A while back Joe and Jeremy who were the main producers on this documentary (at least when they were in BC), came and visited us at the open house in Vancouver, BC. They spent some time interviewing Kristin and I who started this church, and low and behold we made it into the documentary. I literally have 15 seconds of fame at the very beginning so don’t blink, but Cato had a good chunk of time later on and has a a web short included as well on the website.

At the end of the day I love what they did. The video was well done for the limited resources they have and I was able to hear more about the other churches in Canada who were attempting to do something fresh and new in cooperation with God concerning the church.

Thanks to Jordon who reminded me to post on this and let me recommend that you get a copy and watch it with your community. It’s very helpful for those of you looking for some insight on the movement of the church in Canada.

A list of showings in Ontario are here.

With less than a week till our little one’s birth date I have tried to put some things in place so that I can really enjoy the new life God has blessed us with.

It is well known that as Canadians we have to work a lot harder (or more) than our friends to the south since we pay a little more in tax and we pay a little more for pretty much everything just to get to a certain comfort zone (perhaps if we weren’t 10x smaller that wouldn’t be the case, good old supply and demand)… I am already sensing the irony in that statement. Anyway, it is my hope to be in a certain head-space and workspace that allows me to be free to enjoy this moment, and not feel the need to work more just to be happy or comfortable. There is something powerful in comfort versus being comfortable.

In order to do that I believe I need to wind down now before the moment happens. So for the past month I have begun to incorporate more comforts in my life in order to be in the best frame of mind. With a full time job and being a church planter it seems that my time can quickly disappear in a week, and my family could feel the brunt of that. It has been fine for now as Anna and I have a great relationship, but if I don’t address the future I could quickly lose it.

So here are my top 5 comforts I am introducing into my life in order to prepare for baby #1:

1. Playing hockey once a week.

Anyone who knows me well, knows that this has been a passion of mine since I was 4 years old and sometimes I am shocked by how long I actually go before I play a game. Recently a friend brought me out to be a ringer on his team and I haven’t missed a game yet, and I haven’t felt more alive. 4 goals in 5 games helps too

2. Listen to more music that inspires me

This is the weird one. I was a huge punk and ska fan in highschool, but quietly I listened to a lot of alternative early 90′s music and it is these songs of late that have really comforted me. Here is my most recent playlist.

3. I have totally stopped drinking alcohol of any kind.

It has been about 4 months now and I feel terrific. I have created space for myself in this commitment that has brought about a certain peace. There are a number of reasons for this decision and I don’t want to get into them here, but I will say that living (growing up) in a culture that loves its alcohol I have really enjoyed being somewhat counter cultural through this experience.

4. I have tried really hard to become more flexible.

I am very good at time management. And some might say that I am too good and my relationships sometimes are affected by my efficiency. I tend to get ruffled when I don’t complete my goal for the day/hour/week whatever. But I have tried to let this go and be a little more open for spontaneous activity. It has resulted in some great conversations and experiences of life that by sticking to my ridged plan I would have not had. I believe it was Leonard Sweet that said, “I’d rather be prepared than planned.” So I am preparing my life for whatever comes my way.

5. I am taking steps to remove undue stress I put on myself concerning the open house. Taking steps to freedom.

For the next 2 months I am not teaching at toh. I realized (thanks to my lovely wife) that I am burnt out in this area. I am a dry well, and haven’t had a lot to give for some time now and am excited about the time for refreshing. Time to read freely (my good friend Richard Rohr will be hanging with me), spend time with my wife, chill and hang with others, and maybe even slip in an extra nap, which with my intense productivity cycles could be very helpful for me.

So there you have it. I know that when the baby arrives my life will turn upside down, but these are just a few things that I can consistently pursue and help myself towards a sense of freedom in my life and understanding of myself and hopefully (and ultimately) an increased awareness of God’s work in my life.

Anyone else trying to implement some practices into their life?

P1040647

Originally uploaded by urbanplanter

I love this picture.

With less than 3 weeks until our little Pork’n Beans arrives, you can tell in the background that we are amongst renovations, and thus chaos.

Chaos I think is good for the soul, because without it we would think everything on our lives was fine .

I don’t do very well with chaos as I am a linear thinking, over planning administrator. But chaos is good for my soul because in reality my life is not linear or organized and I need to be reminded of this.

These reminders bring a sense of understanding to my world around me. Without chaos I may actually think this world revolves around me.

I am 30 years old. Yes this is not new, in fact I am getting close to 31. And I am about to be a dad. (3 weeks from now). AND its 2009, ridiculous.

So my point is there is a lot of change going on in my life and in light of a post my friend James wrote a while back about determining the direction of his blog, I am beginning to ask myself the same question.

Is there anything you have appreciated about this blog?

Is there any specific topic that you would like me to cover more?

The truth is, I am not going to stop writing, as it is a great restful activity for me, but in light of these changes in my life and my desire to be more streamlined, I wanted to work through perhaps a new direction for this blog.

I was inspired reading jen lemen‘s blog today. Not necessarily because I connect with her writing, but I connect with her passion for stories, her commitment to her writing and her consistency in her stories.

Perhaps this blog will be nothing more than a venting, random space for me, but maybe with a little inspiration it will be give me and perhaps someone some life… I think that’s my hope for this blog… life.

In light of this new year and the constant re-evaluation I find my self doing over and over, I thought I would consider some of my bad habits (because it seems that most resolutions come out of wanting to change bad habits), and how they have been developed by church planting. The truth is church planting can be one of the most rewarding and painful experiences you can have, and which end of the spectrum you end up on can depend on your wiring and how you make use of the time.

I am currently in the middle of year four, and have spent the last year working 4 days a week, while church planting officially for 2 days, with one day to make up the difference (I call that a Sabbath). This has allowed me to re-evaluate how i spent my time in the first 2 years as a full time church planter and the last year as a part time planter. These are by no means to be negatives, but observations and if you are a planter I would love to hear (or challenge you to write on your own blog) your top 5 bad habits as well.

So without further adieu here are the top 5 bad habits I have gained (or realized about myself) due to my life as a church planter.

5. a mis-understanding of time.

As a full-time planter I had all the time in the world. But I don’t think I embraced that time as a gift and instead I made time irrelevant. I ended up having too much free time and essentially I acted as if time didn’t exist. I now look back and realize how blessed I was when some sort of organized scheduled activity was instituted to me by my denomination, and how much freedom I had in the structure. A lot of people would say that I am a disciplined person who is great at time management, and to some degree that is true, but without a good structure in place as a church planter you can ignore its significance and become extremely lazy without even knowing it. And it is my sentiment that there are a lot of lazy church planters out there, who complain about being tired, having too much to do and have no idea of the concept of time.

4. i’m not as good at multi-tasking as i may have thought.

This of course could relate to #5 as my now tight schedule has made me realize that i can’t do all that i did when i was full time. But the truth is i either have to be working, or be pastoring and if i try to do both at the same time i do neither very well. Switching from pastoring to working is not a simple switch. It’s like moving from one side of the brain to the other (in the case of my work as a risk management consultant). The bi-vocational life (in its purest form) is dependent on a true multi-tasking brain. I now realize how important it is to help those in my community make the transition. It is my hope that all of life could be more holistic and less about changing over, but the truth is that there is a transition from working life to the spiritual life in terms of activity.

3. Accountability (mentorship) is necessary.

I was given incredible freedom as a full-time planter and believe that it was the freedom that led to some really exciting personal discoveries and church planting discoveries, but now as a bi-vocational pastor i realize that with a little more guidance and accountability I could have accomplished so much more. I am starting to think that #5 spurs on all the rest of these habits, but the truth is I don’t think being officially accountable only to yourself (even if you are relatively healthy in your activity) will allow you to grow or be all that you can. A good mentor (weekly) with a goal tracking or action taking system in place would have been amazing. I had mentors that checked in regularly, but it was more loose and because we were trying some new things I am not sure if they knew exactly how to lead me. I don’t blame them, but i think i am in a much better position now to know what i need. To go further (as per #1) I wish that I had a mentor that was a teammate.

2. I am lacking spiritual disciplines.

When you have all day to pray, read your bible, write and visit, counsel, prepare messages, dream about mission and a vision for the future you don’t realize how hard it is to turn that on when your time is not open/ free. I realize more and more that it takes me an hour just to get into the frame of mind to practice any discipline and that is 1 hour I just don’t have any more. I realize more and more that what I hope for my own community (who work just as much, if not more than me) is not as easy as it may seem. I now struggle to practice the disciplines that before was a way of life, most likely because I wasn’t living a realistic way of life. I wish I was more structured in my spiritual disciplines.

1. I was lonely and became a loner in the process.

This is something that I am being very transparent about, but now that I work more and pastor less (time wise), I have never really learned how to rest in friendship. Most of my time was either spent alone, or with people that i was getting to know, or working through church stuff with and I wondered why I would end up retreating by myself and more and more as the time went on. I didn’t think I was an introverted person, but by spending enough time alone or in work/ hanging out circumstances I became introverted and now find myself struggling to find true friendship, and making less and less an effort to do so (especially when you live in a city where the average person leaves after 2 years). I used to find rest in my buds back in Ontario, but since moving to BC I haven’t found that (moments for sure, and even some recent prospects), and I am recommending to all present and future church planters that if you move to a new city to start a church, try and find some good friends or bring some with you. Friends that aren’t necessarily part of your church, and friends that will be a good listening board and will keep you from becoming a loner, which seems to be the path of the church planter from my experience. No wonder we (church planters) tend to start churches over and over and never stay in the same place.

Well there they are. If you do decide to write your own list of bad habits, please let me know and I would love to hear your stories in the comments as well.

I don’t have any deep thoughts this morning (errr afternoon). So I am going to fight the urge to determine my resolutions on the first day of the year and take some time to really consider what areas I actually want to work at or improve or change or whatever.

The one resolution that I will continue to go for (as I didn’t complete it this past year due to a number of reasons) is to finish reading the 48 books I planned to read last year.

That means I have 25 more books to read this year. Doable I think. I’d also like to re-read some of those last 23 and include them in the list.

Do you find making resolutions helpful? Do you see the beginning of the new year as a re-start for your life?

All I know is that all of my resolutions may go out the window once pork’n beans arrives at the end of the month.