Books Worth Reading

Just finished James Chatto's fine novel The Greek For Love.  I'm a big fan of Greek food, bouzouki music, and any story that involves refurbishing ancient houses into liveable space once again.  This novel starts out as pure escapism with a hefty dose of mouth-watering descriptions of food, but moves ever so surreptitiously into something far more moving and at one point downright heartrending. 

Enjoy the read, but be ready with a hanky!

For all her debt woes, Greece is still a place Carina and I dream of visiting one day!  Reading this novel was a good tide-me-over until then.

Check it out!





Music That Moves Me

I love listening to movie soundtracks, and often play them in the background at work or on my iPhone when I'm out walking.  A few years ago I picked up the soundtrack of The Passion to use a couple of clips for pre-service background music, but only recently have I taken the time to listen through the entire album. One melancholy March morning a few weeks ago, but I found myself deeply stirred by John Debney's stunning score as I was out for a walk.

I saw The Passion once, when it was out in the theatres.  It isn't a movie for everyone, and close family and friends of mine have sworn never to watch it, and that's understandable.  It's the kind of movie I'm not really keen to watch again and again, and much like Schindler's List or Hotel Rwanda, is an experience best reflected on in your own heart and mind for weeks and even years to come.  I may someday decide to watch it again, likely as a devotional exercise, and I have some friends who do that every Easter.

So as I listen to the music, the memories I have of different scenes or moments in the film play in my head once again.  The music is both muscular and ethereal, blending eastern rhythm and tonality with western orchestration and a mix of synthesizer to add dramatic effect.  As I walked along I found myself drawn to many moments that are part of Jesus' suffering, crucifixion, death, burial and resurrection.  The power of music to move us in our emotions!

The Passion soundtrack has jumped to #1 on my playlist, and will likely stay there for some time.  Check it out!  Along that line, anyone have a favorite soundtrack you often listen to?

40 Days to go . . . . .

The countdown to my sabbatical continues - t-minus 40 days and counting!

There is something profound and significant about the number 40 for many obvious reasons, and  I am looking at this next stretch as a time of preparation, wrap-up, advance planning, and detail-minding.

We are seeing doors open all along the way for our family trip to Quito in the summer - it is exciting to be taking steps of faith in that direction and seeing how God is preparing the way ahead of us.

My prayer is that the time away will be restful, inspiring, productive in new ways, and also a time of building memories together as a family and experiencing God in a powerful way through it all.

With passports to renew, immunizations, flights to book, arrangements for our house, plus raising support and financing, along with other plans and activities for the rest of the time, things are busy. 
So much work involved to have a rest :~)

GEORGE MUELLER - A Man of Extraordinary Faith

George Mueller

One of the many saints who continue to inspire and motivate me in my
walk of faith is George Mueller.  You can read more about him on Wikipedia, or just google him for tons more articles -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_M%C3%BCller

Mueller founded one of the first major orphanages in England in the 1800's.  He dedicated his entire life to providing a safe place for the burgeoning population of 'street urchins', boys and girls who had no one to care for them and were left to fend for themselves in the mean and dirty streets of Bristol.  This work grew exponentially over his 90+ years.


Mueller is most famous for his faith in God's power to provide on a daily basis all that the children needed for food, clothing, housing and education.  He made it a point to not solicit financial aid from any government, institution or benefactor, but to commit himself to daily and hourly prayer, asking God to provide all that was needed. 

It seems to have been a regular part of his life to be faced with no food in the pantry to feed the kids breakfast the next morning.  His response was to simply go to prayer and to ask God to do another miracle.  In all the many years of his life, without fail, someone would show up at the door, even as the kids sat down to empty plates on the tables and said Grace, with food or a donation of money.

This kind of faith moves me.  I have never once in my life lacked food or clothing or shelter.  My life is abundantly blessed.  To have to depend on God to miraculously provide for the basics of life is so far not a part of my experience.  Nonetheless, something in me wants to have that same kind of faith, and to experience that same kind of closeness to the Lord that He is supplying my needs in the moment, moment-by-moment, as I engage in doing the things that He wants done.

I am convinced that when we are doing what God wants done, He will move heaven and earth to make the way for us and to take care of us and all of those that we are reaching out to help in Jesus' Name.

What do YOU think?

Counting down the days . . . . . . .

Well, hello there!  I am setting up this blog to be the record of my upcoming sabbatical.  What is a sabbatical, you ask?  It is based on the Biblical practice of sabbath, or taking a rest on the seventh day of the week.  Not only is a weekly rest a good and important practice, but I am also blessed to be able to take a 7th-year sabbath rest as well.  The Elders of the church I've served in since 2004, www.creeksidechurch.ca have graciously offered this to me, and over the past many months Carina and I have been praying and pondering about what we should do with this time.  In the coming weeks and months I hope to be able to use this blog as the diary of my sabbath break, the period from May 7 through August 5.

I have some plans taking shape for how I will personally use the time, and we as a family have a VERY exciting dream to spend a month down in Quito, Ecuador in July.

I've been instructed that a sabbatical should be 'qualitatively and quantitatively different from your usual routine', and I've been urged to make sure it is a time of rest and recharging for the next seven-year stretch.  I am praying that this time will be a blessing and will have great impact in my life and in our family's life together.

Soon we'll start counting down the days!  Meantime we have Easter to get through, and a whole lot else besides . . . . . hope you will track with us in this journey!

www.creeksidechurch.ca

What IS poverty and do I REALLY care?

I'm reading a thought-provoking book called When Helping Hurts by Corbett & Fikkert.  Because we have a sister-church relationship with our friends in Carmen Bajo, Quito, Ecuador, I have been increasingly involved in the work of developing and maintaining a strong, healthy and HELPFUL partnership between Creekside and Iglesia Carmen Bajo.

http://www.whenhelpinghurts.org/

Reading this book has me asking some probing questions -
- What really motivates me to want to help the poor?
- How do I, how do we as a church suffer from a 'god-complex' that keeps the people we are trying to help shame-bound and un-free?
- What IS poverty?  How do we define it?

I love that this book roots everything in biblical theology, showing us that all of us are poor in one way or another, and all of us need Christ's reconciling work on the cross to be our good news and that which sets us free.  To quote the book:

"Poverty is rooted in broken relationships, so the solution to poverty is rooted in the power of Jesus' death and resurrection to put all things into right relationship again. (ref. Col. 1:19-20)
Of course, the full reconciliation of all things will not hapen until the final coming of the kingdom, when there will be a new heaven and a new earth.  Only then will every tear be wiped from our eyes (Rev. 21:4).  There is a real mystery concerning how much progress we can expect to see before Jesus comes again, and good people can disagree.  Fortunately, what we are to do every day does not hinge on resolving this issue, for the task at hand is quite clear." (bolded text mine)

The task at hand seems to me to be to engage everything I have and am to partner with others to help bring help that truly HELPS.  To walk humbly with our brothers and sisters, always recognizing that we are as poor as they, just in different ways, and that together we have things to do to help each other through this journey toward God.   It will never be as simple as just getting our resources and wealth over there to help them, although that is part of it.  It's about COMMUNITY, COMMITMENT and a firm resolve to stick with it through thick and thin.

More thoughts to come from this great book . . . . .

What is REVIVAL and do I really care?

http://www.onecry.com/

The word 'revival' is a word we don't seem to hear as much about anymore.  At least not in the circles I move in.  If I'm honest, I actually have more negative baggage around revivals from certain experiences in my youth, although I also confess the word also deeply stirs me to hunger for something more, something powerful, something . . . spectacular. 

I have always read accounts of revivals in the 17- and 1800's with great interest.  Men like Wesley, Whitefield, Finney and then the story of the Welsh Revival and Evan Roberts, my recent reading of the autobiography of Rodney 'Gypsy' Smith, and then of course in the last century the ministries of Billy Graham and John Wimber.  Ladies, please understand my naming of all men is not to ignore the role and place of women in these revivals as well - often it has been the prayers of the sisters that have fueled true revivals, something I confess I need to learn more about.

One thing I know, revival is MESSY.  It is an interruption into the normal flow of life that can tend to polarize people.  While great good and redemption and healing takes place, there are often also conflicts and confusion and even splits.  Where the Holy Spirit is at work, the enemy will also be active.

My interest in and also reservations about revival have been piqued lately as we have sensed a growing burden to pray for revival here at Creekside Church where I serve.  There is a growing number of people who are beginning to pray earnestly that God will do a reviving, renewing work in us and will then use us to do the same in many others.

Recently I signed the declaration that commits me to pray for revival first in my own life and then for the church in North America that is central to the OneCry campaign (see the link above).  This is a website that calls us all to cry out to God for revival.

And revival always begins with me,  So I am drawing a circle around me and asking God to start there.

Who knows but that we may yet experience a messy revolution in the church in North America yet again?  God knows we need it.