Just Thinking

So, this morning my friend Robin sent me a link to a cartoonist’s blog name Jon Birch.  I spent a few minutes looking over some of his past posts; chuckling at times, thinking at times, and even getting a little irritated.  His work is definitely thought provoking and very difficult to dismiss.  You should check it out!

One of his cartoons caught my eye and made me think about a conversation I had with my friend Tim a few weeks ago. Read more…

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…

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 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.

No food allowed.

Why does fasting make time feel like it’s going slow?

Okay, so let me explain what’s going on in my head and heart these days.  I think God wants me to fast for a while this summer, and I don’t want to.

Last Monday, Carrie and I, and the kids all headed down to Toronto to visit the Science Centre for a family day.   As we were heading down the Don Valley Parkway, we drove by a skyscraper that had some window washers hanging off the side of the building.   These workers weren’t the ones that get to stand in those big huge metal cages, but instead they were sitting on what looked like an old wooden swing hanging hundreds of feet above the pavement below.  I was pumped.   I said to Carrie, that I would love to get a part-time job doing that in Toronto.  The truth is, I would probably even do it for free, just for the thrill of getting to rappel down the side of a building like that.  I was telling my friend Tim about that and he just quivered.   See, Tim is uncomfortable with heights.   I was going to say that he is afraid of heights, but that’s not really true anymore.   This summer he’s been working on the roof of a house he’s building, so that’s helped a little with his fear of heights, so I’d say that he’s graduated to just being extremely uncomfortable with heights.  We all have different fears. Read more…

To often we miss the purpose of the blessings in our lives and get myopic rather than outward focused.  Why is that?

Watch \”Blessed For Blessing\” on YouTube.

What cost are you willing to pay to develop virtue?

N.T. Wright at Fuller Theological Seminary, “Our culture prefers effortless spontaneity with occasional divine intervention in emergency, rather than working with God on developing the muscles which will meet those emergencies with a God given second nature which appears spontaneous, but is in fact the result of thinking, and choosing and practicing.”

What are you dreaming about?

So, I’m reading through the book “In A Pit With A Lion On A Snowy Day” by Mark Batterson again.   It’s a fabulous book and has so many odd things to contribute to our lives.   If I was to give Mark Batterson one compliment I would say that he is odd.   By that I mean that he tends to think about things that we’ve all seen and read before, but he does it in such an odd way that it makes it all fresh again. Read more…

How often do you slow down and reconnect?

I’ve been reading the book “The Wounded Healer” by Henri Nouwen lately and I came across an interesting quote that I had highlighted the last time I worked my way through it.   Nouwen says, “I am afraid that in a few decades the Church will be accused of having failed in its most basic task: to offer men creative ways to communicate with the source of human life.” What’s powerful about this quote is not just the assertion, but the fact that Nouwen made it in 1972 when he wrote the book.

I wonder if he was correct, or not?

Have we as a church failed in our task of providing opportunities and ways for people to communicate with the source of human life?   Have we missed the mark?  Have we got so caught up with teaching people about God, that we’ve failed in our role of connecting people to God?

Is it really all good?

“It’s all good!”  That’s what the guy at the convenience store said to me.  I couldn’t help thinking how incredibly wrong he was.  Life is not all good!  I mean, how are you supposed to tell a child in Iraq that’s lost his family to the war that it’s all good?  Or what about the parent that’s lost their child to a drunk driver?  There are so many things in life that are simply not all good, that the sentiment just seems utterly foolish.

And then what about all the little, day to day things in our lives that are simply not all good?  What about the days that you wake up with a sore throat and stuffed up nose?  These are not all good days.  Or what about those days when it feels like everything and everyone is against you?  These are not all good days either.

I guess I should probably stop before I get us all depressed about the state of life.  It’s just that I think that what people need is not more “fortune cookie” type sentiment, but truth.  People don’t need to hear that life is all good.  What they need to be reminded of is that much of life is really very good.