Rev. Dr. Eun Strawser—Year C Proper 22-25

Rev. Dr. Eun Strawser—Year C Proper 22-25

Welcome to the Gospel Reverb podcast. Gospel Reverb is an audio gathering for preachers, teachers, and Bible thrill seekers. Each month, our host, Anthony Mullins, will interview a new guest to gain insights and preaching nuggets mined from select passages of Scripture in that month’s Revised Common Lectionary.

The podcast’s passion is to proclaim and boast in Jesus Christ, the One who reveals the heart of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And now onto the episode.

Anthony: Hello, friends, and welcome to the latest episode of Gospel Reverb. Gospel Reverb is a podcast devoted to bringing you insights from Scripture, found in the Revised Common Lectionary, and sharing commentary from a Christ-centered and trinitarian view.

I’m your host, Anthony Mullins, and it’s my delight to welcome our guest, Dr. Reverend E.K. Strawser. Dr. Strauser is the co-vocational lead pastor of Ma Ke Alo o, which means presence in Hawaiian. These are non-denominational, missional communities multiplying in Honolulu. And, on top of that, she’s a community physician.

She’s the founder of `Iwa Collaborative, a consulting and content-developing firm to empower kingdom-grounded leaders to navigate change, grow adaptive capacity, and foster local flourishing. Prior to transitioning to Hawaii, she served as adjunct professor of medicine at the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine and of African Studies at her alma mater, the University of Pennsylvania, where she and her husband served with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship. She’s the author of the book Centering Discipleship, and she and Steve have three seriously amazing children.

Eun, thanks for being with us and welcome to the podcast. And since this is your first time joining us as a guest, we want to get to know you a bit and one of the ways we’re going get to know you, first of all, I have to ask this question. Which of these three seriously amazing children is your favorite?

[00:02:06] Eun: I am a person who does not lie. We do have favorites. All you listeners out there who are parents, you all know you do have your favorite. Ours is our oldest, our three kids know this already, but that is my favorite part of my bio, that last line that Steve and I truly do have three amazing children.

[00:02:25] Anthony: It sounds like you do. And we’re praying for the other two. I’m sure they know they’re loved as well, but I’m glad you’re being honest because sometimes we do have favorites and usually for me, it’s the one that’s in the room at the moment. And so, as we get to know you a bit more, what projects are you working on? How are you participating with the Lord Jesus Christ these days, Eun?

[00:02:47] Eun: Man, if we don’t model that our everyday kind of choices in living is how we imitate Jesus and not just through, let’s say, “projects”, then I think for any of us who are in leadership positions we would be failing at what we’re actually calling those God has given us lead and love to actually do. So, a big chunk of my day, is obviously caring for my patients here in a local context — that’s my big contribution. But Steve and I love our neighbors. We love the neighborhood that we live in. We don’t just lead and love our congregants in our church, but we love the neighbors who live on either side of our homes and in and down our street.

And I think if we learned anything about how Christians are supposed to behave and act throughout the pandemic, that probably was an unveiling of how “Christian” are imitators of Jesus. Are we really at the level of how we do our daily lives? What kinds of decisions do we make on a day-to-day basis? So, we try to, I at least try to, put that in the forefront.

[00:03:53] Anthony: Yeah, I’m amazed that as I looked over your bio, all the things that you’re doing and involved in beyond just your family, which I know is a big priority for you as a doctor.

By the way, can I get a free consultation? Because there’s something that’s been concerning me. No, I’m playing. I’m playing.

Eun: Get in line.

Anthony: Right. Right. As a doctor and embedded in the community that way, how has that helped you as a pastor, as a leader of leaders within your church environment? Just curious about how that serves the neighborhood.

[00:04:27] Eun: Yeah. I think that, especially here in Hawaii, if you’re not locally rooted in any kind of field of work that you do, then there’s a huge suspicion about why you’re here. I’m not from Hawaii originally. My family immigrated from South Korea during like the third wave of the Immigration Act lifting up so that my family and a lot of East Asians were immigrating to predominantly the East coast. So, I did most of my growing up and adulting in Philadelphia, in West Philadelphia in particular. Everyone’s having the song go through their heads right now.

But then about 15 years ago, we moved our three kids, and my husband and I, we moved to Hawaii. And Hawaii has this thing about it. You don’t have credibility or a trust that you actually contribute to the community unless you’re here for 20 years. So even 15 years sound like a long time, but we’re still five years shy of what is culturally accepted as okay. You’re not just here transitioning. You’re here to actually be a part and with our community. So, I feel like being able to doctor on top of pastoring in church planting has given me a more sense of a deeply rooted presence for the folks here in Hawaii. It’s helped.

[00:05:51] Anthony: We’re so thankful, as Paul talked about, that we participate in the sufferings of Christ, that you’re suffering in paradise in Hawaii. Thank you for doing that for the sake of the gospel, Eun. But I did want to ask you —I know you’ve written a book and you have, if I’m not mistaken, another book coming out soon, and that’s the one I want to ask you about, because I grew up in a pastor-centric church environment and also a work environment where the mindset was, if you want it done right, do it yourself, which doesn’t exactly build teams, does it? But your latest book, You Are Never Meant to Lead Alone, I’m guessing, has to provide a better pathway forward. So, would you tell us about the premise of the book and what your hopeful outcomes will be for the readers?

[00:06:34] Eun: Yeah, absolutely. My first book Centering Discipleship, I always say that it was a love letter to my local church. I feel like it is not just a book on discipleship but something that helps to celebrate that when the entire local community gets behind discipleship actually being centered in your community, in your congregation, then it’s the work of that whole team coming alive, all imitating Jesus together.

So, a lot of the work that from this new book on You Were Never Meant to Lead Alone really came from that first work. But this new book, really, I always say that it’s a love letter to myself — probably a lot of the suffering and pains, growing pains, unsolicited pain that’s brought about just from leading.

Leading is lonely. It’s hard work. It leads to a lot of burnout, and it can also lead to a lot of domineering, hurtful leadership. And so, I really wanted to write not just a leadership story that also centers somebody who might be familiar, similar to me — someone who is a woman pastor, co-vocational who is an immigrant, who is a person of color. All of these things culminating in them — can someone like that also lead?

And what kinds of environments can should all people in the church lead? And if you’re taking a look at the first-century church, it really was that nobody was meant to lead alone. That the first-century church really modeled, especially if you read all throughout Acts, that leadership was shared amongst the most unlikely of characters and heroes together.

So, it really is a reminder, not a new concept, but a reminder to the church that if you’re burnt out, feeling lonely, or you’re in a situation of domineering leadership, that’s not what church leadership was meant to be like. It’s meant to be shared because power was meant to be shared.

[00:08:39] Anthony: It’s fascinating and I know in my church tribe, denominational tribe, we’re talking a lot about team-based ministry, so I think this book will be of great interest. Where would you, in terms of outlets, content outlet, where would you send people to go buy the book?

[00:08:56] Eun: Oh, it’s Amazon. Really?

[00:09:00] Anthony: Maybe people have heard of it.

[00:09:02] Eun: Everything has been on Amazon. Or you can go to IVP also, that’s our publisher.

[00:09:19] Anthony: Okay. Again, the book is called You Were Never Meant to Lead Alone, and the author is Eun Strawser. Go get your copy.

All right, let’s do this. Let’s dive into the lectionary text that we’ll be discussing for this month. Our first pericope is 2 Timothy 1:1–14. I’m going be reading from the New Revised Standard Version, the updated edition. It is a Revised Common Lectionary passage for Proper 22 in Ordinary Time, October 5.

Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, for the sake of the promise of life that is in Christ Jesus, 2 To Timothy, my beloved child: Grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord. 3 I am grateful to God—whom I worship with a clear conscience, as my ancestors did—when I remembe