Dreams Unlocked

I think policeman hate crime. I think firefighters hate fires that destroy. I think doctors hate disease. And I kNOW pastors hate sin. I am a pastor. And the longer I have been a pastor, the more I have come to hate sin. I hate sin. The reason I hate it is because,, I spend more time than others in the midst of the damning effects that sin has in the lives of others. The Bible says the wages of sin is death. But, one does not have to wait for death to feel the effects of sin. Sin kills slowly, entering in through any small opening we give it. Like an ever ravenous cancer it slowly drains all joy and pleasure out of life. I sit in the midst of the nuclear fallout of sin on a regular basis. If that was the only place I sat, I would be in constant despair. But, my life is balanced out by also sitting in the presence of God. The following keep me from falling over the pit: Regular meditation on the character of God. Reading the Psalms. Silence. Watching my children at ...

I love Tuesdays. Tuesday are my day off. When you are a pastor, you work Sundays and so most pastors select a day during the week to take off. The best part of my day off is that I get to pick my 4 year old son James up from his pre-Kindergarten class. Today, his teacher said James was a bit quiet and not his usual exuberant self. And then she quietly confided that his best friend had ignored him and had been playing with other kids. James' tender 4 year old heart was broken. Felicia asked me if that made me sad. Of course it did. No emotionally healthy parent is immune to the pain that their children endure from time to time. But later on, I pondered it a bit more. I am still sad that James was sad. But, the rejection and pain he went through today help form him into a whole human being. If James went through life facing no pain or rejection, he wouldn't be real. He would be a detached person without the ability to empathize with others in pain. The pain James went throug...

Peter Mansbridge: Calm, Cool, Collected and Canadian Its interesting how a sub-story of the Ottawa shooting has been the startling difference between Canadian and American broadcasting. I am unable to get any Canadian channels so I got all my news through CNN last night. It seems like the American media thinks it is serving us well by bringing is a dozen "experts" who analyze every single aspect of a story down to whether the types of socks the shooter was wearing can tell us something about his religious identity. (i made that up - but wouldn't be surprised if CNN found some sartorial theologian who could make the connection). This won't change how America reports the news - this is just an observation by american media on Canadian media. American news is far more obsessed with celebrity and dramatic "breaking" events than reasonable thoughtful observation. Exceptions might be Meet the Press or 60 minutes that take a bit longer to tease out a st...

"In all that deep darkness, a miracle was preparing". That is a line from Gilead, a novel by Marilynne Robinson. The context is that the narrator is discussing a long time when he was single. As a pastor in a small town, he was seen as quite a catch, so many daughters and nieces were presented to him. But, no one caught his eye. This caused him to feel sad and lonely. In every life we go through periods of deep darkness. Its almost like our time in the womb prepares us for similar times of murky shadow times. It might be helpful to consider that when we find ourselves in those times that a miracle is in fact being prepared. For the character in Gilead, the miracle was the woman who would become his wife. The woman tells him "You ought to marry me." The effect was so tremendous that his response was: "That was the first time in my life I ever knew what it was to love another human being." Darkness is ok. Shadow seasons need not frighten us. Becaus...

The scientist (Cornell professor Dr. Jonathan Butcher) and the pastor (me) answer some questions from students. So, I'm a pastor. Part of my job is preaching. I share the preaching load at our church with our interim lead pastor. Since he's the lead guy, he preaches slightly more than I do. I want to share with you a little bit about what it's like to prepare and deliver a sermon. And one thing to please not do to your pastor immediately after he or she preaches their sermon. I normally start my preparation for my sermon Monday morning. I print out the text in the version I will preach from and in Greek, so I can access both the Greek and English while reading and making notes. I read the Greek first to get a good handle about how it sounded when it was first written. Then I read through the passage several times, making notes and waiting for an outline to emerge - After about an hour I have a pretty good idea of how the passage is laid out. Now, it's time...

I am actually completely stunned at the continued fallout of Mars Hill Church in Seattle. The latest wrinkle is that 9 CURRENT pastors have now publicly stated their opinion that Mark Driscoll should step down for an entire year instead of his current 6 week staycation. Now, one of those 9 pastors has been fired. Swell. The most damning observations of the church comes from respected pastor, speaker and author Paul David Tripp. Tripp served on the accountability board of Mars Hill for awhile until he realized the board could not do very much, least of all provide actual accountability. Here are some snippets from Tripp: "I don't think even now that there is the recognition of the depth of what Mars Hill Church and Mark is actually dealing with. This is without a doubt the most abusive, coercive ministry culture I've ever been involved with." "What is happening is they are managing a crisis, instead of dealing with the deep personal sin at the bottom of t...

I hate kids. I believe the most famous atheist in the world is losing his mind. Last month Richard Dawkins wrote that we shouldn't condemn what he called "mild pedophilia". The term itself is a stunning. Pedophilia might be a lot of things but the one thing it can never be is "mild". And now Dawkins has stumbled again in the twtterverse. Some misguided seeker mentioned that they would be in a real dilemma if they found out the child in their womb had Down's syndrome. And here the ever compassionate anti-God professor let's loose with this missive: Abort it and try again. It would be immoral to bring it into the world if you have the choice. It is more moral to terminate a Down's Syndrome child, than to give it a loving family. I wonder why stop at the womb? In Dawkin's world, perhaps it is moral to terminate any kid that doesn't measure up to whatever standards Dawkins deems worthy of life. Children with Down's Syndrome...

When we lived in Vancouver for awhile I had the interesting fortune of meeting celebrities - I never sought them out - they would just sort of be where I was : grocery stores, video stores, etc. In 2005 Felicia and I were out for a movie. After locating our seats I got in line for popcorn and soda. As I was standing in the line, I glanced over at the man next to me. He was short but very muscular - I thought he might be a body builder. I looked at his face and thought he looked familiar - he returned my gaze and I thought he looks a lot like Robin Williams - his chin is much more pointy than in films and tv. A few more seconds and I was confident it was him - I asked him "Are you Robin Williams?" He said yes. Then I fumbled into verbal idiocy as I wasn't sure what I should say now. So I said "I'm a big fan of your stand-up". which is true. He said thank you. At this point, I should have shut up and focused on the line. Instead, I kept going. ...

Felicia and I visited Mars Hill Church in Seattle in 2005 when we were starting to consider church planting in Vancouver. Mars Hill Ballard (at the time), met in a retro fitted warehouse. It had a very cool vibe and was filled with young people. The worship I think was good - but I can't remember it now. Mark Driscoll spoke on an unpopular passage of Judah and Tamar from Genesis 38. I remember that Driscoll made a remark that women should not go to night-clubs because they are at risk for assault there. The way he said it sounded like he was insinuating it was their own fault if they were assaulted. After that visit, I kept track of Mars Hill and Mark Driscoll. There seemed to be no stopping them. They continued to grow and expand at an incredible rate. Driscoll was writing a lot of books and speaking in a lot of places. In 2007 two popular elders were fired when they voiced disagreement with a new governance structure which centralized the power to Mark and I think 2...

We have now been living in the United States for over one year. One of my first observations is how political this nation is. People have very strong political views and feel propelled to voice them loudly at times. The Middle East always raises some strong pitched points of views - especially among evangelical Christians. There is a branch of evangelicalism which is completely and totally blindly pro-Israel (I mean this in terms of being completely and totally supporting Israel's claim to their land in the Middle East AND full and complete support for any and all military campaigns carried out by Israel). There are other Christians who are moderate. And there are some whose support for Palestine borders on a soft anti-semitism in terms of viewing Israel. Where do I stand? I am pro-Israel - I support the Israeli people to have a nation and land, like every other country. But, this support of Israel needs to be balanced by a concern for the Palestinian people and the hu...

We just got back from a week long family camp in the Adirondack Mountains in upstate New York. The camp is called "Camp of the Woods". It has been operating continuously for some 100 years. It is quite an organization running week long camps all summer. They feature well known Christian speakers such as Alistair Begg, Erwin Lutzer and Ravi Zacharias. The week we were there we enjoyed the teaching of both Crawford Loritts and Tony Evans. Next year we hope to go back and hear Ravi Zacharias. (My parents might even come). Several observations: 1. Facilities - this is closer to "glamping" than roughing it in a tent somewhere. We stayed in a cabin that had a 2 separate bedrooms, a fridge, microwave, coffee maker and full bathtub. There is even daily maid service for clean towels and linens. You eat meals in a large dining hall - the food is very good. 2. Recreation - you really can't keep up with the amount of activities offered. Apart from the regular wat...

We live with this constant battle between doing the right thing and doing the wrong thing. Christian theology calls the wrong thing, sin. This evil, this brokeness, this sin nestles deep inside of each of us, threatening to lash out and destroy all that is precious to us. Sin accumulates at a compound rate, often drawing others into its orbit. We use rational arguments and legal prohibitions to place restraints around sin. It is a paradox of human history that rapid technological and cultural advances can take place in tandem with advances in human depravity. Shadows follow the light. We often fight evil through physical, structural, political and legal means. But it's not enough. There is no law strong enough to penetrate into the human heart. Liberation from sin and evil is achieved when Jesus Christ enters into your life and expels the darkness within. Once this initial liberation takes place, the Holy Spirit of God begins to alter, reform and renew the resource...

Jesus Christ said the two most important things that human beings can do is love God and love on another. Nothing else comes close to these two commands. In fact, if we fulfill these two commands, we fulfill every command. The clue to loving one another is found in something that the apostle Paul wrote to a group of Christians. He wrote: "Carry each other's burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ." The love of one another comes into its full manifestation when we see another human being burdened by something, and we come along and carry that burden for them. We take the pain off of them and place it on ourselves. This type of self- sacrifice is the fullest evolution of love. But, it also runs completely counter to our culture that has placed self on the altar. It is only when the self is emptied of selfishness and greed that the love Jesus spoke of becomes manifest in our lives. And that is hard. But it also leads to true joy. J...

My final point of my Easter Cornell message was "Run and Look". Jesus has risen from the dead. The women visit the tomb - it is empty. Jesus' dead body is not there. They go back and tell the disciples. And (this is in the Bible!), the men respond like this: "they did not believe the women because their words seemed to them like nonsense." Most people today probably think Christianity might be interesting, maybe gives us some good morals to live by. But, they resist the supernatural elements of the faith. There are too many things that seem impossible to believe … like men coming back from the dead. It seems like …. nonsense. What is fascinating is that the first century followers of Jesus had the exact same initial reaction that many of us do: nonsense, impossible! Despite the nonsensical words, one of the disciples, Peter runs to the tomb to see what has happened. He sees the strips of linen that had previously been used to hold fast the c...

My second point of my Easter/Cornell talk was "The Living Among the Dead. In Luke's account of the resurrection, the women come to the tomb and are met by two angels. One of the angels asks this penetrating question: "Why are you looking for the living among the dead?" This is a stunning question that gets under the skin of what it means to be a human being. Ours is a culture seeking out life from that which cannot get life. Material goods, career advancement, "success", even a happy family ultimately leave us incomplete. No one has captured this existential angst better than CS Lewis: Most people, if they had really learned to look into their own hearts, would know that they do want, and want acutely, something that cannot be had in this world. There are all sorts of things in this world that offer to give it to you, but they never quite keep their promise. The longings which arise in us when we first fall in love, or first think of some forei...

I will never forget this past Easter. The day started with an early breakfast at my church (7 AM). I joked that I wasn't sure even Jesus rose from the grave before 7 AM. The breakfast was followed by 2 church services. I read scripture in the first one and prayed int he second one. I left the second service early to go to Cornell University. Every Easter all the Christian clubs on campus organize an event called "Easter on the Quad". This is a service of worship, testimony and a presentation of the gospel. I was invited to give the message this year. So, Felicia and the 3 kids and I headed up to the University. It was a beautiful sunny day. There appeared to be about 100 students preparing for the event, setting up chairs, hooking up the sound system, a worship team was practicing. I introduced myself to a couple of the organizers. I then told them I was going to play catch with my son until the start time got closer. Adam and I headed over to a piece of green a...

Some time ago a friend on Facebook asked me to explain what I believe as a Christian. This is what I wrote: I believe in God. I believe there is a Divine Being greater than the natural world who contains within himself all the properties of love and power. All that exists was created by him and for him. Human beings were created by God. We were created with the freedom to follow or reject him. Following God means believing what he has revealed about himself, and then acting on that data. Rejecting God means using our own lives and thoughts as the datum by which we live. I believe that the “evidence” of God comes to us in three ways. Creation itself leads me to believe in a Creator. When I look at the complexity, the intricacy and the sheer vastness of the created order – I simply cannot accept the idea that time+chance+matter somehow simply spat  out everything from spinning planets to carpenter bees. It’s too unbelievable t...

We are currently under a deluge of faith based films. I wouldn't call it a religious revival. More like Hollywood coming to the obvious realization that there are a lot of religious people in America who will pay money to go watch religious based films. Let me see if I can list all the religious films released or about to be released: Son of God Noah God's Not Dead Heaven is For Real Exodus: Gods and Kings Mary I'm sure there are more, but these are the ones that came to mind right away. Out of these I have already seen Son of God and Noah. The only other one I will probably see is Exodus. Son of god was a fairly well done film on the life of Jesus. It was marketed heavily to churches and churches responded by buying out entire theaters and doing follow up bible studies and sermon series based on the film. (Our church did this). I think attempts were made to do the same thing with Noah. But there was not that strong of a response. And after seeing the...

3 New Ithacans On March 25 2013, Felicia, Adam, Sophia, James and I got into our beloved Honda Odyssey and started off on our own odyssey towards Ithaca New York. Funnily Homer also headed off to Ithaca on his own Odyssey! Ours had far less perils and dangers. We arrived on April 2 2013. So one year has passed. Our first year as displaced West Coast Canadians now living in a well known college town in upstate New York. How's it been? Well, I'm glad I asked. Spring was a nice time arrive as the town is thawing out of winter. We were able to take advantage of many of the scenic state parks and hiking trails. Although not as beautiful as the land we left behind, it was still quite nice to be able to escape into nature when we felt like it. The summer was a nice slow ease into understanding the culture of Ithaca as well as observing the ministry patterns of the new church I was called to serve. Bethel Grove Bible Church is a small-medium sized church - around 35...

Fred Phelps has died. Phelps was a former lawyer turned pastor. For some reason he managed to transform the Christian God from a benevolent Deity to some gross hateful monster. His weird church "Westboro Baptist" managed to garner global fame, despite only having a handful of members, all related to each other and living on a joyless campus in Kansas. Their fame came largely through the garish posters they would hoist outside funerals of celebrities or army veterans. These signs contained some of the most vulgar language I have ever read. They all followed the line that basically God hates everybody, especially homosexuals. I never really studied why or how Phelps went down such a strange route in his life. What I do know is his idiocy made it very difficult for true followers of Jesus to present the truth of the gospel. God doesn't hate homosexuals. God doesn't hate America. If there is anything we can know about God it is that his primal characteri...

Every once in awhile a blog post pops up, inciting a lot of tweeting and Facebook posting with a lot of follow up comments. Here's the latest: http://www.christenacleveland.com/2014/03/urban-church-plantations/ Writer and speaker Christen Cleveland has done the church in America a great service - she has pointed out a major blind spot among well resourced suburban churches. In her post she points out that in cities experiencing or attempting to resuscitate urban renewal, suburban pastors come rushing in to plant their franchise of ministry. In doing so they run roughshod over existing ministries and urban saints that have been laboring for years. This exact same thing happens in the world of global missions. When well meaning, but completely ignorant mission agencies comes to "evangelize" a nation with complete and total disregard of national ministries. Cleveland gives an example of a white pastor who has planted an inner city church and makes the statement: ...

I disagree with him on some stuff but this is pretty good. John Piper's advice to pastor's concerning money: Get a car that works; that gets you where you need to go.  I'm talking about a modest entertainment budget that doesn't eat out every night.  I'm talking about a refreshing vacation, not an exorbitant one.  I'm talking about clothes that are unremarkable and undistracting, both for not being shabby and not being brand driven.  I'm talking about a home that accomplishes your family and ministry purposes leaning towards ordinary folks in your congregation, not the wealthiest.

I just wrapped up the busiest 5 days of ministry in my life. Here's a snap-shot: Thursday - Son of God Special Screening Our church participated in a theater "take-over" of the film Son of God. I organized the whole thing, along with the upcoming campaign of small group discussions and sermon series. It was a rather exhausting endeavor - but was well worth doing. We sold out 200 tickets with 30-40% of the attendees being guests (not regular attendees of our church). I introduced the film and prayed before it started and then wrapped it up at the end. Very positive response from all those who attended. Friday-Saturday - I travelled to a Bible Camp somewhere near Cortland NY. I spoke to a group of International graduate students from Cornell. There was 10 nations represented from Singapore to Eritrea, Wales and South Korea. I love this group - I've spoken at their Friday meetings in the past. I spoke Friday night and then twice Saturday AM. I headed home e...

Avalon Alliance Church in Saskatoon Saskatchewan. The church I attended from 1976-1993. I like Donald Miller. I've read three of his books and they were very good. He seemed to have hit a nerve with dis-affected evangelical young adults. And he's done some good things with his influence. But, I disagree with him in his recent blog post. So, here is my point by point response as to why I disagree. It seems that for Miller if you do not connect with God through the medium of the local church, you should jettison it and discover the way you do connect with God. For him, this is teaching and building his company. I wonder why he has reduced the function of church to simply an individual's connecting with God. I believe the church consists of much more than that: worship, teaching, service, community, fellowship, evangelism. Is Miller finding all of these things as he teaches and builds his company? I hope so. Miller thinks its great people love their chur...