Imagine Me

Imagine me, loving what I see when the
Mirror looks at me 'cause I imagine me
In a place of no insecurities
And I'm finally happy cause
I imagine me

Letting go of all of the ones who hurt me
'Cause they never did deserve me
Can you imagine me

Saying no to thoughts that try to control me
Remembering all you told me
Lord can You imagine me

Over what my mamma said
And healed from what my daddy did
And I wanna live and not read that page again

Chorus
Imagine me, being free
Trusting you totally
Finally I can...imagine me

I admit it was hard to see
You being in love with someone like me
But finally I can...imagine me

Verse Two
Being strong and not letting people break me down
You won't get that joy this time around
Can you imagine me

In a world where nobody has to live afraid
Because of your love fears gone away
Lord, can You imagine me

Letting go of my past
And glad I have another chance
And my heart will dance
'Cause I don't have to read that page again

Gone, gone, it's gone, all gone

Song: Imagine Me
Artist: Kirk Franklin
Album: Hero
Year: 2005

Core Competency

There's a business theory out there that says that a company should never lose sight of their core competency. The core values, products and services that help a company become successful should never be diluted or changed regardless of how big or varied the company becomes. If that happens, the business will flounder and struggle.

So if your company is an innovative machine like 3M, you should make sure that you're investing in R&D (research and development) so that you can keep being innovative. If you're a company that provides personal attendants to people with disabilities, you should make sure that the consumers feel like they have a voice and that they feel like someone cares.

You can read more about this on wikipedia. Or more interestingly (?), you can look at Jim Collins website for The Hedgehog Concept. I love Jim Collins books, like Good to Great, and the website has tons of great ideas and explanations.

As I often like to do, I look at how these business concepts apply to our other business model, the local corporate church. Like companies, many churches start quite small. Meetings are often held in a house or in one room in a building somewhere. There may be no official pastor or financial donations at first, but there may be one strong leader and the atmosphere tends to be rather familial.

I recently discussed the growth process of small churches, suggesting that small churches usually assume that they have to grow bigger but the alternative is to multiply the small.

In either case, one important question is: What is our core competency?

There are many other questions and paths to take during the growth phase of a church, of course. Praying for God's timing, looking for the right location to a bigger church, seeking a vision for the church, applying to become an official charity, reviewing our motivations, etc. Some questions are more practical, some sound more spiritual, and various people are gifted in various aspects. For now, though, I'm just asking this one question.

A small church can be good at many things. For example:

• Close, intimate friendships.
• Practical care for the community.
• Strong Biblical teaching.
• Freedom in music and worship.
• Focus on mentoring and personal growth.
• Prayer and intercession.

The list can go on and on, depending on the strengths of this small Christian group. And the danger comes when we assume that we will maintain these traits after the church changes or grows. Wishes and good intentions do not make it so.

Pretend that church members are heavily in their immediate community, like New Song Church in Windsor. There may come a time when the building is insufficient for the number of people involved. However, building a new building might take away resources from the very people they're helping. Buying a new building elsewhere would take them out of that community entirely. There may be a real need to support more people, but bigger and better might defeat that very purpose.

Similarly, the strength of a small church might be how close everyone is. Friendships are built by the fact that people are invited into each other's homes. Conversations over dinner are highlights of the week. It might not be an official charity and there may be no tax receipts but friends know the needs and they take care of their own without a lot of planning or fanfare. If you take that group and ask them to support a larger church building with forty people, the small dinners might become less frequent. The rent for the new building might take away from the financial resources that used to go to friends in need. The very thing that everyone loved most is lost, and while the original group might remain close, new people that come in might struggle to catch that core value.

Those are two semi-fictional situations. On the other hand, excellent Biblical teaching might only be enhanced by growth because more people can have access to it. One person might be able to move from his professional career and can get paid as a pastor, giving them the option of more preparation for sermons or more time for counseling. Likewise, the church might be able to minister to more people if there was a location and resources devoted to this. Effective evangelism might naturally lead to a bigger group.

Looking at the core competency does not necessarily dictate a size, either large or small. However, we need to make sure that we do not lose the very things that we cherish and do so well just because we decide to get bigger. I've heard stories where that happens. I've also seen churches have always emphasized certain key things, like prayer, but then I notice that only ten percent of the people pray together regularly. The values can become diluted and the church can lose its way.

Core competency isn't a ruling principle. Heck, it comes well behind "love" in terms of importance. However, it can be a valuable question that helps us remain devoted to the things that God has called us to and the things that we do best.

A Funny Thing Happened On The Way...

"A funny thing happened on the way to the office..."

So today I pulled together my recently acquired passport photos and documents and off I went to the Passport office. I don't need a passport for any particular reason since I have no trips planned overseas but I wanted to get this done sometime. The office opens at 8:45 am so I was aiming to arrive there at 8:30 am.

I arrived at the intersection of Colborne and Horton at 8:30 am, so my timing was good. I couldn't find the building at first so I had to make a couple of turns and go around a couple of parking lots to get my bearings. In the meantime, a train crossed Colborne Street just a little north of my location and all of the early morning traffic got stuck. I was glad that I wasn't trapped in that queue.

Ah, but then I realized that I was mistaken and I wasn't looking for Colborne and Horton. I was suppoed to be looking for Colborne and York, which was two blocks north. Just across the train tracks. The jokes's on me, right? Wait! The train just finished passing and the road re-opened as I pulled another U-turn. Excellent.

I finally got back onto Colborne and started to head north and...bam! The warning lights at the track descended again as a second train came roaring through. Ah, the irony of it all. I couldn't help but laugh at myself and my poor timing as I parked and waited. Sure, I could have pulled yet another U-turn there and gone one block west to the tunnel on the parallel road that bypasses the tracks. I guessed that the time that it would take for this train to pass, though, would be about the same as taking the detour.

My prediction was correct and less than a minute later, the train had gone through. An odd thing happened, though. The warning lights at the track continued flashing and the crossing rails at the track remained down. Did they fail to trigger and turn off? I've had that happen to me before and I've seen tracks blocked for a half hour with no train traffic at all.

Nope, that wasn't the case. Everything was proven to be working successfully because less than thirty seconds later another train - the third one in five minutes - slowly started to pull through the intersection. Hilarious! At this point, half of the cars that were on the road pulled U-turns and headed for the detour. I was enjoying the joke, however, so I patiently sat there. After all, it would only be another two or three minutes and I wasn't in a rush.

So I'm sitting there looking at the passing graffiti cars and then this lineup of metal starts to slow down. How odd. Maybe there's another intersection further west for which the train had to be cautious. As I continued to watch, the train comes to a complete stop. And not only that, but the train starts to go into reverse, ever so slowly! I thought that my eyes were playing tricks on me but no, there was the train backing up from whence it came.

Laughing, I watched as the train backed up from its (presumed) middle point and went back to the quarter point. It sat there for a while, at which point I pulled out my book and started reading. There were some other suckers still parked on the road with me but most of them were company vehicles, so I presume that they were getting paid to sit there.

At long last, the train did pull away after sitting there for another five minutes. The flashing lights stopped, the crossing bars went up, cars started their engines and away I went, one whole block north. I spent an inordinate amount of time finding a parking space, went into the government offices and proceeded to spend another forty minutes waiting in their inefficient queues.

All told, I spent a full half hour waiting at that train crossing. I was given three or four conveniant opportunities to turn around and head for the detour, and many of my compatriots did just that. I'm me, though. No excuses or explanations are required beyond that. The irony and humour of sitting there was just delicious, and so I sat there and composed this story in my head while I giggled randomly to myself.

All things being equal, I will always take the funniest option. Don't ask for whom the bell tolls, those bells tolled for me. And now I've tolled you.

Multiply the Small

Often times, a new church is started out of someone's house. It's nothing too formal or organized at first. It can just be one person, or a husband and a wife, who reach out to one of their friends. These friends spend time developing that relationship, getting to know one another better. New friends join the group as they are welcomed in for coffee or dinner once in a while. Together, everyone develops in their Christian faith and their love for God.

Sometimes this small, informal group works out well. The group is close and new people feel like they can really connect. The group grows little by little until, eventually, it's hard to fit everyone into one house at the same time.

So there comes a time when practical decisions come into play. Should the group band together to create an official church group? Maybe rent a suitable office space for meetings, or use the gym at a local public school? If that happens, should the group be registered as a charitable group? How will they pay for the building rentals? Who will lead this group and how will it be organized? What will the goals be?

At this point, this group is following the same patterns that a small business goes through. A small business is often started out of a home. Family and friends might pitch in to help. Customers tend to come by personal referrals. The progress from a home business to a small business, from a small business to a big business, and every stage in between...it all comes with similar questions and challenges. (I previously wrote about this as Small Church, Big Church.)

What's more, an experienced business consultant is quite capable of predicting and explaining the growing pains at each stage. Likewise, an experienced pastor might be very able to predict the normal challenges that a growing church will face. The patterns and parallels here are numerous.

The trick is, we tend to assume that we will simply have to get bigger. Bigger building, bigger crowd, bigger financial requirements, bigger everything. Just because we automatically see this happening, that does not mean that this is the only route to take. Big can be good, as I wrote here, but it might not be necessary.

A small business can also sprout sister businesses. If Tim Hortons becomes successful, we don't necessarily need to make a bigger Tim Hortons. We just start another Tim Hortons a few blocks away. (Or even on the opposite corner, sometimes. Heh.) In the same way, a thriving house church does not need to become bigger. Instead, it can sprout sister house churches at another location.

The comparison to franchising a business falls apart quickly enough since we don't want every house church to be identical. I'm just pointing out that staying small is a viable option. It still requires diligent work and foresight to pull this off, just as becoming a large church does.

Multiply the small. Small can be beautiful.

Baptisms

"Fairly warned, be thee, says I!" The following post is directed to Christians in answer to an ongoing discussion for this post on Joel's blog. I apologize for the religious mumbo-jumbo. If you're not a Christian, or if you get bored by all of this stuff, please skip this post. You can go back to my previous post and have some fun figuring out why snakes need legs.

There are plenty of different Christian denominations out there. Many of these groups tend to have slightly different interpretations about certain ideas in the Bible, which means different "theology." For the majority, though, we all agree on the key things: We humans have sinned and done wrong; God sent Jesus his son to die for our sins, and then Jesus rose from the dead; all we have to do is believe this, ask forgiveness and submit to Jesus. That's all we need to become followers of Jesus. No big explanations or complicated prayers are required, just a few plain words to God.

Things tend to get a little more messy after this point as different view points pop up. The audience for my blog and Joel's blog is quite varied. As such, I'm not trying to dismiss or insult anyone else's interpretation of the Bible. However, some honest questions were asked so I want to give my own summary about this thing called "Baptism in the Holy Spirit."

There are three kinds of baptism.
1. Baptism into the body of Christ, also known as salvation.
2. Baptism in water, as a public testimony of our faith.
3. Baptism in the Holy Spirit, an outpouring of the power of the Holy Spirit on a Christian.

The first one is the one that we all agree on. The next two are taught and/or performed differently from group to group. In my case, I think that each of these is a separate event in a person's life. They can happen together, though, if someone gets saved when there's a handy river nearby or something like that.

As Christians, I think that each of these three instances is important. However, the second and third steps are not absolutely necessary because salvation is the key one. These second and third steps do not mark some special point of maturity for Christians, they're just more steps along the journey.

One big difference from group to group is that some believe that the third part, baptism in the Holy Spirit, is done at the exact same time as the first part, during salvation. To that end, I recommend reading this article if you want to get into all of the nitty-gritty details and Bible references.

To quote one section from that article, the author says that at first, "I was totally against tongues and other charismatic views because of my doctrinal background." As he broke down the passages and references to the Holy Spirit, he was surprised to discover where it led him. From what I read, I think that he seems to have a pretty clear understanding about both sides of this thing called Baptism in the Holy Spirit.

If you're struggling with some of the tricky questions on this topic, or if you want to get into the Bible passages in detail, you can check that out further. Yeah, it's lazy of me but it saves me from typing a lot. Heh. If you have questions and you don't want to wade through all of that, please feel free to post comments here. Enjoy!

As They Say In Zanzibar

And now for the return of my selection of proverbs from nations around the globe. My sister is currently teaching in China and in her honour, each of these bon mots originate in China. I chose some of these as truisms but others I chose primarily for their quirkiness or humour. The trick is interpreting all of these correctly...

It is not economical to go to bed early to save the candles if the result is twins.

Never feed a dog with corn, nor attempt to pick your teeth with a pair of scissors.

Add legs to the snake after you have finished drawing it.

Those who have free seats at a play hiss first.

The person who says it cannot be done should not interrupt the one doing it.

Even a mole may instruct a philosopher on the art of digging.

A bit of fragrance always clings to the hand that gives you roses.

Have a mouth as sharp a as dagger, but a heart as soft as tofu.

Carrying-poles which bend easily do not break.

You cannot prevent the birds of sadness from flying overhead, but you can prevent them from nesting in your hair.

A bird does not sing because it has an answer; it sings because it has a song.

Teachers open the door; you enter by yourself.

Reference: As They Say In Zanzibar

Power

"When I came to you, brothers, I did not come with eloquence or superior wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. I came to you in weakness and fear, and with much trembling. My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit's power, so that your faith might not rest on men's wisdom, but on God's power." 1 Corinthians 2:1-5

"For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel—not with words of human wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power. For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God." 1 Corinthians 1:17-18

I've been wandering around these Bible passages this past week, ever since my dad happened to quote it on his blog. This is what I have been pursuing for many months now. I've been writing about various topics on my blog and I have received a variety of compliments lately for my developing writing skills. I can craft clever stories, augment our arguments, relate real reasons and write really rightly. Hey, I'm even good with alliteration.

The thing is that I'm tired of talk. I'm even tired of my talk. I've heard a million sermons and I've read a bunch of books. I have had debates with my Christian friends about certain aspects of our faith and about our slightly different theology. I've seen Christians use the same old cliches and judgments and I've heard non-Christians do the same. I've done the Bible studies and the youth groups and the ministry in church. I can pick any point from the Bible and find a half-dozen contrasting view points. Everyone has an opinion.

We have great intentions, to be sure. I find that I'm left with one question, though, a question that keeps coming back to my mind: What is the point? Where is the change? What about the difference in us? If these ideas are true, show them to me. Prove it. Not with more words but with real life. If my words are real, where is the evidence in my own life?

And so I've been circling the verses above. That's sort of where Paul was when he first visited the city of Corinth. He would often start his missionary work in new cities by visiting the temples and synagogues, reasoning with the people there. Time after time, he found it difficult to make any progress in this way, even though this was his training as a zealous Jew growing up. And if he did make some progress, his efforts were soon crushed by others afterwards.

By the time Paul got to Corinth, as described in Acts 16-18, he found that he just couldn't keep using this pattern. He gave up on depending his talents, on his extensive knowledge of the Old Testament Bible, on his persuasiveness. He decided to focus on the message of Jesus dying for us, on how much God loves us, on how repentance and forgiveness can set us free.

And what's more, Paul relied on God's power to back him up. The power of the Holy Spirit.

This means that there were signs and miracles, healings and prophecies, maybe all of that. More powerful still was how the Holy Spirit could connect with a person and change their hearts and lives. It was an outward power that was visible to everyone. It was also an inward power and the effect on people's lives was equally visible to everyone.

I want that. I want the power of the Holy Spirit to change me and to change my friends. I don't want a weak faith that has to be convinced, I want people to see and know that God is real and that he really cares for them. I want hope and life and freedom and faith.

I want that.

Freedom Is Coming

"People walk around with so many wounds from their childhood years or from past relationships. People just think that those heavy burdens are a part of life but they're really not. I love to read, see and hear about people really being set free from their past. When Jesus comes in, allows forgiveness to flow to us and from us, changes our thoughts and emotions to something beautiful...just, wow." Quote from my comments in this blog post.

It's almost scary that it's so easy to make a list of these kinds of emotional wounds. Think about it. Do you have a few years from when you were growing up a as kid that you still hate? Maybe your family moved to a new town and you lost all of your old friends. Maybe your parents were entirely too mean, enforcing crazy rules or degrading your talents too often. Maybe you had an alcoholic parent or had to live through a divorce. Whatever the reason, many of us have those times from childhood that we only remember as dark times and we can barely remember any fun memories from those periods.

Or perhaps you have some wounds from later in your teenage or adult years. Maybe you had that one friend that broke your trust severely. Maybe you had a romantic relationship that sucked the life out of you, or maybe you haven't even had a serious romantic relationship yet. Maybe you felt like a loner in too many crowds or you lost contact with that one good friend that you had. Maybe you've gotten slammed by a teacher at school, or gotten fired from a job unjustly, or experienced a church that just didn't care about you.

We've all been there at some point. It's that toxic hole that just sits there in our minds and our hearts. Heck, sometimes we've been the cause of this kind of pain for someone else. I know that I've been on both ends of some of these things. And while the blackness and loneliness during these dark times may not be the same from person to person, we all know how far away light and hope have felt then.

So what do we do with this pain? Where do we place these memories? How do we handle the emotions that come up instantly whenever we talk or think about these things?

For most of us, we end up being the person described in my story, The Freedom Chain. We have that one person, that one event or that one feeling to which we are chained. Some of us can't help but focus on that giant boulder in our lives. We just sit that and become bitter. We'll rage against it and fight it. We'll even attack anyone else that touches that open wound. That boulder remains the centre of our universe.

Some of us try to forget it and move on. We decide in our heads to let bygones be bygones. We chalk it up to a life lesson learned. We write that other person off if we can, or we grin and bear it if we do have to see them again. We're looking outwards now, moving on in our careers and developing new relationships. We're like the person with that chain, walking in circles forever around the boulder. We're mature and we can handle it, right?

It's just that every once in a while, we feel the jerk of the chain on our legs. Every so often, somebody comes along that seems to press all the wrong buttons and those old feelings flare up again. For some reason, we seem to come across people and situations that remind us of that previous pain and all of a sudden, we're like that little kid again and we're just trying to break free.

It doesn't have to be that way. We don't have to stare at that anchor in our lives. We can do better than ignoring it and pretending that we're fine. We don't have to feel that brutal wave of emotion hit us every time we remember. These things do not have to colour our conversations and they do not have to cloud our thinking. Tese things do not have to corrupt every new relationship that we have.

There is a better way. It's not simple and it's not easy. It may not be quick and it might require real action on our parts. I'm not offering some cheap solution, and I refuse to discount how hard those times were for each of us. These are not little things that we faced. We're not going to erase those times in our lives and we can't make those problems disappear. The other people won't magically mature and apologize, and we may not find that our circumstances change at all. I'm just saying that we don't have to be chained up like this. We don't have to be counted among the walking wounded.

Freedom. It's coming. It's available to each of us. It's that distant sound, that faint rumble of thunder. There is a cleansing rain approaching, that water of life that is getting ready to fall.

Freedom is coming.

Lazy & Smart

"Men are basically smart or dumb and lazy or ambitious. The dumb and ambitious ones are dangerous and I get rid of them. The dumb and lazy ones I give mundane duties. The smart ambitious ones I put on my staff. The smart and lazy ones I make my commanders." Erwin Rommel, The Desert Fox

To give you a visual, I created the image of the quadrants shown above. Another variation on this idea exchanges the word "ambitious" with the words "hard-working" and "industrious," which provides a slightly different set of conclusions. Anyone that is smart and works hard is an asset to any group or company. These are the people that get things done, and they do it well. In terms of a business, you want plenty of these employees. They make excellent programmers, middle managers, technicians, mechanics, etc. In fact, I previously wrote about this here more than a year ago and praised this combination highly.

The combination of dumb and ambitious leads to people that strive for power and control, that want their voices to be heard. However, they don't understand the responsibility of this kind of role. Once they are heard, their decisions tend to lead towards bad consequences. And as they try to achieve their goals, they tend to step on a lot of people along the way without realizing it. That's part of the reason that The Desert Fox said that these people are dangerous.

The combination of dumb and works hard is a little different because there are a lot of people in this position. These are people that follow orders without too many questions. They'll complete the work but they will make a lot of mistakes along the way. Fortunately, they keep working hard to fix those mistakes. Unfortunately, they have a tendancy to introduce new mistakes even as they fix the old ones, so the cycle repeats incessantly. As I say, this is fairly common. (I'll mention the solution to the first part of this equation below.)

The combination of dumb and lazy is handy for menial work but this is usually a dead end. Not much work gets done, and what does get done isn't very good. Within a company, this type of person should be moved into a position in which their particular strengths are valuable. Being dumb doesn't actually mean stupidity. It just means that the person's talents and strengths are not well suited to their role, or that their role is too restrictive to allow them to put those abilities to use.

For example, a person might be a terrible data entry clerk because they do not pay attention to details. From the outside, the person might seem dumb because they keep making so many mistakes. However, this same person might have wonderful interpersonal skills and once they're moved to a position that involves direct contact with customers they might seem "smart" all of sudden. They can instantly remember names and conversations with people from months before but place a stack of black-and-white numbers in front of them and it becomes a grey blur to them. It's like picking the song that best suits a certain kind of voice.

Dealing with laziness is a different matter. In many cases, people are not actually lazy, they're just not motivated. Some people respond to constant encouragement and recognition and they falter when they feel ignored. Some people prefer little supervision of any kind and they become energized in trying to succeed on their own. Some people like competition, some compete only against themselves, and some do not like to compete at all. This aspect of motivation is one focus of the Strengths Finder test that I mentioned here before.

And finally, there's the combination of smart and lazy. At first, that one seems like it wouldn't be too valuable. Sure, sure, it's fine if the person is clever but what will they ever accomplish? The stereotype in this case depicts the professors and eggheads in universities and think-tanks, just coming up with ideas but never really doing much with them.

Au contraire, says The Fox. These are the very kinds of people that you need at the top. This could be the best type of leader of all. This kind of person doesn't want to work too hard or too long, so they put their brains to use to figure out better and easier ways to do it. It takes a creative mind to look beyond the basic requirements and find a better solution, whilst a smart person that works hard is much more likely to push ahead with the task and simply avoid mistakes.

Laziness can be the result of poor motivation, but it can also be the motivation to do things in a better way. Properly understood, "lazy" is sometimes just the flip side of "efficient."

If you want to look at that a bit more, the first link to Rommel gives general Wikipedia information. Granted, the guy was a commander in the Nazi army but even Winston Churchill begrudgingly gave him respect, even as they fought. (And yes, I do think that The Desert Fox is great nickname.) For another perspective on this within the business world, you can also check out this blog, which offers it's own opinions about these ideas.

Freedom Chain

There's a giant boulder in the middle of an open field. At the top of this boulder is an iron ring, the bottom of it deeply embedded. A large cast iron chain with heavy links is attached to it. The metal shows signs of wear and tear, scratches and minor bumps, a little rust here and there. Following the length of chain downwards, I'm surprised to find that it ends in a solid shackle, and this shackle is bolted around my ankle.

I try for a long time to get out of this. The chain is much too heavy and it refuses to break or even give a little. The shackle is too tight and I cannot pull my leg free, even though I repeatedly bruise my ankle badly in trying. My hands become numb and my fingernails split in futile effort. At first I am full of resolve to free myself and I put everything I have into this goal. I wrench at the chain and I smash it with smaller rocks. I call for help and I yell at it. Nothing comes close to working, and I am left alone.

As days lead to weeks, I can only resort to anger and depression. One day I start to walk in a circle around this rock. What else can I do? I either sit here and cry, or I can move on. I don't get very far, but at least I'm doing something now. I try to stay as far away from the boulder as I can and I gradually wear down a dirt path around it. My eyes still burn towards the centre.

One day, I stumble along this path a bit and I trip since I'm so tired. As I look up from my knees, I notice that I'm not staring at the rock anymore. I'm now looking outwards at the rest of this open field. For the first time, I notice the forest that lines the edge of the field. All of a sudden, I hear the small brook that runs nearby. I spot a small bird overhead and I feel the warmth of the sun on my face as I look up.

I sit back in wonder for a long while. How could I have missed all of this beauty around me? I take it all in like a long drink of cool water. My mind stops churning and my muscles relax for the first time in ages. A light wind picks up and blows over me, rustling the grass and brushing my hair.

I finally arise, only to feel that hard tug at my ankle. I start moving in my circle but this time I start walking in the opposite direction. More importantly, this time I keep my eyes on everything around me. I'm still not getting anywhere but now it doesn't seem so bad. I take pleasure in sensing the shadow of a passing cloud and in the song of the small bird. It;s not so bad after all, I decide.

Once in a while, though, that jerk of the chain brings my focus back to the boulder and I am reminded of how I am trapped. Those old feelings jump out at me again and I once again put my full strength into pulling away. At one point, I actually twist my ankle badly and I can't even walk for a few days while it heals.

While I am lying there staring at my pained foot, I am startled to see another set of feet stop directly beside mine. The very first thing I notice is that the one foot has the same markings as my own, the same scars and marks from a chain that was worn for so long. In the next instant, I look up to see a man standing in front of me, the sun shining from just behind him.

Amazing! I jump up to greet him but instead I am met with slicing pain in my leg and I crumple to the ground again, my eyes watering. The man bends down and rests his hand on my shoulder, with only a slight smile on his lips but something so much deeper in his eyes. As I sit there rubbing my ankle, I wait for him to speak but he remains quiet. Such an odd thing, this man appearing out of nowhere and now just kneeling beside me. Twice, I open my mouth to say something but I stop myself because I don't want to be the one to break the silence.

He sits down and looks around at the open field, so I follow his lead and I do the same. After a few minutes, I am again reminded about my own joy in discovering this natural beauty around me. I shake my head as I laugh at myself silently. Of course, of course. How could I have forgotten my own lesson so quickly? This man has obviously learned this lesson as well and he knows the importance of looking outwards. How silly of me. Gradually the sun sets and eventually we lean back and watch the stars as they begin to spark through the night sky.

I awaken the next morning, having had my best sleep in ages. There is a light dew on the grass and I spot a spider-web twinkling with a dew drop. I grin as I acknowledge this and I push myself up on one elbow to finally speak to this man. Only then do I notice that I am alone and he is gone.

In only a few seconds, my mind furiously paces through a series of emotions. Why did this man taunt me in this way? Why did he adandon me like this? Didn't he see my dilemma? Doesn't he know what I have been going through all of this time? And once again, my eyes turn towards this rock and this black ball of bitterness and hate seethes inside of me.

A ray of light strikes my eyes all of a sudden and I cover them with my hand, trying to blink away the spots. I refocus and I glance upwards but no one is there. For a second there, I thought that maybe the man had returned but no, a quick glance around me reveals that I am still by myself.

The distraction was just enough to stir up one tiny, almost imperceptible thought in my head. Confusion sits there for a minute as I try to grasp hold of that fragment. What was it? Down. His feet. The man's feet. He had the same markings on his ankle that I had. He must have been bound by his own chain somewhere else for a long time. How did he get free? There must be a way. I see it now, there must be a way.

The thoughts continue to pile up in my head. I was so happy when I realized that I could look outwards to the life around me. That was only a mirage, though, wasn't it? I had tricked myself into accepting my fate. Despite all of the vibrancy in this field, I cannot move away from this rock of mine. I cannot get to that trickling brook and put my hand into the water. I cannot make my way to the shade of the trees in the distance when the noon day sun beats down on me. I thought that I had found some kind of freedom but only now do I realize that this man, this man... He is the one that has found a true kind of freedom.

I'm still not sure about how to get free of this chain but I am no longer satisfied with walking in circles. There is something better, a freedom that lets me run and jump as far and as fast as I imagine. That's what I want to find. That's what I need to get. I hope that this man will come back to explain this secret to me some day soon but for the moment, this small flame of faith will be enough.

I hope.

Traditions Ain't What They Used To Be

Easter Monday has come and is just about gone as I write this. Some Christians prefer not to celebrate Easter and Christmas at all. Some do this as a statement against the commercialism that pervades these two holidays, and the fact that it hurts the ol' bank account. Many others do this because of the historic roots of these two holidays.

After all, Jesus wasn't really born on December 25th, right? And the tricksy way that we calculate the date for Easter has only a little to do with the Passover date on which it originally happened. The institution of the Christian church has done a nice job of messing around with the details, and modern North American traditions have only continued this trend of muddifying the fuzzification.

Taken further, we can look at the entire Catholic calendar and question the origins of each of these holidays. We can do the same with the liturgical year, as described here. We have a wide selection of Christian, semi-Christian and supposedly Christian events to look forward to in any given year.

I'm not writing this in order to dismiss these celebrations. In fact, I'm a big fan of Christmas and Easter performances at my church, which is obvious since I'm in them every year. I just acknowledge the fact that they serve a purpose for the us besides mere religious ritual.

Let me get to the twist, though. If we opt out of the two biggest Christian holidays of the year, and we do so because of the history and meaning of these events, why do we so avidly defend so many other traditions in our churches?

Why do we think that a church building is necessary, or even Biblical? Why do we insist on having pastors, or a group of official elders, or sermons, or services on Sundays? As my dad wrote on his blog, these concepts do not have any better basis in Old or New Testament scripture than December 25th does.

I'm not advocating that we get rid of them all. I know that there was no such thing as Sunday School back in the day but I still found it educational and fun when I was growing up. Instead, I am suggesting that these things are merely different tools that we are using. And if the tools don't work as well as they should, we should be open to questions and alternatives.

To hold onto certain traditions while at the same time dismissing others for almost identical reasons, that ain't right. If we are going to hold onto some holidays, or hold onto certain aspects of church life, we should do it for clear reasons. Look at how beneficial these things are and at the joy they provide. And if there is a better solution out there, let us seriously consider those options as well. Clear up the haze and get focused on why we're doing this in the first place.

Can I get an Amen!?!

Windows Into Me

Recently, I've noticed that I've been hanging around with friends from widely varying social circles. Some are from my years at FCCC, some are from my ancient LGT era, some are from Glad Tidings, some are from the young adults group at Open Door. Some are from my brother's circle of friends, some are friends from my time working at AV-Base, some are friends-of-friends that I have met with Wing Night or such things.

I met all of these different people in different settings at different times in our lives for different reasons. As a result, many of my friends only know certain sides of my life and my personality.

As a random list, let me see how many major components are or were in my daily life...

• I have been a Big Brother for over two years. Very few of my friends have ever met my Little, never mind hanging out with both of us. My interest in heavy metal and rock music is directly related to him, and he's my main video game buddy.
• I am heavily involved in GTA, my church, as a percussionist and vocalist. People that attend my church see me up on stage the majority of weekends and they can see how expressive I am in worship. People outside of this church do not realize how involved I am.
• I have been attending a cell group at Neil and Stephanie Ross' house for more than two years now. A variety of people have come and gone from the group during that time, yet I remain. Outside of this group, people do not see how I act in a small group or in a Bible Study setting.
• Going back further, I led my own cell group for two and a half years with seven guys or so. This time represents my first steps into what it means to be a mentor to younger guys and I learned some major life lessons along the way. Few people outside of this group know how simultaneously boring, useful and challenging this was for many of us.
• Based on my time with that old cell group and with FCCC, two of my closest friends are still Joel Timmerman and Richard Phillips. While our friendships have changed over the years for many reasons, these two guys have seen me at my lowest points and have been there for me. Outside of these two guys, it's hard to understand how deeply I desire intimate friendships, or to even know when I was struggling with life.
• To come back to the present, there are several friends to whom I devote much time. Some are young Christians, some are not Christians at all, many are at crossroads in their lives. I wouldn't say that I'm a mentor in these cases but I do take my position as their friend seriously and I try to get past the superficial questions to something more meaningful. Again, anyone that is not with me when I hang out with these friends does not see how far I am willing to go for their sakes.
• In my career, my persona as manager is a whole different thing. I'm the man that cares deeply about the other employees, that wants to see them succeed and develop and enjoy their work. I take care of all of the garbage jobs and red tape and confrontations that no one else wants to handle. I consider myself to be at the service of everyone else, low man on the totem pole. That being said, I'm also excellent in a stressful situation and I can stand up to almost anyone without offending them. If you haven't worked with me, you don't really know this side of me.
• In my career as a programmer, few people know how brilliant I am. As prideful as that may sound, it's also completely true. I'm highly experienced with database design, I can pump out code at about twice the rate of the average good programmer, I have fewer bugs in my software that most other programmers, etc. I can maintain years of design decisions in my head for instant recall, I'm an excellent researcher and I can decipher the source of a bug better than most people. Unless you're a programmer and you've seen me in action, it's doubtful that you know this.
• Outside of my family, few people know how much I love my family and how I openly express that. There's all kinds of history in this that only rare friends will even hear about.
• In my private spiritual life, I'm an interesting source of contradictions. I love to deconstruct ideas and challenge what I accept to be true. Alongside that kind of analysis, I'm also very heartfelt and I cry fairly often when I see God moving. Outside of my dad, few people really see this side of me.

So there you have it, a whole bunch of little windows into my life. I could go on and on (and I already have) but my point is that few people see all of me. You get one picture and your view of my personality and my passions and my life is filtered through that small pane of glass. And while it may seem like extreme hubris to lay it all out like that, how will you ever know more about me unless I tell you? There's no way that any one of my friends will ever see all of this in action, so all you can have is the stories that I tell and then you can try to paint your own picture of me.

Peterborough Road Trip

This past Monday and Tuesday, I went on a road trip to Peterborough, Ontario with my sister. We were celebrating the end of her school years by visiting our old town. We lived there for four and a half years, sometime around 1990, whilst my dad attend Bible College there. I was in French Immersion for Grades 4 - 8 and part way through Grade 8 we moved to Wawa for my dad's first pastoring gig.

I already posted all of the below pictures, and others, on facebook.com, so if you're not on there then you might want to join the party. This first picture is in front of our old house on Langton Street. The second shows the hill near our house that we used to tobaggan frequently.


This next picture shows me recreating a race that I had with my arch-nemesis during junior high. That guy kicked my butt and bruised my ego pretty nicely that day. The second picture shows me in front of Edmison Heights, which is where I spent Grades 4 through 6.


We visited Riverview Zoo as well, which was a twenty minute walk from our old house. It's a unique zoo because it's open to the public for free, so you can just walk through the place.

Riverview Zoo includes an extensive playground area. Big kid that I am, I have several pictures from our time there.




Along the way through town, we stopped at the old Bible College, Eastern Pentecostal Bible College (EPBC). This college has since closed down and mvoed to Toronto but I still have many fond memories of the place.



I have a few more random pictures from downtown Peterborough and from our visit to the famous Lift Locks.



And finally, here's one last picture from our visit to Warsaw Caves. The place was closed for the winter season due to snow and ice. That made it rather treacherous but we braved the hike just to get a few good pictures.

Family First

Back in September, I wrote this post to identify my top life priorities. I want to add some thoughts about this list. The top three items can be summed up like this:

1. God
2. Family
3. Christian Ministry

What I have discovered, though, is that people take #2 for granted. And by people, I mean me, of course. It gets bumped down, sometimes accidentally and sometimes intentionally.

We allow ourselves to focus on our life at church, or on the talents that God has given us to touch people, or on what God is doing in our lives. Our schedules become devoted to it since we're active each weekend at church. Our money gets sucked up by it as we spend it on church projects, on Sunday School supplies, on art material and on a musical instrument.

We know that we can spend time with our families after church has ended on Sundays. We assume that our families recognize the importance of our Christian ministry. We expect them to be eager to help those in need, to avoid selfishness and let us get on with God's work. I mean, our family pretty much has to support us in God's calling, right?

If that requires a little juggling of our family time table, so be it. If our kids need to be patient while we pray for another hour with somebody, that's a great lesson for them. If our spouse can't see how much people need us, we're sure that they will mature and see it eventually.

And while we sincerely and passionately say that our family is central in our lives, we act just a little differently and modify our list like this:

1. God & Ministry
2. Family

We equate our Christian ministry with God. That's the point here: Our ministry is not God. God is a real person, with whom we have a relationship, a guy that we can love and that will love us in return. God is not an action or a requirement or a duty or a calling. He wants us to place HIM first in our lives, and he knows that helping other people is just a result of that - it's just not the main thing.

If we spend more time in church than with our kids, what does that cost them? If we're more willing to take a meeting with another Christian rather than relax with our spouse, how will that affect the marriage? If we are more concerned with a homeless person that with our own parents, who gets left alone? If we give more money to the missions project at church, will we dip into the education fund for the children?

God does want us to help others, and it's a good thing if our families are involved in that as well. God just doesn't want "Godly" ministry to be done at the cost of our own families and our close relationships. That's not Godly. That's not even good. That's just misunderstanding the principle that our love must be living in our homes first, and only after that can our love be directed to others.

Colbert, Card Games & Crazy Blogs

Last night, we had a dress rehearsal for the upcoming Easter presentation at my church, which I mentioned before here. It uses the format of The Colbert Report. I'm in the band so this was my first chance to actually see the comedic segments. I loved it!

Among other things, the show includes an extended piece with "The Word," which is one of my favourite bits from the show. The band learned how to play Colbert's theme song in about thirty seconds, which was hilarious. There are some funny videos thrown in for the "commercial breaks" and other amusing aspects. The show contrasts the Easter Bunny concept with the story of Jesus' death and resurrection, using an interview-style discussion. The jokes slow down a bit towards the middle but the intermittant songs keep things lively. I invite everyone to join us this coming weekend for those shows!

Now for a few quick hits. Joel has started blogging again, in his role as commentator on all recent news. Nick Hourd has a blog post on his website that relates to our ongoing discussion about hearing God's voice and various aspects about dating. My dad is still blogging way too frequently, and my favourite recent post was this one in which he discusses the Biblical validity of the concept of spiritual covering, which is something that I have been re-assessing lately.

And as my final shout out, Ashleigh has an ongoing series in which she invites people to submit serious questions about the life of someone who is disabled. It's highly revelational and no question will go unanswered, so this is your chance to ask anonymously if there's something you always wanted to know but were not sure how to find the answer.

On Easter Monday, April 9th, I will be hosting another poker game at my house starting at 6:00 pm. Everyone is invited, both girls and guys, and you can invite your own friends as well. If you haven't played poker before or you're still fairly new at it, we'll teach you everything you need to know. Just come out for the fun and the chance to meet some new people.

This time, I will be hosting two separate poker games at the same time. The first game will cost $20.00 but first and second place will get bigger cash prizes. The second game will only cost $5.00, so the prizes for that game will be smaller but more people will probably be playing that one. Half of the money from the entrance fees will go towards the prizes, the other half will go to my friend Terrance Arsenault and his fiance Gina for their upcoming wedding.

If you can contact me beforehand to confirm that you're coming, I would appreciate it. However, an RSVP is not required and you can come at the last second.