in Flanders Fields...

In Flanders fields where poppies blow,
Between the crosses, row on row...

We have men and woman who have sacrificed for the cause of freedom in our family.
Great Grandpa Chase - a veteran of WW1. My side. Lost most of his ability to talk due to the effects of mustard gas.
Grandpa Mcleod - a veteran of WW2. My side. A navigator on the wellington bombers.
Grandpa Moe - Trace's side. A veteran of WW2. Spent time as a POW in the pacific war theater.

That mark our place: and in the sky the larks still bravely singing, fly
scarce heard amid the guns below...

I am an old man compared to the youth they gambled with when they headed to war.

We are the dead. Short days ago we lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
loved and were loved and now we lie,
In Flanders fields...

I would have loved to have talked to them as young men. To look in their eyes. To probe the young passion and understand their courage and character. To romp and roll, as young men are apt to do, before the years and pain steal the joy of a hope-filled tomorrow.
What was the world they dreamt of? What was the future they lived for? What was the tomorrow they sacrificed for?

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw the torch: be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields...

What would they say to me now? What battlefield would they call me to? What life would they beckon me to live?

Courage.
Faith.
Hope.
Sacrifice.
Love.

Let me live. And fully live. That my life would honour the seeds sown,
in Flanders fields...

Places

we're moving. sigh. tomorrow this time the movers will pack our collection of things...and the truck will roll east.
moving tends to stir up the deepest and most intrinsic emotions we have...i think. i stumbled across this reality when i took our kids to one of our favorite parks yesterday. don't know if this has ever happened to you...but as we walked up to the playground my eyes welled with tears.
i recognize that i feel deeeeeeeeeep attachment to places...for whatever reason. actually...i know that i'm attached to squint lake (and its winding, tree-shaded paths) because i've spent many a restful morning/afternoon here with my kids.
in fact, squint lake is one of the first places Hayley and i discovered together in our initial weeks in Burnaby.
and so...yesterday i said goodbye to a park. sigh...but i also said goodbye to my 'little Hayley'...and the memories of my toddler tumbling down the slide.
here's to the path (and places) ahead...

blahh.

A good friend and mentor sent this to me. quite bothersome actually. God help me never be like this. but face to face, eye to eye...to step towards others with passion.
j

Today I met a man
But not really.
Rather, our paths crossed.
The private paths of our own
separate worlds made a juncture
and we were there.
We told our impersonal names
and shook each other's hand
warmly and firmly – to convey
our interest
which wasn't there.
We shared our views
on the weather, politics,
the latest news,
and other foreign things
which were not there.
And when the conversation lagged,
we said:
“Well, glad to have met you”
“Same here”
We lied, smiled, and extended our hands
again, and parted -
glad to be on our separate ways
from our little meeting.
Today I met a man
But not really.
Anonymous

J. Grant Howard, The Trauma of Transparency, (Portland, OR: Multnomah Press, 1979), p. 115, 120.

a coffee review...BONA COFFEE

He walked in. And in his hand? A bag of 'House Blend' Bona Coffee. He? Luis Gonzalez and his wife Candace. Wonderful friends of ours from the Philippines who have come to Canada to convince me that there IS good coffee grown in a country known for its fruit.

Luis and Candace own a coffee company called Bona Coffee. A brilliant couple with an incredible passion to change the world.
http://www.bonacoffeecompany.com/

And yes, of course they came here just for me. JUST KIDDING. But they should have. chuckle.

Now, it has been said I am a coffee snob...but lets set the record straight. I am passionate about the process of experiencing flavour. You follow?
So as we chatted we scooped out some Bona coffee beans(which they specially delivered from the Philippines to my doorstep), ground them, put the grounds in my french press, and poured boiling water over them. Although the task takes only a few minutes, we both approached the task almost reverently, like painters handling a treasured canvas full of colours. Over the next few days, the ritual was repeated: A porcelain mug filled with the freshly brewed coffee. In real time?

I let the steam and the aroma envelop my entire face. There is always the adding cream and sugar(sorry for you purists...i love strength, creaminess and a sweet punch). I take a small, tentative sip.
Whoa. I throw my head back, and my eyes shoot wide open. From a single sip, I can tell...again...i have captured something of heavens reality in my mouth.

The first time I had this cup of the divine, Luis saw my initial reactions and nervously said, 'what do you think?' I grinned and shook my head. Then I took another sip. This time I could taste more of the full flavours as they slipped over my tongue. By the third sip(cup...chuckle) I was hooked.

SO...my review? Here it is:

Sumatra is one of the world's most distinctive coffee origins. And it has curried my favour and whole hearted commitment from the first moment i tasted it...sometime in 1998. The reason I say this is that what struck me initially was Bona Coffee's assertion that their 'House Blend' was smoother than sumatra. Bold statement. It had BETTER be married with a brilliant coffee. chuckle.

To their credit, it is. Brilliant, I mean.

Bona's House Blend:
Full-bodied.
Resonant.
Low-toned and elegantly comfortable.
This coffee will be attractive(almost giving off pheromones...chuckle) to coffee drinkers who find the powerfully acidy coffees of Kenya and Central America too high-pitched and softer coffees like Konas, Mexicos and Brazils too delicate. Bona's relaxed power doesn't depend on acidity, rather on depth, weight and an echoing dimension. What is really incredible is that the they have successfully blended coffee beans to highlights the best parts of acidity, not remove it. In the process they have produced a blend that has greater breadth than any I have had! Wonderful.
They have created a richly ambiguous complex of flavor notes and the deep, rugged, pungent blends allows the coffee's intensity to linger in your mouth.
And the concentrated spicy, herbal notes and earthy flavour are sure to be the telltale signatures of this well-loved coffee.

So today, when you lift a cup of coffee and offer thanks to the Creator...curse your fate...cuz more than likely(unless you live in Manila) you are not drinking a beverage that is as good as the one I am drinking.

Bona Coffee's House Blend...heaven in my mouth.

Cheers.
Jonathan

success discussions...

the following are late night thoughts after incredible convos with incredible people: CnL...chuckle.

And the Lord said, “Go.” (Genesis 12:1)

The pilgrim said, “Go where?”

Lord: “Go.”

Pilgrim: “How will I know the way?”

Lord: “Do you trust me? Go.”

Pilgrim: “How will I know when I get there?”

Lord: “Will you trust me? Go.”

Explorers ventured out on strange seas to unknown places and, in so doing, re-made their world. Buy a book or take a course on history and you can read about about Vasco de Gamma(Portuguese explorer who established the first the trade route from Europe to India), Columbus (You know Chris...opened the Americas to European exploration), and Jacques Cartier(discovered Canada and sailed down the St. Lawrence to where Montreal would be born)...totally inspiring stuff. Then there is Ferdinand Magellan...left his homeland in Portugal to join the Spanish court in search of a king to sponsor his mad dream of sailing west to discover Spice Islands that lay to the East. So bold...so crazy...so imaginative for his day! I read an article that was an overview of a book based on this first circumnavigation of the world by the stubborn, determined, amazing navigator, Magellan. Laurence Bergreen’s book, Over the Edge of the World described how almost no one believed in the possibility of Magellan’s dream.

"Few would risk such madness. Magellan spent years forging alliances with brilliant and odd friends who brought the skills and resources to his venture. Finally, Magellan had the resources and people for the adventure. But the maps of the world in those days were piteously inadequate. Maps were the equivalent of the secrets to making nuclear weapons. No country would share them with another. They were kept locked in vaults and viewed as the most important of state secrets. Magellan, therefore, had few maps with which to work with and those he had were terribly inaccurate. They represented the Atlantic as a huge body of water but the Pacific as a tiny pond surrounded by a huge land mass. With such maps, a deeply suspicious crew and co-captain, he set sail down the coast of Africa then made a mad dash across the south Atlantic on the Trade Winds landing on the coast of South America several hundreds of miles from the terrible waters which later came to be named the Straights of Magellan. A little band of people, with all their venality, pride, power, needs and shortsightedness sailed the winds of an uncharted world in tiny boats and changed the face of the earth."

Alex Roxburgh writes, "There are times when ventures are waiting to be birthed. There are tides and winds which, if risked, bear us to places and worlds our imaginations could not comprehend from this shore."

My heart burns when I allow myself to feel through this...
So...some ramblings as I 'burn' tonight:

Life does not come with a clearly defined road map.

We take one step after another.

We move forward without the ability to forecast the results of each step or decision.

Plans change. Situations morph. Life throws us curve balls. Things seldom turn out according to our wish, plan or anticipation.

No one really knows what is going on.

I am often asked, “Does God have a specific plan for my life?”

Yes, God does have a plan. God’s plan is that we might become the deep, fully alive, loving human beings we were created to be. We exist to manifest in the visible realm that invisible beauty that is our true nature created in the image of God. As William Blake wrote in “Songs of Innocence,”

And we are put on earth a little space
That we may learn to bear the beams of love

That is the only plan I know of. The specifics of how that plan works out in our lives are basically irrelevant.

The beauty of God’s plan is that you can fulfill it anywhere, doing anything. It does not matter what the external circumstances of your life may be. Anything and everything can be used to help you become radiant with the life of Jesus that is your true destiny.

You don’t need an academic degree, a particular career, or a special relationship. You only need a heart that is open to the Spirit and willingness to grow.

The wonderfully unique detail about God’s plan that usually spins us right out is that it works best when we don’t know what is going on.

God’s plan is most effective when we don’t understand.

When we cannot make sense of what is happening.

Because the essential requirement for God’s plan to be all that He intended is: trust. Trust grows in the soil of uncertainty; it thrives in the land of doubt and confusion.

The prophet Jeremiah says,

Blessed are those who trust in the Lord,
whose trust is the Lord.
They shall be like a tree planted by water,
sending out its roots by the stream.
It shall not fear when heat comes,
And its leaves shall stay green;
in the year of drought it is not anxious,
and it does not cease to bear fruit. (Jeremiah 17:7,8)

We do not know where the journey of our lives will lead. All we can know for sure is that there will be times when we feel nourished and sustained AND there will be times when life seems barren and dry. If our roots go down deep, we will pass through times of feast without attachment and survive famine without fear. The wind will blow; but the life with deep roots withstands and even THRIVES in the storms.

These contrary and painful life experiences are gifts given to us to help us develop the muscles of trust. If life were all smooth and the skies always sunny, we would never develop the inner resilience of faith that can stand firm no matter what circumstances we face. Men and Women of character are forged on the anvil of trust...taking the repeated blows of life.

With trust we are able to step into the unknown, confident that only good can come.

The good may not look the way we had hoped.

The good may lay on the other side of great pain.

But it will be good because it gives us an opportunity to open more deeply to that inner reality that is the imprint of Christ at the core of our being. Our attachment to Him, rather than to any particular outcome or plan, is the crux that allows us to journey in joy and freedom.

The beauty of trust is that no one can take it from me. I may lose my career. My family may abandon me. My investments may tank or evaporate. My health may be gone...my strength will fade.

But I can always choose to trust. I can always give myself to the reality of Jesus...who is holding my life, sustaining my heart and enabling me to grow and deepen in my ability to love.

No one knows the future.

We never really understand the past.

We move forward with courage because we trust that whatever we encounter, it will be another opportunity partner with Jesus in the plan of redemption. And in the process He will call us to "Come further up and further in…"

And I love the ongoing discovery that "the further up and the further in you go, the bigger everything gets. The inside is larger than the outside.”

So stop stressing about living a successful life.

Sometimes you have to the roll the dice and go all in...and not worry about 'what now?????". Success is not in the accomplishment of something.

Success is in the going. Or as my brotha Luis said last night, 'Success is in the obedience.'

It's in the growing.

J

iphone considerations...

These are personal reflections based on my own experience...chuckle:

Oh stop, you’re embarrassing both of us.

Let’s be honest, we both know you’re not using your iPhone strictly to look up Bible verses during the sermon. It might have started that way, but it never stays that way.

You started by taking a few quick notes during the “margin moments” of church. You know those, the few minutes while the people on stage are magically changing whatever is on stage or they’re preparing for a baptism or going through the list of announcements....

Those are perfect little chunks of time to do some “worship multitasking,” because the truth is that the easiest place to write a to-do list is church. Something about prayer makes us all think of a million things we need to do. So you begin to make a few notes.

But you have to look up one of them online, so you open Safari and next thing you know, you’re searching the Internet in the middle of church. O and wait, it makes you wonder what so and so is doing...SOOOO ya gotta open facebook! right? I mean come on!

Pull it back together. Get your head in the game. Gotta get your head in the game...getcha getcha getcha head in the game. (movie anyone? ok, i will tell ya, High School Musical...shut up)

But wait...i need my phone to follow the flow of the message...it is has my bible app. I’m only going to look at Youversion, the Bible app or Biblegateway.com, this is serious business. This is church.

BUT I wish iPhone Bibles had a little jingle that let people around you know that you’re looking up a Bible verse. I wish they quietly whispered when you opened the online Bible and would say, “Reading the Bible, we’re reading the Bible.” It’s bad enough these punks don’t know I direct deposit my tithe and think I stiff arming the offering every Sunday.

But that’s me, you? You’re playing Civ Revolution right now on your iPhone. Or maybe popping bubbles. Or Tap tap revolution or All Recipies or Sally’s Spa or Cooking Dash or HarborMaster. Ridiculous! And if I hear the sound of Bejeweled 2, I might come across the aisle and hurt you.

Did you really just shazam a hymn? Did that happen?

That’s when you know you’re a sweaty heathen, when you have to try to use a service that can identify and name of a song. (87% of songs sung at church are “Blessed Be the Name” by Matt Redmon, there’s really no need to look them up.) Plus, you should know by now, only about 17 Christian songs are loaded into the shazam service. I swear, I could play a Lady Gaga song on a washboard and it would identify it, but it never knows Christian songs.

Put your iPhone away, no one, and I mean no one, has the moral fortitude to only look up Bible verses on an iPhone during church. That’s what Paul was talking about when he said “For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing.”

That was about using the iPhone at church.
Seriously, google it.
Just not right now.
Wait until church is over.

musings...of a wandering pilgrim

I believe that as we step into the places of need within the lives of people we rub shoulders with every day, we will find Jesus already at work there. And we will also find that even in the darkest of places, He has been there waiting for us.

SO…what do we do as representatives of this scandalous friend of the unloveable? This reckless saviour who would risk it all for the undeserving(like me)? We pursue people. And love them with all that we are. And point them to the dangerous lover, Jesus the Christ.

How will we do that? Well now, that is the great adventure.

Even as i read this again, i am reminded by how many people really struggle with a non-linear life plan - one that is not framed within a set of goals or markers...and some days i am one of them. But I love the idea that the Glory of God is a man fully alive. And that is what we truly believe Jesus gives us. Full life.

Redemption is a mystery...why and where did we get our perspective on conversion? and how did it become so pragmatic? As I read the words of Jesus, being converted was never something He addressed. We truly believe that Jesus travelled with people and they ended up following Him...changed by His tenderness and His teaching.

Is that not our call? To redemptively move people towards Jesus, with His tenderness and His teaching? "His kindness leads us to repentance...", ever heard those words?

Some followed Him closer than others....but where was the line of saved or not? I am not sure that there are answers to that questions outside of the questions of what does it mean to be fully alive? Fully drawn by the Jesus story. My heart needs to be captured by what it means to be a fully committed husband, father, and friend...fully believing that we are to be full of His Spirit so that as His power is at work in us it changes my street, my community, coffee shop, school, etc. I want to believe that His presence in me is enough.

There is the crux. St. Francis said, 'preach the gospel at all times and when necessary use words'. Do I believe this gospel enough to live it out in all of my life?

The people of God should be marked by an unwavering belief in the world's ability to change...which is what makes apathy so dangerous...it is an affront to the Holy Spirit's work in my life and world. HOPE.

WE HOPE.

He is not a private club or a corporate strategy...nor is His kingdom something He is holding onto like a old man on unsteady legs who white knuckles his cane. The days of the church portraying it that way must end. We must paint a picture of a God who offers His Kingdom and grace daily...o what a compelling picture.

So what do we do? We intentionally step into the lives of the people around us. Into the lives of the people on our street, school system, neighbourhood, gym, workplace...into every level of culture. And His presence in us makes those places potential places of worship.

I am convinced that when my life is clothed with His, and I choose to live for His glory...all that I do, all that I am, what I see, what I taste, what I hear, what I say...becomes holy and truly sacred. This IS the message, the KINGDOM OF GOD IS NEAR TO YOU NOW!

Something i wrote several years ago strikes me as fitting:

I love that when I play basketball with Caleb or wrestle with Rosie, and I do it with Jesus in my heart... it is holy and His Presence is there.
I love that when I cook a magnificent plate of steaming curry, and I do it with Jesus in my heart...it is holy and His Presence is there.
I love that when I have a cup of coffee in the morning as the sun rises with a book in hand, and I do it with Jesus in my heart...it is holy and His Presence is there.
I love that when I sit a table with people I love and listen to them talk and watch them describe life, and I do it with Jesus in my heart...it is holy and His Presence is there.
I love that as Darlene walks the hallways of the hospital being an instrument of healing, and she is aware that He has placed her there...it is a holy place and His Presence is there.
I love that as Erin works in her office as an instrument of integrity, and she does it aware that He has placed her there...it is a holy place and His Presence is there.
I love that as Brian mediates crisis in teenagers lives, and he does it aware that He has placed him there...it is a holy place and His Presence is there.
I love that as Lani works with the poorest of the poor and helps them step back into the society, and she does it aware that He has placed her there...it is a holy expression of Him and His presence is there.
I love that as Scott walks the hallways of academia as a missionary to the mind of our culture, and he does it aware that He has divine purpose there...it is a holy endeavor and His Presence is there.
I love that as Tracey captures God's signature on people by ripping back the veils that hide true beauty and captures who they truly are on film, and she does it aware that Jesus has placed her there...it is holy and His Presence is there.
I love that as my kids go to school and learn to love new friends, and they do it knowing that Jesus is smiling...it is holy and His Presence is there.

I love that where ever we live, and we live there for Him...it is a holy, sacred place, and His Presence is there.

and maybe that's what this church thing is all about. maybe that is question we need to be answering...Is He here? Is He honoured? Maybe we need to be mission-aries who are guides that help others discover that He is here now.

I think that a gathering of people who understand this...that when we, together, live in the name of Jesus, His presence is real; the places we live in become holy.

and maybe, just maybe, that is enough to change the world.

hmmm.

“The church today should be getting ready and talking about the issues of tomorrow and not the issues of 20 or 30 years ago, because the church is going to be squeezed in a wringer. If we found it tough in these last few years, what are we going to do when faced with the real changes that are ahead?… One of the greatest injustices we do to our young people is to ask them to be conservative. Christianity is not conservative but revolutionary. To be conservative today is to miss the whole point, for conservatism means standing in the flow of the status quo and the status quo no longer belongs to us… If we want to be fair we must teach the young to be revolutionaries, revolutionaries against the status quo”

Francis Schaeffer (1981)
He was an American Evangelical theologian, philosopher, and Presbyterian pastor. He is most famous for his writings and his establishment of the L'Abri community in Switzerland.

to the hilt.

"be courageous."
I have said it, had it said to me...but i have some questions...

Is courage a spiritual quality? Or a natural quality? Do some people have it and some don't?

I stumbled across this in some reading late(very late) last night. The word courage comes from the Latin word cor, which means "heart".

A courageous act is an act coming from the heart. A courageous word is a word arising from the heart. The heart, however, is not just the place where our emotions are located. The heart is the centre of our being, the centre of all thoughts, feelings, passions, and decisions. Its the womb of our dreams, the place of our divine DNA (who we were meant to be as His kids).

Being courageous is living with your heart. Putting it all on the table and givin' er...

with that on the table, I have some thoughts...so follow me for a sec...

Life provides us with opportunities to catch glimmers of who we are, or who we could be.

I had a conversation regarding 'religion' once and it made me think about the word 'courageous', in its best sense. James talks about religion of value. Religion you ask? Yeah, religion; something that describes an area of life and experience where in some way or another we have stumbled into mystery and heard a summons to follow. An encounter that overwhelms us in that we have glimpsed something (or Someone) so far beyond us and bigger than us that we are captured...either by fear or love.

I think in some way we are all mystics, filled with a hunger for the supernatural...the taste, the touch, the feel, the awareness of that which is beyond us...we all carry a yearning for mystery.

AND really, we have all seen more than we let on...even to ourselves. Through moments of beauty or pain we catch glimmers of what the "saints" or "hero's" of the faith were absolutely fixated by. But what separates them from the average person is not the experience. Rather, its their response. The reality that captured and held them, we tend to miss or DISmiss in order to go on as if nothing happened. No pause. No reflection. Little more than a pulse fluxuation.

Come on. Stop pretending you don't know. Relationship break up - cry for a day, find a new one. Sharp word spoken in anger to you - speak one back and move on. Loneliness - pick your medication...food, TV, porn, work, people. Insecurity - find something that you are good at and don't venture out ever again. Positives? Personal relationships - eye contact, a moment that creates opportunity to express love...and there is that uncomfortable pause and desperate lunge towards escape by cracking a joke or saying something sarcastic. Quiet - an opportunity to sit, to pause, to reflect on who we are and who we are becoming. Instead we look for the remote or something to do. A Divine Moment springs from a conversation or a prayer, where God once again stirs the dreams of your heart - find a way to stuff them back in and move on, cuz I mean, its not reasonable to think that stuff...are you following me yet?

We find ways to regain control...regain the flatline. But a truly alive and courageous heart has peaks and valleys...highs and lows...pain and joy...regularly...and each of those moments are filled with the awesome, overwhelming, mystical reality of the alive Lord Jesus...not our fake, serene looking deadpan Jesus, the one in most paintings. BUT the inescapable passionate Jesus who created us to live fully alive.

To allow something to be as it is, to admit something HAS happened in us even though we are not sure what it is, or where we are supposed to go with it...that is a powerful part what this journey of FAITH is all about.
Don't shut it off. Don't shut it down...let it be what it is and embrace it...Because He is in the middle of all of it. In order to engage the reality of Jesus, the path goes through your heart. Does it mean we live by emotion? No, we live by following the LIVING WORD...and feeling the tension, struggle, hardship, joy, exhilaration that colours and shades our lives is part of the incredible experience we call FAITH!

Courage. Living with your heart.
What did God say to Joshua? 7 times in 3 chapters. BE STRONG AND what?
Yeah. my translation? let me give you the strength to live out the dream(s) of your heart. a promised land. ignore the nay sayers, the people who will never believe and RUN.
The key? Don't shut your heart off. Your heart speaks the language of courage.
And the pain and joy that is a part of the pursuit? Do something with it. write. paint. speak. sculpt. design. do. start. live. love.
Let your heart feel and breath and speak and sing...in the words of the martyr Jim Elliot, wherever you are, be all there, live life to the hilt.

Embrace it all, and maybe you will learn something about the profound mystery that is you...and the God who made you.

Let me leave you with a story I read about Blaise Pascal. No room to tell you who he is...look him up.
After he had died a servant found this paper sown into his jacket "since about half past ten in the evening until half past midnight. Fire. Certitude. Certitude. Feeling. Joy. Peace." This great man, stammering it out like a little child. But he had to...its what we do when we are courageous...we find a way to get it out.

read the book of Joshua...or at least the first 5 chapters...you'll see what I mean.
yearning,
Jonathan

Trust and Creativity

fully rambling...chuckle. creative writing right? my mother is after to me to start editting...i may...one day.

Trust.
Creativity.
What are the first things that come to your mind when you think about those two words?

The first thing that comes to my mind is failure.
How we deal with failure and mistakes is actually the best measure of the level of trust in a community, whether that community be a family or an organization of thousands. When you trust people, you will always find moments when you’ll be disappointed...where someone has failed or really made a wrong choice. We can use it as a basis to not trust people...and end up using it against them...or we can learn something else.

Have we learned to love in such a way that people feel free to fail? Have we created places that are safe...where you can roll the dice, risk it all and make a mistake? Are we creating environments that are based on confidence in God and in people? Or are we creating places that are filled with fear?

Can we learn to create places that are full of love and freedom?

I am learning that the more people I love, the more I make decisions that are not based on myself. I look at people who lie, cheat, steal, murder, rape, etc...and in that moment of their lives, they’ve decided that their personal satisfaction as more important than all the pain they might cause everyone else their actions touch....

The more people you love the more difficult it will be for you to make lifes destructive decisions. Seems to me there is a Jesus message in their somewhere. I get asked lots about how to grow your faith. And I am learning it has alot to do with how much I value me. Mother Theresa said it like this:
If faith is lacking, it is because there is too much selfishness, too much concern for personal gain. For faith to be true, it has to be generous and loving. Love and faith go together, they complete each other.

I have been wrestling with this as a leadership issue. If we choose to trust and develop creative environments, what is the balance between freedom is control? How much control should i have?

What I am realizing is that every organization, group, community, team, etc. has places of tight control somewhere. All of us have had experiences with organizations that want to control the end product, which is not a bad thing. But what would it look like in our circles of influence, if we pushed for having control over the quality of people we trust.

When I trust a person’s character, I can let them have an immense amount of freedom—yes, even freedom to mess it up...cuz God knows i have destroyed a few things in my path once upon a time! And it was the wise and patient people that God placed in my life that shook their heads, winked at me, helped me clean it up, asked me what i learned, and told me to go for it again!

Unfortunately, so many of us are so afraid of making mistakes that we don’t; that’s why so many people that I have talked to say they are not creative. The creative process always dies in the atmosphere of fear. Because creativity and failure are twins. Maybe the problem is that there are not enough wombs of trust that birth children who dream of a different world...and have the courage to fail until they succeed.

Chuck Swindoll said, "In vain I have searched the Bible, looking for examples of early believers whose lives were marked by rigidity, predictability, inhibition, dullness, and caution. Fortunately, grim, frowning, joyless saints in Scriptures are conspicuous by their absence. Instead, the examples I find are of adventurous, risk-taking, enthusiastic, and authentic believers whose joy was contagious even in times of full trial. Their vision was broad even when death drew near. Rules were few and changes were welcome. The contrast between then and now is staggering."

In the leadership push of the last ten years, we have been taught to focus on excellence. The last couple of days has taught me something. Ready? When your focus is excellence, and your focus is execution—in terms of it having to be executed precisely so it’s efficient—excellence and efficiency actually become enemies of the creative process.

Maybe instead of talking about finding ways to be creative in effectively administering the mandate of the gospel...we need to be creatively finding ways to express that which is beautiful about the Gospel. Calling people who are weary, worn, overwhelmed and overcome by the darkness of sin to the majesty of a wondrous Savior who is able to bring His light into the darkest night. And when His light appears in the darkness, the darkness cannot stop it...redemption happens.

As the people of God, we are all artists. Our lives are the painting of God crying out to a world with His love, with the powerful message of redemption! Is it clean, sterile and disinfected process? no. Efficient? no, but really, art is never efficient...but it does move our souls. We are His masterpiece. What is more moving than a redeemed life living with joy and wild abandon in following the dream of His Kingdom?

I don't want to live with fear...trying to find rules and regulations to control "end products". We are stretching to base our entire life mission on the reality of Jesus actually transforms people. So much so that I feel no pressure to try to make people act or be a certain way. I’m banking everything on the fact that Jesus is the redeemer of broken lives. AND when we call people to Him, everything changes.

Maybe that's what faith is. Banking it all...on Him.

Influence...just a thought

Influence.

We either influence, or are influenced.

Why is it that Mother Teresa could stand up before crowds of thousands and simply repeat simple New Testament phrases, and a hush would sweep the room?

She didn't say anything new: "Jesus loves you," she assured you. "We're sons and daughters of God and we have to love Jesus' poor." Yet people walked out renewed, transformed and deeply challenged. I remember reading through her message at the National Prayer Breakfast several years ago in the United States. She was speaking about the moral destruction that a pro abortion society experiences. And then she said, "if you dont want your children, give them to me...I will take them."

She wasn't a priest. She wasn't well educated. She didn't have a position with authority. Her influence came from her life-style.

What influence does your life-style give you?
j

Thomas Merton thoughts...

“We must expect to be making mistakes all the time. We must be content to fail repeatedly and to begin again to try to deny ourselves for the love of God…

We want to shake off the hateful thing that has humbled us. In our rush to escape the humiliation of our mistakes, we run headfirst into the opposite error, seeking comfort and compensation.

And so we spend our lives running back and forth from one attachment to another.

If that is all our self-denial amounts to,

…our mistakes will never help us.

The thing you do, when you have made a mistake, is not to give up doing what you were doing and start something altogether new, but to start over again with the thing you began badly and try, for the love of God, to do it well."

When I Stand

When I stand at the judgment seat of Christ
And He shows me His plan for me,
The Plan of my life as it might have been
Had He had His way, and I see

How I blocked Him here, and I checked Him there,
And I would not yield my will --
Will there be grief in my Savior's eyes,
Grief, though He loves me still?

He would have me rich, and I stand there poor,
Stripped of all but His grace,
While memory runs like a hunted thing
Down the paths I cannot retrace.

Then my desolate heart will well-nigh break
With the tears that I cannot shed;
I shall cover my face with my empty hands,
I shall bow my uncrowned head...

Lord of the years that are left to me,
I give them to Thy hand;
Take me and break me, mould me to
The pattern Thou hast planned!

Martha Snell Nicholson

remembering the works....

Hey...
Need some help here. Have spent some time over the last week reminiscing...working my way through some of the incredible ways that Jesus has transformed lives over the last 10 years....

If you were are a part of The Revolution; FireHouse; G.C.; SuperCamps; Summer Camps; Conferences; Missions Trips...you name it. Whether in the Philippines or in Canada...

Tell me about what happened in you. What did Jesus do in your life? What did He say to YOU? What did you walk away with? How has it altered the way you live, see, think, breath?

believing.

pj

Influence. Part 2

Daniel 4:36-37 and 6:26-27 records royal decrees of two kings. Both of them ruled at one time over one of the greatest cities and nation-states in the ancient world.

These two men came from different cultures: one was a Babylonian by birth; the other was born a Medo-Persian. They also belonged to different generations. Yet they were both tied together in history by their relationship with one unique individual - a Judean prophet called Daniel.

Daniel, or as he came to be known in Babylon, Belteshazzar, was born a Jewish prince in the 6th century BC. As a teenager he was forcibly taken from his home and heritage and transplanted to the Babylon of king Nebuchadnezzar. There, Daniel and his peers were trained for service of the Babylonian empire. Their training involved a process of changing the essence of their personal cultures. How you ask? Their names were change, their cultural food was forbidden and their connection with their homeland was severed. Some 'mm, mm good' stuff to think about right here...but another time!

Daniel was a slave who rose up through the ranks to become a trusted advisor, a confidante, to not one but five successive kings of this ancient city.

In the process of Daniel's service, he led two of the kings to faith in God - this in a nation that virtually invented astrology and worship of the stars.

Whether they liked him or not, all the kings who knew Daniel respected him. AND all agreed: the spirit of the gods were in him!

Daniel's incredible and eventful life reminds us, again, of one great fact: We were created for influence. Regardless the scenarios or situation, we are architects of atmosphere and engineers of environment.

Let me say this again, Genesis 1:26-28 outlines the first calling God placed upon the shoulders of humankind - the mandate to influence the world.

How do we win this tug-o-war for influence? How can we shape our culture more than it shapes us? How can we transform our life situation before it transforms us?

Be a Culture-Creator in your world.

Having real influence is about creating a culture -- a new way of seeing and doing things, a fresh way of interpreting what is right, normal and acceptable. Without this kind of cultural definition there can be no leadership. The person, or group, who has the strongest culture will inevitably rise to leadership.

Wherever Daniel was involved, the prevailing culture changed. People, even those in high status positions, were forced to rethink what was right, normal and acceptable.

To influence your world, you must define and build a culture in your own space that is stronger, more dominant than the culture that surrounds you. People must feel that when they're around you, certain things are normal, right and acceptable.

Proverbs 29:18 is about setting goals for our lives. Its about you and me redefining the culture of our immediate environment, our sphere. The Hebrew text says: 'Without a redemptive revelation the people lead undisciplined lives.'

God wants to give you not just a set of goals, but a redemptive revelation of himself. He wants to show you something of his own nature; something so revolutionary that, if you live it out, it will actually redeem things around you for the kingdom of God.

Because of that revelation, you will be able redefine what it means to be in business, to build a family, to study in school, to do whatever it is that you do!

Now i know it is easy to become overwhelmed, so hold on. In my last post, i quoted Abraham Kuyper the nineteenth century journalist, theologian and Dutch Prime Minister who wrote: 'There is not one part of our world of thought that can be hermetically separated from the other parts, and there is not an inch in the entire area of our human life of which Christ, who is sovereign of all, does not cry "Mine!"'

While some churchmen of his era taught that Christians should retreat from everything relating to the secular world, Kuyper borrowed from Paul’s teaching to give us the idea of ‘sphere authority’.

This is the idea that church and state are both of divine origin, yet both serve different functions.

Each must obey God's laws: the state must not try to be neutral towards God, but must recognize his supremacy over the civil sphere of authority. Government policies and procedures must respect God's moral precepts, so they must uphold the sanctity of marriage and the family; they must restrain and punish.

No one is entitled to rule absolutely, for that is a divine prerogative alone. God delegates authority to human agents in family, church, school and state, and those who govern in such spheres are accountable to God in the discharge of their duties and in the exercise of their limited authority.

This means, for example, that neither the state nor the church is to intrude upon the other spheres. Each should seek to protect the rights of the other to operate freely.

Kuyper's concept of sphere authority contradicted the basic principle of socialism that would give the state the right to regulate life in practically all of its aspects, economic, political and social.

According to Deuteronomy 28, God’s people are destined for leadership; AND leadership on any level begins with creating a culture.

There are, I think, two fundamental questions we need to answer, if we're each going to win our battle for influence.

The first is this: what kind of neighbourhood, city and nation do I want to see around me in 10 years from now? What kind of city and nation would God want me to be living in by that time? What changes would he want me to make; what things would he want me to redeem around me?

The second question is this: seeing that preferred future, what am I now prepared to do to set that in motion? I quoted him already, but he bears repeating: As Bill Wilson, the great apostle to children in New York, likes to say: 'It's not important what you achieve in life; it's what you set in motion that counts!'

dreaming...
Jonathan

25 Things

i have been asked to re-post this...so i have...welcome to my world...

hmmm....I have been tagged a bunch of times and am usually very disinterested in responding to such things...BUT, for some reason this one has provided a spigot for inner musings...here we go:

**
once you've been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you. at the end, choose 25 people to be tagged. you have to tag the person who tagged you. if I tagged you, it's because i want to know more about you.

(to do this, go to "notes" under tabs on your profile page, paste these instructions in the body of the note, type your 25 random things, tag 25 people (in the right hand corner of the app) then click publish.)
**
1. i love to journal. the discipline of articulating thoughts, fears, dreams, prayer, love, etc on paper provides me a place of stillness. good for my heart. BUT i have been wrestling with switching to some sort of computer program, cuz when i die NOONE will be able to read anything i wrote...which is great for the immediate privacy problem - i don't have to worry about someone reading something - but terrible for posterity.

2. coffee. hmmmm. finding/making the perfect cup of java is a truly noble endeavor. earthy. bold. well balanced. and just about boiling. perfect. sigh.

3. i had 5 concussions my junior year in highschool. one of which left me with amnesia for 3 days. highschool wrestling was the cause of 4 of them. and the amnesia causing one was the result of a crack the whip on roller skates gone bad. forehead...cement...blood coming out of nose and ears...you get the story.

4. Tracer, my lover, is truly the most gifted photographer in the world. The way she captures people is incredible. She has the ability to capture who people are in a moment...quite often moves me to tears.

5. Which leads me to this thought...i cry alot. I never know what may cause tears. The sight of the Pacific Ocean can do it...or a piece of music, or a face i've never seen before...or maybe one that i haven't seen in a really long time. A look. A smile. An expression. A moment. Almost any movie that has the heartbreak of loving and loosing. A high school basketball team running onto the floor at the end of game, exultant in victory...or the opposite team, broken in defeat. Two young lovers exchanging a look and a kiss on a train, or two much older lovers, exchanging a years-filled glance and a gentle caress. Memories..and dreams...i can never be sure. But of this i am sure. Whenever i find tears in my eyes, especially unexpected tears, it is wise to pay very very close attention.
example? I was reading a Berenstein Bears book to Rosie this evening...and those unexpected tears came on the last page. Why? Gran and Gramps has swept brother and sister bear into their arms and were saying how thankful they were to have them as granbears(grandkids - for those of you who don't know Berenstein Bear language).
I was thinking a little later, after Rosie asked me what was wrong and I quickly moved along, that those tears tell me something about the secret of who I am. What is it that strikes the chords of my heart in such a way that I am moved to tears? As I think about those moments, more often than not, God is speaking to me through them of the mystery of where I have come from...and is summoning me, if my heart is willing, to where I should go next.

6. I cannot stand the Toronto Maple Leafs. Sorry...gotta keep it real.

7. I love airports. love em love em love em. Back in the day, when Trace and I were dating, we used to go to the Calgary airport, sip coffee, flirt and watch the planes land. There is something awe-some about watching people and wondering where they are going, or coming from and what their life is made of. My favorite airport is the Hong Kong Airport, followed closely by the Vancouver Airport.

8. My Caleb, my 12 year old son, amazes me. The mixture of boyish roughness (his love of violence...whenever we are looking at movies is standard line in response to a movie that is rated beyond what is acceptable for 11 years olds is 'Dad I love violence, its not gross kissing stuff') and tender compassion (Trace dropped a TV on her toe the other day and it was hard to tell who was crying more...her or Caleb. And Caleb was crying out of pure empathy) is very moving...and challenges me to be a more balanced man.

9. My Rosie, my 8 year (going on 18) old, inspires me. She sings constantly. And is always asking for a hug. Since she was a very little girl she has been able to find someone who is hurting or feeling left out...and make them feel loved. Sigh. When she says, 'you are my favorite daddy'...i want to give her the world...and warn her future suitors, you mess with my little girl and i promise to hurt you. seriously.

10. food and friends...food is every cultures relationship vehicle. Around our tables, we engage each other better, especially when we do it over a meal we love. Think about where we do our most important relationship things…our dates, our relationship stepping stones, our family gatherings, our celebrations, our reflections…all are couched, encouraged and augmented by the food we eat. In an urban environment and a racing global village, many people find themselves sucked dry, and left barren. i love creating spaces that allow us to experience food, culture and people. Spaces that return the color to a pale and bleak rat race. I think of words like inviting. Stimulating. Inspiring. Soulful. Moving. Expressive. Safe. Alive. From the perfection of a dish, to the painting that hangs on the wall. From the musical ambience to the color scheme. From the lighting to something gentle and complete offered by a group of people committed to restoring your soul after a long day...sigh.

11. Top 3 places i have yet to visit: Scotland. East Coast of Canada. Aushwitz.

12. I own every Louis Lamour book. yup. all of em.

13. Speaking of books...i love love love to read. I have lots of em...everywhere. It is bad news for me to go into a book store of any kind. I have a long list of 'to read's. My goal this year is to read a book a week.

14. I notice that i pace. When i talk on the phone. When i am thinking. When i am fretting. When i am longing. I am a pacer...funny enough that is the name of our dog. Pacey is his name but we call him pacer....

15. Someday I am going to go to a Steelers game in Pittsburgh and wave a terrible towel and howl like a mad man. My son has informed me that is sooooo coming.

16. Someday I want to see U2 live in Ireland.

17. We are going to adopt some children someday. How can I not be moved by the plight of the worlds orphans?

18. We recently got rid of our big screen TV. How can our home be a place of rest when the center of attention is a big TV that constantly 'feeds' our minds. We have decided to rest more, reflect more, read more, play more, laugh more, and intentionally engage the people we care about more. Do I really need my mind numbed by a world of fiction?

19. I am deeply challenged by the words of Jesus: 'if any of you wants to be my follower, you must put aside your selfish ambition, shoulder your cross daily, and follow me. If you try to keep your life for yourself, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for me, you will find true life.' What does it look like to live life not for yourself...but to truly live in a way that gives all that you are for the good of others. i constantly rub shoulders with people who are desperately trying to outrun the feeling of emptiness inside. Fear of failing, fear of disappointment, fear of pain, fear of being alone...and I am one of them. And these words i find true mission...the power of leveraging all that i am and all that i possess for the sake of someone else...something deep draws me there.

20. i grew up in the Philippines. My mom ran a medical facility that provided care for the poor and specifically focused on providing a safe environment for pregnant mothers who could not afford hospital care. So by the time I was 16 i knew more about pregnancy and giving birth than most women. Did many a homework assignment holding baby.

21. I really want to learn how to speak another language. Top of the list? Mandarin. But could be easily sucked into learning arabic or french.

22. I play the saxophone. the guitar. and would love to master the piano.

23. I love to sing. am not sure i have ever written that before.

24. I run my own business. So does my wife. Two entrepreneurs. We were made for each other. uh huh...woot woot!

25. i love the friends we have chosen to journey with. life is full because of their love.

ranting...

Do you ever get that question emerging in your mind that's like a nagging persistent itch that just has to be scratched? I have dove into the depths of the gospels from it's shores in all directions. And breathless, I come to the surface gasping, empty handed. I can't find it.

Where in any encounter does Jesus confront someone who is living without hope like a hostage and then give them a life threatening decision, "believe...or it's to hell with you." You might ask where such a question stems from. Well suffice it to say, several heated conversations with 'christians' who are unhappy with the lack of intense conviction in gatherings that I have had the privilege of being in have spurred such fodder.

From the opening chapters of Matthew's gospel, after the imprisonment of John, Jesus moves to Capernaum, by the lake in the area of Zebulun and Naphtali...

People living out their lives in the dark
saw an incredible light;
Sitting in that dark, dark place of death,
they watched the sun come up.

This Isaiah-prophesied image came to life in Galilee the moment Jesus started engaging and talking to people. He picked up where John left off: This is the dawn of a new day; it's a new page in the story of humanity; there's a new road to travel. Turn your lives around, it's time for humanity to be restored to what I intended it to be. 'The Kingdom has come near to you NOW!'

From there it's the Jesus journey. A wandering of sorts, by the shores of the Sea of Galilee inviting friends to join him on the adventure of proclaiming, revealing and building this Kingdom. Absolutely fascinating that there is no conversion moment in the selection of disciples. No statement of faith. No scratch on the scroll for confirmation of membership. We're not even sure they were baptized in the Jordan. If ritual proof was prerequisite, one would imagine Jesus pulling his disciples out of the baptismal fount.

Again, we are left to guess. There is no believe in me ultimatum. It is nothing more than the profound simplicity of an invitation to "come and follow." And in the following, you will find what your soul longs for.

Countrysides.
Villages.
Towns.
The beach.
And dusty roads.
Jesus shared stories of the radical, scandalous, redemptive, imagination of the Kingdom. As wild as the stories were, it left people in awe to see them come to life before their eyes. People were brought to him who were sick, the were lame, blind, and plagued by spirits. AND in the presence of Jesus they were healed. Again, this uncontainable, unpredictable, scandalous, forgiving, gracious and healing Kingdom turned the world upside down...it was hope re-imagined.

The essence of the Kingdom is so powerful, so beautiful, so miraculously good that it captivates the human imagination. This was the ministry method of Jesus.

The Kingdom is like a treasure hidden in a field for years and then accidentally found by a trespasser. The finder is ecstatic—what a find!—and proceeds to sell everything he owns to raise money and buy that field.

The Kingdom is like a jewel merchant on the hunt for excellent pearls. Finding one that is flawless, he immediately sells everything and buys it. (The Message: Matt 13:44-45 )

The Kingdom is so profoundly precious that you will sell everything to live in it...it is so spacious, so roomy, that everything of God finds its proper place in it without crowding. Not only that, but all the broken and dislocated pieces of the universe—people and things, animals and atoms—get properly fixed and fit together in vibrant harmonies, all because of the Life of Jesus. A life we all have access to, a life we can all enter into. A life, through the power of the Spirit of God, we can let Jesus live through...if we are humble enough to sacrifice our lives...to let him live.

This good news of the Kingdom is not a gun point threat of "heaven or hell." It is about life, abundant life. It is about a full-blown re-imagining of all creation. It is about a profound mysterious journey across the threshold of this world, into the redemptive imagination of Jesus and his Kingdom. The good news is the truth, that the Kingdom is here, now. It's not a place where we drift off to in some spiritual trance, a place where we visit occasionally as a tourist. Jesus calls us to live in it, during every moment of our daily living. Not only to live in it...but to build it with him.

We have become so consumed with the destination that we have behaved like landlords or inn keepers, micro-managing as to who is getting a room in what place.

Maybe we have created this great conundrum. We have become content with just mending our lives, throwing on a patch here and there. A nice three point sermon, a life application in a 25 min pill form that we can pop into our mouth like a soother. Then we cross our fingers and hope it at least makes us feel better.
Better is only as good as us, and the problem with better...it doesn't last long.
Like tylenol, it's better for about 4 hours, and then you back to where you started.
Maybe, it's time to ask, to knock, and to seek with all we have, and cross the threshold into Jesus' Kingdom.

Humanity is lurching down this long corridor of history, frantically looking for the horizon where hope might rise. Profound uncertainty leaves us scared...it breeds fear...and the weight of hopelessness falls like a curtain as the actors prepare to exit the stage.

But there is hope. In the gospels people sat enveloped in darkness until Jesus began to live amongst them and engage their hearts with truth. Truth that cracked the ceiling of darkness, a great light that pulsated with freedom, life, rest and hope.

It was this person of Jesus that was enough to call them from the life they knew, NOT the if you don't impulse. When we are left resorting to the fear scenario, does that say something about the reality of His presence in us?

The church, and every follower of Jesus must re-imagine the gospels beyond heaven or hell. I am not saying they are not realities. BUT we must hunger, thirst for the mind of Christ...the redemptive imagination of Jesus. Jesus and His Kingdom are the hope of all humanity, the hope of all creation. Our words and our actions must reveal and build this Kingdom. It will become that hidden treasure to the by-passer in our neighborhoods, that precious pearl that a friend will sell everything for...just to live in. The hope of humanity is within you. The risen King. And His Kingdom rule flows from the redemptive imagination of God.

Maybe the transformational hope we all long for is found there...instead of the bunkers of fear behind which we have hid for far too long.

J

Influence.

Hebrews 12:2
1 Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, 2 looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

I remember the first time I saw Michael Jordan play basketball. His agility. His command of the ball. His ability to defy gravity. A man in flight. His incredible competitiveness. His insight into his teammates that enabled him to summon their best.
But what made him great? Was it simply a matter of physical ability or team spirit?

I submit it was something that he shares with anyone who has ever been truly magnificent in a team sport.

He could read the state of play.
He could understand the game at any given point and knew how to act to change the outcome. He could see the present in the light of a preferred future. And he knew how to build, in the present, a platform for his desired future.

He discovered the key to real influence.

I have been travelling over the last several months, speaking in various settings, to a wide range of ages and audiences. Several observations have been nagging me:
Why does the church, for all her beauty and function in creating a place we call home, seem so irrelevant to the culture at large?
And
Where is my generation?

I decided I wanted to journal some of my rambling thoughts on Generation X, the Church as we know it, and what our role is in the development and redemption of world culture.

So...here we go.

Influence.
We were designed for it! We were not born to be ignored. Or overlooked. We were created to be influencers.

AND I submit that if we truly want to engage the work of God in our time we desperately need to recognize that we were designed, crafted and formed to wield that influence.

It is fundamental to the Christian world view that human beings were created to impact and influence their environment more than the environment should impact and influence them.

The very first instruction that God gave human kind was a directive that called on our influence-ability.

Genesis 1:26
26 Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”

This is a command to influence. To influence our environment more than your environment influences us.

But if this is Gods intention, what has happened? How did we get where we are? a place where it seems as though the church in so many communities lives playing perpetual defense, disconnected and without a voice to bring hope?
It goes back a long way. We made a decision at the tree. The fall. And sin entered the world. In that moment...we lost some of that ability to change the world more than the world changes us. That fall from grace cost us our capacity for influence, and we became in many ways the influenced rather than the influencers.
Long story made short, through the redemptive work of Jesus on the cross, everything we lost in the garden was redeemed to us again. Including our ability and calling to influence and shape our world.

Hear me: When you choose to become a Jesus follower, you inherit a ‘re-position’ as a person with an incredible capacity to influence.

Influence is hardwired into the human condition.

One way or the other, influence will flow. All around us everyday, this battle rages. For most of us this is a dormant memory of a forgotten year...something that stretches back to pioneers of faith that have gone before us. A memory locked deep within our spiritual psyche. “You were created to change your world. You were created to be a hinge on which the culture of your sphere of influence swings.”

Whether we understand this or not, the reality remains: either we will influence the egocentric (all about me) culture around us or it will most certainly force us to become like it...and the result is a selfish, emasculated form of faith that carries no authority, wields no power and settles for whining from the edges of culture about the darkness that we don’t like.

And be assured...it is a fight. Not against people...but against a system of thought and power brokering that is broken, decrepit and diseased at its very core.
Light vs. Darkness
Flesh vs. Spirit
The temporary vs. the eternal
Spin vs. Truth
Political correctness vs. Prophetic correctness.

Either we will invent the future or someone else’s vision of the future will re-invent us!

Romans 12:2 says,
With eyes wide open to the mercies of God, I beg you, my brothers, as an act of intelligent worship, to give him your bodies, as a living sacrifice, consecrated to him and acceptable by him. Don't let the world around you squeeze you into its own mould, but let God re-mould your minds from within, so that you may prove in practice that the plan of God for you is good, meets all his demands and moves towards the goal of true maturity.

This is a statement about culture.

It’s a sociological fact that whichever group in society has the strongest sense of culture, the most well defined sense of identity, that group becomes the leading voice in the country.

That is why in Canada, and in every country and culture in our world, small groups of people have very great power. They have established a very strong sense of who they are. They have built a stronger culture than the culture around them.

What Romans 12 is saying is that we have the right, as our mind is renewed, to NOT allow the system of the world to squeeze us into its mould. BUT instead, we were made to live out and PROVE that a life lived Jesus’ way is stinking incredible (my translation).

It is our right to define the culture more than the culture defines us. Who, more than the people of God, have such a clear and profound identity? Such a dynamic and powerful mission? Such a beautiful and hope-filled message?

Abraham Kyper, the nineteenth century journalist, theologian and Dutch Prime Minister, wrote:
'There is not one part of our world of thought that can be hermetically separated from the other parts, and there is not an inch in the entire area of our human life of which Christ, who is sovereign of all, does not cry "Mine!"'

Who will you be?

Jonathan

Its Time: Part 2 - the MORE info as promised...

We have received so many responses to our last email that we have been overwhelmed. The responses have been so positive and filled with requests for more info on what we will be doing and how others can be involved. I trust that this note will provide you with some of those answers.

The big question has been why? Let us chat with you a bit about this...chuckle.

Have you ever been afraid of what the world has become?
We have all pondered how the world might become a better place. We’ve all experienced that warm, fuzzy and motivating change-the-world feeling after watching an inspirational movie based on a true story. You know the one – where the average person does something extraordinary...and the world changes. And we sit there and say, I wish I could do something like that...and it stirs us deeply...how long does it take for that feeling to fade? And why? I mean, the feeling was so strong...where did it go quickly if it was so authentic? Could much of it be that we don’t really believe we can change anything? That we have succumbed to just accepting the world as it is?

We believe that the average person can change the world. Stephen Lewis commented that “the world desperately needs our voices”, and we want to use ours. We want to take creative ideas, connect them with great passion, what we love doing and be catalysts for something potentially powerful. We want to partner with people from every walk of life and inspire them with a belief that God has placed in the heart of each man, woman and child, the ability to do something that has world changing potential. We want to release the heroes among us...the hero in you.

“A hero is someone who understands the responsibility that comes with his freedom”
Bob Dylan

Here are some more details:
Where?
We ARE moving to the Philippines.
When?
Our goal is to be there by Christmas 2010 or Summer 2011.
Why?
We are going with a deep sense of destiny. We want to be world changers.
What?
3 specific areas in which we will serve:
We are going to work with Gentle Hands;
We are going to work with a leadership development network called D.E.L.;
And create an opportunity for people from 1st world countries to engage the 3rd world with hope. If you are reading this, that’s you! Most of us find it easy to live our lives against the backdrop of our own reality. Our goal is to challenge that. Too often we have opted to intellectually engage the issues of our world and hide behind incomplete views of reality. The result is a culture that feels sorry for those who live in the darkest parts of our world, but no responsible connection that calls us to invest some of who we are in being a change agent. Edmund Burke said, “The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.”

Gentle Hands
Gentle Hands is an accredited child and youth welfare agency meant to be on the front lines of rescue and rehabilitation of the medical, social and educational needs of at-risk children and youth, working towards improving human community life through the love of Jesus and family-centred care.

We care for children all in various stages of rehabilitation, legal paperwork, adoption, and reunification.

Our accreditation with Philippine social services makes us one of three in Metro Manila who can serve as Foster Care Placement centre and adoption agency.

We are the only centre in the Philippines that will take sick children. The result is steady referrals from hospitals, police, social services and the community.

We are the only facility that takes undocumented children- meaning children without papers, birth certificate, or proper government documentation. Hospitals will not take malnourished or undocumented children so we get a lot of those.

The following is a short documentary (make sure you watch Part 1 and Part 2) on Gentle Hands:
Part 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtQxBy1gsyQ
Part 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tqLFYFCGSLU

“The curse of poverty has no justification in our age...the time has come for us to civilize ourselves by the total, direct and immediate abolition of poverty.” Martin Luther King, Jr.

D.E.L.
Developing Effective Leaders
The key to any sociological or cultural shift towards change is local and national leadership. There is much to be said here, but suffice it to say, we will be working with national leaders giving them tools, training and education to become progressive leaders in all sectors of society. DEL’s goal is to develop 1000 national leaders who are committed to personal growth, professional development and positive change.

Here is the invitation:
We want you to invite you to partner with us. Living in the Philippines as humanitarian workers and missionaries means that we cannot work. We need to raise support to live there and do the work that God has placed in our hearts to do; AND we cannot go until we have done so...

How?
We need 220 partners who will choose to invest in us:
10 people who will commit to investing $100 a month
40 people who will commit to investing $50 a month
80 people who will commit to investing $25 a month
100 people who will commit to investing $10 a month
*all donations are tax receiptable.

I have had lots of people say to me that if they can’t contribute large amounts they feel like they are not really doing anything. That is not true. The power of participation lies in cooperation. Everyone doing a little bit creates a movement with great potential. Helen Keller said, “I am only one, but I am still one. I cannot do everything, but I can do something.”

This is the short version! Chuckle. Would you consider partnering with us?

If you want more details, we would love to chat with you. Give us a call or send us a note and we will send you more information on how that can work!

Dreaming a dream,
Jonathan, Tracey, Caleb and Rosie.

IT'S TIME: we are moving back to the Philippines

“Faith is the daring of the soul to go farther than it can see.”
19th century theologian William Newton Clarke

“Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go”
T.S. Eliot

3 years ago we started on a journey. Long story short...we purchased a home in Burnaby that we affectionately dubbed “the house”. Many people partnered with us as we dreamt. We loved on the community. We explored the dream of living out the reality of Jesus in this city. And we have had so many wonderful encounters with Him and with the people He loves in Vancouver. We lived something that I truly wish everyone could live. Faith. Hope. Life...in the midst of the chaos that we all live through.

I love that following Jesus is a journey. It is not about accomplishment. But it is about obedience. It is about authenticity. It is about walking with Him. It is about pursuing the dream of the Kingdom.

I was recently reflecting on where we are and how we have gotten here during a conversation with a young leader in Western Canada. He asked me if I still believed in what we were doing. We have worked hard to get here. We have had to spend lots of time raising money and travelling, which is a tiring endeavour. We have chosen to engage our community and learn to breath the air of this city. And sometimes we have had less than kind responses to our passion from fellow believers who ask ,‘What exactly are you doing?’

This is what I know today:
God has a dream. And the dream is called redemption. The transformation of men and women, boys and girls; of people of all races and colours; of all cultures and belief systems; of all languages and geographical locations; of all perspectives and theological persuasions; of all political perspectives and intelligences; of every kind of brokenness and sinful reality; into a people who are called His.

I am more convinced than ever that Jesus has an incredibly high view of humanity and through the dream of redemption, people have the potential of greatness. I truly believe that He thinks we can change the world.

I think He calls us to dream a dangerous dream of Kingdom Reality. Where the systems and rules of this temporary world are brought into submission to a higher law; the laws of His Kingdom, the law of love. This idea is foreign to so many who have been taught to hunker down and hold on till He comes! God forgive us for allowing the fear of darkness to scare us away from venturing into a place of influence in our communities.

We truly believe that everyone is longing for Jesus. They are yearning and hungering for what only He can bring. We believe that the role of the Christian in our time is to become translators of the deepest longings of people’s hearts. People are yearning for that which they have no language for…and yet it is a language we speak. The language of His Kingdom.

This means stepping into people’s lives. Into their darkness. Into their brokenness and forsaking the elaborate structures we have built within our own hearts to protect us from the world. A world who desperately needs who we are.

It’s messy. It's unpredictable. It’s dangerous. Scared? Look at that word. SCARED. Rearrange the letters a bit. S A C R E D.

We believe that Jesus invites us to venture out...out of where we ‘know’ what we are doing and into places that sometimes require great risk. And sometimes...sometimes we have to venture over mountain ranges without a clear idea of what’s on the other side.

Having said that...we are in transition again. For some time we have been feeling that we are ‘finished’ here in Vancouver. I wish I could explain it more clearly. But that has just been our sense. Whats next? We have had no clue...until now. Chuckle.

As some of you know I have been helping Gentle Hands raise funds. If you are not familiar with what Gentle Hands does, check out www.gentlehands.typepad.org

They are a child and youth welfare and intervention agency based in the Philippines. They are on the front lines of rescue and rehabilitation, providing for medical, social and educational needs of at-risk youth and children. They work towards improving human community through the love of Jesus and community centred care.

We have decided that it is time for us to head back to the mission field and throw our energies, efforts and gifting to the work of redeeming the young people of the Philippines and Asia.

I know, it seems wild. But you have to run with passion. And we choose to.

When? Sometime in the next year. We have much to do in preparation.

We will keep you updated on our journey. I am sure you have questions. Feel free to email us and we will fill you in on the details.

Let me leave you with a prayer by Sir Francis Drake that my best friend, Scott Wall sent me. It has captured my heart and urged me on. May it be so with yours.

Disturb us, Lord, when
We are too well pleased with ourselves,
When our dreams have come true
Because we dreamed too little,
When we arrived safely
Because we sailed too close to the shore.
Disturb us, Lord, when
With the abundance of things we possess
We have lost our thirst
For the waters of life;
Having fallen in love with life,
We have ceased to dream of eternity
And in our efforts to build a new earth,
We have allowed our vision
Of the new Heaven to dim.
Disturb us, Lord to dare more boldly,
To venture on wider seas
Where storms will show your mastery;
Where losing sight of land,
We shall find the stars.
We ask You to push back
The horizons of our hopes;
And push us in the future
In strength, courage, hope and love.

Jonathan, Tracey, Caleb n Rosie.

Good Ole St. Paddy...

I wrote this last year...and have been asked a bunch of times about it...so here she is.

Do you ever wonder where St. Patricks day came from??? Let me answer that...

I bind to myself today
The virtue of the Incarnation of Christ with His Baptism,
The virtue of His crucifixion with His burial,
The virtue of His Resurrection with His Ascension,
The virtue of His coming on the Judgment Day.
St. Patrick

For the more than 240 consecutive years, New Yorkers will line 5th Avenue in celebration. Chicagoans will pour green dye into the river that winds through their high rises and train bridges.

Pubs, sports bars and frat houses will display cardboard clovers and lime lights as revelers across the nation raise their collective Guinness’ high in staged reverence. On March 17 several nations will celebrate a dim memory—a memory that will quickly fade from national consciousness like the remnants of a bad hangover.

What so many will miss amid all the green beer and parading is the story of a saint who, at least euphemistically, ran the snakes right out of a nation; the story of a former slave who escaped bondage only to return later to evangelize his captors.

St. Patrick's story is a story about the call of God and the triumph of cultural relevance. It's the account of a man whose early life experiences made him the most able to speak into a Pagan culture that had previously so rejected Christianity.

The Historical Saint Patrick was born sometime in the late 4th Century to a Roman magistrate living in Britain and his possibly Gaelic wife. More than 400 years had passed since Julius Caesar had crossed the English Channel and envisioned a Roman outpost. In the wake of Constantine's religious reforms, Britain was not only overwhelmingly Latin, but overwhelmingly Christian as well.

Resisting tribes had been pushed back, north past Hadrian's wall and West, to Ireland. Nearly incessant warring between the Pagans and the Romanized British had drawn thick cultural lines, though an increasing fur trade helped to smooth the way for Christian missionaries eager to convert their godless neighbors.

At 15 or 16, Patrick was abducted in his native Britain by marauding pirates, taken to Ireland and sold into slavery. During his 6 year sojourn among the Celts, he learned the language and culture of his captors. By Patrick's accounts in his Confessio, his master was brutal and savage and only a continued reliance on God gave him the strength to suffer through slavery.

Six years after his capture Patrick escaped back to Briton, where he returned to live with his kinsman. After reestablishing a life among family, Patrick dreamt of Ireland and of evangelism and, by his own admission, heard the voice of God on more than one occasion—a call that led him to formally pursue the priesthood.

Catholic historians claim that he studied under St. Germanus, the Bishop of Auxerre until his own ordination as Bishop sometime in the early 430's. Shortly afterward, Patrick was commissioned to take the message of Jesus to Ireland. Patrick was not the first missionary to Ireland, there had been, by some accounts, quite a few before him. However, it seems that Patrick was by far the most successful evangelist of the Irish.

Here is the kicker: Patrick's success, was at least in part, due to his knowledge and application of Celtic culture. Drawing on symbols and imagery native to the Irish, Patrick used every available channel to bring the gospel to the nation of his former captivity.

Though it is doubtful that Patrick ever used the Shamrock to explain the concept of the Trinity, it is certain that he did not use the traditionally Roman vehicles of transmitting faith. Thomas Cahill, author of How the Irish Saved Civilization, says that "The early Irish Christianity planted in Ireland by Patrick is much more joyful and celebratory (than Roman Christianity) in the way it approaches the natural world. It is really not a theology of sin but of the goodness of creation, and it really is intensely incarnational."

From the way that Patrick observed the Celtic tradition of exchanging gifts to the way that he highlighted Christianity's belief in an afterlife (a belief shared by the Celts), Patrick used a tactic similar to the one Paul used on Mars Hill in Acts. Rather than convert the Irish to Roman culture, Patrick focused on the incarnational aspects of Christ, letting God work through their Celtic culture rather than letting his Roman form of Christianity work against it.

Susan Hines-Brigger, author of An Irish Journey into Celtic Spirituality, notes, "Whereas the ancient Celts worshiped pagan gods for nearly every natural setting, Celtic Christians praised God’s design and creation of all things natural." Patrick took the assumptions of the pagan worldview and spun them in a way that was culturally recognizable.

What can we learn?

What can we truly meditate on...as we see the green and the shamrocks come out on Monday? Saint Patrick is a voice calling to us. Enslaved in a foreign land whose pagan practices were often hideous and cruel, Patrick responded with faith. After his escape, his ears were tuned to God's voice, leading him, ironically, back to the very place of his captivity. Finally, Patrick made the former foreign land his home in order to bless its inhabitants with the message of the Kingdom, and we see him do it in a way that showed respect and understanding for a people so utterly different than his own.

So, this March 17th, while everyone else is celebrating all things Irish by decking themselves out in green, drinking only the darkest Irish beer, or tuning in to Public Radio's celebration of Celtic music, let us be challenged by the sacrificial life of St. Patrick, looking for opportunities to turn our enslavements into blessings, speaking the message of hope in a way that respects the culture of those around us, and in the process call them to life.

dreaming of the kingdom,
j

random thoughts on fear...

Random thoughts tonight...

Fear is like pain.

Pain is an indicator that something is going on. Pain says, "Hey, yo yo...pay attention here. Step away from the flame. Stop smashing your fingers with that blasted hammer. Get that splinter out. Close your eye. Stop walking on the damaged leg. Go to a medical professional and FIX whats causing this."

Fear does the same.

Fear is not the opposite of faith. It is not something that we will ever live without. Fear is part of living. It is an indicator that something is going on. And where fear shows up, there stands Jesus...right behind me...right with me...saying,

"Yo yo...Pay attention here! I am doing something with you...in you. The timing of this situation that has caused you fear is not by accident. I want to do something within you. Let's have the conversation that needs to happen here. This is the 'why' and this is the time. Lets go there."

Cheri Huber says, 'Every time we choose safety, we reinforce fear.' and i think we choose to stop moving redemptively towards the purposes of God in our lives.

Fear is a potential supernatural intersection. It requires courage to slow down and look it in the face and ask the questions that Jesus would have us ask. Its in those moments that we have some of the most poignant opportunities in our life. Moments where we discover more of Jesus...and find more of ourselves.