CORRECTION: I didn't have a car for only two months rather than years.
It’ll be two years since I joined the Air Force in July 29th. What’s the overall assessment? Suffering. . . but good (but no I would not
do it all over again if I knew better. . .) Here’s a rundown of what I’ve
experienced in the past two years according to category (you can get a more
detailed description of the specific experiences by going through the history
of the items that have an * next to them ):
Financial
1) Invested in my
first Roth IRA
2) Moved into my
first apartment in Germany
*
3) Became financially
independent from my parents for the first time
4) Bought my first,
brand new car *
Church Community
1) Quit two ministries
after active involvement due to differences in vision with leadership *
2) Got fired from one
ministry due to my views of one of the ministries I quit above *
3) Listened to every
single Acts29Network and The Resurgence podcast/vodcast along with most of Mark
Driscoll’s sermons along with much of Erwin McManus’ *
Personal
1) Proposed on the
Eiffel tower *
2) Got married in
glorious Spokane, WA
*
3) Traveled enough to
know I don’t like it and got my first pick pocket experience
4) Had no car for two
years and biked everywhere *
5) Learned a improved
keyboard layout – Dvorak!!! *
6) JeffersonKim.com
helps a long lost cousin reestablish contact *
Military
1) 9 months of
working weird, 12 hour shifts, sometimes entire weekends (72 hours) all by
myself without interacting with a single person
2) Volunteered to
quit two years earlier than my four year commitment
3) Sheltered during
Hurricane Katrina for 7 days *
4) Got my website
censored from the networks
So we all learn the best through conflict and
suffering. It’s fairly clear from my
past posts that I learned quite a bit through the Church community and the
military work environment. Now the
question becomes on solutions. After
much deliberation, I’ve concluded that there is no hope for the church
community here. If I were to describe
hell, I would probably describe this area.
As for military. . . there is hope, but that’s an arena that
I don’t want to claim even enough experience or insight to be so bold as to
publicize a possible solution.
Basically, I have my opinions, but there are much smarter people in much
more authoritative positions to be able to fix the problem. And I would say now that they’re actually
laying off Air Force personnel, they are at least making the attempt to fix the
problem, which is more than I can say about myself.
So going back to the church community around here. . .
there’s no hope. And here’s why.
First, to discern what a healthy Christian community will
look like it should have multiple aspects, and here are some.
1) Teach from the Bible exegetically, which means that
they’re trying to understand the original intention of the authors and extrapolate
to our context
2) Teach the Bible as though it’s a book essentially about
Christ and not as a book on how man should live his life
3) A community that loves one another
4) A community that loves the local military community with
the hope that they will come to know Christ
5) Reach their community as though they were missionaries in
a foreign country
All items above need to be spearheaded by strong
leadership. So until there is strong
leadership, there can be no hope. Had I
known there wasn’t strong leadership out here, I might’ve tried starting my own
ministry out here. . . but seriously, would I do it knowing I would only be out
here for two years? Probably not. . . so
that relates to some factors that bring together hopelessness to have strong
leadership:
1) People tend to
live here and move within a three year period because the Air Force moves them. We’re talking an entire leadership, and
congregational turnover within three years!!!
That’s CRAZY enough to destroy a ministry and make any leader want to
quit, but add more. . .
2) Military personnel
have to deploy for 4 months or more and travel back to the states for weeks at
a time. So not only can the people
only stay for about three years, but then they deploy for months at a time! Not only that, but when holidays come around,
they will most likely return back to the States for vacation or travel.
3) The American
community is isolated with about 60,000 people.
We’re talking a small town completely isolated from the rest of the
world! No large city nearby (not even a
German city) that people commute from. . . this is it! In other words, if you’re a talented leader,
you’ll probably focus your energies on a large city stateside, rather than some
small military community. For you
Seattlites. . . imagine Everett
completely isolated and see what strong church communities come from that. . .
4) Travelling. . . We’re
here in Germany.
. . what do you think most people are going to try and do on the weekends? That’s right.
Travel! We’re only a four-hour
drive from Paris!
It comes down to this.
You need time to create meaningful community and strong leadership. Military personnel in the military
predominantly cannot or choose not to commit to a meaningful community due to
their unique position and transient lifestyle.
Strong leaders will come to recognize that they can simply impact much
more people by going stateside where they can disciple people for a longer
period of time.
That’s just one of the prices military personnel face. Transient living.
The lack of Christ centered, biblical, and missionally
focused community has been hell for me.
Like, if I were to be in hell, he could just stick me here. Well. . . I guess if I knew I was here for
three more years, I’d make something of it, but by the time I got kicked
out/quit all the ministries and discovered that the leadership out here didn’t
hold the same ecclesiology as me, it was too late to create something
substantial of my own.
Well, hopefully the suffering I went through will teach me
to be a lot more careful and discerning in the future before committing to a
ministry or church community. | 
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