Dreams Unlocked

I read 59 books in 2016. Here they are: January River Dwellers - Rob Reimer - DMIN Freedom of Self-Forgetfulness- Tim Keller Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire - JK Rowling Pursuit of God - AW Tozer Into Abba’s Arms - Sandra Wilson - DMIN Fasting - a Neglected Discipline - David SMith How to Read the Psalms - Tremper Longman III February 8. Fearfully and Wonderfully Made - Paul Brand and Philip Yancey 9.  Invitation to Solitude and Silence - Ruth Haley Barton 10. Desire of the Everlasting Hills - Thomas Cahill 11. Prepared to Preach - Greg Scharf 12. Hipster Christianity - Brett McCracken March 13. Secrets of the Vine - Bruce Wilkinson (2nd time) 14. Road to Character - David Brooks Introduction to the Devout Life - St. Francis de Sales Continuous Revival - Norman Grubb How Can I Get Through to You? - Terrence Real - DMIN April 18.  Strengthening the soul of leadership- Barton - DMIN 19. Leading Across Cultures - James Pluedemann ...

I have now lived in the United States for 3 and a half years. I, my wife and 3 kids are all Canadian citizens. One of the most interesting things I have discovered while living here is the sharp racial divide that exists here. There is nothing similar in Canada. Even the systematic racism against First Nations people is not the same. There is simply not the same amount of large populations of First Nations peoples living in urban centers. There does not seem to be a very large or significant First Nations middle class. And Canada is simply not an old enough nation to have the lengthy history of race relations as America does. First Nations peoples were not brought here as slaves but they were subjugated to European colonialism in their own land. Felicia and I just watched a very compelling documentary called 13th on Netflix. It is a history of the black experience in America since the passing of the 13th amendment outlawing slavery. It is a fascinating piece that chronicles th...

On Monday this week I was invited to speak on a panel about the proposed "Ithaca Plan", put forward by the Mayor's office in the city of Ithaca. This is a comprehensive proposal to treat a drug epidemic in our county which claimed 3 lives over Mother's Day weekend this year. It was a meeting which ran from 12:30-4:30 (My involvement was about an hour long.) I sat on a panel with a clergyman from Chicago who leads a national movement of Clergy for Drug Renewal, and a former District Attorney from Washington D.C. who also campaigns for drug law reform. Here are 2 things that I shared that I think are worth passing on to you: My motivation to speak out -  One is the nature of God. The God of the Bible is revealed as a God on the side of the poor, marginalized and rejected. Constantly choosing the younger and weaker to accomplish his purposes. Another  motivation is the nature of humanity. Human beings are created in the image of God and because of that fact both de...

I am currently teaching an adult education class in my church called "Personal Spiritual Formation". It is based on material put out by the dean of the seminary I currently attend, Dr. Ron Walborn. 25 adults signed up for the class and I ended up having to turn away others who showed interest. As we have been working through the material someone commented to me that this class is not what they thought it was going to be. This class covers things like grieving and honesty. I think what has happened is that for many of us spiritual formation simply means learning more things - head knowledge. But, the material I am teaching goes deeper - it goes to the heart. The reason I feel this material is important is because there is something missing in contemporary Christianity. We have lost our hearts. What I mean is is that we have absolutely excellent academic training in areas of theology, hermeneutics, exegesis and biblical scholarship. Almost anyone can now access some of the ...

I got a Bible! I am having an identity crisis. For almost my entire adult life I have self identified as an evangelical Christian. But, my identity has been hijacked. Evangelical Christianity has been severed from its roots in the gospel and has been replanted amidst very confusing political soil. And I don't know who I am anymore. This dilemma traces its origins back several decades. In the 1980's progressive Christian Tony Campolo was loudly declaring that evangelicals in America no longer believed in the Jesus of the gospels, but instead they had transformed him into a White Anglo-Saxon Protestant Republican. And THAT Jesus is impotent to do anything for us. (Because he is a figment of our imagination). Russell Moore of the Southern Baptist Convention has renounced the label and now calls himself a Gospel Christian. Evangelical traces its roots to the word evangel - which in turn traces its root to the Greek word euangelion - which means "good news...

A couple of weeks I used an illustration in a sermon concerning the anthropologist Margaret Mead. In a University lecture, Mead asked the students what was the first sign of civilization? She held up various objects: a bowl? a weapon? the forging of iron? Mead said none of these were the first signs of civilization. She then held up a human femur bone. Upon closer inspection, you could see that the bone had been broken and then had healed over. She said - the healing of this bone means that someone cared for this person. Someone hunted for them. Fed them. Insured their personal comfort. .... all at expense to their own needs. Civilization began there and is only sustained if human beings can continue to display these same acts continue on through our line. To care for the broken among us is the sign that the body of humanity is still healthy and functioning. This story that I have shared via my friend  Selina Robinson  shows us what will be part of the downwa...

My band of brothers in the DMIN program. I got back Wednesday evening after a 10 day intensive of the first module of my Dr. of Ministry program at Alliance Theological Seminary. Classes ran from 8 AM - 5 PM everyday except for Sunday. My cohort has 11 students and then I was in a smaller group of 4. We will study together for the next 3 years, gathering twice a year for this same immersive experience. My journey to this particular seminary is quite interesting. I was actually prepared to study at another larger and better known seminary. But God stepped in and changed my direction. It happened through a Christian family camp in the Adirondacks that we attend every summer.   Camp of the Woods is a beautiful Christian resort that brings in top rate speakers and has an excellent children and youth program. This year Dr. Martin Sanders of ATS was one of the speakers. He spoke on "the soul". Felicia, my parents and I were profoundly moved by his messages as he spok...

Read a story about a mega-church pastor who had been cheating on his wife for the past few months. He got caught. He was fired and stripped of all his ministry credentials. And then he filed for divorce. The Christian life is a tight-rope. We can fall off either side. What keeps us tethered and balanced is our relationship with God - nothing else. The power of God flowing through our souls can keep us upright, when temptation screams all around us. But most of us neglect this primary relationship. Placing the demands of ministry ahead of all else can be devastating. Identity needs to be grounded in relational reality, not vocational reality. We are children of God, before we are pastors, leaders, teachers, etc.

Adam and I about to be inspired. Well, I had an absolutely surreal experience this past Tuesday. Somehow, I was invited to a private event at Carnegie Hall. One.org and Red.com were both celebrating their 10 year anniversaries. One.org is an anti poverty activist organization that lobbies governments and companies to do more to reduce global poverty. Red.com is an organization that encourages well known brands to donate portions of sales of speciality products to the Global Fund - which works towards an AIDS free future. I have volunteered for One since its very beginnings and have purchased Red products. But, I am still stupefied as to how I managed to get this extremely exclusive invite. The event honored Bill and Melinda Gates and Michael Bloomberg and a couple of other people I was not familiar with. Some of those who participated were: Bono The Edge Miley Cyrus Bill Clinton Joe Biden Stephen Colbert Trevor Noah Sting It was unbelievable. I had 2 tickets so de...

Adam and I out for dinner. If you are friends with me on facebook, you'll notice that I posted of my recent acceptance into the Doctor of Ministry program at Alliance Theological Seminary. I have been thinking of pursuing further education for a couple years now. Felicia and I talked and prayed and felt the timing was right for me to start now. I looked at several programs in the States, Canada and even the United Kingdom. I was trying to decide between a PhD and a DMIN. A PhD is a professional academic degree that would open doors for me to teach at a college or seminary in the future. A DMIN is also a professional degree but is  focused more on practical vocational ministry, usually in a local church. I would have loved doing a PhD, but honestly didn't think I would have been able to give the full focus the program would have required. We would have had to move and Felicia would have had to return to working full time. Consequently, I shifted to looking at variou...

Today, the other pastor I work with and I attended a large pastors conference out of town. The speaker was a mega-church pastor, well known in evangelical Christian circles. His messages were excellent - very helpful and biblically sound. The last session he took some questions and answers. One question was about how to minister in an age of terrorism and mass shootings. His answer was interesting. He went straight to a defense of police officers. He claimed that the situation is not helped when we demonize police officers. I agree. I agreed with everything he said - police, firefighters, soldiers - these men and women stand between the rest of us and complete social breakdown. I hold great respect and admiration for these people who place their lives on the line daily, so that the rest of us can live lives of security. Now, what I want to point out is what he did not say. I am still a relative newcomer to the USA - 2.5 years now. And so I have been able to observe a little ...

Last week I preached on identity. The question of self identity is one of the key questions we need to answer in order to have a meaningful life. When asked "who are you"?, most of us respond either vocationally or relationally. Vocationally - I am a pastor, doctor, home-maker, etc. Relationally - I am a Ninan - I am so and so's child, father, etc. We now live in a time where gender and racial identity seems to be becoming more and more fluid. In my sermon, I addressed that if we follow Christ, our identity gets re-defined in terms of our relationship with Christ. As followers of Christ, we are adopted into the family of God. Thus, our primary identity is that as a child of God. A Christian is someone who has God as their father. This understanding is incredibly transformational. We lose insecurity and fear as we enter into the truth of this reality. Our attempts to secure self esteem through peer or societal approval, proves moot. We are also liberate...

Yesterday, I was thinking about what the benefits of being a Christian are. What difference does being a follower of Jesus Christ? I came up with the following: 1. The ability to forgive others. Because Christ has forgiven the worst in me, I in turn can forgive the worst in others. 2. No stress. If God loves me and is caring for and  protecting and guiding me, I never have to worry about anything ever again. 3. Community. The most important human need we have is for a community of love and acceptance around us. The Church gives me this gift. There are more - what would you add?

I posted a pic. of me and world famous apologist Ravi Zacharias on Facebook. It garnered over 175 likes - far more than any other pic. I have ever posted online. Zacharias is arguably one of the most prominent Christian leaders in the world. He is the head of a 22 million dollar/year ministry with offices all over the world. There are hundreds who work in the ministry with over 50 itinerant speakers. He is in high demand as a speaker and people regularly line up hours ahead in order to get seats. He is an arresting speaker commingling natural charisma with a photographic memory of lengthy quotes. My history with Ravi goes back to India. There was some interaction between my parent's families and his family. I am unsure of what that interaction actually was. I know my Dad's brother worked with Ravi's ministry in India, providing leadership development training for his staff there. In the 70's and 80's Ravi spent part of his time as an itinerant evangelist wit...

Contemporary America is attempting something amazing: the creation of an autonomous free floating value matrix, which can be traced directly back to Christianity, while simultaneously severing the taproot which provides said values.  I posted this on  Facebook - it elicited a very lengthy and eloquent response from my childhood friend, Andy Tait. You can read it on my Facebook page. Andy says that "the modern west began when ties to Christianity began to fray". He gives a lengthy explanation of a variety of advances that have taken place as church and state began to separate. This has been of particular interest to me over the past 5 years. I have been studying a lot of the cultural changes happening in the West. The person who has helped me the most is Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor. He has written with the greatest insight and comprehension on the pivot, the West has taken from theism to secularity. See A Secular Age, Sources ...

Other seed fell on good soil.  It came up, grew and produced a crop,  some multiplying thirty,  some sixty, some a hundred times. On Wednesday June 17,  Dylan Roof went to a Bible Study at Emmanuel AME Church in Charleston South Carolina. An hour into the study he pulled out a gun and shot and killed 9 of the people in the study, including the pastor, Rev. Clementa Pinckney. The passage they were studying was the parable of the sower found in Mark 4. In this parable, Jesus teaches how the Word of God is like seed sown on a variety of soils.  Some seed missed the soil, hit the path only to be eaten up by birds.  Some fell on rocky soil and had no chance to set down roots. The sun burned them up. Some seed fell among thorns - the thorns killed the seed. But other seed.... That seed fell on good soil - that seed did not die. It came up It grew. It produced far beyond its humble beginnings. The men and women felled by Roof's gun are like...

Last week, Felicia and I attended an orientation evening at the middle school that Adam will be attending next year. It's one of those nights where the staff and administrators do their best to assure you that your kids will learn something and not grow disillusioned or bitter in the process. There are a certain type of parent who for some reason feel that they know more about kids education than the actual child educators who have both the training and experience to actually know what they are doing. Despite, the fact that these qualified men and women are there to present to us some of the plans they have for our kids education, these spritely parents feel compelled to pop up and pontificate on their personal philosophies of education. Most of these theories seem to be based on daydreams they have while dozing in their recliners while netflix plays in the background. Or (worse), they are a hodge podge of theories culled from day time talk shows and poorly written blog posts...

Adam and I - Wildwood School A couple of weeks ago, Adam and I went to Saskatchewan Canada for 6 days. A lot of my early formative years took place in Saskatchewan. After shuttling around from India-Vancouver-Toronto-Regina, my parents settled on Saskatoon Saskatchewan as the city to raise their family in. My father took a position as a neonatologist - one of the first in the province of Saskatchewan. We moved into a new developing neighborhood called "Wildwood". I was the in first Grade 3 class to attend Wildwood Elementary School. In between Wildwood, I attended an inner city school called Caswell. Castle had an "Ac-Tel" program, designed for academically gifted children. Somehow I made the cut. After elementary school, I went to Aden Bowman High School - made famous because Joni Mitchell went there. After high school, I skipped University and attended a denominational bible school with the unfortunately generic name of "Canadian Bible College"....

A friend of mine is dying. He has lung cancer. I will not see him before he dies because he lives in another country. He recently posted his final Facebook post. He is too sick to receive visitors anymore.  I was trying to think of what I could write in the comments. I looked up 2 Corinthians 5 which talks a lot about looking forward to a new home in heaven. And then this in v.4: For while we are still in this tent, we groan under our burden, because we wish not to be unclothed but to be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life What is mortal may be swallowed up by life. Stunning! Mortality is not life - it is not all of life. Real life is coming. It is around the corner. Death is the door into real life. Mortal life ends, so that real life can begin. When my friend sheds this mortal coil, he enters into the reality of which this life is such a faint shadow. What we consider our greatest earthly joy or achievement will be unrecognizable from the...

Jesus did not die alone. There were at least 2 others crucified with him. Two thieves. One on either side. The social and emotional context surrounding him was painful. The crowds, the guards, the rulers and even one of the thieves kept mocking him: "Come down from the cross, if you are who you say you are." The death of Jesus was the ultimate vindication of the crowd - he wasn't who he said he was. We were right - he was a fraud. They all mocked .... except. Except for one of the thieves. He rebukes the other thief: "Don't you fear God, since we are under the same sentence. We are being punished justly. But this man has done nothing wrong." Amid the din of rebuke, sarcasm and ridicule came the voice of truth from a ragged dying shell of a human propped up on that Roman gibbet. The thief understood the human condition - "we are being punished justly." He understood that he was getting what he deserved. And he looked at Jesus and re...