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Posts from the ‘Church’ Category

Oct 10

13 Comments

In Defence of the Church

One of the questions I have come to dread over the years is the “so what do you do for a living?” question.  It’s not that I am ashamed to be a pastor, it’s simply that very often the discovery that I am “religious” can be something of a conversation-stopper.  Pastors are strange creatures, to be sure, and many people seem unclear about what to do when encountering one outside of their natural habitats (i.e., a church).  At the very least, disclosing that I am a pastor often makes the conversation instantly stranger, as people either a) hastily and awkwardly change the topic; b) begin to laboriously and not altogether coherently demonstrate how they are religious too; c) explain why they don’t go to church anymore; or d) stop talking altogether. Read more

Sep 29

15 Comments

They Still Haven’t Found What They’re Looking For

It is not at all uncommon to hear some variation of the story that 18-30 year olds are one of the most under-represented groups in the church today.  It seems that young adults are fleeing the church as soon as they leave high school, and only starting to trickle back once they have their own children, if they make their way back at all.  While some of the reasons for this are undoubtedly related to the general transience of this age demographic, it’s a worrying trend that has been and continues to be the subject of exhaustive analysis. Read more

Sep 26

4 Comments

Life and Death

This past weekend was one of almost unbearably stark contrasts.

Friday and Saturday were spent with a few of our church’s young people at a high-octane youth conference put on by one of the larger churches in our area. Climbing walls, go-kart tracks, paintball, ear splitting rock concerts, dodge-ball, team games, sleepovers on a church floor, etc, all in the company of hundreds of screaming teenagers—this is how I spent a good deal of Friday and Saturday. Not the most natural of contexts for me, I suppose, but it was great to have some fun with the kids and get to know them better.

And then, as we were finishing up our breakfast on Saturday morning and getting ready to head back to the conference for round two, a phone call came. Read more

Sep 23

5 Comments

The Scandal of the Cross—Take Two

God’s self-giving goodness and his determined commitment to rescue and redeem his creation were demonstrated two thousand years ago on a Roman cross. This is the guiding conviction that animates Mark Baker and Joel Green’s exploration of the meaning and scope of the atonement in the second edition of Recovering the Scandal of the Cross: Atonement in New Testament and Contemporary Contexts. Read more

Sep 16

22 Comments

This is Baptism?

There is much about how religion and Christianity are understood and publicly discussed in our post-Christian Canadian context that produces a mixture of bemusement and genuine puzzlement for me.  This week’s entry in the “head scratcher” category comes via an article from Wednesday’s Globe and Mail by Kate Soles that tells the story of her process of decision-making on the issue of whether or not to get her baby baptized. Read more

Sep 14

10 Comments

The Nature of Greatness

I was at a meeting with some pastors and other leaders in our community today, and one of the things that was on the agenda before lunch was “worship.” And so, as we waited for our lunch to appear, a guitar was pulled out, and a few songs were sung around a board room table with great enthusiasm. One of the songs we sang was one that I gather is a fairly popular one in evangelical churches these days—Chris Tomlin’s “Our God.” Read more

Sep 11

6 Comments

Our Greatest Christological Defeat

There have been many words flying around this week leading up to today’s tenth anniversary of the World Trade Center attack, and there will undoubtedly be many more throughout the day today. I have not read many better than these, by Bishop William Willimon, from an article in Christianity Today about how evangelical leaders have changed since 9/11: Read more

Aug 1

(Not So) New Beginnings

It’s a holiday Monday here in most parts of Canada (“Heritage Day,” in Alberta), so I’m enjoying one last leisurely morning of getting up whenever the urge strikes, nursing a pot of coffee for half the morning, and reading/writing while the rest of the family sleeps late.  Tomorrow morning, it’s a new start as I’m officially back to work.  Unsurprisingly, I’m thinking of “newness” today—new church, new people, new rhythms of life and worship, new expectations, new challenges, and the list goes on.  “New” is often a combination of exciting and terrifying for me, and I suppose that’s kind of how I’m feeling today. Read more

Jun 23

18 Comments

What Place is Mine?

Times of transition are tough.  We currently find ourselves up to our ears in boxes and and clutter and mess as we prepare to pack up and head back across the Rockies next week to begin a new chapter in our lives as family.  We have done this moving thing a number of times now, but it never gets easier.  It is simultaneously celebratory, reflective, disorienting, emotionally exhausting, and painful.   Read more

Jun 9

14 Comments

On Narratives

I’ve been thinking a fair amount about narratives recently, for personal and professional reasons. On a personal level, I suppose major transitions in life always afford the opportunity to re-evaluate things—where have I come from, where am I going, what are my reasons, what have I learned, how will it affect what may or may not lie ahead, what changes should I make, how is God guiding, shaping, and using my story, etc, etc. These are normal things to consider whenever we close one chapter and begin another. Read more

May 10

8 Comments

In Search of Worship

One of the highlights of any trip back to Regent College is the opportunity to snoop around their excellent bookstore. It’s always difficult to avoid spending much more money than I have, but I often emerge with a handful of good books to keep me going for a while. This year, one of titles I came away with was Orthodox theologian Alexander Schmemann’s For the Life of the World. Read more

May 7

2 Comments

For You

Each year, one of the most significant parts of the Regent Pastors Conference for me is when we take the Lord’s Supper together as our last act before going our separate ways. Given some of the themes that I reflected upon in my previous post, this year was no exception. Read more

May 5

5 Comments

Musing Mode

Not a lot of time for blogging this week as I’m in Vancouver attending the annual Regent College Pastors Conference. As always, it’s been great to get away and enjoy a time of worship and intellectual stimulation in the beauty of springtime in Vancouver. A few loosely connected reflections, coming out of what I have seen and heard so far this week… Read more

Apr 15

2 Comments

Witness to Surprise

My previous post was, perhaps, a bit long on what I don’t (or didn’t) like about the word “pastor” and short on what is good and positive and substantive about the vocation.  Chalk it up to my incorrigible “glass-half-empty” perspective :).  Or something like that.  At any rate, my estimation of the pastoral vocation has been on a long and steady trajectory of rehabilitation, not least due to my encountering of inspiring examples of what it can and should be along the way.   One of them, Frederick Buechner, captures much of what I was trying to convey in my post—both the potential pitfalls inherent to the position as well as the wonderful opportunities and privileges that can be part of a life with and for God and others—in this passage from Telling Secrets: Read more

Apr 12

15 Comments

Unlikely Pastor

I finished Eugene Peterson’s The Pastor last night while waiting for the kids to finish up at piano lessons. It was a good book (if a little more hortatory than one might expect from a memoir) and I am grateful for the window that it provided into the life and career of a man I admire greatly. Perhaps unsurprisingly, over the course of reading Peterson’s memoir I have found myself reflecting often upon this peculiar vocation called “pastor” that I have found myself in, how I ended up here, and what I understand it to be.   Read more

Mar 16

24 Comments

A Relentless Divine Reach

In light of what’s going on in Japan, the theological controversies dominating the headlines these days can seem fairly trivial (to put it mildly), but I did want to post an intriguing quote from William Willimon’s Why Jesus? I’m not terribly interested in the question of whether or not Rob Bell believes in a hot (or long) enough hell to satisfy the demands of this or that understanding of orthodoxy, but I am, and have always been, very interested in (and dependent upon) the “relentless divine reach” of Jesus: Read more

Mar 8

19 Comments

The Work of the Church

I spent a bit of time this morning listening to an interesting little interview with Eugene Peterson over at NPR’s “Books” page. The interview accompanies a short excerpt from Peterson’s new book, The Pastor: A Memoir—a book that is in the mail, and that I am very much looking forward to. Unfortunately, Eugene Peterson wasn’t on campus much during the three years I spent at Regent College so I did not have the privilege of taking a course with him, but his books have been a lifeline to me over the course of my first three years in pastoral ministry (I’m thinking specifically of Under the Unpredictable Plant, Working the Angles, and Five Smooth Stones for Pastoral Work). Peterson’s consistent refusal to allow the pastoral vocation to be accommodated to the logic and demands of the marketplace (I believe “religious shopkeepers” is the term he uses) is an inspiration and a challenge. Read more

Feb 23

7 Comments

Living with Grey

Every Wednesday morning I stumble out of bed much earlier than usual to meet a group of guys for coffee, conversation, Scripture, and prayer in the basement of a local church.  We’re ostensibly making our way through the book of 1 Corinthians but more often than not we wander off into discussions about about work, marriage, parenting, and the nature of faith.  There are a number of streams of Christianity loosely represented in our morning get-togethers—Christian Reformed, Baptist, Presbyterian, Catholic, United, and even Mennonite!  It’s a great bunch of guys, and I look forward to Wednesday mornings. Read more

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