Pastoral Ministry | Rumblings

May 24

You Say You Want a Revolution?

I’ve been a part of a number of interesting and often painful conversations over the last few days, many of which relate—directly or indirectly—to the problem of evil and whether or not there is a coherent way to think about and respond to this from a Christian perspective. These subjects of these conversations have covered a head-spinningly wide range—from the reality of war and poverty to systemic injustices to painful realities of everyday life and relationships. In every conversation, old, old questions lurk in the shadows: “How can God allow this? How can I believe that God is good and loves his children in light of ____? What am I supposed to do, as a person of faith, in light of all this evil?” Read more

May 16

6 Comments

The Judge

Like most churches, we occasionally receive requests for money from people in our community. I suspect I am not alone when I say that I have come to dread these calls. It’s not that I don’t think that the church should help people in need, or that I resent the “intrusion” on my time or anything like that. I am simply growing increasingly uncomfortable with my role as the judge of the “worthiness” or “legitimacy” of this or that request for assistance.

Vengeance is (Not) Mine

We have a tendency to want to create a God in our own image who we can then emulate.

These were the words of Perry Yoder, professor emeritus of the newly renamed Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary, at a theological studies conference put on by Mennonite Church Alberta that I have been attending in Calgary over the past few days. We have been talking a lot about how we read the Bible—about the presuppositions that inform our interpretations, about how our various traditions dispose us toward certain possibilities, about what to do about seemingly irreconcilable texts, and myriad other issues around reading and understanding Scripture. Including, as the quote alludes to, the constant temptation to read Scripture with an eye toward the God we expect (or would prefer) to find. Read more

May 9

9 Comments

“God Does Not Depend on You”

Over the course of the five years or so that I have been maintaining this blog, it has been interesting to observe which topics spark conversation and which do not. If I were to hazard a guess, I would say that if there is one topic or theme that has tended to generate the most comments and/or traffic over the lifespan of this blog, it would be something related to doubt—whether the role doubt plays (or can play or ought to play) in the life of faith or the role doubt has played in the rejection of faith. Read more

Apr 6

21 Comments

Good Friday: For the Badness and the Sadness

What does this have to do with me? These were the decidedly impious words that kept rattling around my cranium as I drove around town running errands after a local Good Friday service this morning. It had been a meaningful service—beautiful music, considerable time spent hearing Scripture, a dramatic portrayal of Jesus’ betrayal, “trial,” and crucifixion—but for some reason, the events we remembered this morning seemed light years away from my own life and experience.

Looking For a Priest in All the Wrong Places

Alain de Botton has been in the news a lot recently. His Religion for Atheists has garnered considerable attention, whether from atheists who think he is entirely too appreciative of religion or from religious folks who think he is rather selectively and inconsistently describing and accessing their traditions. In the last week alone, I’ve come across no fewer than ten reviews, articles, and interviews trying to make sense of his strange (to some) project of trying to take the best parts of religion and use them to construct a more meaningful secularism. Read more

Mar 7

1 Comment

Life

It’s mid-afternoon and it’s been one of those scattered, disjointed days. Office equipment malfunctioning, the seemingly constant pinging of email, several conversations about how to do this or that better, and what the church ought to consider doing, and what a healthy church looks like, and not getting my sermon done, and thinking ahead to a funeral for a friend tomorrow, and how are we going to get the kids to their various activities tonight, and don’t forget to stop at the bank, and remember to call so-and-so about such-and such, and, and, and…. Read more

Feb 28

15 Comments

The Truth

Most Sundays, at around 11:30 am, I get up behind a sturdy wooden pulpit, take a deep breath, and speak the first of the two thousand words or so that comprise my sermon. Every time I do this, the irony that a big part of my vocation involves speaking—out loud!—strikes me. As someone who has always been shy, always struggled with stuttering and speaking too quickly, it is a strange and exhilarating and terrifying indeed to speak in front of other human beings on a regular basis. Jeremiah’s words of protest to God have always rung true for me: “Ah Lord God! Truly, I do not know how to speak, for I am only a boy” (Jer 1:6). And yet, I speak. Read more

Feb 22

4 Comments

Ashes, Ashes

I led my first ever Ash Wednesday service today. Actually, scratch that. I participated in my first Ash Wednesday service today. My Mennonite Brethren background was decidedly low church and we didn’t really observe Lent or Advent or the Christian year in general. It was Christmas and Easter and that was about it. Everything else was high-church or “liturgical” (as if we weren’t!) or some other negative/unnecessary practice. And even though in recent years many churches in the Anabaptist tradition have moved toward embracing the Christian calendar, I still had never actually attended an Ash Wednesday service.

Less Than Perfect

One of the “joys” of driving around town with my kids has been my forced reacquaintance with top-40 radio. For some reason, my children don’t seem to appreciate listening to CBC Radio One, and it usually takes approximately thirty seconds of time in the car before we’re bouncing along down the highway to the latest offering from whatever band or artist is currently enjoying/milking their moment in the sun. It’s been remarkable to hear the many different ways in which the same four chords and the same two or three themes can be employed to produce an astonishing amount of truly abysmal music. Read more

Oct 14

21 Comments

The Hospital

I have never liked hospitals. Hospitals can so often seem to be places where we attempt to sequester the pain and confusion and despair that are a part of so many lives—to keep them out of sight and out of mind. When we go to the hospital, we look in a mirror and we see ourselves in 5, 10, 20, 50 years—it doesn’t really matter how long. The question isn’t if but when we will take our place amongst all of these broken down worn out decaying bodies. Read more

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 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

Aug 18

6 Comments

Mirrors of Mercy

Summer sermons in our community have been focused on the parables and sayings of Jesus. I’ve not been present for the whole series, but have enjoyed the challenge of preaching from these bracing, disorienting, reorienting stories over the last few weeks.

This week, my text is Matthew 18:21-35—the famous passage where Jesus instructs Peter on the new math of forgiveness. 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

Jul 24

11 Comments

Death Intrudes

My first “official” responsibility in my new position took place a week or so earlier than schedule, as I officiated at a memorial service on a sunny, breezy, southern Alberta Saturday. It was a somewhat strange thing to be leading a service like this before even attending a Sunday morning service! Read more

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