Dreams Unlocked

Day off today - I read "In the Name of Jesus" by Henri Nouwen. I read this small book on leadership 5 years ago. Nouwen is an always refreshing voice amidst the hectic congestion of contemporary ministry life. He goes so much deeper than the average Christian book on the bestseller lists. In this book he charts out what is necessary for Christian leadership. He says that the temptations pastors face are the temptation to be relevant, spectacular and powerful. The most powerful thing that I got out of this time's reading is the simple fact that nothing matters if I do not love Jesus. "It is not enough for priests and ministers of the future to be moral people, well trained, eager to help their fellow humans, and able to respond creatively to the burning issues of their time. All of that is very valuable and important, but it is not the heart of Christian leadership. The central question is, Are the leaders of the future truly men and women of God, people with an arden...

Sunday night - 11:30 PM. Listening to Radiohead and chilling in my office. Watched too much tv tonight - Amazing Race and Celebrity Apprentice.  Felicia is at work, so its just me and the 2 little Ninans - both sleeping peacefully. Sophia got up and played for a bit, but then went back to bed, when I told her it was time to sleep. Earlier, Adam sat on bar-stools at the kitchen island, eating mint-chip ice-cream. He turned to me and asked how my day was with Soph.  Later on we were talking about what it meant for Jesus to live in his heart. Adam then informed me that something else lives in his heart - a robot with octopus arms made of steel. I began to wonder what theology people in our church are learning, if my own son believes that! Church was good today. Our little church has four worship bands, which I find quite amazing. We don't need to hire a worship pastor, because there would simply nothing for him to do. A number of new people again today. I am discovering that our growt...

As a pastor, I listen to a lot of other sermons, I read a lot of books and articles and I listen to a lot of people at various points of crisis in their lives. Every once in awhile I come across something which touches a deep part of me. Today I read something like that. I was skyping my brother who lives trans-continentally in New York City and St. Andrews Scotland. Today He was in New York. On Wednesday he'll be in Scotland. He directed me to this article: http://www.notesfromtoadhall.com/articledetail.asp?AID=506&B=Wesley%20Hill&TID=7 It is written by Wesley Hill - a homosexual Christian man who has chosen to be abstinent, rather than fulfill his sexuality by being in a relationship with another man. Hill shows the incredible context of loneliness and secrecy that many homosexuals in our churches have to live within. This hiddenness is no doubt borne out of a number of factors - including the church's own reputation of intolerance, fear and sometimes even hatred. I a...

I am at about 70% capacity. My head is pretty congested, so everything sounds sort of muffled. At one point, I actually heard my heart beating in my head, which was pretty weird. Its midnight, and I can't sleep, so I'm killing time on here. Genius picked out these songs based on Silver and Gold by U2 1. Murder Inc. - Springsteen 2. Talk About the Passion - R.E.M. 3. Sweetheart Like You - Dylan 4. In the Evening - Zeppelin 5. Clampdown - Clash 6. Monkey Man - Rolling Stones 7. Love Removal Machine - The Cult 8. 300 MPH Torrential Down Pour BLues - White Stripes 9. Helter Skelter - U2 10. Dirty Blvd. - Lou Reed The R.E.M. song is very old - off of the Murmur album. Everything else I can see fitting - maybe nor White Stripes or Lou Reed. White Stripes seem too new for a B-side U2 song that is over 20 years old.  Church was good this morning. I was happy with my sermon. Quite a few people away due to Spring Break. Spring Break - Adam will be home from pre-school, making my mornings...

How to Play Table Tennis Well, 4 CDs, voice in Mandarin - $33 (Surrey - Langley)

Hallelujah Finally feeling a little better. Not 100%, but enough that I can actually work once again. Upcoming concerts: April - Leonard Cohen June - Coldplay October - U2 First, Leonard Cohen. I like Cohen a lot. I hadn't considered going to see him live until Bono said that the best concert he had ever been to was Leonard Cohen earlier this year in Dublin. Best concert ever? Sheesh. Only problem is I know absolutely no one who would want to go see him. So, if you live in the Vancouver and want to go, drop me a line and we'll go. Coldplay - seen them once before and they were fantastic. I really like the new album. Felicia will go to this one with me. The biggie - U2 - can't wait. This will be my 8th U2 concert. I am toying with the idea of flying out east to see them as well. But, I think if they go to San Diego, I'll go there instead, as I have family there. Other than that, things seem to be going well. We are about to undertake a major overhaul of our web-site whic...

Adam enjoying ice cream. Day 3 of the lockdown continues as parasitic invaders continue to wreak havoc on my life. I actually felt pretty good this morning and sat down and wrote 2 pages of my sermon. Side-note - I have calculated that I need about 8-11 printed sheets of paper to make up a 30 minute sermon - slightly more or less, depending on how much scripture I also read w. that. And then at 12:00 I felt as sick as I did the last 2 days which is really really sick. I decided to go to a medical clinic and see if there is a magic elixir that I'm missing. Now, I have never complained about the Canadian health system before - my father is a physician and my wife is a nurse so I'm pretty tied into things. But, today, I started to see the potential benefit of pay for service, because when you don't pay (at least directly), then you don't get much service. The first clinic I went to, had a sign that said the doctor had met his regulated quota for the day and couldn't se...

Was sick most of today again. My life has degenerated into sips of cold water, poking at food, sleeping and trying to concentrate on a video on my laptop (BBC's Office and Lord of the Rings so far). I went into the home office to try to work on my sermon. I was planning to preach on the Holy Spirit's role in prayer and ministry. But then I tried reading the following: Acts depicts Pentecost as the basis of the church's existence, yet it is not so merely as an act of collective enthusiasm but as the starting point of proclamation of the resurrection of the Crucified and of his installation to a position of eschatological power as the Son of God and Kyrios. Corresponding to the eschatological character of this event on the side of believers is the assurance that in them the outpouring of the Spirit that is promised for eschatological consummation has occurred already. This fine paragraph by theologian extraordinaire Wolfhart Pannenberg, teamed up with my already fragile state...

I have a bad case of the flu - really bad. I can't remember being this sick in years. Every winter I usually get a mild cold - but this thing this year has really way-laid me.  I spent most of the day in bed, the rest of the time whining to whoever is within ear-shot. I am so sick, that for the first time ever I am trying to come up with a contingency plan for Sunday. I have never missed a preaching/speaking opportunity due to illness before. Some ideas are to have people share testimonies of answered prayer, or have my message video-taped on Friday, and then played on Sunday. The Worlds Colliding reference is about the fact that U2 is playing on Letterman all this week. I have a deep love for both Dave, and U2, so it has been fascinating seeing them there every night. Tonight, they even did the top 10 list which was pretty funny. I think the new album is fantastic - I think I am going to take Adam to the concert this year, which will be very very cool.

Future missionary to Uganda rocking it with Guitar Hero. Actual conversation between Adam and I yesterday: Do you want to be a tv star when you grow up? No Do you want to be a movie star? No. Do you want to be a missionary to Uganda? Yes.

Litany of Humility   O Jesus! meek and humble of heart, Hear me. From the desire of being esteemed, Deliver me, Jesus. From the desire of being loved, Deliver me, Jesus. From the desire of being extolled, Deliver me, Jesus. From the desire of being honored, Deliver me, Jesus. From the desire of being praised, Deliver me, Jesus. From the desire of being preferred to others, Deliver me, Jesus. From the desire of being consulted, Deliver me, Jesus. From the desire of being approved, Deliver me, Jesus.   From the fear of being humiliated, Deliver me, Jesus. From the fear of being despised, Deliver me, Jesus. From the fear of suffering rebukes, Deliver me, Jesus. From the fear of being calumniated, Deliver me, Jesus. From the fear of being forgotten, Deliver me, Jesus. From the fear of being ridiculed, Deliver me, Jesus. From the fear of being wronged, Deliver me, Jesus. From the fear of being suspected, Deliver me, Jesus.   That others ma...

Ninan Manor I hadn't blogged about this before, but we have been in the market for house/townhouse here in Port Moody. We still own our condo in Yaletown which we rent out. We vacillated between the two ideas of either selling and buying, or continuing to rent out the condo and buying out here, using a loan from the equity in the downtown condo as the down-payment. It was very hard to make the decision, but in the end decided to hold on to the condo downtown and buy out here as well, placing us in the pseudo-precarious position of owning 2 properties. With that in mind, we started house hunting last week. The second home we saw was a townhome/duplex. It was an end unit, opening up to a forested green-belt. It was very beautiful - the location and the interior, but priced a bit out of our reach. We presented a low offer, was rejected, they dropped their price a fraction, we returned with a hefty increase in our prevously low offer, they returned with an even smaller decrease! At tha...

Listening to Soph. I don't know if I've said this before, but I have learned more about what it means to be a pastor in the past 4 months than I have in 7 years of theological training, the stacks of books I have read and in all the sermons I have heard. I have dealt (in only 4 months!) with a whole spectrum of human break-down, illness and suffering. And then this week I learned another new thing and it is this:  Most people simply need to talk,  and most people don't have anyone to talk to. I met with 4 people so far this week, with 2 more to go tomorrow. The 4 people I spoke with couldn't be more different form each other in terms of gender, age, economic back-ground, etc, etc. But.... they all simply needed someone to talk to. One person drove all the way from North Vancouver to talk to me - that's over an hour of driving each way, for a 30 minute meeting with me. I came to the realization that in the majority of these types of meeting I probably spend 80% of th...

This past week a very large well known Christian pare-church organization hosted a brekfast for pastors in Metro Vancouver. Never one to turn down a free breakfast, I headed to a large church in East Van. The breakfast was great. I ran into some old friends. The speakers were..... pretty weak. I hate to say it, but if you are going to put on an event for people who spend most of their lives communicating publicly, then you need to have communicators that can speak above the level of the average pastor. These speakers were well intentioned and sincere but were simply so average. At these things you usually get a lot of free stuff, which was nice. I also got a free pen. Got better this week, and then just today started to feel ill again. Don't know why. Also, Adam and I went for haircuts. His looks nice - I, well, let's just say my hair is so short, you can make out the exact shape of my scalp. I hope I don't scare too many people at church tomorrow.

Spent most of the week sick. Still went to work, but was definitely not accomplishing as much. It was made even harder by the fact that I had meetings every day and every night, and had to conduct my first memorial service... and write a sermon. All in all, I think it was ok - but this morning, I felt really out of it when I went up to preach, and for the first time in a long time missed some points, and lost my place on the text. I thought I was going to pass out after. Came home, ate some soup and really did pass out on my bed. Got up, and played with the kids for a bit. Then watched the grammys. Ok - after seeing U2 tonight, I actually like the new single "Get on your boots", which I really didn't like before. It's the first single by them that didn't grab me by the neck the first time I heard it. But, they were cool live. I also really liked the strange Chris Martin / Jay Z pairing. Radiohead also didn't disappoint. The biggest surprise was the album of th...

We had our church service in a new venue yesterday: The Inlet Theatre. This theatre is in the same building as Port Moody's City Hall and Library. Across the street is an upscale shopping area called "Newport Village", surrounded by residential apartment buildings - it feels like a cross between Whistler and Yaletown. Behind the theater is the recreation center where I work out on at least a monthly basis. The rec. center has 2 skating rinks and a curling rink. This is where Adam is learning to skate, although learning appears to be quite a loose term right now. The service at the theatre was quite a success, on all accounts. It is very comfortable and intimate inside. With the rental of the theater we get full use of all their sound equipment and the sound tech. which was a huge advantage. We had someone from a community organization called "Share", tell us about their programs with the homeless, the drug addicted and other marginalized people - basically all t...

Missionsfest and the Vancouver Film Festival are my 2 favorite events in Vancouver. I guess the Sunrun would be up there as well. This year Tony Campolo was one of the featured speakers. I think its like the 5th or 6th time he has spoken there. It was Campolo's message at Urbana 87 that God used to change the course of my life. I was headed for a career as a lawyer, and his message turned me towards vocational ministry. I have met Campolo on a couple of occasions to let him know how his message changed my life. On Friday he spoke at a leader's luncheon. I went up prior to the event and told him the story once again. This time he was a lot more animated. I gave him my card, and he said "Look at that! Lead Pastor! Give me a hug!" My buddy introduced himself to Tony. Tony said "If you're a friend of Santosh's, then you're a friend of mine!" This time I got a picture - I'm normally not really into that kind of stuff, but I thought - I may never s...

Today, the Ninans headed into Vancouver. One of our closest friends was in a bad accident and broke his leg and arm. So, we decided to pay him a visit at VGH. I went up to Regent to get him a copy of "Reason For God" by Tim Keller (the best apologetic book since Mere Christianity). The other things we had planned were Granville Island, Kung Bo Chinese Restaurant and an Italian Butcher shop for some specialty meats. And.... they were all closed. No joke. Every single place we wanted to go to was closed. Basically, the kids were strapped in their seats for like 4 hours in pointless shuttling. Poor kiddies. We did get some good bar-b-q at one of our favorite places: Memphis Blues Bar-B-Q House. And, that was about it for our big trip into town. Not much else going on, except the endless demands on a suburban pastor. New U2 - don't like the new single. It is the first single that has not impressed me at all. It sounds like a B-side throw-away. I hope the album will be way bet...

Lost started its new season with some trippy time travelling. I'm wondering if they are going to start to meander further away from reality like Heroes seemed to. Speaking of Lost - for some reason firefox has lost all my bookmarks!!!! I am working on Safari from now on, out of protest. Church continues to be quite hectic. I find my schedule filling up 4-6 weeks in advance now. This coming week, I am gone Wednesday and Friday. Wednesday - prayer retreat with about 30 other pastors. All day Friday I will be at Missionsfest. Missionsfest is awesome. Its just so encouraging to see so many Christians together. Campolo is speaking again this year - I think he speaks like every other year. I think I'm going to finally get my picture taken with him - I am not really into that kind of thing, or getting people to sign books they've written. But it was Campolo's message over 20 years ago that changed the course of my life - so it would be cool to have a permanent record of the ma...

Like the rest of the world, I watched history take place as Obama was sworn in today. The house was empty. I liked Rick Warren's prayer. Obama's speech was simply electrifying. I am also reading his first book "The Audacity of Hope" - the guy is really really eloquent. I'm pretty excited for America. I spent pretty much the whole day at the hospital today, with the family of the woman from our church who is very very ill. I can't believe how draining it is just being there with them. There is obviously very little we can do. I read scripture from time to time and prayed. But mainly, just sat there in silence, or making small talk now and then. There was something quite sacred and peaceful about that hospital room. By the time I got home, I was in no shape to try to focus on my sermon, so I rested a bit and did some light reading. I will head back tomorrow morning again. Anyways, another learning experience for this pastor.