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…

'Till Death Do We Part

I’ve been married for 13 years to an absolutely amazing woman.  I definitely got the better end of the deal there, but I have a bad habit: I take her for granted.  Now, while it’s certainly not okay that I do it, I’m pretty sure I’m in good company.  In fact, most guys I know take their wives for granted everyday.  It’s something we’re all prone to do, and it doesn’t just stop with our relationships. 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…

A Very Silly Canadian.

So, I am on my way back from my friend’s Aaron and Jo’s wedding.  I had a great time hanging out in the Boise area with Ben, Tim, Robin, Shad, Chaya and the rest of the gang.  Ben and I decided that the best way to refer to the weekend as a whole would be to call it SillyFest 2009.  As those of you that know Ben can attest to, when he is around, things have a habit of getting silly all of a sudden.  This weekend, this was a great talent to have.  In fact, it was a good reminder that I need to remember to be more silly at regular intervals throughout my life.   My silly muscles are sore today, which only reinforces the fact that they haven’t been used enough lately. Read more…

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.

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?