milt

Tonight I had dinner with an old friend and his wife, a friend I haven't seen in over nine years. Almost a decade. It makes me feel old to have friendships that can be interrupted by a decade. But I digress....back to the topic of this post, which is old friends. And more specifically, my friend Milton Chen.

I don't know why I do this, but it is my knee-jerk reaction when first meeting old friends - I spend the first five minutes with all 5 senses at full bore, trying to get a read on how life has fared for my friend. It is always the non-verbals that I key in on - the way he walks, the way he takes in his surroundings, his interaction with strangers, but most of all, I guess I'm looking for that certain light burning in a persons eyes. I want to know if a person is truly living life, or just taking up space and breathing up oxygen.

I knew in 7 seconds flat that Milt was truly alive. That whatever he had been through in the past decade, the good and bad of it, was fuel to feed a spiritual drive. I also knew that the hand of God was on his life. I don't know how I knew. I just knew that I knew. We sat down for dinner (Outback- nice cheese fries, if you ever go) and just picked up our friendship right where we had left it in the last century and on the other side of the world.

Milt (and his lovely wife Tiffany) moved to LA to become the youth pastor at Hollywood Presbyterian Church. This is a world famous church, that was the church home to legends of the faith like Henrietta Mears, Bill Bright, Billy Graham, Lloyd Ogilvie, and now Milton Chen. He beat out hundreds of other applicants. We're talking about applicants with history at the church, with educational degrees up the wazoo, with mega church references, with spiritual pedigree, people that are household names in Christian ministry circles. And then comes Milt, the dark horse with an inner city ministry in Houston. Now he is using the same desk that Henrietta Mears used when she discipled Bill Bright and Billy Graham, the same desk she used to draw up plans for Forest Home. Time for some pictures.

Lloyd Ogilvie http://www.2preslex.org/PACE05.HTM
billy
bill bright http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Bright
henrietta mears http://www.intouch.org/myintouch/mighty/portraits/henrietta_mears_213642.html

milton and tiffany. http://www.hollywoodpres.org/chen.htm