Dreams Unlocked

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.