Ayer Up There

It still blooms

2010-07-14T23:11:00.003-07:00

I met someone for the first time this week that I had very little connection with prior to our meeting. After brief introductions he uttered a phrase that I had not heard in so long it was like a shock of cold water to my face. "I read your blog." My response: "Oh, uh...haa...I haven't written on that in a long time." Immediately, my pupils dilated and my heart rate began to quicken. What could this guy possibly know about me from reading my blog. What had I unleashed of myself to the world wide web that could have any relevance on the meeting that was about to take place?

So it got me to thinking about my long lost forgotten blog and why I had failed to keep it going. I think I stopped writing because my thoughts darkened for a time. Because I couldn't imagine that anyone wanted to read them or would have any interest in my musings. Because I entered into a spiritual valley filled with trials and much wandering the dessert. I feel once again on the precipice of something big. A breaking free, a coming forth. I know this because my Orchid plant still survives and it has begun to grow again.

And this prophetic little plant has much to say it seems because after re-potting the plant (something I had not done since I bought the plant over three years ago) it has exploded with growth. Not only is there new roots growing, new leaves...there is not just one stem, but TWO growing up that will eventually bloom with flowers.

I'm going to try this again. Writing in my blog. Hopefully it will take root and grow again. Just like my orchid.

The orchid blooms again...

2009-01-11T22:46:00.002-08:00

It's been almost a year and I'm taking another crack at it. Perhaps only for my own sake.

What motivated me was the new growth of my orchid. My metaphoric orchid has trumpeted its silent voice once again and I'm attuned to what it is saying.

I seriously had given up on this plant flowering again. After its last bloom the stem shriveled up and in my ignorance I hacked off the shriveled stem not giving heed to the potential consequences. And consequently, my hack job precipitated the total death of what was left of the flowering stem part of the plant. The only things left were the broad green leaves. So patiently and hopefully, I continued to water and mist the leaves and they flourished. But they were only boring, plain leaves. Green and healthy yes, but not all that pretty to look at.

For months and months, nothing seemed to be happening. And then one fine day, I came home and noticed there was a little green nubbin. A nubbin that turned to a shoot. A shoot that shot up and now I am almost delirious to report -- the orchid has two new flower buds growing on it. Two new flower buds (and what looks like a potential third) that started to grow in this new year. Hmm...new year, new growth. I pray it is a positive portent of what is to come.

Incarnation

2008-02-03T11:46:00.000-08:00

The word "incarnation" is one that is bandied about frequently in my midst. Usually it is in the context of living in poor postal codes and the word "authentic" is usually not too far behind it. To borrow from an inspirational leader's blog in this context:

"A reminder for those into the incarnational thing: authentic Christianity is a means, not an end. Incarnation is a means, not an end. The goal isn't to love each other and 'live' amongst poor people. The goal is to win the world for Jesus. So we need to get them saved and sanctified (and discipled and trained)." (hat tip sec)

This past weekend I have been assailed by a feeling common to many of my "poor" friends. I have been feeling very lonely. I read the above statement and it struck a chord with me. For several years I have ascribed to a theology (one I thought was practical as well as theoretical) that involved living the incarnation by rubbing shoulders with the poor, getting your hands and heart exposed to the grit of life and loving and transforming lives all in the midst of that.

In recent months, things changed somewhat for me. I moved out of the poorest postal code and with that decision came a series of examinations of my heart attitude, questions of my commitment to mission and even the validity of my membership in a community of people with shared values and beliefs. It was a difficult time for me and continues to be a season of self-examination and reflection six months after my change in location or where I choose to 'live'.

What struck me most about the reminder above was "The goal isn't to love each other and 'live' amongst poor people". The means does not guarantee the desired end. Not if key elements in your execution plan are missing. The goal as Jesus sets it out is to love one another as He loved us. To love your neighbor as yourself. To not pass a brother or sister by in need but to be the "Good Samaritan".

The reality for me became not where I chose to live but HOW I chose to live. I was living among the poorest and most broken people in my country but I was not loving them. I sometimes wasn't even seeing them. I was too busy or it was simply too painful. Proximity did not guarantee community. So I moved out of the neighborhood. I changed my "where" so that my "how" could make the changes it needed to make.

Although I don't disagree with my friend that the end is more important than the means - I think in order to reach the goal, I need one thing: LOVE. Without love, I am nothing and I have nothing and the goal cannot be attained.

Lord, have mercy on me and teach me how to love.

Resolutions

2007-12-27T00:15:00.000-08:00

As another year comes to a close by the Roman calendar, it's a time that inevitably leads to reflection, countdowns, best and worst lists and of course: resolutions for the new year. I am not one to typically make resolutions since whether it's a new year or simply a regular day in the life, rarely do I get accomplished what I set out to do. My life seems to be a series of distractions that when added up may lead to some theme or meaning but is not one shaped by goal setting and a great sense of accomplishment. I sometimes wish it were different but there's no sense wishing I were an apple when I'm in fact an orange...huh?

Anyway, if I'm going to make resolutions - one might be that I get back to blogging.

Any votes?

You will always have the poor

2007-09-12T21:56:00.000-07:00

Tonight I was at my cell group and the introductory questions was "what causes poverty?" There were many interesting answers and an interesting discussion ensued as per usual. Then I came home and now that I have cable TV I was just chillin' like a villain when an episode of a show called Criminal Intent came on. The episode was all about how a serial killer was preying on victims of skid row and he got to 63 victims before anyone even noticed something was amiss. Not far off from the local Pickton trial taking place in my own city where I live.

The show contained a quote by Melville that said,

"Of all the preposterous assumptions of humanity over humanity, nothing exceeds most of the criticisms made on the habits of the poor by the well-housed, well- warmed, and well-fed". --Herman Melville

The show, the quote, the cell talk...it's left me thinking about my own attitude sometimes to "those less fortunate than myself". There are times when I am guilty of making bad assumptions about people I know very little about. Or I lack compassion. Or I'm just downright apathetic. And it wasn't until I heard the Melville quote that I realized how pervasive and destructive the chasm between the "haves and have-nots" is. How insidious criticisms and judgments are that so easily creep in to my thoughts and launch me up on a high horse. And all because I am one of the "haves".

There are certainly things I "have not". I am by no means wealthy by North American standards. But by world standards I am in the top percentage even if I'm living below the poverty line. I am well-housed. I am for the most part well-warmed and most certainly I am well-fed. I only have to walk as far as the tap for fresh water. Which makes me by Melville's wisdom, prone to folly in the form of preposterous assumptions.

God help me...and forgive me.

My Orchid speaks

2007-08-30T21:08:00.000-07:00

I have an orchid plant. I got it some time ago and when I bought it, it was beautiful. In fact, I think it had somewhere between five and seven blooms on it. I have never owned an orchid before but I delighted in taking care of it. I bought a mist bottle and followed the instructions as closely as I could. And then one fateful day, the blooms began to wither and eventually shriveled up and died. Not knowing any better, I cut the deadness off. Then another day, I nearly fried it by leaving it in direct sunlight. The leaves turned brown and were scorched.

But this little orchid is hearty. It has survived much and continues to thrive. After the death of the first blooms, I continued to mist and water the leaves throughout the winter and I was overjoyed when a new sprout appeared along the stem this spring. And eventually, new blooms appeared from this new shoot and I took much pleasure in them. If I recall correctly, I think the second summer it had four blooms, the number of grace.

I began to wonder if this was not a prophetic plant for me for it seemed to foreshadow seasons of death and gave me a renewed hope in life.

Finally this summer, not long before I moved, the flowers again died but there also followed a dramatic death to the entire stem. In what I can only presume was a prolonged drought in our overcrowded room, the heat fried it to a dry and woody stem. A sad pathetic twig of a thing that just crumbled in my hands. It looked and seemed beyond redemption.

I began to fear that with there being no stem to support flowered life, the beginning of the end had surely come. But since moving to this new place there has sprouted a very vibrant fresh leaf that is only now just beginning to uncurl.

I am doubtful that there will grow a new stem and more flowers will come, but I cling to hope. Because I am told that hope does not disappoint. So I am pressing in with hope for new life. For another bloom against all odds...for my orchard and for myself.

I'm back!

2007-08-26T11:05:00.001-07:00

It's been an extremely busy summer with settling in to a new job, being in a wedding, leading a brigade in Old Orchard Beach and then moving into a new place. Although the calendar year begins in January, it's always felt like August is the end of the year and September is often the month of many new beginnings. New school year, new people, new clothes and shoes.

So, with all that being said I've been feeling the pull (and encouragement) to begin blogging again.

For pictures of my new place, check out Facebook.

On the move

2007-05-22T21:05:00.000-07:00

So I've made a decision to change my place of habitation. I am moving out and moving on. In going throgh the process of looking for a place to live, I am realizing first hand the obstacles to finding stafe and affordable housing in Vancouver. It's such an arduos process. Self-addressed stamped envelopes, waiting, applications to fill out. More waiting...no phone numbers to follow up with just waiting.

It seems to be a theme in my life lately. Learning to wait. It's a good lesson. Last week at our weekly prayer meeting while everyone was revving up in a worship frenzy I was sensing the need to be still and know. To wait on the Lord. To seek His direction, his timing.

I couldn't help thinking of the Israelites and how after God set them free from the bondage of Egypt they spent a lifetime waiting on the Lord for his direction. They would wait and wait and when God said it was time to move on, they would pack up all their gear and move on. They would set up camp where he said stop. I wonder if they ever got tired of the whole routine. Actually...now that I think about it, there's little doubt in my mind that all that moving and waiting had something to do with the grumbling and complaining. I mean think about it. Read the book of Numbers. Do you know how much WORK that would have been to constantly be stop...go...wait...go....stop. And then do it all over again. That's got to be hard.

I'm thinking it taught them a whole bunch of things. Like patience, trust, obedience. And waiting. They must have got real good at learning to wait.

Community vs Communism

2007-04-09T20:13:00.000-07:00

I have been having an ongoing discussion with a friend about the subtle differences between living in what we have been referring to as "Authentic Christian Community" and living under a Communist regime. I confess that I don't know a ton about Communism and maybe only slightly more about what Authentic Christianity is all about so I went to Wikipedia and found a new category that I hadn't heard of: Christian Communism.

So the question is...am I a Christian living in Community or am I a Christian Commie?

Your thoughts are welcome. I encourage you to check out what Wikipedia has to say about it. One thought on the reason why both systems fail is the inherent selfish nature man.

Children are weapons

2007-03-16T20:42:00.000-07:00

Last night I had the privilege of taking my friend's son to our weekly prayer meeting. Walking down the street with Jedidiah in a stroller in front of me gave me an entirely new perspective on my neighborhood. People that were looking a little down and out saw his pure, innocent and beautiful face and they couldn't help themselves...they would inevitably smile. A few people even said hello. Then as I got further away from Chinatown and deeper into Pain and Wastings, I heard one lady call after me, "What are you doing bringing a child through this place?" I didn't have time to respond. And I wasn't sure how to respond really, except to ask "Why not? He lives down here." And then when I was passing through the even shadier parts of the hood, past one of the alleys a lady started shouting "Kid coming through! Kid coming through!"

In that moment I realized the power in purity. I thought of the scene at the end of the movie Children of Men where everything stops for the sound of the baby crying. Life swallowing up death in victory.

I guess it's about time

2007-02-22T17:34:00.000-08:00

It's been several months since I posted a blog. I don't really know what happened. Mainly I think I just started thinking nobody was really all that interested in what my rambling thoughts were. Then I went to Missionsfest and those thoughts were solidified when a speaker caught my attention with a quote: "In this postmodern age where everyone has a blog or myspace, everyone is talking but nobody is listening." That in turn made me think of the song,

Everybody's talking at me.
I don't hear a word they're saying,
Only the echoes of my mind.
People stopping staring,
I can't see their faces,
Only the shadows of their eyes.

And finally, last week I was having a meal with my friends and housemates and I was overwhelmed by how much we talk over each other and interrupt. It brought sorrow to my heart. We are so desperate to be heard that we fail to take the time to truly listen. I am just as guilty as the next guy. On that note as well, we are so desperate to be noticed and loved, that we fail to love- and if no one is loving, who gets loved?

And that brings me to another phrase I overheard in the past several weeks. It was at the grand opening of Grace Mansions. The DC Winn Blackman prayed for all who would work and live there that they would experience a baptism of love.

God grant it.

The last leg

2006-10-09T16:01:00.000-07:00

I have had a busy weekend. On Saturday morning I did what locals refer to as the Grouse Grind. It is basically a hike up a mountain. Three grueling kilometers that at certain points (I kid you not) were almost an eighty degree angle upwards. There were signs posted along each quarter mark and by the time I hit the 3/4 mark, I just about sat down and had a little cry. I didn't think I could do it. But my friend was there with me and we basically encouraged one another up the last leg of the mountain. After an hour and a half we reached the top and thankfully took the trolley back down the mountain. Ahhh...the sweet moments of elation and sense of accomplishment were worth the perseverance.

Then, this morning I ran in the Turkey Trot; a 10k race starting on Granville Island and looping around a very scenic route along the Sea Wall. Again, in the last kilometer I thought I wasn't going to be able to make it. My chest felt a little tight, my head hurt and there was a persistent stitch in my right abdomen and the last leg of the race felt the most punishing of all the kilometers before. But yet again, I had a friend running beside me the whole way who could have easily outrun me but stuck with me through the entire race and coached me through it.

I am quite certain that if I were in either of these situations alone, I might have quit. The temptation was certainly there in both scenarios but the reality of actually bunking it in full witness of my friends greatly decreased my odds. Having companionship when things are at their most difficult can really make a world of difference.

So, the moral of the story is this: be an encouragement to your friends, to your leaders, to your children, your parents, to friends and to strangers...Especially when they are running the hardest leg of the race because you might make the difference in helping them to finish strong and not quit!

Section 9: Evil-speaking

2006-10-03T22:21:00.000-07:00

1. A salvation soldier must not speak evil of his comrades.
2. To speak evil of a comrade means to talk to others about his faults--or what are thought to be his faults--when there is no necessity to do so, or when no good end will be served thereby.
3. Many think that, in order to speak evil of a man, something false must be said about him: but in that case it would not only be evil speaking, buy lying or slander as well.
4. Evil-speaking is a very serious sin. By one hour of such talk, a man can inflict greater injury on the Kingdom of God than he will do good by twelve months' hard work.
5. Evil-speaking is cruel. It is unquestionably wrong to do a man incalculable injury by spreading forth his faults and failings, merely from envy or some other uncharitableness, or for the pleasure of talking about another's wrong-doing.
6. Evil-speaking is cowardly. No one should say behind a man's back what he does not, or dare not, or would not, say to his face.
7. Evil-speaking is unscriptural. It is direct disobedience to the word of God: 'Speak evil of no man' (Titus 3:2)
8. Evil-speaking and slander are of the devil, whose followers will be ready enough to 'revile' and 'persecute' and 'say all manner of evil falsely' against Army soldiers, without their comrades joining in this vile business.
9. Instead of publishing the faults and sins of his comrades, a true soldier will seek to cover them up--for Christ's sake, for his comrades' sake, and of the interests of the kingdom of God.

Yes...it's a long one. But well worth the read of every word. This is rich stuff...worthy to be digested slowly and mulled over. No word of a lie...I wept with conviction when I read this section. I am SOOOOooo guilty. As are (I imagine) many of us who wear the uniform but are quick after the meeting around coffee and cookies to 'critique' the sermon, or the worship leading, or any number of things about their fellow comrades.

Hardcore...this stuff is pure hardcore.

Chapter X, Section 8 - Love for Comrades

2006-09-27T21:43:00.000-07:00

1. A salvation soldier must love his comrades. It is impossible for any soldier rightly to discharge his duties unless he loves his brethren.
2. His comrades may not be all that he desires. Perfection is nowhere to be found, but the true soldier will not think of quitting the ranks because his comrades fall short of his hopes for them. He will remember that he, in turn, may disappoint them, but that, in such circumstances, each should seek to help the other.
3. If a soldier cannot accept this, he should at once join the people whom he thinks are better than his comrades; but if he does not do this, he ought to love those who fight by his side.

This section is filled with good stuff. So much so that I'll have to break it down for you in parts. It's too rich to digest in all one go.

Do you see what I'm saying about the hard line? If you can't stop squawking about your comrades, about their short-comings, about how they are falling short of your expectations...then the advice given by order of the General (Orsborn at the time of this publication) is go join the camp you think is so much better than the one you're finding yourself in. And then, if you don't have the moxie to get up and go do that...well then, by George (or Albert) you better learn to love those God has placed alongside you in the trench.

God grant me the love I need. Help me to put aside false notions of perfection in thoes around me and in myself. And continually remind me of my own shortcomings before I notice them, or become tempted to piont them out in those around me. Help me God to be a better source of encouragement to my comrades.

Section 7 - Discouragement

2006-09-23T09:43:00.000-07:00

1. Having commenced to work, a soldier should beware of discouragement.
2. He should refuse to be depressed or feel incapable, to think that he has made a fool of himself when he has prayed, or sung, or spoken. Such feelings were common to the most successful soldiers when they commenced the fight, and very many often have them even when they have long been engaged in the salvation warfare.
3. He should consider what the devil would be doing if he did not seek to dishearten a soldier, especially at the very beginning, and particularly if he sees a soldier is likely to do harm to his kingdom...
8. A soldier should always remember that perseverance is all but certain to bring improvement, and finally success.

Now, I've only shared a third of the points in the chapter, but I assure you that the other points are no less direct. It is good to point out that the O&Rs are by no means commandments, but more simply guidelines, Godly wisdom and advice from those who have gone before.

How are you doing in the salvation warfare with discouragement? Are you refusing to indulge in depression? Feelings of inadequacy?

James has been a book lately that I keep going back to. I'm making a concious effort to choose JOY in all circumstances. It's not easy sometimes. But I am promised that if I continue to persevere I will receive a crown of life. Life is found in persevering faith. Be encouraged soldiers...there would be no opposition if we weren't assailing the kingdom of darkness and making ourselves noticed by the prince who rules this world.

'Storm the forts of darkness! Bring them down! Bring them down!
Pull down the devil's kingdom, where e'er he holds dominon!
Storm the forts of darkness, bring them down!'

Lack of Discipline

2006-09-22T12:23:00.000-07:00

That's really the bottom line when it comes to the question of why I haven't been blogging all that much. And priority. It hasn't been my priority to blog.

So thanks to those of you who have taken the time to e-mail me or call and encourage me to get back at it. Thanks for taking an interest in my life.

I've been in a pruning stage of my life lately and it hasn't been all that pretty or enjoyable so that is also a big part of why I haven't felt an overwhelming sense or need to communicate in such a public forum as this. I've been struggling in recent months to maintain the standard of soldiership or to keep up with the covenant. To some, this might not seem that big a deal. To me it is a big deal. In recent months, God has been teaching me the balance between grace and integrity.

So I got my hands on an older version of 'Orders and Regulations for Soldiers of The Salvation Army' and I'm astounded how hard-line some of the stuff in there is. Comparing it to the current O&R, there is less to say about character and personal life than there was twenty or fifty years ago. That in itself speaks volumes to me.

I was especially convicted when I read through the chapter entitled, 'Fighting' (to which there is no comparable chapter in the current O&R), and the subsections 7 and 8 respectively titled 'Discouragement' and 'Love for Comrades'. Over the coming days and weeks I'd like to share some excerpts with you and I pray that you will be challenged as I have been challenged.

Stay tuned.

Inspired

2006-08-09T20:34:00.000-07:00

I recently received this comment regarding my blog and I'm hoping it might jumpstart me back into action:

"I FOUND YOUR BLOGS WOW BABY I'M IMPRESSED THEY ARE WONDERFULL I LAUGHED AND CRIED SOME TIMES BOTH AT THE SAME TIME I JUST LOVE IT THAT YOU FOUND CHRIST OR I SHOULD SAY HE FOUND YOU YOU HAVE JUST GOT TO MAKE THE TIME DONT LET SATAN TURN YOU AWAY YOUR WORDS ARE SO HONEST THEY FIND A CHORD IN HEART AND SOUL KEEP ON BLOGGING MOM"

I love you Mom! Your encouragement means so much!!! Welcome to cyberspace!

Tour de Gastown

2006-07-20T09:40:00.000-07:00

Last night I watched my first bike race and I have to tell ya...I was surprised by how exciting it was. Darren called me and invited me out to watch it with him, and in my mind I couldn't have pictured that watching a bunch of men on bikes go round and round sixty times a loop of scenic Gastown could be anything but boring. Boy, was I wrong!

It makes me wonder how many other things I've written off or dismissed as a waste of time that in fact can be exhilarating. Like cricket, lawn bowling, or curling. And that's only in the realm of sports. What might I possibly be missing out on in the arena of real life? Doesn't bear much thinking about...Or does it?

The appearance of something can so easily deceive us, yet we are SO driven by outside appearances. Jesus came to his people and they didn't recognize him. Why? Because they were expecting a king and they instead got a servant.

Arghhh! There's those expectations again! Jesus...please help me to live with hopeful anticipation and not the expectations built on assumption, arrogance or pride.

Perspective helps

2006-07-13T22:38:00.000-07:00

So...Thanks everyone for your encouraging comments. I realize that it sounds a bit dismal. It's not that bad really. But it is hard. Life...loving like Jesus...it's hard sometimes. I'm trying to be like Jesus but I'm more selfish than Jesus is. I don't pull signs and wonders out of my back pocket, or the mud. I'm not without sin as he is. I don't like hanging out with people the way He does. People get on my nerves a lot. So, it's hard.

But I discovered this week that it's only hard when I lose perspective. I think that's what's been happening to me lately because when I was walking to work the other morning I got a perspective shift. I walked passed the Cambie Bakery and I saw a guy sitting in the window and he didn't have any hands. But he was still managing to have a cup of coffee.

It was a strange sight, but in that moment I realized that my life isn't that bad. Not like, I looked at the no-hands man and felt sorry for him and thought, "Oh, well...at least my life isn't that bad." It wasn't like that. It was more just a dawning of understanding that perspective is key.

So I started listing things that I have to be thankful for. I have a LOT to be thankful for. If you're going through a tough time, start giving thanks...it might just change your perspective.

I see the Death...where's the glory?

2006-07-09T19:10:00.000-07:00

It's been almost a month since my last entry. I don't know what to say really. I seem to have lost my inspiration for blogging. Hit a wall. Ran out of gas. Dried up. Gone flat. Withered. You get the picture.

Actually, that is also a picture of how I've been feeling this past month. It's been a tough road. I'm being tested in perseverance. It's not a lot of fun. More death than I feel like I can handle. Stay tuned for the glory.

A kernal of truth I've been struggling to get my head around is the whole: Christ in you...the hope of glory concept. A friend sent me a card that she made several months ago that had on the front "Christ in you" and a song with the same sentiment has been running through my head for a couple of weeks now. Included in the card were the lyrics to our sessional song: Death and Glory penned by D. Strickland. The first line of which reads, "I drag around deadness, it seems, everyday. Longing for freedom I gain strength as I pray."

The problem is, I don't FEEL much like Christ lives in me. I feel like a pile of crap lately. Less like a shining light and more like a dim flicker. I feel the dragging sensation of death and despair weighing me down but prayer itself has been a grinding battle of late that hasn't provided much strength.

If you're still checking my blog, I humbly ask for your support. I need prayer. I need breakthrough. I am dry as a bone and need water. I know that He is faithful and I know that His Word instructs me to humble myself under his mighty hand so that in due time, He will lift me up. So in humility, I continue to wait.

Die canary die!

What do you expect?

2006-06-14T22:45:00.000-07:00

I've been getting a lot of flak for my absence in the blogosphere. The thing is, I don't have a computer. When I am around one, I barely have enough time to check e-mails before I either get booted off or have to run off to some thing or another. I feel a little bit like my life is just a blur running from one thing right into the next. I realize that I don't have to make excuses. This is my blog. Why do I feel the need to justify myself?

Maybe it's just a reflection of what God has been showing me lately. Lately, I've been learning and hearing a lot about expectations and what a source of poison it can be to life abundant that we are promised to take hold of. The expectations that I have in other people that are not met and lead to feelings of disappointment, resentment or anger; expectations I feel are placed upon me that I can't live up to; expecting something to happen, but then it doesn't; and worst of all, the expectations that I place on myself...Those are the worst kind.

Romans 8 gives some instruction about expectation. I'm ruminating on this thought...I'm wondering...Maybe expectation is misplaced hope.

Any thoughts...?

Flowers were meant to bloom

2006-05-31T22:41:00.000-07:00

A few months back I bought myself an orchid plant. I'm not much of a green thumb but it looked pretty and I figured I needed some pretty in my life. I didn't realize that orchids were hard to care for...I just followed the instructions. Until last week. I got careless and left it out in the direct sun and the leaves got scorched. I was so bummed because what once was strikingly beautiful, was now strikingly discoloured and scarred.

I've been meditating much on my orchid and I think God is speaking to me through it. I get hung up on the parts that aren't as they should be. He's teaching me to focus on what's beautiful. Even though the leaves are withered and brown, the flowers are in full bloom. Where there was only one lonely little blossom, there are now seven buds ready to explode. How exciting! What I thought I killed, or what I thought was dead, was actually still full of life.

It gives me hope.

On being trustworthy...

2006-05-22T12:54:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I got a phone call in the morning from someone who I've been building a relationship with for a long time. She called because she spent the night in the hospital and has a broken ankle. She had a prescription for some pain killers but because she couldn't walk on her foot, she needed someone to fulfill her prescription. She said I was the only one she could trust. It's only been over two years in the making, but we've reached that place of trust where she can call me when she is in need and trust that I will not sell her painkillers on the street. In my neighbourhood, that's huge. I didn't know whether to rejoice however, or cry.

I realized that relationship making and community building takes time. A lot of time. And I feel tired.

Happy Mother's Day

2006-05-15T16:40:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I was walking down the street on my way to ReCre8 to do some laundry and a young lady startled me somewhat by wishing me a happy Mother's Day. I looked up and was even more startled when I saw that she was probably no older than twenty-five, and was fixing up a needle while she said it. I smiled and said thanks and then I don't really know what possessed me, but I asked her:

"Where is your mother today?"
She shrugged and said, "I don't know...probably getting ready to go out?"
"Go out where?"
"To the bar."

It was a sobering moment. It made me both sad and angry all at the same time. I had no words to reply with so I just asked her name and introduced myself and then I told her she was beautiful. I hope she believed me.

No half measures

2006-05-04T17:47:00.000-07:00

Lately I've been hearing a lot about surrender in my prayer times. As I've contemplated the deeper meaning to my need to neatness or tidyness, the revelation has been more or less that I need to surrender control. That's really hard because it seemed that before I moved into a living space shared with eighteen other people, my environment was about the only thing in my life that I have even a hint of control over. Giving up this need for control (and tidyness) has only been made harder as I recently came across the following from an ancient copy of the Doctrines of The Salvation Army:

Q: Then a true Consecration, or Surrender, has in it the nature of a Sacrifice?

A:Decidedly so. It is a real sacrifice. It is the presentation or giving away of all we have to God; a ceasing any longer to own anything which we have hitherto called our own, but all going over into God's hands for Him to order and arrange, and our taking simply the place of servants, to receive back again just what He chooses. This, it will be perceived, if a reality, is no easy task, and can only be done in the might of the Holy Ghost; but, when it is done, when all is laid on the altar--body, soul, spirit, goods, reputation, all, all, all--then the fire descends, and burns up all the dross and defilement, and fills the soul with burning zeal and love and power.

It makes so much sense to think of surrender in terms of a sacrifice but I'd never thought of it that way before until I read this chapter. No joke it isn't easy! Why can't it just be some and not ALL? Why!!? Why does surrendering feel so much like defeat? Argh!!

Because...God is pure. There can be no hint of defilement. There can be no holding back. It's ALL or nothing, no half measures. Oh Holy Ghost! I need your help indeed because I don't have the strength to give you all that is required by my own weak will. Help me...help me please.

I just want to be a grape

2006-04-28T09:41:00.000-07:00

A couple of weeks ago when someone asked how my soul was, I replied with the scripture, "I'm pressed, but not crushed...pressed down, but not destroyed." I didn't realize at the time, that how I was feeling then was only the beginning of a process that the Lord is walking me through.

This week I have felt crushed in spirit and last night at Knee Drill during worship I could only weep. The Lord then brought me two scriptures and a picture as well. The picture was one that had been prayed over me months ago about my heart being surrounded by a cluster of grapes; big, juicy, grapes. And it sounded like good news: fruit. I hadn't realized that grapes were certainly good, but the Lord wasn't satisfied with grapes...He wanted wine. In order to get wine, the grapes needed to be tread upon and crushed. That's the part I've been wanting to avoid. I've literally been putting it off for months. I cried out for mercy in a funny kind of way saying in my heart, "But I just want to be a grape!"

A man's spirit sustains him in sickness, but a crushed spirit who can bear? (Prov 18:14)

That was a reflection of how I was feeling. It was like a statement or affirmation from Jesus that said, "It's okay that you feel weak. It's okay to feel like you don't want to keep going. It's okay that it hurts." And then he showed me that He more than just understood He paved the way. I thought of Gethsemane and the verse:

But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed. (Isaiah 53:5)

My mountain all of a sudden looked like a molehill. But it didn't diminish the truth. It didn't make me feel small, it simply magnified Jesus and his amazing strength in weakness.

"That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong." (2 Corinthians 12:10)

I haven't quite arrived there yet where I'm delighting but Hallelujah! I'm moving in the right direction.

Strong finish

2006-04-25T08:56:00.000-07:00

This past Sunday I completed my first 10k race in 75 minutes and 12 seconds. It was an amazing day for a race and the course through Vancouver was gorgeous. I couldn't help but think as I rounded the seventh kilometer about scriptures that had to do with perseverance and running the race etc. But one that came to mind that initially seemed out of place was Hebrews 11 and the great cloud of witnesses. The official number of people that registered to run or walk in the Sun Run was 50,746. To be one person among such a large group of people, all with the same aim and common goal, was pretty inspiring. Because I was surrounded by so many people, there was a grace evident that was almost tangible and drove me forward at a pace I didn't think I could maintain.

I thought of the church and how when we are unified in purpose we can go further and faster than we can even imagine and dream. I thought of our own community and how some are struggling to keep up, while others are barely breaking a sweat. I thought about what it means to strip off everything that hinders and to finish strong.

May we accomplish the purposes for which God has raised us up and may we encourage each other along the way.

Of mice and Holiness

2006-04-15T11:51:00.000-07:00

Picked up Tozer's Knowledge of the Holy again this morning and read about the holiness of God. Here's a couple of excerpts from the chapter followed by some of my thoughts on the subject:

"Until we have seen ourselves as God sees us, we are not likely to be much disturbed over conditions around us as long as they do not get so far out of hand as to threaten our comfortable way of life. We have learned to live with unholiness and have come to look upon it as the natural and expected thing."

"God is holy with an absolute holiness that knows no degrees, and this He cannot impart to His creatures. But there is a relative and contingent holiness which He shares with angels and seraphim in heaven and with redeemed men on earth as their preparation for heaven. This holiness God can and does impart to His children."

We have a mouse in our apartment. The reaction and approach to eliminating this mouse from our dwelling place is not unlike our pursuit of holiness (the vermin being representative of sin for the purposes of this analogy). Some people don't care that we have a mouse that is infiltrating our presence under the cover of night, stealing food and leaving deposits of defecation everywhere and in a tree-hugging, naturalist kind of way, they think we should just co-exist with the cute little thing and leave it be. Others want to completely irradicate it's presence by means of death. So the humane crowd, instead of killing the mouse when it was captured the other day, released out in the street. The very next night, it had found it's way back in.

Until we see sin as it really is...vile, disgusting, and in need of complete annihilation, we can allow room for it to exist in our midst. When we learn to live with it, creating cute little pets of our sins, we create blinders for ourselves, or an immunity to sin that inhibits God from imparting holiness. And because we live in an area inundated with rats, mice, bedbugs and we live among people that are consistently afflicted by them, we have come to look upon it as normal, or in the very least acceptable.

Let us not be fooled. The agent of sin is crafty, much like our little mouse who last night got the cheese without setting off the trap. Sin threatens to take from us what we ought not to give up.

"Caught in this dilemma, what are we Christians to do? We must like Moses cover ourselves with faith and humility while we steal a quick look at the God whom no man can see and live. The broken and contrite heart He will not despise. We must hide our unholiness in the wounds of Christ as Moses hid himself in the cleft of the rock while the glory of God passed by.. We must take refuge from God in God. Above all we must believe that God sees us perfect in His Son while He disciplines and chastens and purges us that we may be partakers of His holiness."

Lord, I believe...help my unbelief.

Going Deep

2006-04-08T19:27:00.000-07:00

A bunch of us went on a beautiful (and somewhat challenging) hike today at a place called Deep Cove. To see some pictures go check out

KiR's blog

. It was breathtaking...literally.

But deep is not really where I'm at. I'm struggling with depth. I have reached a place (and I've been here before) where I feel like I want to go beyond where I am but I'm stuck on something and can't quite figure out how to get past it or over it or through it. So it's like being stuck at a way station and it really isn't a fun place to be. The funny thing is I've been getting a lot of words lately about rest but I don't want to rest. I don't like where I am...why the heck would I want to stay here. A dry, solitary place. A place of shallowness, not depth; a dark night of the soul...I don't know what to call it really. But it isn't exactly a fun place to hang out. Necessary perhaps, but still not altogether enjoyable. I see flickers of light pass by me as I stand on the platform of the way station craning my neck...looking for a way out. And like the headlights of cars passing by, there are moments of illumination. But still, there are many shadows. I need more light.

And so I wait. And I try my best to obey the word to rest. I wade from the shallow to the deep end and pray that I have the strength to swim. And the following Psalm gives me hope. Hasten the day Lord...

Psalm 27

1 The LORD is my light and my salvation—
       whom shall I fear?
       The LORD is the stronghold of my life—
       of whom shall I be afraid?

2 When evil men advance against me
       to devour my flesh, [a]
       when my enemies and my foes attack me,
       they will stumble and fall.

3 Though an army besiege me,
       my heart will not fear;
       though war break out against me,
       even then will I be confident.

4 One thing I ask of the LORD,
       this is what I seek:
       that I may dwell in the house of the LORD
       all the days of my life,
       to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD
       and to seek him in his temple.

5 For in the day of trouble
       he will keep me safe in his dwelling;
       he will hide me in the shelter of his tabernacle
       and set me high upon a rock.

6 Then my head will be exalted
       above the enemies who surround me;
       at his tabernacle will I sacrifice with shouts of joy;
       I will sing and make music to the LORD.

7 Hear my voice when I call, O LORD;
       be merciful to me and answer me.

8 My heart says of you, "Seek his [b] face!"
       Your face, LORD, I will seek.

9 Do not hide your face from me,
       do not turn your servant away in anger;
       you have been my helper.
       Do not reject me or forsake me,
       O God my Savior.

10 Though my father and mother forsake me,
       the LORD will receive me.

11 Teach me your way, O LORD;
       lead me in a straight path
       because of my oppressors.

12 Do not turn me over to the desire of my foes,
       for false witnesses rise up against me,
       breathing out violence.

13 I am still confident of this:
       I will see the goodness of the LORD
       in the land of the living.

14 Wait for the LORD;
       be strong and take heart
       and wait for the LORD.

Object lesson

2006-03-23T22:14:00.000-08:00

So...I was greatly challenged tonight at Knee Drill (our weekly prayer meeting) by a few different things. I was struggling at the beginning of the night to submit to what was going on and to engage in worship. And later on, as the meeting progressed, I looked over at a fellow member of our corps who was having a struggle with her child. My friend was sitting down and her little girl was distraught and trying to pull her up and get her to go where she wanted her go while Mom was trying to pull her towards her. It was a a vivid picture of how I've been feeling lately with God. He's trying to pull me closer and I'm refusing to be pulled in. I'm being stubborn, obstinate and childish and am spending all my energy trying to go in the opposite direction to where He is so graciously trying to lead me. And then almost as confirmation, another friend who is seated beside me turns to me and says, "that's what we're like with God." She was noticing the same object lesson as I was. There were some other things that came out of that...it was a profound moment of revelation. It's something I have been praying for but when it was upon me, it was actually making me a little squirmish.

Once again I'm learning what it truly means to submit. I'm understanding a fuller revelation of what submission really looks like. Because when the struggle was over only minutes later, the little girl was curled up asleep in her mother's arms. When we give up struggling against God, and are literally worn out from it, we enter into His Everlasting Arms and we can simply rest.

Amen Lord...so be it.

The persuasion of prayer

2006-03-22T09:12:00.000-08:00

I've recently had some discussions with a friend regarding the purpose of prayer. A comment was thrown out to the effect, "Well, I know I can't change God's mind so..." to which I balked, "Really? You have a son that you love very much. He asks you for something and you tell him no. But he begs and pleads and finally breaks your heart so you relent and say yes." She insisted that there is much that is different between God the Father and Joe the parent. So it begs the question, does prayer have any persuasive power before God?

I don't disagree, that there is much difference between the love of Almighy God for his children and a parent and their child but the analogy is often one that is drawn to help us understand. I recognize that I am no theological expert on the inner workings of prayer and I understand that God really doesn't have a mind in the sense of our understanding of the word. And I get that God's character is all-knowing, all-powerfull, and everywhere present. So I need a little help understanding this.

You see I think of the Old Testament stories where God says, "That's it, you're really gonna get it now." And the prophets come before God in prayer and intercession appealing to his mercy and God relents and shows mercy. I think of the New Testament and the story of the persistent widow where God incarnate, Jesus Christ encourages us to not give up hope in prayer. And also the account of Jesus and the Syrophoenician woman (Matt 15:21-28) where he initially turns the woman away but because of her faith grants her request. I think of Jacob wrestling with God, knowing full well who is likely to win.

Now I understand that the purpose of prayer is not that we come to God with our grocery list of items for him to check off, and that prayer is as much about listening than it is about talking. That's it's about building our understanding of and a relationship with God. But I can't seem to reconcile in my own mind, that God who I know to be benevolent, full of love and goodness and mercy is the same God who would be unflinching and unwavering when it comes to matters of the heart. Yes, God is also unchanging...the same yesterday, today and tomorrow. But that is a reference to his character, not His decisions.

I don't know...I know what I think and I think I understand what my friend is thinking...what do you think? Can we change God's mind or His decisions with our prayers? I would really like to hear your thoughts...

What!?

2006-03-18T11:41:00.000-08:00

I was running yesterday at the gym and I overheard a conversation going on behind me. It was startling to hear someone speaking so loudly and breaking the unspoken etiquette of disturbing the silence. Like people who make eye contact in the elevator, it's virtually unheard of.

I didn't hear the entire conversation as I was more focused on breaking the 3 mile mark and was going farther and longer than I have yet (over 45 mins and a total of 3.6 miles). The conversation was a commentary on our current social denigration and this phrase jumped out of the silence and into my ears, "I can say this to you because I think you'll understand but we live in a dictatorship of mediocrity." I thought it was a clever turn of words and my curiosity was peaked and I would have liked to join in on the conversation but I couldn't quite pluck up the moxy to force myself into the dialogue.

I repeated the phrase to some friends and they asked, "What does that even mean?" I think it's a reference to how almost everything in our current culture screams at us to be satisfied with the status quo. Like the line in the Incredibles when Mr. Incredible balks at the absurdity of celebrating a "graduation" in grade school.

It reminds me that I server under a leadership and in a community that is all about raising the bar and spurring each other on to greater deeds of love and humility and it's something I'm grateful for. When the standard isn't met, the standard doesn't change so that more people can meet it, but the level of discipline changes so that we might reach the standard and even push it higher.

The rod and the staff are a comfort. Hallelujah!

Fix it!

2006-03-15T21:52:00.000-08:00

I am back in Vancouver now and back to work. It was great to visit my home and hang out in Toronto. While staying with a friend of mine I had opportunity to read the Toronto Star and noticed that they have a new section entitled, "The Fixer". It addresses various things around the city that are in need of fixing and basically, residents of the GTA can put in their two cents of what needs attention in their beloved city. Such things as subway lights being left on when they should be off, broken fences that need repair or outdated road signs that have not been removed etc.

I thought it was a great little idea to generate some attention to things that need fixing. Then I wondered what might happen if we had a similar thing going on in Vancouver and what the newspaper might do if I wrote in and told them of the myriad of things that need fixing in our neighbourhood. I wondered if I would get as quick a response. I wondered what kind of city we would have if people were more concerned with poverty, prostitution, injustice, marginalization, inequality and deprivation than they were about the perceived injustices of someone at the TTC leaving the lights on. I wondered what it would be like if instead of taking the time to e-mail or phone a newspaper to report a problem, we became part of the solution. Instead of just noticing what was wrong, we would take the time to get involved and fix it.

What are you noticing around you that are problems? What are you doing to fix it?

I am rich!

2006-03-05T10:33:00.000-08:00

That has been my realization over the past few days as I have been spending time with people that I love deeply. I have been so blessed since arriving here in Toronto that I can barely take it all in. There have been so many lessons and parallels I don't even know where to start.

Josh and Jenn are married and it was beautiful. It's a great view when you get to stand at the front. It was a union filled with emotion, creativity, and hard core covenant. Good times.

But besides the acutal ceremony of the wedding I just attended I think the most enjoyable thing has been the time that I have spent in the presence of my friends. It's like a balm. It's not that we're doing anything spectacular but just being all together with Jenn, Rob, Heather, Cace, Stephen, the Gills...it is rich. And I realize how blessed I am to be flanked on every side by such a great force of friends. Fellowship is good for the soul.

None of it would be possible without Jesus. This reunion with my friends gives me just a small taste of what the return of the King might be like and my only response can be: "Come Lord Jesus...come!"

Home renovations

2006-02-26T16:13:00.000-08:00

I spent last night and this morning doing my first ever home reno project. I was given an old piece of furniture that used to infamously reside in 402 at The Empress. It used to be a desk but my friend sawed off it's legs to make it into a coffee table. When it came into my possession it was covered in sticky paint and looked battered and worn out. But with some furniture stripper, a scraper and a little sandpaper, it is now like a brand new piece of furniture.

As I was stripping away the old layers of paint and discovering the raw beauty of the cherry-coloured wood underneath, the analogy that came to mind was obvious. With a minimal amount of work and an eye to see the potential in something or someone, you can discover underneath the outer crusty layers something that is beautiful and worth appreciating in a new way. I only thought...I wish it was as easy with people as it was this old piece of furniture to discover the hidden beauty.

Did I miss the memo?

2006-02-24T22:39:00.000-08:00

I've been reading over a few blogs here and there and it seems there are a few posts that have become real hot topics for debate with comments racking up to astonishing numbers...24, 52 and more. I used to think that if I got more than six comments, it was a big deal. Now I'm starting to wonder: when did blogging become such an intellectual hobby for creating discourses of epic proportions for any blowhard that has an opinion about something. Or maybe that has been what it has always been about and I'm just catching up and questioning if I still want to be in the game.

I draw a parallel with how I've been feeling about the Olympics in recent weeks. What has become of us that we give so much of our time, attention and emotional energy into whether we can get a puck into a net, or strap a couple of boards to our feet and dodge little flags at breakneck speeds down a mountain, or throwing big rocks with handles down ends of strips of ice with brooms in hand.

Does anyone else think it somewhat absurd how we can become so intently focused on such mundane and abject things.

There must be more than this...surely.

Transitioning into Discipline

2006-02-20T16:14:00.000-08:00

So I've been in transition. A new living space, a new routine, and new living companions. So my blog life has suffered. Thank you for your patient endurance, especially to those of you who took the time to shake me out of it with e-mails and passing comments. Seriously, I need it.

Part of my problem of late has been an issue that I've been wresting with for some time now. It's the issue of discipline. I don't have enough of it and haven't quite figured out my way to getting more of it besides actually just BEING disciplined. The problem is when I set out to live a disciplined life I'm confronted with the reality that I'm empty on self-discpline. And by that, I don't mean void of Holy Spirt help, but that I fail to make the decisions and choices that open up the gateway to more disciplined living. It's like getting into the car and wanting to go somewhere and turning the key and realizing that you barely have enough gas to get to where you need to go. A key ingredient is missing.

So I've been looking into some alternative fuel resources. Now don't get all freaked out...this doesn't mean I've started reading the Qu'ran instead of the Holy Bible or that I've forfeited prayer for meditative yoga but I simply mean that I need to try a different approach to what it means to be a disciplined person of faith and practice. How can I achieve that besides simply practicing being disciplined? If I simply read my Bible more, meditate more, pray more, fast more...will that be enough? Do I need a fresh revelation of grace?

Is there any other way besides the more, more, more approach? Not because I want to choose the lazy way but because I feel I keep trying that and it's not working out. I simply discover greater and greater measures of missing the mark or I feel weary from all the striving.

Maurice Roberts wrote from Scotland in 1990 the following thought:

"Our age has been sadly deficient in what may be termed spiritual greatness. At the root of this is the modern disease of shallowness."

Oh Jesus...protect me please from that disease and lead me to deeper waters.

Tara'a Proverb 1:1

2006-02-07T22:13:00.000-08:00

"It is folly to make plans for your journey if you don't know the destination."

A lot of people in our midst have been talking about future plans but the problem is many of them don't know where they are going, or where they are meant to end up, so it creates a cycle of frustration.

This week my 3 year old friend Zion was learning the Salvation Army salute and reciting "I'm on my way to heaven and I'm doing everything I can to get everyone I can to join me."

Sounds simple enough...but living it out is more complicated than it might seem. Where you are going is important. But more important (I think) is how you get there and who joins you along the way.

Today I am grateful for those around me who make the journey as rich and rewarding as it is.

Moving day

2006-01-30T21:40:00.000-08:00

Today and tomorrow are moving days. I am moving out of my little room at The Shaldon and into a much larger community living space. I realized anew how much I loathe packing. Seriously. It is such a pain having to collect everything into boxes or suitcases and cart them down the street. But it is also a good opportunity to sort through a few things and lighten the load.

As I attempt to do this in the physical sense, I realize that there is a parallel in the spiritual. I had a realization that over the past few months of living back in Vancouver I had allowed a lot of spiritual clutter to invade my space. Things that I didn't even realize were there (like the mice that I thought had left our room but who reappeared last night) were coming creeping in and leaving little deposits like the little mice turds that accumulate in the corners of our room. Like the satisfying noise of vacuuming and knowing that mice turds are being sucked away, I am looking forward to a complete clearing out of my spiritual clutter. Lord, bring on the Holy Spirit Hoover!

Please pray for me.

Advocacy at the Polls

2006-01-23T21:45:00.000-08:00

Today I was and advocate for someone. It was fun. Justice is underrated.

Today is voting day and a half an hour before the polls closed, a friend came to us all sad and dejected saying she was turned away at the polling station. I was indignant. How could a Canadian citizen be refused the right to vote? So me and my partner in fighting injustice (Darren Hailes...insert superhero music here) marched her back up to the Carnegie and demanded that her voice be heard. Within ten minutes her ballot was cast.

It made me wonder about how many other people might have been discouraged from making their voice heard because of being bullied, belittled or degraded today in my neighbourhood. I thought of my other friend Valerie who was beaten and had her wheelchair chucked out of a public transit bus last night and nobody would call the cops for her because she's a beraggled-looking recovering addict living in the DTES so no one would budge. It made me angry to see the bruise on her head and listen to her tell me that she was hit in the head with a crockpot by a deranged neighbour and the police told her that if she pressed charges they would probably have to issue a restraining order and someone would have to move.

It's not right. There are a lot of things happening in my neighbourhood that are not right. We need more people to stand up and fight for justice. We need more people to stand up on behalf of the poor, the widow, the fatherless and be a voice.

Will you stand? Stand on guard for God and the things and people He values? As I watch Harper step up to make his speech, I thought it might be fitting to remember our National anthem (all verses, not the current God-snipped version that we sing at the hockey games). Take time to read each verse...Seriously, there's some golden stuff here:

O Canada! Our home and native land!
True patriot love thou dost in us command.
We see thee rising fair, dear land,
The True North, strong and free;
And stand on guard, O Canada,
We stand on guard for thee.

Refrain
O Canada! O Canada!
O Canada! We stand on guard for thee.
O Canada! We stand on guard for thee.

O Canada! Where pines and maples grow.
Great prairies spread and lordly rivers flow.
How dear to us thy broad domain,
From East to Western Sea,
Thou land of hope for all who toil!
Thou True North, strong and free!

Refrain
O Canada! O Canada! etc.

O Canada! Beneath thy shining skies
May stalwart sons and gentle maidens rise,
To keep thee steadfast through the years
From East to Western Sea,
Our own beloved native land!
Our True North, strong and free!

Refrain
O Canada! O Canada! etc.

Ruler supreme, who hearest humble prayer,
Hold our dominion within thy loving care;
Help us to find, O God, in thee
A lasting, rich reward,
As waiting for the Better Day,
We ever stand on guard.

Refrain
O Canada! O Canada! etc

Rod and staff

2006-01-21T18:50:00.000-08:00

In a recent conversation with a couple of friends regarding our differing approaches to ministry style in regard to 'Shepparding the flock' I was advised, "Look, Psalm 23 says that there's a rod AND a staff; the comfort or leading part and discipline part. There's more than enough staffs out there to comfort. We need to get out the rod and whack a few sheep on the head with some discipline." That's not an exact quote but the main gist of it. Forget compassion, we need more discipline.

There was a bigger point being made but I think my friend missed something...both the rod and the staff are instruments of COMFORT.

What do you think?

Handouts

2006-01-17T21:20:00.000-08:00

Today I bumped into a friend uptown as I was hitting a 7-11 for some post workout Gatorade. It was a little odd meeting him in the unfamiliar surroundings of uptown as opposed to the familiarity of downtown but he followed me into the store and we happily chatted away. He asked me if I could do him a favour and give him a couple of bucks but I said no...in a nice way. I told him that handing him cash in my opinion was not doing him any favours since him and I both knew it would go towards his crack habit. It might seem patronizing to some, or even harsh and lacking compassion. But I have been giving this a lot of thought lately. Handouts don't really help out.

I think when we get into this handout mode oftentimes we are making ourselves feel better rather than really tackling the underlying problems. And when I explained my theory to my friend of how if I just give him handouts all the time I'm just helping him stay in this cycle, he agreed. So I went to part ways but he called me back. "Wait!" he said, as he pulled me into more familiar territory to talk. As I followed him into the alley and he picked his spot, I asked him, "How can I be a friend to you right now?" There was a long pause of silence as he pulled out his crack pipe and fumbled around in his pockets for his rock. He told me how seeing me had stopped him from doing something bad. I told him that I didn't do or say anything so what did I stop him from doing, something illegal? And he didn't respond with words but tears just rolled down his cheeks and I didn't know what to say. So I asked him again, "How can I help?" And he said, "You already have."

Giving this guy my time went a lot farther than giving him my money.

What's in a name?

2006-01-11T23:16:00.000-08:00

This week I was at a leadership meeting and someone was trying to refer to some new initiative and stopped mid-sentence to reflect, "What is that...what are we going to call that? We have to find a name for that." We like to give things names in our 614 Corps. The more trendy or kitschy and catchy...all the better.

I was walking today and I was thinking about the significance of this peculiar tendency of ours. In fact, it has almost become somewhat of a hazard in some peoples eyes as we can be thought of as attaching labels (in the negative sense of the word) to everything and in so doing, we run the risk of boxing either the ideas or individual persons into little pigeon holes that they can't get out of. We inadvertently end up compartmentalizing while we are striving more towards the communal.

And then I remembered what I'd read in the book of Genesis recently about how God gave Adam the task of naming the animals. And then sin entered the picture and fragmented the relationship between man and God, between man and Creation and between man and woman. We see Adam taking liberties with his role of nomenclature and stepping outside the realm of animals and beginning the process of subjugation by calling Woman by the name of Eve. Woman is a reference to how she was taken from (or formed from) man and the two words for man and woman are similar in sound in Hebrew. There is a connotation for me here of equality. Eve is the name that Adam gives his wife after he his finished pointing his finger at her and blaming her for all the ruckus caused by the fruit eating in the garden even though the same verse that says she ate, shows that her husband was right there with her (Gen 3:6). The name Eve is thought to mean 'mother of all living' or 'life-giver', or literally 'life' or 'living'. I don't know about anyone else but it seems a bit tongue in cheek to come up with this name after God has just laid out the curse of death for the wages of sin.

It may seem a mute point that I'm making, but I think there is more here that can be unpacked about this whole naming thing...Anyone want to take a crack at it?

Blog accountability

2006-01-10T23:11:00.000-08:00

I haven't exactly started off the new year with a blogging frenzy but I have been setting some goals that I would like to publish here in the blogosphere and that way I have endless accountability. So one thing that I've really been trying to work into my life and routine is discipline. When it comes to living a disciplined life I wax and wane, I flux between periods of hot and cold. So I decided to do something drastic: I'm going to run a half marathon. And I'm telling a whole bunch of people to eliminate the possibility of giving up or chickening out of it.

Yep. 13 miles of sweating it out so that I can learn discipline.

But the thing is...Discipline isn't going to be learned in the actual race; it's what happens between now and race day that matters. I have learned so much already and I think the whole thing is not only going to train me up physically but I really sense that there is a bigger reward in store for me spiritually. Ahh...Praise the Lord, something to press on toward - a prize!

I'll keep you posted as I go along but on my first day of training I could only run 1.5 miles in 20 minutes. Today I ran for thirty minutes and I covered a distance of just under 3 miles. As a wise man once told his daughter, "You can always go farther than you think."

In His strength...

Roller coaster of love

2006-01-02T21:25:00.000-08:00

I just finished watching the movie Parenthood. It used to be one of my favorite movies when I was in high school. Somehow I could identify with all the evidence that dysfunction exists in all families, not just my own. I was struck tonight by the part towards the end when the senile old Grandma seems to throw in a random story about rollercoasters while Steve Martin's character is arguing with his wife about the complexities of being a part of and raising a family. The grandmother chirps up and shares a story of how she went on a roller coaster once and was amazed that it could feel exciting, thrilling, frightening, and, terrifying all at the same time. "Some people don't like it," she said. "They prefer the merry-go-round. Around and around it goes. I liked the rollercoaster. The rollercoaster is more fun."

I am part of a family...we call it community. And sometimes it feels like a roller coaster and I long for a ride on the merry-go-round. I long for things to be more stable, more consistent, more predictable. But then I have a movie like Parenthood to remind me that change in inevitable and life is unpredictable. And I have a choice. I can choose to be terrified or I can choose to see what appears to be unexpected twists, turns and heart stopping plunges as the joyful thrill that makes life worth the living.

Ungrace

2005-12-28T10:19:00.000-08:00

It is difficult to do a study of grace and not experience a jolting collision with the prevalence of "ungrace" or the void of grace in the world we live in as well as my own personal life. In re-reading Yancey's treatise on grace I stumbled upon the assertion that, "the church also communicates ungrace through its lack of unity."

I experienced a form of that yesterday when I had someone drop by where I am staying and before even a hello or how are you was expressed the co-op rules or expectations were being clearly outlined for me. We are a people driven by competition and in the midst of that competitive nature we look around at everyone else to make sure they are following the rules and regulations to spec. I think also of a recent competition that took place in our corps in a similar regard. Our drive to win doesn't exclude us from falling into the same trap where instead of being driven by our own performance and adherence to "the rules" we begin to look around and see how everyone else is not sticking to them.

Hence, the lack of unity. Grace is a trickier thing to lay hold of then I first imagined. Dang!

"The great Christian revolutions come not by the discovery of something that was not known before. They happen when somebody takes radically something that was always there."
- H. Richard Neibuhr

May we truly strive to be revolutionists through the witness of lives lived in radical submission to grace.

Grace defined

2005-12-27T14:56:00.000-08:00

I came across this definition of grace and I like it...

grace: a gift that costs everything to the giver and nothing for the recipient.

The Gospel of Grace

2005-12-26T13:55:00.000-08:00

I am on to teach a class in the new year about Grace. As I prepare the lesson I am finding out how much more I have to learn about the subject as opposed to how much I already know.

On Christmas Eve a colleague from work invited me to her house for dinner and since she's a political science major there were no taboo subjects at this dinner party. We talked about both religion and politics. She make the point that conservative Christians who hang out on the far right and become more and more zealous are often the same people who become more and more contradictory in their theology and practice. She sighted as an example that in the US, the Christian groups that cry out the most loudly against abortion are often the same groups who advocate the loudest for the death penalty.

In Philip Yancey's book, What's So Amazing About Grace he quotes a counselor David Seamands who says this:

"Many years ago I was driven to the conclusion that the two major causes of most emotional problems among evangelical Christians are these: the failure to understand, receive, and live out God's unconditional grace and forgiveness; and the failure to give out that unconditional love, forgiveness, and grace to other people...We read, we hear, we believe a good theology of grace. But that's not the way we live. The good news of the Gospel of grace has not penetrated our emotions."

As we become more zealous for the cause of Christ may our knowledge of the Gospel of grace match our experience of it in the deepest parts of our emotional beings and in our daily interactions with others. May it not be said of our church that we believe and preach a good theology of grace but fail to live it. Amen.

How do people afford Christmas?

2005-12-23T11:16:00.000-08:00

Seriously. I did some food shopping today for entertaining less than half a dozen people for Christmas dinner and we're not even having a turkey supper and I'm surprised how much everything adds up to. I came away from the Super Store not only disappointed that they were once again sold out of Candy Cane ice cream but also simply astounded about the sheer volume...wads and wads of cash, that people drop every year at Christmas. I thought of all the people that go into serious debt over Christmas and as I maneuvered my way out of the parking lot I gave a little nod of gratitude that I have been spared all that festive malarky. I am grateful that this Christmas will have nothing to do with Christmas trees and presents and worrying about everyone getting what they asked for for Christmas, but instead I will be with friends enjoying a simple feast of yummy Lebanese food, Mexican food and a birthday cake.

Happy birthday Jesus!

Reconciliation

2005-12-21T19:27:00.000-08:00

I ran into my dealer friend from my last post today while I was walking home from work. I had intended to just give him the old head nod 'how you doin' look but as I was passing him by he beckoned me over.

"Chou surprised me the udder day. Why you go treating me like dat? I see you all the time and I'm high and drunk and I treat you wit nothing but spect."

"Yeah well, it just made me angry the way you were treating that lady after she had just been hit by a car?"

"But chou don't know the whole story mang."

"It's true. I'm sorry for hitting you."

And then he extended his hand and as I took it I said, "So it's water under the bridge?" And he cocked his head to the side and nodded affirmatively as he pulled my hand in and hugged me saying, "I love chou mang." And in the moment I realized how broken this man was and how much in need of rescue he is as well.

I walked away purely baffled at the turnaround. I thought of my friend Kirsten who loves reconciliation. And as I climbed the stairs to my slum hotel, I shook my head in pure amazement as God revealed to me a little more of his heart. Not only does he have a deep abiding love for the users, the afflicted, the poor, the victims and the oppressed. But in a momentary flash, he widened the horizons of the vastness of His love and showed me a glimpse of how much He loves the dealers and the movers and shakers who in so many ways are caught in the same snare.

I am once again baffled at how and where God shows up with His grace. And I am once again humbled. PTL. H!

Picking fights

2005-12-16T16:43:00.000-08:00

Last night I almost got into a fight with a drug dealer who also uses crack himself and was harrassing a woman that Katie, Olivia and I were trying to help after she was knocked off her bike by a hit and run incident.

Something snapped in me that this vile man could so callously rub salt into this woman's wounds or kick her while she was already down. So first, I appealed to his reason and asked him to back off. He persisted as he tried to claim the bike was his and wanted it back. Then I physically stood between him and her and he was still not disuaded. So I shoved him lightly back and this caused him to flare up and divert his attention to me. And that's when something else took over. Some parts were righteous but some parts were just plain anger as we exchanged strong words with less than an inch between our faces. And then I hardly recognized the person I heard speaking in my own voice that said, "You wanna fight, let's go! Let's dance!" Seriously...it sounded like some macho hockey player thing to say but that's not a word of a lie what came out of my mouth.

What is amazing is that most of what we were fighting about was respect. I have encountered this man in our neighbourhood several times before and he was asking me why I pushed him because he'd done nothing but respect me. I then told him a few things about what respect was and what it wasn't. And respect wasn't asking a woman who has just been hit by a car for the bike she was riding on.

It is not normal.

Danielle preached back at ACC about picking fights and used giants of the faith like David and Samson as examples. I'm not going to even attempt to put myself in the same category as David or Samson but after all was said and done what amazed me more than all the emotions that were stirred up in me and that I was fearless in the face of a deranged drug dealer was the fact that after our confrontation and after he had trown his dinner at me. After all that...he came back while we were still helping this woman out and apologized for his behaviour.

Lord, restore to this city, to this neighbourhood, your righteousness and thank you for showing me a tiny glimpse of what your righteous anger looks and feels like.

Queen Sheba

2005-12-12T15:35:00.000-08:00

This morning I was reading about Solomon in 1 Kings and came across a line that really jumped out at me and to be quite frank, it's been awhile since I've experienced that so I got really excited. This was what spoke to me:

"When the queen of Sheba heard about the fame of Solomon and his relation to the name of the LORD, she came to test him with hard questions." (1 Kings 10:1)

Several things strike me from this one verse:
1. The fame of Solomon and all his riches was associated with the NAME of the LORD.
2. Queen Sheba brought before the King HARD questions.
3. There was an exchange of gifts and offerings (see beginning and end of chapter)

I've been struggling somewhat of late in how I talk and communicate with the LORD and just yesterday I was praying with a sister and was encouraged to take what I'd been wrestling with and bring it before God. I was set back a bit by that. In all my efforts to revere God and worship Him in all His holiness, it never occurred to me to come boldly before His throne like Sheba and ask the HARD questions. But then this morning I crack open my Bible and read the first line and can't help feeling like God is saying - in fact almost challenging and inviting me...To bring before Him my hard questions and be reassured that He has even more patience than Solomon to listen and answer every one of them.

The other part that struck me was the NAME of the Lord. We have this thing down here at 614 Vancouver that we call the War Room which is a 24-7 prayer room that has been going for almost two years where we've daily been declaring and restoring the NAME of the Lord. And people have been drawn from all over to come and check it out. But beyond that, it was a reminder to me to be more intentional about giving glory to the NAME of God as a really good strategy for prayer and worship. It caused me wonder if we haven't as a body or community drifted somewhat from the original purpose for which that place was raised up.

And the other thing that I observed as I re-read the chapter was the fact that the Queen brought before the King an extravagant offering as well as her hard questions. But she left with a greater blessing than what she brought as her offering. This was a reminder to me of God's extravagant love. He receives our best offerings, entertains our questions and answers every one of them and then out-blesses us with a more extravagant gift to depart with.

Doug Burr over on his blog has been questioning the commercial nature of what Christmas has become so I offer this as a strategy against it: bring some extravagant worship to our Humble King and throw in a few of the hardest questions that you never could bring yourself to ask and have a Holy incarnational experience (or as some say, a Merry Christmas)!

Still checking?

2005-12-09T22:12:00.000-08:00

Good. I haven't gone anywhere and there's no excuse for not blogging except a life happening outside of the world wide web and not in front of a computer screen.

I've been reading a book by Henry Nouwen and some of his colleagues called Compassion and the most recent chapter brought some introspective self evaluation. It was a chapter about how we can't move and operate in compasssion without the context of community. The one line that grabbed me was, "if you can't love your brothers and sisters, you can't love the people out on the street."

It struck me because it echoed a word that was shared by a Death and Glory comrade earlier in the week:

"Our love to God is measured by our everyday fellowship with others and the
love it displays."
- Andrew Murray

The Lord is exhorting us to more love. To give more of it and to receive more of it from Him and from one another. This is what community looks like...to LOVE each other. Why is this? Because we are commissioned to go and usher in the presence of God on this earth...because GOD IS LOVE!

It's so simple...why is it so difficult to live out? Seriously...why?

Shut up and eat the Word!

2005-11-30T21:51:00.000-08:00

That's what ended up coming out of my mouth at the end of a really bad day in the 'hood. My day started out a bit rough and got choppier along the way. My patience had reached it's end to say the least. We had a new guest at our cell group meeting who was intoxicated and started out innocuous enough when he arrived but began to slide into the more obnoxious and disruptive end of things which reached its culmination when he pointed out to the entire room of people that I had a big fat @$$. It was a test to say the least. I don't think I failed but I don't think I pulled out with an A+ either. But many lessons were learned.

Among many things, I learned about perseverance. I pushed my way through all the distractions and tried as best I could to stick to the cell talk leaders guide that dealt with Gabriel's unexpected announcement to Mary about her giving birth to the Savior. You see, at the beginning of our cell meeting our friend prayed up a storm and told us of how he'd been led to our meeting by the hand of God, was a self-proclaimed prophet and was hungry for the Lord. But he wouldn't stop talking when other people were trying to engage in discussion so I was in a bit of a quandary. I want to extend hospitality and extend the love and patience that such situations require but when someone becomes so disruptive that everyone loses out and it just becomes abusive, what do you do? Is there a limit to grace? Not with God...but with me, yep. There's a limit.

So it all ended with me reading Luke 1...Mary's song of praise, and at the final interruption, I could almost hear something snap inside of me and it erupted with the words, "You said you were HUNGRY!! Shut up! Seriously...Stop talking and eat the Word." And I kept reading scripture and eventually our guest left. The Word is powerful and not only cuts and divides but sometimes cleans house.

So when he left, I didn't feel bad, but I didn't feel great either. It made me wonder the cheesy bracelet question...What would Jesus do? Would he have said, "Shut up and eat the Word?" He might have...He did turn some tables over. But Jesus was fully righteous...I'm still learning how to walk in that.

Eyes to see

2005-11-28T16:16:00.000-08:00

Last week in Vancouver there was the most amazing Rainbow as I was walking home from work. It was SOOOooo cool! I don't know when was the last time I saw a rainbow this clear and I kept just looking up at it in amazement because it was this huge bow right over the mountains. I thought of my friend Crystal who loves rainbows. I thought of God's promises and the beauty of His Creation. I thought of how when Jesus returns we will all be able to see him clearly coming riding on the clouds (whatever that will look like).

I was downtown and I kept looking at the people I was passing on the street. Some were so busy getting to where they needed to get to that they didn't seem to notice. And then I saw a mail carrier looking up and she looked at me and smiled and I smiled right back. The next few people I would pass I would try to get their attention and make eye contact so I could smile and look up at the sky hoping they would follow my gaze. Then outside the library there were three Asians crouched under one umbrella all looking up and because they were looking up and pointing their cell phones and cameras at it, some other people looked up and that made me smile. I could tell the ones who had seen the rainbow from the ones who hadn't by the smiles and where they were fixing their eyes.

Anyway, my point being that some people saw the rainbow and some people didn't. Inside of me there was this strong urge to tell everyone to look at it because it was so amazing. I finally plucked up the courage to tell one business man in a suit and he nonchalantly agreed it was beautiful.

Some have eyes to see and some don't. I was convicted today remembering this rainbow. If only I had as much passion and excitement pointing Jesus out to people.

If you are blind...Cry out and ask that you would be able to see. It worked for a blind beggar on a dusty road in Jerusalem so it can work for you too.

"Son of David, have mercy on me!"

For what it's worth...

2005-11-23T11:29:00.000-08:00

This was sent to me by a friend in an e-mail...

As you open your pockets for yet another natural disaster, keep these facts in mind: Marsha J. Evans, President and CEO of the American Red Cross... salary for year ending 06/30/03 was $651,957 plus expenses. Brian Gallagher, President of the United Way receives a $375,000 base salary, plus numerous expense benefits. The Salvation Army's Commissioner Todd Bassett receives a salary of only $13,000 per year (plus housing) for managing this $2 billion dollar organization.

Your comments are welcome.

Looking up

2005-11-22T09:59:00.000-08:00

This morning I was walking through my neighbourhood on my way to the Command Centre to pray the Bible for half an hour with the rest of the body of Christ and I was running a little late so I looked at my watch and hustled on. And then I heard a voice ask, "What time is it?" I looked around but I didn't see anyone so I kept going. Then I heard again the voice a little louder this time ask, "Hey! What time is it?" And then I realized that the voice was coming from above. So I looked up and saw a woman hanging out of her apartment window. So I told her what time it was and as I walked on I smiled to myself.

I have a friend who's always reminding me to look up...but it's the last place I look when I hear a voice calling. Hmm...

Ministry of Reconciliation

2005-11-21T18:33:00.000-08:00

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. Now all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation, that is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation. (2 Corinthians 5:17-19)

Lately I've been questioning purpose...the purpose for which I'm spending my days living in a shady hotel room infested with bugs and mice; the purpose of Christianity, of purpose of my soldiers covenant, the purpose of living in community. It's been a particularly trying week of being assailed with doubt, hopelessness, temptation to go back to former, more familiar ways and behaviors. And then Aaron last night at SWAT spoke the above Word reminding us all what we are supposed to question certain things. It is good to ask questions. But we must ask the right questions.

He offered two questions that we should ask ourselves on a regular basis: 1) What can I offer God? And 2) What can I offer the world? The answer to the first question was simply that we can offer nothing to God. Everything we have been given, right down to the fingers I'm typing with and the air I'm breathing has been given to me by God. I can offer Him nothing that is not already His to begin with. I can only simply consecrate back to Him what He has so graciously given.

The second question was much more convicting. It was a reminder we are not given all that we have been given for our own enjoyment and fulfillment. And it pretty much made clear my purpose where there had been some questioning. It is to reconcile. Period. That's it in a nutshell. A ministry of reconciliation is what we have to offer the world. And what have we been given to reconcile with? A Word of reconciliation. The Word who came and lived and dwelt among men in the slums of a stable. The WORD which is sharper than a double edged sword...The Word that was with God and IS God. Where there was once separation, we now have communion and fellowship. We simply have to allow ourselves to be reconciled and then go out and reconcile others.

It was a good reminder. Much needed. Thanks Aaron.

Bono on religion

2005-11-17T18:06:00.000-08:00

"Religion can be the enemy of God. It's often what happens when God, like Elvis, has left the building. [laughs] A list of instructions where there was once conviction; dogma where once people just did it; a congregation let by a man where once they were led by the Holy Spirit. Discipline replacing discipleship." - Bono (from Bono in conversation with Michka Assayas)

It's so true really. I meet a lot of people in and they are usually surprised when I tell them I work for The Salvation Army or that I'm a Christian. Their response is often, "Oh, I wouldn't have taken you for being a religious person." And I'm always relieved. Typically when I start talking about Jesus with some people, they are like, "uh...yeah, I'm not religious." And I always reply, "Yeah, me neither." You see, there's a lot of confusion about what it means to be a spiritual, Jesus loving Christian and being RELIGIOUS.

As far as I'm concerned, the world has seen far too much of religion and needs more of the manifest presence of God. We are the people who are supposed to usher in this presence but too often we get stuck on creating a false image of the person of God with the facade of religion.

Religion is usually a strong repellent. But relationship is where it's at. The presence of God never fails to draw a crowd. So are you spending your time steeped in religion or relationship?

People are people

2005-11-11T10:37:00.000-08:00

The other day I was walking home from work and it was a particularly frenetic day in the restaurant business. Then out of the midst of my thoughts I almost literally bumped into an old friend Andy. Andy was a recovering addict that I met two years ago at Habourlight. He has since returned to his old ways of panhandling. Typically when I have run into someone who has backslidden there is this awkwardness, perhaps because I become for them a reminder of where they once were in their recovery but have fallen. But this time around, when Andy saw me, he smiled and opened his arms and we embraced. I realized as I was hugging him that we were likely drawing attention to ourselves but I smiled all the more. What a testimony...to be able to hug a guy that most people pass by without really paying attention or noticing.

It got me thinking after I left Andy and continued walking. I thought about how many people were in the world, over 6 billion people on the face of the planet. I thought about how many people that I had come into contact with or at least close proximity over the course of my day. Maybe a hundred or more over a lunch hour at The Keg, then hundreds more as I walked the busy streets of downtown. And then as I entered the downtown eastside, still scads more people going here and there about their business. And then I began to count down to the ones that I actually had any significant impact on. It was a humbling moment.

I have been thinking lately about community and what it really means to participate in one. It would have been really easy for me to feel overwhelmed or to feel that my daily existence was making little impact and go off in a tailspin asking questions like, what were we doing thinking we could effect change in a city or a country or even the world when we barely travel outside our 10 blocks of desolation. And then I have Andy to remind me...one is enough if there is love.

And then I hear the voice of the Lord saying, 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'

Craving

2005-11-06T15:53:00.000-08:00

Today I spent a few hours in our War Room (24-7 prayer room) and it was good to catch up and meditate on the character of God revealed through declaring His Name. Today the name of the Lord was 'Bread of Life' and that lead me down a rabbit trail of doing a word search on the word 'crave'. My friend Danielle was preparing a preach this week for a conference by the same name. So I read Numbers 11 and there was some really interesting stuff there about how the Israelites were wandering in the desert and Yahweh was providing for them the food of angels, manna from heaven...but they got sick and tired of eating it and complained that they wanted meat.

It reminded me of some recent grumbling and complaining that I've overheard from some people who have quickly grown tired of Habourlight food. Perhaps a stretch to be comparing those meals with heavenly food but it is none the less available to us by God's provision. Some people because they cannot tolerate the taste or the substance, have refused to eat it and are surviving on toast and granola bars...Not because of a lack of availability of Godly sustenance but because we crave other things.

I also thought of how I've been lacking in craving The Bread of Life and have instead been trying to get by on a steady diet of dry biscuits. The grumbling begun to surface and I've been guilty of crying out for an easier way; when life was less sacrificial and even though I was trapped in bondage there seemed to be apparent perks like free food. But the truth is that I've actually been malnourished and it's beginning to show in how I've been interacting with others.

I thought of the Psalmist who wrote about the deer that panteth after water and spent time examining my soul...and I have to confess that I came up wanting in my yearning to be in the courts of the Lord. I have been going the distance in my own strength. But praise the Lord for his grace...that in His loving kindness he gave me a taste again of that Bread of Life and has whet my appetite for more of all the good things that only He can offer.

What are you craving these days?

The Mystery

2005-11-04T11:51:00.000-08:00

I caught an episode of 'Lost' this week and one scene in particular stood out to me. Two of the main characters reach a point of confrontation and conflict. One character (Locke), has chosen to live by faith not necessarily seeking to understand, but simply embracing the mystery. The other character (Jack) is a more pragmatic guy who has chosen to live by reason and intellect and the mystery simply frustrates him. In a dramatic moment of crisis of making a life or death decision, Locke asks Jack, "Why do you find it so hard to believe?" and he vehemently retorts, "Why do you find it so easy?"

It struck me because a similar question was once asked of me. The question was posed to me by a professing Christian who wasn't living in the fullness of freedom that Christ offers and she asked me, "How is it that you can just read the Bible and believe what it says?" I didn't speak it out at the time but I did inwardly wonder, "why do you find it so hard to believe?".

I was engaged tonight in a classic Calvin vs Wesley debate about whether we can lose our salvation. I've blogged about it before so I won't make any arguments here. At the end of the day, we could sit for hours on end and pour over scriptures and provide a basis for both sides of the argument and come out no further ahead really.

It reminded me of something that I had come across earlier in the week regarding the thoughts and theology of Anselm "who held that faith must proceed all effort to understand." Faith and understanding are not entirely opposed to one another. It is simply a matter of making sure you have them in the right order.

AW Tozer speaks in The Knowledge of the Holy of how we've lost some of the mystery of faith drawing from the writings of Thomas Carlyle. Tozer writes,

How different are we who have grown used to it, who have become jaded with a satiety of wonder. "It is not by our superior insight that we escape the difficulty," says Carlyle, "it is by our superior levity, our inattention, our want of insight. It is by not thinking that we cease to wonder at it...Science has done much for us; but it is a poor science that would hide from us the great deep sacred infinitude of nescience [which means ignorance for the non Latin scholars], whither we can never penetrate...This world, after all our science and sciences, is still a miracle; wonderful, inscrutable, magical and more, to whosoever will think of it."

Have you embraced the mystery? Or are you frustrated with trying to find the answers? I think I'm somewhere in the middle. Faith is not an absence of logic or reason...it just provides the motivation from which we should seek to gain understanding.

"Let me seek Thee in longing, let me long for Thee in seeking; let me find Thee in love, and love Thee in finding" - Anselm

Playdough

2005-11-03T10:26:00.000-08:00

One thing I love about leading my cell group and having new converts or homeless people attending is that I don't have to work hard and teach them about transparency and letting their guard down so that we can live authentic lives as a Christian community. It comes more or less naturally to them. Sometimes, a little too naturally I might add. For instance, I asked someone this week how their week was and the reponse was, "Pretty good, except for some medical issues." My reply then was, "Oh, anything you can share and we can pray about?" And then after only momenatary hesitation, "Yeah, I've had really sore testicles all week."

Yes...it's a much different story leading and teaching with that kind of transparency in the room than it is leading a bunch of "vetran" Christians who feel like they've been around the block a few times and figure they know the landscape pretty good and don't need a map. Instead of becoming more pliable as the Lord works with and in them, they somehow instead become like playdough that has been left out of the pot too long; all crusty and hard. Playdough that has dried up is useless, you can't work with it all. It's kind of like the salt that has lost it's saltiness.

There has to be some kind of secret to keeping the moisture locked in...what is it? Oh! Maybe it's being stored in the right container? Or maybe it has to do with continually being placed in hands that press and stretch and sqeeze; hands that desire to change a formless blob into something more useful... Or at the very least, something decorative.

Psalm 84 comes to mind for consideration...

10 Better is one day in your courts
       than a thousand elsewhere;
       I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God
       than dwell in the tents of the wicked.

Yep...I rather be a doorkeeper than some hard, crusty playdough...what about you?

Great expectations

2005-10-31T23:47:00.000-08:00

Something I've been working hard at lately is freeing myself from being pinned down by the heavy weight of expectations. They have been crowding me in from all sides over the past couple of weeks as I've been trying my best to juggle and maintain my night shifts at our slum hotel, training to be a server at the Keg (which is more intense than it might at first sound), and fighting the daily war of life as a leader in the trenches (which has unquestionably of late been especially intense). It hasn't been very pretty and there have been more than a few comments that I've been a bit grumpy. It's true...It's how I manifest fatigue.

So as I've retreated somewhat with my 'mini hol' at Q2 and have examined things with a bit of perspective I see how part of my problem has been caused by trying too hard to please too many people. I've known for some time the futility of this exercise but none the less...I see how I've allowed myself to become ensnared in the trap.

Expectations of themselves are not a bad thing but only become unhealthy when we lose sight of who it is in our lives that should be setting the standard. It becomes a question for me to consider for myself of where it is I get my value from. It is unbalanced thinking when my mind is constantly running and thinking about how if I mess up here, or miss the mark over there that ultimately I am setting myself up for the only consequence to be disappointment; either from others or in myself. That my reputation is at stake. It's simply untrue and I KNOW that but I don't always FEEL that but I'm growing. My missing the mark or falling short have gone from being my biggest fears to becoming in fact my greatest moments.

Why?

Because it is in those moments that I am reminded of how all of us fall short of the glory of God and that I simply cannot continue on in my own strength but must confess that I am weak. When I miss the mark then I am in a position for God to teach me. When I fall short then I am in a position for God to stretch me.

I overheard someone recently say (and this was in reference to running) that "you can always go further than you think." I believe the same is also true in life. "Let us run with perseverance the race that is marked out for us," as the writer to the Hebrews reminds us. And my friends...I would add with Paul: "Run in such a way as to get the prize." (1 Cor 9:24)

Amen.

Dreams

2005-10-26T15:41:00.000-07:00

Lately I've been having some dreams that I actually remember upon awakening. This is rare for me. One night recently I was rushing to catch a flight but no matter how hard I tried I couldn't get my bags packed. It caused me to feel panicked and unsettled. When I woke, I asked my room mate what it could possible mean. She suggested that it might have something to do with my preparedness. I couldn't deny that might in fact be true. I've been struggling in my devotional life.

Last night I had another vivid dream and I was swimming in vast ocean with two of my close friends. It seemed tropical, the waters. It was daunting because there was no land in sight and we knew we had to keep on swimming but it wasn't totally hopeless because we were not alone in our struggles. We had each other to lean on for encouragement when we felt tired.

I think the first dream was a warning and the second an encouragement. Or maybe together they are both warnings and encouragements.

I'm discouraged of late by a lack of love in what was once a thriving community of comrades who for a season were fighting shoulder to shoulder and however awkwardly were loving each other from an authentic place. It wasn't always like that. We had to fight hard to arrive where pretense and make believe were stripped away and the rough edges were made smooth. We learned to use our words not to maim and cut and wound but to bring healing and encouragement. But now I fear what we fought so hard for and the lessons that were learned have slowly begun to fade away and dissolve into something far less potent. And as I lead another similar group of comrades into a place of authentic love and community, every week I come away with that same feeling of discouragement and loss. How can we endure so much together and fight so hard and after a year still be so loveless?

Last Sunday night however, Michael Collins reminded me of a timeless truth and my only option in these times of discouragement is to stand firm on that truth and fight all the harder to see it established.

Love never fails. (1 Corinthians 13:8)

I like how The Message puts it: "Love never dies" or The New Living Translation which contends that "love will last forever." HALLELUJAH!

God...please rekindle the dying embers of our love for one another. Show us how to love one another as you have loved us. Let it not all be in vain Jesus...let it not be in vain.

How many Bibles do you have?

2005-10-25T19:36:00.000-07:00

A couple weeks ago at SWAT a soldier confessed that he had brought 6 Bibles with him here to The War College. But after futher discussion it was revealed that he hadn't actually read through the entire Bible. I don't mean to single him out, because there are others I'm sure who are in the same predicament. How many Bibles do you have on your shelf? Are they decorative and collecting dust or have you taken the time to read the whole thing?

I'm guilty. But I'm working on it. Just a few places in Chronicles that I need to brush up on.

It's a good spiritual check though.

School of hard knocks

2005-10-20T18:19:00.000-07:00

I never knew when I signed up to be a soldier in The Salvation Army that it would lead me to the events of last night. I cleaned the blood of a drug dealer off the walls and door posts of the hotel where I live. The whole scenario is so surreal, I don't really know where to begin. I feel so tired. All over, I feel tired.

Another day in the ebb and flow...ebb and flow...back and forth, up and down. I used to love roller coasters when I was younger but lately, instead of the thrill of excitement, I feel sick and dizzy.

As the drug dealer stood outside the locked door with a bloody hand, I headed out to see what was going on and as he yelled at me to open the door, I noticed he was being pursued by another man yelling. When the other guy saw me he started yelling at me to not let him in. The drug dealer lives in the hotel and my job is to provide night security. I'm conflicted because I want to show mercy but I also desire justice.

The cops arrived with a gun drawn and tazer in hand, voices shouting. More inner conflict. A quick count and I see six officers. I think of my anger yesterday at the cops. Everyday they walk the beat and turn their blind eyes away from the drug deals, corruption and exploitation. I wondered who it is they are serving and protecting. When I ask one of the officers who's bagging the bloody knife after they have stitched up the dealer's hand and set him free, "What about the drugs? He was dealing, aren't you going to arrest him?" He looks at me and says smugly, "He's only one of 3000 dealers. I've been arresting this guy on an off for three years. This stopped being about getting the bad guy a long time ago. I show up for work, do what I can and collect my paycheck, thank you very much." He opens up the door to the problem a little wider for me and I don't like what I see.

Where is the justice?

As I'm wiping the blood off the walls, I'm thinking about it all and I hear the echo of the officer's voice saying, "I've been an officer for 19 years. This stopped being more than a job a long time ago." I immediately thought of others who may have begun something filled with idealism and passion but over the years have become jaded and worn down. I thought of myself and I wondered if I wasn't just another fool with a dream.

It has never been more real to me than it was last night...we are in a war. But Hallelujah...WE SHALL WIN!!!

Sweet sorrow

2005-10-14T15:56:00.000-07:00

Last night I prayed with a man and he accepted Jesus as his Lord and Saviour. He wanted a cross because he sensed he needed protection but I told him that instead of a cross I would give him a personal bodyguard. So we talked and reasoned together (as much as possible since he was a little inebriated) and we prayed.

After praying, Eddie asked if he could have my Bible and again, I tried to weasel out of having to disposes myself of something that had become so precious to me. It was difficult to think of being without it...I have been carrying this particular sword around to battle with me for two years. I like the weight of it. It's well worn and I can quickly find what I need in a tight spot. But my friend Alexander reminded me that it wasn't mine. So I couldn't keep it. I didn't like Xander for a minute, but I realized he was speaking truth so with still some residual reluctance, I handed my Bible over.

After all that prayer and me feeling like I had done what was asked of me, we began to part ways with our new friend in the faith. But to my surprise, Eddie still wanted a cross. Somehow he felt that having something tangible like a cross around his neck would bring him more comfort than a promise of being hidden in the shadow the wings of the Almighty. So with a smile at the persistence of the Lord, I took off my necklace...But when I went to place it around Eddie's neck, it wouldn't fit. So gripped by conviction, Xander felt compelled to give up the cross he was wearing around his neck.

I thought it was sweet justice. I gave up my Bible, but I got to keep my cross. And Xander didn't get away unscathed either. But more than all that I learned about the danger of holding on to things too tightly; I learned a little more of what it means to be open fisted...Most importantly, I learned what it truly means to sacrifice something that actually has value attached to it for me.

Too many of my sacrifices of mine in times past have had little or no value. It's been more duty and not enought true sacrifice. And so they really haven't been sacrifices at all. Words that I heard earlier in the week came flooding to my mind about David refusing to sacrifice something that cost him nothing. And so once again, God follows up his Word with a very real and tangible object lesson. I like it when He does that.

The Banquet Table

2005-10-12T19:57:00.000-07:00

This past weekend I went to a seminar to hear Brad Jersak teach. He wrote a really great book called Can You Hear Me? It's all about learning to tune our ears and open our eyes to hear God speak and behold Him in all His wonderful Glory. Last night as I was killing some time at work, I flicked through the channels and there was Brad Jersak on the television. And he was talking about God's banqueting table. So it's been a bit of a Brad Jersak week.

Brad Jersak is a big fan of Scripture and believing that what it says is true. So when Scripture says we can see and hear, he takes it literally. The beauty of his book it that breaks down listening prayer into something really simple and straightforward that just about anyone can do. He makes prophecy and the practice of doing it both palatable and palpable.

Among many other lessons learned, Brad Jersak made the point that you can't listen to the voice of God very long before your heart gets stirred to bless and love others. And so Brad used the illustration of the banqueting table that Jesus speaks of in the Gospel. And how we are encouraged to go and invite as many as we can to come in and partake. All are welcome at the banqueting table. There's no discrimination at God's house.

This brought into view for me once again the undying truth that exclusivity has absolutely no place in the church. Systems that have been created or have crept in that keep people out, instead of inviting them in goes completely against what Jesus not only taught, but exemplified in his daily living and then exhorted us to follow. As we imagine and read about what is written of the Wedding Supper of the Lamb, we see a picture of pure hospitality and indiscriminate love.

It reminded me again of the recent wedding day of my friends Heather and Rob where as we walked down the streets of Vancouver headed to a ceremony in a back alley, the bride called out to the lost and the lonely and told them that there was a place for them there. And many did come. It was a beautiful thing. It was a profound prophetic example to me of what the church should be doing.

It makes me examine my own actions and motivations of late. It makes me ask myself, "Where have I failed to invite someone in to the banquet?" It reminds me that it is not my place to be concerned about the talble cloth getting dirty, or if there will be enough food. I'm not hosting the party, I'm just commanded to invite as many people in as I can to come in and enjoy it. How can we as a body, as a movement, as a church, as individuals...How can we be more IN-clusive as opposed to EX-clusive?

Who have you invited to the table lately?

Giving thanks

2005-10-11T10:59:00.000-07:00

The Bible instructs us to be giving thanks for everything and at all times. This past weekend was our annual Thanksgiving holiday in Canada. I think of myself as a thankful person but there are still moments and things that I have yet to figure out how to turn back to praise. Last night I was really put to the test. You see, I work at a slum hotel three nights a week for the graveyard shift: 9pm to 5am. It's normally pretty quiet and there's a lot of freedom for me to do whatever I want with my time as long as I check people in and out, do rounds three times a night and deal with any disturbances.

Disturbance came last night in the form of human excrement (just ask Zion how to spell it, the kid's a genius). Someone took a dump in the front stoop of the building and guess who had to clean it up! I'm not even good with the diapers of a three year old, so I assessed the situation and tried to figure out the best way to rid the stoop of the offending odourous mass of poop without gagging or adding my vomit to the mess.

Thankfully I found some kitty litter and first piled that on. Then I found a cardboard box and scraped most of it up and ran down Hastings street holding my breath and dumping it in the nearest garbage bin. Then I had to go up and down the stairs with hot buckets of water to rinse the remnants away that were stubbornly sticking to the tiles.

And so after last night...I'm thankful that I have a toilet of my own and the luxury of toilet paper. I'm thankful that with God, I can do all things, including clean up human waste without chucking my guts out. I'm thankful that I can laugh at myself and I'm thankful that when I have a grudge against someone, I don't poop in their stoop. This year is not like every other Thanksgiving...none the less, I'm still thankful!

My friend the drug dealer

2005-10-06T18:00:00.000-07:00

I live in a sketchy neighbourhood and I have to cross an intersection just about every morning where drug dealers frequently hang out and do business. Two years ago when I first came here I used to just hurry past those guys, endure their "Mama cita" lewd innuendos by staring at my shoes and pretending they were talking to someone else. More recently, I've ceased to play the victim by stopping, looking them straight in the eye and introducing myself to them. I usually say, "My name is Tara. So next time I pass by here you can address me by my name." I've found it cuts through a lot of the fear, intimidation and lust junk by confronting it head on.

But to my surprise, last week or so, this tactic kind of backfired. Or so I thought. I sort of met my match with a guy named Luis. He was so surprised and embarrassed I think by my boldness, that because he was taken off guard, he stammered out his name. He then proceeded to try and recover by asking me out on a date with his default demeanor of lewd and lusty. I told him I wasn't down here shopping for a boyfriend. He has been persistent ever since and continues to ask me to go out with him. I continue to shoot him down. It's become I think somewhat of a showdown in who's going to give in first or who can top their last line. But today when I saw him, I took a little more time to talk to him and to see him less as a slimy drug dealer and more like a child of God. What I discovered was that by treating him like that...without the labels that he's used to living under, it disarmed us both.

Labels, assumptions and quick judgments do nothing more than create barriers to relationships. That's what we're here to do...To become and build authentic community. But I realized this morning that I need to take my blinders of judgment off. This past weekend Aaron White spoke about how we treat "the poor" and how a big part of the problem starts with seeing the marginalized of our neighborhood as something other than human, something more than even sub-human or sub-culture that if ignored might eventually just go away. I remember thinking after the talk that I had already learned how to do that, I was doing okay in that department. I love the poor. I live with and among the poor.

But in my pride, I failed to see the drug-dealer as human. I failed to see how someone, who in my eyes did nothing more than contribute to the problem in this neighborhood, could be anything more than a dirtbag who preys on the weak. Instead of the smelly, homeless, drug-addicted "poor" being the repulsive bain of society to me and my moral dignity, they had been replaced by the scum of the earth drug dealers.

Until today...When I really looked into Luis's eyes and saw him for what he really was. And as clear as day, I heard God speak to my spirit and say, "Tara, I love him just as much as I love everyone else down here." And I realized afresh that God may have a bias to the orphan, the widow and the poor...But the gospel still remains for the whosoever.

A great quote

2005-10-03T16:03:00.000-07:00

"Love becomes sentimental if it is not strengthened by truth. Truth becomes hard if it is not softened by love."
- Eva Burrows

If we have not love...

2005-10-01T08:33:00.000-07:00

Last night was the kick off for the first North American ACC (Aggressive Christianity Conference) and the keynote speaker was Michael Collins. He warned us about the Word being sharper than any double-edge sword and that if you're not careful with it, you could end up cutting off your own foot. He then proceeded to wield that sword with master precision using Matt 23:23-24 and Matt 6:1-5. I was cut deep with conviction. It hurt, but I think it would have hurt me more had I left there with blind eyes and deaf ears.

"An army that doesn't march isn't an army at all and a soldier that doesn't fight isn't a soldier at all. Fight or turn in your tunic!"

"Stop sinning and stop fighting in the flesh - it ain't pretty."

"If you're not in shape (physically, mentally, spiritually), it doesn't matter how aggressive you are."

Catherine Booth's Papers on Aggressive Christianity called us to be soldiers in the Salvation Army, to be aggressive with Christianity. It is no watered down gospel that we should be preaching. Michael Collins reminded us that we are in a war, and that as soldiers, the first place that we need to direct our brand of aggressive Christianity towards is ourselves. I need to recognize where I've gotten dirty and wounded in the fight and come for a cleansing and healing. I need to be aggressive with my own sin. I need to get my knees with confession and repentance for my judgement, apathy, complacency and sloth.

And he was very clear also on reminding us that there is no room, not one inch, for spiritual pride in the body of Christ. Nothing can arrest the advance of the Kingdom of Heaven quicker than spiritual pride. "We wage war with love, because love never fails." Love prefers and honors others above ourselves.

I realized how short on love I was. Real love. Authentic Christian love. Love that is kind, that is patient. Love that doesn't envy or boast or keep records of wrongs. The kind of love that never fails. So I got on my knees and with many tears came before Jesus and asked him for more love. I asked him to remove my heart of stone and replace with a heart of flesh filled with HIS love.

How's your measure of love these days?

No tracks, no train

2005-09-30T17:59:00.000-07:00

Our prayers lay the track down by which God's power can come. Like a mighty locomotive, his power is irresistible, but it cannot reach us without rails.
–Watchman Nee

Telus Union workers here in Vancouver are currently involved in lockout over a labour dispute. One side wants one thing, the other side wants something else so they are at an impasse as both sides vie for control.

As I sat thinking about the above two seemingly incongruous trains of thought, I realized that somewhere along the way in the past two weeks I too had silently been approaching an impasse with God. For some time I've been feeling a growing disconnectedness and couldn't really figure out what was wrong. I seemed to be doing the right things. But I was only going through the motions, punching the clock. I was showing up for "work" but when the conditions of the "contract" changed, without realizing it, I had begun my own lockout process. My heart was not fully engaged. I had stopped praying.

As Nee points out above, without prayer to lay down the tracks, God has no inroad. It was no wonder I was feeling disconnected. It was no wonder I felt like a train that had jumped the tracks. It was no wonder I felt as though I had lost my way into the presence of God.

By his grace alone, Yahweh is teaching me again how to pray. Bless his name.

Wisdom from GenEva

2005-09-28T19:59:00.000-07:00

Tonight we had a special visitor to our cell group: Ret. Gen. Eva Burrows. As Danielle made the introductions likening the position of General to like that of the Pope to the Catholics in an effort to bring some context, one of our reformed prostituted persons asked her if she was something like Mother Teresa and in true humility GenEva replied, "No, not exaclty but I have met her."

After our cell group, as I perused a copy of her autobiography, I was amazed by the places and people she has had opportunity to meet over her lifetime. But despite all the prestige that may come with her position, what was even more amazing to me was the fact that when I brought her out an umbrella before she headed out to an open air, she greeted me by name. After two years, she was still able to recollect my name. I guess praying for a year everyday for someone helps with that. She also has a bit of a reputation as I understand it, for never forgetting a face or a name.

But besides all that, she shared something worth digesting and thinking about. She said, "Spiritual gifts are for service and spiritual fruit is for your character." There often seems to be confusion between gifts and fruit. Just the other day, someone told me they had the gift of patience. But patience is really a fruit of the Spirit. GenEva made the distinction clearer for me and for many others crowded into the living room. Gifts are freely given, but we must walk in agreement with the gifts bestowed on us (we must accept the gift) and actually use the gifts if they are to be of any true, lasting value. And gifts are for the benefit of the body. They are not simply for our own enjoyment. The fruits of the Spirit on the other hand (love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, meekness and self-control) are for the shaping of our character. As we are pruned and become more fruitful, our character grows in its likeness to that of Jesus.

I thought it was a good point.

Walking a mile

2005-09-24T23:10:00.000-07:00

My mother used to have a plaque that hung in her kitchen that read, "Don't judge a man until you've walked a mile in his moccasins." We used to giggle at the expression, but in all it's 70s era tackiness, there was revealed to me this past weekend some firsthand truth to the statement.

You see, I've been staying at the home of my commanding officers and was given the sole charge to look after and tend to their three year old son Zion in their absence. This was the weekend that we were going to lick the potty training thing. High hopes perhaps for me to think it can be accomplished in a weekend, but better to set the bar high I figured. Although we went through much laundry and had more than a few misses, there has been much progress and I feel we are just about on the verge of a major breakthrough. I seriously have no idea how single parents cope!

But besides the challenge of that task alone, I was easily overwhelmed at the volume of telephone and pedestrian traffic this place gets. Staying here this time was different. I think because I was staying where our fearless leaders live, people made the assumption that I was in charge of everything else besides just the child care.

I've commented before on this blog about soldiers who are quick to make judgments of their CO's and I'm sure I've been guilty myself of falling into that trap in the past. Though I've never spoken any words of criticism or judgment directly to their face, I'm certain I've entertained prideful thoughts of how this or that should or could have been handled better.

But now...After having walked a mile in their moccasins, I've been given the privilege of a fresh perspective. A perspective that includes such high honor and regard for my leaders who daily lead out of the thick of it in the trenches. Constant chaos surrounds them but still, they manage to make it look effortless as they expand and grow the Kingdom with the vision and passions placed in them by Jesus.

Stephen and Danielle...I love you guys and respect you more today than I did three days ago. Can't wait till you get home!

Things you don't SEE everyday

2005-09-18T15:20:00.000-07:00

Just looked out the window at the Four Sisters Co-op apartment complex and saw a woman dressed in a bright orange costume with a huge feather on her head walking around the courtyard in stilts.

Hmm...there really is no place on earth like the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver.

Things you don't hear every day

2005-09-18T11:00:00.000-07:00

Time for a new feature for my blog. Since moving into the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver, my ears have been treated to some of the most colourful statements and sounds, some of which cannot be reprinted or shared here. But I recently overheard this statement in the Habourlight chapel...

"I hurt myself running to the mercy seat."

True story. I saw the bleeding rugburn with my very own eyes.

Church Bashing

2005-09-17T17:23:00.000-07:00

Before I became a Christian, I used to indulge quite often in bashing the church. My favourite denomination to bash was the Catholic faith because it was in this denomination that I grew up in and became disillusioned with. I spoke out of a place of ignorance and when I finally encountered the PERSON of Jesus five years ago, I became convicted of the weight of my words and had some serious repentance take place. You see, I was talking about things I really knew very little about. I was speaking out of a place of woundedness, unmet expectations and cynicism. None of it resembled LOVE.

I've been reading some blogs lately and there seems to be an awful lot of words thrown about that bash Armybarmy and those associated with the organization, especially in connection with the concept of rEVOLution. It's sad really, because in one breath we cry out for unity and in the other we talk down to our brothers and sisters in Chirst. It shouldn't be this way..."no one can tame the tongue; it is a restless evil and full of deadly poison. With it we bless our Lord and Father; and with it we curse men, who have been made in the likeness of God; form the same mouth come both blessing and cursing. My brethren these things ought not to be this way." (James 3:8-10). The statements being made are veiled from being personal attacks on anyone specifically in the Salvation Army with statements such as, "I'm just speaking out of my own experience" or other such blanketed generalizations. And I myself don't take any of it personally, but there is someone who does.

Underlying all the pontification, all the rhetoric, all the rubbish that we speak in the name of a denomination or an ideology...What are we really saying and reflecting of Christ? Jesus Christ, who died a horrible, excruciating, and sorrowful death so that we might be one, as He and the Father were one. The reality is that it's not about denomination...It's about a PERSON. When we speak ill of one or more of our brothers or sisters or choose to carelessly banter about strong words - regardless of denomination, vision or ideology - we are bashing Jesus. And you know what? He takes it personally.

We each have different callings and unity is not coequal with conformity. We don't all have to agree, we simply have to be obedient to what God has revealed to us both individually and collectively. We only see in part. God orchestrates knowing all parts.

I would also like to add that contrary to popular belief about the character of God, He's not merely a God of mercy and love. He is multifaceted and complex. We are created in His image, so I believe that we are not called to live one- or two-dimensionally in our faith expression. Our God is also a vengeful, militant God who diciplines, rebukes and demolishes...He is a God who detests blasphemy. But, instead of using our mouths to bless each other, we curse.

My brethren...these things ought not to be this way.

Enacted prayer

2005-09-15T14:09:00.000-07:00

Today I experienced for the first time a relatively new method of prayer where the prayer is acted out in dramatic fashion and it was very powerful. Different people took on different roles: God, Jesus, addiction, peer pressure, Holy Spirit, intercessors etc. After a brief spoken prayer, we then engaged in prayer through observing the dramatic prayer. What I think struck me was how powerful silent prayer can be. I was deeply moved by the whole thing and the presence of God in the room was almost palpable. It was really cool. It wasn't "make-believe" or "play-acting" either...I am certain that there was active warfare taking place throughout it all.

As we debriefed afterwards, I also found it interesting to hear what was going on with some of the people who were more physically involved. The person who took on the role for the person whom we were praying described how he felt the confusion of being separated from Jesus, and the actor for addiction described feeling actually afraid of the person playing God who came to remove her grip from the victim.

I am realizing once again how creative our God is...How he created us to express ourselves in so many different ways, how He has chosen to express himself and reveal himself through such creative methods. From the delicacy and beauty of a butterfly, to the broken toothless smile of a street person, and then today through enacted prayer...God is speaking.

Hallelujah!

I love my community!

2005-09-14T19:11:00.000-07:00

I am so blessed. I live in a great city and probably the most unique neighborhood in all of Canada. I've only been back for about a week but as I sit here trying to think of what to blog about, the possibilities are endless. I feel so FULL already and it's only been a week. I've been splitting my time up between finding a job, securing permission from about 50 pubs around the city to go in to sell War Cry's, running various errands such as mailing out a ton of packages, nailing down content and leaders for SWAT (Spiritual Warfare and Training), Dusting off the new War College students, teaching orientation for Street Combat, winning the favour and affection of little Zion and hooking people up with Jesus. Seriously...I am so blessed. There is no other place really I'd like to be right now.

The only strange thing is the slow dawning realization that people are looking to me to lead them. I mean I know I am a leader and am capable. It's just a strange concept to get used to sometimes. But the Lord drew my attention this morning to a scripture that my friend Heather gave me recently: In your unfailing love you will lead the people you have redeemed. In your strength you will guide them to your holy dwelling. (Exodus 15:13)

I can finally see now with some perspective how this last year has prepared me for now. I can see how solitude and time spent in the dessert doesn't make you weaker or beat you down, but just like Jesus, it makes you stronger and equipped to face the warfare that lies ahead.

I'm super excited about this year that is unfolding. Last night after orientation for Street Combat (evangelism) we sent out over 30 students to hit the streets and pray with people. There was some fear and trepidation among some who were being stretched out of their comfort zones but what a blessing to come back together afterwards and find the group leading an impromptu open air and share testimonies of victory and encouragement. I was beaming and could hardly contain the joy to see a whole whack of people just full of zeal and eagerness.

It's sweet times. Oh...and Happy birthday to Danielle!

The Holy Session

2005-09-12T12:06:00.000-07:00

Today kicked off the first day of official classes for this year's session of The War College and I feel totally blessed to be a part of it all. Jonathan Evans was teaching on Spiritual Basics and this morning The Holy Session learned how to Pray the Bible by ruminating on the Word. The prayer time was EXPLOSIVE because Jon's lead up and teaching were such that we were all like horses charging to get out of the gate. It was amazing to hear 30 voices raised as we prayed the fourth chapter of Revelation. I got tingles. Good stuff. This afternoon they are doing an "Amazing Race" type activity to orient them to the layout of the city.

I think it's going to be a fun year.

On panhandling....

2005-09-10T11:28:00.000-07:00

Thanks to all who contributed to the discussion. In answer to the question posed by Travis I offer this story (and it's a true story) for further contemplation.

Last night I went through a walk in the neighbourhood with one of this year's War College students. We were checking out Chinatown and splurged on a yummy crepe filled with strawberry, banana and chocolate. On the way there we were stopped by a young woman who asked for some spare change. In the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver I have tried to maintain the policy that I would not give out cash because more often than not it's not a real help for the problem. So I responded as such, and the reply from the woman was an angry instruction that I should go and fornicate with myself. I declined the offer and walked on.

After sharing our crepe, we came to another corner and a gentleman again asked for some money to buy some food. I offered up what was left of my crepe but he wasn't interested in my half-eaten crepe. Shame, because Olivia and I thought it was delicious. We were outside a Chinese restaurant so I asked him if I could by him a meal. He agreed. We went inside and I had opportunity to meet Edward and chat with him a little bit and buy him a dish to take home. I also had a can of Pepsi in my bag which I shared with him as well. He was grateful but beyond that we have an arrangement to meet today at the Carnegie Library so he can teach me how to play chess.

Then finally, as we were coming back to our hotel rooms on Hastings, a lady was anxiously waiting to get into our building but security is pretty tight. The person she was waiting to try and see wasn't in. She looked quite distressed so I asked her if she was alright. She hesitated and responded that she wasn't alright and explained that she been down here for a few weeks and realized it wasn't where she wanted to be anymore. She needed bus fare so that she could get home. I could see the tracks in her neck and the fear in her eyes and I was pretty sure she was telling the truth when she said she wanted out. I agreed to give her bus fare but asked if I could first pray with her. She agreed. We prayed.

So...Was I scammed out of $15 for the night, and was I wrong for choosing only to help out two out of the three that each asked for something? You are entitled to an opinion...but I feel peace in my heart knowing that I was behaving in obedience, and consciously choosing to respond in compassion to those who were willing to receive it. I know that I was blessed in the giving and I pray that others were blessed in the receiving.

A different view

2005-09-06T16:21:00.000-07:00

Recently I was driving with someone in a car and we pulled up to a light. At the corner stood a man with a sign. I noticed him immediately and a myriad of thoughts began to drift through my head but none of them matched the sentiment of the driver who blurted out, "Why does someone like him need to be standing at, like...the longest light." After the light changed and we began to turn, we both noticed the lady closest to him who reached out her window and gave him what I assume was some cash. The driver I was with replied, "I guess that's why."

The whole scenario was somewhat startling to me. It was obvious that this person in need was being noticed, but not with eyes of compassion but with eyes of contempt. Contempt, I can only imagine, for being the source of stirring up the voice of conviction. A voice that can be oh so uncomfortable for those living lives of ease who would rather not have their idyllic illusions disrupted.

It is this same mind-set I suppose, that breeds similar kinds of comments upon seeing the devastation of the footage in New Orleans such as, "Look at that! There's all those people there in need, and that Bush is ignoring them while he sends billions and trillions of dollars off to the war in Iraq." or "why are the people on the television screaming out for help when they're not doing much to help themselves."

It's a myopic view.
It's a self-centered view.
It's a narrow-minded view.

It's a North American world view.

God forgive us, and help us...we know not what we do.

Alive and kicking

2005-08-31T19:26:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the delays in posting blogs. These past couple of weeks on the road have been chock full and it's been difficult to find the free time while having a computer available to borrow.

Yesterday I spent a full day at an amusement park with my two nieces and had a blast. Did a bunch of high velocity roller coasters, chilled out in the water park during peak heat hours, and eat a whole bunch of sugar. Good times. My body was still a little sore from a couple of days previous that I spent running around in knee high water at the beach, getting totally buried in the sand and a laughing my guts out during a very bumpy, but oh-so-much-fun tubing ride. It's sad but true...My aching and aging body just can't take the same punishment it used to be able to withstand. It has been commented more than once that I'm still very much a big kid at heart!

I've been seeing lots of old friends and acquaintances while I've been home and a few have been surprised that I've given up drinking. One friend is quite unsettled in some respects with my decision because she doesn't like the idea of making such permanent restrictions on life and its enjoyment. And some other friends who I figured would be most surprised by some of my lifestyle changes and the least likely to accept my choices were non-fussed and totally okay with it. I guess it's all part of debunking the myth of needing alcohol or other substances to be my source of fun, enjoyment or even part of my fulfillment in my life.

The lie is that the influence of alcohol or drugs is what frees the mind, lowers inhibitions, and in effect takes away (at least the feeling) of the restrictive forces of daily life in the grind. But the truth is that alcohol and drugs became the restrictions in my life. When I was drunk or high I was restricted from not only operating motor vehicles but from making any sort of intelligent decisions or behaving coherently. It began to have a detrimental effect on my work performance and motivation...Especially on Monday mornings. I was loud and obnoxious. Or mellow to the point of being nearly comatose and gained weight from the constant munchies. I spent exorbitant amounts of money with nothing to show for it.

I don't miss it all...Nope, not one little bit. And I think I'm having more fun sober than I ever did when slobbering drunk!

A London bridge...

2005-08-25T07:21:00.000-07:00

I've been in London, Ontario for the past few days visiting people whom I love deeply: the Gillinghams and the Dolby's. It has been a huge refreshment to discover some new elements of the blessing that comes from authentic Christian community. Geography doesn't matter, fellowship and fun are found in the people...not the places, and when you know someone deeply, they are able to speak into those deep places with truth and love. And that's pretty sweet. It has been kind of a bridge for me...as they leave Vancouver and the community that I am preparing to re-enter, it has been invaluable to be able to debrief, chat and pray.

Still no baby yet. Not that I would say this around Elaine...but she's HUGE and it's so low! It's like a basketball is going to drop out of her shirt any minute. Every day we've been speaking to her belly and calling forth little Jeremiah, but he's obviously not ready yet. Caitlyn and Hannah have both threatened to push him out. I thought it was definitely going to happen the other night when we were out seeing a movie and Elaine started having contractions but alas...no results. She continues to take out her frustrations and impatience out by chewing on ice-cubes and reading Jane Austin novels.

I continue my tour of Ontario with a trip up to what in my opinion is the most beautiful place to spend time and hang out in...Muskoka. I can hardly wait to see the lakes and trees and experience the familiarity of the places where I grew up. And more reunions with family and friends to look forward to as well.

Until the next borrowed computer...

Rotten roots...rotten fruits

2005-08-24T19:36:00.000-07:00

I spent last weekend staying with a friend and they were experiencing some plumbing problems. It is an older, more mature property and apparently the root of one of the city's trees has crushed and now blocked a drainage pipe causing a nasty backing up of drainage water into the basement. It was revealed throughout the ordeal the fact that a trees roots go down three times as deep as the height of the tree.

I've also been stayed in recent days with other friends who have trees in their backyard that is bearing fruit. Anyhoo...the whole thing has got me thinking about trees. There's a lot of significance and symbolism Biblically with respect to trees and plants and I've been hearing much through it all from God.

The most recent revelation came on Sunday as I was riding the subway to my home corps in Etobicoke. I sketched out a tree and drew in as the fruit the fruits of the Spirit as listed in Gal 5:22. And then I drew the roots below the soil and wrote the words invisible and visible on either side of the soil line. Beside the roots I wrote the word "disciplines". Just like my friends plumbing I realized that rotten roots produce some bad fruit. The application is pretty straight forward as I've begun to read Dallas Willard's Spirit of the Disciplines.

Without spiritual discipline, it is impossible to produce good fruit.

Bright lights, big city

2005-08-21T11:19:00.000-07:00

I love Toronto. I had forgotten how much I love this city. I had forgotten how many different nationalities call Toronoto home. I forgot about the diversity, the buzz, the smells, the intrigue of the people who ride the transit system.

It's a bit of a culture shock really. Trying to enter back in to an environment that in some ways feels like the furniture has slightly been rearranged since I last left but I can't quite put my finger on what's different. I don't know where to sit, or if I'm meant to sit.

I've been accussed while in this state of confusion, and transition as being judgemental. It's harsh and isn't sitting well with me. I recognize that being critical and analytical is necessary for learning and improvement but it seems in recent days that there's a blurry line between constructive criticism or analytical observation and judgement. Judgement has come to take on a negative connotation. But after looking the word up in the dictionary, I see that there are some real benefits to exercising good judgement.

I guess it really boils down to what it is all rooted and established in...Without LOVE it's all just the noisy clanging of symbols.

Transition time again...

2005-08-18T05:34:00.000-07:00

Well, another chapter ends...a new one begins.

Today is my last day in the state of Maine. It's been a great summer. I've met loads of new people, been blessed abundantly, been equipped and trained up, become more sanctified, and (I hope) impacted some people along the way with the radical, revolutionary love of Jesus. It's been good times.

Next stop is Toronto for a short visit home before heading out to take up residence once again in Vancouver's poorest postal code.

It's a surreal feeling. Packing, saying goodbye. I'm finding myself becoming more discontent with the whole goodbye thing. Each time is less enjoyable than the last. There's a strange tension between the sadness at departing and the nervous, excited anticipation for what awaits me around the corner. All part and parcel I suppose of this life of adventure as a follower a Hero God.

A huge thank you goes out to those who have made my stay here in Bangor such a memorable one and who have taken the time to provide for me, invest in me, pray for me and encourage me. I am consumed with gratitude!

I'll do my best to continue to post during this transition time, but be patient...I'm not sure how much computer access I'll have.

Bye-bye Bangor!

A relative postmodernist?

2005-08-17T08:17:00.000-07:00

Last night I went for coffee with a friend to Starbucks. We had a lengthy discussion about philosophy, theology and ultimately the essence of truth. During one point in the discussion it was observed that I might have slight tendencies toward being a relative postmodernist.

I'm not sure if that's a good or bad thing...

A day of junk

2005-08-15T15:54:00.000-07:00

Today was my last day working at the Family Store here in Bangor. Mondays are typically busy days since there is a build up of stuff to sort through from the weekend and because everyone drops off all the junk they can't sell at their garage sales for 10 cents. I could only shake my head in disbelief as I came across several boxes on the dock full of nothing but junk that were labeled FREE. If people can't give this stuff away, what makes them think we can actually sell it in a thrift store? This morning when I started work, the dumpster out back was empty. When I left tonight it was full...sigh...

During my first shift at the store back in May, I remember being overwhelmed at the sheer volume of donations that the store would get daily. I marveled also at how much was thrown away. I had a hard time with throwing stuff away. It seemed so wasteful. Today, I realized how much of a shift in my thinking has occurred since then.

How much easier would life be if we could get rid of all our emotional and spiritual junk as easy as it is to dump a box full of yard sale cast-offs onto a loading dock? Or to fill up a dumpster with it and have it hauled away. There's this weird thing about junk. People either just don't want to call it junk or have a really hard time disposing of it properly. So much of it accumulates that you no longer are able to distinguish it as junk. You start giving it pet names such as bric-a-brac or trinkets.

Junk is a lot like emotional baggage really...It isn't really that hard to get rid of once you see it for what it really is and how much clutter it creates.

Sometimes mission aches

2005-08-13T08:42:00.000-07:00

"Christianity has not so much been tried and found wanting, as it has been found difficult and left untried."
- GK Chesterson

Beware those who try to convince you that a life of discipleship or following Christ is one that can be bought with cheap grace. There is a cost and the cost is higher than most are willing to pay.

I have had conversations in recent days with a friend in the fight who is being challenged with the difficulty of living out the mission of small groups or cells among people who don't necessarily enjoy or even desire to associate with one another. It is what I have endearingly come to refer to as forced fellowship, which is what the church has been practicing far too long. It is this very malady of shallow and superficial relations that small groups are intended to overcome.

Loving and living like Jesus is difficult. In the front of my Bible I have written a quote from Cpt. Gordon Cotterill that reminds me of this so that I am not caught up in any idealistic or fantastical ideas of the lifestyle I have chosen to engage in:

"Sometimes trying to love like Christ is a pain. Sometimes living out kingdom values is a struggle. Sometimes mission aches."

Though the cost may sometimes be more than we are willing to pay, it is in those times that it becomes imperative that we not lose sight of the rewards. The reward - the hope which we profess - must be firmly grasped and understood as worth the suffering we may have to endure, in whatever form it comes; annoying people we don't like, persecution, self-sacrifice. We have to understand that the prize or reward far outweighs the cost.

If we have not this hope, this foundational faith...then it is all too likely we will entertain thoughts of quitting, giving up or giving in. This would be perilous.

So I encourage those who are reading this and who may also be struggling in Christian mission: hold steadfast to the hope which you profess. Persevere through the trials and difficulties and be encouraged today to keep fighting the good fight.

I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. (Romans 8:18)

Interesting Revelations

2005-08-12T08:34:00.000-07:00

The past few days have been filled with revelations...Not only because I have been following a radio broadcast of a study of the book of Revelation, but also on a more personal level I have been blessed with my own divine revelations (more on that later perhaps).

Here's something interesting that this radio preacher guy Dr. David Jeremiah pointed out in studying Rev 4 and 5: Angels can't sing. Does that shake up your preconceived notions? You might be saying to yourself, that's ridiculous...All those Christmas pageants and various depictions of celestial beings as an angelic choir can't be wrong! But the preacher does back up his claim with Scripture, pointing out that both in Luke 2 and in various places in Revelations it makes a distinction that the angels SAY but the redeemed saints SING. This is somewhat of an unsettling thought for me because I don't sing very well, but apparently we're the ones who are going to be holding up the fort of sung worship in Heaven. Oh my!

This preacher goes on to explain that music is made up of major and minor chords and it is the minor chords which denote emotion in music. The howling wind, the sound of the ocean...Even in nature emotive sounds are distinguished by minor chords. The angels in heaven can proclaim the truth about the redemption of the Lamb and speak of his worthiness in the doxology with loud voices, but they can't sing about the truth of redemption and salvation because those angels, having never fallen, do not know the experience, the sheer joy or magnitude of gratitude that belongs only to the redeemed. They don't know minor chords with respect to salvation.

I don't know how relevant this truth is...But it's an interesting concept and one that has certainly got me thinking this morning. And maybe even wanting to practice up more on my singing!

I ain't nothing mulch

2005-08-10T07:00:00.000-07:00

Okay...I think the writer's slump is over. This morning I was really pumped up about a radio broadcast that I heard about the throne of heaven in Revelations. So I figured what better day to pray the theophanies. And I'm not going to lie, there are things about those visions of Ezekiel, Daniel and John that I just can't for the life of me visualize. But as I was praying and crying out for understanding, something happened. I had a moment. I saw my own teeny weeny vision. I was praying and I was expressing to God how I've been feeling lately like dead wood. And I heard a voice (not like rushing waters but more like the still small voice) say: "yep, that's what's happening. More death."

And then I saw myself as rotten dead wood around a tree. But the tree was the Tree of Life. This was an encouragement.

So yeah...I'm realizing anew that I'm nothing mulch, but God still has a purpose and a plan.

Another song...

2005-08-08T12:09:00.000-07:00

Since I have no words lately of my own to inspire...I share once again the words of another song that has been speaking to me lately. The lyrics and music were written by Danielle Strickland and you can listen to it at armybarmy.com

Break Me
I'd rather have no eyes at all
Than to be blind to those in need
I'd rather no will at all
Than to keep acting selfishly

Lord...Oh Lord, Break Me

I'd rather have no time at all
Than to forget eternity
I'd rather have no gifts at all
Than have the glory go to me

Lord...Oh Lord, Break Me

I'd rather see gold turned to stone
Than to be turned toward greed
I'd rather find no peace at all
Than to be filled with complacency

Lord...Oh Lord, Break Me

I'd rather have no bread at all
Than to forget and not give thanks
I'd rather have no love at all
Than to have tasted but not drank

Lord...Oh Lord, Break Me

Yeah...so that's my prayer lately if you care to join me.

My heart's song...

2005-08-06T10:32:00.000-07:00

In the Silence
Tired of telling you, you have me
When I know you really don't
Tired of telling you I'll follow
When I know I reallly won't
Cause I'd rather stand here speechless
With no great words to say
If my silence is more truthful
And my ears can hear how to walk in your way

In the silence
You are speaking
In the quiet I can feel the fire
And it's burning, burning deeply
Burning all that it is that you desire to be silent, in me

Oh Jesus can you hear me?
My soul is screaming out
And my broken will cries teach me
What your Kingdom's all about
Unite my heart to fear you,
To fear your holy name
And create a life of worship
In the spirit and truth of your loving ways

Dazed and Confused

2005-08-04T07:07:00.000-07:00

That's how I've been feeling the last few days. I have been wrestling with a question that I can't seem to come to a definitive conclusion about. The question is this: How do I pursue holiness and still effectively engage the culture? Are the two in conflict with one another?

Tuesday night after our cell group a few of us watched the movie Saved. If you haven't seen the flick, basically it's a parody of zealous Christianity and makes a point about forcing our convictions or beliefs onto others. I laughed my head off, but kept feeling like it was inappropriate to do so. I made the observation later that your reactions to films or media in general can be strongly influenced depending on who you view with.

What was interesting about Tuesday is that prior to watching the movie, we had a cell group meeting where the discussion was sexual purity: what is the acceptable standard for Christians? The general conclusion was that it boils down to personal conviction. Some felt that whatever you wouldn't do in front of your pastor, you probably shouldn't be doing. A few of us were willing to share from a more personal perspective of what some of our convictions were and why. But at the end of the whole discussion, there didn't seem to be clear resolution. Or at least not one I was completely satisfied with. The prevailing attitude seemed to be, you have your convictions or beliefs, and I have mine. Bless you, good-night.

It was the same with the movie Saved. The concluding message seemed to say, whatever you believe to understand as truth is acceptable. It seemed to me that it also contained a skewed message of tolerance. But maybe I need to watch it again...with a different audience, in order to see a fresh perspective.

I'm beginning to wonder if perhaps I'm seriously lacking in my understanding of postmodernism, the emerging church and multiculturalism...All things that have been coming up for me as I attempt to model cell-based community into a traditional environment. Set apart but still a part; the same but different; honour tradition but don't become a slave to it; not autonomous or individual, but collective; deconstruction to that you can reconstruct. ARRRRrrrgh!!

The more I know, the less I understand.

Psalm 1

2005-08-02T10:10:00.000-07:00

Commissioner William Francis preached this past Sunday on this text and there was much that stuck out to me as bloggable. Travis noted the same thing yesterday if you have read his blog. But he couldn't really remember what Bill preached on since he was so enraptured by the NY Staff Band, and it seems, swept away to that magical place in his mind that we have come to refer to as Travisland. So that was what I figured disqualified him from blogging on it, that's all.

It was verse 3 that was particularly speaking to me...

And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper (KJV)

Commissioner Francis hypothesized that the tree referred to here was likely a date palm which has since become extinct in the place where it once flourished around Judea. He also pointed out an interesting fact about some seeds that were excavated from the archeological site of Herod's palace...and after over 2000 years, these seed have been planted and the once native date palm plant is growing again and being restored in Israel. It's a really cool story. Prophetic sign? I don't know, but it certainly peaks my interest. Read more!

One thing I noted as interesting from the article (not mentioned in the preach BTW), only female trees produce fruit. Isn't that something Riefer? Something boys trees can't do. So yeah, I want to be a date palm!

A new twist on worship

2005-08-01T10:27:00.000-07:00

So, this past weekend we headed down to Coastal Maine for the Old Orchard Beach Camp Meetings. Brand new facility, state of the art outdoor pavilion. This is a place rich with Salvation Army heritage. Every general except the first two have preached there. A river runs through the place apparently. Not a real river, a spiritual river.

Many things challenged me being at this "old time" event. The first thing that struck me Sat. night was looking out at the crowd and seeing a sea of red epaulets. I turned to Doug and asked, "where are all the unsaved?" In a rare moment of true wit (without the usual corniness), Doug replied, "I dunno. There's no special seating section for them." Good retort. But my point was...What was the point of these meetings?? How effective were they in reaching the lost? How relevant is all this really?

But then I realized I had to let go of that kind of judgment. A key theme that ran through the event was that of "homecoming" and with that came a lot of nostalgia. The Camp Meetings have become a divisional event. A place for Salvationists of every rank to gather, encourage and edify, reconnect and unite.

There was also the reminder that the God who was, and who is, and who is to come is the God of yesterday, today and tomorrow. So there was a good effort made to honour the past, acknowledge the present and look toward the future and worship a God who is timeless and eternal, relevant to all ages. One way this was accomplished was with the various expressions of worship. We sang old hymns with the accompaniment of USA East Songsters and New York Staff Band. Quality musicianship, no question there.

Again, there was a temptation towards judgment of the things we hold dear as Army tradition, a nostalgia for the good old days when the better days are still ahead. I was only finally able to overcome that spirit of judgment when we sang "Days of Elijah". A contemporary song being sung with a traditional style with brass and songsters accompaniment. My first inclination was to be, "oh my...this sounds bizarre, like an elevator music version of a Guns and Roses original". I thought of the older generation of detractors who complain that we are abandoning good theology with some of the contemporary music being so repetitive and lacking depth. And then I thought of musicians like Phil Laeger, Josh Ivany and Danielle Strickland who are taking old salvo songs and giving them modernized tunes in the original spirit of The Army as answer to such complaints. Yet the very same complainers remark on hearing such modern renditions (same lyrics, just new tunes), "I still don't like it." And then I had to smile. I was just as guilty in my attitude of hearing a new song sung with an old style.

If I expected the generation previous to embrace the contemporary versions of old classics without disdain, then wasn't it up to me to not do the same when it presents in reverse? The old being made new and the new being made old. I closed my eyes and entered into worship, determined to force myself in if I had to. But I didn't have to. I very quickly appreciated the truth that the Lord makes ALL things new. As the majestic sounds of the brass combined with the voices of the songsters and the congregation in harmonious unison reached a powerful crescendo...I could almost visualize Jesus coming back on the clouds. I could see him being hailed as Conquerer and King!

These worship wars are not about content...They are about style. The fact remains that there are many ways and diverse forms of worship and we would all do well, I think, to simply learn to appreciate those various expressions instead of being boxed in by our own preferred "styles" of worship.

Hasten the day, Lord.

An invaluable resource indeed!

2005-07-30T06:45:00.000-07:00

Stirred by recent questions, last night I was reading through the O&R for soldiers and came across some very interesting tidbits. Much that is bloggable. But this one in particular goes out to Travis. Dude! Shave that beard and cut your hair! You are in violation of O&R's!!!

Chap.XI, Sect.7, The Care of the Body states, "The Salvationist will be concerned about personal hygiene, realizing that cleanliness is both healthy and a reflection of the Christian standards he has embraced."

I would contend that this means that as a Salvationist you should be concerned about chewing parts of your 'stache with your food.

BAaaAAAA Haaa. HAAA! ha. oh stop! Jokes. Who says being a Salvationist means you have to abandon your sense of humour. Haven't come across that one yet!

:)