear.

Originally published at djchuang.com. Please leave any comments there.

Spending a Father & Son day, deciding between Redondo or Hermosa or Manhattan beaches. Might get in all 3. Lunch destination is FIVE GUYS in Carson, California. Yes, the best burgers in the country has come to Southern California!

Dropped off wifey at International Printing Museum, her workplace in Carson. She’s got a dream job too. A virtual generator of word art has been the buzz this past week — see www.wordle.net — this pix is my del.icio.us tags:

Rhett Smith gives Kudos to N.T. Wright for Going on The Colbert Report. He might be the 1st theologian on a cable TV news satire show. I’ve never watched Colbert, so don’t know what category he self-identifies with. [direct link to video]

Saw this quote at the masthead of this magazine’s website — “The New Criterion is probably more consistently worth reading than any other magazine in English.” Intriguing. Intellectually intriguing.

The Criterion did have this fascinating article title: Sinners in the Jacuzzi of a Laid-Back God. And, its blogroll had: God of the Machine.

Lifechurch.tv Radio — Lifechurch.tv has an online streaming radio station, in addition to all the other goodies they put online. This radio station automagically plays a mix of Christian contemporary music and praise & worship.

Taking my first vacation of 2008 starting next Friday. Driving up the coast of California to the Bay area. Family will be with me. Maybe see Bruce Reyes-Chow if he’s not on the campaign trail. Thought about staying at Madonna Inn, but since we’re driving thru, didn’t want to spend that much $$ for 1 of their 109 unique themed rooms. Need to keep our budget for foodie excursions at our final destination.

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On those rare occasions I have to talk to a live customer service representative, with almost everything going self-serve or going online, I’ve rarely ever had someone who knew how to spell my name. Here’s the script I have been using as of late:

My name is DJ Chuang — first name is DJ as in “disk jockey”, and last name Chuang, spelled as “Charlie Help Uncle Apple Nickel Google”.

I don’t have the phonetic alphabet down cold, nor the script. So I’m open to suggestions — add a comment.

Reminds me of a story of a real person whose last name was Fu. And when he spelled it out by just pronouncing each letter, some CSRs got offended!

What do you do to spell out your name?

Originally published at djchuang.com. Please leave any comments there.

At the 2008 National Pastors Conference, I made a tough decision because no one else was going to make it for me. I sat in the seminar with Scot McKnight so I could shake his hand afterward, rather than sitting in the seminar titled “The Relationship Between Politics and Christianity” with a panel of Charles Colson, Greg Boyd, and Shane Claiborne facilitated by Krista Tippett. So, I weighed in with blogger solidarity instead of watching rock stars in live action.

Perhaps it’s timely that I mention it now, with American politics ramping up for the November presidential election between Obama and McCain.

(photo: Colleen Scheck/Speaking of Faith)

I’m delighted to see that the seminar I missed was recorded and produced by the Speaking of Faith crew and made it freely available. Just listened to the edited radio broadcast version and it’s a profoundly insightful conversation of how Christians can translate their biblical faith into different actions and different votes. Such a stark contrast to how a conservative evangelical voice has dominated the portrayal of all evangelical Christians, when (in actuality) there are many complex differences among people who live out their common faith and shared values.

• 
  Listen to the edited version [mp3] (53:09)
• Listen to the entire unedited version (1:32:05)
• Watch the entire seminar (QuickTime) or via Vimeo
• Browse the SOF website for more related links
• download the MP3 for $6 or get the CD for $9 from NPC [or you could download the MP3 for FREE from SOF; guess you can call this a convenience fee]
• Read Greg Boyd’s blog entry summarizing his post-debate thoughts

Three Degrees of Separation from Speaking of Faith on Vimeo.

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Took much longer to get the content migrated, but now it’s done. Changed over domain name settings today and the redesigned L² Foundation website is now live!

3 of the biggest changes are:

• combining the L2 blog with the L2 website
• placing all the resource links on one web page
• entire redesign of the look & feel, as well as the “backend” CMS, now powered by wordpress.org

There’s a few more things to tweak and fine tune. The overall look and feel should be a welcomed sight. I did keep the L2 blog archives over at wordpress.com, and imported all the 2007-2008 blog entries into the L2 website. Not sure how confused Google and other search engines will be with all the permalinks getting messed up.

Thanks to Tim Bednar at Turtle Interactive for the redesign!

Originally published at djchuang.com. Please leave any comments there.

Minorities keep growing– Hispanics are now 15% of the US population and Asian Americans at 5%. A handful of items coincidentally coincided, beginning with this comment in my inbox:

I was thinking the other day about the term “Asian American” and how it might need another word like “East” in front of Asian to truly reflect the perception that people have when they hear the term “Asian American.” Recently I’ve been thinking outside of the box and it just dawned on me how easily we assume or center “Asian” in the East or Far East mainly consisting of China, Korea, and Japan. When U.S. Census bureau includes Indian subcontinent and south Asia under “Asian” many “East” Asian Americans are not used to the concept or a picture of Asians including the Indians.

In my experience, I find that a majority of Americans of East Asian descent don’t even identify with that label, identifying much more often with labels like “Chinese American”, “Korean American”, or “Japanese American.” For instance, this new Korean American Christian Media website launched a few months ago as a “full service social networking community focused on the 1.5 and second generation Korean-Americans.”

Granted, too, I have noticed that a lot of the Asian American conversations tend to revolve around 2nd+ generation Chinese/ Korean/ Japanese. But, I’ve noticed for individuals and groups that do identify with the Asian American label, most seem to be cognizant about including Southeast Asians and South Asians along with East Asians.

2 other emails in my inbox: (1) a church in Chicago wants to bring on staff an Asian-American pastor (or African-American) for their Downtown Chicago congregation. Details of this ministry opportunity at Holy Trinity Church are online. (2) a 2nd generation Korean United Methodist church near Detroit, Michigan, is looking for a Lead Pastor, someone who can meet the UMC criteria and being forward-thinking. See details about this opportunity and contact me when/if you know someone who fits the bill. More ministry job opportunities at ISAAC.

Plus, there’s that “model minority” stereotype that still lingers. The College Board published this report, Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders Facts, Not Fiction: Setting the Record Straight — read/ download full report (PDF). Their press release got titled ‘Model Minority’ Stereotype Obscures Reality of Asian American and Pacific Islander Educational Experience and New York Times noted how Report Takes Aim at ‘Model Minority’ Stereotype of Asian-American Students. It ain’t easy being labeled an Asian American.

If racial stereotypes weren’t such a sensitive matter, maybe this parody news article wouldn’t sting as much– Asian American Pastor Speaks Only English: Chicago native of Korean descent also knows no martial arts. Could we possibly laugh at ourselves and with each other across racial ethnic lines?

Originally published at djchuang.com. Please leave any comments there.

Weekends are typically lower traffic for most websites. This suggests that there’s an awful lot of web surfing and internet use during work / business hours. Some of that may be legitimate research and work-related stuff. Some of it not so much. In an open-source collaborative world, the lines between work and play, business and personal, are blurring. For the next gen, it’s bordering on ridiculous if an employee is told that “you’re not paid to Twitter” or “you’re not paid to blog.” Not all twittering and/or blogging is good for business. But, twitter can be used in a way that better connects a business (or organization) to its audience and potential audience (aka customers, constituents, members). For the record, I don’t blog here during my work hours, and I keep 99% of my twittering during work hours work-related. (I say that because my Mom and my managers read my blog.)

Saturdays are now a new rhythm for me: a mix of home-related errands, father-and-son day, and/or chatting on the phone via free weekend minutes.

Today I’m starting something new I’ll call Saturday surprises. I’ll do a top-of-mind brain-dump of what’s surprised me during this (past) week. Saturday surprises will be a live post, not a post that was created days in advance and made to go live in the future. Caveat: I may not blog every Saturday or only surprises specifically from this week.

• Jeff Shinabarger is blogging up a storm! Having blogged for just a few months, Jeff blogs almost every day (more frequently than me) and blogs with great reflections and observations about the global village we live in, with a smattering of the intersection between faith and life. He’s a networker par excellant who lives in Atlanta, showed wonderful hospitality to my family last summer during our cross-country drive, and was one of the co-founders of Catalyst and Q. Riding in his Prius (my first time) almost won us over to buying one. Almost. Best surprise post this week: NEED magazine - stories of people helping people.
• Contrast that with Christian subculturing and ghettoing: A Gym Designed to Cater to Christians in the New York Times. I think it was Jesus who told his disciples to be salt and light in the world, and not to hide the light under a bushel.
• The world of parody now includes Asian Americans! The Holy Observer, Asian American Pastor Speaks Only English: Chicago native of Korean descent also knows no martial arts pokes fun at ethnic racial stereotypes and NextGenerAsianChurch discusses this article with nervous laughter
• Audios and sermons from the sold-out NYC Dwell Conference 2008 now online. Photos too. Aside: I’ve been collecting and archiving everything I find about Tim Keller in my Google Notebook - Tim Keller. That’s everything said by Keller and about Keller.
• Looks like the majority of my blog readers (those who responded to the poll, anyways) are okay with my current level of disclosure.
• Hopped on 2 earlier flights via standby, both to/from DFW. On the outbound from SNA, wife dropped me off 90 mins before departure. I went thru security. Walked to Gate 14 where an earlier flight was 14 minutes before departure. Asked if they could get me in via standby. They could & they did. Sweet! Curb drop-off to gate and take-off. No standing or sitting around. On the return from DFW, I was added to standby list of an earlier flight. Grabbed an iced venti Starbucks DoubleShot (which has 6 shots!). Got on this earlier flight with a seat in the exit row. Double sweet!
• I have something in common with Mark Driscoll: my kid and 1 of his kid both like having a “pajama day”, where the kid stays home all day in jammies

Originally published at djchuang.com. Please leave any comments there.

I’ve been in Dallas since Sunday night, hosting a stealth conference of my own: an invite-only gathering of next generation Asian American pastors. This kind of a gathering is nerve-wracking, since the majority of attendees are taking a huge leap of faith to come together, meet people they’ve never met, and dive in on meaningful conversations. With so much preparation and investment already put into this 2-year project via a special partnership between L² Foundation and Leadership Network, there was no absolute guarantee of success — and that can make anyone’s nerves on edge. I think what might have helped people be more at ease was to declare it a blogging-free zone. I kept my twittering fingers from getting active, and was allowed to hold on to my Blackberry Curve the whole time.

I’m very pleased and grateful that things went as well as it could have gone. One superior said it was a “home run,” and that the opinion helped calm my nerves. (but, a small voice from my Asian heritage whispers and wonders what would it take to get a “grand slam”)

While I have not yet gotten a green light for more disclosure (remember, we insured that gathering was a safe place), I can say that a number of select and choice insights from these next generation church leaders and pastors will be published as a free & downloadable white paper in a couple of months. I’d love to share that with you as soon as that’s released.

Now, a question for you– both regular and irregular readers of djchuang.com here– how do you think/ feel about the level of disclosure on this blog? Bordering inappropriate, too guarded, or about right? Click in your answer on this poll below. And if you want to pontificate, add a comment.

Does DJ disclose enough personal and professional information?
( surveys)

Originally published at djchuang.com. Please leave any comments there.

While working out (I try to do that 3x a week) walking on treadmill, saw the big weekend news item about excalating gas prices — $3.87 national average, over $4.00 in my ‘hood. CNN was interviewing a guy from Consumer Reports saying that if you speed up from 55 to 65 mph, you lose 5 mpg in fuel (in)efficiency. Accelerating from 65 to 75 mph, you lose another 5 mpg. Tip: drive 55 mph, get 10 more miles to the gallon. Being translated, save $6 per tank when you slow down. Pointing finger at myself, no one else.

Hosting an open house and bbq at our new condo town home on Memorial Day 10am-8pm. Come by as long or as short as you’d like. Family-friendly. Swimming pool and house tour optional. RSVP to me and I’ll get you directions to Aliso Viejo.

An overflow this week with conferences on both coasts. Purpose Driven Network Summit (#pdsummit08) had over 1,700 pastors and leaders from Tues to Thurs at Saddleback. 30+ recorded videos on Ustream of interviews & conversations with panelists and attendees. I’m in a handful of them too - look for orange. At the PEACE Coalition press conference afterward, they said they’d do this Summit again next year in May 2009. Props to Tony Steward for pulling off excellent live-streaming web coverage, and my fellow conversationalists Carlos, Tony, Tom, and Mike! Aside: 1 of my audience shots.

Whiteboard Sessions (aka #WiBo) kicked off their one-day big deal on Thursday with around 1,000 — lotta videos over at ConferenceChannel.org . More than a handful of crazy pastors went to both! [update: just read these sagely words from Jeff Shinabarger recognizing people’s gift and potential — do go over there and welcome Jeff to the blogosphere! He’s blogging into his 2nd month now.]

Question to all: should I create a new Twitter account for play-by-play conference tweets? A few have said that I’ve overloaded their phones.

Shifting gears between conferencing + conference calls + phone calls + meetups has wiped out. Maybe I’m getting too old for this. Extending my weekend, starting now, to be unplugged. Peace out.