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Posts Tagged ‘Faith in Action’

Who Do You Trust?

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…

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Up For The Challenge

Taking an icy dip!

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…

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Casting Your Nets

Casting their nets...

"Casting their nets..."

Sometimes I chuckle when I’m reading a passage of scripture.  I mean, there are some pretty funny parts in it.  For example, when Matthew is telling us about Jesus going into the desert to fast for forty days he says this, “After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry.”  I always laugh at that.  Did Matthew really think he needed to add, “he was hungry”?  Did he honestly think we wouldn’t catch that? Read more…

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An Awesome Book Summary by Robin Dugall

Hey there,

The Tangible Kingdom

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,

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Re-Thinking Missional Children’s Ministry

Suffer not the little children...

"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…

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“Image”ine That

What Not To Wear

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…

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A Really Cool Kingdom Idea

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,

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Impossible

Would you survive as Indiana Jones?

Would you survive as Indiana Jones?


The definition of the word “Impossible” is “something that cannot be done.”   I’ve been thinking a little about this concept in the past couple of days.  We have a tendency to think that certain things are impossible.   We go there pretty quickly sometimes.   If something is difficult, or tough, we almost seem to approach it as if it’s impossible.  And the definition of “impossible” is pretty self-defeating.

Then comes Jesus and he has the audacity to say in Matthew 19:26: “Jesus looked at them intently and said, “Humanly speaking, it is impossible. But with God everything is possible.”  Have you ever thought about that statement?  That with God everything is possible?  I mean, Jesus doesn’t say that “some things are possible”, or that “really difficult things are possible”, but he says that “all things are possible.”  That’s a pretty crazy statement.

Here’s why this matters to me.   There are a couple of us here in Barrie that are feeling that God wants us to do something about the housing crunch that seems to be going on around us.  There are people that are trying as hard as they can, but they’re still not able to make the rent, and we think that shouldn’t be.   So what we’re thinking is that we’d like to buy up a few of the rougher streets in town and clean them up and provide housing for these people at decent and manageable rates.  The problem is that to us this dream seems a little impossible.  It’s the kind of dream that you think is a good idea, but it’s never going to fly, but then comes Jesus saying that with God, anything is possible!  What are you supposed to do with that?  How are you supposed to ignore the calling that God has put on your heart now?

So I guess the real trick now is how do you go about doing something that you know is impossible?   I almost feel like Indiana Jones in the “Quest for the Holy Grail” when he has to start walking across the invisible bridge.  I feel like we’re stepping into the great unknown, and there are no guarantees.  Like every step might be our last, but at the same time I feel like there this calling onward that I just can’t ignore.  Like there’s this understanding that I’m on the right track, but I don’t totally know what the track is supposed to look like.

So like I said, I don’t know what the next steps are going to look like, but I do know we’re headed in the right way.  I do know that even though things look impossible they’re not really.   And I do know that even though it looks like we’re just going to be giving money away, that somehow the Kingdom is going to come through this idea.

I guess what’s obvious is that I don’t really know much, but I do know that “Humanly speaking, it is impossible. But with God everything is possible.”

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