here's a question sparked by the lastest post on the silver platter. does tim horton's (or whatever coffee place you frequent) use fair trade coffee? if not, should we as responsible global citizens boycott until they do?
3.01.2005
2.16.2005
EC and me
hey, i have a question for any readers out there. some of my good friends seem to spew venom every now and again at the EC "movement." i wonder how we can discern the difference between doing old things in new ways and completely throwing out old things. i didn't say that very well. here's my issue. i don't like going to church. i am a pastor, but i wish most sundays that i didn't have to go. now, i serve in a wonderful church. not perfect, but wonderful. God works there, people seem to like it - except me. i can still worship, i still love the people there, but i don't get excited about going. it doesn't wake me up in the morning with that feeling of "hurrah, i get to go to church today." i don't very often look forward to sunday mornings...if ever. to me it seems like something's missing for me. i connect better with God in other places than i do in church. and i wonder not if what we are doing there is wrong, but if there is another way of doing church that would make the gospel more real in the lives of people like myself.
now there is a fine line between my being selfish and consumerist in expecting church to "meet my needs" and my expectation that the gospel lived out in a church community should be relevant to real needs in my life. i don't want to be a selfish pig, but i do want to enjoy church. i want to be excited to go celebrate with my community of believers. i'm not. why? ...i find that some of the questions being asked in the EC community are good ones. ones that i identify with.
so i wonder...for people like me - how do i find church that is real and relevant without throwing out the baby with the bathwater? and as a pastor working in a wonderful church that God is using but that i don't always like attending - how can i become a creator, not a destoyer? i don't want to be a whiner, but a helper.
i know that worship is about God - not about me, and all that. but here's the crux. teaching, community, etc.. should reach into felt needs in a person's life. the gospel lived out in a church community should be the answer to our deepest questions, hurts, and needs. when those needs, hurts, and questions are not being met and answered, then i have to ask if there is a better way to "do church." when a person feels safer being themself in a local pub than they do in church, something is wrong. hence the EC community conversations. maybe church should be in the local pub. (grin) i don't know. i just have a lot of questions right now. any advice? what do you think?
2.11.2005
blue like jazz
this book, "Blue Like Jazz" by donald miller, was recommended to me recently. i bought a copy and sat down to read it. i didn't get up again until i had read the whole thing. miller calls it "nonreligious thoughts on christian spirituality." i call it food for my soul. this book was a God moment for me. if you ever have questions, doubts, wonderings about your faith like i have, then this book is a must read. i loved it.
brian mclaren said this about it,
"I can think of no better book than Blue Like Jazz to introduce Christian spirituality (a way of life) to people for whom Christianity (a system of beliefs) seems like a bad math problem or a traffic jam. Donald Miller writes like a good improv solo - smooth, sweet, surprising, uplifting, and full of soul and fury and joy. When I finished the last page, I felt warmed, full of hope, and confident that this great book will echo with beauty in many, many lives as it is doing in mine."
also, thanks to those of you who replied to my last post. i appreciate your thoughts. thank you for the reminder to live in the tension between feeling the responsibility for those entrusted to me, yet leaving the results of my ministry up to God. if you have more thoughts or ideas, please continue the conversation.
2.03.2005
a ministry riddle
so, i've been a youth pastor now for two and a half years. many days - most days in fact - i feel like i hardly know what i'm doing, or like i'm spinning my wheels but not really getting much done.
i have worked hard to build a great student ministry. we have a great team of adult leaders (i started with one and now have nine). we have a fun youth night filled with games, teaching, music, and hanging out (we call it expedition). we go to events. we laugh together. we have small group on tuesday nights.
but many days it feels so useless, so empty. i am beginning to think that maybe i have spent too much energy and time building programs that i haven't focused enough on time with teens, or teaching my leaders to spend time with teens. or something....
i see my kids - most of them born and raised in church - and i wonder how many of them will still be in church in five years. how many of them really love jesus? how many of them are just faking their way through - doing what everyone expects them to do? and how can i help them find the real jesus?
here's the issue. i am beginning to hate programs and programming. i really dislike planning events and organizing transportation and gathering permission forms. i really dislike planning a big "invite your friends" new year's eve bash and then walking away from it wondering if it was any use at all. i feel like all i really want to do is hang out with them - but i actually get to do that so little. i suppose it is much my own fault, but i wonder if there is also something fundamentally flawed in my view of what a good youth ministry looks like.
more and more i don't want to care about how many teens are there - or more importantly - how many there are compared to this time last year. i don't want to plan big events that seem empty of any real impact on life. i don't want expedition to just feel like more church. i don't want being a youth pastor to be about going to events and organizing things for teens to do so they have nice christian activities to go to. all i want to do is see people commit themselves to follow jesus no matter what. i want to walk with them through the ups and downs of life and maybe get to have a small part to play in how they walk. that's it - that's all. and i am beginning to wonder if planning all these things really helps in that process at all. does it do more to help us find real life together, or does it help perpetuate the "church as 'holy club'" mindset.
i make one request. please do not comment on this post if you are just going to tell me the same things i've heard a million times in classes and books and from people all over the place: "youth ministry is about relationships." "focus on the teens, not the programs." "programs are a tool to help us build relationships." "just be real in front of them." blah blah blah. i know all these things - why do you think i'm frustrated?
i am struggling with the tension of my job as minister and my job as administrator. in other words, how to reconcile and balance my time with people and my time in the office. i think that so far i have fallen too far on the office side of things and it is making me really frustrated. also i am learning things about myself and my view of what the church is supposed to be that make me more and more frustrated with church the way it is. so the combination has resulted in this post - a sad blurtation of frustration, questions, and ...stuff.
that's all for now.
1.31.2005
molvania
i stumbled across this book the other day. actually, i saw it recommended in mclean's so picked it up at the library. it is hilarious! also check out the molvania website.
"Molvania, A LAND UNTOUCHED BY MODERN DENTISTRY is the definitive guide to one of Eastern Europe's most overlooked destinations. Once known only by war historians and Soviet drug runners, this landlocked republic is now finally being discovered by the discerning traveller. And this latest Jetlag guide offers all you need to know about getting there, getting around and safely escaping the forgotten jewel that is Molvania."
go to your public library and check it out now!
what are you waiting for?
do it!
1.28.2005
crazy times
it's been a crazy couple of weeks. karen and i are trying our darndest to follow God and are feeling the need to move closer to k-town. so monday we are meeting with a realtor to put our house up for sale. wednesday karen drove her car into a tree, so the past few days were spent recovering and dealing with insurance people. the saga continues. we are praying and thinking about building a new house, or buying, or renting...who knows. and i am feeling the need to rethink how i have been leading our youth ministry.
so many thoughts. so many questions. mmmm.....sleep.
1.18.2005
surprised by joy
a few weeks ago i promised a post on my reflections from reading c.s. lewis' biography, "surprised by joy." here it is.
several things struck me, in varying significance.
1) his definition of joy i found intriguing: "an unsatisfied desire which is itself more desirable than any other satisfaction." it made me wonder how often i have tasted something, how often i have caught merely a glimpse of something so grand that i enjoy even the longing for that thing more than any other pleasure. i think i have on occasion. reading "wild at heart" by john eldrege created such a longing in me. occasionally in conversations with people a similar longing has risen. it challenged me to ask myself how often i long after God? rarely, to be honest.
2) the second idea has to do with absolute idealism. consider these lines: "the Absolute...contained the reconciliation of all contraries, the transcendence of all finitude, the hidden glory which was the only perfectly real thing there is." "it is more important that Heaven should exist than that any of us should reach it." "God was to be obeyed simply because he was God. Long since, through the gods of Asgard, and later through the notion of the Absolute, He had taught me how a thing can be revered not for what it can do to us but for what it is in itself... If you ask why we should obey God, in the last resort the answer is , 'I am.' ...God is such that if (per impossibile) his power could vanish and His other attributes remain, so that the supreme right were forever robbed of the supreme might, we should still owe Him precisely the same kind and degree of allegiance as we now do."
for me this idea has stuck in my head. God deserves worship simply because he is. other reasons may drive me to worship, but even if God did nothing for me, he is still worthy of my worship. i do not know how to do this. some call it adoration, giving God praise and worship because he is worthy of it. this is beyond my comprehension at this point. i understand the concept, but i do not know how to do it. it makes my brain all fuzzy to think about it.
3) the third concept is more that of an experience of c.s. lewis' that i am finding myself relating to. once again, his own words: "You must picture me alone in that room at Magdalen, night after night, feeling, whenever my mind lifted even for a second from my work, the steady, unrelenting approach of Him whom I so earnestly desired not to meet. That which I greatly feared had at last come upon me. In the Trinity Term of 1929 I gave in, and admitted that God was God, and knelt and prayed: perhaps, that night, the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England."
for lewis, this marked his conversion from atheism to theism. for me, the past few months have been as near as i have ever come to a living hell. for the first time in my life i wanted to run from church, from the christian faith. i did not want to be a christian. i was not sure that i even wanted to follow God, let alone attempt to lead others to do so. out of this experience i have discovered that i cannot run. i cannot be anything but a christ follower. to do anything less would make me the most miserable man imaginable. i cannot be anything but what i am - a Christ follower and a pastor. it is who i am, and i can be nothing else. i often wish i could, more than ever before in the past few months, but i cannot. to attempt such would pit me against myself in a way that would destroy me. i cannot believe there is no God - it is impossible for me to conceive of. i cannot believe any other religion but that of christianity, even with it's faults and failings. it is the only one that seems true to me.
thus i am left with a choice: misery or discipleship. i choose life.
a question: what is it to love God? at this point in my life, i do not feel love for God. i follow Christ not because of love, but because (as lewis discovered) i can do nothing else. and for now it is enough. God by his grace can use even me: perhaps, this night, the most dejected and reluctant pastor in ontario.
there were a few other thoughts from "surprised by joy" that i enjoyed, but this is all i have to say tonight.
1.12.2005
john wesley on tsunamii (plural of tsunami?)
i received an email from a fellow free methodist pastor over our list-serve with a link to a sermon by john wesley published in the year 1750. the sermon is on the subject of earthquakes, huge waves, and God's judgment. i thought wesley made some interesting points about God's judgment on sinful people. read his sermon here.
what i found most interesting, however, was this response from another fm pastor over the list-serve:
"I was recently reading in R.C. Sproul's THE HOLINESS OF GOD the chapter on"Holy Justice" in which he deals with some of "the most difficult, most offensive passages we can find in the Old Testament..." He deals with Nadab and Abihu, Uzziah, and the slaughter of the Canaanites. His point is that there are no "innocent" people. All are under the judgment of God, and because God extends mercy to us we come to expect it and are amazed and bewildered when we face judgment.
"Sproul refers to Hans Kung, "...the most mysterious aspect of the mystery of sin is not that sinners deserve to die, but rather that the sinner in the average situation continues to exist." p.153. "In fact He (God) is so slow to anger that when His anger does erupt we are shocked and offended by it. We forget rather quickly that God's patience is designed to lead us to repentance, to give us time to be redeemed."
"Sproul has an interesting comment on Luke 13:1-5 re. the Galileans killed by Pilate and the tower of Siloam falling and killing eighteen. Jesus is saying, "You should not be asking were these worst sinners, but rather, Why
didn't the tower fall on my head?" It seems to me the question has real application to us in Jan. '05. We need to be careful how we ask the question, but it is one we need to ponder. Our hearts go out to all those who died in the tragedy yet we are all under the sentence of death because of sin."
hmmmmm... interesting. i agree with the pastor i quoted above, but i am not sure i am comfortable with the notion that wesley had about natural disasters being God's judgment. yet it makes a lot of sense... what do you think? give wesley's sermon a read first, then respond. how do these thoughts fit with our thinking today?
ship of fools
i stumbled across a web site today called ship of fools. it's got some funny crap! you can find it here or follow the link in my links bar.
some other funny (but sad) stuff:
C.S. Lewis: The Devil's Wisest Fool - a page accusing lewis of being a sun worshipper, among other things.
Hypocrites on Parade - a site with videos claiming the pope to be the antichrist and all who support him doomed to hell, as well as some other stuff.
1.07.2005
redemption
karen and i finally bought a new computer. it is a dell, and it is working like a charm. ahh, the bliss. no more will i have to use a laptop that freezes up randomly. no longer will i waste valuable office time posting on my blog. now i can do it all from home! hurrah.
so anyway, perhaps now my postings will take on some semblance of regularity.
that's all i've got for now. my brain isn't ready to do too much thinking at the moment. hey - it's my day off. however, i have been reading "surprised by joy" - c.s. lewis' autobiography - and been enjoying it. i will have a post on that soon. i find his definition of joy both intriguing and disturbing. more on that later.
1.04.2005
computers are from hell
i haven't been having much luck with my computers lately. karen's laptop always freezes up on me - usually in the middle of typing up a post, and the network at the church is down. so i'm hurredly posting this one to say that karen and i ordered a new computer that should hopefully be here friday or early next week, and after that point my posting should have a bit more regularity. until then, adios.
12.30.2004
stuff and nonsense
so, it's another christmas come and gone. our church had a successful christmas eve service and sunday morning. i was in charge so of course it was amazing.
i think i am going to move from reading james to romans now. james is all about real faith being shown in how we act - what we do. romans delves more into the realm of grace and faith and free gifts and whatnot. that is what i am struggling to learn and understand right now, so maybe romans will be helpful.
for sunday morning past i was studying isaiah 7 - the passage dealing with king ahaz and the sign of immanuel. i believe that this passage shows how stubborn we humans can be to try to save ourselves in our own way. ahaz insisted on bringing the assyrians to help him out instead of trusting God to take care of them. and the result was that he screwed his country over big time - it didn't work. in all this muddling i am trying to do through grace-realm, i am thinking more and more strongly every day that i will never appreciate grace until i realize how i am completely lost and hopelessly incapable of saving myself. if i do not realize that then grace means nothing. why would i need grace if i don't need saving? i have to know i am lost.
i don't think i do all the time - at least, i struggle with it. i've been a good boy. santa has never brought me coal. what have i ever done that would condemn me? i mean, other than my pride and selfishness and... but really, i've never killed anyone. i've never done drugs. i've never slapped around innocent children in a drunken stupor. why would i need a saviour? why would i need a messiah?
unless i know i am hopelessly lost i will never want grace. i will never appreciate grace. understanding my lost-ness first and foremost is the beginning step to real life with Christ. i think that it is when i learn this lesson that i will be able to understand the freedom that grace gives me. being completely unable to save myself and finding myself suddenly saved - for free - i think would be a revolutionary and transformational experience. there is nothing i can do to make God like me more. there is nothing i can do to make myself more saved than i already am. i'm free. completely and gloriously free - for free. i can't even begin to get my head around it. i am only just now starting to peek around the corner and it makes me wondrously excited.
12.22.2004
grace
today as i was driving into kingston i listened to part of "haven now" - or "haven today" or whatever it's called - on the christian radio station. i usually don't listen to it cause the guys voice is kindof annoying and i'm not a big fan of listening to sermons on the radio, or of christian radio for that matter. but anyway, today the topic caught my attention. he was giving his christmas message and was talking about how our biggest problem is actually God. what he was saying is that because of God's holy standard for our lives that he described through the law in the OT, we're all screwed. none of us will ever, ever measure up to God's standard. so our biggest problem isn't the disaster we're facing, or the broken relationship we have with our friend, or even our sin. our biggest problem is that because of God's standard we're screwed, lost, hopeless. but God sent Jesus... we will never fully understand grace until we understand how lost we are - how unable we are to ever please God on our own.
that thought really stuck out at me. it's not completely new or anything, but it ties in perfectly with what i am preaching about on sunday and what i am struggling with in my own life. i have difficulty understanding grace some days because i don't fully realize how completely unable i am to do anything to please God on my own.
i am beginning to think that maybe it is in giving up trying to make God happy that i will find real grace. maybe only when i quit trying to do the things that i think God wants me to do will i understand that he still loves me - not because of what i do, but because that's just what he's like. he loves me no matter what.
12.20.2004
the desert
i found a great poem by garry harris. check out his stuff here.
The Desert
Reduced to essence,The desert reveals our core.
Stripping away our veneer of religion
Till we stand naked before God and ourselves,
And are forced to own our shadow
Whose existence we had previously denied.
Wilderness is a great teacher.
Moses; David; the Master; and we
Must eventually face its ravages,
Emerging from it different; whole; prepared;
To be God's people in the world.
Do not flee these torments.
Welcome them as life's great tutorial,
Integrating light and darkness; virtue and vanity; good and evil;
That we may present ourselves in all our propensity
To the Eternal One, who is still the God of the mountain;
the valley; and the desert.
12.18.2004
muddlesome faith
i understand what my good friend lynn was saying, but i wanted to ramble out some more thoughts in response. (see comment on 'works and faith') i understand the relationship with works being the result of a genuine faith, a life changed by the presence of God. what i find confusing is where it all begins... the whole chicken and egg scenario. as a person raised in the church, i find that sometimes my works become just works, devoid of real faith. as such they have no value. yet james says my faith is valueless when not resulting in real works. presently i am struggling through a spiritual desert of sorts, where i have no feeling, no motivation to do good works other than that i know i ought to. it sucks, big time. so in this place of dryness it feels most of the time like my works are devoid of faith. i am just going through the motions.
here's my issue. in this place, is the best thing for me to keep on 'working' in hope that the reality of grace will return, or should i wait to understand more of the depths of faith before i return to 'works'? see, the more i think and ponder and write, the more i see this as a battle over feelings. my feelings are gone right now. so what will i do in this desert? will i lay down and die, or will i keep stumbling along after the mirage before me until i reach the real spring and feelings return? how do i know i'm working out of a grace based faith when i feel no grace? how do i live a grace filled life - a life full of freedom from guilt - when i feel only obligation? do i misunderstand how this all works? do i truly understand the freedom of grace? do i truly understand how i can be obligated to obey Christ as a free response to his grace in my life? i don't think i do. right now it just feels like stuff i have to do and if i don't i go around feeling guilty for not doing it.
example: if i want to grow in my relationship with Christ, i need to spend time with him daily. this i have been taught and this i believe to be true. as i stumble through this desert, however, i have no desire to spend time with God regularly. when i do, it is more because i know i should, or need to, than because i want to. this desert was birthed out of a journey and struggle to free myself from this very thing. now it seems the direction God is taking me is leading right back to where i began. to be honest this scares the crap out of me and makes me a little bit frustrated. i am having a really hard time trusting God because i don't know where he is taking me and i really don't want to end up back where i began.
i know that there are times we do what is right because it is right rather than because we feel like it - feelings aren't everything. but for this poor wanderer who is struggling to recover from a works based faith devoid of a real understanding of grace it sometimes feels like doing what is right because it is right leads me back into the works based faith. where does the delicate knife edge lie? where is the narrow path i am to follow? as i read these passages in james it feels at times so clear and at times so foggy.
muddlesome faith. so ugly and so beautiful.
rage...taking....over...
i hate our computer. no...that's not strong enough. i loathe our computer. i want it to die. except i don't because then we would have no computer. i had just finished typing up a nice little entry when all of a sudden the computer froze up on me. and this is not the first time. it does it all the time, with no warning and no way to unfreeze it other than restarting it. oooooohhhhhh,....it is so frustrating.
anyway, what i was saying earlier was something about how i've noticed so many new blogs in the last two or three weeks starting up. i made up some thing about how it was all due to a conspiracy from google to control the world or some crap. anyway, enough about that. i just find it interesting that everyone and their brother (or sister) seems to be blogging now (including me). huh.
well, that's all for now i guess. if you're reading my blog and want me to link to your page, let me know.
may your toast be warm and your fingers nimble.
12.16.2004
htm freakin l
i figured out how to add a links column to my sidebar today. boy was that a pain. i have never taken any computer website type classes, so i'm learning completely from scratch. it's fun to see things working though. i even learned how to get the links to open in a new window. easy stuff for you experienced guru's of the web page, but for me it was exciting!
kudos to the google search engine and html tutorials.
wedding pics
tomorrow marks five months of marriage. time goes by so fast! i thought i would post some pics from the wedding. enjoy!
karen always points out her fingernails when she sees this picture. she was so proud of them! women... i'll never understand.
my wife is so beautiful!
the world is spinning around us!
running through the bubbles leaving the reception.
12.14.2004
vertigo
so u2's new album is out now. has been for a couple weeks. do i have it? no. karen wanted to get it for me for christmas, so i have to wait. what if she ends up getting a different cd? what if? what if? i sure hope it's under that tree! i can't wait to hear it. i bought the single of vertigo, so that has been satisfying my u2 hungry taste buds for now, but i am very excited to hear the full album. i appreciate the brutal honesty bono puts into the lyrics. i find the songs help me express in some way the frustrations with being a christian in our world that (to our shame) can't be expressed in church. or maybe it's just that for me it's a fresh way of expressing my relationship with God - i can't handle too many more church songs right now.
when will coldplay have another? i heard a rumour a while ago that they were working on one for 2005, but i have no idea when in the year it will appear. now that will be an album i will not miss out on. i'm there the day it comes out, baby.
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