News, Links & Comments

Canadian Pride: Paul Haggis, a screenwriter from here in London, was nominated for an Oscar for his script for Million Dollar Baby. The Toronto Star had an article about him last week.

Blog Updates: Elyse has moved her blog to a new site. Mike has redone his page template in preparation for a blog reboot so stay tunred for that. Jevant has started to attach automated polls to his blog.

UWO: As I mentioned here, I went to the final presentation for the Do You Agree With Them campaign at UWO this past Thursday evening. There were several hundred people there and four UWO students shared their stories about being/becoming Christians. That was followed by a question period that was pretty good. The best part for me was hearing the detailed version of Derek's story about how his mother was miraculously healed from life-threatening injuries, complete with visual aids. God can just blow your mind sometimes.

Movies: On Thursday night, Mike and I went and saw The Motorcycle Diaries after we went to UWO. Good movie, although it's subtitled to include a lot of swearing. It's about two young guys that decide to cross Latin America with a single motorcycle, eventually ending at a medical colony for lepers. It was interesting to see Latin America as it was a few decades ago, and it was interesting to see how these two young men changed over the course of the trip.

Books: I recently read the book Factoring Humanity by Robert J. Sawyer (London Library link). I didn't realize it but he also wrote Calculating God, which I read just two weeks before. Both are excellent (and award winning) sci-fi books that I highly recommend for anyone that likes science fiction.

Book Summary: Calculating God
Aliens visit us to study the history of our planet and the major extinctions that have happened. These aliens believe in God as a matter of scientific fact, and by "God" they mean an omnipotent being of some sort. They're quite surprised to learn that our scientists do not believe in God. The story unfolds as a combination of a first contact story, a religious debate and a sci-fi novel all tied together in one fascinating little package. (Kudos to Mike for originally recommending it to me.)

Youth Worship Team: Y'know, I've been involved with leading different youth groups and small groups in various ways for more than ten years now. I have to say, though, that leading and teaching the youth worship team at FCCC was probably my favourite ministry ever. So, did anyone from the old team receive anything interesting in the mail recently? Hmm?

Do You Agree With Them?

The Christians at UWO have been promoting an event that's coming up this Thursday (Jan. 27, 2005). You can review the concept at their website, www.doyouagreewiththem.com. I'm going to be going there this Thursday, so if anyone else wants to go then you can contact me for a ride.

Interestingly, Bekki, the blond girl from that website, is the same girl that I wrote about here this past Monday. I didn't realize that she was part of this thing until yesterday, so it was interesting to compare what I wrote about her experience in becoming a Christian and what she wrote here.

So, do you agree with them?

Funny Story

"So a funny thing happened to me on the way to the police station this week..."

I had to get my police check done for my application to Big Brothers this past week. Big Brothers gave me a letter indicating that the police check was for a volunteer organization and they gave me the address to visit, downtown near Duncan and Adelaide. On Thursday at lunch I drove down. There are several one-way streets there and it took me a while to get into the police parking lot.

Once I got into the parking lot, I had to drive right to the back to find a free spot. After having found one, I got my van and started backing up into that spot slowly and... CRUNCH! I backed right into a cop car. With the police officer inside it.

I had turned a corner in the parking lot and then the cop had come out of underground parking just behind me. When I was going to back up, the driver thought that I was leaving the parking lot and he tried to squeeze past me. It was an unmarked black car in my blind spot so I didn't see it when I checked behind me.

Ever so fortunately for me, there were no markings or dents on either vehicle, so the cop said it was fine. I asked him if I was just really, really, really lucky and he said yes, I was. And so he left, and so I parked.

I went inside to get the application for my police check - only to learn that London Police does not provide police checks for people that live in Dorchester, like me. All of that for nothing.

That was a Thursday. On Friday at lunch, I went to the OPP station, which does provide police checks for people that live in Dorchester, like me. Ironically enough, the OPP station is on Exeter Road, a few blocks from my workplace and about 12 minutes closer than the London Police station.

So, after traveling down Exeter Road in the wrong direction and stopping to ask directions, I finally drove up to the OPP station and parked. This time the parking lot was empty, so there was no chance of hitting another cop car. I walked up to the main door - and found it locked. No wonder the parking lot was empty, the place was closed during the lunch hour. There was even a sign on the door indicating that anyone looking for a police check was supposed to come back at 1:00 pm.

So I went back to work, ate lunch and then drove back one more time. I finally managed to get everything right and I submitted my application for a police check. Of this entire story, there was one good part - well, besides getting off free for hitting a cop. Police checks in London for volunteer organizations cost $10.00. At the OPP, these same police checks are free. So while I cost myself a lot of gas, at least I got a free police check in the end.

"So a funny thing happened to me on the way to the police station this week..."

Changed Lives (Part One)

Yesterday at church I heard stories from two different people about how they became Christians within the past two years. Both people are in their early twenties and are still in university, I think. I'll relate the first story with this post...

I started singing on the vocal team at church this past weekend, in front of the choir with a separate mic. There was an alto singer and a soprano singer on the vocal team with me, and Bekki was the soprano. She mentioned during conversation that she had never gone to Sunday School as a kid, so I asked her about how she became a Christian.

A year and a half ago, she started at Western University. She was supposed to be sharing an apartment with another girl and another guy, and then the guy backed out and they needed another roommate quickly. They were able to get another random girl to join them, presumably from a waiting list or something. This other girl invited Bekki out to a debate at the university, the topic being something like "Does God exist?"

Bekki came away from that debate thinking that the Christian's perspective made a lot of sense, and she referred to the Intelligent Designer argument in particular. That evening, her new roommate left her Bible in Bekki's room and suggested that she read the book of John if she was curious.

Bekki did pick up the book that night and found that she couldn't put it down. It was fascinating to her. She did not grow up in a Christian home and for her entire life, she was quite adamant about having nothing to do with religion. She mentioned that she been messing around with a lot of things and, by her view, she was treading an increasingly dark path. Yet here she was, having heard the honest message of Christ and God for the first time and she was hooked. She became a Christian shortly thereafter.

(Continued in Part Two.)

Changed Lives (Part Two)

To continue from this post, I heard a second story yesterday at church about how this one guy, John McDonald, became a Christian within the past two years. Again, I think he's in his early twenties and is currently in university.

They were promoting the Alpha program at my church yesterday during the announcements. For those that don't know, Alpha is designed around having a meal. Small groups at a single table of about 8 people eat a meal while watching a twenty minute video discussing the basics of Christianity and then anybody with questions or opinions can discuss it. There tends to be two or three Christians at the table and the rest are usually not Christians.

They had John up at the front to discuss it a bit with the pastor and to tell about his experience with Alpha. Like Bekki, who I mentioned in my previous post, John had always rejected Christianity and religion outright. One of his friends invited him to church regularly but he always refused, saying "No, I can't do that."

This friend eventually invited John to watch the Superbowl at our church. It's something that my church has done for many years and it includes a big screen of the game, food, prizes and a guest speaker from the Toronto Argonauts during half-time. John said, "Sure, I can do that."

This friend was helping out with Alpha and he asked John to help set up the table at church and give out pamphlets on one Sunday. The friend argued that, even if John didn't want to go to Alpha, at least he could help his friend and maybe help other people that were interested. So John said, "Sure, I can do that" and he eventually decided to go to Aplha when it started.

In the Alpha program, he said that he was set at ease by the relaxed atmosphere. He didn't say much for the first few weeks but there always seemed to be somebody that would ask the questions that he had. When he eventually became more vocal, he was impressed by the fact that the people he spoke to listened to him. No lectures, no quick answers, no interruptions, they just let him speak his mind and then they would help as best as they could. John eventually became a Christian through the Alpha program thanks to his friend.

John concluded this 'announcement' by suggesting one thing. It's good to be a Christian and it's good to say that you're a Christian when people ask. God is just asking us to lend a hand to others, that's all. Just reach out.

Top Ten Movies of 2004

In response to Jevant's Top 10 (+1) of 2004, I spent my evening compiling my own list. It took me more than two hours to compile my own list from scratch but hopefully I can look back at this in the future and get a kick out of it.

[10] Fahrenheit 9/11 (Official Site)
I wasn't expecting a documentary to be entertaining. This film really kept the pace moving, attacking the subject from many different angles and keeping me invested in it. I still don't trust the 'facts' much and the part where they conjecture what Bush may have been thinking while he sat in the kindergarden class was childish (pun intended). Still, it related to a lot of the discussions that I had with Abe's cell group over the past year and it resonated pretty strongly amongst the group of guys that I saw it with, so this squeaks in at number ten.

[9] Anchorman (Official Site)
This is on my list because I wanted one comedy here and, admittedly, the crop of comedies this past year was light. It was either this, Shrek 2 or Shaun of the Dead. This barely beat out the latter on this list thanks to the hilarious gang fight scene and the deeply moving "Afternoon Delight" musical interlude.

[8] The Passion of the Christ (Official Site)
I liked this movie just fine. On the negative side, it didn't really get to me emotionally and I'm not sure that I would have brought my own kids to such a movie (if I had a wife and kids). It definitely had less blood than Kill Bill 1 but that's like saying Lake Ontario has less water than Lake Superior. On the plus side, the passion behind this movie came through clearly and it really moved people. I brought along one person to the movie that hadn't been in a theatre for more than twenty years. It had a good impact in both religious terms and as a film.

[7] Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow (Official Site)
I had to decide between this movie and The Day After Tomorrow. (Funny how the titles relate.) I prefer sci-fi and this had the edge in that department since it's hard to beat giant robots and submarine planes. Gwyneth Paltrow and Jude Law play well off of each other and I've always enjoyed Giovanni Ribisi's acting. Beyond that, I had to appreciate the architecture behind this movie. It was almost pure CGI, except for the actors, and what they pulled off should have cost them triple what it did.

[6] Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (Official Site)
It was weird, it was twisted and it was great. The one image that stands out in my mind shows Jim Carey with his adult body but with the size and perspective of a child. This movie really let us get into the heads of the characters, and I mean that literally.

[5] Kill Bill: Volume 2 (Official Site)
I loved this movie so much more than Volume 1, even if the wailing sound track drove me up the wall at times. The first movie used blood as an artistic medium but this one preferred to contentrate on the characters. I watched Volume 1 on DVD for the first time just before I went to the theatre to watch Volume 2. It was a visceral experience in both cases but I'll opt for Volume 2 any day over Volume 1.

[4] I, Robot (Official Site)
I love science fiction and I love all of the sci-fi that Isaac Asimov has written. The original book by this title was a collection of short stories centred around the Three Laws of Robotics. A few of the short stories used an older version of the Susan Calvin character and U. S. Robotics was the robot company in the stories. The only link besides those pieces is that the explanation for the death in the beginning of the movie is exactly like something that Asimov would have dreamed up. I was grateful that it didn't play to the cliches, contrary to the opinion of some. (I'm looking at you, Mike.) The characters of Spooner (Will Smith) and Sonny (as played by Andy Tudyk) were flawed personalities that I could appreciate and cheer for.

[3] The Aviator (Official Site)
Long movie, plenty of actors, fun action, good depth, creepy references. My hat's off to Martin Scorsese for his direction, from the film-in-a-film to the plane crashes to the crazy house to the hearing in Washington. Solid film, easily in my top three.

[2] Hero (Official Site)
I had a tough choice between the second and third positions for this list but I gave the runner-up prize to this movie - which was originally released overseas in 2002, ironically enough. I was a sucker for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and I was a sucker for this movie. The colour motif as part of the plot was a unique touch and the he-said-he-said plot was intriguing. And yes, I liked the ending of this movie.

[1] Ray (Official Site)
I'm curious to know what people thought my top choice would be. I was anticipating this movie long before it hit the main stream. I heard early word that it was a lock for Oscar contention and that has certainly proven true. If you thought that Jamie Foxx acted well in Collateral then you haven't seen anything yet. Jamie Foxx is a classically trained pianist so the singing and piano playing that you hear in this movie is actually him. It was cool to see the clips of Foxx when he first met Ray Charles near the beginning of filming before Ray died. Foxx's acting was as good as it gets but for me, it was all about the music. "Hey, baby, it's gonna do what it's gonna do."

Reference: 2004 Movie Releases

Three Changes (Part II)

As I wrote about here, I'm now starting the application process to become a Big Brother. I attended an orientation meeting this evening for potential "Bigs." There were about ten other guys there, all in their mid-twenties. The application process will take me between two and four weeks to complete, I think.

I have to give an application with plenty of character references that the "case workers" will phone for brief interviews. I have to complete the expected police check and have a preliminary interview that will take between one and two hours. I will eventually get a match with a child and then have an interview with the child's mother. Once that's all done, among a few other details, I'll get to start spending one day a week with a young boy.

It's all coming together now. What's not to love!

Coming and Going

This weekend my pastor mentioned that pride may be the biggest stumbling block for baby-boomer Christians as they approach retirement. They worked hard their entire lives, raised and educated their children and have earned what they have. When they were younger, they were heavily involved in Christian ministry and they gave their time, energy and money for the sake of the Church. Yes, God blessed them but it's still true that they're the ones that worked hard every day of their lives.

As they near the age of retirement, they're planning how to spend their golden years. They've invested wisely and now they need to learn how to take it slow, to take it easy with their spouse and to spoil their grandchildren. And now it's time to start taking it easy in church, too. Retiring from their careers may equate to retiring from active Christian ministry, or even from regular attendance in church.

In contrast, I know of one person that used to be actively involved in church but eventually decided to concentrate on their career. This person stopped going to church altogether but promised that they would 'get back into it' once they retired and had more time.

And so people come and go. My pastor mentioned that he has already performed four different funerals since the new year for non-Christians. He said that he always ends his funeral sermons with this question: "If this was your funeral, what would we say about you?"

Did you work hard in school and work for many years? Did you raise a loving family? Did you spend your last decades enjoying the fruits of your labour? Did you give God what you had? Did you accomplish the purposes that he set for you before you were born?

And so people come and go. I don't want to come and go. I want to live for God.

Knowledge & Wisdom

Rough Draft

"Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up." 1 Corinthians 8:1

"The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom;
all who follow his precepts have good understanding." Psalms 111:10, Proverbs 1:7

"Wisdom is supreme; therefore get wisdom.
Though it cost all you have, get understanding." Proverbs 4:7

The Wisdom Test
"Who is wise and understanding among you? Let him show it by his good life, by deeds done in the humility that comes from wisdom...But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peaceloving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere." James 3:13-18

Pondering

Here are a few of the thoughts that I've been thinking about this week, though I didn't have enough material to make them into separate posts.

"Die before you die. There is no chance after." C. S. Lewis, Till We Have Faces, as read in Marvel's comic trade paperback Earth X.

"You don't just stop a bad habit. You have to replace it with a good habit." Rick Boyce, GTA, January 15 2004.

"To be a Christian is to say, 'I give me back to you, God.'" Rick Boyce, GTA, January 15 2004.

"Though I am free and belong to no man, I make myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible." 1 Corinthians 9, as I wrote about here and here in May 2004.

Marketing and Movies

The Toronto Star had this article today about a church in a strip club. Now that's marketing!

And what about the new slate of movie releases that hit this weekend? It's killing me, I tells ya. My sister has always been my best movie partner but since she's in Toronto now I have to find a few other movie fans. Several of my friends tend to have select tastes so they don't want to see every movie that I want to see. I have to mix-and-match friends with movies.

Here are the top movies that I want to see, in order of importance:
Elektra
The Incredibles
The Life Aquatic
Coach Carter
In Good Company

Hotel Rwanda and The Million Dollar Baby would also make that list but neither of them is playing in London yet, much to my chagrin. So does anyone want to see a movie with me this week?

Smart and Gets Things Done

What does it take to be a good programmer? You have to be smart and you have to get things done. Easy, eh?

Joel On Software is a favourite project manager's site for many in the IT industry. He has a classic article called the Guerilla Guide to Interviewing. The article also says that the key part of a job interview is making a decision by the end: Hire or No Hire. No maybes, delays or disclaimers allowed.

As for being smart, this is the easiest of the two attributes to test. This article provides plenty of examples regarding programmers, but at minimum you'll need another smart programmer to develop the test questions.

As for gettings things done, that means that it's a person that understands the importance of deadlines and that is motivated to complete their work regardless of the roadblocks. They're independant enough to take personal responsibility for completing their task, asking the extra question or verifying that the update doesn't languish once they're done with it. This is the more difficult to test because it relies more on the programmer's history rather than on test cases during an interview.

The key here is that a good programmer needs both attributes. If you're incredibly smart but have a difficult time producing the final code in a timely fashion, you end up revising the design over and over. A real danger here is that the design is so thorough that it becomes impractical, creating overly complex solutions for circumstances that never actually happen. Still, the final design may be brilliant but the fact that it's four months late costs a lot of money in the real world.

If you're very fast but not particularly smart, you can get the code out on time or even early but you end up spending an extra four months fixing the sloppy solution that was created "just to get it done." Of the two extremes, this may be worse because another smart programmer is needed to clean the mess up, sucking up valuable resources. If the sloppy programmer tries to fix the mess with another merely adequate fix, that may only compound the problem. A temporary fix will expire and then you're left with rotting code.

Put both attributes together and what do you have? Dependable code that was shipped on time. A programmer like this will become the go-to programmer for both new designs and quick fixes.

P.S. Y'know, this may be the first post I've written that deals directly with programming, even though that's part of the tag line for my blog. 'S funny.

Fleas on a Dog

"We're like two fleas arguing about who owns the dog."

Back in the day I referred to the Young Man Syndrome. I suggested that most people hit a turning point between the ages of 18 and 25 during which they seriously review their life, often turning in a very new direction.

I'm now 26 years old and as I continue to see my peers grow older, I've come to think that this pattern isn't a one-time event. It seems to me that a lot of people actually experience a paradigm shift every few years. The cause of this change may be different. It may be graduating from university, it may be the prospect of marriage, it may be a change in career, it may a tragedy. There still seems to be the same pattern, though.

It's like the two fleas arguing about who owns the dog. At some point one of the fleas may conclude that there's more than enough dog for both of them, so why argue? At another point one of the fleas may conclude that neither of them can own the dog, they're just along for the ride. The fleas don't change, but their perspective may change. (If you would prefer, think about two humans arguing about who owns Space. Fleas are funnier, though.)

The most curious thing to me is that, while our perspective changes, so does the basis of our perspective. Earlier on, the basis of our beliefs may reside solely in what our parents taught us. Later, our beliefs may rely on what we were taught in school. Our beliefs may change based on circumstances that we experience, or on the results that we see in our lives.

My pespective in life fluctuates in this same way. It can sometimes seem like a daily shift, but I think that I also see a larger pattern of major changes every few years in my life. And you know what? My foundation through it all is Christ. No matter where the tides of life move me, no matter how my reasons evolve, I still choose to come back to the Truth.

We two fleas are still talking. "Is there a Dog? Does Dog even exist?"

Freedom Ain't What It Used To Be

1 Corinthians 9 (and many other chapters in this book) address the issue of our freedoms and rights as Christians. What are we permitted to do as Christians, particularly regarding the "grey areas" of life? What rights can we demand in terms of our personal autonomy?

I suggest that we, as Christians, mature in our understanding of this issue gradually.

• As babies or toddlers, we simply do what we're told and we don't need a better reason other than the fact that our parents said so. Don't run into the street, period.
• As children, our parents begin to explain the reasons for their commands but we're still expected to obey them fully. Don't run into the street because it's dangerous and a car might hit you, end of discussion.
• As teens, we start to develop our own identity separate from our parents. We now know the reasons that our parents said so, and we can decide what our own reasons are. We're still under our parents' authority but it's less a matter of pure obediance and more a matter of smart and independant choices. We agree that playing on the road can be dangerous, but if there are no cars then it's all right to play road hockey. If our parents decide to ban us from playing 'cause we dented someone's car, then too bad for us.
• As young adults, we strive for our personal freedoms and rights. I can play on the street and I understand why I can do so. If anyone tries to stop me, like that annoying neighbour, I will argue that there's no law against it and keep on playing. (Um, at least there used to be no law against it.) I will do as I wish - more than that, I will demand my right do so.
• As adults, we learn that fully understanding our freedoms and rights is not enough. We also have to understand the freedoms and rights of others and we have to take some responsibility for others. We can play in the street but we have to care for the younger children while we're out there to make sure that they're safe. Even if we know enough to yell "Car" and get off the street, if there are younger children who refuse to stop playing then we have to make sure that they do stop even if it means that we can't play with those kids on the street anymore.

When we apply these concepts to the issues like swearing, drinking alcohol or tithing, we see these stages of growth as we mature. Does the Bible say that it's wrong to have a drink? No. What if we have a drink while we're at a restaurant and someone from our youth group is with us or sees us? When we're younger, we might demand our right to drink and dismiss those who disagree as puritans. As we mature, we understand that it's not about us anymore. If we cause some youth to drink while they're underage, that is our responsibility as much as it is their own.

"If others have this right of support from you, shouldn't we have it all the more? But we did not use this right. On the contrary, we put up with anything rather than hinder the gospel of Christ... Though I am free and belong to no man, I make myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible." 1 Corinthians 9:12 and 1 Corinthians 9:19.

Star Wars: Future Tense

At the risk of being a geeky fanboy and raising my hopes for Episode III, I had to post this picture:



Click the picture to link to the article and to see the full image size. It's a 4-page spread for an upcoming issue of Vanity Fair. I discovered this picture through this post on Aint-It-Cool-News.

Belize Children's Home

My family had the Leblanc family over on New Year's eve this past weekend. At one point we were talking about a past missions trip that my dad and I took to Belize, along with Crystal Leblanc's experiences during her various times there. I wanted to record a few memories and comments on my blog about this.

My dad and I were involved with a DTS (Discipleship Training School) course at LGT when we first moved to London and joined LGT. That would be back in 1999, I think. The culmination of that course was a two week missions trip to the YWAM base in Belize in March of that year.

I've had the idea that I was supposed to be a missionary since I was a young lad. I went with the intention of seeing what the missionaries did there on a daily basis, to see if I could do something like that day and and day out for years at a time. In that respect, I found it to be an attractive experience, something that I wouldn't mind doing so long as I had my own source of income. (I'm rather wary of trying to be a missionary if I have to depend on support from a home church, which is something that I may blog about some other time.)

On that trip, I brought along a small walkman and tiny speakers so that I could learn a couple of songs that I had recently purchased as sound tracks. Since no one in our group could play an instrument, I inadvertantly ended up doing almost all of the music and worship ministry by myself. We visited a juvenile detention centre and a men's prison and I did solos in each place, which was pretty powerful. One of the songs was "What If I Stumble" by DC Talk, which I found fitting to both me and the audiences.

We also visited a children's home that took care of a large group of orphans and abandoned children. The main purpose was to complete various kinds of contruction work for the small home that they all lived in. I didn't do much except take several children to the park to play with them for the afternoon but it was fun. One of the men in our group became instantly devoted to one little girl and strongly desired to help her in any way that he could. Upon our return back to London we organized financial aid for this children's home through our church and our church sent another short-term missions team back next year. This web site was eventually set up as well.

Somewhere along the way, Crystal Leblanc volunteered and she went down by herself for several months to help out in the children's home. She tells a little bit about her experience here. It's the letter on the right side of that web page. She ended up making a couple of return trips as well. I have to say, that's something that I really admire. To invest yourself so passionately in God's ministry and in the lives of children, it's certainly inspiring to me.

Three Changes

Happy New Year, everyone. I'm not a big fan of New Year's resolutions because most of them fail and because I think that we should be striving to improve ourselves throughout the year. Still, I have a couple of things that I've been thinking about for a while and, by coincidence, these changes will take place in the beginning of 2005. Consider these to be my three resolutions.

1) Apply to join Big Brothers.
2) Create a bi-weekly budget.
3) Join a weekly basketball program.

I wrote about joining Big Brothers before. The main reason I didn't join already is that I'm not sure if I can commit to a full year, which is the minimum requirement. Since all signs point to being here in Canada for at least another year, I think I'll move ahead with this now.

Regarding basketball, I've always been interested in joining a men's league in town but I've never been able to find one. I mentioned this to a few guys last week and they know a few people that play baskteball regularly somewhere. I just need to follow up on that and I'm in.