the NBA

If you've followed the NBA in the last 5-10 years or so...this article is hilarious-- especially Babcock's 'comments'.

the week so far

We knew this was coming. You never want to say it out loud (unless you're Harry Neale or Bob Cole) but Team Canada was terrible. Terrible you say? Maybe its not that they were terrible as much as we weren't 2002. That was an epic time in my life and produced many moments that I will never forget. Where was the Sakic Supreme this time around? Where was the pass between the legs, the dazzling stickhandling Theo Fleury, the "the whole world wants us to fail, but we'll be there"--remember that?

Death where is thy sting? Ovechkin- that's where.

I like him, except when he plays for Russia- that kid is good. Maybe the best player in the world right now.

We looked lost the whole tournament and today wasn't a surprise based on how we've played. Hindsight is a beautiful thing and we could argue about who would've made the big difference. But, we look forward to you 2010 and revenge on home ice. We look forward to you our Captain, J. Iginla (strangely ineffective this tournament) playing along side the likes of a battletested Staal, Spezza and Crosby, Nash, Phneuf... with Luongo in net- fresh off a Stanely Cup victory with the Leafs.

Well, it's hump day and the thesis is a lot further than it was on Sunday night...13/60 or 47 to go! Is that glass half full or what!

reading week

It's you and me thesis, let's do this.

emerging churches

Andrew Jones said this way better than I ever could.

"I have been listening to the latest wave of criticism against the emerging-missional church in USA and I don't know if i am more angry with the critics for getting it so wrong, or angry at emerging church practitioners for either not communicating the heart of what we (the global emerging-missional church) are doing . . or not knowing it in the first place.

The emerging church, if i listen to the more extreme critics, is just about changing the style of church to attract people and keeping them happy, of accepting any wind of doctrine without critique, of finding the coolest hippest trends and adopting them in a sunday service. Of being postmodern to attract postmoderns. Of careless adoption of any ancient practice regardless of its origin or affect, of finding identity in protest against the Modern, Enlightenment or Constantinian models of church. What the heck is that? What does that have to do with the emerging church? If there are one or two new emerging churches who have lost the plot, or never saw it clearly to begin with, and are now giving the other hundreds of emerging churches a bad name, they should be lovingly confronted with the better way of Jesus. Do it yourself before other traditions do it for you. A little yeast impacts the whole lump....

Read the rest here.

k[no]w Emergent!?

As some of you may already know, I’m organising a conference with a couple goods friend called The Evolving Church. We invited Brian Mclaren, Donald Miller and Chris Seay to come because their writing has struck a chord with us and we feel like they are saying things that we needed to hear. We think this is a good thing.

What I have found in the last couple months of planning this thing is that a) people think this is an Emergent conference and b) there are some people who think Brian Mclaren and company are the anti-Christ. First, I’d like to clarify some things about this conference. We are in no way pushing the Emergent ‘agenda’ (whatever that may be), but are really concerned about the Church and feel that there are a lot of people our age who may be thinking the same thing. Our experience inside church was not necessarily detrimental to our understanding of the Church, but we think that Church, especially in North America, has not been in operating in the manner which God has called it to.

Yes, Brian and Chris are forefront in the Emergent movement but this isn’t a conference to discuss Emergent, its to discuss how we, as the Church in Canada can take on the vocational attributes that we may be lacking. It is not a ‘local church’ bashing conference, but a chance to understand where we can go from here.

It’s sort of my running joke with Fulster that Emergent has left itself undefined, contributing to the overall stigma that it is simply pushing a post-modern agenda. Ie: what do they believe? "we don’t know, they just won’t say…" While I will admit that Mclaren has been more publicly inquisitive than affirming in regards to issues of doctrine, Emergent has defined itself here at Emergent Village

Some people may not agree with this or other Emergent ideas, or the things that some people who associate themselves with this movement write, (Sweet, Pagitt etc.) but that doesn’t disqualify them from speaking about the state of the Church in the 21st century, does it?

I have come across some blogs that spend way too much time dissecting every sentence of these people as their act of service. I have found that every time I read these blogs it leaves me disappointed, not because I’m pro Emergent but because it is often done with a mean spirit, using absolute propositions and leaving no room for dialogue. It has been my experience that these statements only lead to putting people on the defense, which only further a separation between the two sides and certainly isn't edifying. Emergent may be wrong about a number of things…its true! But saying ‘you are wrong and I’m right and that’s that’ is only widening the denominational divide among believers. It’s like I have to take sides between Emergent and non-Emergent. To think this way is to miss one of the points of the movement, which is to recognize that denominations have destroyed us and if we could only talk about our differences with open minds and a heart that is seeking to be faithful to God, then we’d be much more effective as ambassadors of Christ.

In other news, I dropped C.S. Lewis and picked up Managing Non-Profit Organisations. I like it. Our floor hockey record: 2- 0- 1, but that may change soon as our goalie will be away for most of the rest of our games, so I may be strapping on the pads—seems like a fitting end to a my last season (Lord willing!).

tagged

I don't normally respond to these kind of things but since Nathan Colquhoun has requested it, I will defy his (usually correct) instincts and reply. I was tagged...

Four Jobs I've had:
Blockbuster "rewind boy"
Selling Snowboards @ Skiis and Biikes (why two i's in bikes.. ? not sure either)
Relief Worker @ The Gateway
Maintenance @ Fair Havens

Four Movies I could watch over and over:
Braveheart
Home Alone
Magnolia
Back to the Future

Four Places I've lived:
Smithville
Toronto
Huntsville
Beaverton

Four T.V. Shows I love:
Arrested Development
Wonder Years
The West Wing
Seinfeld

Four Vacations Spots I've been to:
northern Ontario..
Peru...not exactly a vacation though..
Boston...
Philadelphia

Four Favorite Dishes
spaghetti
chili
pizza
rolaids!

Four Sites I visit often:
www.yahoo.com
www.theglobeandmail.com
www.epconference.net
www.thestar.com

Four Places I'd rather be right now:
Smithville
Beaverton
anywhere with AJ
Blue Mountain

Four Bloggers I'm tagging
http://www.puritas.blogspot.com
http:eemc.blogsome.com
http://www.thebrooks.blogspot.com
http://thesilverstrian.blogspot.com

the election.

For anyone who wants to know what Stephen Harper is really up to...these may be the funniest commericals I have ever seen- no jokes. Yum Yum is my favorite, but this one is good too!

Jack

1143 times. That is the amount of times that someone has asked me if my middle name started with an "S". Imagine if it did? Two C.S.Lewis' in the world- no way! Unfortunately, or otherwise my middle name does not begin with an S. The only reason I bring this up is because I chose a class specifically devoted to the writings of C.S.Lewis as my very last class at Tyndale- the last one! Where does the time go...

I think over the next little while much of what makes in onto this blog is going to be devoted to sharing what this 20th century literary artist has to say. I begin with a quote from book one of Mere Christianity,

"The most dangerous thing you can do is to take any one impulse of your own nature and set it up as the thing you ought to follow at all costs. There is not one of them which will not make us into devils if we set it up as an absolute guide. You might think love of humanity in general was safe, but it is not. If you leave out justice you will find yourself breaking agreements and faking evidence in trials 'for the sake of humanity,' and become in the end a cruel and treacherous man."

Absolutism... it's destructive. Thinking that I am right, that I have all the answers to the most pertinent questions is destructive. Now, there are things that I believe to be absolutely true and I don't think that Lewis was essentially arguing for an absolute principle. But in the context of the church...here is exactly what I wrestle with: who is right, who is wrong and does it really, honestly, truly matter? At the moment, I'm not convinced that it does. Of course, if someone started baptizing in a church with pig's blood while wearing little to no clothing...my 'not caring' would probably go out the window and I'd look for some sort of standard by which to function as the body of Christ. The bible you say? I just need to talk to Nathan Colquhoun about this...

Jokes. Really, he's a great guy who's asking some questions too.

In other news, I'm also going to be giving a thesis report every now and again. So far in terms of page numbers I'm 0/70, but that's not terrible...it could be worse, right? I could not have a topic... well, let's not get into that.

surprise additions

Beth Veale has been added to the list of conference workshop leaders. Don't know who Beth Veale is? She is a principle at a gradeschool in Toronto, and in the words of Darryl Silvestri, "she's money baby, money". Also, Jarod Siebert has been added as a workshop leader- I believe he was part of a church plant a while ago called Next Church in Kingston. Now he works for the Mennonite denomination as a church advisor. Everything is coming together...and REGISTRATION IS OPEN!

church practice.

I heard a story the other day. Apparently the underground church in China is exploding. The first thing that struck me as different from church in the West in that this church is led almost entirely by women. The reason for this is largely unknown, however its speculated that the native men may think that the Christian faith is the equivalent of being a panzy and so they stay away. This sounds funny coming from a country where freedom of religion doesn't really exist.

The second thing I heard about the underground church in China is that a lot of the churches (which are unconnected) have their own little quirks that sound fairly ridiculous to us. For instance, before embracing Christ, one of the current leaders of a church spent three days in mourning because of their sin. And so the church that this person leads requires each person to spend three days in mourning once they choose to follow Jesus. Another leader vomitted just before conversion. Apparently they thought this should be common place and so now the true mark of a Christian for this church is to vomitt at the point of conversion.

This sounds ridiculous and totally unbiblical but...

Think about our churches. Is there anything we do that is like these traditions? Think of this- the altar call. We know what it means. It is not unexpected in some of our churches and it is usually associated with a conversion experience or the first step towards salvation. The altar call was first used by Charles Finney as a way to sign up recent converts to fight for the abolition of slavery. Of course, the altar call experience is not found in Scripture but somehow we manage to make it a focal point of our evangelism services. Oh well, I guess that's just part of becoming a Christian...right... no?...

podcasting

I'm looking for some good podcasts. Any suggestions?

the Outrage of Grace

I'm reading this book. It's a shock to the system-- the good kind though. The first third of the book is a novel about two people having an affair. They are purposely never condemned or interrupted by the narrator with random acts that may reveal their rendevous - scandalous. The author comments intermittently and is often quite funny and sarcastic. Here's a taste:

"I said grace cannot prevail until law is dead, until moralizng is out of the game. The precise phrase should be, until our fatal love affair with the law is over- until, finally and for good, our lifelong certainty that someone is keeping score has run out of steam and collapsed. As long as we leave, in our dramatizations of grace, one single hope of a moral reckoning, one possible recourse to salvation by bookkeeping, our freedom-dreading hearts will clutch it to themselves. And even if we leave none at all, we will grub for ethics that are not there rather than face the liberty to which grace calls us. Give us those parables of the Prodigal Son, for example, and we will promptly lose its point by preaching ourselves sermons on Worthy and Unworthy Confession, or on The Sin of the Elder Brother. Give us the Workers in the Vineyard, and we will concoct spurious lessons on The Duty of Contentment or The Moral Aspects of Labor Relations.

Restore to us, Preacher, the comfort of merit and demerit. Prove for us that there is at least something we can do, that we are still, at whatever dim recess of our nature, the masters of our relationships. Tell us, Prophet, that in spite of all our nights of losing, there will yet be one redeeming card of our very own to fill the inside straight we have so long and so earnestly tried to draw to. But do not preach us grace. It will not do to split the pot evenly at four A.M. and break out the Chivas Regal. We insist on being reckoned with. Give us something, anything; but spare us the indignity of this indiscriminate acceptance.

Lord, let your servants depart in the peace of their proper responsibility. If it is not too much to ask, send us to bed with some few shreds of self-respect to congratulate ourselves upon. But if that is too hard, leave us with at least the consolation of our self-loathing. Only do not force us free. What have we ever done but try as best we could? How have we so hurt you, even by failing, that you should now turn on us and say that none of it makes any difference, not even our sacred guilt? We have played this game of yours, and it has cost us."

Christmas

Okay, I realize this is about one day too late, but get over it.

This Christmas was different. Leading up to the big day I felt differently about Christmas than ever before. I don't really know why, it's not like there have been drastic family changes, or that I have done anything intentional to celebrate Christmas differently, however like most things these days, I'm changing the way I think about this whole event.

First of all, the whole debate about xmas bla bla blah- can the church really make this argument? Like most things we debate about, the root of the matter stems from the fact that we really only care because it means we will have less of a voice in Western culture. I think that in all likelihood (and this is pure conjecture) that most families probably celebrate Christmas exactly the way most pagan families do- presents, food, family, church. The only difference is that we are free to send Christmas cards that say things about Jesus on them.

I would argue that maybe we should start saying Happy Holidays because that is all it is. My friend Andrew wrote an article about the name of the Lord, using the Hebrew words qatan (small, insignificant) and qavod (heavy). He basically says that Rabbis refused to use the name of the Lord because it was too heavy, and they didn't want to risk treating it with insignificance. I think we throw Christ onto a holiday that is essentially about ourselves, 'the haul' and the time off to relax. It has nothing to do with Christ- he is small, insignificant.

And so, maybe Happy Holidays is appropriate- at the very least its more reverent than saying Merry Christmas and then spending a billion dollars on gifts and gorging ourselves on turkey.

Oh the bitterness, where does this all come from?

It's not all bad. I did get to spend Christmas eve at the shelter and let me tell you that I loved it. Over the course of the evening, a couple people stopped by. My favorite was a family of five, with three little kids. They were handing out some gifts that they brought- nothing extravagant- but everything is significant when you have nothing. The highlight of the night had to be when the five year old boy of the family went up to a couple of scruffy homeless guys and said 'merry Christmas', and then handed them the gift. That was probably the most 'Christ-massy' this I've seen. I think if I ever ended up with a family that that is what we might do on Christmas eve...

Please don't get me wrong. I really want to say Merry Christmas, but honestly, if its just a thing to do, a tradition that we accept, then really Christ means nothing in it and I'll take happy holidays. Of course, I want it to mean something...the trick is figuring out how to do that. The first step may be to recognizes the epiphany of the Christ as a daily reality... the savior who was born- born into reality first with 10 fingers, 10 toes... smelly, pukey and adorable and then bruised, beaten and glorious.

"Suddenly, God's angel stood among them and God's glory blazed around them. They were terrified. The angel said, "Don't be afraid. I'm here to announce a great and joyful event that is meant for everybody, worldwide: A Savior has just been born in David's town, a Savior who is Messiah and Master".

The Chronic- what- cles of Narnia

For you big D.

The Chronicles of Narnia

Big Announcement

Finally it is time for the official announcement.

There is a conference in April that a couple good friends of mine and I are putting together. We think that the church has been and will continue to be changing in the next little while, for better or worse. We have all pretty much moved in our ideology from 'going to church' to 'being the church'...while still asking the age old question: what does that look like?

And so, The Evolving Church will be held at Tyndale on April 8th. Keynotes are Brian Mclaren, Donald Miller and Chris Seay, with a couple workshop leaders (keynotes will also be leading workshops) that we are very excited about, including George Sweetman, Pernell Goodyear, Brian Walsh and some others tba.

April 8th, Tyndale,..book it!

A Griswald Family Christmas?

If this is real, it's unbelievable. Christmas Lights 2

Watch Video

Blyss

A couple months ago I picked up the new Lifehouse cd, mostly because of the catchy song that was all over the radio, but I have been pleasantly surprised. In fact, I'd say the album is better than their first one, which is still a favorite to this day.

Jason Wade from Lifehouse used to be in a band called Blyss. I have never seen their cd around but one of their songs has surfaced in a couple different circles-- Storm

I suppose I should get back to paper writing...or do something else..

thrashers and watering holes...

I put in a couple shifs at the Gateway this weekend. A couple of leaf games, a whole lot of coffee changing, lockers and the 'white man' made for an interesting time. I really like that place. One of the shift leaders there is a man by the name of Tyler Thrasher. I'd like to give props to him for being one of the best dang supervisors in the world (shout out also to Scott- and a wedge of lemon..!?).

Also, I was at a new church in St. Catherines this past weekend. It was pretty trendy. I don't mean that in a negative way but I did feel like I was on a college campus (except most young couples had a couple of babies in each arm). There was however a good mix of the older crowd which I appreciated. There are four pastors at this church and not one of them is older than 33. What's more, not one of them has theological training, ha (funny how we think that seminaries= closer to God and qualified to tell me what to think about God)...although apparently one guy is doing graduate studies presently at a good school in the states. This church has doubled in size TWICE, in the last three years. They run a full time homeless shelter right out of the building. Two services, good worship and a good message. I think if I was home more often I might go back.

A quote from the service, "rules can never change character"- in a series called Graceland (I told you it was trendy). As hard as I try to surround myself with boundaries to keep myself from sinning, boundaries will not cause me necessarily to sin less or more. Rules can never change character. I heard that in Austrailia a lot of the farmers don't have fences for their livestock. How do they contain them? They put a watering hole around where they want the animals to stay so the animals never wander too far away, even though they could go as far as they want. Maybe we need a little more of that in the church. Maybe if we really believed that Jesus was the living water (apologize for the cheesiness) we would never want to wander away, we wouldn't need rules (read: no alchohol, no drugs, no swearing, no R movies, no smoking, no jeans in church or if you're from a generation ago- no cinemas, no bowling alleys, no card games!...) to try and make us better people. Rules can never change character- we just need to figure out how to stay close to the watering hole...

Well, I need a drink.
(interpret that how you will)

all rights reserved.

I was in a pretty big church the other day for Sunday morning service. It was pretty normal I suppose- stand up sing, sit down pray, listen to sermon, go home and eat...nothing out of the ordinary.

As I was flipping through the bulletin during the sermon I came across a section entitled "Steps to Peace with God". It did a pretty good job of outlining redemptive history in 3 sentences or so (does anyone else think that is a problem?) which included God's plan for peace and life, our problem and separation from God and God's remedy- the cross. Of course, once one understands redemptive history in this brief context, the opportunity for response is given: Admit, Repent, Believe, Receive. (I'm surprised it wasn't an acronym- something as easy as ABC...)

Regardless, that is all okay and I don't disagree that all of those things are part of the Christian life, however then came the good old sinners prayer...

Now, I know this isn't in the Bible but just in case someone who read this didn't know what to do or say after reading this and was apparently being convicted by the Holy Spirit to respond, they had a prayer to say that would seal the deal. The legitimacy of the sinners prayer aside, the funniest part of this whole thing is that right underneath this prayer it said, "Used by permission of 'insert well known evangelical association here', All rights reserved".

All rights reserved?
All rights reserved!

This is part of the problem. Like a good Western company they sought to monopolize, patent and reserve the rights to a prayer--a conversation with the Almighty God! Can you imagine this conversation between clergy and a recent convert... "Thank you for praying this prayer, if you could please just send a letter of recognition to this association for allowing you to be part of the kingdom"

Of course this wouldn't be an issue if we didn't reduce the story of redemption and the kingdom life to a prayer. When did this happen? How did this happen?

Where is God?

What are we doing?

What has the gospel become?

Summer

Living in a house with no heat (maybe this Wednesday?) makes me miss the summer. A whole lot of fun in a short, short time. Thanks to Sarah Cross for these pics.


A romantic moment on the docks in Orillia with C. Ralph.


I knew we'd get in. D-D-D Donna you're the star of the show.



Just another night during pre-season.


Deb, Mutter and C. Ralph.