The Sonnet of the Death of the Man who Invented the Plastic Rose was required reading in Dr. Bonnie Lundblad’s English Literature class my first year at Montreat-Anderson College. There was a lot of other required reading that semester I am sure, but this is the only one that I remember. Something about the poem connected with me.
Read MoreWe all like a good plot twist in a movie or book. There is something delightful about the surprise of thinking we knew where things were heading only to be blindsided with a whole new scenario. While we like this is movies and books, we tend to feel differently about life.
Read MoreI’ve learned so much about the spiritual life … from coaching basketball. No, that’s not a typo. Let me explain.
Read MoreOther than here in a blog entry I wrote, or if you’ve read Richard Rohr’s book Breathing Underwater, I bet you have never heard of Carol Bialock. She’s a very unknown poet who wrote the poem I shared in the above entry which has quickly become one of my favourite poems of all time.
Read MoreSome experiences cycle back
Like echoes.
As if they are saying something,
Something no one wants to hear.
Read MoreFeeling small and mostly powerless isn’t fun, not something I would sign up for on a regular basis, but it is important. It’s a reminder that the vastness of life is beyond my ability to understand and manipulate.
Read MoreWe think we want something so we pursue it. What we think we want is often not the socially acceptable thing, so we present ourselves to the world in ways that show we want what we are supposed to want. We do some image control, trying to get what we want in ways that won’t make us look bad. But if we are willing to interact with Jesus, He begins to peel back the layers to expose what it is we really want.
Read MoreGod is present to me as I am right now. He loves and forgives me as I am, not as He wants me to be. That’s a powerful truth that should not only overwhelm us with gratitude, but also shape the way we live with one another.
Read MoreThe question we want people to ask at our church is this: “What does my part of God’s mission look like?” Maybe even more specifically, “What has God called and gifted me to do that contributes to what He is doing in the world?”
Read MoreIt’s far too easy to drift into the sleep of inattention. Life is like that. We go through it, but we miss so much along the way. We are so focused on certain things that it renders us totally oblivious to others. Ever driven to a familiar location and not remembered one thing about the drive there?
Read MoreAt GBC we call people to make 4 commitments to help them grow in their relationship with Jesus: Worship, Relationships, Learning, and Mission. Over the last couple of weeks I have been writing about each of these (Read about Worship here and Relationships here) because I think we need to be clear on what these commitments mean. We are striving to go deeper in our church than just making a verbal commitment, we want to adopt practices and habits that centre our lives around these commitments. We believe that if we do this it opens our lives to the work of the Spirit who shapes us to be more like Jesus. This week I’d like to explain a little more in depth about why learning is so important in our journey of faith.
Read MoreAt GBC we call people to make 4 commitments to help them grow in their relationship with Jesus: Worship, Relationships, Learning, and Mission. Last week I wrote about what we mean when we call people to commit to worship (Read that here). This week I’d like to explain a little more in depth about why the relationships we have with other believers are so important in nurturing our faith.
Read MoreOn my first sabbatical (way back in 2007) I had sometime to reflect on what it is that I do as a pastor. It was a great period of remembering what was truly important and that also while I was busy “doing things” that God was “doing things” in me. We often lose sight of the inner work that needs to happen when we get preoccupied with what is happening on the outside. I came across the poem again this week in my files and decided to share it here. I’m under no illusion that it is great poetry, but I do know it puts into words what I was learning then and am still learning today.
Read MoreToday is Valentine’s Day. This holiday has different meaning depending on who you ask. Some love it, others loathe it. This is a great day for me as it reminds me of the gift I have been given in my wife Angela. She has amplified and enriched my life in more ways than I could ever count. My relationship with her has proven to me over and over the idea that lies beneath what I am writing today. Love is a powerful, if not the most powerful, force in all of our lives, regardless of our feelings about this date on the calendar.
Read MoreWhen I use the word worship I mean something different than we often think of in church circles. I’m not talking about an emotional feeling generated by singing to God. As great as those moments are, worship is far more deep and profound than just that experience. It’s a conscious surrender of our lives to God, and it is a key to a growing relationship with God that shapes us in lasting and unexpected ways.
Read MoreThanks to the generosity of the group of Churches that I work with (FEB Pacific) I was able to attend the Multiply Conference in Vancouver over the last 2 days. (The bonus was that 2 of my daughters live in Vancouver so I got to hang out with them for a while last night.) It was a great conference, well done, with excellent speakers and materials. Lots of good solid input for me to think about, reflect upon, and hopefully help our church to apply. The whole focus is on helping churches multiply disciples of Jesus. But these types of conferences always bring up a tension in me, a tension between “doing” and “being”. I’ll try to explain.
Read MoreBasketball season is drawing to a close, which always puts me in a reflective mood. One of the key moments as the season winds down is our last home game. It is a time to recognize and honour our Grade 12 players, in the final opportunity they will have to play in front of our home town fans. I always come to this game with sadness, because it means that the relationship I have worked to build with these players over the last several years is transitioning. It’s also a time of joy and thankfulness …
Read MoreThere is a fine line between wanting to do things well and being enslaved to your own or someone else’s unreasonable expectations.
Read MoreAt the end of every year I find it helpful to think back over the previous 365 days’ reading and try to remember what I want to take with me into the year ahead. So what were my favourites from the previous year? I’m glad you asked. In no particular order, here they are…
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