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What a weekend. I just returned from The Idea Camp in Portland, and to be honest I didn’t really know what to expect. The topic was “being present in the city” and overall I think I am still trying to process and digest all the things my senses were overloaded by.

Eugene Cho and Dan Merchant speaking on the cost of  implementing big ideas, with Charles Lee facilitating. 

Relationships. That was yet another common theme of the weekend. No amount of programs, ministries, ideas nor money can compare to a single genuine relationship between one human being and another. I’m not only talking about super deep committed relationships, but even those fleeting or intermittent interactions with people who happen to cross our path at specific instances in time. I ask myself: Am I truly “being present” in those moments? Am I just going through the motions, saying the same cliché phrases? Or, am I genuinely interacting from my heart? Do I truly see the person? That’s definitely one area I’d like to improve upon.

Action. That was another key theme for myself. One of my favorite quotes was “God can’t steer a parked car.” We may drive into the ditch once in awhile, we may take the wrong turn and go in the opposite direction for a time, but God will get us back on course. We just have to be in motion. I challenge myself to stop “waiting for a voice from above” and just do what I feel is right.

Trust. In order to have effective partnerships, we have to earn and develop trust between people and organizations. Perhaps it’s between a church and a city government, or a non-profit and a school district, or even just between two strangers who find that in this season of life they may not know anything about each other, yet in time they will desperately need each other. How do I gain people’s trust? What does it take to earn mine? Many times the answer is simply: Time.

I attended a breakout session on how to interact with local businesses, city government, schools and the local media. The case study of Beaverton, OR was quite fascinating.

My brain is still spinning from all the input over the past 48 hours, but these are my initial reflections from the weekend, with more to come in the upcoming days.

Not only do I regularly get links/photos from friends sent to be via email/facebook about my obsession with Star Wars, but now Facebook is ’smart’ enough to even know what kinds of advertisements to show me:


Too bad I don’t want to enter my personal info to enter a contest. But that picture of the Death Star did catch my attention.

Note : Of course I know that Facebook mines my profile for data and tries to show me the most relevant ads, much like Gmail does. The computer logic behind this isn’t what is surprising to me. It totally makes sense. But, I still had a pretty surprised reaction to seeing a Death Star on my screen. Wouldn’t you?

Addendum to the note: I also believe that since the icon used is one of the second Death Star, it garnered additional attention. I mean, a normal Death Star is pretty cool, but the second Death Star was much larger, and was also still under construction. I would almost liken my surprise at seeing this icon on my screen to Admiral Ackbar’s surprise when he realized that the second Death Star was, in fact, operational during the Battle of Endor. Almost.