Aug 30
I walk out of a downtown cafe and the usual sights present themselves: a group of tattooed teenagers with wild hair alternating attention between their smart phones and one another; a few black-clad Hutterites in town for the day to shop; a couple of businessmen rushing importantly off to their next meeting; a few university students out on the patio, enjoying the last few days before classes start. It’s a beautiful day, and there’s life all around. Read more
It is an odd thing, I have discovered during my nearly three years as a pastor, to be entrusted with people’s pain.
It’s not an everyday occurrence, but today pain came calling. Two conversations with two people, both carrying crippling burdens of hurt and despair, sorrow and longing, both dealing with the complex cocktails of physical, spiritual, mental, and relational pain that characterize so many lives, both searching desperately for a word of hope, comfort, or encouragement. Read more
Last Thursday afternoon was an afternoon like many others, for me. The workday was winding down; I was cleaning up a few loose ends before heading home to take my daughter to the pool for swim club. In many ways, it had been a good afternoon—nice and quiet, mostly uninterrupted, and ideal for sermon writing and reflection. Read more
Once a month or so, a few of us head over to the local Presbyterian church to help out with their weekly community lunch. Every week, this church opens its doors to the community for soup, sandwiches, conversation, or just a chance to get out of the rain. The church is located right beside a high school, so they get a lot of high school students, but they also get a small contingent of folks who don’t have a whole lot and could use a hot meal. Read more
One of the best things about being a pastor is simply the opportunity to hear people’s stories, and to see the many and varied ways that God has of drawing people to himself and his purposes. Yesterday I was in conversation with a person who is on the journey from a dark and destructive past to a more hopeful future. This person continues to have struggles and has many unresolved issues and unanswered questions, but they are walking in the right direction. It was good to hear their story and to be able to offer a bit of encouragement. Read more
There was a memorial service at our church yesterday and as is often the case at these events, one of the songs that rang out was “Amazing Grace.” It’s a song that people love to sing—a song that touches us on a deep and personal level. For a variety of reasons, it is a very appropriate song to sing during times of mourning and remembering. Read more
While we’re on the topic of Christianity and culture/how to engage those who think differently than us in a pluralistic postmodern world (and while I remain in shameless self-promotion mode), I noticed yesterday that Direction (an MB publication that describes itself as somewhere between an academic journal and a denominational magazine) has just made their Spring 2009 issue available online—an issue that contains my review of John Stackhouse’s Making the Best of It: Following Christ in the Real World. Read more
From a recent journal entry.
What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.
John 1:3-5
The call comes—someone’s looking for a priest. Of course, you’re not a priest but you’re close enough. There’s been some trouble and someone wants to talk to a “holy man.” They want a man of God to come. Read more
A wise man (and a good friend) once told me that the main job of a pastor is to look for God in the ordinary, everyday events of life and to help others find him there too. This has easily been the most rewarding part of the seven months I have now spent wearing the “pastor” hat. I have met a lot of people in a lot of different situations and I have almost always come away with a renewed sense of admiration for how God speaks in the various contexts his people find themselves in. Read more
Yesterday was another one of those interesting days for one new to the pastoral guild. In the morning I was down in Victoria preaching and leading a discipleship class at a church in Victoria. It is a very interesting church comprised, I was told, mainly of well educated white-collar types. The worship service was formal and highly-structured; there was a strong sense of reverence and propriety. There was beautiful artwork throughout the sanctuary and a high degree of musical skill evident in the singing time. Read more
Today I went out for a “pastoral visit” to an elderly couple who came to church this past Sunday. They hadn’t darkened the door of a church in at least a decade, and came now mostly, I think, because they are just really lonely people who don’t have a lot of human contact. They have no children, no living siblings, no nieces and nephews that they are in contact with, no friends at the senior’s centre, no… anything. There were no pictures of family on their walls, no mementos, no heirlooms, nothing. Just two old, frail, lonely people existing in the same space without anyone to care about them in any way. Read more
Moving to and setting up in a new place can be a stressful time. There is lots of assembling things, moving them around, running around buying this or that miscellaneous item, returning said item when it doesn’t fit or work as you expected it to, etc. Several consecutive days of this can leave one feeling a bit tired and, well, short-tempered. When you combine parents who are preoccupied with setting up a house with kids who are getting less attention than they are normally accustomed to, you have a recipe for frustration. Read more
Every Saturday night over the last year or so, from 10:45-12:00, I play hockey with a group of guys I connected with through one of the dads at the kids’ school. After the game last night, amidst the usual mélange of sweat, beer, colourful language, and conversation about what this or that guy has “under the hood,” one guy came over to me and said (loudly) “So, I hear you’re leaving us in a month.” “That’s right,” I said. He continued, “and I hear that you’re a minister?” Hmmm, well how to respond to that. “Well, I will be,” I said. “What denomination?” came the reply. Hmmm…. Read more
Some friends are visiting from Alberta and we spent part of yesterday over at a market in North Vancouver. After a bit of shopping our friends’ kids were getting a little restless so we camped out in the play area for a while and let them run off some steam with the other kids. As we were sitting around watching the kids play, we struck up a conversation with a gentleman who was there taking care of his granddaughter. After a bit of pleasant small-talk, the conversation turned, as it inevitably does, to where everyone’s from and what they do. Read more
Last Thursday I took my kids with me to our church’s Maundy Thursday service. I wasn’t really sure how they would react. It is, after all, a fairly somber and dark service, whose purpose is to lead its participants through the fearful events of Jesus’ final days. I had some reservations about even exposing a couple of impressionable six-year-olds to the full weight of the Easter story, but my apprehension intensified when they informed me, after watching a steady stream of volunteers moving to the front to read the selected Scripture readings, that they wanted to read one too. Read more
It’s funny the kinds of situations that produce “teachable moments.” I spent a good chunk of today fruitlessly banging my head against the wall, trying to come up with a workable structure for the class that I will be co-teaching this fall at Columbia Bible College. It was a very frustrating day, and on the trip home my mind was filled with misgivings and anxiety about my ability to do the things that are required of me over the next couple of months. Read more
I’ve been thinking a lot about fear over the last couple of days. A couple of conversations and an article contribute to what follows. First, I had a discussion last night with someone who is struggling to navigate the tension that is arising in a church which is becoming polarized over the issue of whether or not the “Emergent Church” is a phenomenon that ought to be embraced or rejected. Not surprisingly, there are strong feelings on both sides of this issue, but at least as troubling as the division this is causing is the role that fear is playing in the discussion. I am certainly no cheerleader for the Emergent Church (in fact, I wish whatever it is that this term designates would just emerge already…), but I am troubled by the attempts of some to convince others that the ideas of this movement are “dangerous” and that we have to be “careful” that they don’t lead our children woefully astray. This seems to be nothing more than fear-mongering to me, and it does not portray the beliefs one is attempting to “protect” in a very positive light. Read more
This morning was a fairly ordinary morning on the bus.
Riding the bus has taken some getting used to for a prairie boy accustomed to wide open spaces, and driving everywhere and anywhere at the drop of a hat. I am not used to having to wait to get anywhere I want to go, and I am certainly not used to being squeezed like cattle into a bus or standing less than a foot away from a total stranger for forty minutes, both of us desperately pretending to look anywhere but at each other. I am not used to standing in the rain on a cold Vancouver morning while three buses blow by because they are full, and I am not used to taking three hours to warm up after the process described above. Read more
 | inquisitivelypinkcd4… on Can a Bot Long for its Ma… |
| inquisitivelypinkcd4… on Can a Bot Long for its Ma… |
 | Ryan on Can a Bot Long for its Ma… |
| inquisitivelypinkcd4… on Can a Bot Long for its Ma… |
| Ryan on Can a Bot Long for its Ma… |
Rumblings 