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Re-post: Wrestling with Christianity’s Issues

Each month, we post a series of blogs around a common topic. This month, Rev. Shavon Starling-Louis, NEXT Church interim communications specialist, will be sharing particularly timely past NEXT Church blog posts. These posts point to hope and wisdom for these days that you might have completely forgotten about but are faithful reflections. We invite you to join the conversation on Facebook and Twitter.

This article was originally posted on November 18, 2014. The author’s ministry context may have changed since then.

by Yena Hwang

I attended the Brian McLaren conference at George Mason University in October, having enjoyed his book “Why Did Jesus, Moses, the Buddha and Mohammed Cross the Road.” I have heard Brian McLaren’s “talks” at various events in the past, so I knew that the conference would be good and that I would benefit from what he had to share and teach. As expected, Brian McLaren’s presentation helped me to gain a deeper insight and helped me to acquire new vocabularies and ideas to engage in more meaningful interfaith dialogues. The structure of the conference, where participants were invited to listen to Brian’s presentation and then invited to engage in more intimate conversations through table discussions, provided a good framework to help me digest the contents being presented.

What I realized through this conference is that we as Christians need to do a better job of understanding our own issues, before pointing our fingers at others’ religious issues. At the beginning of one of our table discussions, each participant was asked to share a personal story involving our encounter with a religion that was different than our own. This is the story I shared.

My encounter was not with a different religion. I was a freshman in college and had joined a campus Christian fellowship geared towards Korean Americans, called Agape Ministry. It was customary to share our joys and concerns at the weekly gathering, where we sang praise songs, listened to someone’s testimony and shared fellowship. That particular night, I had shared a prayer request for my mother, who just learned that her brother, my uncle, had died in Korea. My mother’s grief was compounded by the fact that she had hoped to visit him and share the Gospel with him, but she had missed that opportunity. I shared that it was comforting to be visited by our pastor and that we had a service at home, since my mother could not attend the funeral being held in Korea. At the end of the night, during the free fellowship time, someone came up to me and said, “I’m sorry about your uncle…but you know that he is going to hell, right?” I don’t remember how I responded, but I do remember how I felt. I felt confused. I felt sad and then angry.

That night, I decided that there was something wrong with our understanding of Agape God, that there had to be more than just orthodox teachings and doctrines heaven and hell and about salvation in general. That was the beginning of my journey into questioning and wrestling with my Christian belief and faith and identity. How do we encourage fellow Christians to engage, struggle, strife, and wrestle with our own Christian issues? Until we come face to face with our own demons, name them and claim them, we will continue to live in a fear-based, “strong and hostile” attitude towards those ideas and beliefs that are foreign to us. Until we work through unpacking our own baggage and sift through what is valuable to keep and what is no longer useful, we will not even be ready to understand that “strong and benevolent” Christian identity is possible.

As someone from our table shared, we need to be the best Christian that we can be–the kind of Christian who puts into action/practice the greatest commandment to love God by loving our neighbors as ourselves, no matter what that neighbor’s religious beliefs are and most certainly, no matter what that neighbor may look or sound like. May it begin with me. May it be so. Amen.


 Yena-HwangYena Hwang is the Associate Pastor of Christian Formation at Fairfax Presbyterian Church. Yena was born in Seoul, Korea and moved to the United States with her parents when she as 11 years old. Yena received her M.Div. from Princeton Theological Seminary and a M.A. in Marriage and Family Therapy from Louisville Presbyterian Seminary. Yena is married to Rick Choi and together, they are parents to two children, Justin and Nathan. 

2017 National Gathering Reflection: Tim Hart-Andersen

Rev. Tim Hart-Andersen, senior pastor of Westminster Presbyterian Church in Minneapolis, MN, gives a reflection on interfaith dialogue during Tuesday morning worship at the 2017 NEXT Church National Gathering.

Tim has also made his manuscript available as a resource:

We are grateful to Tim for providing his thoughts; to Meghan Gage-Finn for coordinating the video and text components of the reflection; and to Eric Adams for editing providing the video to be used during this reflection.

2017 National Gathering Ignite: Peace for Peoria

Stephen McKinney Whitaker gives an Ignite presentation on “Peace for Peoria,” an initiative in Peoria, IL, at the 2017 NEXT Church National Gathering.

Finding My Call on Campus, Finding My Faith in Interfaith

Each month, we post a series of blogs around a common topic. This month, Layton Williams is curating a series we’re calling “Ministry Out of the Box,” which features stories of ministers serving God in unexpected, diverse ways. What can ordained ministry look like outside of the parish? How might we understand God calling us outside of the traditional ministry ‘box’? We invite you to join the conversation on Facebook and Twitter!

by Laura Brekke

My full title is Director of Religious Diversity.

It’s an interesting title as it doesn’t explicitly name me as a minister.

My job itself operates into two spheres – on the one hand, I am the campus minister for our Protestant Christian students. I have a Christian diversity intern, and lead a weekly Bible study. I advise three Protestant groups, I offer special Protestant worship opportunities. On the other hand, I am also chaplain to all religious and spiritual communities beyond the Christian umbrella. I am the chaplain for Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, those who identify as spiritual but not religious, and so on. I lead bi-weekly interfaith dinner discussions that offer opportunities to engage in conversations from race and religion to religion and pop culture with peers from different religious and spiritual traditions. I support diverse holy day celebrations, advise the Office of Diversity and Inclusion on topics specific to religious diversity.

My parish extends to more than five thousand students; Catholic, Protestant and of many religious traditions. My preaching is less often behind a pulpit and more often in the form of a lecture. I lead groups through workshops on intersectional identity engagement and recognizing religious bias. And with one of my professor colleagues, I co-lead the Inter-Belief Floor – a floor in one of our residence halls focused on interfaith engagement. Not exactly skills on the average seminary checklist.

I served a traditional church before I became a campus minister. I loved my year as stated supply to a tiny church in rural Alabama, but my heart has been for college students. I grew up in a non-religious family. My faith in Jesus came to fruition in college – because of a patient and welcoming campus minister, Rev. Dr. Diane Mowrey at Queens University in Charlotte, NC. I was given space to ask questions and grow in fits and starts on my faith journey. I take those memories of encouragement into my ministry at Santa Clara University.

My biggest challenge is ministering to students of other religious traditions. We don’t have a campus rabbi, imam, or holy leader from non-Christian traditions. And yet for me, being a chaplain outside of my comfort zone has rooted me deeper in the grace and compassion of Jesus Christ. How do we preach the gospel always, yet use words only when necessary? How do we show the love of God to someone who has rejected religion? Where do we encourage questions as young people grow into their identities beyond the safe embrace of their family? These weren’t the questions I was taught to answer in seminary – but these are the questions which have given my ministry meaning and great joy.

Now, in the wake of executive orders which seek to ban my students and colleagues from residence in my country, these questions of compassion, of reaching beyond the tradition that roots me, are even more important. When people say Jesus wasn’t a refugee and refuse to imagine an entire religious group as a complex collection of real humans with real hopes and fears, I find my job as the director of religious diversity even more important. Diversity often means division, but it doesn’t have to. Diversity can mean unity without uniformity.

My greatest joy as a university chaplain is that I am surrounded by people who make me think hard on what and why my faith matters. They aren’t shy in their questions about Jesus and his miracles, or how I read and interpret scripture. I miss preaching weekly, but I get the joy of leading a Bible study with seven college students who are excited to be there each week. I don’t get to preside at communion regularly, but I do get to help plan the annual Passover seder with the Jewish Student Union – and learn a lot in the process. I don’t get to take part in youth service trips, but I do get to see my evangelical student group organize and run a weekly worship night with more skill than some new pastors!

Ministry beyond the church walls is challenging – it’s full of unforeseen pitfalls, and unexpected graces. There’s endless paperwork and program assessment, to be sure. But there are colleagues who ask tough questions. There are students who bring their whole selves to their worship. And there is the wonder of the way God is working through each crack and cranny of the human heart.


Laura Brekke is an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church (USA) currently serving as a Campus Minister and Director of Religious Diversity at Santa Clara University, a Jesuit Catholic university in California. Her research and programmatic work are focused on interfaith dialogue and intersectional identity. She studied history and creative writing at Queens University of Charlotte, and earned her Masters of Divinity form Emory University. When she’s not hurrying across campus, she is an avid reader, writer, and book reviewer.