Spent some time crossing the border to the US the other day. Here’s the mental rabbit trail I went down while I waited.
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All I need to know about pastoring a church I learned coaching high school girl’s basketball. I’m very serious about this, so much so that I’ve considered writing letters to seminaries around the world to tell them that they need to include a practicum in their programs focused on coaching youth sports. There are a lot of things I have learned, but I want to share one truth specifically that I am finding very relevant now…
Eight and half years ago my dad went home to be with Jesus. I still think of him almost every day. He lived a quiet life and worked hard to provide for his family. He prayed each morning with my mom for every single one of us. I can remember hearing them at the breakfast table while I got dressed for school, “God take care of…, protect…”. One by one, name by name, the list growing as my older siblings got married and had children.
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The question isn’t so much who will we elect as it is who are we becoming.
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Last night I saw the highly acclaimed movie, A Star is Born. I had heard great things about the movie, and the acting and story did not disappoint. It was a powerful portrayal of the relationship between the two main characters, rotating around the themes of love, hope, brokenness, and suffering. The question I came away with was, “Why do we as human beings want to see sad movies?” Isn’t reality sad enough? What is it that draws us to this experience of something on the screen that we would avoid at all costs in our real lives?
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My relationship with church has not been without its challenges. At different periods along the way I have found myself disillusioned with the whole concept of church, frustrated with how slow things are to change, and often hurt by those who claim to love me. Despite all of this, I’m still here, and it’s not just because as the pastor I get paid to be here. (Although that does help.) I’m sticking with church because…
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As we mature we begin to see that even the best things we have to offer God were really all about us and our ego. It’s a devastating realization, and one that brings us so much closer to the place we need to be to receive all that God offers. No one illustrates that more clearly than C.S. Lewis in his poem “As the Ruin Falls.”
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I wrote last about a place of rest, not just physical rest, but deeper, soul rest. I believe that this is what God invites us to, but that for many it seems to be a lovely idea that we read about but struggle to experience.
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So there is a rest for us too, a rest that is more than just a location, a promised land, a well-deserved day off. There is a rest from “works” just as God rested from his works.
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I work in what many see to be a “knowledge” business. It’s my job to help people learn about God. I love what I do, and I think that it’s the most important job in the world. But I am also keenly aware (more as I grow older) that there are aspects of knowledge that are more “caught than taught”.
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This past week a good friend of mine died. At 43 years of age she lost a long battle with cancer and in her sleep slipped away to be at home with Jesus. Leanne was like no one I had ever met…
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After watching the hearing of Brett Kavanaugh and Christine Blasey Ford yesterday the one question that I can’t get away from is how come we treat each other so poorly? One side demonizes the other, believing what they want to believe, hearing what they want to hear, seeing what they want to see to support their hatred, disgust, and contempt for the other. It’s the same on both sides. What is it that stops us from basic courtesy? Why don’t we listen without pre-judgment? Why can so few people seem to feel compassion on both sides of the issue?
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I wrote last week about our upcoming retreat. The 12 of us had an amazing week-end, learning from each other about what it means to be who we are in Christ. I’ll be honest, I went in with some fear and trepidation, but what can go wrong when you have a group of people like this? But over the course of the weekend I realized anew why I think this series of Spiritual Formation Retreats are so important. Let me tell you…
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David Benner writes, “Seekers settle for being finders, even when what is found is so much less than what their spirits call them toward. Being and becoming are both routinely sacrificed on the altar of doing.”
I can identify with that…
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I’m always hesitant to post a video of a sermon, because what kind of people watch sermon videos online? But I’m posting this one because it was from our GBC Family Meeting where I talk about what it means to be a part of our church and why it is so vitally important, both for us as individuals and for our community. So consider yourself warned…
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One of the “friends” listed on my website is Impact Ministries, an organization based out of Kamloops, BC that works to develop schools in the mountains of Guatemala. Our church has partnered with them over the past 15+ years in the work that they do. Our most recent team just go back from 10 days there. There are too many things to say about this ministry that is not just educating children, but impacting people all around them with the Good News of Jesus. You should really check them out here.
Just to give you a taste of what it’s like…
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Let me be honest and upfront: I love my job. I fully believe that what I do is what I was made for and would want to do nothing else. But there are days…
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The more we immerse ourselves in technology the more overwhelmed we become. Instead of actually living life and experiencing our activities and the people around us, we seek to capture it, to contain it, to save it into a chunk of data that we can carry in our pocket. We lose the ability to actually be present, and even worse, we lose a vital skill in relationships: empathy.
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“…I sometimes follow my doubts
outside to the yard and question the sky,
longing to have the fight settled, thinking
I can't go on like this, and finally I say
all right, it is improbable, all right, there
is no God…”
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