Do You Know Stephen Harper?

Oh, so that's who this guy is! This week while I'm in Florida for Christmas vacation, I've been reading a book entitled "Stephen Harper and the Future of Canada." (Here's a review from the London Free Press.)

I've only become interested in Canadian federal politics in the past few years thanks to Abe and Joel's challenging views. I voted for the Liberals in my first two federal elections but I switched to a Conservative vote in the last election. Early on, my knowledge of the leadership of the Conversatives was based on Preston Manning caricatures and Stockwell Day stunts. Stephen Harper came along and assumed leadership in recent years and he has generally been characterized as being reticent with the media and public with "hidden agendas" assigned by Liberal opponents.

This book gives me a very different picture of Harper. It's obvious enough that the author likes Harper but it provides me with a context for Harper's career in politics. I'll highlight a couple of things that I learned.

1) He's not a new-comer to politics. He's been involved since he was a university student in the early 1980s and he's been an MP several times since then. (See this timeline.)

2) Echoing some of our recent blog discussions, he was also very unsatisifed with the choice of political parties in Canada while he was in university. Rather than complain about it or refuse to vote, he opted to create a political party of his own. He drew up his ideal platform for a conservative political party and eventually founded the Reform party in western Canada as the Chief Policy Officer under Preston Manning. Lofty goals indeed.
3) Harper is a "policy wonk." He prefers to stay behind the scenes and deal with the issues, rather than the Ottawa-bred political fighting. The conservative party was falling apart under Stockwell Day and he was forced to step in as the leader to save the party from itself. So yes, he is reluctant to give the media what they want and he isn't prone to photo-ops and revealing personal interviews.

4) Harper believes that "moral issues" like abortion and homosexuality should not be in the policy platform of his party. Rather, he has stated since early in his career that such issues should be handled with a free vote according to the conscience of each MP and their constituencies' preferences. (And yes, that means that poverty is not lumped in with "moral issues" and should be handled as part of the party policies.)

5) Back in the day, the Meech Lake accord was promoted to help relations with Quebec and stuff. Each MP was supposed to have 20 minutes to debate the issue. Harper was assisting the lone, first Reform MP at the time (Deborah Grey) and in the end, the three leading parties pulled a fast one. The leaders of each party gave one speech and then they closed off the debate.

Last year, the Liberals pulled a similar stunt by pushing through the redefinition of marriage, and one Liberal MP actually resigned because of these poor tactics. Harper stated at the beginning of the current election campaign that he wants a new vote taken with everyone free to vote as they see fit. So no, he's not a fan of quickie political maneuvers.

6) Harper has always been the toughest opponent on the issue of Quebec's secession form Canada. He was the one that has continually insisted that Quebec cannot secede legally from Canada back in the early 1990's and he proposed Bill C-341, which established how secession could happen legally and what Canada should do in the case of illegal secession. This was the clearest response to Quebec's referendum back during Jean Chretien's regime but it was never passed. Instead, Chretien opted for a vague response in parliament with a last-minute rah-rah rally in the last two weeks, and we escaped a major quandary by the skin of our teeth.

All in all, I found this book to be quite fascinating. I'm sure that doesn't do much for my reputation as a nerdy geek but I certainly know more about Harper (and the Conservatives) than I did before. And yes, I am voting conservative in the upcoming election.

Who Needs A White Christmas?

I'm leaving London at around 2:00 pm today and I'm driving down to Florida with my dad and my brother (collectively known as "the David Grants"). The original plan was to bring the three South Korean boys down to meet their parents in Florida but as I learned late last night, that plan was cancelled several weeks ago. In any case, we three men will play a lot of cards with my dad's parents, go to many buffets and play much golf. It's like early retirement!

As for this past week, I just finished a whirlwind schedule. Monday night, we had our final Christmas choir/drama presentation at church. I now have a DVD recording of the final presentation, which went perfectly. For the record, I remembered the words for my solo five out of six nights. Apparently there's a DVD of the second presentation when I messed up my lyrics and I plan to get a copy of that in January, if only for the sake of the ongoing joke.

On Tuesday evening, I spent four hours with Ariel Terry recording various worship songs. 'Twas excellent. We recorded the first version of one worship song that I wrote and Ariel layed down guitar and piano tracks for two more songs that I had started. We also did a set of four familiar worship songs. The next day, I edited five of the tracks for length and spit 'em all out to a CD. I created a nice little CD label and I prepared numerous copies for my various extended family members. (Anyone that is interested can ask me for a free copy and I'll get one to you in January.)

On Wednesday, my family "officially" celebrated Christmas with a full turkey dinner and the opening of presents. Since my and my sister will be at my mom's parents during Christmas while we're in Florida, we had to get everything in early. I managed to get the first copy of my worship CD done about fifteen minutes before I stuck it in the CD player for my mom as her Christmas gift. Talk about a race to the finish!

As usual, my family had a nice set of new DVDs (TV seasons and movies) by the time we were done. La piece de resistance was the boxed set of Calvin & Hobbes that I received from my family. It has immediately become the centrepiece of my entire comic collection, and that's saying a lot.

Following our family Christmas on Wednesday, I then finished the night off with not just one but two parties. I had a party with my cell group and then I hit the second half of the wrap party for my Christmas choir. Busy, busy. On Thursday afternoon, I capped off my week by picking up various Terry kids from various places and having dinner with them at their house. (Thanks for the gifts, everyone!) I had to drop up another pile of presents for them, which is the main reason I made that trip. Richard even showed up later on so he, Joel and I got the chance to catch up on things.

Even with all of this hustle and bustle, I still had an opportunity to donate to Take It Or Leave It. I wrote about this before and I'll say it again, they do amazing work. In this case, the people involved in that program had heard about a single mother with one child under a year old and another on the way. They were delivering something to this woman's house this past week and it was almost entirely bare.

On Wednesday night at the wrap party for the choir, they spoke to a few people privately and now they'll be buying this woman various major necessities and they'll deliver it just in time for Christmas. Since they give 100% of their donations (either financial or material) to people that need it, I love working with them. I encourage you all to check the main website and to donate something that is listed there. Many thanks.

News & Links

And now for something completely different...

Here's a gangsta rap parody from SNL this past week that has been making the rounds on the internet: The Chronic of Narnia.

Here's another parody video: The Me Church. We played this during our weekend services a couple of months ago at my church.

Did you hear about the computer virus that caught a child porn offender?

There's nothing like 40 drunken Santas to get your point across.

And for the scientifically inclined (i.e. boring), we have Buffy the Theory Slayer. We keep finding large orbiting objects in our solar system that shouldn't be there. Heh.

Swim Deeper

Let me give you a word picture based on a dream that I had this morning. Imagine yourself at an idyllic cottage area just after noon on a calm and bright summer day. There's just enough of a breeze to cool you down but not enough to make you cold if you're in the water. There's a small lake with a few people swimming or boating. You have swum out from the shore to a small floating platform, the small square kind made of wood with a simple ladder up the side. It's the kind of platform that tires you out when you swim to it but it's fun to dive from it or sunbathe a while and then eventually swim back to shore.

God was telling me, "Don't swim further, swim deeper."

In our lives, we gradually discover our main calling. The purpose or focus to which we love to devote ourselves, that inspires us and keeps us going. For me, my two main areas are worship and discipleship, possibly in that order. For others, it may be teaching or pastoring or being a parent.

Once we have found our calling, our lake, we are not meant to move to other lakes. There may be other lakes nearby or other rivers. These lakes and rivers may be very pleasant and attractive themselves. Other people may be there already or people may move from your lake to the other ones. Even so, we're to stay in the lake that we found.

The purpose of this instruction is not to hinder us from moving. The purpose is not to limit us, to put borders around us or to stop us from learning. Instead, the purpose is that we fully explore this lake that we have found.

We can walk along the shoreline of the lake We can explore by boat. We can swim around along the surface, maybe even shallow dive off a platform. We can enjoy our time with others as we do these things. We can even just stop and sunbathe. That may be great at first and it may be great at different times when we need a break.

We should not be satisified with swimming around the surface, though. We need to swim deeper. We need to swim down past the depths that others swim. We need to go down by ourselves into the soundless areas below, finding the secrets that others cannot find. In these places, looking up at the surface, it's just between us and God. He'll show us what we're looking for.

And once we have found these secrets, these treasures, we can swim up and bring them back to the surface. We can bring the pearls that God has shown to us and give them to others. For me in particular, this means deepening in worship and bringing back songs that everyone can share. (Once in a while, there may be a pearl of great value that I won't want to share with anyone.)

Don't swim further, swim deeper.

Humility & Humiliation

I wrote about humility this past week and now it's time to write about humiliation. Last night was opening night for our Christmas presentation at my church. I have a solo and it went flawlessly. Tonight, not so much.

My solo is for the song O Little Town of Bethlehem, which we all know so well. I have the first verse to myself, so let's see how it goes...

O little town of Bethlehem
How still we see thee lie
Above thy deep and dreamless sleep
The silent stars go by
Yet in...la lananana
The everlasting light
The hopes and fears of all the years
Are met in thee tonight

Yep, that's how it goes. *sigh*

Caution: Humility At Work

This past weekend, there was a high priority problem at my workplace. I had dealt with it initially on Friday morning but I decided that we could wait to fix the software bug until the following Monday. Unfortunately, a customer contacted us over the weekend and one of our other programmers had to come in on Saturday to fix the issue. Several people received an e-mail this past Monday explaining what had happened and suggesting that this should have been corrected on the previous Friday.

As the project manager, I had made the call to delay the fix. So, I sucked it up and sent an e-mail back to everyone, apologizing for my decision and apologizing for the fact that another developer had to waste part of their weekend on the problem.

One person wrote me back in a bit of amazement, saying that they had never heard anybody apologize at anyplace they had ever worked.

The way I see it, an apology is my first course of action once I have been shown that I was wrong. Granted, everyone expects an apology if they themselves were wronged. We'll have arguments with someone about how they hurt us or whatever and at some point we'll gleefully add the comment, "And you haven't even said that you're sorry."

On the other side of that coin, though, it takes a fair amount of pride-swallowing to easily offer a meaningful and sincere apology. It can be difficult to counteract the automatic desire to defend ourselves. The only thing that makes it easier is to practice, I suppose. In any case, I find it amusing that certain marks of maturity are so often missing from our workplaces but I'm glad that God showed up in that simple e-mail exchange.

Earthly Treasures

I ordered my new sound equipment for my laptop a week and a half ago through eBay and two of my packages arrived today. I received Sonar Home Studio 4 and M-Audio Mobilepre USB. I also ordered two new Rode NT1A mics, which will be arriving next week.

I'm planning to use the new equipment to record several different sets of songs. My first priority is to prepare a short worship CD for Christmas, for my parents and my co-workers. I did that two years ago and it really worked out well. After that, I want to record a few other songs that I've been writing. I also want to record a complete worship CD with Arial and perhaps a french worship song or two for ma grandmama. Here I go...

As for other material goods, I told a few of my friends that I would prepare a proper Christmas wish list and I've finally gotten around to doing that. If'n you weren't one of those people then by all means, ignore the rest of this post.

1) Simpsons Hit & Run for the PS2 (link)
2) Foxtrot (link) Note: I already have most of the other treasury-sized collections.
3) Any recent worship CD - I haven't bought any in the past year.
4) Wizard subscription (link)
5) Blank CDs (Heh.)
6) Clothing, since I rarely buy anything for myself.
7) MP3 Player
8) Family Guy Season 3, Simpsons Season 4 and 5, Futurama Season 2
9) Alarm clock with ten-minute snooze button, battery/plug options, small enough for trips.
10) Somethin' else. Be creative, thoughtful or cheap, whatever you prefer.

Last Week & Next Week

This past week was pretty brutal. Christmas choir practice was fine, hanging with my Little is always fun and I even got together with E* for an impromptu lunch. Even so, my entire week was overshadowed by one major event at work.

My best "work friend" resigned this past week, completely out of the blue. He's moving on to a better job that will definitely work out nicely for him. For me, though, it was like an emotional sucker punch. I've worked quite closely with him for more than three and a half years. We bounce ideas off of each other as we develop our code and we tend to think alike regarding our approaches to software design. More than that, I always played him two games of chess every day at work and we have even hung out a few times outside of work.

I've had this black cloud about me ever since I found out about it, which is uncharacteristic of me. I was actually a little surprised at how deeply this effected me but as I said, I'm sure things will themselves out. Good times we had, good times.

My focus for the upcoming week is my Christmas production at my church. I've been practising with my Christmas choir since early October and pay off is coming next weekend. We have six days for everyone to come and see our free presentation. It falls on Saturday-Sunday-Monday on December 10/11/12 and December 17/18/19, at 7:00 pm every night.

The play was written from scratch and directed by one of our church members and the music was arranged and recorded by our worship leader. I've seen the early versions of the whole production and it's pretty funny. It relates to the story of Mary and Joseph but this year it's told from the point of view of the shephards. Aaron and Derrick Ross play two central roles as shephards and since they're brothers in real life, their bickering and relationship comes off as both hilarious and believable. (Plus, Tara is in it!) I'm sure everyone will enjoy it.

As for me, I do have a solo for one of the songs. On the whole, the songs fit quite nicely into the play and a couple of them will have a nice emotional impact. I hope y'all decide to take one night to come out and enjoy yourselves.

Spontaneous Worship

...isn't so spontaneous.

There's a perception that Spirit-led, free-flow, spontaneous worship is the opposite of highly structured, carefully planned, well-practised worship. While there's a nugget of truth in there, I disagree with that idea. (Note: I'm using "worship" to refer to musical worship only in this case.)

In my experience, I find that spontaneous worship actually requires more practice than regular worship. Getting a band to play together and follow the Holy Spirit's leading is more difficult than following sheet music and the worship leader. And yes, spontaneous worship does in fact require a fair amount of planning.

A skilled musician and singer can, by themselves, lead spontaneously quite easily if they have practised it enough. Even so, they must be aware of chord progressions that they can easily use because the same four chords for twenty minutes won't cut it. The act of choosing where to go in the song is also difficult as the only instrumentalist because they are simultaneously trying to pay attention to any prophetic messages that may be ready or whatnot.

Once you throw in a full band and then spontaneous worship becomes increasingly complicated. If the leader changes keys or chord progressions, how is this communicated to the other band members? While the worship leader may take the majority of the responsibility to "follow the Spirit" when the times comes, the other band members also have this right/responsibility, so how do they exchange leadership roles? Do all members need to be able to play by ear, and how do you accomodate those that cannot play that way?

In the end, the answer to these questions is practice, practice and more practice.

The hardest part of "spontaneous" practice is not, as you might expect, having the Spirit lead. The Holy Spirit is always ready to go places and He isn't just waiting for the "official" worship service. Rather, the hard part is getting people to feel confident about their roles during spontaneous worship. The majority of people I meet are too inexperienced with free-flow stuff so when that time comes, they tend to back or stop playing entirely. That's like cutting out half of the band and then it's not surprising when spontaneous music doesn't seem to have the impact of a planned song. (I could go on about this topic, and maybe I will in another post later.)

Now, spontaneous worship can actually take many forms. The most common version is to use the same set of songs, chord charts and lyrics for a regular worship set. The difference is that these usually come with a plan for the beginning, middle and end. Spontaneous worship will intentionally leave spots where the worship can wander but if the Holy Spirit doesn't do something in those times then you move on. This style is like the Psalms, in which there are "Selah" moments that are actually planned points of spontaneous music.

There are other forms. Some start from nothing, perhaps during ministry and prayer time, and they gradually develop into full-fledged songs. Some follow the Harp and Bowl model, which switches back and forth from reading passages from the Bible and praying to musical responses to those passages and prayers. There are different ways to practice each of these approaches.

I could go on about spontaneous worship, but my main point is that "spontaneous" does require practice and may in fact require more practice than a regular worship set. That being said, I sometimes find it easier to do with other musicians that I often play with. For example, I can usually have a full-on worship sessions with no practice whatsoever with Arial Terry because we have played together for so long. As far as my personal preferences go, I usually like spontaneous worship a lot more but I still regard it as only one aspect of musical worship. It's a great expression towards God but it's not inherently better than other forms of worship.

Caveat: Andrea, my conversation with you recently did inspire this post but this isn't a response to our conversation, it's just a copy of ideas that I've had percolating for a long time. :)

Passion in Toronto (Part II)

E* and I left London at around 2:00 pm on Tuesday afternoon to go to Toronto for the one-day Passion worship concert. After one or two missed turns and a bit of wandering, we managed to find the right place. We arrived more than an hour early and found a group of fifty people already standing in front of the coliseum doors, waiting in the freezing cold.

E* and I hadn't eaten dinner yet, so we headed off for the giant KFC bucket that we saw a few blocks away. After a few more wrong turns down graffiti-ridden alley ways, we managed to get to the KFC building - only to discover that it was just advertising. We ended up eating a meal at a Williams-style coffee house in the middle of this commercial district. Good times.

We headed back to the line up outside of the coliseum and waited for another hour for the doors to open. Everyone was packed into together tightly to avoid the cold. Who needs personal space, eh? I later learned that my brother was in the initial group that we saw when we first arrived. I was actively looking for him so it's too bad that I missed him then.

The evening itself was great and exactly what I expected. There were two bands that performed two consecutive worship sets. The speaker had twenty minutes or so to talk and then the Dave Crowder Band played the final worship set. They mixed in plenty of small-group prayer for the young adults at the schools in the GTA area.

The speaker, Louie Giglio, was excellent. He kept a nice string of jokes going to keep our interest. His theme was about how big God is, how great His love for us is and how small we are - and yet he knows each of us. The giant screen that filled the back wall of the stage was used to show a long selection of astronomy shots from the Hubble telescope, hence the picture at the top of this post. If God could create all of that with just a few words...and yet would send His son to live with us and die for us...yeah, it had the impact you would expect.

The entire event was completely free because of an offering that was given at the previous Passion '05 conference. The Passion group likes to have one conference pay for another conference in another city. It's a novel approach. They also just started this new blog yesterday and the first post was about their first foray outside of the USA. Cool.

Related Links:
Part 1
Passion Web Site
268 Generation Blog

Passion Worship in Toronto

I'm leaving London mid-afternoon today to go down to Toronto for the one-day Passion event. (Service? Conference? Concert?) Passion is an umbrella title for a group of bands that travel on a worship tour for teens and young adults. It's the kind of thing that frequently has tens of thousands of people attend. I have several Passion CDs and they're excellent.

I'll be driving down with E*, a girl I know from Open Door (or ODCF, if you prefer). There are several other groups going there from London. I know that a busload is going from Northpark church and another one is going with Western students. By coincidence, I learned yesterday evening that my brother is joining the Western group. Is anyone else going? Joel?

Related Links:
Passion '06
Toronto Details

Free Book and Stuff

Did you know that Scott Adams (that Dilbert guy again) has written novels that having nothing to do with Dilbert? He has a book called God's Debris and he is giving away a free pdf version. In his words, it was difficult to market but he assumes that at least a few more people will buy the real book if they read the digital version first. And Mike, I expect you to read this so that we can discuss it sometime.

Here's his synopsis:
Imagine that you meet a very old man who—you eventually realize—knows literally everything. Imagine that he explains for you the great mysteries of life—quantum physics, evolution, God, gravity, light, psychic phenomenon, and probability—in a way so simple, so novel, and so compelling that it all fits together and makes perfect sense. What does it feel like to suddenly understand everything? God's Debris isn’t the final answer to the Big Questions. But it might be the most compelling vision of reality you will ever read. The thought experiment is this: Try to figure out what’s wrong with the old man’s explanation of reality. Share the book with your smart friends then discuss it later while enjoying a beverage.

For those of you that would prefer to have fun instead, here you go.

Here Lies This Blog

Richard and Joel Terry have completed their first mural at Open Doors Church. Richard has further details on his blog. Congratulations to them both and I hope to see more of their work soon.

Scott Adams, the creator of Dilbert, has a blog that he regularly updates. He usually delves into some pretty funny and bizarre topics so you might want to check it out. One of his recent posts from this past week mentions that he was doing research on the debate over Intelligent Design, looking for comic fodder. He's on to Part Two as of this morning. Funny stuff.

As a computer geek, I like to visit most of my blog links several times every day. I also visit the inactive blogs regularly, just in case someone uses them again. Alas, my blog links are somewhat lengthy and therefore useless to people that actually bother to look at them. That being said, I will link to each of the inactive blogs one last time in this post and remove them from my menu bar.

Here lies this site.
It was great but it might
Have run it's course.
Have no remorse.

Catharina Terry
Celia Terry (Original Blog)
Elyse and Sarah's Blog
Elyse's Old Blog
Grace Terry
Laura May
Zachary Timmerman

(Updated: November 18, 2005)

Conversationalist

I recently observed an interesting contrast in my communication style. Two weeks ago, I was visiting a church in Windsor with a group from my church, as I wrote about here. This church, New Song Church, has a community meal every Friday evening and a casual snack-and-service thing every Saturday night. While we were there on the weekend, we were instructed to mix with the people there, start a few conversations and get to know them a bit.

That's never really been a problem for me. I've always been good at leading conversations with complete strangers, even if I'm just giving someone a ride home. My habit has always been to spot young men that look like they could use a friend. If the guy is single and in his late teens or early twenties, we usually find something with which we can relate and it's easy enough to have a half hour conversation with them. Consciously and/or unconsciously, I've always been drawn to developing friendships or starting conversations with people on the edge of group. (Is there something Freudian in that? I'll chalk it up to my God-given desire to disciple people.)

The contrast that I see in my life is that I don't like to start those same kinds of conversations for my own sake. If I'm the one on the edge of a group, I find it much more difficult to break into ongoing conversation and engage some people. This reluctance even seems silly to me sometimes if I hesitate to break into a group with whom I'm friends already.

Upon further review, I think that this contrast may relate to my personality type, as I wrote about here back in the day. I'm about 50-50 melancholy and phlegmatic, which means that I'm a logical introvert and that I'm an easy-going perfectionaist, respectively. The introverted side comes through in my conversational skills and my reticence in that area.

I used to think that I was more choleric, an extrovert, because that was my reputation when I was in youth group back in Wawa and since I've always been the leader of some ministry or worship team. When I first moved to London, it took me a while to figure out that I don't have to be the crazy, outgoing guy just because people expect it. I learned that the extroverted aspect of being a worship leader (in particular) are traits that I picked up out of necessity but I can still appreciate myself as a more introverted guy.

The trick is to allow myself to be introverted without excluding myself from conversations and without shutting out my own friends. I think that I have developed a fairly good balance but once in a while that wallflower in me still takes over. Yeah, it strikes me as somewhat funny.

I Remember

On this day, I remember the sacrifice of those before me. Those who fought and defended our country and other countries in need. Those who dedicated their lives for those of us that enjoy our freedom today.

When my grandfather came to visit us this past Thanksgiving, we went to visit the Royal Canadian Regiment Museum here in London. I went there along with my grandfather, my dad, my sister, the three South Korea boys and my Little Brother.

My grandfather was stationed here during the early 1950's and he fought for Canada during the Korean War. That link will give a little more information, as displayed on the RCR Museum website. The museum had relics and models of various wars in Canada's past along with some video presentations, books and displays of medals. It was an emotional visit for my grandfather and a good experience for me and my Little. The fact that we had three kids with us from South Korea was significant as well.

I want to thank my grandfather, Angus Grant, for everything he did for Canada, for Korea and for what he has done for me and my family. Thanks, Grandpa.

Movie Reviews

My brother arrived at the movie theatre with a group of his friends this past Friday an hour early to see Jarhead. Unfortunately for him, it was completely sold out an hour before the show. They opted to watched Zorro instead. My brother said that the first one was much better than this sequel and since it clocked in at two and a half hours it was a bit tedious.

After church on Saturday night, I hooked up with my brother to go see Jarhead. I got there with plenty of time to spare and I bought two tickets. Unfortunately, I couldn't go into the theatre to save two seats because I had to wait in the lobby to give my brother his ticket. He wasn't able to get there until ten minutes before the show started and the only seats available in the theatre by that time were in the very first row. Opting to save ourselves the neck pain, we exchanged our tickets for the next showing of Doom instead.

Doom is the latest action movie starring The Rock, of course. It's based on the old video game that we know and love. Y'know, the next best game to come out after Wolfenstein 3D. While the plot of the game may be limited, the plot of the movie served the genre well. Think the Aliens series, with monsters chasing people around dark hallways.

It was pretty much a shoot-em-up fight begining to end but it actually spent a little time developing a couple of key characters. That paid off in the climax with some meaningful duels. The use of The Rock's character was excellent, though Karl Urban was the pivotal character. (Look at his bio, you've seen him before.)

The soldiers in the movie referred to their battles as games and used similar phrases, which was a nice reference to the original source without being cheesy. The game was a first-person shooter, of course, and they used that visual perspective towards the end of the movie at a key time so it fit perfectly. An entire movie in first peson perspective would have made me pull out a BFG myself but this was well done. Overall, this was an excellent movie for this genre, though Aliens is still secure at the top.

Since my brother had failed to watch his chosen movie twice in two days, we went back to the theatre on Sunday night with my dad with more than an hour to spare. This time, we finally managed to catch Jarhead. This movie is based on a book by an ex-marine as he describes his time during Desert Storm in the first Iraqi war. It's critically acclaimed and whatnot but the main reason I wanted to see this movie was because Jamie Foxx was in it. I was blown away by his portrayal of Ray Charles in 2004 and I've been a fan of his ever since. (Hence the reason that movie capped my Top Ten List of 2004.)

This movie was all right but I hardly recommend it to anyone due to it's graphic content. I was expecting some visceral blood a la Three Kings but this was actually a character piece about soldiers not fighting, since that Iraqi war ended so quickly. As soon as you have a movie look at boot camp, you're welcoming a barrage of creative swearing from the sargeants. Swearing in that kind of setting is a rule of English grammar. In retrospect, I should have taken a page from Joel's book and found a specific review beforehand but the point was to hang out with my brother so that part was still good.

As surprising as it was to see that Jarhead sold out every viewing this past weekend at the only screen at Silver City, it actually came in second to Chicken Little, 27 million to 40 million. I look forward to bringing my Little to see that movie sometime soon.

What or Who

"I think you're wrong and you have my full support."

What is our role as Christian friends? If we have a friend that is dealing with a "grey area" and they make a decision, should we respond with arguments supporting our own position? Mock them for a silly choice? Support them even though though we think they're wrong?

Aleah had this post one month ago on her blog, outlining her plan to throw away a large part of her excellent CD collection because their content was either questionable or hurtful for her Christian life. Blog comments and conversations tend to become mini debates by their nature and she had the longest set of responses that she's ever had on her blog. Some comments were encouraging, some discouraging, some mocking, some questioning.

After a few weeks, she posted her conclusions about this topic. Based on her comments, the feedback that she received on her blog paled in comparison to feedback from her friends and acquaintances. She recanted her original position and faced the double-whammy of condemnation for having bad music and condemnation for capitulating to peer pressure.

This was a tough process for Aleah, as the emotions of those blog posts show. Why do I bring it up again? Am I making another stab at convincing her of my position? Nope. I think that this was a great learning experience for Aleah that will prove useful to her in the future. Instead, I want to address the issue of who we are as friends.

You know the saying, "Never discuss religion or politics at the dinner table?" While neither of those topics may have any significance to a lot of people, I dare say that music may be such a topic. Judgements about music content can be explosive, challenging and may seem like a slap in the face to some people. We seem to respond in kind sometimes.

As friends, I suggest that we should care for the person and not just the issue. As friends, we should look at the relationship and not just the topic. As friends, we should support personal and spiritual growth and not self-made clones. As I said in one of my comments, we don't realize how often we dissect a topic without noticing that we're dissecting the person along the way. We can make people feel like a frog in biology class, having others open them up and take them a apart - and all in the name of friendship.

In the end, I think that Aleah has probably learned a lot from this blogging experience. I know that I have been on both the giving and receiving ends of these debates and I hope that I've matured because of them. Likewise, I will probably look back on this month when I come across similar situations in the future and I will challenge myself: Do I care about what it is or who it is?

Stories from Windsor: Part II

I wanted to capture a descriptive snapshot of two people that I met while I was in Windsor this past weekend, as I mentioned in Part I. There was one lady named Lynne who was considered the neighbourhood mother. She has lived in this community for years and she knows everyone and everything that happens.

During the more temperate seasons, she tends to sit on one corner in the middle of the neighbourhood. This corner has a cement circle with an iron statue commemorating the industrious nature of the people of days gone by. She can be found there at random times starting from early morning until very late evening. She's just looking out for anybody that needs to talk or that needs help.

Lynne's motto is, "You can't schedule a crisis." Everyone knows where she lives and everyone is welcome to knock on her door at any time, night or day. The people in this community prefer to take care of their own problems rather than bring cops in every day.

One man that we met from the church was having problems when he first moved in with a gang of teenagers in the neighbourhood. His car was stolen, the ignition was smashed and the car was beat up. He had a group of young guys surround his car at one after that and jump on it while he was inside.

By general consensus, if he called the cops then (a) they would have been ineffective in locating a random gang of youth and (b) it would have gotten worse for him. Instead, this guy spoke to Lynne. She knew exactly who each of the youth were and she went off to speak to them. The gang of guys never bothered this man again.

Lynne was highly skeptical of the church when it bought the old bar eight years ago. By her estimation, it took her six years before she even considered becoming a Christian. During that time, she became friends with the pastor and people from the church and eventually she became a Christian because of her relationship with these people. To this day, she has only listened to four sermons and she hated them. And yet, she'll join the worship times, is involved with the food services and is constantly at the church.

I have one more story that I want to fit in here. One of the many people that I got to know over the weekend was a guy Mike. He was about my age, in the mid-twenties. He used to go the University of Windsor. He had been in his third year of electrical engineering and had gotten his first job placement at Ontario Hydro. The motto that they use is that "one mistake can kill."

Talk about pressure. Mike was a third-year student still learning the ropes and, from what I understood, he had a nervous breakdown because of the pressure in his life. Apparently he now lives on welfare and he spends his time programming euchre games in java applets so that he can play a friend in China. He said that he just doesn't see the purpose in working hard for the rest of his life. He started visiting New Song Church (that was the church we were visiting) one month ago and he had been showing up there for their Saturday Night Live session every week. It's a casual short service with songs and snacks and he's been gradually developing a few friendships.

So those are two people that I met while I was there. (See Part I.)

Richard's Blog

Welcome, Richard, to my blogging circle. You were able to hold out for years but I finally broke you. Bwahahaha!

On a more serious note, can anyone tell me where a good look out point is around here? I would like to take my Little Brother on a (short) fall hike to some high point that overlooks London. Does anyone have any suggestions?

Stories of Windsor: Part I

I went to Windsor this past weekend with a team of people from my church. We visited New Song Church, which is located in an industrial area of town. They're surrounded on three side by a river and various factories, resulting in a community that is somewhat segregated from the rest of the city. The area used to be a hot spot for alcohol smugglers back in the day, as this article describes their smuggling tricks into the United States during prohibition.

These days, the area is still a hot spot for illegal trafficing but now it's hard drugs. Last week yet another crack war was heating up between gangs. And I mean that literally - one of the neighbourhood homes was set on fire by suspected arson. Murders are common enough in the area and we were advised that "you get used to it" after the first few. In Sunday morning service, the pastor cracked a joke about how safe we must feel sleeeping inside the church in the middle of this kind of neighbourhood. The congregation thought that was pretty funny.

New Song Church has the motto that they're "a church with the heart of a mission." They don't want to be another mission to the poor. They want to be a church family whose ministry is to care for the poor and whose members are the poor. As a result, they tend to lead the way with regards to this type of ministry, training churches regularly. Sometimes they have groups like us come to visit for a weekend or a week and sometimes it's through annual conferences like the Beggar's Banquet.

We arrived there early Friday evening and stayed until early Sunday afternoon. While there, we participated in the usual tasks that you would expect from a short-term missions/outreach trip. We helped with some of the meals, got to know a lot of the people who visited, painted and cleaned the church and led a couple of services.

On Saturday morning I walked around the neighbourhood with Larissa and Sue, knocking on doors to hand out flyers and invite people to church. I had a few good conversations with people, including one conversation in French as I chatted with a guy that moved there from Quebec.

The church building is actually a converted bar. This building used to have the longest bar counter in all of Canada and is a massive building with five apartment units, two large kitchen areas and one main hall. Many of the members of this church used to live in this area when they were young and they moved back into the neighbourhood after being away for years.

The weekend was a great experience. It didn't strike me as all that different from my visits to Belize back in the day. Granted, the general living conditions are actually better than they were in Belize but the people were still friendly and it was a genuine community working together. I'm not sure what this means for our church as we revisit the purpose and plan of our various ministries but we'll see about that. In the end, we gave a lot to their church and they gave a lot to our church and that's just what we all wanted.

Related: Part II

Links and Elevators

NASA just finished the first stage of their Centennial Challenge competition (link). This is a new series of technology competitions that they modeled on the X Prize contest. The X Prize, as I'm sure you recall, was a contest to see which group or company could design an aircraft that could carry two people into space and make a return trip into space within two days. It was worth one million dollars and was thought to be the precursor to private space travel.

The Centennial Challenges are an entire series of challenges like that. The first challenge this past year was to create a super-strong rope that could be used as space elevator. The second challenge was to create a robot to travel up a line like this carrying a heavy load. These two competitions were worth $50,000 each but no one won either one. Next year's continuation of this series will be worth $200,000 instead. Space tech is cool (says the sci-fi fan).

And if that bores you then have fun with this game instead. The best time that I've seen so far is 22 seconds.

And in case anyone missed it, here's that article about Richard that was in the London Free Press last week.

Weekend Review

Did you all read the article about Richard Phillips in the Christian Life in London insert in the London Free Press last Wednesday? He still has those commercials on TV for his old school and now he has this article about his work with the youth shelter in London. I think that's thirty minutes of fame now.

This past Saturday my Little Brother carve a pumpkin. I vaguely remember doing that as a kid but I had to learn how to do it all over again. We managed to get a fairly intricate carving done that looks really cool. Thanks to my mom, I have some before-and-after pictures but I can't post them for the sake of my Little's privacy. Sorry about that.

This past Friday I attended nine20, the young adult group at Open Doors church. I've recently started playing percussion with them for worship each Friday but this time none of the regular worship leaders showed up. I was drafted into worship leadership at the last minute and we ripped off a quick ten minute sound check and practice. The worship went well.

The guest speaker was Harvey Katz, finishing off part two of a talk about evangelism. (See Part 1 here.) He preached from the passage in 2 Corinthians 3:12-18, which has one of my favourite verses: "Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom." I had a song in mind that I used to play for the after-service worship at FCCC (my old church) back in the day. I started playing as Harvey was finishing his talk and I ministered in song afterwards. It was great since I haven't done that in more than a year except by myself. My piano playing was fairly pathetic but it got the job done. I'm always a little surprised at how effectively God uses me to lead worship but it's great that He still does.

Speaking of God using me, I'm off to Windsor this coming weekend to do some inner-city outreach. There's a church there that helps train other churches in that kind of ministry. I'll be heading down as part of the worship team to play percussion for two different events and I'll also be doing some walk-the-streets outreach stuff on Saturday afternoon. This will be cool since I haven't done anything like this in quite a while. I'll be away from early Friday afternoon until Sunday afternoon.

News & Views

Ah, now I can dip into weird news again, for your reading pleasure...

Did you hear about the 10-foot boa snake that terrorized an apartment building? One guy went to the bathroom in the middle of the night, looked down at the toilet after turning on the light and realized there was a snake coiled in his toilet looking up at him. The snake was living on rats it found in the sewer, apparently, and it would pop up in toilets. Check out the full story on that link and a funny picture.

"This year alone, Shanghai will complete towers with more space for living and working than there is in all the office buildings in New York." (Link)

The CSI Effect: The CSI TV shows are having a tangible effect on reasl-life juries, according to this article in the Toronto Star. Juries are demanding forensic evidence more than ever before and, like the show, are more inclined to accept the unhappy ending without this kind of evidence.

I heard about a new type of window that is strong enough to repel bullets (link). This new material is both stronger and lighter than the existing bullet proof glass. That piqued my interest since one of my recent friends, Andrea Black, happens to be a mechanical engineer for a company that builds tanks. She's sometimes gets to build explosives to test their tanka rmour armour, which is really cool job.

Personal Space

I hung out at nine20 this past Friday evening, as I usually do every Friday evening. It's the young adult group at Open Door church. Harvey Katz was a guest speaker and he had a talk about the principles of evangelism. Harvey's an excellent evangelist so he knows what he's talking about but I was still surprised by his easy explanation about what it requires.

As a summary for my own sake, he said that it comes down to personal space. Y'know how it's weird to speak to someone that's a "close talker?" Those people that don't seem to understand that we need a little more than a few inches between us during a conversation? And yet the closer you are to someone, the easier it is to offer a hug or that kind of thing. Harvey said that it's the same deal with everyone's spiritual space.

Too often, Christians act like "close talkers" and get too serious too quickly about spiritual issues. I found that comment odd since I had the vague impression that evangelists were successful in reaching people precisely because they got through people's boundaries. Instead, Harvey said that we need to identify people's personal distance from us and from God and allow them to lead. That's right, the evangelist isn't the one in control of the conversation!

There are various levels of spiritual space in peoples lives, Harvey said.

1. The Unconvinced: These are the people that cannot be swayed through conversation or debate. The best course of action is to pray for them and to show God in our own lives.
2. The Inquirers: They may ask questions so we can answer them, but don't overdo it and give them more than they asked for. Pay attention to their social cues and don't bore them or push them.
3. The Seekers: These are the people that are intently searching and they may have long and deep conversations about these issues. In this case, do not push for a decision. Let them come to their own conclusion.
4. The Finders: These are the people that have decided to become Christians. This will seem like a final destination at the end of a long road. We need to understand that this is the beginning of their journey with God instead of the culmination.
5. The Keepers: "It's not how far you've gone, it's the path you're on."

The way that Harvey explained this makes it so much easier in my head. Give people an opening during conversations to ask about God. If they pursue the topic, talk to them at their discretion. Evangelism isn't about breaking through into people's lives, it's about helping people find what they are looking for.

Ain't Just Words

The Toronto Star had an article this past week about the upcoming Raptors season in the NBA. Last year, Sam Mitchell was the rookie head coach and it showed. He had to "hug some players and kick some others in the butt...This time around, though, the Raptors coach is pretty sure he's going to do the right thing to the right guy."

Most notably, Rafer Alston imploded part way through the season and threatened to quit the NBA entirely. Presumably the coach used a little too much tough love with him (like the suspension that was given) when he needed to use more encouragement. Too late to fix that problem now that Rafer is gone - though I suppose that does fix it in a way.

It's interesting to see the coach showing some personal growth in such a public way, though that is the nature of sports journalism. It reminds of my own experience with the youth worship team at Faith (FCCC) back in the day. I thought that I was an excellent leader and teacher. In my mind I was practical, motivating and properly focused on the spiritual aspect of worship. In the minds of the youth, I seemed demanding, oblivious and stubborn.

I led the youth worship team for what, two years? After the first year, Leonard Terry (our pastor) preached a series on communication and I clued into the fact that my perception of my leadership and communication skills did not match the youth's perspective. By far, the biggest change for me was that I realized that I needed to encourage the youth a whole lot more. I always thought that they were doing an excellent job and that they were progressing nicely but I rarely said that to them.

Some of the youth really didn't appreciate my leadership, to put it nicely. The side effect was that it gave many of them the chance to mature themselves. Can we submit to an authority that we don't like? Can we follow a leader with whom we do not always agree? What if others are making negative comments, how do we handle that situation? I taught the youth a lot during that time and unfortunately some of it was through a negative example, but fortunately many of them still developed regardless.

I've said for a long time that we can't grow too much as Christians until we take on leadership roles ourselves in some capacity. That was certainly true for me. I look back on my growth during that leadership time as the one experience that impacted me the most in my life. I've had innumerable learning experiences during my twenty-seven years on this planet, of course, but I point to that time as my key epiphany.

So to any of the members of the old youth worship team that may read this, I offer my thanks to you. I love the time that I shared with you all and I appreciate all that you have given to me. I pray that my communication with others and that my current and future leadership would be as encouraging and inspiring as possible.

Grand Friends and Fathers

Calvin Harrison's band, Exodus in Peril, is having a concert tonight at GTA. The rumour is that they're video taping the show with four cameras for a concert DVD later. I'm still waiting for the release of their full CD but maybe they'll have a single or something for sale tonight. It starts at 7:00 pm and it costs $6.00. I'll be there for the concert, which may be opened by Chasing Arcadia, and then I'll probably head over to Open Doors for the rest of the evening.

Psst! I hear the my little sister has a retro post up. (Sorry, no link.) Just for the record, she thinks that I'm "a strange little man." I consider it a high compliment. Of course, my mom mockingly pointed to that as a factor that keeps the girls away. Bah, I say! I have fun being a little weird and in being a dorky older brother. I'm sure someone will appreciate me for who I am.

My grandfather (my dad's father) is visiting us this week for the Thanksgiving holiday. He just had a pacemaker put in and his health is great, so this is the first trip that he has made in a long while. It's also the first trip he has made without my grandmother in decades so we're very happy to have him here with us for the week.

My dad, my brother and I played Pay the Man with him last night. My dad and my grandfather each won a game but I attribute that to the fact that my brother was sitting to their left for each of their wins, accidentally feeding them all the cards that they needed.

And this next picture has immediately become one of my favourites:



P.S. As always, click on the pictures above to visit my picture web site.

Raptors Trade!

I usually leave sports references to Jevant (and his archnemesis) but this is huge news for me as an avid fan of the Toronto Raptors. They traded away Rafer Alston!

Press Release: Raptors.com
Article: ESPN.com
Article: Toronto Star
Blog: Toronto Star Jabs

I thought that the big NBA news was a report earlier today that the Chicago Bulls traded Eddy Curry to New York, but this piece of news about Alston is much more important to me. I only have tangential knowledge of Mike James, the Houston Rockets point guard for whom they traded. I vaguely remember Houston getting him late last year for their playoff run.

The initial analysis is that Mike James is a dependable but not exceptionally skilled point guard. Rafer was the opposite, explosive skills with a temper to match. I suppose the Raptors got exactly who the kind of player they wanted in return but I don't think that Mike James has really had a shot as the go-to starting point guard. We'll have to see how this plays out for his playing time with the Raptors but it wouldn't surprise me to see him competing with the Raptors recent draft pick Jose Calderon.

Wow. Training camps start in the NBA today but this news ratcheted my interest up three notches.

Points of Interest

Last week, it was reported in this article that two Japanese researchers managed to take photos of a giant squid in it's natural habitat. That's the first time that has ever managed. Giant squid live so far down that the only things that we have to work with are dead bodies or their leftovers after they have been eaten by a sperm whale.

Previously, it was suggested that the giant squid lure prey or feel for prey with their amazingly long tentacles. Thanks to these new pictures, it looks like they actually attack like a python does, striking their prey and then wrapping them up and squeezing them.

There was an article last week about a new galaxy that astronomers have managed to find. It's extremely far away from us, so the light from it has travelled for a very long time and shows us a picture of that that galaxy was like back when that light was first sent on it's universal journey. The problem is that it's also very large, and that's confusing because light that has been travelling for so long should show a relatively small galaxy, not a giant one. I don't usually link to these kinds of articles because they come out every couple of weeks or so, showing research that confuses our ideas about how the universe was formed.

Speaking of which, Mike has had a few posts recently regarding whether "scientifically verified" is the same thing as "true fact." Don't bother reading those posts unless you find semi-scholarly discussion fun. He hasn't directly tackled the issue of Intelligent Design yet, but it ties in nicely with the above article about how we think the universe was formed.

Intelligent Design is one opponent of Evolution, stating that a universe this complex has to have been created on purpose instead of being created by chance. It doesn't identify who this "intelligent designer" is, but critics say that it's just a veiled attempt at introducing God to the classrooms.

The current "Intelligent Design" debate in the US courts (article) is drawing a line in the sand, somewhat outside of Mike's argument. Their dividing point is the difference between hypotheses and theory, positing that Intelligent Design is a hypotheses while Evolution is a theory. The purpose of the courts is to decide whether Intelligent Design is a valid idea to be taught in schools. As Mike has written in previous blogs, this isn't a new debate by any means but it's still a point of interest.

Movie Reviews

This past weekend, I helped the Timmermans move into their new house on Friday afternoon/evening and I helped an elderly couple that my dad knows move into their new apartment on Saturday morning. I also managed to fit in a couple of drive-in movies with my brother and the Korean kids that live with us.

The drive-in set started with The Dukes of Hazzard. That was a fun thrillbilly flick, exactly as advertised. There were many hijinks and even more car crashes. I had assumed that they would just be messing with Boss Hog and committing petty acts of vandalism against him or whatnot but the Dukes proceeded to commit a litany of crimes. Not to spoil things, but being chased by cops through modern-day Atlanta as a news helicopter follows you isn't so easy to explain away. In any case, the car chases were fun, the humour was southern and there was an actual plot. Excellent drive-in fare.

The second feature was The Corpse Bride by Tim Burton. In case you haven't heard, it's a cool stop-motion movie about a guy that accidentally marries a corpse. Hilarity ensues. While the K kids that were with me and my brother loved the first movie, they hated this movie and didn't understand the concepts at all. Their english is pretty good but this went right over their heads. For my part, it was exactly what I expected from Tim Burton. And since I like his stuff, I liked this movie. I thought that I would be annoyed by the fact that Johnny Depp shows up in yet another Burton film but actually, he suited the role very well and I enjoyed his performance.

As my final review, my brother and I also caught Transporter 2 at the movie theatre last week. The first Transporter was one of those B-level action movies that you watch in the hope that you luck out and it's actually good, and then you're quite surprised to find that it is good. This second movie followed the formula of the first but overly emphasized that this transporter of illegal goods actually has a heart of gold. Aw look, he loves the kid. Aw look, he's nice to the beleaguered mother. Aw look, he's risking his own life to save them.

Aside from that, the fighting was everything you wish Jackie Chan would do these days. The lead actor would repeatedly get caught fighting entire groups of bad guys and he would use equipment that he conveniantly found laying around to fight them off. There may be no purpose in using a fire hose as a weapon but it sure leads to entertaining tricks. Even so, there were two stunts that were too idiotic even for me. One involved a crashing plane and one involved a car flipping over a jump. The car thing, in particular, was so bad that I openly booed the movie at that point. The car stunts in the Dukes of Hazzrd were way better and more believeable, as far as cars go.

In the end, though, the action in this movie made up for sappy character points and a couple of Boo-urns stunts. Since I like almost every movie I see, I can't really give poor marks to any of them. I enjoyed 'em all and I got my money's worth, which is all that I ever ask.

Take It or Leave It

I was talking to somebody at my church two weeks ago and there's a program in my church that I hadn't thought too much about before: Take It or Leave It.

My church recently revamped our website (shout out to Steve!) and this section of our website comes complete with easy access to the Take or Leave forms. You can also contact the church directly, of course. It hopefully provides an easy stream to donate certain household items and to see what is currently needed.

These kinds of programs have been done in the past in many places, though sometimes it devolves into a way to trash bad clothes. This may be a little more cutting edge as far as technology goes, but the thing that impacted me wasn't the program...

It's all about the people.

This person that I was talking to related stories of recent drop-offs that he had done. One home had three children living there and none of them had beds. In another home, there were four children and they ate their meals every day on the floor because they didn't have a table. One woman was ecstatic when they arrived with an apartment-sized washer because she had never had such a "luxury" before. Many children that they have contact with didn't have anything whatsoever to bring to school with them at the beginning of September.

I've heard many stories from many sources about the homeless problem here in London, but the needs are more far-reaching even if people do provide a home for their families. I have mentioned these stories to a few people and it can come as a shock, but the gap between the Haves and the Have Nots in our city may be quite the chasm.

The web site currently states a need for ten beds. How hard would it be for me to buy a new bunk bed set at a local auction or at Wal-Mart? It's time to see some action.

Congrats, Welcome and Freaky Fish

Congratulations to the Timmermans, who sold their house last week and will be moving into the new house this coming weekend on Friday afternoon and Saturday. I'll be bringing my van and helping out on Friday night. If anyone wants to join in the fun, go ahead and contact them. (Joel, Elyse)

Welcome back, Jillian. Jillian Pierce has returned after several years in a foreign land and she is back in London again on a permanent basis. She has started her first year of nursing at Fanshawe. I know way too many around my age that are becoming nurses these days. My count's up to 5 now, I think.

As a reminder, I'm inviting guys over to my house from 1:00 pm to 6:00 pm this coming Sunday for poker and pizza. Get a hold of me if'n you want to join us.

In weird news, how about this freak fish? That's a great picture.

In other news, there was a study done that suggests that people that keep their emotions in check during upsetting events tend to have poor memory of those events. There were some times growing up that I remember as being pleasant while my brother remembers them as much darker. Our temperaments used to be fairly polarised. While I am aware of my emotional state during stressful times, I usually try not to act out of emotion. My brother used to have a classic red temper. I wonder if our dispositions effected our memory fo the same events.

Google People

Does anyone else around here google for people that they know? Do you google people that you recently met?

It's odd. As a computer geek, I figure that anything on the web is fair game. However, I've met different people over the years that think it's an invasion of privacy or that it's creepy to perform a couple of basic queries. Most just find it weird that I would so such a thing. I think it's a conveniant way to find out more about a person, even if it's usually a fruitless search.

Hopefully everyone has searched for their own name at some point just to see how famous (or anonymous) they are on the web. As for me, "Jamie Grant" isn't unique enough to come up with anything near the top about me. The best bet is to search for "Jamie A. Grant", in which case I popup at #2 on Google and in three of the top 10 positions. I get similar results even with a blog search. Ah well, maybe this post will help my cause. *g*

So? Anyone?

Prophetic Misnomer?

Re: Prophetic Worship
Dan suggested that charismatic Christians, and me in particular, might use the word "prophetic" too often for ideas that may be spiritual but are not specifically prophetic. (Disclaimer: This post gets into Christian theology via examples from my personal experience. It's not intended for non-Christians and it might seem weird to non-Christians and Christians alike.)

Well now, let's discuss the meaning of the word prophetic, shall we? From what I understand, there are two general kinds of prophecies. The first is a message and the second is blessing. If we concentrate solely on the prophetic from God then the messages can be used to warn or instruct the church or the world, and blessings are meant to build up the church and speak life to the world.

Not being an educated scholar on this matter, I'm guessing that such a simple summary might be a little too simple. Ah well, nothing ventured, nothing gained. So when it comes to musical worship, how can an instrument by itself and without words be used as a prophetic voice?

In stories like David's ministry to Saul, it shows that music can help alleviate oppression from Satan over another person. In today's context, that might apply to times that I'm standing on stage while someone at the altar is struggling with something. If I'm on my congas, I might beat out some warfare rhythms over that person. Alternatively, if that person is dealing with depression then I might break out something more hopeful, something to symbolize God's light starting to pierce the darkness. I suppose the first kind would be intercessory worship, while the second kind is a prophetic message to that person. (Dan's comments in my previous post about mis-use of the word prophetic would come into play here.)

At other times, the congregation may be silently praying as we wait for the Holy Spirit to move. Sometimes in situations like this, I might bust out a sudden smack-down on my drums, alerting everyone to pay attention. Prophetic message. Other times, I might gradually build up a rhythm, crescendoing over ten seconds or 10 minutes, indicating to everyone that the time to wait is over and the time to participate is beginning. That's not prophetic so much as worship leading, though it is a message.

I've heard of one person that walked through the crowd at an altar, playing a violin over people and seeing them healed as a direct result. That might be considered a prophetic message of healing, but maybe that is better considered prayer for healing.

An example of prophetic blessing through music might be times when someone on a piano plays something for a person, telling them that God thinks that they're beautiful. Or it might be a comforting tune, telling a person that God cares and that God is there for them.

So when I reflect on the various examples above and the messages that I give during worship, I think that Dan has a good point in suggesting that I applied the term "prophetic" too liberally. I do use musical worship expressions to give prophetic messages and prophetic blessings to people, and those things I would label as prophetic instrumental worship. At other times, there is a spiritual power in my worship that is certainly inspired but I should not use the term "prophetic" in describing it. Thanks, Dan.

On a more general note, we can take certain acts of worship like raising our hands and assign different meanings to the same motion. Raising our hands with our palms up might mean surrender to God, but it might also mean that we're receiving God's blessing. In the same way, similar expressions on a musical instrument can mean different things, depending on the person playing.

'Nuff said?

Fun and Fiction

I hung out with my Little Brother yesterday and we went to the Western Fair. We had a good time with various games and shows. We saw a trampoline act with a couple of guys from the Canadian Men's team, including one 16-year old who is competing in Holland next week. We caught a pig race and we finished off the evening with a tractor pull, which I had never seen before.

One of the acts that we saw was a lumberjack contest. I was cheering and booing as expected and I'm afraid that I embarassed my Little. At one point, he poked me and asked why I was being so loud. I tried to explain that cheering at an event is well and good but I don't think he agreed. Heh.

The only problem with the Western Fair is how much money is costs...and speaking of which, I remember how much money Richard spent on Tara on their first date together, when he took her to the Western Fair. Happy third anniversary, mes amis!

As a different point of interest, I've been immersed in various sci-fi novels recently. All that science that they jam into the stories is so crazy, and yet it's usually based on real-world theories and experiments. The newest author that I've started to read is Stephen Baxter. So while I'm having fun with the weirdest aspects of science, I come across articles like this that try to explain why the most far-out designs for space shuttles simply won't work and that we have to stick with the tried-and-true because it's the only thing that can work. Stupid facts, getting in the way of my fiction.

Birthdays and Other Things

Happy Birthday, Ma et Laura! We celebrated both of their birthdays at the Mandarin today. I have a couple of pictures that I will put at the end of this post.

Heads up to any guys that read this blog. I'm inviting y'all over to play poker at my house on Sunday, September 25 at 1:00 pm. We'll play with poker chips and you can bring a couple of bucks for the main pot. If we have a ten dollar pot that will be good. I'll also get some pizza and you can bring a couple of bucks for that as well, though that is not necesary. If you're a cash-strapped student, consider it a friendly and free get together.

Congratulations to Terry Arsenault. My old roomie is now an official Nerds on Site guy with his own "franchise." He has the slick red beetle and everything. With his technical expertise, his great sales experience and his drive, I'm sure that he'll do quite well.

Congratulations to the two most important women in my life:

Stealing a wish:

Prophetic Worship

I was involved in some worship this past week that God was all over. Some of the ministering worship that we did evidentally helped heal some people, and some of the warfare worship that we did was pretty powerful. For my part, the congas and percussive instruments that I was using lent themselves to stepping forward in a prophetic ministry at various times over the weekend.

God has placed an annointing on musical ministry. Even without singing and without words, instruments can be used all by themselves to allow God and the Holy Spirit to move. That may be a new concept for some people but my experience shows that a humble guitar quietly strumming or an rythmic attack on the drums can be very effective in the spiritual realm. More important than my own experience, the Bible has plenty of stories that show how this works.

One of my favourite examples involves David and Saul in the Old Testament. Did you know that Saul met David before the Goliath stuff happened in 1 Samuel 17? Indeed. In 1 Samuel 16:14-23, David was called into Saul's service because Saul was being tormented by evil spirits. Back in the day, everyone clearly understood the power of musical worship and Saul's attendants recommended David. And so regularly from that time on, David would play his harp and "the evil spirit would leave" Saul. Not to say that musical worship was a magic potion because later on in chapters 18 and 19, after the Goliath heroics, Saul tried to kill David with a spear out of jealousy while David plays his harp.

There are other stories that we could reference as well. In 1 Samuel 10, after Saul is annointed but before he becomes king, Samuel instructs him to take a trip. Saul comes across a musical band of prophets and he is changed as a result.

In 2 Kings 3:14-16, Elisha needs to ask God for advice for the king and he asks for a harpist. It says that "when the harpist was playing, the hand of the Lord came upon Elisha."

There are a couple of other stories like that, showing the power of music and praise to God. For me, I think part of it is that music has a way of hitting our hearts and our souls directly. Music doesn't need to pass through our heads and be interpreted (though it can be). It can hit us in our deepest parts, allowing God to touch us in ways that we might not understand. It can be more of a Spirit-to-spirit message. There are other explanations for the power of music, I suppose, but that one works for me.

Related Post: Prophetic Misnomer?

Return to Braeside

So I spent the long weekend at Braeside Camp as part of the worship team. I left from London mid-afternoon on Thursday with almost all of our sound equipment jammed to the roof in my van. We played for one service that evening and then I came home very late that night so that I could be at work on Friday. On Friday afternoon I returned to camp and I stayed there both Friday night and Saturday night.

The camp had free accomodations for every member of the team plus our immediate families, if our families were joining us. I shared a very nice cabin with Justin, one of our vocalists/guitarists. It had a private bathroom, fridge, microwave and the whole bit so it was quite nice even if it was a little girly as far as the decorations went. They also gave each of us tickets for free meals and free late night snacks, so I took full advantage of that. I've never been in this kind of position before so I felt very well treated.

In addition to Thursday evening, our band played Friday evening, Saturday morning and evening and Sunday morning and evening. Thanks to Al Hamilton's gear, our sound system was pounding the floors quite nicely. Not that everyone loves booming music but we had a lot of fun with it. :)

I played percussion all weekend. My hands were pretty sore at the beginning of each practice and it will take a few days for the swelling to go down completely. There was plenty of altar time for us to minister in music and plenty of free-flow worship, which I love. I also had the chance to dance and jump around before God at various points. I particularly enjoyed the fact that I was using the church's two congas since I feel like I was able to minister prophetically on the drums at certain times.

There were various prophecies and words from God during the various services, as I expected. As one example, there was an eighteen year old guy that spoke a word during the final service, after the musical worship but before the sermon. It was a long analogy/parable about someone being trapped in a room with a window. This person blocks the window to block the sun coming in, preferring to use candles and lighters until all of the artifical light sources have run out. God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit are the sun that people are blocking out of their lives. At night, the light of the sun is still reflected into the room by the moon, which represents the Christians.

The speaker came up after the guy was done speaking and asked the guy in the projector booth to tell everyone what the speaker had told him just three minutes before. The guy in the booth said that he had changed the set of powerpoint slides at the speaker's request, which he then displayed on the screens. What was the title of the newly-chosen sermon? "The Light Source."

So fun stuff like that happened all weekend long. A bunch of people were saved, some were filled with the Holy Spirit, etc. Honestly, I can't think of a way that I would rather spend a weekend then ministering in worship for hours each day. It was the ideal weekend.

News & Links

Yep, it's finally here. R2D2's holograph, "Help me, Obi-wan Kenobi, you're my only hope." Check out this interview with the inventor of a 3D float-in-the-air computer monitor.

The Toronto Star had an interesting article today that rated the Top 5 boo-ings that have evere happened at the SkyDome. As I'm sure you're all aware, Rafael Palmeiro and the Orioles were playing there this past weekend and Rafael was batting for the first time after his (laughable) 10-day suspension for testing positive for steroids. That's a big deal because earlier in the year he vehemently denied ever using steroids when he appeared before a US Congressional hearing, wagging his finger at them in emphasis. We Canadians booed him so loudly that he put in ear plugs and then later cotton swabs as well. He looked like quite the fool in the highlight clips.

Mike has arrived in South Korea and he has a blog post about his first impressions. Of course, if he thinks that Incheon is big (population: 2.2 million) then he should check out Seoul (population: 10.8 million). Heh.

And for the record, I chose to keep my new Tablet PC after two weeks of testing. I'm away for all of this weekend at Braeside Camp, as I wrote about here. I know several people that are planning on going out there to Paris (Ontario) for the Saturday night service, so if anyone wants directions then contact me.

Poetry & Motion

As promised, Richard has had five of his poems published on a Christian poetry site named www.myujamaa.org. He's introduced on the main page and he's also on this page. I especially like the line in "The Same" that says that we rely on the "fate of our friend."

Mike Coutu is leaving tomorrow to teach English in South Korea, as he writes about here. So long, Mike, and thanks for all the fish.

Braeside Camp

Braeside Camp is an icon for the pentecostal (PAOC) Christians in southern Ontario. When I was younger, I used to go there for kids camp every year. My mom was a camp counselor for several years and my family usually stayed in a cabin on the camp grounds. I still have a scar that I received there from a chain link fence while playing tennis and I remember begging my mom for a few dollars so that I could buy some Christian Archie comics from the book store. (I still have those comics, of course.) We even brought our cat Puffy there one year.

It was at kids camp one year at around the age of 13 that I received my baptism in the Holy Spirit. It was at one of the kids' services and I went up for that purpose during an altar call. I was sitting on the steps of the stage facing towards the crowd of kids at the front and no one was praying for me directly when the Holy Spirit came. I vividly remember that experience.

Braeside Camp usually ends each summer with a weekend conference. This year, there will be services starting on the evening of Thursday September 1 and continuing until the evening of Sunday September 4. Tim Schwindt, the worship leader at my church (GTA), will be leading the worship times. I volunteered to go out there for morning and evening services to play percussion.

So finally, I've come full circle. I was once the kid at the front praying for baptism in the Holy Spirit, and now I'm the guy ministering in music to those people praying for baptism of the Holy Spirit. Cool.

New Tablet PC

This past Tuesday (August 16) I went to Best Buy to look at Tablet PCs. Tablet PCs are like notebook/laptop computers, but the screen swivels and folds down with the screen facing upwards, allowing you to write directly on the screen with a special pen. Windows XP Tablet Edition's support for ink (hand-writing) recognition is rather impressive, as the first demo on this page shows. The killer app that I want is Microsoft OneNote, which is like a one-in-all piece of software for thing everything from random notes to drawings to song lyrics to basic recordings. I intend to use it as I work on new worship songs.

Tablet PCs are still difficult to find and Best Buy only had one model for sale (this one). Since they have a 14-day return policy with no questions asked, I decided to go ahead and try it out. Unfortunately, at the price of $3050 with a 3-year warranty and taxes, it's more than I want to spend.

Fortunately, Best Buy also has a Price Guarantee. If you can find the same item advertised elsewhere within 30 days of purchase, you can go back to Best Buy and they'll refund you the 110% of the difference so that their price is lower than the competition. When I was researching prices yet again this past week, I also looked at Future Shop online but they didn't have any tablet PCs at all. My dad, bless his heart, looked at Future Shop again after I made my purchase and he found a new listing. The end result is that I got a refund for $434 from Best Buy because Future Shop's price was $300 lower, once the taxes and the lower warranty price were factored in.

As my sister will testify, there just ain't nothing like a tablet pc. Very cool.

Congratulations and Stuff

Congratulations to Abe and Melissa on the birth of their son Benjamin Roderick Oudshoorn. Isn't he a cutey?

Congratulations to Mike on his new job. He'll be heading off to the city of Incheon in South Korea as soon as he can and he'll be away for the next year or so teaching English.

Congratulations to the Timmermans, who have purchased a new house in northern London. They're very busy with open houses to show their current home as they prepare to sell it, as Jevant writes here.

Richard has submitted five of his poems to the Christian poetry site http://www.myujamaa.org. Keep an eye on that site and they should be publishing his work this coming week.

Here's a random bit from a recent magazine. I've always said that it takes a tremendous amount of skill to be able to scream (sing) for certain types of songs without destroying your vocal chords. My friend Calvin can certainly pull it off for his band Exodus in Peril, which is preparing their first CD. The magazine article was about a woman named Melissa Cross, who is a vocal instructor that teaches proper screaming techniques. She even has a new DVD out to teach her techniques. Weird, but cool.

And finally, I have a couple of pictures from my trip to Quebec this past week for my family reunion, which are available on this page of my photo website. The following picture is from a site trip that we took into Maine in the United States.