Dreams Unlocked

I am speaking at this conference tomorrow: http://www.bornagainidentity2009.com/ I finished writing my message on Tuesday, and am going over it one last time. There will be a few hundred south asian young adults there from up and down the west coast - from California to BC. I am excited about the opportunity to speak to this group. Please pray that the Spirit empowers my words.

Walking Together. My post today is part of a larger initiative of more than 50 bloggers all sharing their thoughts on how to ‘bridge the gap’. You can check out the other links at: http://www.btgproject.blogspot.com/ Ten years ago I was flying back to Vancouver from Saskatoon. I started chatting with my seat mate. I was reading a book on spirituality by M. Scott Peck, so we also started to discuss spirituality. I asked him if he had a religious background. He said "Yes, I was raised fundamentalist." I was quite taken aback by his response. As we kept talking we discovered that we had attended the same evangelical churches at different times in Saskatoon. He said in college, he abandoned his faith and the church and has never looked back..... until now. He said in the past few months he had felt like he was missing out on something due to the lack of any kind of faith in his life. As the plane began to land, we exchanged contact information and promised to be in touch. A week...

Check out Jason Boyle. He's another blogger that I have started reading on a regular basis. I think most of you will like him. He is a thoughtful young Christian thinker and writer. http://blog.jasonboyett.com/ Also Beth Malena wrote an awesome post on dealing with our confusing relationship to money: http://bethblogever.blogspot.com/

Sermon notes and Starbucks. Fathers day is this Sunday. I've recently been thinking about why Catholic priests are called "father". I think it is because pastoring is a lot like parenting. From my vantage point, I see a lot of mini squabbles taking place between people, and sometimes I have to try to keep the big happy dysfunctional family from either imploding or exploding. Most "fights" I am not directly involved in - I just observe, and offer counsel if asked. It is the toughest part of my job, trying to be empathetic and sympathetic to people who are processing their own hurts, by attacking or hurting others. But then, I also get the joy of baptizing people and walking alongside them as they wrestle with their faith. I also have the awesome privilege of opening up the Word of God on a regular basis, and helping a community journey through what its implications are. And for those things I am grateful. Good day today overall - had a meeting with a couple of ot...

Possibly my favorite pic of Adam and I. We are playing some game on the internet at a resort while on holiday. I look grumpy, but I wasn't. I really like Adam's expression and the way he is so relaxed. Aaaah - that funny little kid - always makes my day!

A fragment of the gospel of John. I read a lot - like all the time, all kinds of books. Every once in awhile, I like to tackle a book that is difficult - like academically hard. Well, I've found one: "Scripture's Doctrine and Theology's Bible" is a collection of academic papers that came out of a conference held at St. Andrews College in St. Andrews Scotland (the school my brother presently teaches at). So, they collected a bunch of New Testament heavy weights to chat about how the church formed their current doctrine by what is written in the New Testament.  Karl Barth and Albert Schweitzer get dissected, along w. a bunch of other major dudes. The book is quite a challenge, but I am enjoying it as it reminds me of many times at Regent College, when I would be in the library battling it out with some book that made no sense at all, but then clarity comes, and I feel happy. We are still at the resort - we head back tomorrow (told you it was a short trip). It was re...

Adam and I went to see Up! last weekend. I started to think back to all the Pixar films I have loved over the years. Here they are in chronological order: Toy Story Toy Story 2 Finding Nemo Incredibles Ratatouille Wall-E Up until Up!, Nemo was my favorite. It was Adam's favorite movie for a long time, and is currently Sophia's favorite. So, I have seen/heard it in the background of my life quite a few times, as it has been played over and over in our home. I liked Nemo because there were several grand themes that were part of the story: the quest of a father to be reconciled to his son, sending him on a Ulyssian journey the wounded hero (Nemo has a small fin) the gift of companionship to meet life's battles (Dory helps Marlin find Nemo) There are many more grand life themes in this film. But Up! seems to go a bit further, in its challenge to carve out an adventure in the life we have been given, and that nothing in life need be wasted. The characters are great, the animatio...

Finally moved in to our new place. I have a temporary office set up in our over-sized bed-room. We had some contractors come in and look at our basement. They are going to start next week, and said it should take them a couple of weeks to get it done - so thats pretty cool. We are going to put in a large office, kids play area, storage area and bathroom down there. Until then, I have to work up here, which is fine. Started a new sermon series today on the book of Galatians - looks pretty promising. Already had 2 e-mails of people excited about the series, including one woman who said she was "jumping out of her seat" that we are studying Galatians. Never really had that kind of reaction before. We are taking a mini holiday this week to a resort on Qualicum Beach on Vancouver Island. We have been going through some pretty intense times for the past 6 weeks, and just felt we need a respite. Going for a much longer break in August to Banff in August to meet up with the rest of m...

Why did you go to Winnipeg? I have this inner practice of gratitude that I try to carry on throughout the day. What I do, is I silently try to thank God for everything that goes RIGHT during the day. I find this helps prevent me from being side-lined from everything that can go wrong. So, today, I am thankful that the coffee maker worked, that the shower worked, that my lap-top and wireless connection work.... you get the idea. Today's problems: My current iphone has something wrong w. it - it drops pretty much every call that I make or receive. Rogers has tried countless times to fix it, and have finally decided to simply send me a new one. They sent the new phone on May 25, from Delta to Port Moody. Should've taken a day, right? On May 27th the phone was scanned in Winnipeg Manitoba, and was labelled as "out for delivery". And that is the last anyone has heard or seen of the phone - it is out for delivery in Winnipeg Manitoba. I spent yesterday and today on the phon...

Good-bye 2 Spruce Court. My office and the rest of the house is packed up in boxes. We move into our new town-house tomorrow. We're all pretty excited about moving into our OWN home. I will miss certain aspects of this house - it is certainly the largest house we will ever live in at almost 4000 sq. feet! - 4 X larger then our yaletown apt. and twice the size of the town-home we move into. The Froeses had a nice flat-screen tv and bose sound system which made watching movies really great. Back to our old non-flat-screen tv w. no sound system. There was also a very nice deck off of the master bedroom w. commanding views of Mt. Baker and the rest of Port Moody. It was very nice and peaceful to sit there and read and pray - will miss that. The new place will present some significant challenges at first - namely the fact that my office is not yet built! I will have to work in an unfinished basement for the first couple of weeks - a long way down from my 26th floor office overlooking fa...