Canada vs. The U.S.

For five years I’ve waited and asked the administration for a church planting course at Tyndale Seminary. It still hasn’t happened. Church planting courses are in our academic calendar, but they haven’t been offered supposedly due to a lack of interest. This semester I decided to enroll as a visiting student to Heritage Seminary for their church planting foundations course way out in Cambridge.

A couple thoughts from my first class specifically regarding demographics between the U.S. and Canada. (Because so often many people try to plant ‘American’ churches in a Canadian context, when in fact many of our values are diverging).

- The state of California alone has more people than all of Canada

- Statistically the values of the most liberal states (New England area) are still more conservative than Canada’s most conservative province (Alberta)

- Where postmodernism is a philosophical system embraced in the U.S., it is intrinsic to who Canadians are - we are almost exclusively postmodern

- Canada has quickly surpassed the UK in secularism

- “In the U.S. it’s legal to bear arms, in Canada it’s legal to bear breasts”

- Some additional generalizations for the U.S. - Risk-taking, money is everything, winner takes all, higher standard of living, and aspiration

- As compared to in Canada - Risk-averse, money is suspect, income redistribution, best quality of life, and accommodation

Much of this and many more stats are found in Michael Adams’ books, Sex in the snow, and Fire & Ice.

For my American friends here’s one of our infamous Molson Beer “I am Canadian” commercials.

For my Canadian friends, who are oblivious to American politics for the most part, check out this awesome speech by Senator Barack Obama who’s in the running to be America’s first black president (though I’ve got my bets on Hillary).

What do you think?

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A garden that's bursting into life...

I dropped in on two other church planting network groups this past week. One was connected with Church Planting Canada out in Bowmanville (don’t ask me where that is).

Very cool, as all the guys here were in the messy midst of the early stages of church planting.

The other group was connected with the resonate, which they call greenhouses in downtown Toronto. Everyone there is in the dreaming and scheming phase of creating new forms of church. Very interesting.

I like the idea of a greenhouse

it makes me think of that overplayed Snow Patrol song, “Chasing Cars”. The one good verse that always sticks with me is where they sing “Show me that garden that’s bursting into life”

I see church planters as people who unleash cities that are bursting into life.

Update: If you haven’t heard it already, here’s an acoustic version of the song.

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Friday fix...

Some random links that might feed your online addictions…

You’ve probably seen the stats on the global village (ie. what the world would look like if it were shrunken down to a hundred people), here’s a flash video of it.

Quick tool for generating rss subscription buttons like I have on my sidebar.

ziki - helps manage your onine visibility. For the first 10,000 people they will sponsor your name on google, yahoo, and msn for free.

Moby writes about those insane Christians in his journal

Mac Tablet finally coming. If only I didn’t quit my job…

At least I can watch hundreds of tv shows online for free.

Or I can start a charity for myself on Network for Good.

Remind me again why I should plant a church?

DJchuang’s set up an excellent wiki for those interested in Asian American Church Plants.

Otherwise we could just sit around and watch other people create America’s Most Innovative Churches

and twiddle our thumbs waiting for Transformer’s the movie to come out.

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Great post on church planting…

The following is a great nugget from Pernell

To all you young ‘uns (and other assorted riff raff) who have ever thought about - or are thinking about - planting a church: Before you embark on your “rock-star-like” career, I think your perception of church planting may be a little clouded by the bull crap you see in the church, and on blogs, and at conferences.

Allow me to wipe that crap away: being a church planter will not make you cooler nor will it make you any more popular or more attractive to the opposite sex.

It will not make you any more spiritual and almost no one will respect you more for your courage, risk taking, or intrinsic motivation.

It will not make you braver or more disciplined.

It will not teach you to ‘take it like a man’ or ‘be a real woman’, it likely won’t help you to get on TV and it won’t allow you to buy nicer clothes, shoes, or hair gel either.

It won’t allow you to finally be part of the perfect church, or to shed institutional politics, nor will it guarantee that people will accept you for who you are - authentic community.

It will, however, expose every limitation you have and defeat you at almost every turn.

It will bite you on the butt whenever it gets the opportunity, it will choke you, break you, wind you, bruise you, cut you and batter you, emptying any sense of self-sufficiency along the way. It’ll wind you up like a clock until you feel like tearing your own face off and walking away in snivelling submission.

It’s probably the most fun you’ll ever have.

Or maybe it’s just me.

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Some personal highlights from Neil Cole's Organic Church

People are leaving the church to preserve their faith

Most warm blooded-living things grow to a point and then reproduce

Many a church continues long after the soul of the church has departed because the building itself keeps them going. A building can become an artificial life support system that keeps a church alive even though it died long ago.

In many of the churches in the West, ministry is done for Jesus, but not by Jesus.

Only 4 percent of churches in America will plant a daughter church.

See Tony's blog for a much more in-depth review and additional quotes.

Overall, the book helped me think through what the church really is and re-align myself to the Christ who builds his church.

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