Dreams Unlocked

HARD day at work - got a million things done - felt good to be so productive. had several e-mails and phone calls of people wanting to refer their non-christian friends to first@night. that is encouraging, except that we will sort of slow down in the summer - have maybe a couple services a month and have more social events. had lunch with my good buddy greg laing. greg is a pastor at point grey community church. he is a fine fellow. always encouraging. went into starbucks to see if they would put up my da vinci code publi lecture poster -THEY SAID NO!!!! i was shocked - this is the starbucks across the street fromt he church - i go in there almost everyday. they have put up my psters for other events in the past INCLUDING a former da vinci code poster. oh well - i'm sure other starbucks will put the poster up - it looks pretty cool. one of the tag-lines for the film is "seek the truth" - i want to add in my brackets after - (keep looking) i think we will have a large turn...

today i felt like crying. i met with a fragile young man. he was so thin his skin looked transluscent. he had been abused a lot in his life. he said he breaks down crying for no reason. sometimes he can not speak at all. he looked so worn,like a little puppy that had been caught in the rain. i just wanted to scoop him up and hug him and let him feel god's love flow through me to him. i gave him a bible and read a psalm to himand prayed for him. then we walked down to the counselling center where i fixed him up with a series of counselling sessions. he will benefit from people who can help him far better then i can. BROKEN BROKEN BROKEN. that's where we all are. we put on facades of cleanlines, professionalism and respectability which act like patches to cover up the places we are weak. i am broken. you are broken. get used to it and start to live more honestly.

just got back from a couple days in seattle. i checked out 2 churches - 1 was VERY emergent and the other was contemporary w. some emergent aesthetic to it. church of the apostles and karen ward are well known in emergent circles in the U.S. it is featured in "emerging churches" by gibbs/bolger. they have created a nice funky, artsy sacred space in an old church. they had participatory worship and worship stations set up around the sanctuary. the second church is called sancuary. they meet in a community center and have a lot of young couples and singles. fairly straightforward worship followed by a thoughtful message. had a long chat w. the pastor after - he felt that church of the apostles is the only truly emergent church in seattle - all other "emergent" churches were just contemporary worship services w. candles. the thing that stood out to me was the need for "high touch". as the pastor of a church i rarely have the chance to visit other churches any...

As I started my retreat I had a real yearning that I would be able to share something I had been struggling with. I didn't know who it would be but I had a sense that God would lead me to the right person soon. I was seeking an older, wiser seasoned ministry veteran who would counsel me and pray for me. Well, did God have something in store for me!!! So today I had a real gift from God. I mentioned yesterday that Leighton Ford was at the same retreat center as me. (Leighton Ford is Billy Graham's brother-in-law. He was an associate evangelist for 30 yrs. with him. He was then the director of the Lausanne Committee of World Evnagelization. Now he devotes his time to mentoring young leaders around the world. See www.leightonfordministries.org) Today I had the honor of having him mentor ME. So this morning I met him and he asked ME if we could chat later - shouldn't that be the other way around? So I go up and do some of my praying, meditiating and journalling alone in my roo...

i am at my quarterly personal retreat on bowen island at the beautiful reivendell retreat center. i arrived at about 7:00 and have just been getting settled. tomorrow i will set aside the day to pray, meditate on scripture and write about what i sense god is doing in my soul. i found out tonight that leigton ford is staying here with a group of 10 pastors he is mentoring! i'll be able to meet him tomorrow which is pretty cool. will keep you posted on how it goes.

its hot like august in saskatchewan. too darn hot. had lunch with a scottish pastor who is in vancouver on sabbatical. real nice guy. his father died 2 weeks ago which is quite sad. chatted about the emergent church. he told me not to trust brian mclaren! reading paggit's book on spiritual transformation. he says that we have moved from an education model to a relational model in our churches. that is, we used to believe that transformation would come through educating people through preaching, whereas today transformation comes through relationships, community. i think i would agree to a point. we still need to have strong exegetical preaching to give us the basis of our faith. but we also need genuine, authentic relationships wherein that teaching can be lived out in "real time". saw an overweight construction worker walking down the street with a white t-shirt with red felt lettering that read "as the creator intended". loved it.

it was really hot today - like 26 or something. had a couple of meetings at church - all went well. sa the doctor as well. yesterday we were walking home from church and saw this guy hitting on a girl who was sitting at the bus stop. that is all fine and good but the back of his sweatshirt said "rocking retard". i'm not sure that is the message you want to convey when trying to impress a member of the fairer sex. i think i am beginning to understand what it means to walk by faith, because that is what i am living righ tnow. to walk by sight means to live your life with all the external trappings of security in place: finances, relationships, etc. to walk by faith means that you will keep ministrering, even when those items of security are being withdrawn.

well the last couple of days have been quite up and down. tuesday morning i got word from a major donor organization that we were going to be awarded 25% of what we had requested for first@night. this was a major blow as we were banking on this particular grant to keep us going past may. on tuesday i was really down as i thought this was the end of the road of first@night. this seemed to be the final closed door in a long series of doors being shut in our face. i thought back to other "better" offers i had received at other churches that i had turned down, thinking that this is where god had called us. had i mis-read god's leading? i was starting to well up with regret. then wednesday afternoon the head of church planting for our denomination dropped by. he helped us draft a new budget for june-december 2006 that kept us afloat. this changed our spirits considereably as we saw that there were enough resources to keep us going for the rest of the year. this whole thing has...

had an incredible first@night last night. over 100 people showed up to hear mark buchanan speak. what was amazing was that these people showed up with absolutely no marketting or advertizing push. normally when i have a special speaker i put up 25-50 posters throughout the downtown core. yet without this, we had our biggest crowd ever - people were standing at the back and the sides. today i took as my last official vacation day. did a little bit of work from home. went and saw mission impossible III this afternoon with phil. tom all is forgiven. the crazy scientology crap. jumping on the couch cuz you were so in love with whats-her-name. saying medicine is unneccsary all is forgiven - this movie rocks!!! i really enjoyed it. good action, etc. etc. i feel i'm in my own mission impossible trying to keep first@night going through the summer with no income!!! also reading "simple christian" by tom wright. i think wright is one of the most gifted christian writers right now. ...

some images of tofino

Last night I graduated from Regent College with my MDIV. It was truly a momentous occaison after 4 yrs. of papres, exams and book reviews came to a triumphant end. the ceremony was so amazing. I guess the high point was after our president, Rod Wilson put my academic hood on (see above), he shook my hand and pulled me in and said, "Thank you for all you've done for us." In the above pic you can also see Bruce Waltke to the left and James Houston above. I felt a lump in my throat and thanked him and walked off the stage feeling strangely warmed. My parents are here to celebrate. There was also some friends from First Baptist and first@night and other special friends in my life. I feel happy. Some close friends (they know who they are - n&j - read yesterdays post and gifted me with $60 in their grad card for me last night! thanks!!! Today I went for staff prayer in the morning where I was given a painting of Vancouver which was quite nice of them. As I prayed I recalled...

someone stole $60 from me tonight at church its a long sad story.