For those of you that read this site and aren’t sure what i do during the day, well i am a church planter, or rather a pastor in search of starting a church. My wife and I live in East Vancouver, in the commercial drive area and are working with our tribe and our friend Kristin.

Well after a few months of wrestling with and figuring out what our church will look like and express itself, we have made some headway with the launch of our website. Our church is called the open house, and we are hoping that this new site will be our “building” for the months to come, as we figure out what this church will look like.

So come on over, leave us a comment and save us in your browser!

cheers

Liberals await crucial non-confidence vote

CTV.ca News Staff

After just 17 months in power, the scandal-plagued minority Liberal government is widely expected to fall today in a crucial non-confidence vote, triggering Canada’s first winter election campaign in more than 25 years.

A united opposition will introduce the motion in Parliament this evening. If the Liberals lose the vote, Prime Minister Paul Martin will likely ask Governor General Michaelle Jean to dissolve Parliament on Tuesday for an election either January 16 or January 23.

I just sat down briefly to have some lunch before heading off to my next appointment and on the TV is this show called Vicki. Now this is not a harp on Canada, but do we honour everything minor? I mean this episode was on the Spirit Bear in BC, and how its slowly becoming extinct. This is a very important issue i am sure, and as a Christian i want to be holistic in my theology, which allows for the redemption of the environment, but i am noticing a trend in Canadian TV…we celebrate minor issues!

Perhaps this is because we are skeptical of anything sucessful, or big or powerful. I am not an expert in trends or demographics or Canadian thought patterns (although i am one, and my job states that i should become an expert in exegeting my community), but are we missing something here? Are we so caught up on being safe and supportive of minor issues that we avoid, miss, slam anything that is major?

Maybe we don’t, but i am beginning to question whether we celebrate the minor at the demise of the major?

We had another thursday night church/prayer time tonight and it’s getting fun. Each week we have new people join us and gives us a good chance to share about what we dream about and find out how we can serve the people who come. We are still figuring out what it means to be and do church in east vancouver, especially what happens at our house, but we are trying to be patient.

Tonight we had May join us along with her two kids, Trisha and Isaac. May is a youth worker with Young Life. May has been working with young life in the east vancouver area for a few years now and has a good understanding of the area and of the youth who live here. We hope to help her in the future with her ministry.

amercian pastor gets punched in the eye during a service in tulsa.

see it here.

Well anna and I are back from a couple days in Victoria for a few important reasons. It was good to visit family, but i think we are a little tired from it all.

I had a great meeting with Randy from The Place while on the island, and he gave me a few good books to read and he was an all around great encouragement. I also finished reading The Urban Christian which was a very practical book for me, and encouraged us in what we are doing.

so here’s to a strong finish to the week that never ends!

Here is a great interview done by 100 huntley street on Bruxy Cavey. Bruxy is the pastor of a rad church in Oakville that has many other sites throughout the GTA.

I really like a lot of what he said, but my favourite was when he mentioned how people want to know if all religions lead to God, Bruxy said, “No, none of them do! That’s why it’s so great to know Jesus, He is God coming to us!”

The interview is #7413.

Yesterday I had a great meeting with Tom from Grandview Calvary Baptist Church. Kristin and I visited Tom to talk about church planting in East Vancouver, specifically in the area of house church in commercial drive. Tom is responisble for starting a evening congregation at Grandview and had a vision for doing a sort of house church ministry on the drive.

Kristin and I didn’t come away from that meeting with an insane amount of information about how to reach commercial drive (which wasn’t the point); we came away incredibly encouraged. The willingness of churches in east vancouver to work together to bring about spiritual renewal and community development is awesome. Tom’s heart to see everyday people minister in their local neighbourhood was encouraging and it’s a dream for us, as we continue ministering ourselves in this community.

I have to say, the willingness of east vancouver christians to work together to contribute to the health of their community is a desirable trait that i hope our church exemplifies throughout our days.

i have to say this is quite clever…thanks becky.

Thanks Mike, this is priceless!