I didn't know we could do that...

"I didn't know we could do that..." That's what I'm hearing as I bring up church planting to people.

When I've asked fellow students in my seminary what they plan on doing with their lives and dreams, there seems to be this linear answer of 'well, i'm going to be a youth pastor, then an associate pastor, and then if things work out, i'd like to be a senior pastor one day'. It sounds like a great plan, and nothing wrong with that, but could there be more?

I went to Canada's National Church planting congress last year and was the only person from my seminary there (the largest in Canada). I attended a breakout session and what I heard from leaders at all levels repeated asking was - where are all the young, catalytic, entrepreneurial, leaders of the next generation?

I'm convinced that the structures and processes that have been built for raising leaders by previous generations are only producing people who think within those systems (And I'm sure this applies to more than just the realm of 'spiritual' leadership). Many of these frameworks are shrinking our hearts, leaving little room for the extraordinary possibilities that we are all capable of and must bring about.

I've decided that as I make my transition from work back to full-time school this september, I'll be launching a new Church Planting & Kingdom Advancing Network on campus. More on this soon. Thoughts?

http://onelife.voxtropolis.com for the latest entries / comments.

I'm pregnant...

Well, i'm not, but my wife sure is pregnant. At first we were hesitant on telling anyone, since all the books and friends seemed to advise to wait at least three months. But we thought about it some more, and felt that keeping it to ourselves would have been more motivated by fear, and all the "what if's", rather than faith, hope, and love.

If anything did happen we'd want our community's prayers and support throughout the process. I can not explain how excited I am!

Here's our little one at 5cm's (The black is liquid, the round circle on the right is his/her big head, and the body's laying across to left). The process of life is so freaking phenomenal.

http://onelife.voxtropolis.com for the latest entries / comments.

God is not impressed...

I was running outside the other day and just soaking up the beauty and creation around me (See my recent post on our 'God soaked world' on the bookclub vox). I came across this incredibly stunning bird and quickly took this picture! Actually, not really, but I sure wish I did. This one was grabbed off of flickr at this dude's site.

My bird was just perched by the side of the road doing a whole lot of nothing. The first thing that came to my mind, besides all its sleek and bright colors, was how that bird better be doing something more than just sitting there and looking pretty. I found myself hoping it knew just how distinct and attractive it was, and how it ought to be doing something spectactular amongst its fellow birds.

Then God spoke into my heart and reminded me that while He loves and embraces me as I am, He is not impressed by my 'colors'. My natural gifts and talents don't blow Him away. After all, He is the One who placed them in me in the first place.

However, what is astounding and marvelous, is when we use, however much or little we have, for the purposes of expanding good, inspiring others, and ultimately serving humanity and honoring God. That's what God applauses, and that's what I'm starting to become more and more impressed by when I look at those around me.

My wife...

She has the most incredible smile.
She makes me melt inside.
She fills her prayers with my name.
She's a creative force, reflecting beauty she can't explain.

She's tasted life she can't get enough of.
She's experienced things she can't help but share.
She's unable to separate what she does and what she believes.
She presses in to bring out the person I was created to be.

She can squeal and squirm at the slightest of discomfort.
She can do battle with darkness and not even flinch.
She can be fragile and broken and easily hurt.
She can make beauty from ashes and life from dirt.

She loves to run, run away, run free, run back to me.
She loves to laugh, at herself, at me, at the simplest things.
She makes me smile and laugh like no one else does.
She warms my soul and makes me more than whole.

She's secretly shy, summoning strength each day to give herself others.
She defends me and celebrates me when I'm not looking.
She takes on my struggles as if they were her own.
She takes on my passions as if they were her own.

and what I can't get over, is that, she gives herself to me, as if she were always mine.

Update: I think there's a chance she might even start occasionally blogging, check out her crazy pic and vox here.

Life...

... has been absolutely wonderful.

I've been reading again, growing, connecting with people, reflecting, imagining, dreaming and scheming, experimenting, sharing, and enjoying every moment.

I just started messing around with this gmail skin as a firefox extension that allows you to integrate google portal stuff like calendar, flickr, news, etc.

Up next, a post on my incredibly marvelous wife, yvz.

The world is flat and invisible children...

I just finished my last paper for the term, and it looks like there's no appropriate classes I can take in the summer, so I've got a couple months of living and working like a normal person.

I've gotten back on reading. Currently going through "The divine conspiracy", "The secret message Jesus", and I just picked up 'The world is flat" from the library.

A couple early quotes from it.

"Those who get caught in the past and resist change will be forced deeper into commoditization. Those who create value through leadership, relationships and creativity will transform the industry, as well as strengthen relationships with their existing clients."

In a conversation with a leader of an outsourcing firm in India: "We are in the middle of a big technological change, and when you live in a society that is at the cutting edge of that change [like America], it is hard to predict. It's easy to predict for someone living in India. In ten years we are going to be doing a lot of the stuff that is being done in America today. We can predict our future. But we are behind you. You are defining the future."

A lot of this sounds like the usual globalization talk, and sometimes I think there is a perception that this is how things will always be. That developed nations, like America, will constantly lead and innovate while 'helping' other nations through outsourcing while they race ahead. What I believe, and hope Friedman gets to in the book, is that this won't always be the case. If it's true that every soul longs to create, express, dream, and innovate, then in a 'flattening' world, there could come a time, i hope, where every nation leads and innovates, and no person is reduced to a commodity. Sadly, I think the thought of this frightens some people, corporations, and countries.

Speaking of corporations, I know I'm late on this, but I finally watched "The corporation" with Yvonne last night. It really is a must-watch.

Right this moment, we're raping the earth, and one another, and we barely feel a thing.

We also watched "Invisible Children". I'm completely distrubed by it. Though I am amazed at the type of resiliance and hope these children have with the conditions they live in... especially when I compare them to the punk kids I've come across.

Something in these kids, that I'd like to believe is the image of God in every human being, allows them to still experience glimpses of joy while longing for better days. For them, not being murdered, raped, or abducted is cause of celebration. What does it take to make you celebrate?

Caleb...

Our small group just had it's first baby. Chris & Sharon just gave birth to Caleb. what a great name...

Caleb was one of the spies who explored the Promise Land, but because the Israelites didn't listen to his advice, they ended up wandering aimlessly for fourty years inthe desert. In Joshua 14, Caleb is an octogenarian. He says, "Here I am today, eight-five years old! I am still as strong today as the day Moses sent me out: I'm just as vigorous to go out to battle now as I was then." And then you can hear forty-five years of pent-up conviction in his voice. "Now give me this hill country that the Lord promised me that day." Caleb doesn't want Joshua to simply settle on a piece of property and retire. He's still passionate anand willing to fight even in his old age. He wants the hill country - the land of giants.

Here's a picture of the family. Below it seems like a favorite on my flickr site, of Sharon comparing her belly with my dad's.

From the tomb...

On the front page of the Toronto Star newspaper today was an essay by James Loney. He was abducted in Iraq by Islamic militants and held hostage for three months and shares his life-altering experience. Full article here.

I felt the below excerpt was deeply profound:

I am learning many things from my captivity, and have a universe of things to be grateful for. Among them is a new and deep appreciation for the women and men who wear the uniform of military service. I likely would not be writing this today if it were not for them. Thus, I am confronted with a great paradox. I, the Christian pacifist peacemaker, am alive, am free because of the very institutions I believe are contrary to Christian teaching.

Christ teaches us to love our enemies, do good to those who harm us, pray for those who persecute us. He calls us to accept suffering before we inflict injury. He calls us to pick up the cross and to lay down the sword.

We will most certainly fail in this call. I did. And I'll fail again. This does not change Christ's teaching that violence itself is the tomb, violence is the dead-end. Peace won through the barrel of a gun might be a victory but it is not peace. Our captors had guns and they ruled over us. Our rescuers had bigger guns and ruled over the captors. We were freed, but the rule of the gun stayed. The stone across the tomb of violence has not been rolled away.

I'm learning that there are many kinds of prisons and many kinds of tombs. Prisons of the mind, the heart, the body. Tombs of despair, fear, confusion. Tombs within tombs and prisons within prisons.

There are no easy answers. We must all find our way through a broken world, struggling with the paradox of call and failure. My captivity and rescue have helped me to catch a glimpse of how powerful the force of resurrection is. Christ, that tomb-busting suffering servant Son of God, seeks us wherever we are, reaches for us in whatever darkness we inhabit.

May we reach for each other with that same persistence. The tomb is not the final word.

Google calendar...

I've been waiting forever for this. finally just got in the beta.

try logging in with you gmail at www.google.com/cl2

there's a couple bugs still and not all features are enabled yet, but just an update on how much I love this already, here's a screenshot of my current month.

What I love are the calendar overlays so I can click off certain calendar types, ie when I don't feel like looking at work stuff. I made a calendar for tasks / so it's like a to-do list of the day as well that I can turn on/off. I'd love to hear how other people are using it and what mash ups come out of this.

Hot Stuff...

Head down in another paper again... but here's some hot stuff I've stumbled upon while constructively avoiding school work.

Mosaic's began video podcasting!

Windows will run on Mac's now.

Zooomr - Like flickr but seems even slickr.

Criswell Theological Review is now available. Articles from both Mclaren and Driscoll on the emerging church.

"Under the overpass" - dude who voluntarily went homeless for five months and wrote a book about it.

Mary J. Blige and U2 team up to remake "one", see the video here.

Join us at the Vox Book Club as we've just started reading Divine Conspiracy by Dallas Willard.

And finally, another home made burger shot. It seems like every time people have come over the last while I've cooked these up. My wife loves'em. They just keep getting bigger. The burgers patty alone weight in at about a 1.5lb's.

My friend Kavin...

Kavin was one of my best friends throughout high school. I think we met while slacking off in a grade 10 business class. He wanted to be a fashion designer. I wanted to be a rock star. We both didn't belong. We connected immediately.

It may have helped that he was one of my first friends with a car. I still think about that beautiful car. It was a junkie burgundy k-car that you could put your feet up on. It didn't only take us places - just being near it was a good time. Sure the door would come out and the muffler would drag while driving, but Kavin's car was freedom from that place called home, which meant a lot as a teenager.

Kavin introduced me to Depeche Mode, and we'd talk about music for hours. Radiohead, nine inch nails, smashing pumpkins, even brit-pop littered our conversations. We'd loiter everywhere we go. We even saved the cups at Taco Bell in the trunk of his beater for the free refills every time we went back. Yes, they were good times.

Looking back I wish I could say that I was a positive influence. I'm sure we had constructive conversations about girls, life, and God, but I really wasn't doing so well myself those days. I recall being a jerk to Kavin on multiple occasions. Still, he stuck by, and I still wonder why.

Kavin was smarter than me and taller than me, and rightly so I think he had better ambitions than me. I think he actually wanted to be somebody. I was a dark cloud never wanting anyone to be anything. I'd laugh at those who were 'involved' and mocked those who 'tried' in life. I find it was so easy being and influencing others to be apathetic, cynical, and aimless. The thought always haunts me that Kavin was one of those people who crossed my path during these darker times.

What I love about Kavin is that he has a spirit that wrestles with things. Sometimes it was hilarious when the feeling of angst was mutual. Other times, when I was more oblivious to what was going on, I think that the angst led him to moments of despair. Before it was cool to have a tortured soul, Kavin had one. He has one because underneath it all, he actually cares deeply in a world that tells him not to.

Kavin is a creative spirit, ridiculously funny, a searcher, and the dude who used to drive me around.

Here's a picture he made of himself. Yes it's all him.

In North Carolina...

I'm in Raleigh, NC this week for business.

It's amazing how the roads cut through the tall trees here.

Check out Riya for photo hosting with facial recognition.

Books i'm reading this week as I travel:

Church planting roadmap

Practitioners

Generous Orthodoxy

Updates...

I just added a couple of my feeds to the sidebar.

Flickr badge allows for a glance at your photos online randomly or chronologically. I've got it set on random right now.

And Del.icio.us if you don't know already is a great online bookmarking/tagging tool. Using 'link rolls' the latest links as i scour the web are dynamically placed on the sidepanel as well.

Experiential Storytelling...

I've just returned from a few days of rest and relaxation in Ottawa. It was much needed and so very cherished. Didn't do much of anything, except enjoyed ourselves.

For those who were interested in my small group leadership training 'book', let me know and I'll pass what I have along. I've got a hundred excuses why not to show it to anybody just yet. But after much thought, it'd be silly not to risk allowing people to have a glimpse into this work in process, no matter how unrefined.

Here's a photo of me and The Rock back in 2000 that reminds me to suck it up and be bold.

I got a bit further in several books, one of them being Mark Miller's Experiential StoryTelling. A few notes from it.

- The real beauty of experiential education is that it places trust in the learner to derive meaning from his or her experience. As a learning environment is created, the active focus shifts from the educator to the student.

- Truth divorced from experience will always dwell in the realms of doubt. (Henry Drause)

- We were created with a curiosity, a complexity, and a need for meaning

- Whether we are Christian's or not, our hearts were created to vibrate with the story of God.

- Every child is an artist. The child is how to remain an artist once he grows up (Pablo Picasso)

- Never let formal education get in the way of your learning (Mark Twain)

- Embracing this new mode of communication means worship becomes collaboration, faith now becomes a journey, and the gospel is now communicated in multiple forms of media

Free at last...

The last few weeks have been brutal. Work's been busy, school work skyrocketed, and silly me, refused to bail out of any community events.

I can't seem to understand why my productivity never kicks into gear until its the very last minute. It's 2 am and I'm driving out to Ottawa tomorrow morning. I should be tired, but I'm so excited to be finally free!

Here's a few interesting links i've collected as my A.D.D. has acted up during this time of busyness.

Goolge Calendar will be coming out. I've been waiting for this for ages.

Life in the Googleplex photoessay. If I was a tech geek and not going into ministry I would totally find a way to join google.

Malcolm Gladwell just started blogging

Anne Rice - the latest on her and... Johnny Depp? If you haven't read it, definitely check out her latest "Christ our Lord"

Secret Message of Jesus - excerpts from Brian Mclaren's coming book.

Clips of MoleMan - yes the guy from the simpsons

Vox book club - join it - Divine Conspiracy will be our first book in April.

my book...

Here's a screenshot of my book. It's more of a 50 page booklet or manual on small group leadership, but let's call it a book for now since i've always wanted to write one.

There's a zoom function on Microsoft Word that lets you see all of your pages. None of it is legible of course, but I just like looking at it and saying to myself, 'look at what you did'.

It still needs some editing, and is by no way complete, are books ever? I wouldn't say it's an even effort throughout, and like an artist, I know the parts that I slaved over and what I rushed through. Anyhow, it's good enough for a school project, for now.

Just one more major paper and a speaking engagement to go, and I'll be able to start sleeping again monday.

stretched for time...

I haven't slept much this weekend, and have been sitting at a computer around 18 hours a day the last while working on multiple papers and projects.

I think I might be handing in my first ever late paper this week, simply because it's of so little interest to me right now (it's on a Greek exegesis of a passage in Galatians). The one project that I'm really enjoying, yet consuming all my time and completely draining me, is the developing of a 'small group leadership manual' for one of my classes. I rarely say this, but I can't wait till this week is done and over with.

As for now, I'll leave you with this lyric from Kanye West's Jesus Walks that I just love.

I ain't here to argue about his facial features

Or here to convert atheists into believers

I'm just trying to say the way school need teachers

The way Kathie Lee needed Regis,

that's the way I need Jesus

Blessings.

Valentines for the homeless...

For Valentines, Yvonne and I celebrated, by getting our small group downtown to connect with the homeless in our city.

We split into three teams and gave out some quality sandwiches, brand-spanking new socks, drinks, snacks and roses. I thought the roses would be an interesting idea, but only managed to give out a few of them.

A few people in my group had never done anything like this before, and I'm glad they all had a positive experience. One person did have an individual on the streets say to her "Don't think you're so innocent". Truth is, we're not, but how easy is it for us to come off that way?

For me, it was just refreshing to connect with our city as it really is. Rather than avoiding eye contact, as I often do, I spent a whole night trying to look into the eyes of those we wish just weren't there.

I find the real challenge, is not nights like these, but everyday I go about and pass by people. Yvonne and I want to always try to have something packed that we can give away when we go out.

This night makes me think of a great Goo Goo Dolls song called Better Days that I think should be our new Christmas anthem.

and the one poor child who saved this world

and there's ten million more who probably could

if we all just stopped and said a prayer for them

You can find the rest of the lyrics here and watch the video here.

Stand against the wind...

I got and finished reading Erwin McManus's latest, Stand against the wind, it appears a day before it's officially released.

It's a re-package of Uprising, flashier and in smaller chunks. I can see why it's geared toward the 18-35 market. I like uprising and the experience guide more, but still, I think i'll spend sometime commenting on it the next while.

Update: I just posted up some missional values under 'my pages' that I wrote up a while back. Not sure how to get comments activated in that section at the moment.

Change or die...

I just got back from seeing the dentist. I don't floss. Other than the moment before I head to the dental office. It's painful every time. Especially since I've got an aversion to all things metal (I try to eat with plastic cutlery whenever possible). Everytime I go they remind me to floss, and everytime I go back I wonder why I didn't. Why don't I change?

I just finished reading a Fast Company magazine I borrowed from the library. It's cover story is Change or Die. Though most of us say and think that we would change if the risks were high enough, the premise of the article is that we shouldn't count on it. Even facing death itself rarely leads to change.

It says how 80% of the 1.8 trillion dollar health care budget in America is attributed to preventable behavioral issues. Two years after having a coronary-artery bypass, 90% of patients have not changed their lifestyles.

That's nine to one odds against you ever changing. What do you think of that? You're not going to change. I shudder at the thought of it. That much of who you are is who you are. That's it. Or is it?

(You can find most of the article online here)