My blog is just taking a hit lately. I find myself thinking and struggling like never before but just not the time to get it all out there. I'm not shutting it down, and hopefully I can get more frequent on this soon, but for now here is some of the stuff I'm reading that has got me thinking and taking up my time. I may or may not be working on a brand new design for this site. I also may or may not be thinking of compiling all these posts and publishing it into a book. Figure its the easiest way to write a book, as opposed to making up all new content.

Dan has always been one of my favourite bloggers. This post is called Gay Marriage -- Why Arguments based upon the 'Order of Creation' in Gen 1-2 are Faulty. Wow, a whole lot to chew on for those that are seriously struggling with how to approach this issue. A quote from the post:

Thus, I believe that gay marriages should be blessed by the Church. A creative, and good, innovation.

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Tonight we held a bowling fundraiser here in Sarnia to start raising money for our trip to Africa and raised $1400. Thanks to all who showed up and supported us. Still to come...an awesome concert and Rock Paper Scissors tournament.
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I designed a new site for Thinker Labs...hopefully we can get more on a role to get all our creative sources on their for people to use.
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I just finished Shock Doctrine. Wow. Now I'm on to this.
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Joe and I are doing a Documentary TV Show on the local channel in Sarnia for this coming Fall. We will be interviewing locals and talking about whatever is interesting. We'll make them all available online also if we are allowed. Looks like Joe is going to be famous again.
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Rachel and I bought an E-bike. It's like a moped, but its all electric. You don't need a license or to get it insured. It goes 32km/h and one charge will last about 70km. It's perfect for the summer in Sarnia, and gas sucks. I have turned so many heads riding it for only a week, that I'm thinking I should start selling them myself.

Today at theStory we talked about naming God. The thing that stole most of the discussion was “what dangers, if any, are there in misnaming God.” So this post will sort of be my answer to that questions and trying to flesh it out.

First what I think is important to realize is that the question already assumes that we can misname God. There is right and wrong terms that we can attribute to God. I do understand and agree with the underlying assumption that we can misname God. I don’t think God is whatever we want him to be or whatever we call him.

Are their dangers in misnaming him? I don’t think there is danger in misnaming God. I think that misnaming God is part of what it means to be human and part of the process of discovering who God is. One lady spoke up in church today and said that for a while she thought that God was a jerk and she called him that and that it took getting to that point with God before she could call him something else. With that said, I don’t think God is afraid of what we can call him. He won’t be upset if I swear at him or call him the Almighty Smiter (reference to Bruce Almighty). I think God understands that in our limited human knowledge and struggle to understand who God is, it is inevitable that we will at time land on wrong understandings of him. So while they are inaccurate, I think that they are necessary to discovering who he really is.

John spoke up and reminded us that it was extremely important to remember though that the point needs to be progress and growing in our relationship with God. If we were to misname/name God and then stop because we think we have figured it out then that becomes an issue. No one can grasp or fully comprehend God they are always going to be going through the names to try to put a finger on it. The one who says that they are right and others are wrong, is the one that limits God to his own understanding. Growth is the key, and if misnaming happens in the midst of it then it is ok.

It also comes up that the Scriptures are our only accurate understanding of who God is and that all of our experience needs to be matched up against them to see if they are validated or not. It really puts a damper in the whole naming God thing because really none of the names we give him hold any weight unless they are found or alluded to in the Scriptures. This means that the Scriptures have a perfect and finished view of who God is and there is nothing that the last two thousands years or so has done to add to the image of God. I realize many hold that view, but it just seems to cancel out any importance of the lives of people who have interacted with God over the last twenty centuries. A experience that someone has with God today can hold as much weight and be used to strengthen someone just as much as any story told in the Bible.

This being said; I think that the Bible gives us a direction to head in to find out who God is but not a set of sold answers. Relationships, experience and worship all add to this foundation to help us be shaped into discovering God in all sorts of places. There is no danger in misnaming God if it is in the context of relationship and searching. Because of this, I think God can be named and misnamed over and over again because I believe that as long as we are heading in the direction that Jesus’ story is going that we can’t go wrong in journeying with him, whether we land at wrong rest stops along the way.

The movie called Ugly Lights that I'm working on with some friends is finished. You can see that Darryl and Joe (the two guys I planted theStory with) are actors in it. We sent it to the DVD printers this week and are now getting ready for our premiere.
It is going to be May 20, 22 and 23 at Imperial Theatre here in Sarnia at 7:30. Tickets are only $10.00 and there will be some live music from the soundtrack that night also. Come on out and enjoy it. You can also preorder DVD's that come complete with the soundtrack with all local music here and its only $15.00

Buy your Tickets Here

This is the message that I spoke on Sunday. It was heavily discussion based once we jumped into comparing the Enuma Elish with Genesis, but here are most of the things that came up and what I had prepared.

There are plenty of different names for God and we've gone through a few of them already over the past few weeks. We are sticking exclusively to Genesis, so in a way we are very limited because we are trying not to leave Genesis. So far this month we talked about God as our provider, God as one who sees us, God as Lord of all of heaven and earth last week with Darryl. John helped set us up for these topics by reminding us that we all have differing perspectives on life and how we look at God and that all perspectives, whether they lead to correct conclusions or not or if you accept it or not, deserve to be validated and valued because they come from humans who our God’s creation. As we saw from the experiment last Sunday, we all would call God something different. None of these were wrong, they were just different. However, what is important is that we all allow each other's opinions , right or wrong, and perspectives be added to the mix, because through these discussions and the coming together of community is how we can have a fuller understanding of who God is.

We haven't talked about the beginning of Genesis in almost 8 months, so I thought I would go back into it a little bit and extract some things that we haven't talked about much yet. For a minute I need everyone to imagine that they are outside, and their hands our filthy and they are building a city with their bare hands. We are going back thousands of years ago and you are in slavery. Your freedom is gone. You don't feel like you get to make any decisions on your own. Your life and your children's lives are already predetermined. They will work hard to make other people groups more comfortable in their big houses. Then you are freed by this guy, and you end up wandering around in a desert for 40 years. Life didn't get much better, even though freedom was the word that everyone was talking about; whatever that means.
However, from your understanding of how the world works, your life so far sort of makes sense. Here is the story that you would have known. Your parents told you and their parents told them, and it gave you some sort of meaning to all this mess and tried to make sense of the world, your slavery and your thoughts. This is a summary of that story:

Before the creation of the heaven and the earth, nothing existed except water. This primal generative element was identified with Apsu, the male personification of the primeval sweetwater ocean, and with his female associate Tiamat, the primordial saltwater ocean, represented as a ferocious monster. From the commingling of the two waters were born the divine offspring. These, in turn, gave birth to a second generation of gods and the process was repeated successively. Then came a time when the young gods, through their unremitting and noisy revelry, disturbed the peace of the Tiamat and Apsu. The latter decided to destroy all the gods, but the evil design was thwarted by the quick action of the all-wise Ea, the earth-water God.

Tiamat now planned revenge and organized her forces for the attack on the gods. The latter, for their part, requested Marduk to lead them into battle. He acceded provided that he be granted sovereignty over the universe. To this condition the assembly of the gods readily agreed and Marduk, invested with the insignia of royalty, thereupon became their champion and took up the cudgels against Tiamat and her helpers. After a fierce battle in which he defeated the enemy forces and slew Tiamat, Marduk sliced the carcass of the monster in two and created of one half the firmament of heaven and of the other the foundation of the earth.

The work of creation having thus begun, Marduk then established heavenly luminaries, each in its place. The gods complained to Marduk that, each having now been assigned his or her fixed place and function in the cosmos, there would be no relief from unending toil. Accordingly Marduk decided to create man to free the gods from menial labor and this he proceeded to do, fashioning a human being out of the blood of Kingu, Tiamat's second husband and captain of her army. The gods showed their gratitude to Marduk by building for him a great shrine in the city of Babylon, "the gate of God." The epic ends with a description of a testimonial banquet by the gods at which they recite an adulatory hymn of praise to Marduk that confirms his kinship for all eternity.

Borrowed from Nahum Sarna from Understanding Genesis

Growing up we have heard tons of stories of how the world came to be. That one was called the Enuma Elish and was probably the most prominent one that we would have heard. Another one called the Ennead is about a God who was so lonely so he masturbated and his semen turned into the waters and his breath turned into the earth and he was floating around trying to give some sort of meaning to the madness that existed around him. These stories weren't the most uplifting stories for us, an entire race in slavery. They don't give us any hope. In fact they kind of bring reason to why we are slaves and why they live their entire lives serving some other purpose that doesn't really involve them. Then another story starts floating around. This one seems to make a lot more sense and it refutes so much of what doesn't seem right about the Enuma Elish and the Ennead. This story gives us some hope. Let's read this story.

Read Genesis 1

Genesis was written and started circulating when Israel was in exile. Brueggemann explains it this way.

“Genesis is likely dated to the sixth century B.C. and addressed to exiles. It served as a refutation of Babylonian theological claims. The Babylonian gods seemed to control the future. Against such claims, it is here asserted that Yahweh is still God, one who watches over his creation and will bring it into well-being."

Walter Brueggemann from Genesis

Creation stories or creation myths in these days were not just random stories that were fun to right. They were a reality that these cultures lived out every day. These stories gave meaning and purpose to those that ready them. They were a way for these cultures to express their ideas of who God was and who we were in relation to that. This is the context that Genesis 1 arose out of. Brueggemann has this to add about what Genesis is doing.

“Genesis makes a theological claim that a world has been spoken which transforms reality. The word of God which shapes creation is an action which alters reality. The claim made is not a historical claim but a theological one about the character of God who is bound to his world and about the world which is bound to God.”

Walter Brueggemannfrom Genesis

“Genesis is not an abstract statement about the origin of the universe. Rather, it is a theological and pastoral statement addressed to a real historical problem. The problem is to find a ground for faith in this God when the experience of sixth century Babylon seems to deny the rule of God. This liturgy cuts underneath the Babylonian experience and grounds the rule of the God of Israel in a more fundamental claim, that of creation. The use of this text is not for general ruminations about the world. It continues to be a ground for faith in this God when more immediate historical experience is against it.”

Walter Brueggemann from Genesis

Genesis is responding to problems and bad theology of its time. The way it’s written, who its written to and why it’s written all help bring a better understanding of Genesis to us and how we should read it.

Discussion:
If you were an Israelite in bondage and after reading only the first chapter of Genesis, what would be some of the stuff that would give you hope? What would be some of the differences between the story of Genesis 1 and the Enuma Elish that would stand out to you?

Here are some major differences that I think make Genesis unique to its world.

Genesis has only one God, other stories have a bunch of them (monotheism vs polytheism)
With multiple gods comes multiple proper ways to live and multiple versions of justice. You end up having a large amount of different moral codes and humans don’t know what is right or wrong anymore. Genesis has one God who stands above everything and calls everything to be. There is no conflicts with this God, he just is.

"The Bible presumes that God operates by an order which man can comprehend, and that a universal moral law had been decreed for society. Thus, the idea embedded in Genesis of one universal Creator has profound ethical implications. It means that the same universal sovereign will that brought the world into existence continues to exert itself thereafter making absolute, not relative, demands upon man."

Nahum Sarna

Creation is good, and God is pleased
God takes pleasure in everything that he had created, he loves his artistry. This puts creation has something to be valued and respected as opposed to something that evolved out of chaotic wars and unrest. There is a purpose and a direction for God’s creation and God is pleased when it is fulfilled. God is pleased before humans could even do anything, because they could ever earn favour.

"The world created by God and acknowledged as "good" is the one in which history begins and the one that will reach its goal by fulfilling the divine purpose for which it was created...the emphasis in the narrative of creation in Genesis 1 is upon the complete correspondance between divine intention and the universe, which was suitable to fulfill the purpose for which it was brought into being."

William Dumbrell in Search for Order

We are created in God's image
In Genesis, man is central and the climax of creation. In the other stories man is sort of this afterthought or accident. This brings a lot of value to humanity and who they are in relation to God.

"The creation of nothing else (than man) in the cosmoginc process is preceded by a divine declaration of intention and purpose, "Let us make man" (Gen 1:26). Man, in fact, is the pinnacle of creation and the entire story has a human-centerd orientation. This situation contrasts strongly with the story of the creation of man in Enuma Elish. There he is almost incidental, fashioned as a kind of afterthought as a menial of the gods to provide them with nourishment and generally to satisfy their physical needs."

Nahum Sarna

"In both Egypt and Mesopotmia, the notion of humankind as the image of the deity is well attested. In Egypt the pharaoh was regarded as the image and the incarnation of the creation God."
William Dumbrell

A few other thoughts to bring up

There is no struggle between God and nature (god created the monsters as opposed to them being restrained or destroyed)

There is always something outside the gods, Genesis assumes God was always there

Chaos to order (not the other way around)

Can't understand creation-creator outside of sex

Moral indifference of the gods, God in Genesis has a moral standard

Genesis starts a process and does not end there, other epics just do creation

There is purpose in creation

"In place of fortuitous concatenation of events, history has become purposeful and society has achieved direction. A strong streak of optimism has displaced the acute awareness of insecurity...This basic belief in the essential goodness of the universe was, of course, destined to exert a powerful influence upon the direction of the religion of Israel and to affect the outlook on life of the people. It found its expression in the concept of the covenant relationship between God and His people and ultimately achieved its most glorious manifestation in the notion of Messianism--two uniquely Israelite contribution to religion. The God of Israel, being a deity whose will is absolute and incontestable and whose word is eternal, was able to give assurances that human strivings were decidedly not in vain."

Nahum Sarna

If Genesis tells us one thing, let it remind us that there is a purpose in God’s creation. There is a direction that it’s heading. There is light at the end of the tunnel. In the first chapter the creator is able to rest because his creation is good. He is pleased with his portfolio. For the first time these Israelites are starting to think that maybe there is something worthwhile in them. They are created in God’s image and not just here to settle a bet or spend myself for all these gods. I have a job to participate with him in the creation by recreating and being good. I have a role, and a purpose. God thinks I am good.

We all know that things didn’t stay ‘good.’ So Genesis tries to deal with the problem that not all is good anymore. So we get a story like the fall. In fact the rest of the Bible has humanity and God dealing with this problem, that creation is no longer good. It tries to deal with why that is the case, what we are doing about it, and most importantly what God is doing about it because it’s his creation that is no longer acting like his creation.

We move on past Genesis 1 and into the next 10 chapters which we have spent a lot of time in during the first few months of this series. We see stories of humanity failing to live up to God's purpose and God continually giving them chance after chance to get there. The pattern is the same from the fall, to the flood, to Babel...God gives purpose, humans fail, God gives a chance all over again. We can see through these stories that when God creates something, he continues to care about what it does. God is patient and he will wait for us. Part of being his creation is having the freedom to choose to be as God created us or to be more like we’d prefer. This is not by coercive call of obedience but by an evocative call of inclusion on God’s plans. God has a purpose and he will not leave the world alone until it is accomplished

Our creator continues to care about his creation today. God’s creation isn’t done, because he has yet to say ‘it is good’ for the final time. So let Genesis be an encouragement to us also today. We know that the world’s stories may tell us that happiness, money or sex is what we were created for exclusively. However, we also know that God is the one who created us, and he created us to be good and to be like him. He will not rest until it is so with all of creation.

Let’s pray.

God of heaven and earth. God who sees us. God who hears our cry.
We thank-you for creating us and creating this world.
We know you are not done, and that this world is far from the good that you intended.
Thank-you for being a God who does not give up and who pursues his purposes till completion.
We are hard up now because it feels at times like you are not around, like creation is getting worse.
Sometimes it feels like we are getting worse and less in tune with you.

Give us comfort and peace in knowing that one day you will redeem all of creation.
Give us comfort and peace in knowing that one day these problems will disappear.
Give us comfort and peace in knowing that you care more than we do and are passionately pursuing your purpose in us and throughout all your creation.
May we be your creation, and may you look at our lives and say it is good.
May we be good to your creation, and good to each other
May we long for the image of God in our lives in everything we do.

God of heaven and earth. God who sees us. God who hears our cry.
Teach us to create and redeem along side of you.
Teach us to see your creation behind everything, good and bad
God of heaven and earth. God who sees us. God who hears our cry.
Have mercy on us.
Amen.

One of the flags that new churches wave right now is that of tolerance. We love to tolerate other people’s beliefs and perspectives. We find value in everyone and where they are coming from. I wrote a few posts on my ideas of seeing everyone’s perspective as truth (read them before you assume.) There ends up being one major flaw in most people’s approach to this kind of tolerance.

Let’s say there is a group of us in a room and one person ends up being really rude and distasteful to someone else because of what they believe. This group of people however has a very strong tolerance policy. People are allowed to question without penalty, and everyone’s perspective has equal opportunity to be known and join in the conversation. However, there is one person who just doesn’t get it. He rags on someone telling them their ideas are too liberal and that their beliefs are unfounded. He has absolutely no tolerance for the people around him and their opinions.

Usually what ends up happening is that we drive people like that out. There is no place for those that are intolerant towards others. We shut them down, make them feel out of place and mostly talk about them behind their backs in disbelief. We end up disliking them quite a bit and are in awe at how rude to everyone they are. We have very little tolerance for those that are intolerant.

It fascinates me to watch a group of people be transformed from their core beliefs by one person who doesn’t believe it. One intolerant human being has the capacity to make a room full of people who claim tolerance extremely intolerant. This is unfortunate. The key to tolerance is not tolerating those with crazy beliefs and wild ideas but to tolerate those who refuse to play by your rules. Tolerance is at its strongest when facing intolerant behaviour. Tolerance is defeated when we are intolerant to those that are intolerant.

This is a true test of this kind of characteristic I believe. Are we as people able to uphold our positive beliefs of tolerance in the face of intolerance? Can we tolerate intolerance? This is I think the true proof of a community of people who truly want to embrace and love the other. I hope we can do it. I truly hope we can learn to accept those that refuse to accept our rules of acceptance.

We sang these songs at theStory the past few weeks.
Sometimes its a breath of fresh air to sing something that isn't Hillsongs and something with a little more creativity like they had when they wrote hymns. It was fun to see how some people responded to this first one.

Jesus by Page France | MP3

I will sing a song to you
And you will shake the ground for me
And the birds and bees and old fruit trees
Will spit out songs like gushing streams

And Jesus will come through the ground so dirty
With worms in his hair and a hand so sturdy
To call us his magic we call him worthy
Jesus came up through the ground do dirty

I will sing a song for to you
And you will stomp your feet for me
And the bears and bees and banana trees
Will play kazoos and tambourines

And Jesus will dance while we drink his wine
With soldiers and thieves and a sword in his side
And we will be joy and we will be right
Jesus will dance while we drink his wine

Jesus will come through the ground so dirty
With worms in his hair and a hand so sturdy
To call us his magic we call him worthy
Jesus came up through the ground so dirty
Jesus came up through the ground so dirty
Jesus came up through the ground so dirty
Jesus came up through the ground so dirty

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Thrice - Come all you Weary | MP3

Come all you weary with your heavy loads
Lay down your burdens find rest for your souls
Cause my yoke is easy and my burden is kind
I’ll take yours upon me and you can take mine

Come all you weary, move through the earth,
You've been spurned at fine restaurants and kicked out of church;
I’ve got a couple of loaves, so sit down at my feet,
lend me your ears and we'll break bread and eat

Come all you weary
Come gather round near me
Find rest for your souls

Come all you weary, crippled you lay
I’ll help you along you can lay down your canes
We’ve got a long way to go but we’ll travel as friends
The lights growing bright further up, further in

Come all you weary
Come gather round near me
Find rest for your souls

Rest for your souls

Come all you weary
Come gather round near me
Come all you weary
Come gather round near me
Find rest for your souls
Rest for your souls
Rest for your souls

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Braddigan - City on a Hill | MP3

Will you come quick upon the hill
We''ll break some bread and we'll all take our fill
We have the greatest reason of all
We'll build a city or we'll fall

Haven't you heard that we are free?
Haven't you traced the steps back from Calvary?
We have the greatest reason of all
We'll build a city or we'll fall
We'll build a city without walls

So bring all your hammers, your nails, and your tools
Bring all you can spare and what you might use
And now loose your grip; we'll not need our hands today
We'll build a city as we pray

So bring all your hammers, your nails, and your tools
Bring all you can spare and what you might use
And now loose your grip; we'll not need our hands today
We'll build a city as we pray

I wrote a post back in August called a Sympathetic Look at Difference and I think this post is going to be similar but make a lot more sense of what is going on in my head lately. I can’t stop struggling with the idea of people’s perspective and experience and how much it defines and shapes someone’s life. The way people interact with the world, God and each other is different and so everyone will have different beliefs based on those experiences. It would be ignorant to think that whatever beliefs I come to must be true for everyone else. It gets tricky though, because there are obviously objective facts like mathematic equations, events and other such things. So how do we reconcile subjective people with objective reality? The question has haunted me since my first philosophy class when my professor told us relativism was a joke while another professor treats reality as if we define it by what we think about it.

So I offer a few thoughts that help me sit perfectly, content on the fence between the two; sympathizing with both sides until they break down (because they both do).

1. No perspective is wrong. To tell someone that their perspective is wrong is to tell them their experience is wrong. A perspective does not have right or wrong attributes. Perspectives can be well informed or little informed. They can clear or blurry. They can be painful or joyous. But in the end a perspective is the lens that people look through, and lenses can’t be wrong. However, the conclusions that are drawn from perspectives can certainly be inaccurate. This is what I think is important to land upon. Conclusions based on perspectives are the things that need shaping, molding, disciplining and cleaned up, not people’s perspective. We are to be in a community of people whose perspectives are all vastly different and where we all shape each other’s conclusions. So in a sense, relativism makes perfect sense when we are talking perspectives. Everyone is entitled to their own perspective on anything, but perspective doesn’t equal truth. Everyone's perspective is true, just maybe not the conclusions they are drawing from them.

2. Closely related to number 1; we need to understand that perspective is all people have. People fight passionately for the way they see things because in the end, all you have is your perspective. Some people try to add other things to the equation by saying that they have the Bible, or tradition or the majority that believes the same things but they fail to realize that those things come through their perspective. Keep this in mind in all circumstances; that we are define ourselves to others by our perspectives. So don’t make your perspective to antagonistic to others.

3. Some people have an easier time seeing the world through other people’s perspective than others. I get really frustrated when someone makes a comment about someone who I know acts a certain way because of something in their past. Why can’t they just understand where they are coming from? I think some of us have an easier time at looking at the world through other people’s eyes and some of us have a very hard time doing it. They key is remembering this and not getting to frustrated at those who maybe can’t step out of their shoes as easy as you can.

4. I touched on this in my post in August, but I’ll mention it again. Not every belief, action or situation can be thrown into the categories or wrong and right, or good and evil. We have a tendency to do this, but it makes things way more complicated than they need to be. Sometimes I wonder if we like to classify things because we know by doing it we are also doing it to ourselves. If I think not recycling is a major sin, usually those that recycle will be the ones to point it out and make a statement about it. Sometimes we just have to let our dichotomy of everything slip through our fingers and just let it be. Everyone likes to be the one that knows the objective answer. We should all do ourselves a favour though and keep our mouth shut way more than we open them.

Update: This is a comment Brenda made, thought it was excellent and helps bring a different way to look at all this

Comment from: Brenda Melles

hi nathan. we haven't met, but i am a friend of al and garry's from kingston so know your name and blog through the church plant crowd. struck me from reading this post that you might be interested in cognitive behavioural therapy. CBT's name for what you call "perspective" is "belief". the worldview of this therapy is that beliefs are what drive everything about us, including our feelings, behaviour etc. one model is ABC - activating event, belief, consequence. the activitating event can be trivial or profound. the point is, though we all might have the same activating event, what sits in the middle - our belief about what the event means or how it was motivated - is what drives the consequence for us. change the belief; change the consequence. your post reminded me of this whole CBT world, which has been transformative for a lot of people. thanks for what you write. have a great day. bren

What is a Pastor?
Pastors: Sunday Production Coordinators
Pastors: Making Sure Our Programs Happen

Pastors spend a lot of time coming up with programs and program ideas, getting people to run them and making sure the funding is in place for them. Most churches do some sort of discipleship program, Alpha, newcomers luncheons, summer picnics, Purpose Driven Life, youth groups, junior high groups, kids Sunday school and the list goes on. Typically (unless you’re at a larger church) it is the job of the senior pastor to make sure all these things are in order; whether it is directly or indirectly.

We usually depend on our children’s pastor to put on a program for our kids at least every Sunday and hopefully every Wednesday. Youth pastors are expected to do good youth services and if the pastor is good, a youth service that will attract the unsaved youth. At the two larger churches I worked at, as a pastoral intern, I spent most of my time running programs for the pastors (and of course graphic design work). Running picnics, day camps, mission trips, baptism classes and senior nights took up most of my time and occasionally would get a chance to teach.

Is it really the pastor’s jobs to fill up the schedules of their congregations with programs? I’m not even talking about if these programs are useful or not, but I am asking if it is the pastor’s job to run them. Are they called to be nothing more than a YMCA coordinator with the role of making sure the calendar has a large selection of events to attend?

On top of this, I know a lot of us pastors spend a good chunk of that time advertising these programs. Not only are we tied up in running, organizing and thinking up these programs but we spend so much time designing advertisement schemes to make sure everyone knows about them. It can be as simple as the weekly bulletin or as complicated as phone calls, mass e-mail updates or specific cards pushing each event. Announcements on Sundays take up more and more time, but we would never think to cut it, because it is so crucial that the congregation knows where the pastor is spending his time.

Creating, organizing, running, advertising and worry about every program the church does is not the job of a pastor. If they are, then they aren’t pastors, they are simply program coordinators. Which isn’t necessarily bad, but if that’s what they are doing and where they are spending their time then we should probably call it what it is. Pastors have a much more relational role, which I’ll eventually get to. I’m having too much fun talking about what a pastor isn’t.

What is a Pastor?
Pastors: Sunday Production Coordinators
Pastors: Making Sure Our Programs Happen

Since I was a kid, my only experience with the pastor of my church was on Sunday. I watched him get up front and preach, or do announcements and then shake my hand on my way out the door. This is after all the pastor's main duty right? To organize the Sunday service, preach, and get me ready for my upcoming week in the world.

My experience with this changed a little bit moving into youth groups because my youth pastors were a little more relational. I hung out with them during the week and actually overtime became friends with my pastors (eventually planted a church with one of them.) Still a lot of their time and manpower went into organizing the youth events. They certainly did spend time with us during the week, and this gave me insight into a different type of pastor.

I am fascinated to know how much self esteem is wrapped up into a service for a pastor. I struggle with this myself and I know the guys I'm working with do to. Depending on the numbers, comments after, how much money we take in to help pay our rent and how we felt after the Sunday service totally sets the mood for the rest of the week. We invite people to Sundays, we talk about what we do Sundays, the space is set up for what we do on Sundays, we spend our week preparing for Sundays and all our good ideas are for Sundays. What ends up happening is that we pay these people we call pastors to run an event for us once a week. If they do a good job we leave satisfied, if they do a bad job we leave disappointed. Pastors have become nothing more than our Sunday production coordinators.

What if the role was a little different? What if we had pastors who worried about Wednesday as much as Sunday because their role can be fulfilled just as easily that day as any other (and I don't mean preparing your message for Sunday)? What if pastors weren't also our teachers? What would they do with their time? What if pastors weren't the creative arts director? How could they use that creative energy throughout the week? What would that look like? What would that leave us with? What if we didn't demand that our pastors spent 9-5 in an office (I have friends who were in this position)? Should a pastor be paid by the church? Can anyone be a pastor? If so, then what do we call the person that is paid? What are they being paid for? I got a lot of stuff to work through with this one.

My brother in law Aaron and I went around taking photos this weekend. I've been experimenting with HDR photography a little bit, and here is what I came up with. The first three are HDR and excuse the Photomatix watermark, it's just a trial version.

I just thought this was such a great idea. Instead of giving up luxuries why don't we give up something that actually helps the world around us for lent. It'd be great if more churches did this every year. (ht)

Throughout high school I loved wearing skater clothes. I always struggled hard to make sure I had an O’neil hoodie or Quicksilver pants or Etnies Shoes. I would search the clothing stores for tags; the style didn’t matter cause I figured it was in if it had the tag that I knew I liked. Why I liked it is beyond me, I just knew I liked it. For some reason the colour choices and lengths and cuts just fit my body properly and I felt good when I put it on. Then one day someone said out loud around me that they don’t where brands because it made no sense to pay a company to advertise for them. It made sense to me and ever since I’ve come to dissociate myself with brands.

Brands do funny things to people. Brands are built to attach themselves to people’s emotions and their values. Marketers are trained to make brands appealing and lucrative to us so we feel as if we need the brand to complete ourselves. How genius is that? Make a product and then somehow convince people that they aren’t people without it. Have you ever insulted a brand that someone adores, or a brand that gives someone value? They will defend the lifeless brand as if it is them personally you are insulting. Try it sometime. Make fun of Hillsongs to someone who loves them. Make a comment about Nike using sweatshops to a Nike shoe lover. Tell someone they don’t need their $1000 Prada purse. Brands have become so attached to people that people can’t see themselves apart from them. Their value is entangled up in these brands.

In a way patriotism is a branding of sorts. Tell someone that their value is in being an American, or a Canadian enough and eventually they will believe it. You end up having a country full of empty people fighting for an empty brand.

And then here enters the church, Jesus and Christianity. We live in a brand saturated world and so our first instinct is to offer yet another brand to everyone hoping that this brand will outlast all the others; after all we got Jesus and that’s really what everyone needs. People end up getting value from their brand and then up defending their brand. The brand comes in many shapes and sizes. Sometimes it’s the cool emergent church, or the high church, or the charismatic church. Sometimes it’s just our bible or our Christian music. Then sometimes we brand morality. We have to live a certain way, a certain style to be accepted. Not swearing is as cool as expensive purses.

Branding is a thick layer covering who we really are. We can barely picture a world separate from our brands. We can barely picture or value ourselves separate from them. It smothers everything. Yet we need to fight through this and receive our value from who we are, and not what we do or have. Brands only have the power that we give them. We don’t have to be bound by them and our lives dictated by them. We are not cooler, more successful or have more value because of the church we go to, car we drive, clothes we wear, house we live in, country we live in, electronics we have yet over and over again we convince ourselves we are.

The only image I want to carry is God’s. I’m created in his image. Let us continue to strip down all these other images that wish us to represent them. Let us keep in mind that they are empty, draining and only have the value we give them. Our value comes from being created in his image and no one else’s.

What is a Pastor?
Pastors: Sunday Production Coordinators
Pastors: Making Sure Our Programs Happen

There are three of us planting theStory, a church plant here in Sarnia. I was 17 or so when I first decided I wanted to plant a church in Sarnia, and my ideas of what the church would look like, let alone my role in the church have changed quite a bit since then. When I first imagined a church plant I pictured a youth group with older people in it. I’d run it the same way I’d run a youth group. I would spend my days preparing the upcoming Sunday’s sermon, make sure the drama ideas, powerpoints, songs, activities all flowed perfectly together and woo people with a great production. The music would be better than any church, the preaching would be more informed and better educated than anywhere else and it would just be cool. My role was more of a production manager, but I knew I was good at that.

theStory is anything but a production. We show up and sit on couches and usually start 20-30 minutes after we say we are going to. Kids are running around screaming; sometimes we give them instruments so they can participate, which never makes for a lovely sound. The sermon is always broken up by people asking questions and people making ridiculous and brilliant comments. There are no lights and our sound system sucks. To top if all off, there are three of us planting this church, not just one. All this is to say that my role is much different than I imagined it to be.

Our first year we had budgeted 40k for salaries and in our second year we can only afford 15k. Does this change our roles and what we do in the church because the leaders aren’t paid as much? If it does, should it? How do we decide who gets what money? I’m 23, Darryl is 25 and Joe is over 30; should our ages play any role in what our responsibilities are? Some of us are better educated than others, should that change anything? Some of us have families to feed, should that change anything?

There are a million questions that we are asking to figure out exactly how this style of pastoring works. I do know though that nothing I learned in Bible College, or working at other churches, or read in any books have helped me very much. In a lot of ways we feel alone in this. Sometimes I look for guidance in those that aren’t in official pastoring jobs but I see as strong leaders, they usually have a lot more insight.

So what is my role? I’m not exactly sure. I’m still trying to figure out that question. I think all three of us are. I know I do a lot of things for theStory. I know I think about it day and night. I know I cast visions for it. I know I teach on Sundays and try to help build a healthy theology in the community. I know I try and help people build community with each other. I know I worry about the finances and help do the books. I know I feel a sense of pride when talking about the community and also a sense of responsibility on how the community looks to the outside world. What separates me from anyone else in the community?

Is the pastor’s role to think and act on behalf of the church full time? Does that make someone a pastor? Is someone officially a pastor if they are paid to be one? Is a pastor one that teaches on Sunday? Is a pastor one who is responsible for the spiritual well-being of a community? Does a pastor have to be full time?

I’m feeling a series coming on. Defining what a pastor is and what they do and if it’s really a necessary part of a community in that it’s a paid position. Or have we just made up positions in the church to pass off our responsibility and to keep with the Hebrew Bible ideas that priests go to God on behalf of us.

Things have been moving quite quickly here in Sarnia lately. It explains why I haven't been posting as much as I want and why when I do post it from what I prepared for somewhere else. Here is an update on where my time has been which may or may not effect you.

Rachel and I are now officially homeowners. I did some posts a while back on what I thought I should do, stay renting or get a mortgage and I guess we all know what we decided. Below is a picture of the house we are moving to at the end of the month.

The house is everything we wanted. It's only a few blocks from where we are now. Closer to the elementary school, across the street from the Inn of the Good Shepherd, and a bit closer to Rachel's work.
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Epiphaneia has announced that we are skipping year 2008 and not doing a conference. But next year we are already well on our way. We have some speakers confirmed (which is top secret right now) and will be revealing them soon. March 21, 2009 is the date to book in your calendars. This is going to be a big one.
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Ugly Lights, the movie that I am working on with some friends is coming together. The filming is all done and the editing process is well on their way. Check out the trailers below. We are hoping to premiere it the end of May at Imperial Theatre here in Sarnia. I edited the second trailer.

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My dad is starting up a port-potty business and I'm trying to help him brand it and get it off it's feet. The website is here and you can see the logo; it's called Sarnia Sanitation. If you are in the area and you need portable toilets, let me know and I'll get you a great deal.
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I'm reading this book right now. I can't help but look at my neighbours (usa) and my own country entirely different.
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Remember when we ran that Sarnia Short Film Festival a while back? Well the local TV station did a 30 minute show of the top films with Joe and I introducing each one. We are now local TV stars that make it on TV a couple times a week when the ratings are at their best.
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Rachel and I are going to South Africa in August for a month, and we are trying to raise some funds to help us get there. If you can spare any extra money or if you didn't tithe this week and feel guilty, we'd love any donation. You can send it to paypal@storyboardsolutions.com, and if you want a tax receipt, e-mail me: and I'll fill you in on how it works.

This is the message I spoke this morning at theStory, I hope that eventually we can podcast these and especially try and figure out how to podcast it with the discussion, because that is always the best part. This is my message before the discussion, though I almost always would change it after the other perspectives are thrown in. Feel free to have some discussion on here or anything also, or even posts some comments that you made this morning if you were here with us.

This month we have been talking about the idea of blessing in our lives and in the characters lives throughout Genesis. The view of it we have now is the typical view of a twenty-first century, white, western, wealthy Christian person. There are so many things that skew our vision of the world and our faith that it becomes hard to see past what we assume is correct. The hardest thing to break is these assumptions we hold. They are what our faith is based on. We assume what we think is right and then stop questioning it. This is what we have done with the idea of blessing and the role that it is to have in our lives. So this morning, I want to walk us through three mis-conceptions of what we think blessings are to help us get rid of our false assumptions and then try to fill the hole with some new ideas that will hopefully help us live a more kingdom oriented life.

Misconception #1 – Blessings are given to/for individuals

In our discussions thus far the idea of blessings are things that are given to me. Basically we think they are gifts. Blessings and gifts become interchangeable. My car is a blessing to me, my money is a blessing to me, my children are blessings to me sometimes, my home is a blessing to me, my country is a blessing to me. If we are to have a biblical view of what blessing is, then I fear we might be a little of with that kind of language. Our society is so individualistic in nature that we are unable to see the whole picture anymore.

Jacob had a very individualistic view on God’s blessing. When he had lots of stuff he made vast assumptions that it was God’s blessing on him. When he was in trouble he sought blessings to save him from that trouble. Jacob had a very hard time looking past himself. After his daughter was raped and his sons went and pillaged the city and took her back, here is Jacob’s response.

“I being few in number, they shall gather themselves together against me and slay me; and I shall be destroyed, I and my house."

Note all the personal pronouns. He didn’t seem too worried about much else besides himself and the only way his sons could respond is asking if their sister should have been treated like a prostitute. It was all about Jacob and him being hurt and him losing his blessing. Jacob couldn't see past himself to anyone else. Walter Brueggemann has good thoughts on this subject.

Parent’s and children have a deep stake in each others’ destinies. The narrative refutes every notion of individualism which assumes that every individual life and, indeed, every generation is discreet and on its own. The generations are inalienably and terrifyingly bound together.
Walter Brueggemann – Genesis – pg.228

Blessings are not given to just individuals but rather given to groups and to the world. Blessings by definition are something that passes on from one to another; they can’t stay still or without moving to along. If they do, it automatically negates the very essence of what it is. Then it is no longer a blessing and it turns into something else; perhaps a curse? If I think that I am blessed, I am walking a thin line in understanding what blessing actually is. There is no such thing as one individual being blessed and the story being over. The very biblical definition of blessings means that it’s for someone else and not you.

Misconception #2 – Blessings are given to those who deserve it

Last week a lot of us talked about how we feel like we have to earn God’s blessing. We live in a culture that says our value is tied up in what we produce. We are given rewards for doing good. Jacob thought this way too. Jacob thought that he was blessed and that people were blessed because they were righteous. He says that if God would further increases his flocks, it would be a sign that he was righteous (30:33). I wonder how deeply rooted this type of thinking is in our lives? We can’t even conceive blessing or treating people well that don’t deserve it. Yet, God doesn’t seem to care about what we can conceive or not. Brueggemann puts it this way:

“The blessing of God has its way whether we are attracted to or repelled by the object of the blessing. The narrative shows God strangely at work for Jacob without regard for our emotions about Jacob.”
Walter Brueggemann – Genesis – pg.235

Our problem is that we assume that blessings come to those that deserve it. That’s why over the past few months when I have constantly tried to show everyone the faults of the characters in Genesis there is such a strong reaction against it because we know that these characters are blessed. And since we assume that blessings come to those that deserve it we default to thinking that they are good people, and that they did something to deserve it. We never wonder if maybe God just blesses anyone and has a bigger purpose for blessing people than their morality. God’s blessing makes morality irrelevant. The message is the same all throughout the Bible yet we have such a hard time grasping it. The ones that we wouldn’t bless are the ones invited to be blessed. It’s the messed up way of Jesus; to bless those that you or I wouldn’t. So instead of trying to find a reason that they are blessed, we can rest knowing that God’s blessing isn’t a result of any human ingenuity.

Misconception #3 – Blessings are material gifts

Here is where I want to really bring some understanding. We here in our culture have become so showered with material goods; it’s all we think about when we think of blessings.. It is what separates us apart from the rest of the world; it is what gives us our identity. So when I ask people if they have been blessed they all think and assume the same things. You usually get the typical, oh yes I have been blessed with my children. But then after that it all goes to material things. I’m blessed because I have a house, food, clothes, my tv, my new car and the list goes on. All this tells me that we has a culture have a very limited view on what blessing actually is. It’s the language choice that tips me off.

"I am blessed because of my..."
"I am blessed because I have..."

Most of you have played Settler of Catan here, and some of you have played cities and knights. Part of me thinks that blessings should almost work like Cities and Knights does. In the game, you have knights that you have to purchase from the bank, you put your knight on the board and it is there, but the knight is absolutely useless to you. It sits there and takes up space and does nothing for you. Until you activate it. Not until you activate it does it perform its function.

I wonder if blessings are sort of like that? We have been given blessings all around us, but it’s not until we do with them what they are meant to do are they actually useful and fulfill their purpose. Blessings need to be given to be blessings, not just received.

God isn’t up there just handing out stuff so people feel good all day long. "Here is a TV for you, and a child for you, and a new car for you" isn’t how he operates. God is always up to something a lot deeper than what we see. It’s what God is up to what matters, not how he accomplishes it. It would be ridiculous to say that my new car is a blessing from God – when in the next breath we say to store up riches in heaven. The blessing is not the new car; the blessing is what is done with that new car. The blessing is not what is given to you; it is what you do with it.

Jacob was given lots of stuff. Constantly throughout Genesis we hear about his wealth, family and all the things that he owns. Then he constantly makes the mistake in thinking that those things are his blessing. It wasn’t until the end of Genesis on his death bed that he realized where the blessing truly was. Jacob realized that all those things that he was given were a means to God accomplishing his promise and purpose in Jacob’s life. God's purpose was bigger than Jacob having lots of stuff. For Jacob to be a great nation and to be a blessing to the nation’s around him he needed to depend on God and those blessings we’re devices to do that. They were constant reminders of who God was and what God was going to do through him. Jacob’s riches were not his blessing; they were just a means of God being able to bring about his promise to him. The blessing is not a material thing, but a tool that God uses to accomplish his purposes; purposes that are always larger than the individual. Blessings are the middle man between God’s promises and us. Blessings are reminders, they are curses, they are material things, they are relationships, they are awkward and joyful circumstances. They pave the way for God’s promise to be fulfilled. They are the language in which God uses to accomplish his purposes.

This is why Esau still got a blessing, this is why Jacob’s sons all got blessings (even though they seemed like curses). Blessings are what is given to us when we have to wait for God’s promise to remind us of what the promise is. It is assurance that we are heirs of a new kingdom.

I have one more passage that I want to read, and I hope that it can sort of bring it home for us. I heard this passage again a few months ago and then John brought it up last week and it’s something that I think fits for us today and along a topic like this.

Someone in the crowd said to him, "Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me." Jesus replied, "Man, who appointed me a judge or an arbiter between you?" Then he said to them, "Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; a man's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions." And he told them this parable: "The ground of a certain rich man produced a good crop. He thought to himself, 'What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.' "Then he said, 'This is what I'll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I'll say to myself, "You have plenty of good things laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry." ' "But God said to him, 'You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?' "This is how it will be with anyone who stores up things for himself but is not rich toward God."
Luke 12:13-21

The rich fool, was fooled into believing that the things he was given were blessings for him. Things that he got to choose what he did with. Things that God gave him. Let us not be rich fools, who have been given so much and who are tricked into thinking its actually for us. Let us remember that these things we have are not God’s blessings. God’s blessings are in the giving of the things we have to others. God’s blessings are the subtle reminders that we see around us of the Kingdom of God and not are stuff that we have. Blessings are defined by their function not how good you feel when you get it and their function is to fulfill God's promises.