Dreams Unlocked

Sophia makes a move. Got in today at 3:00. Did some errands. Had Japanese tonight. Felicia and I watched "Once" tonight. This film has a wopping 98% on Rotten Tomatoes . It's a modern day musical - but unlike any musical you've seen before. I liked it quite a bit. It was unlike any other movie I have ever seen before (and this is someone who saw over 100 films this past year). I've been working on my Top 10 movies of 2007, and so far only have 7! But the last 2 films I saw will probably sneak in there. Will post my list on here, and Facebook when it is done. It's nice to be back in Vancouver, my home.

Had a really great Christmas day yesterday. Gifts, food and Adam's first time tobogganing! I got what I wanted: the 20 yr. anniversery deluxe version of the Joshua Tree. It contains a re-mastered edition of the JT, a cd of rare and unreleased songs, a dvd of a Paris concert from '87 and a really cool book about the album. The Joshua Tree is my favourite U2 album. Achtung Baby is better produced and is many fan's favourite album. But, Joshua Tree changed my life. The first U2 album I ever had was War. I have bought almost every U2 album since, on the day it was released. But Joshua Tree is one of those albums that keeps re-surfacing at different times in my life. I have listened to it all the way through several times. Today we took it easy. Tonight Felicia and I went to see "I am Legend." It was about average.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!!

There are some people that you click with instantly - there is a chemistry that is there that is inexplicable. There are other people where it takes a little time to build up that sort of instant familiarity. And then there are still others with whom you can never ever ever break through to - its not animosity, it's more like ambivalence. You have conversations that are punctuated with extended awkward silences. Well, this evening I had the warm pleasure of hanging out with some friends that fit firmly in the first category of friends. The Brotens have been long time family friends. I have many happy memories of Pioneer Camp, and just hanging out at their house with other Camp people. The Pierces are other long time family friends - today I only got to see Daryl and Valencie. Daryl was in my wedding party and is currently an up and coming musician. Check him out here. We drove to Saskatoon to see Felicia's family. It was fun showing off the kids. Back to good friends: The Brote...

Well, we certainly felt the cold bite of a Saskatchewan winter today. Standing on a street corner in downtown Regina feeling the wind rip my flesh off - I was reminded of why I live somewhere with a much much warmer clime. Went to this amazing spa for massages with Flea today. We had a duo massage with heated massage beds! Talk about luxury. Except for the fact that my therapist didn't turn mine on! We were scheduled to have a photographer come in and do some professional photographs today, but she got the days mixed up and didn't show up. We took some pics ourselves because we were all dressed up. Then my siblings and their spouses and me and my spouse headed out for dinner together. Went to this cool restaurant called Zest - the quality was as good as anything in Vancouver (including Vancouver prices). The decor could do with a bit sprucing up. I had duck, and was reminded of why I love duck so much - its rich and fatty! By the way - it's almost 2 AM and I still can't...

Took Adam to a pediatrician today. He's going to be ok. Then picked up some A&W - man those are tasty burgers! We went to a Starbucks at Chapters to pick up some coffee beans. The beans at my parents were in their house since Chretian was first elected. A big part of any vacation for me is reading. Consequently, I usually pack and over-pack a lot of books. On this trip I deliberately did not pack any books on the missional church, church leadership or leadership in general. This is because in Vancouver, I usually start my day by reading a passage of scripture, praying and then reading one of these types of books. I believe part of my job is to self-educate myself on current ecclesial trends, societal trends and as much as possible on leadership and management. Therefore, I view the reading of these books as "work". Since I am on vacation, I don't want to read those books and get back into "work mode". So, I brought a couple of...

Got into Regina at 3:30. Asha (my sister) picked us up. My Dad also showed up -so we had an entourage of 2 minivans to whisk us off. I was amazed at how well both the kids traveled. Adam didn't complain at all. Sophia would cry for a bit and then would go straight to sleep. We are here until the 28th. Dilip and Gillian fly in tomorrow - then it's just one big Ninan Christmas spectacle!

The Ninan kids. Felicia and I went for dinner tonight. We try to go for dinner every month - we actually end up going out only every 4 months or so. I'm a bit of a foodie, so we try to go to some of the more interesting restaurants in town: indian, vietnamese, etc. Tonight we went to a sort of frenchie restaurant. I tried Arctic Char for the first time. It's sort of like Salmon. It was amazing. I asked the waiter what Arctic Char was. He launched into his explanation, which concluded with the fact that they were a fresh water fish. When he said that. I wanted to ask my budding Jaques Cousteau what there mating habits were. When he brought the deserts, he went to major effort to position one of the deserts just right - he kept turning and turning it. Felicia had to restrain herself from simultaneously grabbing his hand and bursting out laughing. This morning I went to the library and mapped out January to May for our church. I also made 5 goals for the church - now I have to ma...

The Ninans and the Clause. This looks like he is actually skating! Yesterday Adam sang with a choir of little kids at First Baptist Church. Adam was placed in the back because he has the loudest voice. Unfortunately a girl with a big head was blocking him and another little boy, so I didn't get very good video of him. After Adam finished, I went down to the nursery to check on the kids. My friend Josh caught me and we chatted a bit. Josh is the youth pastor at First Baptist. We also went to Regent together. It was good catching up, discussing the joys and challenges of ministry. I had a 2 hr. window to tighten up some of the stuff for our Urban Sanctuary Christmas party. Then at 3 I rushed over to catch up with Dennis. Dennis goes to a local Bible school. He is interested in interning with us at some point. Then we had a leadership meeting. Today, we didn't have much planning to do. As a leadership team we are reading "Shaping of Things To Come" by Alan Hirsch and Mic...

It was one of those days that reminds you this is holiday season. Had a coffee w. the fam. at our favourite Starbucks. Then headed down to Robson for some Christmas shopping and exchanges. All the usual suspects: Gap, Banana Republic, Lululemon, etc. etc. Then I got a haircut - the salon I go to was having an "open house". There was tons of food and a tasty punch to enjoy. After that I checked in with the gift wrappers from our church. Sad, but Saturday was totally dead for the gift wrapping. It was pretty disappointing. Then Felicia and some girlfriends were going out for someone's birthday. I had the kids all to myself - it was.... eventful. One thing I learned is my daughter is pretty tough - she fell over and hit her head twice and never cried!

There is a Costco 2 blocks from our apartment. It is the first urban Coscto in the world - the second is in Manhattan. But when you walk inside it, it feels like every other suburban costco in the world. I was there on Saturday and there were several gay couples. I thought it was such an anomaly! Most gay couples are pretty hip, well dressed and cosmopolitan. Somehow seeing them walking with big tubs of Kirkland Signature Cashews just didn't fit. Oh well, I guess they like to get good deals, just like me. Urban Sanctuary is working in conjunction with the Yaletown Business Improvement Association to offer free gift wrapping in Yaletown. Donations are given to the Empty Stocking Fund. The YBIA is a great organization and I hope to work with them again soon.

Derek has written a good response to my post from yesterday - please check it out. By now, you will have heard about the tragic shootings at the YWAM base and New Life Church in Colorado. Does anyone else think it is wierd that there was an armed security guard at the New Life Church? The guard is a hero, as the killer had lots of ammo. and could have killed many more, before he was stopped. But, I just find it disturbing that a church would have armed security guards. But, I guess as our culture grows more violent, we need to protect all public spaces. Saw the film "For the Bible tells me so", which is a documentary on how Christian families deal with having a homosexual child. It ended up swinging pretty hard at James Dobson and Focus on the Family. 3 observations of the film: 1. Had some well known Christian homosexual apologists who presented the best defenses for the compatibility of their faith and homosexual behaviour. All the usual liberal defenses are used. 2. Post-...

I am quite fascinated with the mega-church phenomena, especially the United States version of them. Canadian mega-churches are kind of the poorer cousins of the American mega-churches. We generally don't have the population and resources to build up the huge sanctuaries and sprawling campuses of our sisters and brothers to the south. The title of this post is intentionally provocative. I have attended a few churches in the states that would qualify in the "mega" category. I have been to many that are at least 1000, and a handful that were over 10 000. I have been to Saddle Back which is pretty big. The reason I say the mega churches are anti-community is because it is impossible to be a community as described in the New Testament when you do not know the majority of the people you are worshipping with. I suspect it is impossible to know the majority of people in a church in the thousands. The fact that we create "small" groups within our churches attests to th...

All bandaged up. I hit the 600th entry yesterday. Cool. One of my biggest nightmares came true today - I cut my finger on a table saw!!!! I'm not missing a digit - so I'm not going to be like that wierd uncle at reunions who the kids are scared of. But I did lop quite a bit of skin off. I took some pics, but they are honestly too gory to post - it looked like someone shot part of my finger off. After waiting an hour in emergency, the doctor just said they were going to bandage it up - no stitches. I felt like such a baby. The girl next to me in emerg. had 3rd degree burns on her right hand. We were sitting right across from each other awaiting medical attention so we started chatting. Turns out she is the pastry chef at Joe Fortes . Felicia and I have eaten there before. I had a beer on their patio just recently. She placed her hand down on some recently torched creme brulee. It was pretty bad. They bandaged me up. I got home and got right back on the saw! I'm so bra...

That last post may have been the most boring blog entry ever. Until this one.

Out apartment resembles a bombed out home in Kosovo. We are putting hard-wood floors in... and we're doing it ourselves. Our friend Juan has all the tools. Today we ripped out all the carpet - it only took a couple of hours. Tomorrow we put the hard-wood and insultation down. I hope to put some before and after pic tomorrow. Reading some Brueggemann these days - I really like him. He's sort of like a liberal Eugene Peterson. Some Christmas things are coming together. Can't wait to see the fam. in a couple of weeks.

S&S looking very serious against the darkness. It dumped snow today in Vancouver. And apparently all across Canada. This led us to cancel Urban Sanctuary for the first time! It was just too dangerous to drive tonight. So... my carefully orchestrated Advent service has to be shelved for another time. I did post a brief video devotional on our church's facebook site. This is also left us with a free evening. We decided to order pizza and watch ratatouille. This is an animated film, but I'm not sure if many kids really liked it. It seemed it was written more at an adult level. It had it's moments but did not live up to the raving reviews it recieved. Earlier we went out and played in the snow with a family from another building. It was really fun as we threw snowballs and made a snowman together. Today was quite a grey day -I felt like I was living in an Eastern European country still under Communist rule. As I walked in the snow and slush, amidst the greyness, I felt ...

Sophia and me. Writing my blog is usually the last thing I do before going to bed. Unfortunately, I have been soooo tired lately that I have been going to bed before having time to write on this thing. So now I'm going to try to write in the mornings. This week: lot of admin. stuff related to the church. Finished "imitation of christ" which was very very good. Started on a Brueggemann book - Brueggemann is someone I consider a mentor to the emergent church - some may consider him liberal. He provides an excellent corrective to contemporary americanized evangelicalism. Preparing for a couple of advent services coming up.

The spiritual gifts define the very essence of the church for the Pauline corpus and beyond the New Testament. In order to exercise these gifts, church members need to recognize, affirm, test each other's exercising of the gifts in the arena's of Christ's body. This requires that we know one another. Therefore, the exercise of one's gifts will become more difficult the larger and more impersonal the church becomes. To facilitate largeness, however, we often try to administer systems to funnel people into their giftedness. We mass administer Myers-Briggs personality type and skill profile tests. Yet this misunderstands and changes the very functions of the gifts in community. Gifts are more then just one's inherent talent slots or personality traits best suited to a particular task. They are supernaturally endowed capacities to be discovered within a living body of Christ. The mass administration of trait analyses is one more capitulation to modernity by evangelicali...

I have seen 2 very heavy films lately: No Country for Old Men and Before the Devil Knows You're Dead. No Country is the latest Coen brothers film. The brilliant writing/directing team which has brought us Fargo, The Big Lebowski, and Blood Simple, among others. Well, their latest offering might be their oddest yet. Based on a Cormac McCarthy novel, this film is a snap-shot of the degeneration of America. Well acted and good directing - but many difficult scenes to take in - leaves you scratching your head after. Before the Devil - this is a film whose previews and reviews are completely misleading - I thought this film was about a bank robbery - a crime thriller like Heist or Inside Man. This film was the most depressing thing I have ever seen - completely nihlistic - DO NOT SEE THIS FILM. It was brutal. My best buddy and his wife are in town for a week of r&r from Calgary. Went for dinner with them and a few others tonight. Like an idiot, I forgot my wallet!!! I hope to pay so...

Amy spoke last Sunday at church - she rocked the house. Spoke very very well. Continuing to process Gatineau - reflecting and praying on this whole crazy church planting journey. I spent some time this morning with a church planter who launched Sept. 2006 - they have grown from 90 to 400 in that short time. They are also doing very well financially. I was in awe at their "success". But..... I am not called to do what they are doing, in the way they do it. I am called to where God has called me. One of our biggest struggles this coming year will be financial. Even if I go to part time, we will still need to raise substantial funds to pay me part time. FAITH BABY!!!

I am reading "The Imitaiton of Christ" by Thomas A Kempis. It is right up there with Augustine's Confessions, as an absolute classic in Christian spirituality which should be read by all Christians. I will be excerpting bits of it on the blog from time to time as I read through this seminal work. Here's the first: " Who has a fiercer struggle than he who strives to conquer himself? Yet this must be our chief concern - to conquer self, and by daily growing stronger than self, to advance in holiness." "In the day of judgment we shall not be asked what we read but what we did, not how well we spoke, but how well we lived."

Today was pretty good. Ed Stetzer spoke again - and was pretty good again. Cam Roxburgh - my church planting coach, and all around fantastic guy gave a very potent message out of 1 Peter 2 on the identity of the church. I have to say - I think Church Planting Canada is the most exciting thing happening in our nation right now. Well - I'm tired so hopefully I can have a more substantial post tomorrow.

It's 1:15 AM - why am I still up? Why, to blog, of course! This morning Barry Boucher shared about the spiritual heritage of Canada, focusing on a lot of Christians in the history of our nation. I was quite alarmed that no mention was made of the grievous sins made in the name of God by colonial missionaries. Had some fantastic chats with some other pastors and church planters. Went to Parliament Hill to pray. Also went to the Canada House of Prayer. Quite an amazing ministry - a beautiful home run by people who just want to keep praying for our nation and its leaders. Excellent fund raising seminar from a very inspiring Southern Baptist church planter - Rick Lamothe. Got some great ideas about how to better fund our ministry - "If God gives the vision, he will also give the provision." Then tonight Ed Stetzer rocked the house. What a blessing he was as he gave a straighforward message on the mission of the church from 2 Cor. 5. Stetzer is a very gifted communicator, and ...

2 missional dudes trying to get it done. (I couldn't straighten this pic out - symbolic?) Had a really full day with Alan Hirsch. Alan is the author of some seminal works on the missional church - check out his blog on my side-bar. It's actually a fairly complete web-site. I think Hirsch's thinking is completely revolutionary. He is now consulting globally - he has even spoken to the leadership at Willow Creek! The book Shaping Things To Come is the best book to help orient you to the missional church conversation. If you are in ministry in the western world, I highly recommend you read this book. In fact the entire leadership team at Urban Sanctuary is reading through the book this year. His latest book is "Exiles". By examining the missionary explosions of the early church and the current church in China, Hirsch extrapolates characteristics of missional movements that are transferable to various contexts. This stuff is dynamite. I can't express how...

I am in a super sized hotel room in Gatineau Quebec. I am here for a national church planting conference. They hold these every 2 years across Canada. I went to the last one in Toronto. This is where I really got to know some of the leaders and proponents of church planting in my denomination. This time I have brought 3 other people from Urban Sanctuary: Amy, Spencer and Brent are all here to catch the vision. Should be a good time: Ed Stetzer and Alan Hirsch are both here. Will keep you posted. Trauma on the flight: The overly make-upped flight attendent dropped a bottle of water on my tray. A can of coke and 2 cups of coffee were all over my jeans, socks and shoes. Now this was inconvenient, but what irked me was her sort of nonchalant attitude about it - like this sort of thing always happens. She got me some soda water and some cloths -but dude I was soaked. So I went into the washroom and changed my jeans and socks - which was an acrobatic feat in itself. She never even offered...

Got back into Vancouver yesterday. It is nice to be back among car horns and traffic. Congestion. Spent most of today cobbling together a sermon, which I now realize might be far too long. Daryl Pierce is performing an acoustic set tomorrow night. As a result, I should probably tighten up the sermon down to like 10 minutes. Went to the doctors. It was a beautiful day - bright sunshine and warm. Watched Reign on Me with F. tonight. I had been looking forward to this film - I had used the trailer to illustrate human alienation once. The film ended up being quite a disappointment - there were a few nice moments - but it just was not very cohesive. There was a scene where Don Cheadle and his wife are doing a 1000 piece puzzle. I started to wonder who does puzzles? And, once you do a puzzle - do you actually put it away and do it again someday? I am very suspicious of this whole puzzle industry. I mean, I guess old people and convicts are putting together Monets or nature scenes. But, what...

I know - we missed day 4 - sorry. Today I got to meet with Eddie Gibbs in a small group setting. It was cool - especially to hear older pastors of established churches reflect on the missional church. Our denomination is definitely veering in the missional direction -which is exciting for me as Urban Sanctuary is definitely developing as a missional community. I had the afternoon off, so we headed into the town for some window shopping. I met up with an old Alliance bible school buddy of mine: James Wheeler. James is an associate pastor at an Alliance church in Calgary. Confession -tonight Felicia and I went on a date together. (We missed the session). I have sort of worked out my spacebar issues - but you notice the big gaps - the spacebar stays stuck until I start typing the next word.

My spacebar button is screwed up -I think all the sticky liquids i have spilled onit have finally wtecked itcompletely - which is why this lookslike adam wrote it. The pastor's conference started tonight. Eddie Gibbs spoke-Eddieis oneoftheforemost authorities ontheemergent/missional churchinthe world. Ihaveheard andmethimbefore -fantastic guy. My mom ishere -IpickedherupinCalgary -shehasgraciosuly volunteered to dochildcare forusagain thisyear. Her room adjoins ours-buthers isquitepalataial! Itishuge andhasway moreamenities thenours!!! butshedeserves it. This post isstarting tolooklikesomethingoutofaDouglas coupland novel. I'll try tofix thespacebar.

We moved to the hotel where the conference is. This is a hotel that looks like a castle - it is very nice and have a great spa and pool. Going to the spa is just about the most relaxing thing a person can do. I was laying in the mineral pool and I really felt God telling me it is ok to rest. I find that we live very driven lives - we are driven to perform, succeed and achieve. I live with that pressure almost daily. Last week was very tiring with three major events put on. This time away couldn't have come at a better time. I'm trying to stay away from e-mail and facebook - but it is HARD!!! Rest - anyways, like I said, sometimes we need to pull back and let our shoulders droop, and escape the driving pull of our culture.

Drove for 12 hours yesterday. Between Revelstoke and here, the high-way was horrible - snowy and windy. Checked into our hotel - turned out some friends from Vancouver who now live in Calgary happened to be in Banff last night - met them for dinner and now the whole family is going to meet them for brunch. Listened to a fantastic sermon by Alistair Begg on expository preaching - He's one of those guys who is hanging on to this classical way of bringing for the word - no time for narrative, or anything else that is trendy. His message rang so true to me - we need to be careful exegetes and expositors of God's Holy Word. That is our task as preachers. We are not entertainers, comedians, motivational speakers or self-help gurus. We are connectors - we connect the world of Israel, Jesus and the prophets with the world of ipods, lattes and designer clothing.

Halloween!!! Rocking the Open Table Well, it's been quite a busy week on the Urban Sanctuary front. Sunday: Open Table. Real success - made lots of contacts in our building. Am still running into people that I met that night. Tuesday: Volunteered at shelter. Lots of fun. I served tea and coffee. Wednesday: Set up our table along the Trick or Treat route in Yaletown. We rented a helium tank and gave helium balloons to the kids, w some gum attached and a little not wishing them a happy halloween from Urban Sanctuary, w. our web-site on it. When the balloons ran out we gave out candy - whole chocolate bars! Not just the little Halloween bars. We gave out 100 balloons and 100 chocolate bars - next year I think we will plan for 400 balloons and no candy - the kids get candy everywhere, and the balloons were a big hit. By the way - this morning I ran into Dr. Bill McEwen. Dr. Bill is the leading addiction specialist in Vancouver. This guy has a heart of gold. Here he is, he is at the cre...

Open Table is a concept that we have launched as a way to connect to the people in our buildings. It is basically just a community pot-luck. Just bring food and meet new people - the simplicity is blinding. So we had our first one tonight. I stood in the lobby a couple of nights this week and handed out flyers inviting people to come. We put up a couple of posters as well. We started at 6:00. At 5:55 I was riding the elevator and I turned to Brent and said.... what if nobody comes?!?!?!? Here, our little church community had pitched in to organize this thing - everybody giving their heart and soul.... and I was shaking at the prospect of us just staring at each other!!!! Well, by 6:10 we had 10 guests from our building!!! And the greatest thing was that everyone from Urban Sanctuary was engaged in conversation with all our neighbours!!! It was so amazing to see. I met everyone who came, and about 7 of the 10 left their contact info. for future events!!! Unreal. I am very happy with how...

An anonymous poster has asked that I delete the video of Brandon. Should I delete it? Why? Why not?

I left the apt. at about 3 this afternoon to pick up a Starbucks and run some errands. I ran into this young person outside our building. Brandon was walking out into the street. (see below- that is our apt. building right across the street at the beginning of the video). With visions of the good Samaritan running through my head, I called 911, and told them what was happening. Then I got Brandon -(I honestly could not tell if he was a guy or a girl -I'll call him a he) to sit down with me, so he wouldn't be walking into traffic. His eyes were half closed, but I did manage to talk with him a bit. The amulance showed up, and they waited for a police cruiser to help them. I went to do my stuff and when I got back I saw them helping him into the ambulance. Pray for this troubled young man. What a sad reminder of what happens when we feed the flesh and starve the spirit. It was a real reality check for me, who lives such a comfortable life.

Adam and me driving at the PNE, this summer. I am sort of connected in with Southside Community Church . This is a church that has grown into multiple congregations quite quickly. A large part of this is due to the giftedness and leadership of the lead pastor: Cam Roxburgh. (Cam is Alan Roxburgh's nephew. Alan is leading consultant on the missional church around the world.) I attend the Missional Training Network that they host. Cam is also my church planting coach. So today we had a little chat over some Tim Horton's coffee. I brought him up to speed on what was happening with Urban Sanctuary. It was the most valuable hour I have spent all month. As we chatted, I sort of looked back on the history of Urban Sanctuary. To completely bore you, here it is: Sept. 2005 - first@night starts as the evening congregation of First Baptist Church Vancouver. there is a lot of "identity confusion" about this new service - is it the evening service, an outreach program, a church pl...

So the days are getting darker -I'm thinking of investing in one of those SAD lamps - I don't really get depressed during the dark days of winter - just super tired all the time. Had an interesting afternoon - Been slowly revolving around a couple of social justice groups in the city: Faith Communities called to solidarity w. the poor and Streams of Justice . So today (now yesterday - I'm writing this on Sunday night now), there was a meeting at 10th Ave. church run by "faith groups in solidarity w. the poor". Some sharing from the homeless, along w. a few key social justice leaders in the city. It was very inspiring. I headed down to the homeless squat, which was kinda cool. I took Adam, as we were walking through the squat, he kept saying, "But, they're so poor!" Obviously his mom had discussed with him, about what he was about to see. On the topic of Adam, I am proud to say that the little fella is now completely potty trained!!! Good boy! He is s...

First blast of a Vancouver winter. Unlike the rest of Canada, this just means that the sun disappears, the rains fall, the winds come and everything turns to liquid. And as it turned out I had 3 different errands to run - they were all downtown, and since we live downtown, that meant walking, instead of making the inane move of actually driving, hunting for parking, paying for parking and dodging crazed caffeinated drivers in a DESPERATE RUSH to be somewhere NOW. I got home and the bottom of my jeans were totally soaked. Speaking of jeans - what's with all these jeans that are like $200-300? I wanted to buy a pair when we were in Seattle, but passed out with sticker shock. I'm going to find a pair of ToughSkins or a nice $15 pair of Kirkland Signatures from Costco. Spent most of the afternoon doing church stuff, while contemplating how to make the church grow. I stumbled across this great quote in Robbert Webber's "The Younger Evanglicals" (which is probably the ...

Because of the strong Canadian dollar, we are in Seattle, trying to pump up the American economy by buying things. Felicia bought mainly stuff for the kids and a few clothes for herself. I bought a sweater which was on sale. And my biggest catch was a pair of Senheiser headphones which I got at the Apple store. Man, I wish we had an Apple store in Vancouver! I made a reference to some mis-placed books. Last night we went to Barnes and Noble. I got The Interior Castle by Theresa of Avila, Pilgrim's Progress and Terrorist by John Updike. Felicia got some books for the kids. We took a cab back to the hotel. I placed the books in the trunk. Felica folded up the stroller and we came back to the hotel. We got out of the van, and both forgot to get the bag of books out of the trunk! Calls to the Cab company were of no avail - so now there is a cabbie in Seattle enjoying a couple of Christian classic books and some books about a rabbit buying a new hat. Rats. I really like Seattle - not su...

Checking each other out. Had a good service last night. God is really leading us down a path of social justice. Some of us went to an end homelessness rally at the Olympic downtown clock this afternoon. The coolest thing at the rally was how many people I knew - some of the key leaders in the Christian social justice movement in Vancouver are old old friends, which is oh so cool. Al, Mike, Dave and many others are getting it done in Vancouver! It was really great connecting with all of them. I am by no means a leader, in terms of social justice in the city of Vancouver. God, has wisely put that burden on much more capable women and men. But, it is very blessed to be connected with these choice folks. The truth - Had a couple of interesting conversations today with two different godly women who will remain unnamed. The result was, I realize that my family and I, are right where God wants us to be. In the past 3 years, I have had 3 different offers from 3 different well established chur...

I've been sort of absent from Adam's life for the past couple of weeks, so I decided to spend most of Monday with him. We started off by going to his favorite place in the whole world: the Vancouver Aquarium. I decided to take the bus, due to a new internal rule I have - I have decided to take the car only if I absolutely have to. For Vancouver, Burnaby, New West, Richmond and North Van, I will try to take the bus. Every place else I can drive. The aquarium is in Stanley Park and is easily accessible by transit. What was funny was that there were 2 other young pastors from different churches also there with their families. Randy Hamm of Tenth Ave. Church and Albert Chu of the Tapestry. It was pastor's day at the Aquarium! After the fish, we went shopping and didn't buy anything. We had lunch and came home. A few hours later I took him for a run in the joggin stroller - it was an inceredibly beautiful fall day - sunshine! Then we had a few friends over for Thanksgiving d...

Yesterday I was driving around the 2 main actors and director of the film Hank and Mike. This film is about 2 Easter bunnies who get fired, and have to find new jobs. It also stars Chris Klein of American Pie fame and Joe Mantegna. I wrote yesterday about how these guys told me that I should not see their film because I was a pastor. Today I was given a ticket to the world premiere - some of my friends were part of the "entourage". Anyways, outside the theatre the director recognized me and told me to be sure to come to the after party at an upscale night-club. I said sure. The film was hilarious!!! I really liked it - I could tell why they warned me - there is some nudity and quite a bit of swearing. But - very funny - but maybe not for my more pious brothers and sisters. So after the show, we're milling about - one of the actors grabs me (we're facebook friends now!) and we head down to this club. There's 2 line-ups - one for the public and one for...

Lots of driving for the VIFF today. Drove around 2 actors and a director for a movie called Hank and Mike - its a bizarre film about 2 Easter Rabbits that get fired. They asked me what I did and I told them that I'm a pastor - stunned silence, and then one guy said "Dude - you CAN NOT see our movie!" I told them I could probably handle it. They were cool and invited me to an after party. Then I picked up an actor from the airport, he is in a film called Young People F---ing. when I told him I'm a pastor, he said "You can't even say the name of my movie!" It's been interesting gauging the reactions of people to my profession - my guess is that in their line of work, they do not meet many pastors. I did get to share the gospel with a French atheist director who asked me what I believed - so that was cool. Last shift tomorrow!

Leela enjoying Sophia. Beautiful day today! Gorgeous sunshine - no clouds - no rain! Enjoy it Vancouver - rains are a-coming! Festival continues to roll along. I'm going to see this film in about an hour. It is somehow linked in with Bono's One organization - I think it is a Christian organization - the name is Agape. Should be good. So far I have driven 3 directors - from Spain, the Philipines and France - all really nice guys, w. interesting films showing. The filipino director was at Cannes this year, w. his film - he was one of 24 diectors selected to take part in a special workshop - cool. Naked - I wrote an article for Christian Week about a month ago about sexual addiction - about my own battle, and the problem of internet porn among pastors. After writing the article, I forgot about it - until I recieved 5 copies of the paper in the mail yesterday. I read the article and felt so exposed and vulnerable! My sex addiction is no secret - I did a seminar at Regent with a psy...

Had lunch w. Mark L. today, and then did some random stuff downtown together. Saw a very typical film festival movie today - Eastern European, grimy, depressing, nihlistic film w. no hope or redemption. Iska's Journey trails a poor girl growing up in rural Hungary - dysfuncational family, begging for food, w. a heartbreaking ending. The theatre again was apcked - some good buzz about the film - I think it played at Toronto and Seattle film festivals. Once a month we are encouraging our church to spend an evening opening up their homes to their neighbors, in an attempt to get to know them, and to be able to share the love of Christ with them. Well.... we invited 3 different friends of ours and ..... none of them could make it!!! I was kinda discouraged, so Brent came over and we watched a movie together. I spent part of tonight praying for all my friends that don't know Jesus. Stumbled onto a pretty good book - the Papa Prayer by Larry Crabb. Crabb posits that we should approach...

This morning me and my mom headed down to an "open house" at Regent - this was to celebrate the additions to the college. There is a huge new library, and several more classrooms and offices. Previously, there was basically only 2 classrooms and the chapel. We heard Eugene Peterson and Darrel Johnson speak - I also caught up w. quite a few other profs and friends. I had one class w. Eugene and I'm pretty sure he doesn't remember me. I got him to sign my first copy of the Message New Testament and Under the Unpredictable Plant - which is probably my favourite book by him. It was a typical Regent event - very warm and thoughtful. It's a cold and rainy day today - WINTER!!! I have decided that I am definitely a fall/winter person. Although I love summer in Vancouver - biking, running, tennis, etc. I also just love curling up on the couch on a cold, rainy day w. a good book and a cup of tea - there is something so comforting and cozy about that. The good thing about g...

(Brazillian kidnapper discussing his tactics). VIFF started with a bang with the Brazilian documentary: Manda Bala (Send a Bullet). This film focuses on corruption, poverty and crime in Sao Paulo - what a powerful film! It is multi-layered and a bit hard to describe. It won the grand jury prize at Sundance, and the director was at the screening - which was the Canadian premier of the film. Check out the trailer here . Hung out w. the folks most of the day - was nice.

This is my favourite time of the year - Vancouver international Film Festival! This festival is definitely not on par w. Cannes, Toronto, Sundance or Tribeca - but it pulls in movies that appear at those more prestigious festivals. Just like last year, I am volunteering at the festival, which means I get a free pass to all the films! Sweet! I've already started choosing the films I'm going to go to. Oh yeah - I got laid off from Eurocenters, which is a mixed blessing. I really miss the students (and the extra $$$ - actually more like $). But, it does mean I am freed up to do the work I really love: pastoring, prepping sermons and other ministry type stuff. The folks are in town which is cool - played w. their grand-kids today, and then headed out for some tasty Chinese food. Will see them tomorrow as well - Dosas in East Van, followed by shopping for Indian spices in the Punjabi Market on Main. It's a good life.

Am in Edmonton for some church planting meetings with my denomination. The plane cruelly had no coffee! - no running water at all, for some odd reason. Flew with my friend Mark - he was coming for car business and I for church business. Had an awesome service last night - I spoke on Justice, and how justice belongs to the church - the closer we grow to God and His heart, the more our hearts will be in sync with his. Some of my students came last night, which was cool. 2:26 - we are negotiating how to get on wireless in this church. We have now spent half an hour going off and back on-line. Tuesday evening - back in Vancouver. Was away for a total of 36 hours. Got a lot done - our committee is going through some massive changes - I will unlikely be on it, as it continues to morph into something new. Some great talk around the movement ot become missional, and away from being attractional. Just chilling now - a new Iron and Wine album came out - i bought 3 songs off of itunes - sounds go...

I have started 2 books that I could not finish: Preaching Interrupted by Doug Padgitt, and Spotting the Sacred by Bruce Main. Padgitt posits a radical shift in preaching, which he renames "speaching. He proposes something called "progressional dialogue". Padgitt has gone down the extreme paths of postmodernity, calling preaching "an act of violence" upon the congregation. He posits that we talk a lot, and learn from the others in the congregation, which I agree with, but he sort of denigrates the role of the preacher. Anyways, I felt the Padgitt book could have been published as a pamphlet, - the main point can be summed up within a few short pages. Spotting the Sacred, is by Bruce Main, who is a friend of mine - he runs "Urban Promise" out of Camden New Jersey - a stellar ministry that works among poor urban youth. They were featured on 20/20 recently. Bruce's book has tons of awesome stories, that will make great sermon illustrations someday, ...

My Review: My favorite film genre is the spy thriller. From Bourne Identity to Breach, I can’t get enough of them. Lives of Others is a spy thriller with a twist. Tension builds, but there are no car chases or brutal fights. It is set in 1984 East Germany, five years before the wall will fall and change everything. It centers on the investigation of a playwright by a state policeman. The secret police (the stasi) often held writers and artists in suspicion, thinking their art had the danger of being subversive. So, we get our story. A captain of the stasi is suspicious of a playwright, Georg Dreyman. So Gerd Weisler (the captain) has Dreyman’s apartment wired and starts listening to every whisper. Now, what sets this film apart is that we begin to see Wesler unravel. In a marvelous work of self reflection, Weisler transforms before our eyes. He discovers that he is the bad guy, not this playwright. He is commiting the injustice, not Dreyman. And here we get out dilemma – Weiser knows h...

The above images are from a video shot by Jason Vanderhill, of me "entering" a 20 foot bonfire. We were trying to see how close we could get to the fire w. out melting - I think maybe 5 feet and then it was unbearable - I think this series of pics looks really cool. (Click image for larger, and better image). I subscribe to about 15 different podcasts - everything from church stuff to Comedy Central and CBC. One of the ones I subscribe to is run by a church planter in NYC, who moved to Manhattan from Saddle Back church. His church grew quite quickly and is now in 3 services with several hundred people - after only about 5 years. The podcast I listened to disturbed me. It was called "Summer Reads 2007". These were books they were recommending pastors read. Every single book was a secular book on leadership, marketting and communication. What concerned me was the complete imbalance in their recommendations. Of course pastors need to be aware of trends in culture, we n...

So I have been off the blog for quite awhile now - I am finding it pretty difficult to try to teach ESL, and then transition into "church" work. It might be better if I taught 2-3 days all day, and then had 2-3 full days to work on Urban Sanctuary. Anyways, I think my days at Eurocenters are numbered, due to the lowered enrollments over the coming months. I think I'll be gone by the end of the month. There are lots of other ESL jobs still available. I think I'll work or tutor for October, and then take November and December off - this is due to the fact that I will be out of town quite a bit during those months. Had a great night last night - went for some pints with a couple of teachers from England - Mark and Krissy - they are a super nice couple who have taught English all over the world at different schools. It was great just unwinding and laughing about the various idiosyncrasies about our school. Starting a new sermon series: Rumours of Glory: Reflections of God...

Above - Adam "sings". Monday night - listening to Athlete - Brit Pop. Feeling sleepy. I got moved up - I am now teaching Intermediate students, before I was teaching Elementary students - some who barely had any grasp of English, which made teaching them very difficult. Now, I have a bunch of really smart Japanese students, who are very polite and hard working. Last night we had a good meeting/service at church. I went over a time-line of our church plant, and laid out some tangible goals over the next 8 months, if this thing is going to be sustainable or viable. Two clear things that stand out from the meeting is our need for intercessory prayer, and for us to have our own meeting place. I have no clue how I am going to find some place for us to meet in Yaletown that is both available and affordable - but God created the heavens and earth, so I am sure he can find us a couple of thousand of square feet in Yaletown to worship Him in. Pray about this! I haven't been to a m...

NINANS IN THE WOODS Yesterday Felicia and I went to the Monet/Dali exhibit at the Vancouver Art Gallery. It was pretty amazing - a lot of Monet's, Renoirs and a few Dali's. I was starting to feel congested, so I went to get some antihistamines. At the drug store, I asked the pharmacist what the difference between Tylenol Allergy, and Reactine was. He said the Tylenol had sedatives in it. I then got to quote the title of a Ramones song, when I said, "I don't want to be sedated." Cool. After the art and the drugs, we went for dinner at a nice restaurant nearby called Bacchus. Then we came home and watched Hot Fuzz, which is one of the best moives I've seen this year. Today some friends from Saskatoon dropped by for a visit - I've known Cory and Laura for a long long time. They are now married and have 2 cool kids, who provided good entertainment for Adam. I hadn't seen much of Adam this week, so I took him to the Regent Library and then the beach. It was...

Apple unveiled their new ipods - ipod touch. They look sweet, bigger screen and you can surf the net on it. Big drawback - only available in 8g and 16 g. The ipod classic (the present model ipods hold 30, 80 and 160 (!) gigs of memory). I have 4100 songs on itunes, which means even if I got the 16g ipod, I still wouldn't be able to load them all on. Although I would love to get one, I think I'll hold out until they come out with ones with more memory. Sigh.

I have been going hard for the past 2 weeks and it finally caught up with me. I have been fighting a growing sense of illness this past week. I still dutifully showed up for work everyday. And then last night I woke up at 3 AM, and was unable to get back to sleep. I called the school at like 7 AM and left a message, explaining my predicament. I still went in in the morning, to teach my first two classes and finish up some paper work that NEEDED to be done. At the end of my class, I went to see some students that were leaving the next day. It was pretty sad, w. two Japanese student bursting into tears and hugging me - which was weird because I didn't feel particularly close to these 2 girls. Some pics up top of me in a tie! So, I took most of today off, and will take tomorrow off - a forced sabbath. This is the concequence of not obeying the natural rythym of keeping the Sabbath - your body rebels and forces you to slow down. But... here's the thing, I still keep working. Did so...

Well, we have had an influx of Japanese students, and a reduction of our Saudi students, which is interesting. Feeling a lot more clarity about the future of Urban Sanctuary which is a good thing - with this independence from FBC, our future growth truly rests in God's hands. Feeling like I have less and less to say on the ol blog. Might see less posts in the coming days.....

Not since "Boom goes the dynamite" have I been so addicted to a video clip. I still cannot follow her train of thought. She goes from people not having maps, to the educational systems in South Africa and "the" Iraq. And then she advocates that America go and help the schools in those other countries!!! Man. Yesterday (Saturday) I had to do 2 things I didn't want to do. Both involved people and travel. I realized these are things I have to do as a Christian - so I had to shove personal wants behind me - is this what dying to self means? Doing stuff you don't want to do, so that you can do what God wants? I realize that in life sometimes you have to do things you don't want to do. But, we shouldn't have lives that are completely made up of things we don't want to do - that is misery. It comes back to vocation, calling and passion. God's will for most of us involves doing things we love to do. If you are presently not doing something you love t...

Lives up to the stereotype of beauty pageant contestants.

CNN has had an excellent series the last 3 nights called "God's Warriors". Christiana Amanpour has done an amazing job researching the roots of fundamentalism in Judaism, Islam and Christianity. I found the Islamic and Jewish programs, especially interesting. The roots of contemporary Islamic terrorism can be traced back to a Muslim who came to America in the 1950's. He found America to be a moral wasteland, and left disgusted. He did a lot of writing which became formative for Bin Laden, and other similar terrorists. The Christian segment was well done - but I am quite familiar w. the religious right in the states, but it did have a segment with one of my heroes: Greg Boyd. I need to do a separate post on Boyd (actually I might have already, awhile back). I have added a couple of links to the right: James Wheeler and I went to Bible School together. Greg Boyd is the pastor of a church in Minneapolis and outspoke critic of the fusion of American nationalism and Chris...

In Seattle - Adam has conveniently blocked Sophia w. his balloon sword. I wrote a review for the fantastic movie "Lives of Others" which came out on DVD yesterday. I have a couple other writing assignments I'm working on - one even pays! Daryl and Valencie P. are in town, so we got to hang out w. them tonight which was really nice. Today is the hardest day of the month - I give a grammar test and a speaking test - and then have to spend a couple of hours marking and transcribing the marks - ugh. Finished now though.

Yesterday was a bit hairy. Preached at a church in Port Moody. I preached on Psalm 40:1-3, which U2 recorded as a song. The church was doing a summer series on the Psalms, so I chose that one. It went well. The couple that invited me are John and Andrea Rose - they used to go to First Baptist, and knew me from there. They are hands down the nicest couple that I know - so genuine and kind. Came back - had a nap, and then prepped for our service. Cam Roxburgh was speaking - he spoke very well - very encouraging of what we are trying to do. Also - Alpha may be popping up in my future, through what seems to be a divine turn of events. Will keep you posted. Rained again today - typical for the Summer of 2007. DO NOT SEE THE MOVIE DISTURBIA - it is horrible!!! It starts off as a bad teen romantic comedy and then morphs into an even worse horror thriller - it well may be one of the worst films I have ever seen. Other bad movies I have seen: Beloved Da Vinci Code

My uncle is a neurologist who is involved in pioneering church planting efforts in Northern India. They have encountered opposition in the past. That opposition escalated into physical persecution this past week. Here are the details: Dr. Raju Abraham is the chief surgeon of Kachhwa hospital; this Friday (Aug 17), during a school program for Dalit children and their parents, he was attacked by RSS and Bajrang Dal activists on the Kachhwa hospital grounds. Dr. Raju has a deep cut on his forehead that needed stitches. Other hospital workers were allegedly attacked as well. They seem to be out of danger, but there are damages to the hospital property and equipment. More details here http://christianpersecutionindia.blogspot.com/ Please pray for Dr. Abraham, his wife Catherine, the other staff that were injured, and for the attackers. Pray for protection of this hospital and its ministry. thanks, sn

The last 3 days have been really difficult. On Wednesday and Thursday I left the house really late - On Thursday I was actually late for work, which made me feel terrible. I had a Saudi a Saudi student that had been here for 2 months - both his attendance and attitude were terrible - so today I had to tell him that he would not be getting a certificate because he did not satisfactorily complete the course work. That really sucked. I have tomorrow to relax a bit, but I have to finish up my sermon too!

In one of today's classes, I did a listening exercise, using the Bob Dylan song "If you see her, say hello", off of Blood on the Tracks. As most of you know, Dylan has a very nasaly unique voice. I started playing the song, and one of my favourite students, Ahmed, looked up and asked "What language is this?" It was soooo funny!!! So it rained tonight - this is hands down the worst summer in the 6 years we have been living here. I am excited about my sermon for this Sunday - it is coming along together quite well - I have done all my research and notes, and am now writing it. The commentaries were not much help, as I am only preaching on 3 verses - not much they can add, to what I've already uncovered.