Dreams Unlocked

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...