Hey guys, “the open house” put on their first successful event, raising more than enough money for a new BBQ for urban promise. You can see the success here. Thanks to Danique for her rad brochure, to Leighton and his fine BBQ’n, and especially to Kristin who organized 17 Washington State students, and ran an amazing event!!!

Cheers,

pictures to come…

Hey everyone, the open house is practicing its faith tonight as many of you know by putting on the BBQ for a BBQ event tonight! We are trying to bless local community ministries, and tonight is the one we are doing for urban promise childrens ministries.

So this is just a reminder about the BBQ tonight for Urban Promise. Attached is the Flyer, but it’s TONIGHT at 6pm till 8pm, 5$ (or more if you want to bless the ministry) at 1949 east 11th Ave.

Please come and invite a friend.

you can also give online at http://urbanpromise.givemeaning.com

Last night our church went through Luke 6 and had a great time discussing the deeper meaning of the passage. When you first read it, it could appear to be about all “stuff” we should “do” as Christians, but with closer inspection the activity is only a sidebar to what is really asked of us. Luke is asking us to live a life of generosity! It is a lifestyle, not simply an activity or sacrifice. We tend in Christian life to set apart times of our day to participate in acts of service, when really what God desires is living obedience.

If someone takes unfair advantage of you, use the occasion to practice the servant life. No more tit-for-tat stuff. Live generously. (Luke 6:30)

This passage is only one of many that call us to not simple be a “doormat” as some have insisted, but actually active in service back to the people who may treat you like a doormat.

“Here is a simple rule of thumb for behavior: Ask yourself what you want people to do for you; then grab the initiative and do it for them! (Luke 6:31)

This also stems into what I was reading today in Jeremiah.

“The Message from GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies, Israel’s God: “Go ahead! Put your burnt offerings with all your other sacrificial offerings and make a good meal for yourselves. I sure don’t want them! When I delivered your ancestors out of Egypt, I never said anything to them about wanting burnt offerings and sacrifices as such. But I did say this, commanded this: “Obey me. Do what I say and I will be your God and you will be my people. Live the way I tell you. Do what I command so that your lives will go well.” (Jeremiah 7:21-23)

May that be our effort, our life each day…that we pursue a life of generosity and obedience to God in everything we do, rather than try and find all the right “activities” in order to justify our lack of wholistic obedience.

My point…Christian life, not Christian service.

Here is the pdf file for printing and passing on

Mike posted this that has made me think a lot about redeeming cultural principles, especially the one he mentions concerning that 70-90% of communication is non-verbal…

if that is true then how can we best communicate the gospel?

Thanks to Mike and Craig for pointing me to this:

TIM ALBONE
From Tuesday’s Globe and Mail

KABUL — The judge deciding whether an Afghan man should be executed for converting to Christianity does not understand what all the fuss is about.

“In this country, we have [a] perfect constitution. It is Islamic law and it is illegal to be a Christian and it should be punished,” Judge Alhaj Ansarullah Mawawy Zada said inan interview yesterday. “In your country, two women can marry. I think that is very strange.”

Please pray for Muslim-born Abdul Rahman who is on trial, and facing possible execution, in Kabul, Afghanistan for converting to Christianity 16 years ago.

Just got back from Cochrane/Calgary and had a great trip. I will try to post some pictures and thoughts really soon…i’m currently in meetings all day till thursday (good stuff, but yikes!).

OK I’m back into the funny video fix. Check this out.

Well one of the rad things about my job is that i get to do a little travelling and tomorrow Kristin and I are making our way east to Calgary/Cochrane for some tribal meetings concerning this great program our church gets to be a part of called Current. The meetings are always decent for connecting with old seminary friends, and catch up with what has been going on in good ol’ Cochrane. But what i am mostly looking forward to is catching up with my good buddy Matt. Matt is working, living and training for snowboarding in Calgary, but we go way back to our highschool days in Southern Ontario. Living in Vancouver has been awesome and a lot of fun, but it is always rad to connect with my boyz…im stoked!

Adam in his comment on my last post made a great point about the church being people and not an institution run by a business board of trustees or something along those lines. He suggested that maybe it’s not the message or method that have to change but the people of God have to start living like the people of God.

My question to that is, “Do they know how?” I mean if we rely on these institutions, whether they are books, tapes, blogs, tradition, clergy or the church services themselves to help us understand how to live the Christian life, and depend on the community of God for understanding of the bible then it may not be that easy. You see the gospel that I have seen preached in those differing institutions is one of crossing the line. Crossing the line from not saved, to being saved and then everything around that; such as evangelism is necessary before the line, and discipleship is seen as necessary after the line, but what if the line is not that clear? Could it be that we have left behind many essential aspects of Christianity such as what it means to live in community, amongst hurt, amongst uncertainty for the sake of keeping people happy with where they are at in their spiritual journey (i.e. knowing where they stand on the line).

This is where it connects with Jeremiah 8. The priests and prophets of the day were more concerned about maintaining a status quo, rather than risk offending the people who pay their salaries or the king who could…take off their head. Those were tough times for them, and their well being depended on it in most cases, but is that not that role of the prophet? The role of annoucing the coming trials, the truth, the situation at hand?

What am I getting at in all of this? The institutions are important to redeem, but it’s the people who are instrumental in them that need to adjust to the times (getting back to Adam’s point). The institutions (whether you are anti-institutional or not) are still the main Christian venues where many people still seek truth, but somewhere along the line the institution got comfortable with how things were going. The leaders had become maintainers, and as our culture changed they saw that as destruction to their sacred temple and suddenly their maintenance of that temple became harder.

Is our church doing anything different? Good question, am I? I’d like to think so, but I know for sure that if I (or others like me) don’t see and acknowledge the need to stand in the gap for my generation, within the institutions then we may miss an incredible redemption God might have in store for our world through the people who are involved in their decisions.