Confessions of a Shiftless Mind

So, we had the big vision meeting last night. Up against the Canucks in the 2nd round of the playoffs (a completely unforeseeable occurrence), the attendance was not as strong as it could have been. I wonder how many more would have come out had the game not been on. Still, the worship time was very nice, and we did see some new faces.

Launching a new church is a demanding enterprise. Not many realize this, but good church plants do not start from nothing. They start with a team of committed Christ-followers who are willing to sacrifice big time to see a new work begun. It is a bigger network than just the people who are “on the ground” as it were. Our plant has a number of missions teams coming to Surrey from the USA to help with acts of service to the community and focus attention on the new church. It also has over 1000 prayer partners doing significant work in their offices, homes, and bedrooms interceding for us. All of these things are crucial to the process.

But back to the evening. I was asked to share how I got involved in the plant. When I said yes, I really didn’t feel nervous. About 3 hours before the thing started, I started to feel nervous. Once I got on the stage, I was pretty ok, but also self-concious. I felt like I wasn’t making enough eye contact with the audience, though the stagelights kept me squinting (I don’t know how the worship band and pastor do this every sunday!) Continue Reading »

Heh. Just when I thought I was done with the subject…

I was reading through the Book of Ephesians this morning (I have a course coming up in June on it), and I ran across Chapter 4 verse 11, a list of gifts. Most hit that verse and go, “Well, that’s nice: a list of gifts I don’t have. Only special people have these gifts. However, in that verse I found this morning not just a list of gifts but a list of gifts used in fulfilling the Great Commission. Check this out:

“It was he who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers…”

Apostles - people who go first into new lands or places, to prepare the way for the church. Seed-planters

Prophets - truth-tellers. People who reveal the truth about what God says to people. Begins the work of conviction, as people realize truth.

Evangelists - those who call for a decision, those who make people decide one way or the other.

Pastors - shepherds, those who keep the new believers in community

Teachers - those who instruct, training up the new believers into disciples.

Wow! It forms an acrostic of gifts in fact: two which must work on the person before they come to Christ, and two who work after! It all centres around the decision-bringer, the evangelist!

Isn’t it cool when you make a new discovery for yourself in the Bible?

Part 1 dealt with what goes on before “the conversation”, formerly known as “evangelism”. Now we will deal with part 2 of the Great Commission. To recap: I contend that the Great Commission is misunderstood by a great many people. People equate the Great Commission with evangelism - the act of sharing the “Good News” with people to elicit a decision to follow Christ. The Great Commission may include that, but it is one moment in time with much to do before by Christians, and much to do after. Everyone is called to the Great Commission, not everyone is called to be an Evangelist (in fact it is a spiritual gift, so in fact only a part of the Body has it), nor is that necessarily the most important part of the Great Commission.

In part 1 we looked at the analogy that Jesus uses in many of his parables - that this is really like farming. You must do a number of things that take a lot of time, energy, and manpower before Mr. Evangelist can step in and get to work. All of those things represent “preparing the soil, seeding and nurturing” before the time comes for the harvest.

Now, once the reaping is done, then what? So much effort is spent by so many churches, missions teams, and evangelism programs to get people to “the decision” or “the harvest”. But then the “Event” is over, the missions teams pack up and go home, or the evangelist gives them a Bible and tells them to “go to church now”. Is this really what Jesus envisioned?

Let’s read that “Great Commission” thing again, shall we? “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.”

“Go”. That comes first. Get out there. Do something. Do what? Continue Reading »

I stumbled across this link on facebook. Outstanding. What a trip down Memory Lane… Barbapapa (I still remember the whole theme song), Gran, Harriet’s Magic Hats, oh, the list goes on.

If you were born in the 70’s you need to take this trip. Enjoy.

Daily Blog Inspiration: Carry Your Candle

Not sure what caught my eye, but I got to thinking about a conversation I had with Nathan Bryant out in Mississauga a few weeks ago about evangelism.

He talked about the training he had in sharing his faith, the art of communicating the hope you have and the belief you have in Jesus Christ, so that a person who is ready to receive it will believe and make a decision. This has been true about just about every program to teach people evangelism - a focus on that “conversation” that sees someone make a decision for Christ.

What this model overlooks though are two critical components: what happens before that “conversation”, and what happens after. Both are critical to see people into the Kingdom. Jesus did not call us to “go and convince people to say ‘yes’ to me” - he called us to “make disciples”!

Before that “conversation”, people are prepared for the “conversation”. How does that happen? Most descriptions of evangelism brush over this period, saying things like “God works in their heart”. Continue Reading »

I was thinking about those two blogrolls I keep on the right side of this thing. They are both international blogrolls of Christians. There is some overlap there, but the big thing I notice is they are by far, mostly American. This means that a lot of what they blog about is pretty local in terms of larger community interest, and those who are not American really get lost in the shuffle. Huge blogrolls are hard to regularly surf through and there are usually a lot of “floaters” - people who don’t post that much.

So I got to thinking, “Why not a Canadian Christian blogroll?” From my usual surfing I have encountered many Canadian Christian blogs, but they are hard to find unless you really look. A blogroll would really help to get around the Canadian Christian scene, see what people are talking about, and comment on Christian life in Canada with others who care likewise. Canada’s religious scene is pretty unique - we have had a lot of different things happen here that never happened in the States or elsewhere, and other things that have had huge effects elsewhere have been relatively unimportant here. With our entrenched liberal political system and media, we face challenges not as clearly felt in many other places.

So, if you happen upon this and are interested, please email me (my email is to the right). I plan to create a separate page for this with an aggregator and such, and I would be happy to send you the info to include it. If you feel led to help, I could use some help with graphics, chicklets, or if you even want to throw in a couple bucks for a domain name my wife would be appreciative (saves the fam some money).

I am getting a bunch of hits from MisfitMoms.com, and I am curious as to why. Anyone want to give me the heads up on that one? I don’t want to search through their forums.

In other news, Canucks to the 2nd Round of the playoffs! Booyah!

After a week of non-posting, I thought I’d break my silence. On the weekend we drove down to the Yakima Valley in Washington State for a denominational conference. It was a really good time for multiple reasons. First, we got to get to know some people in the broader geographic region, and second because we got to get to know some new families who are joining the planting team. Wonderful people, all, I think we get along too well really. There was much frivolity in our meetings.

In visiting a place I have never been before, I was astounded by what we found there in that valley.

Shock #1 - Most of the communities of the valley were more than 50% Hispanic. In Washington State! I knew there were a lot of Hispanics in the States, but I thought it was mostly the big cities or the southern states. I wasn’t expecting that in Washington!

Shock #2 - HUGE crime rates! Gangs! Graffiti! I expect these things in Surrey, a city of 400 000 and part of the 2 million souls of the GVRD. I don’t expect it in hicksville, USA.

Shock #3 - Very Godly men and women, toiling away in small churches in relative anonymity. I was blessed to sit in on seminars led by them, and learn from them - particularly one on discipling peers and mentoring, and another on discipling your kids. They have done some amazing things out there. One church in a town of 2500 people has 200 members. That sounds small, but think about it: what if nearly 10% of your town or city went to an evangelical church and strove for a life of holiness? Staggering.

I have finally taken a few moments to build a Reading page.

If you think you’d like to read it, buy it through the amazon link - I don’t ask for donations but referrals are always nice.

Feel free to add any recommended books for me to read in the comments!

12 year old girl declares she is going to “keep her baby“.

Nice pro-life story right? Erm…

I am a judgemental twit. And this girl had way too much freedom for her age. Yeah, obviously, she’s pregnant. But note her belly button in the photo. Is that a barbell piercing?

At 12? Continue Reading »