Stirrings

It's been a while since I've written here, mainly because I've been wrapped up in getting The Canopy's "30 Days in the Psalms" going. (If you're interested, you can check it out at http://canopypsalms.blogspot.com... there's an explaination in the first post and a way to sign up to be involved)

Anyway, I guess I'm feeling stirred up lately with a renewed yearning for much deeper release of the Holy Spirit, bringing the Presence of Jesus in our region. The problem is that I don't really have words to describe it, so bear with me.

I don't know how to say this without it sounding like a criticism, but when I look around the city, I see so little really deep manifestations of the Presence of Jesus. The problem with saying things like that is that it almost immediately causes people to feel guilty, as if they are inadequate or that the ministry they are connected with is somehow being slammed; they become defensive. And that is NOT my heart at all! Hear me: that's not a slam.

I just can't NOT say this anymore: There MUST be more. There IS more. When I look around the city, even in the big happenin', popular churches that people are flocking to, there's just nothing special going on! It's just a crowd. More programs and slicker video presentations and more choices to choose from, but very little Presence and very little power. I acknowledge that many good things are happening: people being saved, marriages being healed, people finding community.

It's just that I look and wonder if the good has become the enemy of the best. Are people so distracted by the slick and the good and choices that they've become content. Look around. Is there a moving of God anywhere in the capital region that the apostle Paul or Peter would even have a grid for?

In my mind the answer is clearly, undeniably NO. Somehow that doesn't depress me and make me want to throw up my hand in defeat. It moves me closer to desperation, where inside I groan and want to cry out to God in intercession. I want to jump up and say we are going to pray, we are going to worship, we are going to lay hold of the horns of the alter and we are not going to let go until there is a breakthrough!!

Nehemiah didn't hear about the condition of his city and throw up his hands and say it's hopeless. No, he tore his robes, and sought the Lord in fasting and prayer, and then sought the favor of the king to rebuild the walls of the city.

The walls are mostly down in our city.

Today I'm just going around with this groan in my stomach, saying 'O God, have mercy!'

Some will wonder what the point of it all is; what action steps are there.
To such people my answer will undoubtedly seem lack-luster:
I know of nothing else that can be 'done' except for the gathering together of God's people in worship and prayer. I know of no other 'solution' except the reality that we pursue in the House of Prayer. HoPE is not the solution, but the activity that happens there is. It can happen anywhere, but the people of God must come together in worship and prayer.

My own personal encouragement is that I know that the groaning I am feeling is the gift of God to me. Such groanings don't come from my own flesh. Such groanings are birthed by the Spirit.

So in the midst of the groaning, I am comforted by the realization that the very groaning are God's gracious hand on me.

Like men who dreamed...

In the mid 90’s, roughly around 1994-95 I began to spend most of my evening prayer times focusing on the words of the song ‘Let Your Glory Fall’ by David Ruis. I was part of the college and career group at McKernan Baptist Church, where Eric was the intern pastor and I was working closely with him. Myself and several friends had been praying for a number of years for God to move in our midst and between ‘94-‘96 we were seeing a small portion of what we had prayed for.

Let your glory fall in this room
Let it go from here to the the nations
Let your fragrance rest in this place
As we gather to seek you face.

Father of creation
The world has yet to see
The full release of your power
The church in victory

Let your Kingdom come
Let you will be done
Let us see on earth
The glory of your Son

Today I was listening to a cd where David Ruis did a remix of that song. As I paused what I was doing my mind returned to those early days and I remembered so many of those times in my room praying those words and ideas. I think of Psalm 126:1 where it says “we were like men who dreamed”.

Those dreams are still alive in me. As I listened to that song, my heart was stirred again and my eyes teared up. Those words continue to capture the essence of what I have longed for and prayed for over 15 years.

Really, since 1991, I have spent most of my time and energy trying to pursue the reality of that song, and trying to convince everybody around me to do the same.

In the last while it’s become easier for those dreams to drift a bit in my heart. The pressures and stresses of life are powerful distractions for all of us. Somehow today I recognized the Lord calling me back again toward the singular focus that is represented in David Ruis’ song.

Dashin' for Compassion

Yesterday I ran my second ever half marathon, at the 'Dashin' for Compassion' foot race. When I made plans to run the race, I had no idea that it fell on the Mother's Day weekend; it's only fitting that it would, given that it is set up to raise money for the Sorrentino's Compassion House, which exists to provide sanctuary and support for women with breast cancer, who live outside of the Edmonton area.

In June of 2001 my mother died of breast cancer, so I have obviously have special empathy for families who are suffering through the trials of the disease.

But back to the race: it was a beautiful day for a run; there were only about 160 people who ran the half marathon (which is 21 km for anyone who doesn't know) and the course was amazing with a lot of fabulouse houses in the Grandview, Lansdown and Riverbend communities.

I'm still new to this whole running thing, so of course I made a pretty significant gaff in my week of preparations. The final 7-10 days prior to a half marathon you are supposed to taper off your training in order to allow your body to fully recover and be a full strength on race day. You are also supposed to be familiar with the layout of the course so as to be fully prepared for what lies ahead. In my zeal I decided that I would ride my bike along the course on Thursday, 2 days before race day. (Yes, it's the bike that got stolen...see my previous post). Given that I had not riden a bike in nearly 10 months, this was NOT a good idea! Add to that the fact that I failed to eat prior to the bike ride, which caused me to seriously bonk, and you've got real problems.

Problems? Nahh... I convinced myself that I'd recover on Friday and be ready to go on Saturday. After all, how trashed could my legs be?

Well, I got about 9 km into the race, doing a fairly decent pace (for me) and then came the hills. Snow Valley to be exact. It was at that point that I dropped a gear. I just simply couldn't keep the pace up. No strength in my legs. Up to this point I had been running back and forth with a young woman in the race: she would move ahead of me and then I wold pull ahead of her and vice versa. (She was doing 10 & 1's, and I wasn't) This continued up until Snow Valley and at that point she left me in the dust. I spent the remainder of the race trying to recover that gear that I'd lost, but frankly it just never happened.

The struggle was that I was in better condition than I was for my first half marathon and knew that I had the potential to keep up the pace I had started out at. Frustrating! In the end, I finished the race slightly faster than my previous half marathon time, so I can't complain too much; I just learned the hard way how important the tapering process really is!

So the next big race will be the Kananaskis 100 miler, which is a 10 person relay team race, obviously in Kananaskis! It's in June on the Father's Day weekend, (which is also the weekend of the PGA's US Open...booo :(
Regardless, I'm looking forward to it. After that I'll be working towards the ING half marathon which is in August. That's my plan, at least for now.

Running appeals to me on many levels and I continue to enjoy the similarities between running and our spiritual journey with Jesus. More on that another time.... :)

Bike

"I want to ride my bicycle
I want to ride my bike
I want to ride my bicycle
I want to ride it where I like"
"Bicycle Race" by Queen

This morning I was taking the kids to school and as we got into the car I noticed that the gate on our fence that accesses the alley was open. I asked the kids if they had left it open, assuming that they had, but they insisted that they had not. When I returned to the house I went over to close the gate and investigate. What I discovered shocked me:

My bike had been stolen!

Yesterday I took my bike out for the first time this year. I had eaten very little prior to going, but didn't think much of it; that mistake, coupled with my overly ambitious distance resulted in my being extremely tired when I got home. In my weiry state I put the bike by the back door of the garage and went inside for a large bowl of cherry yogurt! Soon other activities crowded my brain and I forgot to put the bike in the garage.

So perhaps my stupidity is to blame. However, I still remain shocked that somebody in my neighborhood would open up my gate and walk across the yard to steal my bike! I guess I shouldn't be; after all, cars and bikes get stolen everyday in this city. But somehow it feels different when it happens to you.

I most certainly should have kept my bike more secured; it's a pretty old bike and not worth a ton of money... but it's MY FLIPPIN' BIKE!!!!

So bar the windows, lock the doors, put all your valuables in the car trunk, cause it's not safe out there!!!
(how's that for a depressing thought!) :)

It's not the end of the world, but I'm left, at least for the near future, feeling rather paranoid and somewhat unsafe in my neighborhood, wondering who's watching and lurking around in the shadows.

Part of me wishes I could get a really nice bike to use as bait, then wait to catch the guy and then beat the CRAP out of him.

Oh wait.... I forgot... I'm built like a stick and couldn't beat up scarecrow if I tried...

O well!
LOL :)

Are people insane?

Last Saturday night I went to a movie with my friend Al Seeman. We were one of the very few who were not seeing Spiderman 3. I actually am quite excited about seeing Spidy, but for some reason I just wasn't up to joining the mayhem. Al and I went to see Hot Fuzz, which while initially sounding like a cheap adult video, was indeed quite funny.
At any rate, the showing we saw was at 10:45, which normally would be too late for me to be going to a movie, but hey, you have to live a little, right? As you would expect, the majority of everybody on the planet was trying to see Spiderman 3, and the theatre pretty much had showings of the show every half hour.
Hot Fuzz finished at around 1 a.m. and as Al and I were talking outside of the theatre, suddenly one of the showing of Spiderman got out (hopefully the last one!). What floored me was the number of people who had kids with them, younger than MY kids (which are 4 and 7). I would NEVER let my kids see ANY of the Spiderman movies! It's just not age appropriate. Yet as we stood there, I must have seen nearly 2 dozen young children, from the ages of 7 down to about 2-3 years old!
I admit, I kind of freaked out at the theatre and ranted for a while to Al.
Have people lost their minds? Are they INSANE?

Now I know that we live in a super relaxed society, where we have very few standards of appropriateness, because everybody is supposed to be able to determine what is appropriate for themselves and their own children. But let's get real! Spiderman is simply NOT a children's movie! And it's wrong to take a young child to see it. Just plain wrong. But not only is it wrong to take a 4-5 year old to Spiderman 3 at ANY time of day, it is especially wrong to do it at 11:30 P.M.!!

I need to get this off my chest: These people are STUPID! You don't take a 4 year old to a movie at 11:30 at night.
One reason was immediately evident, as I watched all of these zombie like kids stumble out of the theatre, or being carried out, asleep on the shoulders of their parents.

Some may label me as a uptight, anal retentive, no fun parent. GO FOR IT!!

Parenting is serious business. We're talking about little lives that are in our hands and that we shape and mold.
I've always appreciated the old statement that we live in a society where you need a liscense to drive, but you can be a parent without any training at all!

I suppose what's worse to me is that a lot of the younger kids I saw, most likely didn't ask to go the movie. It was their parents who wanted to go to the movie, so they just took their kids with them. I can't prove that, but I'd bet money on it. Getting a baby sitter is hard and it's often expensive.

Reality check: when you're a parent, you don't get to do all the things you did before you had kids! People need to grow up and accept that. It's reality. To use a quote from Mark Driscoll, "It's a big boy's job!' ('boy' being used in the gender neutral sense :)
There are many times when I have to say no to various things I'd love to do, for the sake of my kids. Does it bum me out? Sure, but sometimes that the reality of being a parent!

So there's my rant for the day!

Psalm 13

Every once in a while, I get fixated on a particular passage of Scripture. Recently that has been Psalm 13.

1 How long, O LORD? Will you forget me for ever? How long will you hide your face from me?
2 How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and every day have sorrow in my heart? How long will my enemy triumph over me?
3 Look on me and answer, O LORD my God. Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep in death;
4 my enemy will say, “I have overcome him,” and my foes will rejoice when I fall.
5 But I trust in your unfailing love; my heart rejoices in your salvation.
6 I will sing to the LORD, for he has been good to me.

I think what I've been enjoying about this Psalm is that it's a lament, and basically in our modern culture we don't have any place for a lament. We pretty much live in a 'suck it up princess' culture, and frankly sometimes in the church, that culture is often reinforced. There is not much place for any real lament. Maybe for an hour or a day, but then we expect people to get on with life. Suck it up! Stop feeling sorry for yourself! If it persists, then you must need meds!

Now some will point out that at the end of the Psalm, David does seem to 'suck it up' and ends on a positive note.

My interpretation is that I don't believe that the emotions of v. 1-4 are suddenly gone for David, but that v. 5-6 reflect the truth that David knows in his mind, while at the same time, struggling with a different set of emotions (v. 1-4). The two exist at the same time.

Perhaps that comes out of my own experience. Many times I have emotions that are at odds with truth that I know in my mind. (both related and unrelated to God)

My main point right now is that I believe that we need to re-embrace the 'lament' as a legitimate form of expression. Most of the time that takes a verbal form, but sometimes we can write out our emotions and experiences in the written form of a lament.

As I identify with Psalm 13, I remember that King David wrote it, and I know that I'm in good company!

thoughts from Abbotsford

Recently Eric and I were in the Vancouver area for a conference. Since we were flying in and out of Abbotsford, we stopped in to visit with our good friend Brad Jersak. Brad is the pastor of FreshWind, a church that is unlike any I've ever been to. It was a real treat to attend FreshWind and visit with Brad.
One of aspects of FreshWind that will stand out to most visitors is the number of handicapped people in the community. What impacted me was the extent to which these residents were part of the community, just like anyone else.


On a personal level, this is significant to me because Pam's brother is severely autistic. He has to live in a special home, with round the clock home care. He cannot talk and is a strong, fully grown man, who has the mental development of a 2 year old. He's a good mannered guy, but he can be quite vocal and physically decisive when he wants something. Ever since I met Ian, I have found it a real challenge to interact with him. I simply don't really know how and often feel quite uncomfortable. While I have become more comfortable over the years, I still have a long way to go. I simply cannot imagine being one of the workers in Ian's group home and I have a deep and profound respect for them.

Being in FreshWind stirred up a lot of these feelings again. The lack of "uncomfortableness" among the regular attenders of FreshWind hit me like a brick. Of all the things that make their wonderful church unique, the love, respect and inclusion of the residents was what hit me most. I just don't know if I could do it. I guess the truth is that maybe I like 'my' church a little too sanitized; maybe 'my' church is still too much about 'me' and how 'I' like it.

These days we're talking about being a 'prophetic community' at The Canopy. I found FreshWind to be one of the most prophetic communities I've ever been to. Here's why: if 'the testimony of Jesus is the Spirit of prophecy', then a prophetic community needs to declare and display the character and person of Christ. Too often I've been more interested in the 'declare' than the 'display' part of the prophetic. The inclusion of the residents into their church community shouted prophetic truth at levels several decibels higher than any other verbal prophetic words; at least to my ears.

Just some initial thoughts. More to come