Just Thinking

Taking an icy dip!

One of my favorite podcasts is the video podcast from TED (Technology, Entertainment and Design).  I find the different topics and ideas presented to be incredibly stimulating, and I love learning how to be a better presenter from some of the incredible communicators that show up at the TED conference.

This past weekend I was watching some of the latest postings to the podcast and came across a fascinating talk by a guy named Lewis Pugh. Lewis Pugh had a concern.  He watched as the polar ice cap kept creeping back and how the ice at the North Pole kept getting thinner and thinner and he decided to do something about it.  He wanted to do something that would grab the business and political leaders of the world by their “collars and shake them” to make them aware of the problem of climate change.  So, what Lewis did is arrange to take a little dip, only he decided that he would take his short, twenty minute, one kilometer swim at the North Pole.   Read more…

Hey there,

The Tangible Kingdom

I have been enjoying my friend, Robin’s, chapter summaries of “The Tangible Kingdom” by Hugh Halter and Matt Smay, so I thought I would point my readers to his blog as well.  He’s done such a nice job of capturing the essence of each chapter that I thought others would enjoy it, and hopefully it will encourage you to get a copy of this book for yourself.

So head over to Robin’s blog, Spiritual Regurgitation’s to read the summaries.

Blessings,

So a few weeks ago I was down in the states for a friends wedding.  My buddy Aaron and his fiance, Joanna, were scheduled to exchange their vows, and commit themselves to each other for the rest of their lives and they felt that I should be present to witness this occasion.

Some people would have seen my role as a legal witness, others would have seen it as a spiritual witness, but I feel that my role was to look sexy in my tux (A role I feel I accomplished completely.) Read more…

The power of story.

Yesterday, I started writing about some of the conclusions, or ideas that came from a brainstorming session we had in our church community about children’s ministry in a missional context.   Much of this comes from my fear that my children will grow up thinking that church is a place you go on the weekends, and not a force for the Kingdom of God in this world everyday.  Our desire is to see our children’s ministry develop new disciples of Jesus, rather than just nice, kind Christian kids who can regurgitate all the right answers.  As we talked about how to be more effective in reaching this goal we started talking about the practical issues of Sunday mornings and what it might look like.  We talked about the role of music, and the role of scripture, and I will likely blog about them in the near future, but we also started talking about the role of story.  That’s what I want to tackle today.

Story engages the whole person in that place where reason, emotion and context meet. Read more…

"Suffer not the little children..."

There’s been a lot of talk, and writing, and blogging lately about the whole idea of missional church.  I am one of those that believes that while the church in North America is not the great whore of Babylon, it may have drifted a little from what it was initially called to be.  For that reason, I have been wrestling, as a pastor, and church leader, with some of the missional concepts and also with some of the questions that need to help us understand how we got here in the first place.  As I’ve been reading, and talking with others on the missional journey, I have noticed a disturbing gap in the thinking and theorizing that’s been done so far.  There doesn’t seem to be a lot of talk about what children’s ministry might look like in this missional paradigm.  In fact, it seems to me that a lot of the churches that might be considered to be missional are actually undermining themselves in their children’s ministry.  While the adult congregation is coming to see church as something that you are, their children are still being trained to see church as somewhere that you go.  So last night we decided to tackle this issue in a little brainstorming session. Read more…

What Not To Wear

I was surfing through the channels the other day and I ran across a show I used to watch all the time: What Not To Wear! Lately, I’ve put on a few pounds and have outgrown some of my favorite outfits, so I was thinking how much I would love to win a $5000.00 shopping spree in New York.  My friend and I have even talked about buying a bunch of ugly used clothes and trying to pretend that they’re my normal clothes to see if I can get on the show.  :)  I even went on the show’s website and did some of the quizzes.  I’m proud to say I did so well I scored a “Shut up!  You’re so fashion forward” from Stacey.   Not bad, if I do say so myself.  The truth is, one of the reasons I like the show so much is that they try to find an image that works well for the person they’re working with, rather than just trying to shove something else on them.   It’s not about a random image, or fashion trend, but, instead, it’s about figuring out what image best suits the individual. Read more…

Holy Spirit, fall like rain.

It’s raining today, here in Barrie.  In fact, it’s raining pretty hard.  I like watching the water flowing along the street when it’s raining hard enough to keep a decent amount of water there, watching the drops dance when they slam against the wet pavement.

For some reason I got thinking about the Holy Spirit.  The idea of the Holy Spirit falling like rain is a fairly popular idea in modern worship songs.   Hillsong put out a song a while ago that says, “Holy Spirit, rain down, rain down, Oh Comforter and Friend, How we need Your touch again,Holy Spirit, rain down, rain down.” I’m not sure we mean that though.   I’m not sure we really think through some of the metaphors we use in our worship, really examine what they mean, and what the implications are.   The truth is, I think there’s a bit of danger in that.  So often we fail to realise that everything we do is teaching something somehow to everyone involved.   So what are we teaching people when we say that the Holy Spirit is like rain? Read more…

I just got an email from my friend Robin about a project he’s been involved with for a little while now.   I have been very excited for what he is trying to see happen, and I love seeing people within the church trying new ways to remove the walls that seem to keep the Kingdom locked up.   I would strongly recommend taking a few minutes to take a look at the site they’ve set up and read through some of the materials they’ve got on their site.   You never know what dreams might be ignited in your own heart to start something similar in your community?  Who knows?  Maybe it’s the start of a bigger movement than even Robin visualized?

Blessings,

When I was in grade three I got sent to the office by my teacher, Mrs. Campbell.   She had finally lost her patience with me because as she was trying to teach her lesson, and I was talking incessantly at the back of the class room.   I can still remember having to sit outside the principal’s office writing “I will not talk in class.” over and over again.   If I remember correctly I had to write it all of twenty-five times, which, for me, seemed like an impossible task at the time.  Mrs. Campbell told me that if I didn’t learn to stop talking all the time I was never going to get very far.  The irony of it is that these days I talk for a living.   “In your face, Mrs. Campbell.”  :)  I’m just kidding.   Actually, she was a very sweet lady.   She was one of those teachers that was always gruff and grumpy, but when you met her outside of class, she was a sweet, caring woman.   In fact, I remember she came up to me when I was in high school with a small toy car.   She had found it in the back of her desk, and was fairly certain she had confiscated it from me when I was in her class.   I couldn’t believe she could remember me that well.  I guess I made an impression. Read more…

I thought I’d post the video from my message this past Sunday.  We were looking at the life of Joseph and some of the ways he managed to survive a life in the pits.  I should warn you that it’s a pretty large file.  :)

Download the message video here.