East of Hercules

The Silence of God

2011-02-19T10:10:00.001-07:00

In the beginning the Word already existed.
The Word was with God,
and the Word was God.
(John 1:1)

"This is my Son, whom I love. Listen to him!" (Mark 9:7)

Living, speaking, breathing Word of God; everywhere in Scripture you speak, sometimes in thunder and great terror, sometimes in a still, small voice. From start to finish we are called to listen, and to listen well, so that we might truly live. You shout in the streets, you raise your voice in the public squares, calling out “This is my Son, whom I love. Listen to him!" (Mark 9:7)

Living Word, pre-existent, co-existent, God; Why are you so hard to hear?

You say to us that you are the good shepherd, that you have a voice and with it you speak! And your sheep hear it, know it, follow it. (John 10:1-5) Why are you so hard to hear?

Is it our ears that are the problem? You are scattering the seed of the Word, and you see so many of our ears becoming like the stony ground, or the path, or the weed patch; and there is no fruit. But have mercy on us, oh Lord! We are caught amid a daily barrage of words misused, twisted, and malformed.

Here, “words are forced to make promises they cannot keep. Words are chosen not for their truthfulness but for their seductiveness. What they mean is besides the point. What they seem to mean is all that counts.” (B. Taylor, When God is Silent, 9) Here, we are bombarded by an ever proliferating number of words every day. Today the English language contains some 600,000 words, four times as many as Elizabethan English. Here, Lord, from the moment we wake to the moment we go to sleep we are buried in an avalanche of words; newspapers, advertisements, radio, tv, email, text messages, facebook, twitter.

Living, speaking, breathing Word of God; we confess that we have allowed ourselves to become hard of hearing. We have learned “to filter out words that are not necessary to our lives the same way we learn to sleep in a house near railroad tracks. Our brains protect us from the daily barrage of words by increasing our resistance to them.” (B Taylor, 14) And somehow our filters have kept out not just words, but the Word, as necessary to life as breathing. And so we die, in little ways in every day.

Our ears are a problem. And yet, Lord, and yet. Though I am but dust and ashes, allow me to speak before your mercy. (Augustine, Confessions 1.6) Are you yourself not speaking less, and less loudly, than you have at other times? Merciful One, turn your face towards us in kindness, for are we not already staggering from north to south, from sea to sea, searching for for the Word of the Lord? Are we not consumed by famine, not of food or thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord? (Amos 8:11)

We thirst and hunger, and wonder why, Lord. But what would happen if, in a culture as noisy and polluted by words as ours, you would speak as loudly as the other voices, and whenever we wanted you to? What if you would choose to compete with the noise? Would we not swiftly transform you into a commodity? Would we not domesticate you, the Living Word by whom all things were created, just as soon as we could manage it, and would we not turn you into an accessory to our own chosen lifestyles?

You are most high, most excellent, most potent, most omipotent; you are most merciful and most just, most hidden and most near, most beautiful and most strong; (Confessions 1.4) You have created us in your own image, and all too often we have returned the favor. Holy One, we confess that if you were to compete with the noise we would treat you in the same way we treat the menu at McDonalds. We would live our lives during the week as we’d want to and then, if and when the hunger hits us, perhaps on a Sunday morning, we’d swing through church for a quick dose of the Word, just as much of You and just the aspects of You that we’re in the mood for. But it would not be you; it would be an idol we order, our very own customized off the menu. But You are not an item in a drive through menu.

Living, speaking, breathing Word of God; you do not suffer anyone to dictate the terms of Your involvement in their lives. You will have us only on Your own terms; Holy is He. To protect us and Yourself against our idolatrous attempts to use You for our own agendas, you withdraw behind a veil of silence.

You are the good shepherd who speaks to his sheep. Is it only to protect against our idolatry that you withdraw? Do you not also withdraw so that we will follow you into that silence? For your veil of silence is just that; a veil, and not a wall. Are we ever ready to hear what you have to say to us if we do not first listen to the silence?

Living, speaking, breathing Word of God, most gracious and most merciful, source of all Life; you do speak to us, and I remember… It was a night of anxiety and exhaustion. For over 8 months now Kendra and I have been loving Rachel Amariah, the daughter you’ve blessed us with. And for over 8 months now we’ve also been bracing ourselves for her death, which could come at any time. At 8 months old, she is still just over 7 pounds. We never know what the next day or hour will bring. And this waiting is hard; have mercy, Oh Lord, we are exhausted.

But I remember… It had been a particularly difficult week of waiting, bracing ourselves for the blow that might come at any time, and Friday night found me pacing the house, unable to sit down and relax or focus. So, I went for a walk in the silence of the night. Haven’t you created me to pray deepest and best, and hear most well, when I am walking? You saw me walking and pouring out my soul to you, following you into the silence. And you spoke into the depths of my soul. “You can trust me, David. I know what’s best. Come, trust me, and rest.” Good Shepherd, you do make me lie down in green pastures, you lead me beside still waters; you restore my soul. But before I could hear you, I had to follow you into the silence.

Living, speaking, breathing Word of God; To protect us and Yourself against our idolatrous attempts to use You for our own agendas, You withdraw behind a veil of silence. And You withdraw so that we will follow You into that silence, for only when we first listen to the silence are we ready to hear You.

“Speak to me that I may hear. See, Lord, the ears of my heart are before you. Open them and ‘say to my soul, I am your salvation.’ When I hear these words I will run and lay hold on you. Hide not your face from me. Let me die in seeing your face, lest I die in longing to.” (Augustine, 1.5)

“Why do you spend money for what is not bread, And your wages for what does not satisfy? Listen carefully to Me, and eat what is good, And delight yourself in abundance. "Incline your ear and come to Me. Listen, that you may live.” (Isa 55:2-3)

Today is Rachel's Birthday

2010-05-21T08:14:00.001-06:00

Today Rachel arrives. Beyond that, we don’t know what will happen nor how things will be. There is room for much trepidation. There is room for much fear.

But we go into today with the whole armor of God. Our struggle is not against flesh and flood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places, and today these have one objective; to rob us of our faith in our commander-in-chief so that we are overwhelmed with fear and despair. This is the battle, so we take up the whole armor of God so that we will be able to withstand on this day, and having done everything, to stand firm. We stand, therefore, having fastened the belt of truth around our waists, having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and on our feet the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. We stand, with shield of faith and helmet of salvation and sword of the Spirit.

We go into today with Jesus interceding for us at the right hand of the Father. We go into today with the Spirit interceding for us with groans that words cannot express. We go into today with the Maker of the Universe as our Shepherd – Rachel’s, Kendra’s, David’s. Yea, though we walk through the valley of the shadow of death, we will fear no evil, for thou art with us; thy rod and thy staff, they comfort us.

These Hard Days...

2010-04-20T13:23:00.001-06:00

If you're interested in keeping up with what is going on in our lives these days, head on over to Kendra's blog, http://rachelamariah.blogspot.com.

SuperTrain

2010-04-17T13:23:00.004-06:00

Today Ethan and I spend the morning at SuperTrain, a model train show here in Calgary. Ethan was transported into seventh heaven, completely in his glory. He would have happily never come home. Here are a few pictures and a video:

Dad, do you recognize this guy? You delivered milk to him when you were a boy (some would say you are still boyish, but details aside...) He built the train himself over several years and it actually drives on an electric motor. The water tower is modeled after the one at Glenboro, MB, which apparently burnt down over the past year.

And here is a short video which shows how very thrilled Ethan was:

Ethan's Obsession

2009-05-05T16:22:00.002-06:00

Just like his aunt Jen...

What is Sin Good For?

2009-03-28T23:26:00.000-06:00

Sin, sin, sin, sin; I’m tired of talking about it. In the last several sermons from Genesis we’ve explored our fallenness repeatedly as we’ve worked our way through the temptation and fall in the garden, the spread of sin in society in Genesis 4-5, and the story of Noah and the flood in Genesis 6-9. It’s impossible to understand Genesis, the rest of Scripture, or the human condition without reference to sin and fallenness, but it’s a topic that quickly gets old. And I think it should.

Sin is not amazing. It is not a wonder or a surprise. It is weary, tiresome news. In Scripture the subject of sin is like a black background in a painting; it is there not to draw our attention but to provide the background against which the grace of God glistens. The story of the temptation, fall and curse in the Garden (Gen 3) is one such black background which highlights the astonishing kindness of God to us. Since 2:17 it was clear that the consequence of violating the boundary God had set against eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was death. The miracle is not that they (and we) were punished, but that they (and we) live at all. It is against this black background that we also see other grace notes:
· God personally making garments for Adam and Eve and carefully clothing them before He sends them out from the Garden,
· The mark of protection God put on Cain before he was sent out as punishment for murdering Abel, despite a total lack of repentance on Cain’s part.
· The continuing operation of the blessing (“Be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth, and subdue it and have dominion…”) in the families of Cain and Seth despite the spread of sin.
· In the Noah story God chooses – astonishingly - to redeem his broken creation by covenanting himself irreversably to it, and at great cost to Himself, despite the intent of the heart of humankind being evil from youth on. He could have just started over.

The early church fathers, especially Gregory the Great (540-604 A.D.), taught that we need to have knowledge of our fallen condition so that this knowledge might yield humility in us. Humility in turn yields detachment from the world, from ourselves and from our sins, and makes us conscious of our need for God. The name they gave to the experience of this knowledge was compunction. Originally a medical term referring to attacks of acute pain, compunction came to mean a pain of the spirit. It is a suffering resulting from two causes: (1) the existence of sin and our tendency toward sin, and (2) the existence of our desire for God. “Compunction is an act of God in us, an act by which God awakens us, a shock, a blow, a “sting,” a sort of burn. God goads us as with a spear; He “presses” us with insistence, as if to pierce us. The love of the world lulls us; but, as if by a thunderstroke, the attention of the soul is recalled to God.”[1]

And this soul-pain is what I experienced this weekend. Kendra and I were at a retreat for leaders of churches in our area of our Conference and Len Nation spoke on “Confessions of a Limping Leader.” He exposed some of the ways that Christian leaders slip into attitudes and behaviors rooted in pride, selfishness, and greed (to name a few) instead of Christlike love and humility. This was God’s thunderstroke, descending on me out of the blue. This compunction, this soul-pain, was amazing grace to me because by it God recalled the attention of my soul to Himself. God used Len as a Samuel to this David, and God’s words to me through him were “You are that man…”

Yes. This is what the knowledge of sin is good for. Compunction is a great gift from God. This pain of the soul produces in us tears of repentance but also, and increasingly, tears of desire for God Himself. It is this urgent thirst for God - who alone can fill our inner emptiness - which is the proper goal of our knowledge of sin. It hurts, but it is great grace because that is how God awakens us. So, with some fear and trepidation, I am praying that the LORD might grant you and me the grace of compunction increasingly. Living God, awaken your church!

Because of His Grace,
Pastor David
[1] Jean LeClercq, O.S.B., The Love of Learning and the Desire for God: A Study of Monastic Culture (New York: Fordham University Press, 1974), 38.

Why do We Love to Hate?

2009-03-25T10:45:00.002-06:00

http://www.watoday.com.au/world/wardrobe-malfunction-as-soldiers-go-dressed-to-kill-20090324-98vo.html

How God must weep, for anger and for grief.

Encouragement

2009-03-19T12:17:00.003-06:00

Being a pastor has got to be one of the strangest ways to spend one's life. There are days when it seems less like work and more like a hymn - pure praise - but there are many other days when its tough slogging. There are many reasons for this, prominent among them being the fact that (1) my work is never done, (2) that there copious numbers of opportunities to feel a sense of failure (the gap between who we are and who we are called to be is never fully crossed), and (3) the effect of wearing the persona my role requires me to put on so much of the time - I have to put aside my personal feelings and preferences in order to serve well the ones I am called to serve. That's why I was so encouraged this morning when I read the following excerpt from William Willimon's book Pastor:

Much of what I fret over in ministry is God’s business rather than mine. Therefore, I keep preaching, keep teaching, keep at ministry caught up in God’s business more than my own:
‘And so each venture
Is a new beginning, a raid on the inarticulate
With shabby equipment always deteriorating
In the general mess of imprecision of feeling,
Undisciplined squads of emotion. And what there is to conquer
By strength and submission, has already been discovered
Once or twice, or several times, by men whom one cannot hope
To emulate – but there is no competition –
There is only the fight to recover what has been lost
And found and lost again and again: and now, under conditions
That seem unpropitious. But perhaps neither gain nor loss.
For us, there is only the trying. The rest is not our business.’
(T.S. Eliot, “East Coker” in Four Quartets)

To have faith that God is present, not only in Word and Sacrament, but also in our teaching, visitation, preaching, and congregational care – this keeps pastors going. We work in some mundane, out-of-the-way places, we pastors, but always under the eschatological conviction that we are essential participants in a great cosmic battle in which God is getting back what belongs to God. Large matters are being worked out through our ministry.

I know that such claims seem absurd to the world, but so does the claim that God saves the world in a modest place like Judea, through a crucified rabbi hanging from a tree. Pastors learn to thrive on, to relish and delight in, what seems absurd to the world.

With 'shabby equipment always deteriorating,' but with great hope,
David

Masculinity Fail

2009-03-19T08:27:00.001-06:00

A Vewy Wascally Wiseman

2009-03-09T09:33:00.003-06:00

at the Christmas program this last year...

Kids

2009-02-24T09:21:00.005-07:00

Here are a few recent pictures of our kids, plus a video of Ethan. Enjoy!

Grasshopper Ethan

Gilead

2009-02-11T17:54:00.003-07:00

Often I read for sheer entertainment – nothing wrong with that, it’s always a joy provided that the book in question is somewhat well written, with good sense of what makes for good plot and style. But once in a while a book I read ambushes me; what I intended to use for my own entertainment seems to take charge, in a way, and I find myself turning the last page changed, not quite the person I used to be. Gilead, which received the Pulitzer prize for fiction in ’05, was like that for me. Here’s an excerpt:

"This is an important thing, which I have told many people, and which my father told me, and which his father told him. When you encounter another person, when you have dealings with anyone at all, it is as if a question is being put to you. So you must think, What is the Lord asking of me in this moment, in this situation? If you confront insult or antagonism, your first impulse will be to respond in kind. But if you think, as it were, This is an emissary sent from the Lord, and some benefit is intended for me, first of all the occasion to demonstrate my faithfulness, the chance to show that I do in some small degree participate in the grace that saved me, you are free to act otherwise than as circumstances would seem to dictate. You are free to act by your own lights. You are freed at the same time of the impulse to hate or resent that person. He would probably laugh at the thought that the Lord sent him to you for your benefit (and his), but that is the perfection of the disguise, his own ignorance of it."

Contrarian Reflections on Leadership in the Church

2009-02-03T09:32:00.002-07:00

NOTE: The following is an article published in the latest Insight (our church's monthly newsletter). If you're here b/c you've read it and want to comment, please do so!!

For some time now I’ve been confused by the emphasis on “Christian leadership” in the North American church. The idea seems to be that what we have to do is produce good and strong leaders, and enough of them, and we as the church will be effective, faithful, relevant, biblical, etc. This emphasis confuses me (1) because so many Christian leaders find themselves naturally drawn to this material, but I’m just not – I’m not sure why – and (2) because when I read the New Testament I get the sense that leadership is not something the authors thought about a lot. They certainly didn’t write about it; the NIV uses the word “leadership” only once, in Romans. That is not to say that lessons on leadership cannot be distilled from what they wrote, but rather that leadership is not usually the primary subject of their writing, save for an isolated passage here or there.

I’ve had occasion to look into the source of my confusion a little deeper of late because our conference has identified leadership as the primary area of focus for the next several years. Several proposals for how to foster leadership within our conference have been put forward and discussed, and a specific strategy will be adopted at the 2009 convention. I’m excited about this; I have personally benefited from other initiatives our Conference has made to support and encourage young and growing leaders like myself!

But what are we to make of the discrepancy between the church’s current fascination with all things leadership and the New Testament’s relative silence on that subject? And what does the NT say about leaders and leadership? To look into this I searched for occurrences of the words Leader(s), Leadership and Ruler(s) in several English translations of the NT: the New American Standard Bible, the New International Version, and the New Revised Standard Version. I found that these English words are used to translate 5 different Greek words. Here is a summary of what I found regarding the meaning of these words in their various contexts:

1. Katheigeitai: teacher, leader, master
There only occurrence of this noun in the NT is in Mt. 23:10, when Jesus says “And do not be called leaders; for One is your Leader, that is, Christ.” The NASB is the only one to translate this word as “leader.” The NIV translates it as “teacher” and the NRSV as “instructor.”

2. Archon: ruler; official, authority; judge
This noun occurs 36 times in the NT. Only the NRSV chooses to translate it as “leader.” Other translations use “ruler” or “prince.” This word is consistently used to denote a person who holds an officially recognized position/office, either political or religious. It is used most often of the ruler of a synagogue but is also used in the titles “ruler of the demons,” “ruler of this world,” and as a synonym of “governing authorities” in Rom. 13:3.
Almost without exception those who are rulers in the NT are opposed to the purposes of God in Christ. Paul writes of God’s hidden wisdom which “none of the rulers of this age have understood; for if they had understood it, they would not have crucified the Lord of Glory.” (1 Cor 2:8) This word is never used to denote a Christian leader except for Jesus himself in Rev 1:5, where he is given the title “the ruler of the kings of the earth.”

3. Eigoumenous: consider, regard, think; lead, rule
This verb is used 8 times to denote someone who leads. Sometimes it refers to a formal position/office, as in Matt 2:6 (“From you [Bethlehem] shall come a ruler who is to shepherd my people Israel.), but mostly it is used of someone who is a leader within a group of people but without reference to any official position (Acts 15:22, “They sent Judas called Barsabbas, and Silas, leaders among the brothers…”). It is used three times in Hebrews where they are exhorted to remember their leaders who had spoken the word of God to them (13:7), to obey their leaders and submit to them (13:17), and to greet all their leaders (13:24).

4. Episkopos: overseer, guardian, bishop
This word occurs 5 times, is usually translated “overseer,” and always refers to a specific role of leadership within the church. It is the function of overseers to “shepherd the church of God which He purchased with His own blood (Acts 20:28),” they must be people of mature and godly character (1 Tim 3:2, Titus 1:7), and Jesus Himself is the shepherd and overseer of our souls (1 Pet. 2:25).

5. Proistamenos: be a leader, have authority over, manage; care for
This word occurs only 4 times in a form that refers to leadership and refers to someone who has been given responsibility over others in the church or in a household, sometimes having the sense of “manager.” It is this term that is translated “leadership” by the NIV in Rom 12:8 (if it is leadership, let him govern diligently). It is used of those who are “over you in the Lord and admonish you” (1 Thess. 5:12), of elders who direct the affairs of the church (1 Tim 5:17), and of a deacon’s responsibility to manage his children and household well (1 Tim 3:12).

What can we say in conclusion? Here are a few observations I’ve drawn from the above short study and from general observations of church life:
1. The health of any group of people is largely dependent on that group’s leaders.
2. This is self-evident; we know it, the Romans knew it, the early church knew it. Leadership, including church leadership, is important.
3. The NT writers hardly ever talk about it. That is not to say that lessons on leadership cannot be distilled from what they wrote, but rather that leadership is rarely the subject of their writing, save for a section here or there.
4. Nevertheless, there is awareness of the need for good leadership in the New Testament.
5. It is interesting that the words used of Christian leaders/leadership are different than the words used of leaders or rulers outside of the church. The titles that those of the world claim for themselves regarding leadership belong to Christ and Christ alone. One is our Leader, that is, Christ, and it is He who is the Ruler of the kings of the earth. (Matt 23:10, Rev 1:5) Christian and worldly leadership are fundamentally different.
6. In those times when instruction is given about leaders and leadership in the church, the emphasis is always on the leader’s character rather than on specialized leadership principles or practices.
7. As mentioned in #3, the first pastors and missionaries almost never talk about leadership when writing to their fledgling and often struggling churches. Instead of being concerned with producing good leaders, the first pastors and missionaries seem almost completely focused on producing good followers of Jesus. It seems they did not assume that producing more and better leaders was what their churches most needed.

In conclusion, it seems to me that the NT emphasis is not on leadership but on followership. The goal is not to produce good leaders, but to produce people who know what it means to follow Jesus. I am not saying that leadership in the Church is not important, nor that leadership is not an important part of what I do as a pastor. I am saying that to focus on leadership to the extent that the North American church often does is like having the accent on the wrong sylLABle. To use myself as an example: I’m useless as a pastor – useless as a Christian – unless I model what it means and looks like to follow Jesus and to be the servant of my brothers and sisters, as Jesus has been a servant to me. If that is leadership, then fine; but leadership has to be a subcategory of followership, not the other way around. Leadership is therefore important in the church insofar as it contributes to the growth of the church in followership.

Following the Leader with you,
Pastor David

Ethan's 3rd Birthday!

2009-01-28T10:52:00.005-07:00

Nothing Runs Like a Funk...

A John Deere cake too... Kendra was all stressed out when she was making it because the lines between the fields were a bit messy and blurred, "Not," she said, "like it looks on a map!" I told her that it would look like a map if we took a picture of it from 20 feet up. Yes, Kendra is a bit of a perfectionist ;-)

Ethan eating his centipede candy from Grandma and Grandpa Plett - Yuck!! And yes, that's a smile, the one he puts on for the camera.

We had to light the candles two times b/c he blew them out immediately after Kendra lit them the first time - blowing out candles is, apparently, a BIG thrill.

With his friend Adan... Whenever they come over, they put on the alligator and giraffe suits and run around eating each other.

And one last "smile" for the camera - thanks for the presents Grandmas and Grandpas!!

Ethan playing with the train and track we found used - a gift from us and G&G Funk.

We miss you all and wish you could have been with us!!!

Love,

the faraway Funks

And you thought chocolate pudding was for eating??

2009-01-14T18:56:00.003-07:00

On Marriage

2009-01-06T21:45:00.005-07:00

Kendra and I loved this poem - its our experience, and yours too, I'll bet!

Spice

Sentimentalists, purists, and some

preachers, advocate marital absolutes -

stability, a clear hierarchy for

decision, a predictable union,

unflawed as a blank page. No wonder

it ends up flat. A truer wedding's

grounded in paradox, answers the pull

of the particular, grapples a score

of rugged issues. Like horned toads

in Eden, incongruities add surprise

to a complacent landscape.

Thank heaven you're romantic and

irascible, I'm opinionated in my

impulsiveness. Thank God we can

lean together in our failing - a rusty

trellis propping a thorned rose.

By Luci Shaw, from her collection "Polishing the Petoskey Stone."

Correction...

2009-01-06T21:37:00.002-07:00

On second thought, I don't agree completely with Kierkegaard's observations (see previous post below). The blame lies not at the feet of scholarship, christian or not, but at the feet of all of us who - he rightly observes - tend to be a bunch of scheming swindlers. Scholars and scholarship is a huge gift to the church, one we cannot (should not) do without. There - just had to say it.
Shalom,
David

I don't really like this because I know he's on to something...

2008-12-13T17:52:00.001-07:00

“The matter is quite simple. The Bible is very easy to understand. But we Christians are a bunch of scheming swindlers. We pretend to be unable to understand it because we know very well that the minute we understand we are obliged to act accordingly. Take any words in the New Testament and forget everything except pledging yourself to act accordingly. My God, you will say, if I do that my whole life will be ruined. How would I ever get on in the world? Herein lies the real place of Christian scholarship. Christian scholarship is the Church’s prodigious invention to defend itself against the Bible, to ensure that we can continue to be good Christians without the Bible coming too close. Oh, priceless scholarship, what would we do without you? Dreadful it is to fall into the hands of the living God. Yes, it is even dreadful to be alone with the New Testament.”
-Soren Kierkegaard

Thoughts?

In Memory of Neil Friesen - Husband, Father, Brother, Friend

2008-12-03T20:44:00.002-07:00

Preached on 3 December, 2008

It has been about 7 months since that day when the Doctor told Neil that he had acute leukemia, and only 3 weeks to 3 months to live. During that time Neil let me walk with him, and that is a gift and a privilege that I treasure and have been deeply blessed and humbled by. “So, Neil, what does it feel like to know you are dying?” “Well,” he’d often say, “I don’t know. I don’t know how to describe it, I’ve never been here before” and we would sit there and wonder together what it would be like to see Jesus and be at rest. And we wondered, what will it be like to be raised from the dead with new, resurrection bodies on that great Day, and to live in the new heavens and the new earth in which there would no longer be any mourning or crying or pain, in which God himself will dwell among us. And we’d read Scripture about these things and wonder some more, and we’d turn these wonderings and also the worries into prayer. It’s been an incredible privilege to know Neil. It is clear to all those who knew him that he was a good friend, father, and husband.

Neil’s race is finished. He has been fully promoted into the living presence of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and he is at rest. Neil is finally, fully home. Towards the end one time I asked him what it was like to know he would be going home soon, and he said “Well, I feel torn – I have a family here, and I worry about them, and I don’t want to leave them alone, but at the same time I want to go home and I want to see Jesus.” I think he felt that way from the very day of his diagnosis. I remember him saying how he felt almost guilty sometimes about how excited he was to go home. Neil loved you, his family, but he was also… homesick.

I remember when I was 14 or so I went to a summer camp for a week. A little over half way through the week I talked with mom and dad on the phone. I found out that they weren't going to come out to visit the next day as planned because they were going to start harvesting – the crops were ripe and they had to start taking it off. That broke me. I, though of the advanced age of 14, ran from that phone to hide anywhere away so that others wouldn't see me bawl. Somewhere in the depths of my soul I can still feel that awful sharp edged pain of homesickness. How can I describe it? But maybe I don’t need to. Perhaps you too have felt it.

Homesickness is what Neil felt; homesick is a bit of what we feel this afternoon, knowing that Neil is gone. When someone we love dies, our vague hunch that this world is not home for us sharpens; it becomes an emotion, something tangible. With the passing of your husband, your father, your friend, this world feels even less like home to you than it did before. We yearn for our home. We are homesick.

This sense of homesickness is mirrored throughout the Scriptures. It is assumed that those who follow god are not at home here in this world, in this life. God’s people are often described as sojourners, refugees, exiles. There were some words that Jesus spoke to his followers at the last supper: the last meal that he was to eat before he would be killed. He is a young man, full of life and wonder, just a few years older than I am. Together with his loved ones in a small, dark room, he is saying good-bye to life itself and everything he had lived for and was prepared to die for. I picture him looking around at his friends, and saying something entirely unexpected: "Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me. 2 In my Father's house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. 3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.

Those words were said to Neil as much as they were said to Jesus’ original disciples. He is now together with his Lord and is truly at home, waiting for the resurrection and the new life in the New Creation. He is no longer homesick. If Neil is finally, truly at home, that means several things. It means that he is not, as the popular phrase goes, a “lost loved one.” If anyone is in Christ they are now and perpetually and vitally alive. Neil’s not lost, we know right where to find him—in the very presence of the Lord in heaven. Since Neil is finally home, that also means that he is not gone, in the sense of ceasing to exist. He has simply gone on, like a ship goes over the horizon to a far destination. The fact that I can’t see him anymore here on this earth says something about my limitations, not about his at this point in time. We also know that Neil has not gone from a greater form of existence to a lesser; in fact, it’s the other way around. He has left the realm of suffering, sin and sorrow, disease decay and death, which is this world, and he has gone to a realm where every tear is wiped from every eye, and all is well. And someday, there comes the resurrection. “Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed - in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed.”

So this afternoon, even in the very depths of our own sorrow, we are truly happy for Neil. He is with the Lord who ransomed him from the power of sin and death with his own blood. Neil’s ship suddenly took off and he’s out of sight, over the horizon, and he has gone to what he always knew was his home; he is no longer homesick.

But we are. Helen, Calvin and June, Jen, Keagan; Neil is gone and he has left such a hole in your lives. You are now doubly homesick, and even though you are glad for him, it sure hurts. We wonder with you, “Why? Why now?” As far as we were concerned, his time was not done yet. Those are questions that we have to wrestle with, but to which we probably won’t ever get clear answers for. We cannot necessarily expect answers from God in the midst of our grief, but I want to direct our attention to what we can expect from God as we go from here.

We can expect God to work for good in all things. This is the promise of Romans 8:28. Not everything that happens to us is necessarily good in and of itself, but under the direction of the Father all things blend together for a symphony of ultimate, eternal good.

We can expect God to finish that which he has begun in our lives. That is the promise of Philippians 1:6. In times like these our faith may seem small and weak, but God promises to nourish it until what he has begun in us is perfected.

We can also expect the Spirit to intercede for us. In Romans 8 Paul writes that “the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God's will.”

There are many things we do not know or understand about why Neil had to leave us so soon. That’s ok. But know that the Father will see you through. If God is for us, who can be against us? Nothing, not even death, can separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Death and Dying

2008-11-25T10:16:00.005-07:00

Neil is dying, and his dying is hard, long work. I'm spending a lot of time with him and Helen (his wife) these days, and I can tell you that there's nothing romantic about death. Death sucks, and I hate it. Why are these last days of his journey so difficult? Why all the pain, the suffering brought on by being unable to get enough air? And why now? He's only 67, and will leave behind a wife and children who will miss him beyond the ability of words to express.

That's the dark side of it all. There are also glimpses of something else, sparks scattered throughout this long wandering through the valley of the shadow of death. Moments of laughter in the hospital room. Neil's smile when his grandchildren come to see him. Neil and Helen's love for each other and the moments of sheer alive-ness in this valley when they make that love known. Perhaps most of all, I have watched as Neil grows in a peace that passes understanding, and a joy and a hope that defies death. That peace and hope is often clouded now by a fog of morphine and pain, but there it still is.

John Muir once said something like this: "We look at life from the back side of the tapestry. And most of the time what we see is loose threads, tangled knots and the like. But occasionally God's light shines through the tapestry and we get a glimpse of the larger design with God weaving together the darks and lights of existence."

Yes. The tangled knots and loose threads that make up so much of our lives, we all of us, but also glimpses of light.
Shalom,
David

Remembrance Day

2008-11-11T09:11:00.006-07:00

(originally posted for Remembrance Day 2007)
Remembrance Day is coming up - always an interesting time for a pacifist, and especially a pacifist pastor of some not-so-pacifist but very beautiful people!I have a great deal of respect for those who took/take their duties to their country so seriously that they were willing to put their lives on the line for it. Their motives, in many cases, were noble. I'm also aware that pacifists (or whatever you want to call us) are lousy at honoring veterans.

That said, the rhetoric often used around Remembrance Day troubles me. "We need to honor those people who fought and died for our freedom." That is the line I often hear. Here are a few things I find troubling about it:

First, these people not only fought and sometimes died for the peace and freedom we enjoy; they also killed for it. Remembrance Day rhetoric tends to hide that fact.

Second, take a look at the peace and freedom we enjoy. Is it Good? Yes, in many ways it is. But would you ask someone to kill on your behalf so you could have this? I am glad we live in a democratic society, but is it that important? That peace and freedom which counts in the NT is that which was purchased for us by the Lord Jesus Christ when he chose to die at the hands of his enemies.

Third, as Christians our citizenship is first and foremost in the Kingdom of God - not Canada or any other country. If we take this at all seriously, we can never pray for just our veterans - we must also then pray for those whom our troops are fighting, and for the widows and orphans of the men whom our soldiers kill.

Fourth, as Christians we say we believe that we have peace with God and others through Jesus' sacrifice of his own life on the cross at the hands of his enemies. That kind of understanding of peace runs clean contrary to the rhetoric of the Pax Romana of the first century. According to the Empire, peace came to the people through the military might and administrative abilities of the Empire, symbolized in whoever the current Caesar was. For Paul to write to the Colossians (for example), "Grace and peace to you from God our Father" was to directly contradict the claims of the Empire. Is it too much to imagine that that Christian claim still runs contrary to what the world tells us about how peace is made and who makes it?

"What do I communicate to a man about the love of God by being willing to consider him an enemy? What do I say about personal responsibility by agreeing to consider him my enemy when it is only the hazard of birth that causes us to live under different flags? What do I say about forgiveness if I punish him for the sins of his rulers? How is it reconcilable with the gospel - good news - for the last word in my estimate of any man to be that, in a case of extreme conflict, it could be my duty to sacrifice his life for the sake of my nation, my security, or the political order which I prefer?" (J.H. Yoder, The Political Axioms of the Sermon on the Mount)

What do you think? What does it mean for followers of the crucified Lord to honor our veterans and take part in Remembrance Day?

Shalom (and I mean it),

David

How to make use of pumpkin guts

2008-11-07T10:27:00.001-07:00

Yamnuska, us, etc.

2008-11-06T09:12:00.004-07:00

Tim drove out to visit us for a few days 2 weeks ago - we had an amazing, stupendous, stunning, fantastic time!!! Here are a few pics:

Tim taking Ethan out to the healthy goodness of McDonalds (!!)

On the way up the eastern flank of Mt. Yamnuska.

I bought new hiking boots the day before, and stupidly used them for the first time to do some aggressive climbing and scrambling - surely my feet were more broken in than my boots! I was hurting for a few days after.

I'd also like to point out that in the pic above I'm taking the picture from above Tim, and this after I'd been waiting a while. In Tim's own words (don't deny it bro!) "Dave, you're kicking my butt!" Speaking of which...

The eastern slope down from the top ridge of Yamnuska is no slope at all. At the very most it may have 1 or 2 degrees of slope, but no more. From where Tim is looking its probably 300-400 feet straight down.

Mt. Doom in the background, with (I'm not kidding) the cliffs of Ephel Duath on its flank.

Very, very happy brothers.

The view from the top - over that edge, it's just straight down for way too far.

View with an orange...

Mt. Yam in the background - that was a LOT of climbing!

Tim, we had a great time with you. Ethan talks about you a lot and loved having you around!

Miss you all,

David (and the rest of us ;-)

Thanksgiving, Stewardship, and the Great Whore

2008-10-09T10:06:00.004-06:00

That's what I'll be speaking on for this Thanksgiving Sunday, the passage being Rev. 18. I'm a sucker for punishment, but I'm looking forward to it.

Summer #2 - Pakistan - with more pictures etc!

2008-10-01T17:34:00.007-06:00

It felt so good to get off that plane in Islamabad, get through customs, and charge out into an entirely different world again. Being in different cultures is exhausting and stressful in some ways, but for me it's always exhilarating. I'd been stuck in Canada too long.

Len was waiting for me outside and away we went to catch a local bus north to Abottabad. In line for that bus I had my first conversation in Pakistan. It went something like this:

Guy: Why do you think we are all terrorists?
Me: Uhhhhh... We don't. Uhhhh... Otherwise I wouldn't be here, and uhh....
Had I had my wits about me, as my friend Len did when another Pakistani asked him the same question a different time, I would have used his response: "Why do you think we are all infidels?"
We spent most of our time up in Kalanderabad, near the area affected by the earthquake in late 2005. This was the view out the front gate of the house we stayed at.

My first supper in Pakistan - at a Chinese restaurant?!! It was surreal, but the food was very good.

We took a day to drive north deep into the earthquake-affected area. 2.5 years later, and they're still clearing entire mountain sides off the highway. The earthquake killed about 79,000 people, and some estimate that a full half of those were children, since it happened just as the school day was beginning.

This guy was probably a migrant laborer, just getting a start to his day. He looks like he could have come straight out of the pages of Genesis or something.
Len at a town TEAM is partnering with in a variety of development projects, including earthquake proof housing, agricultural development, and a school.
A baby in an incubater in Bach Christian Hospital in Kalanderabad.
Lots of marijuana growing under a bridge!
We spent 3 days in NW Pakistan near a town called Murree. It's something like the Banff of Pakistan, a beautiful mountain area where the rich folks from the big cities come for their holidays. We had a prayer retreat there with the TEAM workers in PK. Amazing people to meet. The picture is of the path to our cabin.
Pakistani trucks - nothing quite like them out here! Note that almost every available surface is decorated and painted, even in the wheel-wells!

Faisal Mosque in Islamabad, reputed to be the largest in all of Asia with a capacity of 300,000 worshippers.

Call to prayer at the Mosque - sorry, I haven't figured out how to rotate my videos yet. Any advice for me?

Anyhow, that was Pakistan. I'm so glad I had the chance to go there. I'd love to go back some day.

David

Monday at Elbow Falls

2008-09-29T16:19:00.003-06:00

Saying too much...

2008-09-28T19:35:00.003-06:00

I preach. The pulpit the church gives me is an amazing privilege and I'm glad and honored to fill that role, but... every once in a while it freaks me right out. There's such a huge gap between what I say from the pulpit and what I do with my life. That gap was very apparent to me last Sunday, and that feeling of freaked-outedness hasn't really left me since. I said the following:

Our imaginations, and therefore the overall directions of our lives, are captured by this culture and not by the kingdom of God. We’ve reduced the good news of the kingdom of god to a private, inner, individualistic matter which consists mostly of incanting anemic souls into heaven. We have little or no idea how our allegiance to the crucified lamb should shape our response to the issues this world we are ambassadors to faces. Because we’ve allowed our faith to become private, inner, and individualistic, we can’t envision a specifically christian response to global issues such as famine, or terrorism, or economic injustice, or state sanctioned torture.

When is the last time you heard a christian leader issue a call to send teams of Christians into Darfur or Iraq to witness to the peace of Christ by exposing evil and putting themselves into harm’s way for the sake of the least of these whom God loves? Our first response as evangelicals is to go running to the government and we say “oh thou government, with thy big guns and thy big money and thy big industry, go do something about this” or perhaps we do go ourselves with the big guns and the big money of the powers that be, but we don’t go in the weakness and the foolishness of the cross, which is stronger than the power of the world and wiser than the wisdom of man. Why? Because we’ve limited our faith to something only inner and private and individualistic, and therefore have allowed our imaginations to be taken captive by the world and its ways.

But think of it: who are we ambassadors of? He is The king of kings and the lord of lords. He is the alpha and the omega, the one who was and who is and who is to come, and he is the one who is at work even now preparing the way for His kingdom to irrupt into history. There is not a square inch of creation over which he does not cry, “This is mine!” There is not a person in all creation whom he is not pursuing, headlong and lovesick, aching to reconcile them to himself by the blood of his Son shed for that person. All relationships between humans, on all levels, inter-personal and international, all relationships between humans and the land, and of course all image bearers in relationship with the Creator; there is not a single aspect of reality which he does not intend to set shalom loose on.

See why I'm in trouble? Too much big talk, too little action.

Birthday Week

2008-09-28T19:08:00.007-06:00

Yup, I'm another year older. (Any guesses from the picture of how old I am? ;-) Took the day off, went to the zoo with Kendra and the kids, had maddachschlope (dinner nap), and went to Tony Roma's with Kendra in the evening.

Had a bunch of friends down for a dessert potluck and fire on Friday night for my birthday, and John and Elda gave me this AMAZING card. Probably my favorite card ever. The only problem is that they can now track how much chocolate I eat by asking me what day's bar I ate. Those bars will be gone LONG before Oct. 31st.

Ethan and Abigail in the tub... Rarely a dull moment 'round here with those two.

Saturday afternoon we had a surprise call from uncle Albert - he had just come into town with a load and had to wait until Sunday pm for his next one. We had him down for supper Saturday night and it was just SO good to see family around here again. He also joined us for worship Sunday morning and for lunch afterwards. The big excitement, as you can see, was that Ethan got to ride home from the church in the truck! Him and I decided that we're going to trade in our mazda for a semi ;-) Needless to say, Ethan just loved the ride. It's been a good week!

Shalom

Summer #1 - London before Pakistan and China

2008-09-18T09:52:00.015-06:00

I had about 8 hours in London before flying out to Islamabad and Jen flew in from Berlin to meet me and show me around - Jen, that was so, so good.

We went to see the ancient manuscripts collection of the British Library - I was a pretty happy guy. The highlight of that for me was seeing Codex Leningradensis, the manuscript which the Hebrew Bible I read psalms out of is based on.

Jen took me to a gallery to see the "Life Before Death" collection - pictures of people in a care home in Germany (I think) before their deaths and immediately after. Each photo was crystal clear, about 3 feet by 3 feet, and mounted on a white background. We just drifted and stared and pondered - to say we were deeply moved seems too cliche for what it was like. It was a profound way of meditating on death, and of course on how we live in light of that reality.

We had a yummy meal (smoked salmon on a salad of greens for me, and apple cider) in one of the tube stations, and then it was time for goodbye. Love ya, Jen!

Summertime

2008-09-17T09:14:00.002-06:00

Pakistan and China, holidays in MB, bathroom renovations and me throwing fits of rage, camping in Waterton with friends, and of course constant entertainment from Ethan and Abigail. And summer is almost gone... I'll be posting on all of these in the next little while.
But right now, it's back to sermon prep...

Friends

2008-01-16T12:22:00.000-07:00

We live just down the street from some good friends of ours, John and Elda and Jolynne. It was a normal Sunday night and we were down at their place for supper and pingpong and other games. Little did we know...

Just after John had finished explaining how to play "Ticket to Ride" our peace was disturbed by the sudden entrance of two characters in black clothes, black belaclavas, and ski goggles. They immediately wrapped scarves around our (me and Kendra) heads. I gave a bit of a fight, and was rewarded by having my arms tied VERY securely behind me - tied together and then tied to my belt loop so that I was no longer much of a threat.

They took us outside, shoved us into a waiting car, and drove off. Eventually we arrived somewhere and were hauled out of the car. With my eyes still blindfolded I tried to make a break for it but Alas! was nabbed before I got more than a few feet. Good thing, it turns out, since I was headed across a road.

We were brought into a house, our blindfolds taken off, and SURPRISE!!! There was half the church in Dennis and Irene's house - it was an appreciation evening for us.

Hard to know how to react to something like this. For me it was a combination of feeling slightly abashed (not used to this kind of attention!), amused, humbled, and profoundly grateful. Humbled and grateful maybe describe it best. We are blessed to have friends like we have, and this kind of blessing is nothing we could ever really "deserve."

All those warm feelings were somewhat mitigated when someone realized that, since my hands were still tied, they could finally put a cowboy hat on me. They've been trying for almost 3 years (first time was when we came out to candidate!) and they finally succeeded. Let the record show that the hat was NOT willingly worn!

Friends, I guess, are one of God's more lavish gifts to us. We are blessed, and thankful.

Shalom,

David (and Kendra)

G.K Chesterton on $$

2008-01-08T14:52:00.000-07:00

My dad loves G.K. Chesterton. We heard almost nothing but quotes from "Orthodoxy" while he was reading that for, what, almost a year?!? I love my dad's enthusiasm for learning.

Anyhow, here's a little gem he sent me yesterday:
"To be clever enough to get all that money, one must be stupid enough to want it."
Ouch!!! Thanks, Dad ;-)

HOLIDAYS!!!!!

2007-12-19T21:56:00.000-07:00

That's what we're doing, which means we're not doing a lot. Up in Riverton, MB right now at Kendra's parents. Reading, playing Age of Mythology, reading some more, and of course letting the grandparents make up for months and months of missed babysitting. High time for a break.
10 more days to go!!!
Shalom,
David

Lost in the Supermarket, Part III - Responding to Consumerism

2007-12-06T13:48:00.000-07:00

“Our enormously productive economy… demands that we make consumption our way of life, that we convert the buying and use of goods into rituals, that we seek our spiritual satisfaction, our ego satisfaction, in consumption… We need things consumed, burned up, worn out, replaced, and discarded at an ever increasing rate." (Victor LeBow, Retailing Analyst, 1955)

But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. (1 Peter 2:9)

In the last few editions of the Insight we’ve been taking a hard (and rather long) look at Consumerism. Consumerism is the culture we live in and like any culture it is hard at work, forming us into a particular kind of people; people who define freedom as virtually unlimited choice, who value instant gratification and personal pleasure above all, and who have “needs” that are virtually unlimited and unsatiable. In last month’s article we saw evidence of the way we have allowed our specifically Christian calling to be compromised by Consumerism in the areas of religion, marriage, birth, death, and how we relate to our neighbor. This month we want to look briefly at a few ways to respond.

It is clear that Consumerism trains us to be a particular kind of people with a particular set of virtues, and that a number of these virtues are directly in conflict with those we are called to cultivate as God’s people. Is it possible to cultivate both instant gratification and patience? What about instant gratification and self-control? Will goodness, kindness, and gentleness be evident in a person who values their personal freedom and pleasure above all? Can a person value their personal freedom and pleasure that highly and know anything about faithfulness or fidelity? If not, what can we do to make sure that the virtues being formed in us are in line with our calling as God’s people?

First of all, simply be aware. Be aware of what Consumerism is, and be aware of how it is impacting your life. That is what the last two articles in the Insight have been about.

Second, pursue the Secret of Contentment. In his letter to the church in Philippi, Paul writes “I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do everything through him who gives me strength.” What a way to live! He took seriously God’s promise to provide us with the food, clothing, and strength that we need for each day. Jesus encourages us not to worry, saying, “`What shall we eat?' or `What shall we drink?' or `What shall we wear?' “For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.” Contentment in any situation comes from taking Jesus seriously on this, as Paul did. A very practical way of pursuing the Secret of Contentment is to make a practice of praying the Lord’s Prayer at the start of every day (Matthew 6:9-13). Asking God to “give us this day our daily bread” militates against the influence of consumerism in our lives.

Third, learn the Discipline of Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is not something that we do just when we “feel” thankful. Paul has some very strong words for us on this in 1 Thessalonians: “Give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus.” Why? Not because all our circumstances are pleasant, easy, or even good in and of themselves. Rather, this is a prophetic thanksgiving, pointing forwards to the coming of the hope in which we’ve been saved. As Paul writes earlier in the same letter, “the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first.” In light of this sure and certain hope, we give thanks in all circumstances. (By the way, I’m nowhere near obedience in this.)

In conclusion I want to mention one more thing: Don’t do it alone. It is ludicrous to think that, with powerful forces like the market and the media constantly encouraging us to excesses of consumption, we can resist it adequately as isolated, individual christians. He who has himself as a doctor has a fool for a doctor. We need others to tell us the truth about our spiritual health. This is especially true when it comes to our economic lives, which we tend to regard as an entirely private matter that is not subject to the scrutiny or wisdom of the community of faith. As a friend of mine once wrote to me, we seem to have a “subconscious expectation that just as we have separation of church and state, we should also have separation of church and economics.” Can we be open and honest enough to open our wallets and checkbooks in front of other, trusted Christians? Overcoming the taboo against this is necessary if we want to be formed more by our calling as God’s people than by this culture God has placed us in.

Consumerism and Neighbor

2007-12-04T08:38:00.000-07:00

Consumerism directly impacts our relationship with our neighbor. The consumerist society equates freedom with individual choice and private life. If freedom is my right, and if freedom means individual choice and private life, then one’s neighbor eventually becomes an enemy from whom one has to defend one’s self because any genuine relationship eventually impinges on my ability to do what I want, when I want. In his 1995 encyclical The Gospel of Life, Pope John Paul II argues that “This view of freedom leads to a serious distortion of life in society. If the promotion of the self is understood in terms of absolute autonomy, people inevitably reach the point of rejecting one another. Everyone else is considered an enemy from whom one has to defend himself. Thus society becomes a mass of individuals placed side by side, but without any mutual bonds.”[1] Christians are not the only ones to notice this. In an interview about his grimly apocalyptic song “The Future,” Canadian poet and musician Leonard Cohen commented that “Very slowly the contract between people has dissolved. And people are really doing anything they want to each other… that essential unwritten, unspoken contract between one soul and another has disintegrated.”
[1] John Paul II, as quoted in Gordon Wenham, “Life and Death and the Consumerist Ethic” in Christ and Consumerism, 131.

Alright, enough complaining about Consumerism for now. Just one more post on this, I promise! That last one will be on ways that we, as God's peculiar people, can respond to it.
Shalom,
David

Singing Again

2007-11-27T12:04:00.000-07:00

"We had VCRs for a while, but then we noticed the children weren’t singing. They weren’t playing and running and making up songs. They wanted to put in a tape and sit in front of the TV. So we locked up the VCRs. Now the children are singing again."
(Christopher Arnold, an elder in a Bruderhof community)

Consumerism and Children

2007-11-27T09:08:00.000-07:00

An area in which the influence of Consumerism may be seen is in our attitude towards children. For centuries the Abrahamic faiths (Judaism, Islam, Christianity) regarded procreation and the bringing up of children as an integral part of marriage. This, of course, was before birth control! Now the view has shifted and children are optional in a marriage. “Don’t let children ruin your career. And don’t have too many because that will spoil your standard of living and tie you down. You won’t be able to enjoy yourself.” Children are to be had only if they suit the couple and their “lifestyle choice.” The dark side of this is, when a child does not suit a couple and a pregnancy occurs anyhow, the action taken is often abortion. The vast majority of abortions are performed for these selfish and merely social reasons.

Kids for Sale!

2007-11-23T09:15:00.000-07:00

Well, almost. Last night Kendra and I had planned to go to the Rosebud Theatre for a fancy date - the first time we would have been on a date on our own in months and months. But no! Everyone got sick. And then, to cap it all off, Abigail just wouldn't sleep (i walked and rocked and patted her bum and gave her her soother for 2.5 hrs), Ethan was up on and off, Kendra had severe abdominal pain for several hours (writhing on the floor, was how she put it), and then Ethan was awake at 5:30 calling for his John Deere Tractor, or milk, or banana, or his ball, just anything but sleep. That was the point at which I rolled over and suggested to Kendra that we sell our kids.

Those of you who have parents close by - you're LUCKY!!!!

Consumerism and Marriage

2007-11-21T13:02:00.000-07:00

Is the influence of Consumerism evident in marriages in our society? The high rate of divorce should catch our attention. Is it possible that, whether Christian or not, many people marry because the marriage will serve his or her interests as he or she understands them at the moment? Is it possible that we have come to view commitment itself as a consumer good for us to use only so long as it serves our needs? Rodney Clapp, writes that “In the christian way of life, lifetime monogamy makes sense. In the consumer way of life, serial polygamy (a succession of mates over a lifetime) is a much more sensible practice. A high increase in divorce rates signals many things, but one of them surely is that consumption is our way of life.”[1]
[1] Rodney Clapp, “The Theology of Consumption & the Consumption of Theology” in The Consuming Passion: Christianity and the Consumer Culture, ed. Rodney Clapp (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1998), 193.

Lost in the Supermarket, Part II

2007-11-13T22:33:00.000-07:00

"This idea that Christianity and consumerism are completely compatible is… the great insanity of our times."

-Win Butler, lead singer of Arcade Fire, on the theme of their album Neon Bible

In last month’s article we looked at what Consumerism is and how it actually functions as a religion for our culture and, to be honest, for many of us who also follow Jesus. (For a review see the previous article here) But is this really true? Is Consumerism an alternative religion with which Christianity competes? More to the point, have we allowed our allegiance to Jesus Christ and the Kingdom of God to be quietly compromised by our love for the life of Consumerism? There is one way to find out, and that is to examine the way that we live. How we act is the best indicator of what we deeply believe. Over the next few days I will be posting on the effects of Consumerism on how we act in relation to religion, marriage, birth, death, and our neighbor, and I'm especially curious to hear from you whether these observations jive with what you have noticed, whether I'm out in left field, or whether there is another and better explanation out there for the way we act. Let loose! And, to start things off, lets take a look at:

Religion

If our culture is a culture of Consumerism, then religion will be simply be one more product, the purpose of which is to aid in my own self-fulfillment, pleasure, and gratification. Religions are like cereal; pick whatever one suits you best for the needs you have now. Christians have swallowed this same mentality, but instead of picking from different religions to suit our needs, we choose from different churches. We go “church shopping” to find the church that best suits our “needs.” If a church no longer meets those “needs,” we often find a better church where those “needs” will be met. We unintentionally but willingly promote the view of our culture that the church “is best understood as a privatized utility dispensing a franchised commodity called ‘religion’.” (Colin Greene, “Consumerism and the Spirit of the Age” in Christ and Consumerism, ed. Craig Bartholomew and Thorsten Moritz, (Carlisle: Paternoster Press, 2000.), 25.)

Hop of Faith

2007-11-08T13:10:00.000-07:00

Disclaimer: I don't feel this way about our church. Ok, maybe a little. But certainly no more than I feel this about myself!

Barth on Consumerism

2007-11-07T10:37:00.000-07:00

Sometimes you're just innocently minding your business, reading about this or that, and then the words rise up and bash you one over the head. That happened to me recently when I was reading Christ and Consumerism: A Critical Analysis of the Spirit of the Age (ok, maybe not the most innocent reading ;-) and I came across this from Karl Barth:

"The Word of God is not for sale; and therefore it has no need of salesmen. The Word of God is not seeking patrons; therefore it refuses price cutting and bargaining; therefore it has no need of middlemen. The Word of God does not compete with other commodities which are being offered to men on the bargain counter of life. It does not care to be sold at any price. It only desires to be its own genuine self, without being compelled to suffer alterations and modifications… It will, however, not stoop to overcome resistance with bargain counter methods. Promoters’ successes are sham victories; their crowded churches and the breathlessness of their audiences have nothing in common with the Word of God."

I know not everyone would agree with this take on the relation of church and marketing. Couldn't help but think Barth has got us North Americans nailed though.
Peace,
David

Remembrance Day

2007-11-02T13:13:00.000-06:00

Remembrance Day is coming up - always an interesting time for a pacifist, and especially a pacifist pastor of some not-so-pacifist but very beautiful people!

I have a great deal of respect for those who took/take their duties to their country so seriously that they were willing to put their lives on the line for it. Their motives, in many cases, were noble. I'm also aware that pacifists (or whatever you want to call us) are lousy at honoring veterans.

That said, the rhetoric often used around Remembrance Day troubles me. "We need to honor those people who fought and died for our freedom." That is the line I often hear. Here are a few things I find troubling about it:
First, these people not only fought and sometimes died for the peace and freedom we enjoy; they also killed for it. Remembrance Day rhetoric tends to hide that fact.
Second, take a look at the peace and freedom we enjoy. Would you ask someone to kill on your behalf so you could have this? Is it that important? That peace and freedom which counts in the NT is that which was purchased for us by the Lord Jesus Christ when he chose to die at the hands of his enemies.
Third, as Christians our citizenship is first and foremost in the Kingdom of God - not Canada or any other country. If we take this at all seriously, we can never pray for just our veterans - we must also then pray for those whom our troops are fighting, and for the widows and orphans of the men whom our soldiers kill.
Fourth, as Christians we say we believe that we have peace with God and others through Jesus' sacrifice of his own life on the cross at the hands of his enemies. That kind of understanding of peace runs clean contrary to the rhetoric of the Pax Romana of the first century. According to the Empire, peace came to the people through the military might and administrative abilities of the Empire, symbolized in whoever the current Caesar was. For Paul to write to the Colossians (for example), "Grace and peace to you from God our Father" was to directly contradict the claims of the Empire. Is it too much to imagine that that Christian claim still runs contrary to what the world tells us about how peace is made and who makes it?

"What do I communicate to a man about the love of God by being willing to consider him an enemy? What do I say about personal responsibility by agreeing to consider him my enemy when it is only the hazard of birth that causes us to live under different flags? What do I say about forgiveness if I punish him for the sins of his rulers? How is it reconcilable with the gospel - good news - for the last word in my estimate of any man to be that, in a case of extreme conflict, it could be my duty to sacrifice his life for the sake of my nation, my security, or the political order which I prefer?" (J.H. Yoder, The Political Axioms of the Sermon on the Mount)

What do you think? What does it mean for followers of the crucified Lord to honor our veterans and take part in Remembrance Day?
Shalom (and I mean it),
David

Lost in the Supermarket - Part 1

2007-10-11T08:52:00.000-06:00

This article is part of a series entitled “Charting Our Course,” published in our church paper, in which we are exploring Who we are, Where we are, and Where we are going as Christ’s Church.

Disillusioned words like bullets bark

As human gods aim for their mark

Make everything from toy guns that spark

To flesh-colored Christs that glow in the dark

It's easy to see without looking too far

That not much

Is really sacred.

(Bob Dylan)

It is easy to ignore the invasion of the psyche that advertisements now constitute. More pushy than Goebbels (Hitler’s minister of propaganda), every fifteen minutes for much of people’s lives, and never subjected to critical scrutiny, they add up to near terminal indoctrination. Or haven’t you noticed? (Alan Storkey, Sociologist)

All I wanted was some cereal. We’d been a year away in Beijing, teaching English, and were now returning to “normal” life in our little apartment in Winnipeg. I’d gone to our local Safeway to get some basic groceries and a few minutes later found myself shipwrecked in aisle # 10 (or 9, or 7, or whatever), virtually unable to move as I tried to cope with the fact of an entire wall of cereals in front of me, all of them bent on seducing me by associating health, youth, happiness, and sex appeal with the purchase of a particular brand. Kendra and I have since reacclimatized. We now think it is both normal and necessary to have 60 brands of cereal to choose from. We’re not sure that our ability to adapt is a good thing.

It’s no secret that we’re consumers. In our world the number of available products of all kinds has increased exponentially from year to year. We now have an increasing number of “needs” that our parents and grandparents never even new about (note: tongue firmly in cheek here). It has always been true that consumption is necessary to live, and certainly commercial development within a culture can be healthy. But necessary consumption is a much different thing than Consumerism. Consumerism is an unhealthy development of commerce. My thesis in this paper is that Consumerism is a religion. I will first of all define what consumerism is, then describe how it functions as a religion.

What is Consumerism?
Craig Bartholomew, in a book entitled Christ and Consumerism: A Critical Analysis of the Spirit of the Age, points out three main characteristics of consumerism. First, “Consumerism points to a culture in which the core values of the culture derive from consumption rather than the other way around.”[1] Think about that for a moment. If our core values are derived from consumption, rather than our consumption determined by our core values, then consumption for consumption’s sake becomes the guiding value of life. What ultimately counts is my own pleasure and gratification.

A second characteristic of Consumerism is that in it “freedom is equated with individual choice and private life.”[2] If freedom is equal to individual choice and private life, and if our individual choices are largely determined by our experience of pleasure and gratification through consumption, then freedom of choice is in principle unconstrained and for the sake of private pleasure. The implications of this are radical. All restraints on what can be consumed are removed. Activies, objects, and even relationships can all be reduced to mere commodities for the use of the individual consumer’s personal pleasure and gratification.

The third characteristic of Consumerism is that it is a culture in which “needs are unlimited and unsatiable.”[3] The success of consumerism and, we are made to believe, our economy, is premised on an unlimited consumer appetite. The benevolent advertising gods go to a great deal of trouble to make us aware every day of needs that we did not know we had. Need creation is big business. This is ironic, because “consumerism promises to satisfy our needs in an unprecedented way, but its continuance depends on that satisfaction never actually being achieved.”[4]

Consumerism as Religion
So, what do the above characteristics of our culture have to do with religion? Is it too much to say that consumerism has an underlying religious story (the march of progress, which produces “goods” (or bads) and technological advances by which humanity will eventually achieve peace, prosperity, and personal wellbeing), requires a faith (in unlimited economic growth which is necessary if needs are indeed unlimited and unsatiable), and has definite places of worship (the shopping mall, either physical or online)?[5] Sociologist Alan Storkey writes that “Consumption has now become the dominant faith… Consumption is collectivist-individualist, nationalist-internationalist, the healer, the entertainer, the lover, the spiritual, the feeder and the consolation. It is the chief rival to God in our culture.”[6]
Think of it from another angle. What does God promise us? Peace, joy, hope, a future, right relationships, belonging, and purpose are a few that come to mind. Through advertising Consumerism links these fundamentally spiritual effects with certain products. Storkey notes that “This (advertising) is a process whereby products are linked to the inscape of persons. Let us list a few of the inner [spiritual] appeals which are made, premised on buying certain goods: confidence, innocence, relaxation, love, security, power, naturalness, fun, status, comfort, peace, happy families, romantic love, friendship, excitement, freedom from stress, sex appeal, personal attraction, health, youth, happiness, serenity and many more aspects of a good life are tied to products and services.[7] And so it is that Consumerism offers an alternate way to the “goods” that God promises us if we follow Him. Is Consumerism not a religion?

Like any religion, Consumerism deeply impacts key areas of life. Next month in “Lost in the Supermarket, Part II” we will look at the way it shapes our ethics and experiences of birth, marriage, death, religion, and our relationship with our neighbor.
[1] Craig Bartholomew, “Christ and Consumerism: An Introduction” in Christ and Consumerism, ed. Craig Bartholomew and Thorsten Moritz, (Carlisle: Paternoster Press, 2000.), 6.
[2] Ibid., 8.
[3] Ibid., 9.
[4] Ibid., 9.
[5] Brian Walsh and Sylvia Keesmaat, Colossians Remixed: Subverting the Empire (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2004), 30.
[6] Alan Storkey, “Post-Modernism is Consumption” in Christ and Consumerism, 100.
[7] Ibid., 113.

Happy Birthday!!

2007-09-20T15:32:00.000-06:00

Today my little sister Val turns 28.

Let me tell you a bit about her: First, there ain't no one like her ever in the whole world. You know how you hear people say that God must think highly of each of us since he made each of us so unique? Well, that's more true of Val than most anybody else ;-0

She's also been a good friend for a long time - something pretty cool between brother and sister. We've walked some interesting roads together, light and high, deep and dark.

Val has a sense of humor like no one else - really. You never quite know what's going to come out of her mouth, nor from which direction it'll hit you. Her sense of humor is not different than others just in terms of quantity (she's not cracking jokes all the time), but in quality. I don't know how her mind works, that she comes up with the stuff she does. I'd give you an example, but you just have to know her.

Val, we miss and love you way out here in cowtown. Wish we could be with you this evening. Have a great 28th!!!

Love,

David (and Kendra and Stinker and Abigail)

Abigail Elise Salome Funk

2007-08-19T10:27:00.000-06:00

Born 13:01, August 16th.

6lbs, 11 ozs

20 inches

and so far, utterly angelic and easy to care for... unlike her older brother!!!!

Finally at home...

Mom and Dad, this is the 1 perfect rose i bought for her with the gift you gave us - thank you!

We wish we could show her off to you in person!

Love,

David, Kendra, Ethan, and Abigail

Happy Birthday...

2007-08-04T17:50:00.000-06:00

to Jen!! The most runningest, the most drawingest, artingest, globe-trotteringest sister a guy could have. And let me not fail to mention her diabolically dry sense of humor - like when she suggested to Paul (her hubby) that, in view of his sedentary lifestyle, he ought to consider donating his legs to the local Sally Ann's.

Jen, I miss you here on the other side of the world, and I'm very proud of you. It will be good to hang out together later this fall when you guys are out!

It's not that I'm lazy...

2007-08-04T16:37:00.000-06:00

I'm just worn out.
As a pastor, I don't work unreal hours. 45 hours/week is pretty standard for me. I'm fortunate that I have a church family that supports me in maintaining a sane schedule. So if I'm not working insane hours, why am I so worn out?

I think it has less to do with the hours worked than it has to do with what kind of "work" goes on in those hours. As a pastor, my work is almost entirely mental/intellectual and emotional/relational. I only have so and so much energy to give out of those areas. In a week like this, in which I'm very busy and will have put in around 60 hours by the end of Sunday, squeezing out those last drops of mental and emotional energy results in rapidly escalating stress and frustration.

This is compounded when those last drops of energy are supposed to be channelled into a sermon on praise (psalm 103), and when they first have to filter through layers of tiredness and frustration and wanting to be with my family instead of spending another day at the church building. Many of those last drops just aren't making it through the filter at all! Whence comes this post...

So, if you're reading this, please pray for me!

What I Wish I Were Doing

2007-08-01T15:17:00.001-06:00

is what my dad is doing as I write this. I miss the farm. I miss it for my sake, and I miss it for Ethan's, who has to grow up in the city, far away from the wide open spaces. If I were ever to write one of those disgustingly sentimental country songs, it would be about not being able to live on a farm!

Happy Anniversary!

2007-06-01T09:42:00.000-06:00

We've been married 5 years now. It's been quite a trip - grace shining through all the way.

On Steam, God, and Holiness

2007-06-01T09:38:00.000-06:00

You get up in the morning and heat up water for a drink. With the water bubbling and roiling you set the kettle on your table. The sun is shining, and its beams bathe the table, the kettle, and the tendrils of steam pouring up from its spout.

Look at this dance of steam! Listen, look closely, quietly. It billows and rushes out. It twines and curves sineously, the warp and woof of a magic fabric. And just when you think you’re beginning to understand the pattern, it vanishes, teasing.

What a playful thing! Why did God create it this way? Why pour such a proliferation of beauty and creativity and wonder into a phenomenon as inconsequential as steam? It is utterly extravagant, and utterly playful, as is God.

God is the most innocent being in the universe, and therefore the most playful. He is also the one who has seen the most evil, felt the most pain, and been wounded the worst. But through this He remains utterly innocent, like a young child, loving and playful.

The work of His Spirit in our lives imitates this. We who have His Spirit are most fortunate! The pain and evil in and around us do not have the final word. The word of the LORD, which goes forth and does not return without bearing fruit, is the final word in us. And we are formed into children of the Most High who remain playful, bright lights of innocence to so dark and jaded a world.

Praying,
David

Finished!

2007-05-27T22:21:00.000-06:00

The long week, done. It's about 10:15 and Ethan is sleeping. Time to sit down with Kendra and read my spy novel and relax... finally!
Goodnight!
David

Pragmatism, Torture, and the Way of God in the World

2007-05-24T16:59:00.000-06:00

Ah, what's better than a good conversation? This one started over at my friend Mike's blog. Check it out. What follows started as a comment on one of his posts, but sort of got out of control:

It's been fun reading Danny's comments (Hey Danny!) and Mike's today and yesterday.

Further musings, mostly following up on Danny’s question about “Whose pragmatism is the correct one?”: Is there such a thing as Pragmatism, or are there actually many pragmatisms? Isn't pragmatism a function of the particular worldview of a person? In other words, wouldn't pragmatism for a Guaranee Indian farmer be different than pragmatism for a mainland Chinese academic? In our case, when we speak of pragmatism, I think it mostly means "pragmatism as qualified by the western materialist worldview."

What is practical depends on the ultimate values a person or community holds. Eschatology again! What the World might call impractical (loving one's enemies, giving to those who will not repay you, etc.), the follower of Jesus calls practical because by doing these things we reflect to the world the character of God, thereby fulfilling our function as image bearers, and also store up for ourselves treasure in the only place it really counts. Those who practice the peculiar way of life Jesus calls us to do so, in other words, because they subscribe to the story Jesus told of the world; they accept his particular answers to the fundamental worldview questions of who we are, where we are, what's wrong, and what's the remedy. What is practical for us is not practical for the World.

So, Danny, without even touching on most of the questions you raised, I hope this is helpful!

Just one more thought on the question “Does the end justify the means?” Actually, not my thought – Eugene Peterson’s, from “Christ Plays.” After extended reflection on the role of the Herod dynasty throughout Luke-Acts, he writes the following:
“Is it not obvious by now that all through this narrative of the formation of the Jesus community the means used are unconventional, countercultural, and alien to any person who knows nothing of the resurrection? But once resurrection is introduced into the story, all the ways in which we work have to be rethought, re-imagined, and reworked. The world’s means can no longer be employed for kingdom ends.
After assimilating just what it is that God has done and is doing in creation and salvation, this is the most difficult and at the same time the most important thing to embrace in the Christian life: that we become willing participants not only in what God does, but in the way he does it.” (Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places, p 298)

So, means don't justify the ends, according to Peterson. Inappropriate means bring us to inappropriate ends. Is he right in this? Is there another perspective that should modify this one?

with much love,
David

Worship - Thoughts from a Sunday Morning

2007-05-13T15:52:00.000-06:00

Worship is sacrifice, not a product or a utility. Rodney Clapp writes “To say I go to church to be fed is like saying 'I go to church so I can act like a baby.'" We are here not to get something out of worship. We are here to give a sacrifice in worship.

Worship is an act of defiance – in worship we proclaim a countercultural way of life in which the poor and those who weep now and hunger now and are persecuted now will be the winners in the end.
Worship is our way of proclaiming our discontent with the way things are and pointing to the way that things will be when the King comes. N.T. Wright says that “Worship is about practising, in the present, the tunes we shall sing in God’s new world.”
Worship is a matter of life and death – for without true worship we are diminished, wither, and eventually die.

Shalom,

David

Sabbath

2007-05-08T08:42:00.000-06:00

Yesterday we Sabbathed. All those things we had to do, we didn't (except dishes ;-). We went to Fish Creek park for a picnic; I got muddy and scratched and happy cruising the trails on my bike, Kendra relaxed and read while I watched Ethan, and Ethan threw stones in the creek, ran after me while I biked around him, and generally put out as much energy and enthusiasm as his little body possibly could. Then we went home, slept, made a stir-fry, and watched a movie.

Sabbath is God's gift to us. And it is commanded, not commended as a good idea, because we all of us quickly forget that He is God, and we are not. It is He who has made us, and not we ourselves. Matitiahu Tsevat describes the meaning of Sabbath in this way: "Every seventh day the Israelite renounces his autonomy and affirms God's dominion over him." I desparately need to just CEASE at least once every 7 days, lest I by my actions deny that He is God, and I am not.
Shalom,
David

The Church is Irrelevant!

2007-05-05T11:55:00.000-06:00

At least, that is what many people say. The church used to be a valued, integrated part of the rest of society. Perhaps you remember those days - they were not so long ago. The church was a sort of chaplain or sponsor to the larger society which considered itself “Christian.” It derived its significance through association with the identity and purposes of the state and the rest of society.[1] This role of the church in society began when the Roman emperor Constantine proclaimed Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire. Until then, the church was a persecuted or barely tolerated minority, living as a distinct culture within Roman society. The church was different. Christians were a peculiar people, stubbornly sticking to a way of life not in sync with that of the empire.

All that changed when the Emperor Constantine came along, had a strange vision in A.D. 312, and proclaimed Rome “Christian.” The distinction between the church as a peculiar people and the Empire was erased, and the church was integrated with the state and the larger aims of the Empire. Constantine and the Roman emperors after him saw Christianity as the unifying force that might bind and discipline their otherwise diverse subjects.[2] Thus it remained, more or less, until the Reformation in the 1500’s.

Martin Luther challenged the established Roman Catholic church and initiated a new movement of Christians seeking to be faithful to Scripture instead of tradition. A natural result of this was that the church began to distinguish itself from the state, as a visible people who were not to be identified with the status quo. Would that it had remained so! In between 1522 and 1525 the Reformers decided in favor of not challenging the synthesis between church and state. John Howard Yoder notes that “the conviction that the center of the meaning of history is in the work of the Church, which had been central in the pre-Constantinian Church and remained half-alive in the Middle Ages, is now expressly rejected… What is called “Church” is an administrative branch of the State on the same level with the Army or Post Office.”[3] The church returned to being comfortably normal, a valued and integrated part of the larger society.

No longer. Today the church is irrelevant by the standards of the larger society. Society no longer has use for us as its chaplain, conscience, or sponsor. Rodney Clapp notes that “Western civilization has been so powerful economically, militarily, technologically and culturally that the church, in sponsoring it, has seemed close to the centre not merely of a few men’s and women’s lives but of history itself. Yet exactly at this point the irony intrudes. Just when the Western inventions of capitalism, democracy and modernity reign over or are aspired to throughout the world… just now the church is informed that its sponsorship is no longer needed or wanted.”[4]

Some respond to this change by reducing Christianity to a core of social action and/or therapy, while sentimentally hanging on to some Christian language and practice. This response, which Clapp calls sentimental capitulation, ultimately admits that “in this modern world the church has nothing distinctive to offer or to be.”[5] Others respond with a strategy of retrenchment, trying to gain political power or a reputation for relevance in order to return to the “good old days” when Canada was “Christian” and we as the church had a respected place!

Is the displacement of the Church in western society bad news? Many say so. But doesn’t the dis-integration of church and society afford us a chance to recover the vision of ourselves as a peculiar people, called to a different way of life and given a different citizenship than those around us? In their book Resident Aliens, William Willimon and Stanley Hauerwas say that now “we have an opportunity to discover what has and always is the case – that the church, as those called out by God, embodies a social alternative that the world cannot on its own terms know… We are at last free to be faithful in a way that makes being a Christian today an exciting adventure.”[6] Bad news? I don’t think so.
Any thoughts? Leave a comment!

[1] Rodney Clapp, A Peculiar People: The Church as Culture in a Post-Christian Society (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1996), 25.
[2] Clapp, 23.
[3] J.H. Yoder, “The Otherness of the Church” in The Royal Priesthood, ed. Michael G. Cartwright (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994), p 53-64, as quoted in Clapp, 28.
[4] Clapp, 17.
[5] Clapp, 19.
[6] Stanley Hauerwas, William H. Willimon, Resident Aliens: Life in the Christian Colony (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1989), 17-18, italics mine.

Oh My... what have we done??

2007-04-18T09:06:00.000-06:00

He's getting more and more to be like this...

But then sometimes he's like this...

Or like this...

And this is all gift. Grace, from start to finish.

Love,

David and Kendra and Ethan and ??

The Western Bible

2007-04-12T08:37:00.000-06:00

A friend sent me this tidbit:
"The Dutch Western Bible Foundation felt the Bible needed updating, according to the "Nederlands Dagblad" newspaper (July 22, 2006). Consequently, it has published an updated edition, in which all passages that refer to money, poverty or materialism have been cut out. Literally. With scissors. The reasoning: Westerners weren't paying attention to them anyway. A joke? Yes, but a serious one. "The Western Bible" is published by the Dutch Christian youth movement Time to Turn, which encourages members to choose sustainable faith-based lifestyles. Describing the members of time to Turn, the press release announcing the book's publication reads, "They do not believe in a new legalism or in a utopian state, but in a God who is willing to deliver the world from materialism and injustice. Conspicuous holes are all that remain in "The Western Bible" throughout sections of the Ten Commandments, the Proverbs and the Sermon on the Mount, when the original text urged followers to take actions concerning justice or affluence. The Bible is selling well."

You can read more about it here. Something like this makes me ask questions. Is God really "willing to deliver the world from materialism and injustice?" More to the point, perhaps, is Do we want to be delivered, or are we happy here in Egypt?! I know I'm pretty happy. And what exactly does a "sustainable faith-based lifestyle" look like? I'm going out on a limb here, but I'm pretty sure it would mean a life of less conspicuous consumption than we in North America are taught we deserve. Anybody want to join me and Kendra in achieving a lower standard of living?! And Yes, I'm serious!

Shalom,
David

The Strange Glory of Easter

2007-04-04T18:56:00.000-06:00

Jesus is the dictionary in which we look up the meaning of words. When we look up the glory in Jesus we find – are we ever ready for this? – obscurity, rejection and humiliation, incomprehension and misapprehension, a sacrificial life and an obedient death: the bright presence of God backlighting what the world despises and ignores.
-Eugene Peterson, Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places

Community Life as Mission

2007-03-20T10:50:00.000-06:00

Are we a "missionary church"? This Sunday in the sermon we took a brief look at what the first missionaries, Peter and Paul, said to their churches about missions. We found, surprisingly, that they said very little about what we traditionally recognize as "missions." They do not exhort them to send out missionaries. They do not talk about the call of God on their lives to become missionaries. They do not even urge them to evangelize their neighbors or "take their city for God."
What do they say? They (1) explain salvation in Christ, past and future, so that we will (2) love each other and (3) live holy lives. Every time, in every letter, that is what they feel burdened to communicate to their churches.
We concluded that in the thinking of the first missionaries, the core of missions and evangelism is a church where its members love each other and live holy lives. This call on our lives is not separate from missions outreach: it IS missions outreach. It is the life of the community gathered around Jesus (in this case, Abbeydale Christian Fellowship) that is the primary witness in outreach.

It follows, then, that the obedience of a church to Jesus' call on our lives to be engaged in his mission can be measured by how well we (1) love each other and (2) live holy lives. Is our obedience evident? I think we'd do well to ponder, pray about, and explore this question. Do YOU have any thoughts on this (without pointing any fingers;-)?? In what areas? In what areas is it lacking? How might we move from what we lack to a more radical following after Jesus in these things he calls us to?

standing in grace,
Pastor David
ps. i'm being very intentional about using the word "obedience" to describe how well we love each other and live holy lives; loving our brothers and sisters and living holy lives are not a matter of "feeling like it" or what fits our personal preferences. This is discipleship, not consumerism.

Spring on March 12th

2007-03-12T12:33:00.000-06:00

Last night I did homework until 2 in the morning (ughhh). As I worked the wind rose, bullying the pine trees on our front yard, the temperature didn't drop, and while we were sleeping spring came back and dug in for the long haul. This morning the tulips had already burst two inches through the soil! On March 12!! Ethan, who is now sleeping in his high chair next to me with his mouth still full of cracker, toddled around outside with me for a long time. I think he'll never be happy inside again ;-)

Shalom,

David and Kendra and Ethan and ??

Byte of the Day

2007-03-02T17:12:00.000-07:00

M. Assayas: "You put yourself closer to the tradition of gospel, of the preacher possessed. I mean, when rock 'n' roll first appeared, it had evolved from mad preachers."

Bono: "Isn't that interesting that U2 is, in one sense, in exactly the same spot as so many rock 'n' roll people, right back to Elvis? That thing of the gospel and the blues: one hand on the positive terminal, one hand on the minus terminal. And Elvis's dance was really electrocution."

-from the book "Bono: In Conversation with Michka Assayas"

CHARTING OUR COURSE: Being A Community Defined by Our Hope

2007-02-24T22:07:00.000-07:00

Who are we as a church? What does it matter that we exist? The church in North America has often answered the question by declaring what we are against. Churches are known for being against abortion, the homosexual lifestyle, atheism, against a certain view of women in leadership in the church, and the list goes on. But this only tells us who we are not. It results in a church that is inward focused, myopic, and not used to treating others with the lavish generosity we have experienced from God. This is not a good foundation on which to build our life together as God’s people! What is much more important and life-giving, and what we read much more of in the New Testament, is who we are. This article and the following two in the Insight are intended to lay the foundation for a healthy awareness of who we are as the church.

So who are we?! Why does it matter that we exist? There are many ways that we could begin answering those questions. Let’s start with this simple observation: Hope permeates the pages of Scripture. It was a radical hope that the early church was founded on, nourished by, and driven to action by.

Read through the New Testament. It is as if while these men were writing, they were sometimes given tantalizing glimpses of the Future coming to us; vivid, brief, and partial, but bright enough to light them on fire, and we burn too. They glimpsed what the prophets called “the Day of the LORD,” when Christ the King will return visibly in power and glory, and all people past and present will confess that He indeed is King (Acts 2:20, Phil 2:10, 1 Thess 5:10). Out of the corner of their eyes they saw the heavens and earth we know being made into a new heavens and a new earth in which God himself will dwell with us, and in which there will no longer be any mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things will have passed away (2 Pet 3:10-13, Rev 21:1). Death himself will die, a foe defeated by Christ (1 Cor 15:26). In that day we will be raised from the dead and given new bodies, full of glory, fitted for our new existence in the new heavens and the new earth. Paul, writing to the church in Corinth, glimpsed it and burned like a torch: “Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed - in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed!”[1] Even creation itself waits in eager expectation for that day (Rom 8:19)!

This future is not just a faint hope, a “pie in the sky” kind of dream wish. It remains sure regardless of the difficulties we experience in this life; we may experience trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword, but none of these can separate us from the love of God (Rom 8:35-39). Neither is it merely future. The redemptive blessings of Christ’s death for us and the presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives are foretastes of the Age to Come. We experience today the presence of the Future!

This hope was what defined the early church. It was the reason for their existence, their defining characteristic, the momentum behind their mission and their radical following of Christ. As with them, so may it be with us!

But is it? Let’s think about this… How does this make a difference? If an untouchable radical hope is at the center of our reason for existence, how does that impact your relationship with your wife? Your friend? Your co-worker? Your employees? What implications does our hope have for the place of mission in our church? In sum, how can we live in such a way that the people around us look at the way we live and think to themselves “Those people must be full of hope; I can’t explain the way they live in any other way.”? I would love to hear your questions, ideas, or stories; please feel free to leave comments!
[1] The idea of being raised from the dead is just as strange to us as it was to most people in the first century. It is natural and good to have questions about the historicity of Jesus’ resurrection and the feasibility of our own. For those who would like to pursue these questions, N.T. Wright’s The Resurrection of the Son of God is an exhaustive exploration of the meaning of the resurrection and of what really happened on Easter morning.

Charting Our Course

2007-01-27T20:04:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I think of our church family as journeying together in a hot air balloon. That would be fine, but we’re making our journey in the midst of a storm! There are all kinds of crosswinds that seek to push us off our path, there are obstacles below that would snag us and drag us down, perhaps there are other balloons that are hostile, or that try to convince us that things are sunnier and safer on a different flight path. There are a few problems with this metaphor, but more about that some other time...

Perhaps you find yourself often wondering Who are we? Where are we? Where are we going, and How do we get there? I ask these questions often. I find that I don’t experience hope, purpose, or a sense of significance if I don’t have some sense of how to answer these fundamental questions. We need to think about them, talk about them, explore them.
I hope that the articles in the Abbeydale Insight will help us do this during the next year. I (and possibly a few others) will be writing an article each month around these themes. The following is a preliminary outline of the articles to come in the next year or so:

Who Are We?
1. The Church as the Community of the Resurrection
2. The Church as a Peculiar People
3. The Church as First Family

Where Are We?
1. The Religion of the Consumer
2. The Challenge of Pluralism
3. A Culture of Spiritual Hunger

Where are We Going, and How do We Get There?
1. Shalom and the New Creation
2. Forming a Christian Imagination
3. In the Meantime: God’s Power in Our Weakness
4. In the Meantime: Faithfulness and the Way of the Cross
5. Fool’s Hope: The Resurrection of the Dead

I hope that the articles in this series will be starting points of conversation, not end points. In other words, I hope they get you thinking and talking instead of just offering easy answers that have a short shelf life! Besides, I’m lousy at answers. If what you read gets you thinking, feel free to join the conversation here by leaving comments, questions, critiques, etc.

Here's one question I'd love your perspective on: In what ways is the image of church as a hot-air balloon journeying through a storm NOT accurate?

Looking Forward,
Pastor David

Welcome!

2007-01-27T19:51:00.000-07:00

Here goes a mad dash into yet another realm of anonymity - the world of blogging. But this is a mad dash with some method to it. Namely (1) to provide a forum for conversation with my brothers and sisters at ACF on sermons, articles and whatever else comes up, (2) to keep in touch with family and friends back home in the prairies, and (3) to find yet another way of pointing out the trouble with normal.

So Welcome! I'm looking forward to the conversation.
Shalom,
David F.