::eclectic::

I'm Moving

2010-12-20T17:26:00.000-08:00

I started this blog way back in 2005 as a means to force myself to write, connect with other thinkers, and dialogue some of our burning questions. The first couple of years were spent debating, commenting, and agitating each other to a fuller, deeper, more authentic faith. It was very common, through the years 2005-2007, to have many many comments on a single, poorly written post. I believe the record amount of comments for any one post was 109.

Anyhow, if you are a regular follower of this blog, I appreciate the many years you have read and learned with me. I would invite you to update your RSS feed, reader, or subscription service over to my new home on the web. You can find my new home here.

The contents of this blog are protected by the creative commons. All Rights Reserved. Protected under Creative Commons (Noncommercial-No Derivative Works-Use With Permission) © 2005 - 2010 (CANADA/USA)

Top Ten Best of 2010

2010-12-15T13:16:00.000-08:00

1. Best Movie – Jonah Hex, another graphic novel film adaption that made little to no money at the box-office. I’m a sucker for westerns.

2. Best Sporting Event – The Vancouver Olympics. Of course, the best moment was Sidney Crosby’s goal that is burned into every Canadians memory. The most entertaining, though, was Shaun White’s winning half-pipe run.

3. Best Album – Rise Against, Appeal to Reason. In came out in 2008 but my iTunes shows it has the most plays.

4. Best Book – Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption by Steven King, published in 1983. Just happened to be the best book I read in 2010.

5. Best Video Game – Angry Birds.

6. Best New Website Addiction – Twitter. I finally joined and, after a couple months tweeting, realized that the only people on Twitter are egomaniacs and PR people. I’m not sure which I am. Either way, you can follow me here.

7. Best TV Show – The Office takes the cake again. I know exactly what character I would be if I was on the show.

8. Best Life Change – Quitting coffee. Except, I seem to drink more coffee now that I’ve quit.

9. Best Trip – Dominican Republic with my wife for our 10 year wedding anniversary! So good.

10. Best Photo – My ankle 11 days after falling while rock climbing. This is after the stitches came out.

What are your Top Ten Best?

The Christian Christmas Party

2010-12-10T15:30:00.000-08:00

It is coming to that time of year when people from all different walks of life come together to enjoy a dizzying amount of Christmas parties. Some of these parties are good and some of them, well, should never have happened. For those of you fretting about your staff Christmas party, you would do well to Google something along the lines of “work Christmas party etiquette” and remember to mind your toos. Your skirt shouldn’t be too high or your neck line too low. Don’t be too flirty, too hairy, or too late, and definitely don’t drink too much. Remember, your boss is there.

Anyhow, the remainder of this post will deal with another beast altogether: The Christian Christmas Party.

There are two characters that make up the Christian Christmas party guest list; the Christian party-goer and the reluctant non-Christian. Meanwhile the host, who generously opens the doors of their home to their Christian friends, cautiously hides any incriminating evidence that may call their Christianity into question. This may include R-rated movies, an empty bottle of wine or two, or a Toronto Maple Leafs jersey.

The first on the guest list are usually friends from church. These Christian party-goers usually plan to show up late and arrive extra hungry. In fact, since receiving their invitation to the party, they’ve probably stopped eating altogether. These people know that the host has spent the last month baking and preparing tasty little finger foods. As long as they’re not later than everyone else, they’ll feast like kings. Gluttony, of course, is only a minor sin. Right?

The other guest, much rarer to find at a Christian Christmas party, is probably nervous about the whole ordeal. They’re likely a neighbour or a friend from work who has been a targeted evangelism project. They’ve Googled “Christian Christmas party etiquette” and still don’t know what to expect. If this is you, pay attention! I’ll answer a few questions for you:

1. Yes, as is your custom, bring a bottle of wine as a gift for the host. As long as you arrive on time, they will have ample time to hide it.
2. No, you will not need to plan for a DD. *Note to Christians: “DD” is short for designated driver.
3. Yes, feel free to speak as you normally do. For extra fun, add some color to your conversation if the hosts’ pastor is there.
4. When you are offered a “cider,” don’t be surprised when you are given a “hot apple cider.” These are also good.
5. Yes, dress the same way you would for your office party and mind your toos. Remember, Jesus is there.
6. If the host advertises ugly Christmas sweater party or white elephant gift exchange, any reason not to go would be fine.

Well, now that we’ve got that all straight, go out and enjoy the Christmas holiday season! It is a great time to get together with friends and family, to tell stories and laugh together, to share good food and drink, and to remember the birth of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Merry Christmas!

Christmas & Traditions

2010-12-08T14:01:00.000-08:00

For most people, I think, Christmas is not really Christmas unless the right traditions are observed year after year with a dedication rivalling Santa Clauses’ devotion to cookies and mall appearances. Of course by “right traditions” I don’t mean “right for everyone.” Each person and family have their own traditions, twists on popular traditions, and traditions that make the rest of us wonder how much rum was in the egg nog.

Traditions get funny around the holidays. It is one thing to have your morning coffee tradition (or is it addiction?) and an entirely different thing to have a giant tree slowly dying inside your home. One friend of mine decorates their family tree with sour soother candies. Given the choice, I’d decorate it with bottles of maple syrup, but that’s just me.

Perhaps one of my favourite Christmas traditions, providing many opportunities over the years, has been the mistletoe. It stands to reason that anything that stays green during winter and produces fruit, should be celebrated with a kiss! And though I can’t prove it or find it anywhere in history, this might be the reason men started bringing trees inside the house. The reasoning? The bigger the green plant, the bigger the kiss.

While the Christmas tree first shows up in 16^th century literature, most believe its origins date back to 8^th century Germany when a missionary with a chainsaw cut down a sacred oak on Christmas Eve. The outraged locals, understandably ticked, were eventually calmed by the planting of a young fir tree and disaster was averted. Eventually, German settlers brought the Christmas tree to Pennsylvania where it sprang to life as a good ol’AmeriCanadiana tradition.

Even earlier, in 4^th century Britain, evergreens were given as gifts to each other during the week of Winter Solstice. Interestingly, during this gift giving time, slaves and masters would exchange positions making speech free and, theoretically, unhindered. I imagine this to be like a modern day office Christmas party where cubicle dwellers tip a few back with the boss but can’t and shouldn’t say what they really think.

The great thing about traditions is that, while you and I may have the exact same tradition, each of us gets to inject our own meaning into the tradition. We are free to adopt and borrow traditions from other ages and cultures and make them uniquely our own. Traditions act as symbols and guideposts that generally point people and communities to something larger.

Christians have been doing this for centuries, and it’s not wrong. Traditions change, they morph, they pick up new meanings and discard old ones, and people carry on. If a Christian wants to decorate an evergreen tree to be reminded of Jesus, fine. Others in history have held that evergreen trees increase sexual potency. Obviously, symbols and traditions mean different things to different people.

As Christians, our hope is that people would come to know the reason behind some of our kooky traditions. Christmas is a celebration of the life of Jesus and we’ve adopted certain cultural things to be reminded of this. What will our Christmas traditions of the future look like? Who knows, but for Christians, it will always include Jesus.

Jesus told stories. So do we.

2010-11-10T10:08:00.000-08:00

Some version of this hits news stands this weekend. Enjoy.

If there is a universal currency that seems to have transcended country and culture across the ages of time, it certainly would not be the Canadian dollar, the English language, or a gift card to Starbucks. The currency of the ages is story.

I remember passing by an Aldo store full of people, shoes, and people buying shoes, which, at the outset, is totally normal. The giant advertisement in the window was, however, odd. Everything was in its right place; model in a short skirt, long legs, trendy shoes, and cool photography. The only odd part was the question on the advertisement: “What is your story?”

Is Aldo selling shoes or stories? I think the Aldo execs in Montreal know something that the church has sometimes forgotten: our stories are important.

Humans love to tell stories; they are somehow attached to our very nature. Every inspiring story develops out of mundane details of simple day to day living. It’s not extravagance or heroism that tell the miracle of life so much as it is the ordinary moments that all add up to something. The sound a humming bird makes when it hovers in front of a flower, the feel of rain hitting your forehead after a hard day of work, your child’s first words, an old friend emailing to say hi. These are the scenes life is made of; these are the ordinary moments translated into the extra-ordinary.

We are storied creatures. Right from a very young age we learn to think, believe, and even process the world around us through the context of story and narrative. Not only that, we like to turn life experience into story. For example, a significant experience, a trauma, a close call, a surprise – whatever the experience – we tend to remember as narrative. We don’t necessarily recall the details or get them all right, but that’s not the point. What matters is that we have this story and it somehow shapes how we view the world around us.

It’s no wonder then that Jesus spent much of his time telling stories. He spent his time wandering around with a vagabond crowd of blue collar workers, terrorists, drunks, sex trade workers, the religious elite who he continually made fun of, and even a few normal folks, telling them stories.

Story and narrative was the centerpiece of Jesus’ preaching and teaching style. His stories weren’t cute little side dishes of garnish to augment or transition weightier matters. No. They were the epicenter of Jesus’ communication. Jesus hardly said a word to the crowds unless it was framed in story.

Jesus told stories. Aldo gets it. Why shouldn’t we, the Church? I’m not sure when or how proposition, water-tight logic, and long winded homily took center stage, but it certainly hasn’t proven to be all that inspiring or compelling. I wonder what would happen if preachers spoke in the language of story? I wonder what would happen if preachers narrated, spoke in metaphor, and created images for people? Is it possible for Scripture to become self-evident to people through the stories that are told rather than it being explained point-by-point, proposition-by-proposition? Jesus thought it was possible; imagine if we did.

Confession Booth in the Media

2010-10-08T11:35:00.000-07:00

Two weeks ago the UCM crew at UFV hosted a confession booth at the school wide party: Dis-O. The confession booth made it into three separate articles in The Cascade; the university newspaper. Here is my favourite quote re: the Confession Booth from The Cascade.

Of the various booths set up around the green I believe two specifically deserve attention….The second booth was more mysterious: it was a plywood hut reminiscent of a rural outhouse bearing the title ‘Confession Booth.’ When I saw it, I was immediately intrigued, and I marched up to a helpful volunteer outside to demand an explanation.

“What is it?” I asked him.

“A confession booth,” he explained helpfully, “a reverse confession booth. You see, we are going to confess to you.”

It turned out that “we” was the University Christian Ministries student group, and the “confession” was an apology for most of the boneheaded things Christians have done throughout the ages. Whatever one’s views on religion, a heartfelt apology is a powerful thing, and I look forward to more creativity from UCM in the future.

You can also check out my article on the Confession Booth for the Abbotsford Times.

Grace and Peace,

-Jer

Thrice:: Come All You Weary

2010-09-30T12:26:00.000-07:00

I love this song! Performed live by Dustin Kensrue, the lead singer and guitarist for Thrice. Take a moment to listen and enjoy...

What are the Rules of Brainstorming?

2010-09-16T14:50:00.000-07:00

I’ve had the privilege of working and brainstorming with a lot of incredibly talented people over the years; daring people, risk taking people, entrepreneurial types with creative appetites that never fill. These are artists, film makers, business people, preachers, musicians, graphic designers, internerds, super-shreds, and even a few random strangers who just happened to be in the right place at the right time. I love dreaming and scheming with creatives and have enjoyed seeing the product of some of these sessions when they hit the street.

My experience with these people has helped form a set of guidelines that I use in leading and shaping creative spaces to brainstorm. I don’t hold to these with a tight-fisted rigidity, however, brainstorm sessions are markedly different when I ignore any of the guidelines. Sometimes these guidelines are explicitly expressed so that everybody knows and understands the “rules,” other times – with seasoned creatives – the guidelines are implicit and embedded into the conversation; everybody just knows.

Be Careful Who You Brainstorm With

There are certain people who have a tendency to stir creativity, give life to a thought or concept, and who are ok with wide-open reckless imagining. There are other people, often calling themselves realists, who are especially gifted at putting out the fires of the creative process. At some point, these realists do come in handy offering valuable insights; however, they are rarely helpful in the beginning stages of brainstorming. Make sure that the people you invite into your dialogue are generous with their imagination.

The Environment is Important

Simply, get out of the boardroom*. A bunch of suits sitting around a big board table trying to drum up the next slick marketing campaign, initiative, or whatever, does produce results; but maybe not the best. The environment does influence how we think and live – the study of human geography clearly shows this. I’ve found that getting out of places that encourage systematic, top-down, and structured cultures and into places that are more fluid, relational, experimental, and playful generates a culture of creativity that far surpasses the boardroom. Some of my favourite places to brainstorm and imagine are brewpubs, après-shred patios, the forest, crowded public spaces, and in my living room with people that I like.

*One other note re: leaving the boardroom: turn your mobile device off and stop worrying about your twitter account, noisy emails, and text messages. Give your attention to being present with your thoughts and where they might lead.

Practice Imagination

Once you’ve got the people and the place nailed down, begin with some exercises in imagination. Don’t link these warm-ups to the project. Make them fun and eccentric, and go out of your way to show how an idea can blossom into something never imagined just moments before. This helps people to loosen up and begin thinking wildly without the controls and limitations that so often ambush a brainstorm session.

Mix and Match Opposites

Mixing and matching opposites, experimenting with apparent contradictions, messing around with the taboo and the prude, turning propositions into metaphors, and using unconventional mediums go a long way in helping ideas develop and form. Plus, it’s a Canadian metric ton of fun to peer around corners and feel out nuances and subtle connections. If we look hard enough, we begin seeing that everything seems to be connected to everything else. This requires creatives to have good eyes, listen with attentive ears, and delve into seemingly unrelated disciplines of thought and practice. When the curious brainstormer pokes and prods around with ambiguities, new ideas are likely to be unleashed.

Where There is Smoke, There is Fire

If a thought or an idea sparks an interest, follow the idea and flesh it out until the thought becomes ridiculous…and then follow it a little further. Over and over, I have found that out of some of the very weirdest, wackiest, and worst ideas come the very best. The endurance to follow these ideas from horrible-to-great requires some creative hop-scotching and a singular dedication to this: Do not prematurely evaluate ideas. Leave that to the realists (aka CFO’s and accountants) and wait for a good level-headed strategy session later on. Critical evaluation of ideas is important, but it is for a later time.

Have a Safe Word

Finally, build into the brainstorm a place of refuge for anyone who feels like their idea is being unfairly attacked. Make it fun, light, add an action to it, but whatever you do, make sure that your creative team feels safe to explore. The safe word or action should be decided on beforehand and respected when it is used. Safe words provide a moment of pause that helps everyone to recalibrate and begin moving forward again.

Brainstorming with daring creatives is a tremendous amount of fun, tends to look more like fun than work, and is likely to produce more results at a consistently higher quality more often. Happy brainstorming!

If the the entire world lived in a village of 100 people...

2010-09-10T11:40:00.000-07:00

A number of years ago, a credible organization endeavored to build a profile of the planets' population by shrinking the population from 5.7 billion people down to a village of 100 people. In the years since, the world population has grown to about 6.8 billion, however, my guess is that the village profile would look very similar. This village of 100 people would look like this:

Fifty-seven Asians, twenty-one Europeans, fourteen North and South Americans, and eight Africans.
Seventy would be non-white.
Seventy would be non-Christian.
Fifty percent of the entire world’s wealth would be in the hands of six people.
Those six people would be citizens of the United States.
Seventy would be unable to read.
Fifty would suffer from malnutrition.
Eighty would live in substandard housing.
Only one would be college educated.

Wow.

Leading from Collaborative Spaces

2010-09-09T20:51:00.000-07:00

Most who have visited the office space of Christian Life Community Church have uttered comments of surprise as to how chaotic and unordered it seems to be. In fact, most visiting and out-of-town pastors who come through our office usually make a comment very similar to… “Interesting, you guys actually get work done here?”

What makes our office space unique to many offices spaces – whether they are church, business, or other social sector office spaces – is that we don’t actually have offices. Rather, we have what some might call a “team room” or a “commons area” where all of us – lead pastor right through to our yearly apprentices – share a common working space with no walls, doors, sound proofing, or cubicles. Our desks are open, side by side, and within elbow space of everyone else in the office.

Admittedly, this does cause some tension from time to time when one person needs some quiet and another feels like whistling or, for example, when some mysterious team member keeps ‘borrowing’ all the best pens. However, the benefits of our shared work space are amazing. Let me share just three of those benefits with you.

1. Shared Space is Collaborative Space
A major benefit of the shared space at CLCC has been the weekly, daily, hourly times of collaboration with other team members. As pastors we are constantly trying to solve problems, find solutions, and innovate new forms of community and communication. So often, the solutions we are looking for are needed in “real-time” meaning that we need real conversations with real people, right now. The simple proximity of having other people around allows for many impromptu meetings through-out the day without having to leave your desk. Not only that, it is not uncommon for a team member to overhear a conversation in another part of the room and quickly pipe in with a thought or an idea that shapes the rest of the conversation and informs the decision. We believe that decisions and innovations are better in community than they are alone. Our space allows for it to happen.

2. Collaborative Space is Casual Space
Not only does our office function as a work space, it doubles as a place where real friendships, conversations, and familiarities develop. This means that it’s not uncommon for our children to be running around the office exploring its nooks and crannies, that I can proudly wear my stinky bike commuter clothes all day long, and that hundreds of non-work related jokes, stories, and conversations happen all the time. The effect has been that our team has a sense of safety and freedom to express real concerns and have real opinions without the guardedness found in organizations where people don’t really know each other. Collaborative space – especially for lead leaders – takes the concept of the “Walk Around Manager” and evolves it to an “Every Moment Manager” where casual interactions with the rest of the team happen all the time.

3. Collaborative Space is Creative Space
One of the best parts of collaborative space is that it is a breeding ground for creative ideas and innovative solutions. For any organization, the ability to create, dream, and innovate together should be very close to the core of its organizational values. Collaborative spaces jump-start the creative space and inspire people to imagine. This happens for a number of reasons: (1) A diversity of people with their widely different worldview and opinion force us into seeing, thinking, and even believing differently, (2) Mixing and matching seemingly opposite ideas have regularly produced breakthroughs in science, music, education, film, etc., teaching us how to live with duality, and (3) These spaces tend to breakdown the “hierarchy of imagination” opening the doors to ideas not found in the board room. These creative spaces are especially important for Christians whose belief is in a God who, not only is creative, but who has imaged us to be co-creators with Him. Creativity is a natural result of a maturing spirituality. The church, of all people and places, should be among the most creative entities on the planet.

Finally, collaborative spaces are not just open spaces with a bunch of people crammed into them. Collaborative spaces are intentional spaces that motivate a culture of shared learning, shared discovery, communal accountability, and a deep driving commitment to a common mission or cause. I believe that collaborative spaces are part of what is going to be commonly known as “best practices” in team leadership. Here, we applaud differences, honour the curious nonconformist, respect the odd and quirky, allow opposites to live side-by-side, and embrace a collective imagination as a means to lead us forward. Who are the people in your collaborative space?

VOTE: Embers Logos

2010-09-08T20:53:00.000-07:00

With the changing of the seasons, summer to fall, comes the inception of a new weekly gathering of twenty-somethings for worship, teaching, and discussion. You are warmly invited to Embers.

Embers, its name derived from an ancient church tradition, was a time that Christians came together at the changing of each season to reflect and be thankful of the season they just came through and to look forward in prayer, feasting, and fasting in preparation for the season to come. It was a time to slow down and pause, marking the transitions of their year with thankfulness, reflection, and joy.

Wednesday nights at Embers, you are invited to abandon the rush and business of life and to find some rest in a community of worship. Every approaching season, each new journey or project, whether it is a move, schooling, or a relationship, they all come with unforeseen promise and peril. Embers is meant to be a time of rest and reflection for these transitions of your life, my life, and our churches life. Join us as we move from season to season.

That said, we are eager to know what your favourite Embers logo is. Please take a couple of minutes to browse them, decide what your top two logos are, and then post your vote on my Facebook page. Thanks for your participation!

Logo #1: The City

Logo #2: Press Play

Logo #3: The Tree


Logo #4: Ink Blot

Beginning Wednesday, September 29^th, Christian Life Community Church will be hosting a weekly gathering of worship, teaching, and discussion geared primarily to the twenty-something crowd but open to all ages.

The Lonely Everybody?

2010-08-31T00:43:00.000-07:00

I quickly pounded this article out for tomorrow mornings' deadline. It hits news stands sometime this week...Enjoy.

In the course of the next few hundred words I’d like to make a small confession that I suspect isn’t all that unique to me. In fact, my guess - and credible research bares it out - is that many of the readers of this little column will feel right at home with me. I’d guess that if you are honest with yourself, even for a very brief moment, that you’d nod your head, see what I see, and feel what I feel.

And here it is; I’m lonely.

To be true, my loneliness is not the deep searing loneliness of Tom Hanks in the movie Castaway or the desperate howling loneliness of the neighbors’ left-at-home flee bag. No, I have an amazing community of people around me who I roadtrip, camp, rockclimb, bike, snowboard, eat, work, and worship with. These are amazing individuals who add a mosaic of value, spice, and color to my life that, when brought all together, cause me to be incredibly thankful for these important relationships.

Yet, from time to time, I still feel this nagging little space in my life that causes me to agree with the Bible’s first indication that everything is not all that it should be. God, in observing all that He had created, sees mankind in isolation and declares, “It is not good for man to be alone.” And He is right; anyone who has felt aloneness, isolation, or has had nobody to call to help them move houses in the city they’ve lived their whole life, knows this. Deeply.

Somewhere along the way, either by our actions, the actions of others, or a combination of the two, the bits and pieces of life have conspired together to devastate our relationships. Dads stop being good dads to their sons and daughters, employers begin treating their employees like this seasons’ BC Lions are playing football, and spouses’ consign themselves to living on different floors of the house just to stay out of each others’ hair.

This is not good.

I’ve found that it is in these seasons of aloneness that I also feel a sense of disorientation and a stumbling stupor to some of the big questions in life. Questions like, “Who am I? Why am I here? What’s the point of all this?” Not that big questions are bad questions, they’re just difficult questions, especially when I’m alone. Commenting on these questions, author Steven Pressfield says, “These are not easy questions. They’re not easy because the human being isn’t wired to function as an individual. We’re wired tribally, to act as part of a group.”

This is what I long for; a tribe of my own, people to tell stories with, an ordeal to conquer with someone, and a memory that is shared with them. I guess you could call this community. But it seems deeper than what is often programmed and marketed by organizations, including the church.

However, my experience has shown time-and-time again that when I slow my pace of life, make myself vulnerable to friendship and connection, and intentionally engage in the life of a community - meaningful connection with other people follows. I find these places in my church, my rockclimbing community, and the surprise of all places - my actual neighbors, dog and all. This, people connected with other people desipte their differences and distinctions, is what I think God might call, “Very good.”

Jeremy Postal pastors in Abbotsford and is an introvert who must be forced or bribed out of his garage and into the real world where there are real people.

Congo Microfinancing Project: Mike & Amy Boomer

2010-08-10T13:31:00.000-07:00

Former CLCC Apprentice, Mike Boomer, and his wife Amy are departing for the Democratic Republic of Congo Sept. 19 to continue their new work coordinating a microfinancing project. The aim of this project is to to abolishing poverty in developing nations by giving small business loans to impoverished individuals. Please watch the video below and spend a few minutes looking through their website.

Congo Microfinance Project from Mike Boomer on Vimeo.

Artist God

2010-07-27T13:42:00.000-07:00

The following mess of words will appear this Friday in my monthly Abbotsford Times column. Happy innovating!

One of my favorite expressions and descriptions of the Christian God is that He is Creator God. This particular name of God has led to all kinds of opposition, argument, in-fighting, good science, bad science, and crazy speculations by Christians and evolutionists alike. And, while the creation-evolution debate rages on, a couple of key concepts about this Creator God get missed.

First, if this God is real and He did in fact create the world around us, then Christians should take seriously God’s command to care for and tend to the earth. Unfortunately, we Christians have been up in arms for years over the creation/evolution debate, dumping time, energy, and resources into defending our claim for a Creator God while largely ignoring to care for His creation like He asked. Many bridges could be built and many walls broken down when we recognize that, though there is disagreement on the origins of our blue planet, there is wide scale agreement that we must care for it.

Second, if we can believe the Bible, which says that humankind was made in the image and likeness of Creator God, then we will also come to understand that part of what it means to be human is to create. We are creative creatures wired in such a way that we love to make music, paint and write, dance and sing, sculpt, dream, and enjoy the beauty of artistic expression found all around us.

Artists are funny people; easily stereotyped as being slightly off-centre, nocturnal, (w)mildly moody, on the bizarre edge of fashion and taste with quirky intelligence, poor grammar, even worse math skills, and ideals that would make the 60’s blush.

The reality, however, is that our very humanness means that every one of us is a creative artist and innovator in some way. An artist isn’t a special type of person with quirky habits so much as every person is a special type of artist. This means that desk jockies in their cubicles wearing beige khaki pants and sweater vests are creative genius’ at something and that the people you least expect to create and innovate will astound you with something.

Sadly, part of the brokenness and incompleteness of the human nature has been the wide-scale loss or suppression of the artist within. For the Christian, this affects our faith in a profound way. One artist said it this way, “An unimagined faith is as undesirable as an unreasoned faith. Without imagination, all hearts are closed, all desires unknown.” When we are able to imagine and envision a God that is beautiful, we begin to feel and experience a faith that is vibrant; our hearts are opened, and we begin to come alive in all that we do. Color, rhythm, experimentation, invention, and curiosity spurs on our faith, often causing us to creatively respond to injustice, innovate new forms of worship and community, and imagine a way for the church to move forward in a culture that thinks we’re backwards.

The church, of all places, should be the most creative place on earth as we strive to be like Artist God who made us in his image and likeness, co-creators in the world he made. Can you imagine that?

Come You Weary

2010-06-22T11:11:00.000-07:00

The following article will appear in my monthly Abbotsford Times column. Enjoy.

Over the course of the last couple of weeks, I have been laid up at home with my leg in the air while Facebooking, watching movies, and drifting in and out of sleep like Homer Simpson at church. This lazy sounding existence is not something I have chosen for myself, rather, it was imposed on me by a nasty rockclimbing fall that’s going to leave a mean scar and make for a great war story. And, as much as I would like The Times to run a photo of the open wound on my ankle, most of the readership of this little column would probably pass out or tap out before reading the rest of the piece. Please feel free to direct thank-you letters to the editor.

Another part of my routine has been a twice daily trip the Abbotsford hospital for IV therapy to treat the wounds’ ensuing infection. There are also multiple visits to my family doctor and the occasional hobble into Emergency. These daily little trips to the hospital and away from the gloom of my bedroom have begun to be what I look forward to and even enjoy. In fact, if it wasn’t for all the pain, infection, injury, and line-ups, hospitals would be a desirable place to go. There is a Starbucks, a comfortable atrium, friendly staff who care and seem to know a lot about you, and a reasonable amount of parking! Why don’t people just simply hangout at the hospital? It’s a great place.

Jesus, in one of his defensives against critics who called him a glutton and drunk for eating with sinners, simply stated, “It’s not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick.” Now imagine for a moment if hospitals didn’t serve the sick and needy of Abbotsford, but rather the healthy. What would they look and feel like? I imagine that our Westcoast doctors’ would trade in their drab green scrubs in favour of khaki’s, socks, and sandals. Nurses’ would drink non-fat no-whip triple-shot mocha’s before, during, and after everything. Technicians would keep ogling new technology and custodians would gather empty coffee cups while the volunteers ogle the five dollar drinks. That, and there would be a sign out front that reads, “Taking care of each other, no room for the sick.”

Hospitals were imagined, designed, built, and are administrated for the purposes of bringing hope, health, and recovery to the broken, sick, and hurting of our communities. In so many ways, the Church was too, and it is both saddening and sickening when I see churches with signs out front that read, “Taking care of each other, no room for the sick.”

As Christians, we must take seriously Jesus’ cause and mission of bringing hope to the hopeless, refuge to the refugee, health to the sick, and comfort to the dying. The followers of Jesus, whom he called the Church, have the mandate of loving the lonely, bringing joy to the broken-hearted, and offering peace to the troubled. Can you imagine a church designed, built, and administrated for these purposes? Imagine what our community would look and feel like if the followers of Jesus devoted its energies to these purposes? Imagine if the sign out front read, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” I can, others have, can you?

The Big Wild Canada!

2010-05-28T13:30:00.000-07:00

Hey yo - I just thought I would pass on a website of a great Canadian organization that works very hard to conserve and protect Canada's wild spaces. Wild spaces are becoming more and more rare as industry and development continually encroach on forests and wetland. Anyways, here is a great picture from a recent Big Wild newsletter that I thought was interesting. To see a larger version, make sure to go and check out the website and, if you're feeling earthy, join the newsletter and keep yourself informed. Enjoy.
-Jer

Hope Bouldering: New Bouldering Guide

2010-05-15T21:04:00.000-07:00

Hope and the eastern Fraser Valley have been a playground of bouldering for local boulderers for the last ten years. Areas are scrubbed, climbed and developed, new areas are found, and then old areas forgotten. This seems to be the case with scores of really cool boulder fields around Hope, BC. To combat this, we've decided to produce some mini-select guidebooks to a few of the areas. The first mini-guidebook will cover just over 100 select problems at Hunter Creek with topo's, photo's, descriptions, and the all-mighty tick box. The Hunter Creek Select is nearly complete and will be made available early summer in a very limited print run. If you would like to get your hands on a copy, they will be for sale at Project Climbing Centre in Abbotsford or you can email fraservalleybouldering@hotmail.com
Happy sending.

Every Member a Minister

2010-05-11T11:56:00.000-07:00

The following short article appears in this Friday's Abbotsford-Mission Times. Enjoy.

A simple drive through our beautiful little city in the country should confirm in you the suspicion that there are a lot of churches in town. The Abbotsford Bible-belt is full of them and, as a result, there are a lot of pastors who live here. It seems that I can’t go anywhere in this town without running into some pastor from some church just down the block. We’re everywhere. At your coffee shop. At the gym. Wondering if the traffic at Sumas will ever move. We are here.

Locally, there seems to be two popular and opposing perceptions of the value and worth of a pastor. The first perception is antagonistic. Often, those who hold this perception have been burned, hurt, or disenfranchised with church leadership and have decided that church leadership is synonymous with bad leadership. There are, no doubt, examples of church leadership that have been terribly destructive and should not be respected, trusted, or tolerated. However, to conclude that if one pastor is not to be trusted than all pastors should not be trusted is like saying that if country music is bad (which it is), than all music is bad. It’s bad logic.

The second view that I’ve come across in Abbotsford is that pastors can do no wrong. We hover in unattainable spiritual heights listening to praise music while conjugating Greek verbs and living a perfect and sinless life. We never drive like you do. We don’t curse, we’ve never had a fight with our spouse, and we certainly have never thought about skipping church. Business owners who hold this view often give us free coffee, cheap green fees, and discounts like you wouldn’t believe. Needless to say, my Dutch pastor friends and I really like this. And, while there is Biblical support for honoring and respecting spiritual leadership, the idea of pastor-on-a-pedestal has caused some serious dysfunction in the church.

The dysfunction is this: pastors are not the only ministers in the church. In fact, Scripture clearly outlines the idea that each person has unique gifts and abilities and has a significant part to play in the overall ministry of the church. And while the recognized pastor in your church has a unique role to play in the church, he doesn’t play all the roles. This would be like asking Roberto Luongo to single-handedly defeat the Chicago Blackhawks. It obviously doesn’t work!

Considering this, I’d like to make three affirmations about Christian ministry. First, all Christians have a unique call to some kind of Christian ministry. Each one of us follows Jesus’ example to feed the poor, preach the Good News, build inclusive communities, stand up for justice, comfort the hurting, and serve the needy. Each Christian, and not just the pastor, has the responsibility to follow Jesus into Christian ministry.

Second, there is a huge variety of ministries that you can be involved with. Changing the oil in a single moms’ car or moping up the mess that the pastors’ kid makes are not inferior to the more public ministries of teaching or leading. One is not superior to the other; they all work together for the common good, cause, and function of the church.

Finally, the type of ministry that you find yourself in will likely be centered around how God has wired and designed you. Your unique gifts and abilities combined with the hobbies, work, people, geography, or whatever that you’re passionate about should give you some indication as to what, where, how, and who you’ll serve in Christian ministry.

Simply, each Christian of the church is a minister, called into ministry, and has an important and unique role to play. And though us pastor types do enjoy what we do, we would be much more satisfied seeing each one of you finding your role and place in ministry along side of us.

Newfoundland Bouldering Vid

2010-04-28T20:14:00.000-07:00

This bouldering video looks pretty sick...I may finally have a reason to check out the right coast!

The Wildest Dream: Mt. Everest, George Mallory, & Conrad Anker

2010-04-14T19:49:00.000-07:00

Earlier this year I read a book about Conrad Anker's expedition to summit Mt. Everest and find the body of George Mallory. George Mallory is thought by some to be the first person to have ever summited the world's tallest peak, some 30 years before Sir Edmund Hillary claimed the first ascent. The National Geographic trailer for the upcoming film looks awesome! Check it out.

The Faces of Jesus

2010-04-06T13:48:00.000-07:00

The following short article recently appeared in the Abbotsford-Mission Times which resulted in a flurry of emails to my inbox. I thought I'd post it here for the world of blog to enjoy.

Maybe you have noticed, or maybe you haven’t, but there seems to be an over-abundance of “Jesuses” that have taken over the modern landscape of Christian thought. The attempt to modernize and make contemporary the Biblical and historical Jesus has given us some humorous and, admittedly, some embarrassing modern depictions of Jesus. Some of these pictures of Jesus, however, have proven to be quite loyal to the person, work, and divinity of Jesus while others have been about as successful as a miracle diet pill.

While the Bible is quite clear on who Jesus is, it is also quite clear in its warnings to avoid teaching that presents a Jesus other than the Jesus presented in Scripture. I am continually amazed at how creatively we tend to read our own culture back into the portrait of Jesus. I’ll give you a few examples.

To begin with, there is the always popular single, white, North American and totally employable Jesus who drives a mini-van and lives in the suburbs. This Jesus often pops up in paintings with blue eyes and boyish good looks.

The 1960’s step-cousin to this Jesus is the VW hippie Jesus who wandered Palestine as a homeless peasant with some quasy-intellectual thoughts and a few witty stories to entertain the people. Hippie-Jesus was non-confrontational, totally tolerant, and staged a few sit-ins just to show how tolerant and non-confrontational he was.

The opposite of Hippie-Jesus is UFC-cage-fighter-Jesus currently being made popular by a preacher in Seattle. This Jesus can take a beating, drinks beer, eats red meat, curses, worked a construction job, and will – in this round or the next – kick some tail.

And while Moralist-Jesus disapproves of UFC-Jesus drinking beer, he definitely agrees with Political-Lobbyist-Jesus that they need to put someone in a headlock.

Of course there is also Capitalist-Jesus, Che Guevera-Jesus, Jesus Christ Superstar-Jesus, Environmentalist-Jesus, and Oprah Winfrey-Jesus. There is Jesus the Economist, Jesus MD, Houdini-Jesus, the Great Therapist in the Sky Jesus, and the unforgettable eight pound six ounce Will Ferrell baby Jesus. To name a few.

With so many versions of Jesus, it is understandable why the identity of Jesus is vague, lost, confused, misrepresented, or abused by so many. This is especially true in the Abbotsford Bible belt where, though our theology may present Jesus as both King and Saviour, often our lives present him as anything but. Largely, the picture and image of Jesus that your spouse, classmates, co-workers, and neighbours see, is the picture and image of your life. What image are you presenting? What is the picture and portrait of Jesus you are painting for the people around you?

Our claim that Jesus is “King” and “Saviour” is our claim that we organize our lives around the obedience to his teaching. If this is our claim, we arrange our lifestyle, finances, schedules, sex lives, and our eating and drinking around the unique call and commission of Jesus Christ. If this is our claim, we have the deep and ongoing responsibility of seeking out and following the Biblical picture of Jesus. Which Jesus do you represent?

Faith & Doubt

2010-03-29T12:54:00.000-07:00

Recently I was asked to write a short piece for Pastor Chuck Swindoll and Insight for Living magazine. The Canadian edition is called Insights and is available nationally by subscription. My article deals with snowboarding, rockclimbing, uncertainty, faith, and doubt and appears this month in both print and online formats. Check it out HERE.

PHOTO: Yours truly. North Shore. Circa Old School.

Tree Hugging

2010-02-27T19:28:00.001-08:00

Save our trees!

Marginal Living

2010-02-19T20:03:00.000-08:00

The following article hit news stands today. Ironically, though the piece is about a slower pace of life and living, I wrote it last minute before deadline and my editor fixed it up while in the early stages of child labor. Enjoy!

The day, as it where, is broken down into many different little segments of time. Some call these segments seconds, minutes, and hours while others prefer to use more general terms such as dawn, morning, afternoon, evening, night, and bed to describe their day. Either way, these various parts of the day have a tendency to fill up very quickly with things like commutes, appointments, errands, home renovations, a second job, night school, and even the rare visit to the gym. There just never seems to be enough time!

I do most of my living in the balanced part of the day; nothing extreme. I rarely stay up when the schedule says bed and I even more rarely get up when the schedule says dawn. My mornings generally belong to breakfast and newspapers, afternoons belong to noise and appointments, and evenings belong to wrestling with my son, Seinfeld re-runs, rock climbing with friends, and reading books with few pages, large print, and even larger margins.

Actually, if you were to browse through my library you would find that the margins of most of my books are written in, drawn or doodled on, in order to highlight the noteworthy bits of the book; I use the margins of my books to highlight the content.

I love margins. They are the spaces around the content which, when re-read, generally contain the most significant parts. Likewise, I’ve found that the slower I live and the more margins I build into my day and life, the more likely it is that I am able to really notice what the content of life is saying. I am more attuned to my wife and son; I am more productive at work; I respond more honestly to injustice; I am able to notice things like a sad face in the coffee shop or a co-worker who’s had a difficult week at home. Instead of merely tasking my way through life at a frantic and unsustainable pace, I am able to slowly explore and discover what life looks like at a slower pace, in rhythm, and with margins.

In fact, I think that as one reads Scripture, there is a theme of “margins” that pops up time and again and which should orient the way we live, know, and see. Psalms 46:10 reminds us, “Be still and know that I am God.” We are to have a perspective of living biblically called “Sabbath”; the ability to find rest even amidst the commotion and busyness of life. Further, while this orientation of slow living certainly includes rest and refreshment, it is also intricately connected to a rhythmic lifestyle of working, feasting, and partying. Sabbath is much more than a particular day or time; it is a way of living.

How do you live? Are you living slow enough to care about the things you care about? Are you tuned in to the people around you; your family, friends, and strangers? Have you allowed for the time and space in your life – the margins – where you are able to truly, honestly, and significantly live? What are the margins in your life highlighting?

Welcome to Vancouver! Winter Olympics 2010

2010-02-10T10:39:00.000-08:00

If you've ever wanted to see Vancouver from the air without leaving the captains seat at your desk, this is the way to do it!! Check it out, very cool.

The Saints Are Coming

2010-01-19T15:00:00.000-08:00

The Green Day and U2 collaboration of "The Saints are Coming" at the re-opening of the Superdome in New Orleans. It kind of reminds me of what the party might have been like at the end of Ezra 3. Enjoy!

Fraser Valley Bouldering:: Hunter Creek Access Issues

2010-01-14T16:44:00.001-08:00

Please follow this link for a quick update about access issues at the Fraser Valley's premiere bouldering area: Hunter Creek. Thanks for doing your part in keeping this area clean and accessible.

Nate Woods on Prawn V6

Cash Money

2010-01-07T13:28:00.000-08:00

JC is still tingling my earbuds...
Enjoy!
-Jer

Christmas Cheers!

2009-12-18T14:05:00.000-08:00

Christmas is an interesting and exciting time of the year that allows us to take a foggy look into the cluttered soul of Canadian culture. Largely, we live our lives day-in and day-out in the constant pursuit of more things; more vacation days, more energy consumed, more events experienced. It is of little wonder then that, when we celebrate a holiday – such as Christmas – that holiday becomes somewhat of a hyperbole of how we already live.

And so, in my own mad rush to get out of the office, through security, and into a climate too cold for human survival, I give you my all-too-quick commentary on Christmas drink, food, tradition, consumption, and Jesus.

Attitudes towards Christmas food and drink are often at odds with each other. On one hand, we rightly applaud the many volunteers of the Operation Red Nose campaign for keeping the eggnog and rum off the road. On the other hand, we sing songs that include phrases like “Oh, bring us a figgy pudding…and a cup of good cheer/We won’t go until we get some, so bring some out here.” In other words, nobody is planning to leave the party until they’ve had their fill of “Christmas cheer,” which, in all likelihood, is referring to a cup of Christmas beer, as opposed to a cup full of Christmas good times.

On the topic of alcohol, while many churches and pastors condemn the over-indulgence of holiday spirits, it is also not uncommon for these same people to eat until they could actually fill out that big jolly red suit. While gym memberships and bottle recyclers make a fortune in January, excess of both food and drink are explicitly condemned throughout Christian Scripture. In the church, well-mixed hops get the evil-eye and the roasted turkey gets a feast. Why is this?

Most feasts, by the way, are meant to be shared with our families and loved ones. Yet the extra hours and stress spent at work, so that we can somehow manage to pay the over-inflated Christmas prices, are, at best, taken out on our families in the form of fighting, dysfunction, and all around Grinchyness. Unfortunately, for our homes and families, the turkey isn’t the only one to be feathered and skinned by our rush for consumption during the holiday season.

Some of our traditions, though currently fueled by our culture’s materialism and greed, originated out of motivations that are hard to criticize. One legend holds that St. Nicholas Bishop of Myra, of whom we get the modern-day Santa Claus Bishop of the North Pole, paid the dowries of young girls who were in danger of being sold into slavery and prostitution. Of course, this issue is an ever present reality that continues to need the immediate attention of modern day saints and sinners alike.

I suspect that St. Nick might have been on to something here; I suspect that maybe he had learned to live a life that was slow enough, observant enough, and uncluttered enough to engage in the hurt and need around him on a regular basis. I suspect that, for him, the celebration of Christmas wasn’t characterized by the rest of his life, rather the rest of his life was characterized by the reality of Christmas; Emanuel, God with us.

Singer, songwriter, and author Michael Card says it this way, “The celebration of the birth of Jesus should be ever new, however; the scenery of Christmas has become too familiar and comfortable. It blocks our view into the depth of the stark mystery of it all…Perhaps the reason so many of us find it difficult to celebrate the birthday of Jesus is that we have confined the celebration, in many ways, to a single day… and, at that, a day that’s become more cluttered than any other day of the year, a day that better represents the noise and business of all our other days.”

Merry Christmas!

Squamish Bouldering: It's About Time V5

2009-12-09T16:32:00.000-08:00

It's about time! Frig.

It's About Time (V5 Variation) from Trevor Edwards on Vimeo.

More from this day of bouldering @ the 6th Session.

Books: Indian Creek Chronicles

2009-12-02T14:30:00.001-08:00

A number of years ago while on a winter climbing trip in Joshua Tree, CA, Candace and I met and befriended a lone-traveler/climber from somewhere in the southeast. Georgia maybe. His deep drawl and funny words attracted us to him and we soon found ourselves climbing, eating, hiking, and remembering together. Eventually, as we each told our stories, we learned that he was on a quest into the wild with hopes of "finding himself." The inspiration for his trip came out of three things: 1) confusion about life, 2) a book titled Wild at Heart, and 3) a different book titled Indian Creek Chronicles.

At the time, I had just finished reading Donald Miller's book, Through Painted Deserts, and, having the book with me, we traded. He, for my Donald Miller book, and I for his Indian Creek Chronicles.

Fast-forward.

Today, after years of this book sitting and collecting dust on my book shelf, I finished the last page. Pete Fromm, the author and main character, recounts his 7-months living alone - in a tent - through a winter in the Idaho mountains guarding salmon eggs, sipping mountain whiskey, diverting disaster, experiencing the thrills of hunt and survival, and coming face-to-face with the realities of life alone in the mountains.

This tale of adventure in the mountains should be a must read for anyone who loves the mountains and for those others who have not grown weary of the classic "coming of age" story. I'm sorry I hadn't read it sooner.

To our friend from the southeast, I hope you made it through the pass and found what you were looking for.

Canadiana: Why I Love Canada

2009-11-16T13:02:00.000-08:00

Earlier this year, I was asked by a newspaper editor if I would provide a short list of things I like about Canada that would then run in a Canada Day special edition. I sent over my "top 9" list which was quickly hacked down to maybe three or four. I thought I'd publish the full nine here....Enjoy.

In no particular order, I give you:

#9 – I love watching and cheering for our Canadian hockey team at the World Junior’s every New Year. These guys eat, drink, and bleed maple syrup.

#8 – With Toronto and Vancouver being the 1st and 3rd most ethnically diverse large cities in the world, I have grown to love the great diversity of culture, language, and cuisine that lie within our borders (and restaurants).

#7 – My win percentage in this seasons Roll-Up the Rim contest clocked in perfectly at 100%.

#6 – My friends Ashley Barker and Ryan Thomas, who serve in the Canadian Forces, represent the thousands of young Canadians devoting their life to the good and well-being of our country both at home and abroad. We salute you.

#5 – I am proud to be able to name every single one of Canada’s provincial capitals: Victoria, Edmonton, Regina, Winnipeg maybe, and umm, can you get back to me? Well at least I know more about Canada than those ignorant Yanks!

#4 – The Charter of Rights and Freedoms which gives freedom by limiting freedom, opens doors to freedom of thought, speech, belief, and lifestyle. Canada should be proud of its ability to display its unity amidst the cultural-mosaic of diversity by BCers eating poutine, prairie people riding downhill mountain bikes, Torontonians noticing the rest of the country, churches being known for what they are for and not for what they are against, and Newfies using Screech to power carbon-neutral vehicles.

#3 – A toque, plaid button-up shirt, long-johns, a pair of Sorrels, a good hockey hair-cut, and a case of Molson constitute formal wear for any occasion. This will also be what eventually destroys Canada.

#2 – Canada’s legislative moto: “Peace, order, and good government.” Two out of three ain’t bad, eh?

#1 – Don Cherry’s Rock’em, Sock’em Hockey.

Memories:: Utah

2009-11-11T21:04:00.000-08:00

I noticed a friends Facebook status earlier this evening; "Just got back from Utah...EPIC" making me remember some of the time I've spent living in and exploring the Utah desert. For some reason, I absolutely love spending time in America's desert landscapes and could easily see myself living there one day. Anyhow, thanks for the status update Mike, it definitely made me remember well! Enjoy this photo from Moab.

God is Green

2009-11-06T14:39:00.000-08:00

Of all the stereotypes that have formed around what it means to be an environmentalist, the one stereotype that I would like to see most closely related with environmental consciousness would be “Christian.” And while the granola-eating, organic, tree-hugging activists with questionable hygiene and bad styles living out on the fringes of society should be applauded for their care of creation, my hope is that one day it is Christians who are most known for their environmental concern.

In the Christian church we often hear about Jesus’ Great Commission to go out into the world preaching the Gospel, baptizing people, and teaching them to obey Scripture. At the very beginning of the Bible, the book that we claim to obey and organize our lives around, comes the First Commission where Creator God commands that we care for and tend the earth. Interestingly, we Christians have been up in arms for years over the creation/evolution debate dumping time, energy, and resources into defending our claim for a Creator God while largely ignoring to care for His creation like He asked. Further, many bridges could be built and many walls broken down when we recognize that, though there is disagreement on the origins of our blue planet, there is wide scale agreement that we must care for it.

Scripture is clear that creation was made for God (Col. 1), by God (Genesis 1-2), and still belongs to God (Psalm 24). Additionally, Romans 1 tells us that God’s glory is revealed to Christian and non-Christian alike through creation, which includes the beauty of Mt. Baker at first light, the quiet gurgling of Clayburn Creek in the summer, and the prominent Cheam range as you drive east on Highway 1. One prominent dead theologian said it this way, “God writes the Gospel, not in the Bible alone, but also on trees, and in the flowers and clouds and stars.” Clearly, Christians should be known for their care of creation.

Thankfully, Christians around the world are beginning to respond to Creator God’s call to tend and care for a planet under siege to pollution, depleting resources, unsustainable development, and gross imbalances of food and water supplies. Every personal, community, and corporate action towards a greener lifestyle does count and is significant no matter how small the action may appear. This call towards an increasingly “green” lifestyle does not, however, come without cost. It will cost your time. It will cost your comfort. It will cost your convenience. It will cost your conscious. It might even cost you some green. The question being, is it worth it?

I think it is.

The Christian church must respond to this call. Environmental concern in not just a popular fad like tie-dye t-shirts or blogging, it is a biblical mandate that can not be ignored. For Christians, we begin by humbly repenting for our part in creation degradation and then actively pursue how to reduce harm, reduce waste, and begin to restore what has been lost. This may mean that churches don’t supply Styrofoam cups for the horrible church coffee that is consumed every Sunday morning or that car pooling and energy efficient structures and methods are in place. Maybe it means that the best parking spots are reserved for hybrid vehicles, that church grounds have community gardens, or that bike locks, lockers, and showers are provided to encourage people to bike, blade, run, or skateboard to church. Creative solutions to creation care will be as unique to the church and individual as anything else. Not everyone or every church can do everything, but everyone doing something will add up. The God we serve is green, why shouldn’t we be also?

We Are Mountain People

2009-10-30T10:50:00.000-07:00

Mountains are fantastic examples of the power and mystery of nature, and the routes we climb on them are expressions of all that is best in the human spirit. Mountains and routes are only animated by our interaction with them, however, and it is the people we share the mountains with - the relationships we have with them - that are ultimately the most important.
- Michael Kennedy from the forward to Extreme Alpinism by Mark Twight

Thank-you my friends.

Marketing Ideas: How do ideas spread?

2009-10-28T10:59:00.000-07:00

Following is a list of questions that I pulled out of a marketing book that I read some years ago. The Anatomy of Buzz by Emanuel Rosen looks at how information spreads best and quickest. Here are a few thoughts to work through before reading the questions.

Identifying Network Hubs
"Whether you spread an idea, a product, or a service, you always have a choice. You can broadcast or you can connect. Broadcasting involves massive mailings or buying media time and packaging your message so that it can be transmitted simultaneously to all nodes in the network. Connecting involves starting a dialogue with certain individuals in the network that you are trying to influence." -Emanuel Rosen

How do we identify these certain people?
1. Let network hubs identify themselves. These are people who come to us for something they want more then anything else: information. Network hubs feed on information.
2. Identify Categories of Network Hubs. The way to look for a category is to look for people who, by virtue of their position, have a higher then average number of ties with people in the networks you are trying to reach.
3. Spotting Network Hubs in the Field. It's easy to find these hubs when you are apart of a community. In fact, when you are apart of a community don’t really have to search.

Seeding Ideas
Successful seeding is an active process. It goes beyond the Field of Dreams cliché "If you build it, they will come." Rather than waiting passively for people to come to you, you go out and plant seeds all around the forest.

1. Look Beyond the Usual Suspects. Think broadly. Who are the people outside of our normal networks that could be 'seeded' with new ideas about young adults?
2. Put Information/Product In Their Hands. What piece of young adult product can we put in people's hand that will 'germinate itself' into other people's hands?
3. Listen For Silence. Successful seeding requires that we pay attention to dead networks and go further in order to reach them.
4. What seeding efforts are we doing right now? What should we be doing in the near future?

Questions to Ask Your Teams
1. From who do our newcomers typically learn about youth/young adults?

2. What do people say when they recommend youth/young adults?

3. How fast does information about youth/young adults spread compared with other churches/young adults groups/organizations?

4. Who are our network hubs? Are there any mega-hubs? Which are social hubs and which are expert hubs? Are there any categories of people who might become network hubs for youth/young adults?

5. Where does information about young adults hit a roadblock? Do our hub people know what the heck is happening?

6. Which are the most important sources of information that our youth/young adults rely on to know who we are/what we are about?

7. What other kinds of information spread through the same networks?

8. Who are our inactive markets that our youth/young adults are not reaching? Are we listening for silence where we are not known?

9. Do we offer a quality event, program, and community?

10. Do we underpromise and overdeliver?

11. Does youth/young adults enhance the lives of the people come?

12. Contagious products and ideas draw attention to themselves; how well does youth/young adults draw attention to itself?

13. Do we offer anything new? Buzz reflects excitement and excitement does not build around old ideas and predictable approaches.

14. Are we operating in a spirit of truth, honesty, and directness?

15. What are we willing to do to accelerate the contagiousness and word-of-mouth spread about youth/young adults?

16. What do students/young adults tell their friends about us? About other churches/youth groups/young adults?

17. What is the general church culture saying about young adult and youth ministry right now?

18. How receptive and responsive are we to our student and young adult concerns, comments, suggestions? How easy is it for people to talk to us?

19. Can we limit access to youth/young adults to create buzz? Scarcity build interest.

20. What sneak previews do we want to give to grade 12's for young adults and grade 8's to youth?

21. What can we do that will surprise people?

22. How outrageous can we be?

23. Who and how can we take people 'behind the scenes'?

24. What is the story and drama that we need to keep telling about our communities?

25. What events can we stage to get people talking about youth/young adults?

26. What kind of "pass it on" promotional material and mechanisms do we have?

27. How visible is youth/young adults to youth and young adults?

28. Are our youth talking to each other? The more that they interact, the more involved they will become with youth/young adults and the more likely they will tell other people. Can we find ways to help them talk to each other, socialize, and exchange comments?

29. Is there anything that we can do that makes youth/young adults more useful as more people use it? Example: email is more useful when more people use it; myspace is more useful when more people use myspace. People will spread the word more readily if they perceive some sort of personal benefit.

30. Is there anyway that we can offer any type of 'referrals reward program'?

31. Can our ads be clever enough to create buzz on their own?

32. How well can our youth/young adults articulate who we are and what we are about?

33. Are we supplying our networks with a constant flow of innovations that people can actually talk about?

34. Are we keeping people involved? If people join us but never think about it again, we can't expect them to talk about it too much. However, if we involve them, engage them, make it interesting for them, they will talk. Involvement translates to action, which in turn translates to buzz.

Anti-Bush Rally: George Bush in Saskatoon

2009-10-22T11:56:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, while catching a city bus from the Saskatoon ‘international” airport to downtown, I happened upon a large, loud, and angry crowd corralled by police and barricades. This crowd, made up of mostly young scenester kids, goth kids, and a few old school revolutionaries, where there in protest of George W. Bush’s speaking engagement here in Saskatoon. This crowd had all the elements of a revolution: social misfits, music of the people, accusations, and the alternative media to tell the story of David-vs-Goliath injustices that “the people of the world face.” The speakers/presenters/agitators played on the naivety and emotion of the teenaged crowd whose chants of “shame on you” were as monotonous as the speakers themselves. Additionally, this crowd was ripe with marijuana activists that would have made Tim Felger proud to be Canadian.

The other crowd, the hundreds of suit-and-tie people with their long wool jackets and trendy scarves, slowly filed into the building while smirking at the young protesters from the safety of their police line bunker. These – the obviously affluent or lucky – had tickets to see one of our times’ most controversial leaders live and in-person. This crowd seemed unfazed by the bullhorns and guilt-trips and, as one suit I interviewed stated, “We couldn’t give a sh!t about what some 18 year-old with fingergloves and a bullhorn cares about.” As ticket holders looked down their noses at protestors, it became glaringly evident that the seeds of this revolution will not be won or barely even advanced on the street.

Anyhow, the strangest thing was the protestors calling for justice. They – alleging Bush to be a war criminal – were demanding justice for his alleged crimes. Whether Bush should be tried for war crimes or not is a different story, but what was interesting here was watching drug dealer’s (at least the ones who offered to me) chant that justice be held for criminals. It reminded me of a story one man told about having a plank in an eye. It seems that hypocrites can be found in many places…

POST-SCRIPT
A funny moment that emerged out of the event came when a man in his late-50’s placed a twenty-foot pole down the back of his jacket with a small sign on the top. The sign read, “Terrorist. Torturer. Moron.” As this man was walking around with a twenty foot sign coming out of the back of his jacket, he walked under a tree and became tangled in the branches. With sign man stuck in the tree I fumbled with my phone to get a picture before he escaped. Moron? At very least, it was ironic.

Who is my neighbor anyways?

2009-10-16T20:39:00.000-07:00

Today I found myself at a conference hosted by the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada which is a Canadian lobby group that petitions politicians for things like the conservative definition of marriage, human trafficking, the sanctity of all human life, and other moral hot buttons. The speakers did a fantastic job at presenting - through stats, numbers, and case studies - the cultural realities facing Canadians today and are doing an amazing work on the Hill.

However, what I wanted to talk about is the audiences response to a presenters question, "Who is your neighbor?" The more and longer I listened to peoples responses, the more and more I became agitated and, eventually, flat out angry. People had some real compelling and biblical arguments to support their claim and justification as to why they had no need to know their actual neighbor. Responses like, my real neighbors are my co-workers, the people at my gym, and that weird high school buddy who keeps calling for decades and decades. Though these people are people who need Jesus and who should see the Gospel at work in our lives, conference attenders kept leaning on the Good Samaritan crutch to tell us why they didn't know their actual next door neighbor. Too busy. Long tiring commutes. Language barriers. Religious and political differences. A bad smell. Excuses.

I don't think that Jesus meant for us to forsake our actual neighbors nor does he give us excuse to do so. He does, however, expand our context of who our neighbors are and calls us to a life of self-sacrifice for God's glory and our neighbors good. As I sat there listening to the feel good excuses, I thought of the many people in my building of widely diverse backgrounds, worldviews, language groups, and experience who God has brought into the proximity of my life simply because we are neighbors. I thank Jesus for the people I live around and pray for them regularly realizing that many of the excuses offered today can play havoc on my responsibility to be a good neighbor. However, when we take the responsibility to be a good neighbor seriously, I guarantee that the excuses will be overcome.

Fraser Valley Bouldering: Hope

2009-10-15T14:55:00.000-07:00

The bouldering in Hope, BC is, and continues to be one of my absolute favourite fall bouldering spots. With the diversity of areas and stone, there is sure to be something to suite even the most critical of boulders. Of all the areas, the Hunter Creek bouldering is where I find myself most often. Flat sandy landings in an open forest cluttered with fine grain granite boulders keeps me scrubbing and climbing nearly all year long. The boulders themselves are covered in holds and range from low-ball traverses to high-ball fright fests that’ll make you wish you’d spent a little more time learning how to pull on classic Squamish-like slopers. Early developers Marco and Nate along with a handful of others took care to pick many of the plum lines like the conditions-dependant Goldfinger (V10) and the stunning Tube Socket (V9).

Hard bouldering is not all that New Hunter has to offer though. There are clean and classic circuits for everyone from beginner to rockstar to enjoy in a peaceful quiet setting away from the circus that is Squamish. There are also many many many unclimbed or rarely climbed lines that need to see more ascents and – if FA’s are your game – bring your cleaning tools! Just don’t be too eager to spray about your new super-burly-vee-hard-whatever as the problem may have been climbed just last year before mossing over again through the winter. Either way, the bouldering at Hunter is amazing!

Mountain Project lists a fraction of the problems at Hunter Creek but serves as a starting point for anyone looking to explore. Also, Marco Lefebvre recently published a short spot check with tons of info in Squamish Climbing Magazine, check out his work here. Finally, early summer 2010 will see the release of the Hunter Creek Mini-Select guidebook. Here are a few stand-outs as you wander through the forest:

V0 - The Frayed Edge of Sanity is a tallish and fun slab wandering up the Goldfinger boulder just left of the slickery and overhung Ecocide Arete (V10).

V1 – The Hoover Traverse put up by you-know-who is Hunter Creek’s Any Rock Will Do but much better! Don’t miss this fun warm-up climb.

V1/2 – Pale Face which is the tall-but-not-too-tall blank face that you are sure to walk past. Reach dependant for the grade, this classic climb is a great introduction to highball bouldering with a flat landing and mellow topout.

V2 – Precious Metals is one of the first lines you will see walking into the forest. Start with two blocky holds at about 7 feet on the Goldfinger boulder and boulder strait up and over or, for some extra value, hit the lip and continue up and left to the peak. Classic!

V3 – Split Tip is a low slappy arête and maybe high in the grade. Good fun.

V4 – Grendal’s Mother a scary highball put up by Andrew Itkonen a number of years ago. This problem sees few repeats with many backing off at their mental crux!

V4 – Miniblade, also known as The Mark of Zorro, was named for its eerie similarity to the Old Hope testpiece Blade of Lightning (V10). Miniblade is a classic trailside slopper problem with a troubled past.

V5 – Slight of Hand is found close to the creek and moves off fingery sidepulls to an airy mantle. Great movement!

Sleight of Hand -V5 from Trevor Edwards on Vimeo.

V7 – Autobot is a recent addition to the forest with both Marco and Ryan projecting and then climbing within days of each other. Very good problem!

V9 – Tube Socket is a Nate Woods classic which should be tried by those capable. A stand-up start to the problem in the V5 range is a fantastic problem in its own right.

V10 – Goldfinger, without its original and critical hold, is looking for a repeat with a new sequence. Any takers?

Directions and Beta to Hunter Creek:
Take Hwy. 1 East to Hunter Creek Exit.
As you come off the highway, turn right and then, instead of turning left to the Hunter Creek rest area, turn right and follow the service road for about 0.7kms.

Turn left onto a gravel forest service road called Lorenzetta/Hunter Creek FSR. and drive up the short hill to an obvious pull out on the right. Park here. WARNING: Vehicles with low clearance should be cautious.

From your parking spot, head up the road on foot for about 1 minute before spotting a faint trail to your left. There is a small cluster of fun boulders here. Keep following the trail to find more boulders all the way towards the talus field.

Special Notes:
1. DO NOT cross any fences and DO NOT go down to the creek as it is private land. The land owners are cool with respectful boulderers in the bouldering area but DO NOT want people to cross down to the creek.
2. Bears, cougars, and horses are known to be in the area.
3. If you (re)scrub something out there, let others know so that it gets some traffic and stays clean.
4. Do your part to make the area a better area for everyone.
5. Spring and summer, watch for stinging nettles. If you run into any, don't touch it!
6. If you’d like a tour of the area, feel free to ask!
7. **JANUARY 2010 UPDATE** Access Issues!!

Emerging Adulthood

2009-10-10T10:45:00.000-07:00

Christianity Today, in an interview with sociologist Christian Smith author of Souls in Transition, highlights some interesting thoughts for anyone who cares about the spiritual health of the emerging adults generation. Below are a couple of quotes that come out of the interview.

Again, we are sociologists, not church consultants. But in terms of the implications of our work for churches, the two key words are engagement and relationships. It can't just be programs or classes or handing them over to the youth pastor. Real change happens in relationships, and that takes active engagement.

But I would caution that emerging adults are smart about when they are being marketed to. So if the emergent church doesn't offer something genuinely different from what emerging adults have too much of already, they're not going to give it two seconds of attention.

Also, for those involved in University campus ministry, there are some interesting observations. Go check it out.
-Jer

Team Leadership: Inspiring Staff and Volunteers

2009-10-08T19:45:00.000-07:00

Part of my job as a pastor is to build ministry teams that are motivated, hopeful, and strategically pushing towards a clear and compelling picture of the future. These teams, made up of paid and unpaid staff, must be led by leaders who, though uncertain about exact outcomes, know how to encourage and lead their teams forward into an unknown and uncharted future. Inevitably, any pursuit into the unknown will provide set-backs and discouragement that, depending on the key-leaders ability to rally the troops, could either stall all forward movement or inspire creative and compelling solutions. Further, because most Kingdom-problems are community-problems, most Kingdom-solutions have community-solutions. As Christian leaders then, it is likely that we will find the majority of our leadership time sitting around coffee tables with our teams looking for these community-solutions. Follows are four things I have learned about inspiring my teams to hope and purposeful action.

1. No BS.
People know when the ship is sinking, crap in the fan usually ends up on the walls, and sugar coated razor-blades are always tough to swallow. There is no disguise that staff and volunteers will not see through eventually. Team leaders who try to divert their teams’ attention away from the cold hard realities are the leaders who end up losing credibility, build shallow solutions for deep problems, and who often end up discouraged and confused as to why the vision seems so unattainable. Teams that operate in their prime are known for clarity of analysis and interpretation, courage to move forward against impossible odds, and who have a face like Clint Eastwood in an arm-wrestle with Chuck Norris. Teams can only move forward if they know the reality of the situation they face; this means that part of the role of team leader is to strip away the peripheral and engage head-on with the task at hand. No flowers. No sugar. Cut the BS.

2. Never Waste a Crises.
There is nothing that will unite a group of people faster than a problem, crisis, emergency, or disaster. Some of the most powerful revolutions were born on the back of shared injustice, lack, or shortfall. People, bonded together through the memories of conflict and crises, find themselves at impossible odds orchestrating an impossible uprising of creative and unstoppable solutions that are totally surprising and, very often, from the ground up.

For years, one requirement of my leadership teams’ was to go on a roadtrip every six months with people they had just met in the last six months. Besides the community and relationships this built, it was fundamental in helping our team leaders use crises to look for creative solutions. Why? Every good road trip is bound to have a few wrong turns, a missed exit, a weirdo hitchhiker, a flat tire, or an empty tank of gas. Four people in a car, while learning to either love or hate each other, must put everything else aside to work towards crises resolution – most often resulting in strengthened relational bonds.

Crisis bond people; it brings us together. As team leaders, we must never ever waste a crisis. These are absolutely critical times that will determine the strength and creativity of our teams. While we do not manufacture crises, we shouldn’t be all that fearful of them either. For the healthy team it tests them, allows them to do necessary purges, and brings about a closeness that is not possible when times are quieter, softer, easier, and greener ($$$).

3. Ante Up.
As one pastor puts it so eloquently, “Put your cup on, lower your head, and head back into the ring.” Volunteers and staff are more likely to face the challenges of adversary head-on when they go into battle side-by-side with their leader(s). Team leaders must respond to challenge by upping the ante themselves, calling people to action, and daring people to move with them. This often requires the blood, sweat, and tears of leaders in breaking ground and punching out new and exciting possibilities even when all the odds are against them. Staff and volunteers don’t mind taking a few shots and enduring a few hardships when they see that their leaders are out front bearing the assault as well. Leaders, ante up, and then challenge your people to put their money on the table as well.

4. See the Future.
Team leaders who inspire and motivate their team towards significant action open windows into the future that are both compelling and achievable. Sometimes these windows are very small and are only open for a moment to help re-direct the team; other times the windows into the future are massive floor to ceiling portholes that provide sweeping panoramic vistas of a land far away and beautiful. Either way, these windows into the future are what will continue to drive the church – staff and volunteers – towards imaginative and strategic movement. Vision is about hope. It’s about the people and places we hope for and about clearly seeing what might be. Vision is about community. It’s about where we expect to be and who we expect to be there with. It’s collaborative and felt by all, seen by all, and believed by all. There are times, however, where team leaders need to become the mouthpiece of “we” re-envisioning, re-imagining, and re-calibrating what exactly it is that the team sees. In some ways, team leaders become the teams’ optometrist ensuring that the vision stays sharp and in focus. A clearly defined image of the future is often enough to ensure the continued hope, inspiration, and creativity of our teams.

Leaders Get Discouraged
Finally, leading teams through discouragement, set-back, and failure is perhaps one of the more difficult leadership challenges that a team leader faces. In my own experience, these are the times I feel most vulnerable to feelings of inadequacy, thoughts of resentment towards team members, and to thoughtless reaction that further damages or slows progress. I am continually faced with the truth that not everything I do, the future that I see, and the current reality that I describe, are not always as I see them. Yet, I must continue. I must remember that God is at work and often in the most surprising of ways. I must remember that I am loved and cherished by the God whose image I am made. I must remember that my value as a person is not attached to my accomplishments, net-worth, or leadership skill set. Rather, my inherited worth is that I am undeservedly heir to the Kingdom of heaven, known as a child of God, and called and equipped to serve His community with humble faithfulness.

Shredders, sledders, and powdogs

2009-10-02T11:51:00.000-07:00

Over the course of the last few days and week, mountains all around BC have started to see snow flying in them thur hills. This - for every shred - is the time of year that inspires us to sacrifice to Ullr by burning old snowboards, stinky gloves, and filthy doorags. The snow is near and, for all you snowshredding people, I've drudged up an old memory originally posted elsewhere January 6, 2007. It's almost time to ride.

Snowboarding Two Days Ago:
I have been snowboarding since 1991 and somehow managed to ride the funnest frontside turn that I have ever done in my life! Amazing frontside slasher on this double overhead windlip! Riding under the chair lift we will often get cheered for different jumps or dropping cliffs and such...but never for simply doing a turn on the snow. This turn was different: the whole chair lift was cheering and yelling and I rode the rest of the run down with my hands on my head in the shape of horns and yelling. I obviously snowboard for the glory.

Snowboarding Yesterday:
Imagine that there is so much snow falling that, on one of the resort runs, a ski patrol skidoo is stuck! Crazy amounts of snow.
Anyhow, my brother Jabin and I spent the day riding fresh pow, pillaging chutes, dropping some decent size cliffs, and just generally getting rad. Third last run of the day we dropped into this steep untouched face (in the dark) that was pretty unstable. I led and as I made my first turn the snow about 30 feet above me fractured and slabbed down sweeping Jabin, who was behind me, down the slope. He yelled and, as I turned around to see what was going on, I was hit with a wall of snow that carried me until the all the snow stopped moving. Crazy experience! We were both buried nearly to our waist, were safe, and were all smiles! A good reminder to for us to respect the mountains.

-Jer

What I Expect from Senior Leadership

2009-09-29T13:13:00.000-07:00

Being in a staff position for nearly nine years, alongside an amazing team of pastors and leaders, has been both a demanding and rewarding experience that has kept me challenged and growing. Over the course of that time, I have come to learn what to expect and what to value from my lead pastor, Jim.

1. Leadership – As a member of staff, I look to my lead pastor to set the spiritual climate of the church, establish direction and objectives, help clarify the mission, and to ensure that I am traveling in the right direction with the rest of the team. This includes timely evaluation, correction, envisioning and re-envisioning that is collaborative and inspiring. From time to time, this also requires the lead pastor to shuffle staff position focuses to meet the changing demands and passions of the church. A healthy team will likely have its job descriptions continually in flux. This benefits the church and mission as well as benefiting the team so as to have the right people in the right places doing the right things.

2. Teaching – Besides the ongoing mentoring, sermons, and lunches at the pizza-by-the-slice place, my favourite part of each work week is our Monday morning staff meeting. Here, our team engages in a learning environment led by Jim that often comes through the outflow of what he has recently been learning, wrestling with, or interacting with. It has been of tremendous worth to have the influence of a lead pastor who is well read and who loves to teach us young guys!

3. Care & Protection – Over the course of time, it is not unlikely for a few of us staff to catch a few cheap shots from well-meaning church folks. Any time the Gospel is proclaimed there will, undoubtedly, come opposition and bullets aimed at one or all of us. I have had my share of hate mail, blog campaigns, and even a court case to know the immense value of a lead pastor who has my back. Not only does he protect me when I need protection, but he continually comes alongside of our team in thick and in thin to care for and love us. During family crises or celebration, through ministry success or failure, and in our extra-curricular activities, it has been empowering to know the care and protection of my lead pastor.

Staff people, be it youth, worship, children’s, outreach, family, etc., must learn how to openly and honestly work towards sustainable and engaging relationships with their lead pastor. As we allow ourselves to be led, we will be led well. When we submit ourselves to our leaderships’ teaching, we will learn to learn well. And finally, the care and protection we receive must be reciprocated towards our lead pastors who often find themselves in lonely, vulnerable, and vital positions of influence. Thank-you to all our hard working lead pastors for the good work you do.

LEADINGforward

2009-09-10T11:01:00.000-07:00

Howdy yo. For any of you PAOC people who occasionally lurk around here, there is a new collaborative leadership resource that is being published online. It is called LeadingForward and is administrated by our new district officer, Dave Solmes. Go check out some of the video and other leadership resources posted. Before you leave, add it to your blogroll.
Grace and Peace,
-Jer

Leadership Journal

2009-06-22T15:33:00.001-07:00

I came across this short little leadership thought in my journal recently. I'm not sure where this thought came from - a book or conference - but I'm pretty sure that I didn't originate it! Hopefully it is helpful.

In identifying a leader ask:
1. Do they have influence?
2. Is their influence good or bad? What is their character?
3. Do they have good people skills and a high social/emotional intelligence?
4. How driven are they? Are they action-oriented people who are comfortable taking initiative?
5. Are they good thinkers?
6. Do they have street smarts?

::Charlatans and Saints::new green day.

2009-05-19T19:01:00.000-07:00

The new Green Day album hit stores, ipods, and stereo's this weekend asking listeners to walk down another punk rock opera. Similar to MCR's Black Parade and Green Day's previous work, American Idiot, this rock opera delivers thoughtful lyrics, angry guitars, and classic Green day chord progression while exploring Americana fundamentalism. The main character, if you're wondering, is named Christian. Go look in the mirror.

Go Bouldering.

2009-05-04T22:16:00.000-07:00

The last couple of weeks have finally begun to feel a little bit like what summer will be. I love spring, the forest, and bouldering. The Hunter Creek boulders near Hope, BC are seeing somewhat of a revival of activity this spring with more traffic and problems being scrubbed and climbed.

A quote from Teddy Roosevelt's April 1910 address delivered at the Soronne, Paris sums up some of my climbing thoughts of late:

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.

The Role of Pastor

2009-04-18T12:46:00.000-07:00

A version of this hit news stands yesterday. In 600 words or less - enjoy.

The occupation of Pastor runs deep in my family. My grandpa was a pastor, my dad is a pastor and church planter, my youngest brother is a pastor, and I, while growing up, firmly decided that I would not be a pastor. Ironically enough, I am now nearly a decade into the life and work of a pastor and thankful that my family heritage didn’t include heavy lifting or things that smell bad.

Upon learning that I am a pastor, people often ask, “What is it that you actually do?” or state “It must be nice to only work on Sunday.” To be honest, working only one day a week would be great for my rock-climbing schedule but horrible for the life of the Church. The reality is that being a pastor is not a clock-in/clock-out job; it is a lifestyle job that requires much from the pastor on an ongoing and continual basis.

So what does a pastor actually do besides drink coffee and play the churches’ Xbox?
I believe that there are four basic roles that a pastor fills in doing their job well; they lead, teach, care for, and protect their church.

First, pastors lead through organizing, gathering people, and setting the church in order. In addition to serving, this part of the pastors’ role requires that they multiply their leadership, study extensively about good leadership, and continually evaluate their leadership. As their church grows, they will need to build systems, becoming more precise in and reproducing their leadership so that it is both accountable and decentralized.

Second, the pastors’ role in teaching includes one-on-one conversations, teaching in small groups, and preaching to large groups, such as on a Sunday morning. This responsibility to teach requires a couple of things: one, that pastors spend long hours in Biblical study; and two, that they learn to clearly articulate that which they’ve studied. This means they should be students of both culture and communication, studying the great communicators of our time including politicians, comedians, writers, and even talk radio hosts. Sadly, many great teachings go unnoticed or unheeded not because of a lack of good content, but because of poor communication.

Third, a pastor functions as a caregiver. A good pastor is known for actually caring for the good and well-being of people. They respond to peoples’ needs through prayer, support, care, and counselling often networking with other local caregivers such as Cares Counselling here in Abbotsford. As pastors and churches, our intent should be to come alongside hurting people and journey with them through the mess of life, providing both hope and restoration.

Fourth, as protector of the church, a pastor defends orthodox doctrine and refutes heresy, false gospels, and deceivers. However, shielding the church also assumes advocacy for those unable to advocate for themselves such as in the cases of spousal or child abuse. This is why churches put in place safety and security procedures for their children and youth ministries and why churches need to take great care when publishing personal information of its members. Pastors, like our great Advocate, Jesus, must defend and protect the church from those who intend to deceive or harm it.
Though a pastor should be quite competent in each of these four areas, there will inevitably be seasons and circumstances where a pastor and church need to give more focus and attention to a particular area. For example, an untimely death in the church requires an intense season of care. While leading, teaching and protecting do still continue, the primary focus becomes one of compassion for the health, well-being, and good of the hurting.

Finally, if you know a pastor – whether you attend church or not – ask them what they do with their week. You might be surprised that spring golfing doesn’t make the list.

I'm Over This Band.

2009-03-25T15:24:00.000-07:00

Donald Miller, who has a new book coming out soon, writes a funny post on his blog. It is easily worth 3 minutes of your time! What are you over?

The Church Product

2009-03-14T11:04:00.000-07:00

Follows is a great quote from Neil Postman's Amusing Ourselves to Death on the state of advertising and our cultures appetite for personal value.

What the advertiser needs to know is not what is right about the product but what is wrong about the buyer. And so, the balance of business expenditures shifts from product research to market research. The television commercial has oriented business away from making products of value and toward making consumers feel valuable, which means that the business of business has now become pseudo-therapy.

A re-phrase of the quote as it concerns pastors and churches may, at times, be both an accurate and alarming statement of many of today's churches.

What the pastor needs to know is not what is right about the product, but what is wrong about the buyer. And so, the balance of church expenditures shifts from product research to market research. The television commercial has oriented church away from proclaiming products of value and toward making church people feel valuable, which means that the business of church has now become pseudo-therapy.

Jesus the Advocate

2009-03-06T20:37:00.000-08:00

I forgot to post my last Abbotsford Times column...I'll get it for you sometime soon. Anyhow, a version of the following article hit newsstands today. Enjoy friends.

The creation story, as told in the book of Genesis, tells of how male and female were uniquely created and shaped by God’s hand to enjoy four significant relationships with God, others, ourselves, and the environment. Unfortunately, all four of these relationships have been about as stable as an unchaperoned junior-high prom date. A quick survey of any news media outlet will easily confirm the truth of these broken relationships as Abbotsfordians are forced to deal with gangsters, brownish chicken air, urban sprawl, domestic abuse, homelessness, and hypocrites of every stripe.

The first relationship we are meant to enjoy is with God who we are to trust, love, honour, and serve as King. This requires our humble submission to His rule and reign, doing what any good servant would: report for duty, demonstrate loyalty, wait for direction, and complete the task.

Secondly, our relationship with others is meant to be that of mutual respect ruled by an ethic of love. This is why the picture of humanity painted at the end of the Bible is one of every language, nation, gender, and race joining together to worship God around His thrown. With Abbotsford being the third most ethnically diverse city in the nation, behind Toronto and Vancouver, it would seem natural to look around at the City’s diversity for a sneak peak of what Heavens’ languages, culture, and restaurants might sound, feel, and taste like.

Thirdly, mankind’s relationship with himself is to be that of a sound mind in which we can think, feel, and act in ways that are good and beneficial for all other relationships. This is why counsellors, self-help gurus, and Dr. Phil are in such demand as people hope for a renewed mind, emotion, and will.

Fourth, the Biblical view of creation is not that we worship nature as god or goddess as some do, nor that we strip mine, dump chemicals in our streams, or recklessly drive gas-guzzlers to the corner store when we could just as easily have walked. Our relationship with the earth is meant to be one of gardening and tending to, as good custodians of something created for our pleasure, enjoyment, and sustenance. For every tree-hugging-organic-wearing-bicycle-riding-recycling-hippie in a 1970’s diesel van, this should come as great comfort to you.

God’s response to these four broken relationships is both of anger and sadness. Anger that we destroy or allow to be destroyed our environment, our selves, our human relationships, and our relationship with God, and sadness over the results. Further, if pollution, addictions, social and economic injustice, or people’s separation from God angers or sadness you, you are agreeing with and, to an extent, feeling the heart of God. For most caring, socially responsible, environmentalist atheists, agnostics, and neo-pagans, this might come as quite a shock. You, whether you realize or care to admit it, agree with God’s anger and sadness over sin, evil, and injustice.

Finally, one of Jesus’ names and functions is that of Advocate. Jesus, the Advocator, is advocating for clean drinking water, sustainable cities, and places for fawns to frolic. Jesus, the Advocator, is advocating for the renewing of our minds and is pleased with the mental health’s field of work. Jesus, the Advocator, is advocating for the good and ongoing relationships of all people regardless of skin color, creed, age, gender, language, or opinion. And Jesus, the Advocator, pulls double shifts as the Mediator mending the broken relationship between man and his creator, the God of the Bible.

Gender Relations

2008-10-12T17:21:00.000-07:00

Some form of this article hits the Abbotsford Times this week. Enjoy.

Among the most explosive issues in Abbotsford of late has been the subject of a banned high school class dealing with sexual orientation and gender identity. In the next few hundred words I want to dig into some explanation of how men and women relate which should prove to be as popular as running your nails down a chalk board and drinking battery acid. Please buckle in as we look at three gender-relation positions that must be rejected as being unfaithful, unbiblical, and, ultimately, hurtful to men, women, children, and the cause of the Gospel.

Chauvinists insist that men are superior holding the power to abuse, misuse, mistreat, and manipulate women to do their will asserting, essentially, that women are not equal to men. These spineless men often abuse their wives, are addicted to porn, selfishly abandon their children, try to control women through the threat of violence, anger, and by withholding finances. Simply, we can not live like this and should confront men who do.

Feminists maintain the opposite position suggesting that women, not men, are superior in every aspect and should, therefore, be out front ruling and manipulate the world around them – especially men. These women are often single or in a bad relationship, watch The View, are stubborn and pushy, malicious gossipers, and are submissive to no one but their own plans and desires often guising their feminism under the slogan of ‘freedom from male tyranny.’ This woman is not the Biblical view of femininity.

Egalitarians essentially believe that men and women are equal to each other with no difference or distinction. This view upholds the value and worth of everyone while maintaining equal rights, opportunities, and roles for male and female alike. And, while we do believe that men and women are equal, we must reject this position because, unlike egalitarians, we must hold to the Biblical idea that men and women are equal but distinct. Unfortunately, too many have confused distinction with inequality; difference as discrimination.

Finally, we come to an acceptable view which we call complemtary. This view holds that, male and female – while being equal in value, worth, and dignity – are distinct from each other in both role and responsibility. This is much like Luongo and the Sedin twins who, though they are on the same hockey team, have different positions and functions while working towards a common goal. Another especially evident example is the parent-child relationship: while the child is equal to his parents in dignity, value, and worth, the parents still must make decisions, teach, provide for, discipline, hold responsible, and direct the child as they see fit. Obviously, it is very unhelpful to assume that ‘distinction’ is synonymous with ‘inequality.’

The complemetary view insists that all human life is equal in value, dignity, and worth while maintaining that men, women, and children are different and distinct from one another. Additionally, in no way do male/female distinctions belittle or give superiority to either man or woman, but rather encourages the faithful response of both to live lives worthy of their calling, duty, and responsibility. Finally, men and women are not meant to duplicate one another but rather to complement each other recognizing that both are created equally and uniquely in the image and likeness of God.

Good Sex

2008-09-08T23:07:00.000-07:00

Follows, in 500 words or less, is a short article on sex appearing in The Abbotsford Times Friday, September 12. Enjoy!

According to a Canadian survey, Canadians like to add some mango to their tango quite regularly. In other words, Canadians like to have sex. This is true in all parts of Canada including places you'd least expect: uptight furrow-browed Toronto, for example, and the buckle of the Bible Belt, Abbotsford.

Of course, in the Bible Belt, the missionary's position on sex takes prominence whereas in Toronto they just build really tall towers and cheer for bad hockey teams.

Before I round the corner of first, I should state my position on sex: Creator God, in Genesis 1-2, creates us with the capacity to experience pleasure and enjoyment intending that man and woman would have sexual desire for each other to be enjoyed within the confines of monogamous marriage.

Unfortunately, our first parents, Adam and Eve, then sin in Genesis 3, causing all kinds of dysfunction and turmoil. Instead of hanging out in a garden naked and without shame, they find themselves clothed, shameful, and looking for new real estate.

Good community becomes bad community, good relationship becomes bad relationship, and good sex becomes bad sex including adultery, homosexuality, friends with benefits, fornication, polygamy, girls in clear heels and guys with high-speed Internet connections and a box of Kleenex.

Historically, the church has responded in some rather harsh ways, including Lorraina Bobit-style surgeries, men living in desert caves by themselves, and, more recently, Mennonite-style seating. The conclusion being that sex is evil and should be completely avoided except for in the case of childbearing.

The truth, however, is that there is much biblical precedent for ongoing pleasurable sex between man and wife.

Sex, within the bounds of marriage, should be exciting and creative, hopefully frequent, and for the enjoyment of both husband and wife. Guys, this means that you need to slow down and do the hard work of romancing your wife instead of merely holding the "minute-man" title.

That said, I thought I'd pass on a few helpful hints to help around the home.

Following are real stats gathered by pollsters Ipsos-Reid on Canadians' favourite mood-setting techniques. If they work, feel free to thank me!

Fifty per cent of Canadians get in the mood when their spouse cooks their favourite dinner, signifying that a good shake and bake will add some real spice to your diet.

Next, talking sweet words of love clocks in at 43 per cent, suggesting that suggestive words go a long way.

Further, 39 per cent say that lighting candles does it for them.

Playing soft music sounds the song for 38 per cent of Canadians, while playing a game rings the buzzer for 22 per cent.

The classic, "going out for dinner and a movie" proves a failure, with only two per cent agreeing that this gets them in the mood.

Finally, I leave you with my personal favourite and, sadly, least successful: five per cent of all Canadians get in the mood by listening to the 1970s rock band Kiss.

This accounts for more than 1.6 million very odd Canadians and the clear and obvious reason why I needed to write today's column.

Enjoy your weekend [wink wink]!

- Jeremy Postal pastors twenty-somethings at Christian Life Community Church in Abbotsford and can be reached at jeremy@clcc.ca

Church and State

2008-08-05T11:40:00.000-07:00

The following article appears in the Abbotsford Times Friday, August 8th. Enjoy.

Three things you should never talk about at Christmas dinner: first, religion – especially because you’d hate to mix Christmas with religion; second, politics, politicians, or how much you loath Toronto; and third, don’t mention anything about last Christmas when you brought up religion and politics with crazy Uncle Leo.

Scripture has much to teach about governments, rulers, leaders, and the people they rule. Ideally, the government is set in place to provide for, protect, manage, and serve its citizens and is responsible to, and constrained by, God (Psalm 2; Daniel 4:34-35; Rom. 13). Additionally, because there are rulers above us, we will be placed in situations were we will be offered lessons in submission – situations where we learn to cooperate, are loyal, and have a willingness to obey even when we may disagree. Significantly, we learn to submit to God by the daily practice of submission to those around us. In so doing, we become more like Christ who, in great humility, submitted himself to the will of the Father and to death by painful execution on a Roman cross (Philippians 2).

Keeping submission and humility in mind, let’s scan the four major views of the relationship between Church and State asking yourself where you fit in.

Hostility

Those who take this stand are often accusatory throwing “John 3:16 hand-grenades” seeking to, sometimes violently, overthrow authority. Though we don’t see many churches building arms and ammunition stock houses, we do see church/Christian movements taking active and hostile action towards authority on many issues including abortion, calf roping, slot machines, and Cosmopolitan magazines in the check-out line.

Separation

Some swing in the opposite direction, completely separating themselves from civil affairs claiming that, because the government is so corrupt, they should have as little to do with it as possible. While being good citizens, they should not vote, serve in the army, or work for the government. Additionally, this group would probably take issue with Puff Daddy’s “Vote or Die” campaign.

Distinction

This view holds that the State should rule and govern certain things while the Church should rule and govern other things. The Christian can be loyal to and work for either, but must not, by any means, confuse the two. News stations such as CNN, hold tightly to this view as their ratings go up when they catch Christians mixing faith and politics. It makes for great TV but, for some, horrible politics.

Integration

This view suggests an integration of Church and State for the betterment of all. These people vote, know the issues, know who the Christian politicians are, and serve within the structure of authority/government. They believe that by integrating, they will be able to best share the Gospel and transform society from the inside out. Sadly, those who integrate have been accused, rather than encouraged, by their Christian brothers of being too liberal while everyone else accuses them of being too conservative!

Abbotsford will benefit greatly when its faithful Christians act like responsible citizens, humbly serving in culture and society, to proclaim the Gospel and glorify God.

5 Points of Church Unity

2008-06-30T14:46:00.000-07:00

A version of the following article was used in the July 4, 2008 edition of the Abbotsford Times.

The number of churches in Abbotsford clocks in at a staggering 92 which, most likely, also corresponds to the number of street corners we have! Abbotsford churches seem to be everywhere—meeting in schools, pubs, theaters, homes, and parks, as well as in the traditional pew and steeple buildings and the mega-church multiplexes complete with bookstores, gymnasiums, and shuttle services. With so many people in so many different venues, under a vast array of leadership, it would seem, at first glance, that the Church in Abbotsford is widely divided. This, in part, is true as people needlessly squabble over paint colors, taste in music (even though everyone knows that boy-bands and country music are bad), and other non-essential issues that get elevated to essential. The question that I think must be asked of ourselves then is; why the division?

Perhaps a more accurate description of the Church in Abbotsford is not division but rather diversity, which is what Jesus prayed for in John 17. Jesus, knowing that the Church would be widely diverse, both prayed for its unity and demonstrated how it could be unified in its acceptance of one another. Thus, tattooed, chandelier-swinging Charismatics and churches with tag-team pastors can worship alongside good Bible-expounding church planters, and emo-kids with comb-overs and black eye shadow can worship alongside grandma with her permed hair and blue eye shadow.

Sadly, many people mistake unity with sameness which, in all honesty, would be a horrible way to live. For example, if unity did mean sameness, should we all, in the interest of church unity, be required to wear brown, tweed suit jackets, part our hair on the side, and clap along to the Gaither Gospel Hour? Or maybe, in the interest of church unity, we are all obligated to read the Left Behind series, vote Kurt Cameron for the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and play leap-frog with our buddies because it doesn’t involve cards or dice? Thank-you, Jesus, the answer is “no”. Sameness is not unity, in fact, unity is impossible without diversity.

Following is a brief outline asking how your church can affirm its diversity, work towards resolution of its divisions, and grow in unity for the glory of God.

1.Theological Unity
There are many theological issues that must be examined and applied to church and culture. Some of these issues are primary and therefore essential to Christian orthodoxy and fellowship while others are secondary and non-essential. Primarily, a church must come together around the true teachings of Scripture and the centrality of the person, work, and divinity of Jesus. Secondary issues where we allow for diversity include things such as use of alcohol, charismatic signs and wonders, the millennium, and the precise natures of heaven and hell. As Rupert Meldenius said, “In essentials unity; in non-essentials liberty; in all things charity.”

2. Relational Unity
Relational unity is likely the easiest to observe and the hardest to develop primarily because people are bent towards self-seeking rather then other-seeking, my rights over others rights, and my own comfort and good over the comfort and good of others. Every Christian should be characterized by a selfless loving attitude and action which extends out far broader then his own narrow circle of like-minded people. This is why the church can gather to worship Jesus as a multi-generational/multi-cultural group of kids wearing skinny emo jeans, their parents who listen to Elton John, and their grandparents who came from ‘the old country.’ Is your church characterized by a loving attitude that extends to both friend and stranger?

3. Methodological Unity
Here the question is, “How do we do church?” Do we do a high form of liturgy? Do we wear suits and tuck in our shirts? Do we form a choir? Do we use electric guitar, lights, and cool video? Do we use mac or pc? What is our style? How do we feel? Each local church must come together unified around a common way and understanding of its particular style and method of ‘doing’ church.

Each church is meant to be shepherded by a group of leaders who will pray and then make decisions on the direction and feel of their particular church. This requires faithful and godly leadership who will hear from Jesus and direct the church. This also requires faithful serving church members who trust their leadership and engage in the ‘how’ of that particular church. Additionally, just because another church operates differently then your church, this doesn’t mean that there is disunity but rather that there is diversity. Why must there be unity around a churches method and vision? How do your own preferences music, style, or conscience get in the way of unity?

4. Missiological Unity
Missiological unity asks the question, “Are we a unified group of missionaries?” Is your church working together in the hard and trying task of local and global missions? Do you understand that your missionary mandate is to both Abbotsford and the world at large? Are you working side-by-side in proclaiming Jesus in Abbotsford? Is your church unified around a common missionary cause, sending missionaries to far away strange and exotic places like Africa, as well as to far away strange and exotic places like Auguston?

5. Doxological Unity
The pinnacle on all this is that we are unified around our ‘doxology’ which is a ten-dollar word for worship. ‘Doxa’ means ‘glory’ which is what we give when we come together in unity as the church worshipping Jesus with one voice, one heart, and one mind. This is the crux and highpoint of unity because our theological-relational-methodological-missiological unity allows us to gather as the church, regardless of the many diverse opinions, perspectives, and preferences, to worship and give glory to the one true God who exists in three persons as the perfect example of unity. God is great!

Finally, knowing that unity takes so long to build and very little time to destroy, my hope is that you would join with your churches leadership in praying for continued and deepening unity as together, the church in Abbotsford, we endeavor to glorify God in worship and faithfully proclaim the gospel of Jesus in our own unique and specific ways.

Grace and Peace,

-Jer

Theology: 101

2008-05-26T09:34:00.000-07:00

Theology, as it is often misunderstood, is the long, drawn out, boring study of an ancient god from an ancient, irrelevant book that only people with comb-overs and tweed jackets do. And though it is entirely possible that more Christians read the Left Behind series then who have read their Bible, it is not accurate to suggest that theology is only for musty-smelling Bible thumpers with nothing better to do with their time. In fact, anyone – including the hip art students from UFV and the waitress who serves me at IHOP – anyone who thinks anything about God is, in some way, delving into theology. The distinction, however, is in how we apply our theology.

Allow me to give you a primer on theology…

Theology, widely understood, is the study of God. God, in his divine wisdom, has chosen to reveal parts of who he is through his Son, Jesus Christ, and through his written word, the Bible. This means that there are aspects of God that we can discover and explore, and other parts that God has chosen to remain hidden, undisclosed, and mysterious which, for every self-professed pop philosopher with a blog who took debating in high school, is a high hurdle to jump over. Additionally, Scripture in its entirety is God’s primary way of communicating with us, revealing His character, attributes, promises, and, ultimately, revealing his Son Jesus Christ.

One of my favorite early definitions of theology is “union with God through prayer”, which sounds more hippie then it actually is. Unfortunately for the tie-dyed, long haired, bluegrass, non-conformist hippie in all of us, union with God means submission to his rule and reign. Meaning this, when we come to Scripture we must come in prayerful submission and repentance recognizing that the Bible is the authority that we reason and live our lives by. A humble studying and application of Scripture should, above all else, point us to Jesus, move us to worship, and energize us towards conforming our lives to look more like the life of Jesus our King and Savior and less like Cheech and Chong whose closest union was with a really big joint and some snack food.

Sadly, in a culture whose anthem is ‘Raise your fist, rebel, resist!’ the question of humble submission to anyone’s authority – especially that of the Bible – is openly mocked and critically questioned. Together, as the Church in Abbotsford, who loves our city and enjoys its culture, we will continually be faced with the complicated issue of restating the truth of Scripture in creative ways that faithfully communicate the Gospel, advance the mission of Jesus’ church, and address the issues that men, women, youth, and children are facing day to day.

Our goal then, with theology, is to clearly articulate the content of the gospel of Jesus Christ in the context of the culture surrounding us. This is our attempt to respond to God’s story with a proper view of God, ourselves, the church, and the culture around us. To God be the glory.

The Bible vs. Culture

2008-03-15T17:17:00.000-07:00

One of my hero’s of the Bible is a rough and ready character named Paul who was just as comfortable dropping the gloves with you as he was to talk with you. He was scrappy, knew when to pick his fights, and could pick himself up after receiving vicious beatings of his own. What he did not do was curl up in the fetal position like a baby and cry himself to sleep. He was stoned to the point of death, shipwrecked, abandoned by friends, beaten, starved, and yet continued to contend for the truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. In all of this, Paul did what so many Christians and churches do not: he told the timeless story of Jesus in the language, culture, and traditions that people understood and responded to.

Paul was a master communicator who knew both the Gospel story and the stories, symbols, and languages of his particular time and culture. He understood the need to fight and contend for the truth of the Bible while at the same time making the Gospel potent for the people and culture who heard its message. Sadly, in today’s church climate, especially in the Abbotsford Bible Belt, we have churches who will do one or the other – but rarely both.

For example; one church highly values and studies Scripture, conjugates Greek verbs, and fights for the rightness of doctrine like a pack of angry stray dogs fighting over who gets to eat that annoying cat from next door. These churches often pride themselves on being ‘separated from the world’ and will go to great length to ensure that their moral value is placed on you. Additionally, these people drink excessive amounts of peach drink and horrible church coffee which only goes to show how disillusioned and depraved they really are.

On the other extreme, we find the church that is very much ‘in the world’ who hold cultural values and notions in highest value over and above Scripture. What tends to happen with these churches is that they will jump on the cool, hip, and trendy bandwagon in an attempt to attract you to their version of church, sadly, often at the expense of Scripture. These churches, if they’ll fight for anything, fight for tolerance and culturally accepted practices that offend no one but a few strays from the other church. Thankfully, what these guys do have going for them are apple computers, indie rock, yerba mate, and well mixed hops.

The problem that often polarizes these churches is the question of “What do we do with Bible and Culture?” One group responds with heavy handed Biblical arguments while being about as culturally savvy as a redneck in a suit. The other group reacts by being so indwelt by culture that there is little room left for the indwelling of Scripture in their lives. It is to this question that I think the church can learn much from Paul.

Paul, repeatedly throughout the New Testament Scriptures, speaks to particular language, cultural, and people groups in ways that make the story of Jesus both accessible and understandable. What Paul does not do, however, is make the message ‘seeker-sensitive;’ instead, he maintains the weighty content of the gospel while making it ‘seeker-intelligent’ so that non-Christians can wrestle with the full significance of the gospel in the metaphors, language, stories, and experiences that are most familiar to them. This is the task of the missionary whether it be to Punjabi Indians, suburban Abbotsford families, or the hip kids who hangout at EA. As Christians, we must take on the mindset of ‘missionary,’ learning both the language, culture, custom, and traditions of the Bible as well as those of our particular culture. We do this so that we can most effectively communicate the timeless and unchanging story of Jesus in ways that are culturally appropriate and Biblically accurate.

Fight well my friends.

Interviewing Well

2008-02-20T16:45:00.000-08:00

Dear Jeff, Jayme, Jabin, Jannah, and Bryce,

The following is a rather long article that I’ve written for you re: the interview process and applying for ministry positions, particularly of those in the church. Dozens of pastor’s from multiple denominations and across the nation responded to five questions that I asked them; we have collated their answers and summarized them for you here. Each one of you have been a great joy to work with and, in all honesty, you will be greatly missed. I have every hope for you in your future ministry and know that you will do well. We love you guys and hope this is beneficial for you.

Question #1 - As a pastor or ministry leader, what questions do you expect the interviewee to ask you?

Four major themes emerged out of this question:

Direction and Vision

Of the many answers that ministry leaders gave, what they most want you to ask them is “What is their vision and direction for the church?” Words like vision, values, direction, and calling were all used to find out what the preferred future of the church was and, often, what is the preferred future of the pastor. Simply this; they want to know that you care about where they are going.

Interestingly, there was no one ministry leader who would like you to ask about their theology or the theology of their church. My understanding is that our theology informs our philosophy of ministry which then directs our vision and methodology. That said, when you ask ministry leaders about their vision, values, and direction you are inadvertently asking about their philosophy and theology. However, do not assume anything; remember that interview’s are given to clarify.

Practice

Ministry leaders also want you to ask as many questions as possible about how the church and the position you are applying for actually operates. They want you to ask questions about job descriptions, church governance, church budget, office and work hours, staff accountability, vacation time, staff policies, schedules, decision process, staff environment and relationships, dress code, etc. One issue, one that I am sure you are wondering about, is the question of money, salary, and benefits. We will address the topic in greater detail later but, to ease your curiosity now, the general consensus of ministry leaders was to not ask. Allow the church to broach the topic in their timing; not yours.

Expectations

Of great concern to ministry leaders when interviewing potential staff was that the interviewee finds out the written and unwritten expectations of staff, their spouse, and their families. This has much to do with the practice of the church but is actually deeper seeded into the culture of the church. As such, it is absolutely vital that you become very aware of the church culture and the ministry expectations that it actually practices; the last thing you want to get into in your new church is a culture war! Policies are relatively easy to change or work within; cultures are far harder.

Evaluation

Ministry leaders also would like you to ask them to give an evaluation of where the church is at currently. What is the spiritual climate of the church? What success are you currently celebrating? What is the most difficult issue that your church is currently dealing with? How does the church see itself in the city? How does the city see it? These questions, and many others, are not only helpful for you but actually help the pastor make clear and accurate statements about the realities of his church. When you humbly ask thoughtful and provocative questions of the state of the church that force the pastor to self-evaluate, you are doing him a great service as well as showing that you can do the difficult work of asking the right questions.

Question #2 – As a pastor or ministry leader, what questions should potential staff ask that you don’t want them to ask?

This question we posed to pastors not so that you could terrorize them but rather so you could be aware of appropriate questions that should be asked within a spirit of humility and wisdom. Two main issues arose:

Staff Relationships

Multi-staff churches can be a very rewarding, encouraging, and fulfilling place to work when the staff operates well together as a team and are involved in each other’s lives. Conversely, there is not much to be gained and much to be lost when a multi-staff church is actually a collection of superstar individuals. Churches with mediocre people building extraordinary teams are far better off then churches with superstar players who never pass the ball. That said, staff alignment, healthy relationships, and well checked ego’s are vital to every team atmosphere.

So why are pastor’s afraid of you asking about inter-staff relationship dynamics? Though the reasons vary widely, I’ll give you a few ideas why this may be: (1) The inter-personal stuff is so bad that they want to hide it from you as long as possible, (2) There may be an existing paradigm of boss/employee mentality, (3) Possible difficulties in talking about current relational dynamics within the staff to someone unknown, (4) Fear of ‘over promising and under delivering’ on things like accountability, mentoring, team atmosphere, and discipleship, and (5) You might be the first additional staff which would make you the (un)lucky guinea pig.

Fearful or not, the question and discussion of staff relationship dynamics must be dialogued for the simple reason that you will spend many many hours a week in staff/team settings praying, brainstorming, problem solving, caring, and ministering. The following quote is from a college prof in the Midwest that states it well: “I want them to ask all the questions – even the tough ones. Better now then get surprised later. In my opinion – some ‘old school’ types – will not want too many pointed questions relating to employee relationship. To them, team ministry is a foreign concept. But you are better off discovering this now – than regretting this later. So I would ask specifically about the nature of the relationship between you and the lead pastor.” My advice? Ask and watch.

Church Struggles

Once you have completed the honeymoon at your new church with your new computer, new cell phone, and new jokes, you will be faced with the ugly side of church. And, even though a Forbes Magazine survey found that clergy is among the best jobs anywhere, there is still a dark side that haunts every church. And this, my friends, is what you should ask, even though they don’t want you to ask it; “What are the historic, current, and on-going struggles of the church?” This is like sticking a hot probe into a fresh wound for some pastors while, for others, is a refreshing chance to share struggles and concerns. Upon hearing church struggles you would do well to ask yourself if you would be an asset or liability to the ongoing health of the church. For some, even though you may be very talented and cutting edge with oodles of leadership potential, you will not be a good fit for the church if you add to the problems rather then alleviate them!

Question #3 – What questions should the interviewee simply not ask?

There are a myriad of questions that pastor’s recommend you don’t ask including things like moral/cultural issues such as positions on alcohol and other areas of Christian conscience (1 Cor. 8 & 10; Romans 14 & 15). Additionally, I would recommend that you don’t ask if you can move into the Lead Pastor’s office, if you can take weekends off, or ask how old their daughter is. Beyond these, the major ‘do not ask’ issue revolved around your pay check.

Over and over again, pastor’s clearly and emphatically said, “Do not ask about the money.” One pastor commented, “I once asked what a position paid just ballpark and they ended the interview right there, so approach that one carefully.” Before a church wants to get into salary package, vacation time, stat holiday’s, health benefits, pension, salary review process, moving expenses, housing allowance, book and meal allowance, mileage, continuing education and conference budget, general budgets, etc., they would like to get a feel and sense for who you are, your heart, and what calling you have. While the details of church finances and personal finances are important details that do need to be clarified before accepting a position, they are not the primary issue. Primarily, churches are looking for the right pastor/leader for their church’s particular culture, vision, and community; they want a pastor who loves Jesus, has a clear call to generous and sacrificial ministry, and who recognizes the quiet voice of the Holy Spirit to direct his ministry steps.

Question #4 – What should the interviewee expect from the church when interviewing?

Two subjects’ surface in this question; one minor, one major. The first, though minor in comparison, is the question of who covers the cost of out-of-pocket expenses incurred by the interviewee. It is generally accepted that the church will cover all related travel, accommodation, and food expenses to and from the interview. Keep in mind, however, that this is not an all-inclusive paid holiday to the other side of the country…church budgets are generally meager and it is some sacrifice to them to bring you out. Please do not waste kingdom resources in airline tickets and hotels for churches or cities you never intend to pastor in.

The second expectation that you should take into an interview with you is that the church and its leadership be honest with you. This is huge! Honesty and frank openness in all matters of church life including all of the touchy issues of money, process, finance, morality, standards of holiness, etc., are of elevated importance. Additionally, you should expect that there be full disclosure of church/community demographics, vision, values, mission, and philosophies of biblical leadership and ministry. What you should not expect is that all of this information be made available to you in a first or even second interview. What this requires of you is that you spend plenty of time listening, asking honest questions in a spirit of humility, and then listening some more.

Question #5 – What should the church expect from the interviewee?

Every pastor who responded to this question said the same two things: the interviewee should 1) be honest, as we are honest with them, and 2) be prepared. When you go into an interview you should expect that a church should hold your confidence and, in return, that you should be fully honest about who you are, what you struggle with, how you operate and function, etc. This should go without saying, but when you are applying to work in a church, don’t lie! Sadly, often is the case where churches are deceived by what the interviewee has not said or who has somehow led the church leadership to believe something that wasn’t all-together accurate. It will go far better for you and your church if honesty and forthrightness begin at the very beginning of your relationship.

Second, when you go into an interview, prepare yourself. How prepared (or ill-prepared) you are often gives a good indication of how prepared you will be in ministry and, as is often the case, how effective you will be. Blaine Bartel wrote, “If you sweat in preparation, you will not bleed in battle.” You will inadvertently hijack the entire interview process if you have not already done the difficult and time consuming work of self-reflection and evaluation, are unable to articulate your philosophy of Biblical leadership and ministry, or have inaccurate knowledge about yourself, the church, or the city and culture the church finds itself in. Additionally, you should be polite, prompt, quick to provide additional references, hold the churches confidence, and be respectful of the church, its culture, and its leadership.

Conclusion:

As you graduate from Bible College and begin to look for ministry positions in churches or other ministry organizations, keep in mind that the interview is both a ‘business-as-usual’ event as well as a spiritual exercise in listening to what God would have for you and your potential church. You would do well to spend much time in prayer and reflection regarding the things you believe about the Church, its role and mission, its leadership, its practice and influence, and how you fit. The clearer you can articulate and communicate these things to prospective churches the better it will go for both you and them. It has been an honor to serve with you these last few years and I will miss each one of you deeply. We pray for you regularly and are looking forward to many more years of ministry together in churches and ministry settings across BC, Canada, and the world. If there is anything that I or any of the team here at CLCC can do to help you along your ministry journey, we’ll gladly step up to bat. We love you guys.

Grace and Peace,

-Jer

Emergent leaders call for ‘missional re-understanding of Jesus-followership and Christ-focus imbued with passionate creativity and emotional authentic

2008-01-04T11:42:00.000-08:00

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa — At a recent conference-like "gathering" of emergent church leaders, various factions sparred over competing visions for the future of the movement.
Leaders on one side called for "deepening and continuously beautiful efforts toward emotionally true self-divulgence and confession." Other leaders countered with a call for "a theological re-purposing of our objective and subjective missionality within a framework of God-love." Because few in attendance actually understood what either side meant, both ideas were tabled.
The sides did agree that emergent leaders should continue to take every opportunity to make casual, cool cultural references to popular television shows, movies and Internet phenomena to introduce quasi-intellectual spiritual points about the state of the American church.
They also pledged to maintain their reputation for being "more spiritually honest than the millions of people who attend institutionalized churches every week and blindly go along with the programs, sermons and mindset that make American Christianity the colossal failure it is today."
After toasting themselves with various hyper-cool micro-brews, the audience adjourned to begin 7- and 8-hour theological bull sessions in their hotel rooms and local bars.
Conference organizers say they will meet again to do the same thing next year. •

*story from Lark News

Why Young Adult Ministry is Just Like Pre-Teen Ministry

2007-12-05T14:46:00.000-08:00

Young adult ministry is one of those things that takes a large stick, eyes in the back of your head, and enough Red Bull to fuel a small planet. Why? Because the only difference between young adult ministry and junior high ministry is that young adults generally keep their email address longer then 3-weeks. That, and young adults can drive (though that is debatable in most cases). Take a look at just three of the similarities:

1. Identity Exploration
Young adults, like most kids going into grade 6 or 7 facing a new school with a new set of friends and a new set of body parts, are likewise facing many new situations in life. Their identity, like their younger counter-parts, is being re-shaped by moving away from the major identity shapers of their past. Whereas junior high’s begin to explore an identity apart from their family-of-origin, young adults begin to explore their identity apart from their friends of influence. There seems to be a general struggle for identity shaping during the junior high years, quarter-life crises, mid-life crises, and retirement; the years between being the stable identity years. This, in my observation, is one of a number of reasons why many churched teenagers exit the church during the first few years following their graduation.

2. Instability
Yes…instability. For example; watch the emotional needs of a junior high girl and a twenty year old girl. Need another? Try to imagine a young adult sticking with one job, career aspiration, university program, or girlfriend/boyfriend. It’s tough isn’t it? It seems very much like the junior high kid who is trying out different sports, clothing, music, friend groups, sexual orientation, and any other mask or fit of choice. There seems to be an unparalleled sense of opportunity and hope that creates a need to try it all before settling for one or the other. Possibility, hope, and opportunity along with a new and yet unmatched access to information, education, travel, and finances creates endless paths to walk down, discover, and build vacation homes on. Opportunity, for all its virtues, has put young adult stability in a submission hold.

3. Feeling In Between
The obvious result off all this is of being in a place of neither here nor there. Limbo – and not the good kind of limbo that is found on a Mexican beach – is the confusing place of inbetweenness. The tween years. The adult-lescent years. This is the time of transition of being not really a youth but not really an adult; not really a kid but not really a youth, not a girl but not yet a woman. Just like every junior high kid needs a parent to sit them down and talk through really big questions of “Where do babies come from? Where do I come from? What’s happening to me? Why? What about girls and relationships?” so do young adults need people around them to direct them through the same really big questions. Additionally, just like anyone who has been ‘in between’ relationships, the inbetweenness that young adults feel are the formative feeling, thoughts, and actions that always paint the next picture. Obviously a significant time.

The list of similarities actually goes on and on but, I gave myself a half hour to write this and, my half hour is up. I’ve certainly not given this enough thought to actually post it online, however, given that I am also an instable twenty-something transient loving neo-hippie on a quest for personal identity, it would be totally appropriate that I do.

-Jer

Bookshelves and iPods

2007-11-17T14:49:00.000-08:00

I'd like to pass on two bits of goodness to you:
1) an album, and
2) a book.

This week saw the release of the brand new Killers album which, in my opinion, is killa. It is a collection of mostly 'b-cuts' that never quite made it to other albums but that are still quite good. Thrown in for good measure are some re-mixes and live recordings that should keep any Killers fan happy. My favorite cuts so far are 'Tranquilize' and 'Where the White Boys Dance.' Go grab some finger gloves, tight pants, and your favorite Euro tabloid in order listen to this album for all its worth.

Second, and at a wee bit more intellectual expense, is the short book by N.T. Write called The Last Word published in 2005. The books thesis, as far as I could tell, is simply that the authority of Scripture rests in that Scripture is the word of God and so then becomes authoritative. Of particular importance for Write is the role of Scripture in dictating the now and future of the church as the continuing story of a much larger story which we honor and respect, but do not repeat and, in many cases, actually leave behind. This is a compelling and easy read that is directed at preachers, teachers, and church leaders in general. 4 stars out of 5.

-Jer

In Definition of: The Wrath of God

2007-11-08T13:45:00.000-08:00

As we get into this important second section of Romans 1 we will deal with the very controversial topic of God’s anger and wrath against evil and those who do evil. There are multiple perspectives on the wrath of God including those who would tell you that God does not get angry and is only a God of love. These people point to Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount and Paul’s teaching on human anger to persuade some that anger and wrath are incongruent with an all-holy God. There are others who, in their attempt to make God like man, argue that God’s anger is no different then sinful human anger that is uncontrolled, malicious, and full of rage.

Holding to either view is incoherent with Scripture and nullifies the need for a savior. The first makes God out to be a tolerant all-accepting push-over who only loves; this God is a post-modern hippie in a dress who accepts all views, opinions, and lifestyles condemning none and taking the neutral position on everything. Many people like this God because they do not like authority, responsibility, judgment, or accountability. Additionally, Jesus is no longer the central message of the Bible or even needed at all because, from this perspective, God does not judge and therefore will not send anyone to Hell. We can not accept this view.

The second view turns God into nothing more then an angry old man who loses his temper, fights his friends, beats his wife, and uses all kinds of deceitful actions to get back at his kids for missing curfew. This view turns God’s ‘holy-indignation’ into unrighteous sinful human behavior corrupted by evil and selfish desires. We can not hold to such a view because it would mean that God, like man, needs a savior to save him from his own sinfulness. God is holy, perfect, and without sin meaning that He provides a savior, Jesus, and does not need one.

Following is a third view that I believe must not only be reclaimed, but also must be taught always if we are to accurately present the whole truth of the gospel.

What is the wrath of God?

The wrath of God comes directly out of His holy nature which is completely hostile towards evil. God’s wrath is His refusal to accept, come to terms with, or condone sin and sinful people; it is His unchanging reaction to all unrighteousness.

Against what is God’s wrath revealed?

Simply put, evil is the object of God’s wrath. There is nothing that awakens God’s wrath except evil…and evil always does it. This text gives a twofold description of what and who God’s anger is directed.

1) Godlessness – is a lack of reverence for God that places man against God in not only neglect, but in open rebellion leading to all types of sinful perversions. This is man’s attempt to get rid of God.

2) Wickedness – meaning injustice towards fellow man. Whereas ‘godlessness’ is open rebellion against God, ‘wickedness’ is open rebellion against other people resulting in all forms of anti-social behavior including but not limited to sexual immorality, homosexuality, lesbianism, greed, envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice, gossip, slander, rudeness, arrogance, boastfulness, ruthlessness, faithlessness, heartlessness, and disobedience against ones own parents. Man in his rebellion not only condones these things but openly celebrates them encouraging others to do likewise.

God’s righteous anger then is directed at sin and sinful people because both godlessness and wickedness are the outworking of godless and wicked people who are totally morally and ethically bankrupt. Further, and not surprisingly, when the truth of man’s wickedness is brought to light and the devastating consequence of his actions are known, he strangles the disturbing voice of truth, suppress’ it, and holds it down by his own wickedness.

How is God’s wrath revealed?

In three ways:

1) The Future Eschatological Tense - which is the cause of much debate by End-Times nuts who think Kurt Cameron is a star and the Left Behind series is the Bible. However, God’s wrath will be revealed in the future which Paul calls the ‘coming wrath’ and ‘Judgment Day, the day of God’s wrath’ which is eternal punishment for the unrepentant. We can only speculate what that day will hold.

2) The Present Judicial Tense – God’s wrath on sinful human behavior through the use of government law, police force, and justice in the court room. Paul deals with this subject specifically in Romans 13:4 and is not what he has in mind here.

3) The Present Abandonment Tense – In this, God reveals his wrath by simply handing sinners over to themselves. John Ziesler writes that God’s anger “operates not by God’s intervention but precisely by his NOT intervening, by letting men and women go their own way.” God, in his wrath, separates himself and abandons stubborn sinners to their own unruly selfishness. In the following chapter Paul gives two reasons why God abandons the unrighteous: one, to allow sin and its consequences to accelerate as part of His judgment on them, and two, to make them realize their need for salvation.

How is God’s wrath averted?

Many, like the drunk who won’t admit to having a problem, will do their best to suppress the truth of God’s wrath. Others will do their best to try and appease God’s wrath through their own methods. Often times these methods take on the convenient disguise of playing church complete with playing pieces, a board, and an instructions booklet that lists all of the rules and regulations that will help them win the game. Unfortunately, pressed slacks and all of the other trappings of legalistic religion do nothing in appeasing God’s anger; in fact, it very well heightens it.

Divine wrath means that there must also be a divine solution. This solution is found in the salvation work of Jesus Christ to endure God’s wrath in our place thus freeing us from the guilt and sin that God is so angry about. The way of escape is provided by God through repentance of sin and faith in His son Jesus Christ. Jesus, instead of man, has stood in the place of God’s wrath accepting the punishment and paying the ransom that was owed. To this end, we love and serve and obey God giving Him all honor and glory and praise because in Jesus, by faith, we have been saved from ourselves, from God’s eternal wrath, and have been made a new creation, the old is gone, the new has come!

In Definition of: Reclamation

2007-11-02T09:46:00.000-07:00

This is a restorative process which, like any first year plumber knows, is dirty business. It involves wading knee deep into the grime and filth of overuse, abuse, misuse, and disuse. Much of what we know and believe has been tarnished and polluted again and again by well meaning liars who, in their best effort to make a word and its idea relevant, have softened, corrupted, and/or thrown a thick soupy haze over its rich meaning. In this process of reclamation we will reclaim those words, ideas, and doctrines from their weak and useless conditions. People so readily exchange the truth of God for a lie and, in so doing, downward spiral into all forms and methods of contamination. It is to this issue that the Church must engage in a Reclamation reclaiming truth, sound doctrine, and correct theology through prayerful Biblical study and in humble submission to our eternal God and King, Jesus Christ.

I Lost My Music

2007-10-18T16:46:00.000-07:00

Following is a short article appearing in the Abbotsford News sometime next week. Here is the unedited sneak preview. Enjoy.
-Jer

As you’ve no doubt noticed, musicians are an odd and eccentric assortment. If you took an honest look at every single musician you will be able to see that they fit into one of two categories: 1) emotional, or 2) overly emotional. This, in all likelihood, is a good thing because great music and peculiar interviews start with honest emotions. So, if you are an emotional musician, grab a box of Kleenex and brace yourself for what I am about to say.

Music is not something you create or make…ever.

Music is something you find. No matter how much of a creative genius you think you are when it comes to writing music – you aren’t; you may be a creative genius, true, but you are not writing the music. You may write the words, but you only ever find the music.

Music is something you discover.

For example, everything that has ever been played on the guitar and ever will be played on the guitar is already right there in the guitar hidden away in the strings and frets. This came as incredible insight for me because suddenly I didn’t have to worry about playing what was written down, taught, or conventional. Simply, I could find the music that was already there. Perhaps someday I’ll play like Jimmy Page or Van Halen because I have done the hard work of discovery and not gone the cheap, easy, and lazy route of buying music.

Discovery is far more interesting then photocopy. Imagination is far more interesting then reproduction because imagination, coupled with its soul mate, creativity, is the foundation of discovery. And discovery is so exciting; it brings us to new unexplored and sometimes scary places of which some even contradict each other.

Contradiction, while defying logic, does not defy science. Quantum mechanic scientist Niels Bohr explains, “Get creative: combine opposites, mix and match what doesn’t work, find differences and exploit it! Enjoy that reality, even at a physical atomic level, can harbor mutually exclusive ideas that can both be right.” Fascinating! Especially if you are looking for something that cannot really be explained adequately. It’s like looking for a God who loves you but allows famine and AIDS orphans in a world He created.

I cannot explain that.

But music might be able to.

Music is a process of discovery that helps us to remember our history and acts as the soundtrack for all of the moments that come together to make up life. Music sets the mood for how we feel and helps us to understand what is actually happening right now. It gets into our very soul.

I am not sure that I could actually put a definition of music into writing for fear of limiting its power over people and culture. However, if I had to write a definition of music I would probably suggest something like this: music is what already lives, finds its way into our emotions, and expresses itself in how we live. It is the harmony and rhythm of how we live life and, if you listen hard enough, you will find music everywhere.

Likewise, I’m not sure I could put a definition of God into writing for fear of limiting who He is. I would have to be greater then God and have a larger perspective then His perspective in order to do something like that. That is why I can’t tell you who God is. At very most I can try my best to give you some examples of what I believe God is like and, at this particular moment, I think God is a lot like music.

Jeremy Postal is a twentysomething who left Facebook to rejoin reality. He pastors at Christian Life Community Church in Abbotsford. You can interact with this column @ www.jeremypostal.blogspot.com

New Album

2007-09-24T22:31:00.001-07:00

New Foo Fighters dropping tomorrow...
That's right; tomorrow will be far better then today.
-Jer

Blogging is so Passe.

2007-08-18T22:12:00.000-07:00

Hello. Or more like, "Hello?"

And "Goodbye."

To all the readers here, past and present (present being a liberal use of the word), thank-you. I have appreciated your comment, the dialogue we've shared, the learning from among friends, and new conversations with new friends. This summer I even had the privilege of meeting a few of the faceless names - which was really cool.

Anyhow, in the coming year I am dedicating my time to a few different writing projects
which require my ongoing attention. I am working on a short commentary on Romans which should be complete by summer 08, a book about Jesus that will be for sale at your local punk show merch table, and hopefully some newspaper columns that will be more exciting then Billy-Fundamentalist in the Religion column.

As a result, I'll be too busy for this blog.

Not to mention that I am praying for an Indian summer to extend the climbing season and praying that I will log a pile of first tracks this winter on my snowboard. Other then that, I'll be dating my wife, studying, preaching, and putting into practice my party theology.*

What I am trying to say is, "I'll be too busy for this blog."

Thanks guys.

*Party Theology is one of my top three favorite doctrines of all time; the other two being 'Propitiation' and 'Two Shall Become One.' But that is another story.

Tolerance: Part 2.1

2007-06-28T18:26:00.000-07:00

Canadian culture has, since Trudeau in the 1960's, officially embraced a form* of tolerance that has given Canada its clear multi-cultural distinction from our great neighbors to the south. The question I have in mind as I think of the example of holiday tree's in public places (instead of Christmas trees) is this: At what point must you intolerate your own culture to tolerate another culture? I wonder how far this question reaches into the fabric of Canadian culture and, to be more specific, Canadian church culture. Something to think about anyways.

Tolerance: Part 2

2007-06-26T22:22:00.000-07:00

The last place that I lost my keys was in a snowy parkinglot near Gravity Hill in Abbotsford, BC. The parkinglot, which was actually more icy then snowy, was at the base of a small snowy hill near the end of a mountain plateau with hundreds of rows of small green trees. These, in all of their natural glory, were about to become firewood, woodchips, and memories. Sadly, this was to be the fate of the u-cut holiday tree.

If you live in a condo, were ever termed as a metrosexual some years ago, have a closet full of shoes, enjoy poetry without rap music, enjoy rap music, think that a trip to the country involves two bus fares, or are an over-sensitive vegetarian then you will no doubt have never encountered a real holiday tree.

The holiday trees that you are used to come in a box, are stored in a larger box, and are far more environmentally harmful then cutting down the real thing. Plus they smell like coat hangers which, unless you have some weird holiday fetish, shouldn't get you in the mood at all.

But still, it is a holiday tree. A fake, yes, but nonetheless real.

Tolerance: Part 1.

2007-06-24T19:21:00.000-07:00

Some years ago I wrote a paper on the topic of tolerance for a professor of philosophy with a couple of intents: a. to entertain him, b. to directly challenge him, and c. to finish as quickly as possible so I could go snowboarding. I succeeded on all three fronts, received a near perfect score, enjoyed some witty email banter back and forth, and was credited with introducing a new word to the discipline of philosophy.

That word was 'neo-tolerance.'

Now, normally I wouldn't brag about some academic accomplishment because really, when it comes right down to it, I haven't really had any academic accomplishment to speak of. I'm still over ten classes away from actually finishing Bible school, I quit swimming lessons, loathed piano lessons, and skipped out on my last hour of snowboard-instructor school to go shred the pow. However, I do think that it is very important that you know about the word 'neo-tolerance' and its inventor for the simple reason that over the last few weeks I have grown a beard. Yes, a beard.

Never trust a man with a beard.

At least this has been the motto swirling around in the back of my head for many years. And so, in a rather weak attempt to validate myself to you, I must tell you that, in fact, it was D.A. Carson who suggested the word 'neo-tolerance' and not a pressed for time snowboarder. This confession, I believe, should alleviate any mis-trust you may be harbouring as I grow my beard, eat granolla, and live in a van.

I do, however, completely understand if this is intolerable.

Young Adults Camp

2007-06-18T15:51:00.000-07:00

Hello again.
Blogging has certainly become a thing of the past hasn't it? If you're still blogging - what the heck are you doing? Just kidding. Really, I'm kidding.

Anyhow, Candace and I are now back in the great frozen nation of Canada and, though we are not freezing, we are being drowned and depressed by the rain and gloomy skies. The one perk of the constant rain is that all of the climbing is wet and unclimbable which, while normally being a bad thing, has freed up some time to do some sermon writing. If you are somewhere in southwestern BC, twenty-something, and have a higher then average pain tolerance I should recommend that you register and attend the Nanoose Bay Young Adults Camp June 29 - July 1. The high pain tolerance most likely has to do with the fact that I am speaking and may have some allusion to camp food.* At any rate, it should be a fun few days as young adults from around the region gather together to worship Jesus, study the Bible, and created some shared memories.

If you want to get to the camp the directions are easy: register, get three friends to register so your car is full, stop at the gas station, fuel up, get a bag of Doritos, drive, share some food and laughter, make a wrong turn and a mental note to bring a map next time, take some pictures, bring a sleeping bag, and then edit your pics so that everyone thinks it was the time of your life. See you there!

*In actual fact, camp food is usually pretty good and Nanoose may be no different...but there is always that off chance that it will be off. If you are twenty-something, however, the quality of food simply doesn't matter - what really matters is that it is food three times a day that you didn't cook or have to clean up after. That, and it's not noodle packages mixed with tuna.

On the Road Again...

2007-05-08T16:26:00.000-07:00

I meant to post some photo's of our trip here today for our family and friends...but...for some reason I haven't been able to upload the images today. Sorry. Stay posted and I'll see what I can do...
We miss you.
-Jer

Pastoring Too Hard

2007-04-25T15:27:00.000-07:00

There is something very sad about pastoring too hard. Life can fall apart.

Candace and I are constantly broken by the friends and partners in ministry that we know who come flying down a steep hill of pastoring too hard and, when they go to negotiate the corner at the bottom of the hill, the brake pads blow right off the car and they plunge over the cliff into a burning wreck. It wrecks them. It wrecks us. It wrecks Jesus’ church.

Earlier today as I was doing some study and listening to one of my currently favorite bands, The Arcade Fire, I was absolutely broken by a song about the life of pastors. I do not know the spiritual state of the band but I am pretty sure you are not going to find it at your local Christian book store. They do, however, have some very moving songs. Here are some lyrics from the song “Intervention”:

“Working for the church while your families dies…

…Every spark of friendship and love will die without a home…

…Who is going to re-set the bone when you’re walking with you’re heart in a sling…

…Working for the church while my family dies…

…Your little sister is going to lose her mind…

…Every spark of friendship and love will die without a home…

…Working for the church while your life falls apart…

…Singing Hallelujah when you’re failing at home…

…Every spark of friendship and love will die without a home…”

What a strong call to the pastor! As I have been praying for our pastors in BC today I couldn’t help but to really feel the title of this song: Intervention. The opening line of this song simply states: The King has taken back the thrown. To my friends and colleagues who pastor – please remember that Jesus said that it is his church that he is building – it is Jesus’ church. I feel a great burden for each of us today as I pray and think of you.

Grace and Peace,

-Jeremy and Candace.

Happy Boulders

2007-04-18T15:19:00.000-07:00

Candace warming up at the Happy Boulders in Bishop, CA. Where is your happy place?

It Snowed Last Night

2007-04-15T17:21:00.000-07:00

Candace and I are now one week into our sabbatical and living in a gravel pit in northern California at 4500 feet. Literally - a gravel pit. It is a strange and dusty little place with plenty of rocks, squatters, and a cat the keeps relieving itself near our tent. It is perfect.
It helps me feel God everytime I leave.

Anyways, we are alive and only slightly malnourished.
Go Canucks!
-Jer

Social Intelligence

2007-03-24T16:28:00.000-07:00

Best-selling author Daniel Goleman's newest book Social Intelligence has, so far, been absolutely brilliant! I started reading this book this morning and have only just picked my way through the prologue and first couple of chapters. I may be jumping the gun a wee bit, however, I already would like to recommend this book to every leader, pastor, or person whose job it is to relate well with other people.
The premise of this book is simple: We are wired to connect. From this thesis Goleman goes on to open up the science of relationships (social neuroscience) with convincing research, interesting stories, and easy to understand writing to show us how relational intelligence impacts every area of life. You may be very surprised by some of the findings!
Daniel Goleman has also authored the best-selling Emotional Intelligence and recommended Primal Leadership.

Something Starts an Explosion

2007-03-19T22:38:00.000-07:00

Supposedly our brain works with surprising efficiency. Not that I ever would have believed that in high school math, but that’s not the point – nobody likes math – it’s too predictable. The electricity firing in the space between our ears is neatly sorting and filing every experience just waiting for the chance to be re-opened. When we face challenges that are similar to past experience our brain already has a tried and tested solution just waiting to bulldoze the competition. We are so predictable.

Like math.

One of the greatest challenges of creative thinking is to not think from our default setting. While defaults are useful for getting the job done they don’t make the job very fun. We do because we have done.

And what gets done is nothing new, creative, or in many cases, very fulfilling.

I have found that getting stuck in default thinking causes me great anxiety and a trigger happy finger just itching to shoot the boredom. In these times I have realized that I need thought igniters to help spark ideas and creativity. Here are a few igniters that get things going for me:

- provocative reading outside my field

- great music

- connecting randomness/free association of words and idea’s (freestyle rappers are among the best in the world at this)

- looking for loopholes in systems

- metaphors about pretty much anything

- bouldering and rest days

- a great story

I believe that pastors and church leaders should be among the most creative bunch of people in the world simply because we have the most predictable job in the world. Our job hasn’t changed in 2000 years…we point people to Jesus. Maybe if we had a few more thought igniters in our lives we wouldn’t have to resort to math.

Time for Sabbatical

2007-03-14T10:29:00.000-07:00

Often the soul simply needs some rest, a glass of water, and a massage.

As some of you have already heard, Candace and I will be living in a van for 4-months while we travel and climb through the western half of the United States. Our goal of the trip is to spend some restful time together climbing, reading, writing, and studying Scripture. We will be caravanning through high alpine desert, old growth forest, and surfside towns with names like Las Lagoon or something equally un-Canadian.

Our church, Christian Life Community Church, has given us the time away in what is often referred to as a ‘sabbatical’. A Sabbath, which is where we get the word sabbatical from, may describe a certain day of our week where we produce nothing, where the machine stops and our only job is to enjoy life. This may describe the day of our week where we stop to consider that the planet will still wobble around its axis, the sun will still flicker, possums will still never quite reach the other side of the road, rabbits will still look cute, and life will go on. A weekly Sabbath is a day of our week where we remember God for who God is; a day where we remember that when God finished creating he looked at life and said that it was very good.

While a Sabbath speaks of a day, a sabbatical speaks of a time. A sabbatical describes a time, like in ancient Israel, where crops were not put in the ground for a season for two reasons: (a) to give the land a period of rest so that it would regenerate itself, and (b) to restore the people’s dependency on God. This is a time where life, which God proclaimed as very good, pauses among the clutter of culture to be regenerated and restored to a better place…a place of dependency on the ‘very-good-life-giving-God.’ This is a significant time where livelihoods slow considerably, not in negligence, but to allow for once fertile soil, such as the soul, to rest.

Candace and I are looking forward to our time of rest and regeneration as we travel. In addition to climbing and finding music on my guitar, I am in process of working on a pretty big writing project that requires some extra time devoted specifically to it. We do covet your prayer and thoughts as we travel and study. We will be away April, May, June, and July.

If you do have any questions, thoughts, or encouragement please use the comment section below.
Grace and Peace,
-Jeremy and Candace.

Reality and Memory

2007-03-08T16:44:00.000-08:00

The truest statement I have read all day.
"Life is rarely about what happened; it's mostly about what we think happened."
-Chuck Klosterman

Worship is Empty?

2007-03-03T10:10:00.000-08:00

The last show of the two-year-43-country-tour of rockers from another era came to a close in Vancouver’s BC Place only weeks before the roof blew off. The Rolling Stones played an amazing show complete with songs from their newest album along with re-makes of all of the old classics. The show, while absolutely amazing and heightened by a weird and colorful acid trip, raised some pretty serious questions about God and church worship music. Like, for example, why is it that worship music seems to be so similar to every other kind of music but its words are so empty? Or, why is it that when we find ourselves at a show the expectation is that we are moved with our emotions to some sort of response while at church we are told to be wary of emotive response to music?

That is, at least, what my tripped out friend on acid asked me the other day.

French Love Songs

2007-03-02T08:12:00.000-08:00

Last night I found myself sitting in an old English pub in downtown Abbotsford waiting for a friend of mine who is helping me with a writing project that I am working on. I showed myself in and found a table near the back of the pub where I sat down, pulled out my skinny Mexican pen, my journal, and a book I am reading. I was alone.

Completely.

In fact, it was an eerie alone feeling that you get when you are all by yourself but instinctively know that someone or something is watching you. My instincts, though not surprising in any way, were completely bang on. A skinny bohemian looking guy walks onto the small stage in front of the smaller dance floor and turns on a karaoke machine to which he begins to wiggle his hips, tap his toes, sing, and play lead guitar solo’s to 80’s pop music. All of this wasn’t weird at all except for one small thing which I think is important for you the reader to know, bohemian-karaoke-lead-guitar guy was singing love songs. And for the record, it’s pretty hard to concentrate on anything at all when a skinny bohemian is singing love songs to you.

Thankfully, later on in the evening my world began to make sense again…I found out that he was French and it explained everything.

Long Live Church Programs

2007-02-21T23:28:00.000-08:00

A quick post just to remind people that I do still exist in the blog world. Something cool hip and trendy that has found its way into the DNA of the cool hip and trendy pastors starting cool hip and trendy churches that look like cool hip and trendy cults is the mantra that says, "People don't connect with programs." Programs are not organic church, emerging church, authentic church, relevant church, relational church, church 2.0, or whatever the heck church....programs are to be distrusted, scrutinized, and reek of institutionalization.......or so the cool hip trendy non-conformists would tell you.

But...Is a program anything more or anything less then intentional relationships? Programs are intentional relationship - are they not? Anyhow, end rant.

Leadership, Submission, Church Authority

2007-02-08T09:39:00.000-08:00

Part of the sermonizing process in our young adult community involves many people in helping shape the teaching time. This week's discussion has been based around church leadership, submission, and authority. Many who read this blog are pastors and church leaders...your thoughts would be appreciated on this topic.
Merry Thursday.
-Jer

Oh, one other thing...check this out: People are finding Jesus on myspace. There's got to be a sermon illustration in here somewhere....!

Collectively Dubm...I mena dumb,

2007-02-01T13:14:00.000-08:00

One of my favorite things about this emerging cultures appetite for ‘power given to the masses’ is that it allows for the masses to control popular thought and opinion. Wikipedia is a great example of the collaborative muscle of our culture working together to create something that is far greater then itself. We love the idea of having control and access to information that has traditionally been behind closed doors, in files marked ‘confidential’, and held by higher ups who can wield and manipulate it to suit their needs and wants. It’s a great idea. The cheese-eating-cigarette-smoking and topless French peasants thought it was a great idea too…that is until they had control and decided that they, like their predecessors, did not want to share. Not too terribly surprising.

At present, our intellectual elite are progressively becoming only side notes in history as psychologically and intellectually we are becoming more and more Marxist-like in our thirst for information. Anyone with a computer and a wifi connection has access to the same information jamming us all into an information and technological middle class. But really, who cares.

Anyhow, my point is this: ‘nobody is smarter then everybody’ is a bit of an ideal way to live and teach. We are deceived by this cute little collection of words because it plays to the thing that we very much want – anti-authority, or, more precisely, our own authority. That said, there are some great times where using this statement and viewpoint in life is very helpful; i.e. in the realm of ideaing, brainstorming problems, collaborative learning, and creativity the more perspectives applied to said problem the better. However, the ‘nobody is smarter then everyone’ cliché breaks down the moment it comes to applying specific skills to specific tasks.

Do we let everyone with a seat on WestJet flight 178 from Abbotsford to Saskatoon to visit the in-laws give advice, suggest flight patterns, and take a crack at flying the jet…or, do we leave it in the hands of the pilots who, after many many hours of skill and knowledge development, fly the jet? We trust the pilot.

Do we let everyone with a seat in a church take a crack at teaching and preaching…or…do we trust the teacher who has spent many hours in study, prayer, and preparation? We very much want to trust a pilot; why not a teacher?

Collectively we can come up with some amazing ideas; collaborations and innovations that come only as a result of people getting together co-creating and co-developing something magnificent. However, collectively we can also become dumb and ignorant in our quest for anti-authority.

Death

2007-01-26T23:13:00.000-08:00

Sorry for the lack of posting lately; I've been doing piles of research work lately logging major hours in study filling up coil ring notebooks and piecing together some thoughts on the early church. That, and I've been sick, we've started a new blog, and their has been 100% growth at our young adults in the last three weeks. Anyhow, that is my excuse for not writing here.

My excuse for writing here is a coincidence. In the last couple of months I have had two different books given to me by two unrelated and non-connected people who told me that I really need to read the particular book they were giving me. So, without knowing the content or themes of each of these books, I cracked them open and read them.

The first book was about death.

The second book was...wait for it...about death.

I've never really experienced death before too closely; my grandpa died when I was six years old and I had some friends die when I was in high school. Reading these books I began to realize that I have no feelings that I can remember that are directly related to death...and I suppose this is good. I don't want to experience death in any close proximity but at the same time I guess I need to realize that there is no life without death. And that's scary. It's scary to think of what life would be like without someone you love, its scary to think of how I might respond, its scary to consider how they might respond if it were me. I don't think that death, when it comes, will in itself be scary - I more afraid of pain and spiders, but what about the people around me? I hope these two books were only a coincidence.

New Entry in the BlogRace

2007-01-18T15:48:00.000-08:00

New clcc young adults blog that you can feel free to add to your bloglines and check regularly. It is also a space for sermonizing which, if you don't know, is part of our collaborative sermon building process. Would love to have your thoughts and ideas as we teach about Jesus.
Grace and Peace,
-Jer

Home?

2007-01-17T11:42:00.000-08:00

Jesse posts a great post here. If you are somehow involved with ministry to young adults or transient type of people it is definitely worth the read and time given to thinking through its implications for your ministry context. Great stuff Jesse!
-Jer

The Death of Sermons?

2007-01-04T21:07:00.000-08:00

Communication, as we in the church know it, is under attack.

As a communicator I am constantly trying to learn how to become more effective in preparation, truth telling, story telling, persuasion, stimulating thought, conversation, and delivering compelling anti-conclusions. I genuinely enjoy studying and looking for seemingly unrelated bits and pieces of truth to link together to shape worldviews, beliefs, and lifestyles and I love the challenge of trying to find the language that speaks most relevantly to the people I am communicating to.

One of the aspects of church liturgy that the emergent church has called into question is how we, as communicators, most effectively communicate this life altering story of Jesus Christ to the emerging generation. On one extreme, there has been an almost violent reaction against the didactic “pastor as authority” teaching that has been so prevalent in churches for centuries in favor of conversation, dialogue, and narrative/experiential learning. On the other extreme, we find young pastors deciding against the 20 minute seeker-friendly sermons in favor of much longer and indepth teaching that moves the listener from theology to doxology to biography.

My personal response to this has been to take a little bit of the good from each of these to create a method of three part preaching that I don’t actually do very well. The upside is that I have the space and time to be constantly experimenting with how it actually could work. I have begun writing my definitions and ideas for these three parts but, before I post it here, I’d love to read your thoughts on this. Following are three numbers, six pieces of punctuation, and six words that make up the calcium malnourished skeleton of this teaching idea.

1) The Prologue.

2) The Dialogue.

3) The Epilogue.

If I had to get an idea across and these three are the variables of how I accomplish this; how should I do this?

-Jer

The Question We Have All Been Asking

2006-12-29T14:16:00.000-08:00

The following question was posed to me by author Chuck Klosterman in his book Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs. Easily the most interesting question asked of me in the last week and a half. By the way, you can pick up this book here...be warned though, if this book was a movie it may have an NC-17 rating.

Let us a assume a fully grown, completely healthy Clydesdale horse has his hooves shackled to the ground while his head is held in place with thick rope. He is conscious and standing upright, but completely immobile. And let us assume - for some reason - every political prisoner on earth (as cited by Amnesty International) will be released from captivity if you can kick this horse to death in less then twenty minutes. You are allowed to wear steel-toed boots. Would you attempt to do this?

Happy New Years!
Live from beautiful Comox Valley, BC
-Jer

Merry Christmas

2006-12-24T13:27:00.000-08:00

Have you ever had a Christmas present that, in all of its shiny paper, seemed so full of potential; pregnant with possibilities?
And then you open it...
And you find that basically the wrapping paper was more interesting then the actual gift and you find yourself muttering something about "how thoughtful or how handy" the gift might be. There is an old adage that says, "It is better to give then to receive" but it might just be that giving is just less embarrassing.

Anyhow, where ever you are in this great nation, enjoy Christmas this year, be thankful, and remember Jesus.
Live from Saskatoon, Saskatchewan
-Jer

Clam Crowder Soup

2006-12-16T14:09:00.000-08:00

A friend whose name will only be referred to as Cody from herein found that it would be in Jeremy’s best interest if Cody would set up an account at Relevant Books for Jeremy to choose some books that Cody would then buy for Jeremy. Three books arrived at my door two days ago by a FedEx man in tight jeans and a ripped bluejean jacket…obviously out of uniform...I immediatly, but briefly, admired his vigilante spirit and applauded his complete direspect of social norms. But I suppose that is another post.

To the story at hand. I was obviously giddy like a 13 year-old cheerleader (without all the stereotypes associated with 13 year-old cheerleaders) to get this early Christmas present! I eagerly opened the FedEx packaging and found Everyone Want To Go To Heaven, But Nobody Wants to Die, The Relevant Church, and The Relevant Nation.

I quickly grabbed the novel I was reading, finished it, and cracked the cover of Everyone Wants To Go To Heaven written by David Crowder with bandmate Mike Hogan. Maybe one of the best things about this book is that there is a banjo on the front cover that, if you were perceptive enough, you would notice looks remarkably similar to Dave Crowder’s face if you turned his head and mess of hair upside down. That said, the book itself held a few more remarkable insights as it toured around on an often convoluted history, discussion, and story of death, suffering, the soul, and bluegrass music. Interesting, cleverly written*, accompanied by a bookmark, and free! Thanks Cody.

Looking forward to what the other two reads offer.
-Jer

*For example, I learned that the word Presbyterians happens to be an anagram for Britney Spears and that it was, no doubt, predestined for this anagram to happen since the dawn of God’s green earth.

Let's Get Some Link Love

2006-12-11T21:23:00.000-08:00

Hey yo
There are a bunch of faithful readers of this blog and I do, maybe more then I care to admit, really appreciate that. There are even some regular comment posters and you, my friends, are my favorite! :)

Anyhow, its been quite some time since I have updated the links on my side bar; if you have a personal blog that you would like to see added to the sidebar just leave the blog address in the comments section so I can get that updated for you.

Also, if you still haven't started using bloglines then I would recomend that you do. It will help you surf through the wide and wonderful world of blog - trust me. It works and it works well. Anyhow, looking forward to adding your links.

Grace and Peace,
-Jer

PS - If you are already linked on the side bar or, if you've left your link and still are feeling frisky, check out this short post by favorite blogger in the entire world.

True or False: v2.0 Proximity

2006-12-02T13:05:00.000-08:00

The other day 'sloos and I were sitting in a quiet little coffee shop drinking tea and talking about a true eclection of ideas. One of the statements that was made (with some grimmace) sounded like this:

"Other then Jesus, the most important aspect of leadership and ministry is proximity." Simply, the distance between the leader and the follower has the largest impact on the quality of the leader/follower relationship.

True or False?
tags: leadership

Anatomy of Buzz

2006-11-29T20:12:00.000-08:00

Following are a pile of questions that I have been asking myself after reading a marketing book called The Anatomy of Buzz by Emanuel Rosen. I would recommend that you find this book and add it to your own personal library. Print this off and take some significant time to work through these questions with the people closest to your ministry. Some of the questions asked you may need to ask me for clarification on…ask! Lots of good brainstorm stuff here!
-Jer

1. From who do our newcomers typically learn about youth/young adults?

2. What do people say when they recommend youth/young adults?

3. How fast does information about youth/young adults spread compared with other churches/young adults groups/organizations?

4. Who are our network hubs? Are there any mega-hubs? Which are social hubs and which are expert hubs? Are there any categories of people who might become network hubs for youth/young adults?

5. Where does information about young adults hit a roadblock? Do our hub people know what the heck is happening?

6. Which are the most important sources of information that our youth/young adults rely on to know who we are/what we are about?

7. What other kinds of information spread through the same networks?

8. Who are our inactive markets that our youth/young adults are not reaching? Are we listening for silence where we are not known?

9. Do we offer a quality event, program, and community?

10. Do we underpromise and overdeliver? Overpromise and underdeliver?

11. Does youth/young adults enhance the lives of the people who come?

12. Contagious products and ideas draw attention to themselves; how well does youth/young adults draw attention to itself?

13. Do we offer anything new? Buzz reflects excitement and excitement does not build around old ideas and predictable approaches.

14. Are we operating in a spirit of truth, honesty, and directness?

15. What are we willing to do to accelerate the contagiousness and word-of-mouth spread about youth/young adults?

16. What do students/young adults tell their friends about us? About other churches/youth groups/young adults?

17. What is the general church culture saying about young adult and youth ministry right now?

18. How receptive and responsive are we to our student and young adult concerns, comments, suggestions? How easy is it for people to talk to us?

19. Can we limit access to youth/young adults to create buzz? Scarcity build interest.

20. What sneak previews do we want to give to grade 12's for young adults and grade 8's to youth?

21. What can we do that will surprise people?

22. How outrageous can we be?

23. Who and how can we take people 'behind the scenes'?

24. What is the story and drama that we need to keep telling about our communities?

25. What events can we stage to get people talking about youth/young adults?

26. What kind of "pass it on" promotional material and mechanisms do we have?

27. How visible is youth/young adults to youth and young adults?

28. Are our youth talking to each other? The more that they interact, the more involved they will become with youth/young adults and the more likely they will tell other people. Can we find ways to help them talk to each other, socialize, and exchange comments?

29. Is there anything that we can do that makes youth/young adults more useful as more people use it? Example: email is more useful when more people use it; myspace is more useful when more people use myspace. People will spread the word more readily if they perceive some sort of personal benefit.

30. Is there anyway that we can offer any type of 'referrals reward program'?

31. Can our ads be clever enough to create buzz on their own?

32. How well can our youth/young adults articulate who we are and what we are about?

33. Are we supplying our networks with a constant flow of innovations that people can actually talk about?

34. Are we keeping people involved? If people join us but never think about it again, we can't expect them to talk about it too much. However, if we involve them, engage them, make it interesting for them, they will talk. Involvement translates to action, which in turn translates to buzz.

Identifying Network Hubs
"Whether you spread an idea, a product, or a service, you always have a choice. You can broadcast or you can connect. Broadcasting involves massive mailings or buying media time and packaging your message so that it can be transmitted simultaneously to all nodes in the network. Connecting involves starting a dialogue with certain individuals in the network that you are trying to influence." -Emanuel Rosen
How do we identify these certain people?
1. Let network hubs identify themselves. These are people who come to us for something they want more then anything else: information. Network hubs feed on information.

2. Identify Categories of Network Hubs. The way to look for a category is to look for people who, by virtue of their position, have a higher then average number of ties with people in the networks you are trying to reach.

3. Spotting Network Hubs in the Field. It's easy to find these hubs when you are apart of a community. In fact, when you are apart of a community don’t really have to search.

Seeding Ideas
Successful seeding is an active process. It goes beyond the Field of Dreams cliché "If you build it, they will come." Rather than waiting passively for people to come to you, you go out and plant seeds all around the forest.

1. Look Beyond the Usual Suspects. Think broadly. Who are the people outside of our normal networks that could be 'seeded' with new ideas about young adults?

2. Put Information/Product In Their Hands. What piece of young adult product can we put in people's hand that will 'germinate itself' into other people's hands?

3. Listen For Silence. Successful seeding requires that we pay attention to dead networks and go further in order to reach them.

4. What seeding efforts are we doing right now? What should we be doing in the near future?

Hope this can be some use to you! Let me know if you need clarification on certain ideas or questions...I'd love to help. If it helps you pass it on.
-Jer

tags: Emanuel Rosen, marketing, advertising, church marketing

Familiar?

2006-11-27T00:31:00.000-08:00

My good friend Chad Langerud said this important statement to me this summer,

"Let's make sure that IT is familiar but never predictable."

The conversation below is not over.
-Jer

PS - New stuff over at the eddie def blog.

Economics, Church, and Scarcity

2006-11-19T19:42:00.000-08:00

Simple economics tells us that people will value anything that is scarce; scarcity drives prices up and, for those who can afford scarcity, it drives personal status up. We live in a supply and demand culture that demands much more then most in our culture are ready to supply.

Some examples of the supply and demand culture we live in:

The powers that be that control the Middles Eastern oil sands have driven the price of oil up significantly simply by limiting the amount of oil taken from the earth. The result has been a world wide jump in prices at the pump, a renewed search for more oil in other parts of the world, grain fuels, and ‘wars on terrorism.’

Gmail. When gmail was first introduced the only way that anyone could sign up for a gmail account was through a personal invite from a friend who only had a limited number of invites. It was a great bit of marketing that allowed new gmail users to, at least for a while, feel a sense of status in ‘the next big thing.’ Early adopters of gmail had a superior service that gave a personal sense of superiority and insider knowledge. Everyone wanted to at least get the invite so they could check it out!

Now let’s transition this to ideas, actions, emotions, and spirituality. To do this, keep this key thought in your mind: “Familiarity breeds depreciation.” When something, anything, is too familiar, it looses its value.

Ideas – Which ideas get the most play time in your thoughts? The ideas that are surprising, arouse curiosity, and are counter-intuitive to what you normally think. Right?

Actions – I have a sneaking little suspicion that sex is talked about, joked about, thought about, viewed online, and highly valued because sex, for most people, is a scarcity. Again, supply and demand.

Emotions – Imagine if everyone was accepted. Imagine if no one ever felt like the outsider, rejected, or lonely. Imagine what would happen to acceptance! No one would care anymore and it obviously wouldn’t be something that people see counselors about, cry in bathroom stalls about, or jump off bridges for. Acceptance is a scarce feeling because so many are not accepted. Now consider this; most strong emotions have something to do with a scarcity.

Spirituality – Have you heard a statement like this before, “We live in a culture that is very interested in spirituality but not interested in the church or Jesus.” I’m sure you have. Have you ever thought why that statement is made?

I think it might have something to do with scarcity. Bible-believing Christ-centered spirituality is no longer sacred in its ideas, actions, and emotions because it is no longer scarce. There is too much of it. Think about that for a moment…

Familiarity breeds depreciation. People don’t care because we’re not sexy or, as Jesus put it, salt and light.

Could it be that the large majority of our current Canadian society does not appreciate or has a growing depreciation of the church simply because they already know what they are going to get? I’ve heard it said over and over that the church needs to be known in culture but maybe we need to be less known? Are we too familiar? Maybe. Could we somehow surprise culture with something they don’t know, feel, or see?

There might be room for scarcity in your church. Scarcity drives market.
-Jer
tags: church marketing, emerging church, church growth, church economics

Stuck Learning #2

2006-11-16T09:39:00.000-08:00

Following is a rebuttal to my recently writen Stuck Learning post. This was sent to me by a friend who I am sure will see my way in the end! :)
**********************

First off, how do you know that people aren’t learning anything in the opposite states of which you’ve presented?

1. Knows Everything Already – Some people know vast amounts, and really what those teachers/communicators have to offer, these people already know and understand it. So, over all, there stands the obligation of those people who are teaching to go further than their students. Some of those people, I would suggest are possible sick of what is known as satisfactory. What if someone has exhausted all of the resources that they know of, and sincerely can’t find anymore so they can proceed--- all the resources have been used by this person. Is there more to learn, and are they to create new resources out of thin air?

2. Busyness – Sometimes you really do need to deal with what’s in the front of you before you can deal with anything new. So, you can’t always learn something new. Sometimes people just have to cope with and process what’s going on. If you take new things on all the time ‘in hopes to learn’, it can result in stress, and possibly, eventually burn out. I would suggest to encourage people to sometimes stop learning new things so they can digest what’s in front of them already.

3. Boredom – What are the teachers actually teaching? Are they teaching material that is intriguing, one that challenges or are they simply teaching what they know? Sometimes people have, again, exhausted all the resources, and as a result are bored. The onus is no longer on the learner, but the teacher.

4. Repetition – I think there’s something to be said for perfection. You have to practice it until you get it right. “Practice makes perfect.” Think of drumming for example. The drummers, who are really good, have perfected every step before they move on to the next/new one. This applies to more than just this one aspect of life but, I would suggest, in its varying forms, to every aspect. You have to master the placing the light bulb into the socket if you want to actually see the light turn on when you flip the switch.

5. Completed Living – Again going on the thought of the drummers training. You can’t move on until you’ve perfected what you have just been taught. Bringing a new aspect will completely throw you off. Some things in life require you to acknowledge that you have perfected something, and that you have completed it in order to move on and be successful. If you recognize that you are incomplete in something, haven’t mastered it, and move on anyway, you could be setting yourself up for future folly.

6. Crisis Free - I think ‘troublems’ is a wrong way to put it. What about learning through just simple observation? I wouldn’t say that you’re stuck if you aren’t experiencing crisis. Crisis can sometimes again, cause stress or, as an end result, burn out, and thus crisis as a positive, can be a dangerous ally.

7. Unnecessary Failure – Aka, Ignorance. That’s another way to look at it. What if you don’t know that the knowledge is available? You have absolutely no knowledge of this higher level. Is the onus on you if you actually don’t know?

8. Isolation – What about the introverts? The ones that can’t learn with others. You look at college and high school years, where you have various students. Some of the students simply can’t learn from and while being around people. They need to be alone so they can process. Being in a room of people is distracting, causes dissention for them, and, therefore, disallows them from being able to process any information. Not everyone is the same, and not everyone learns the same way. To make a universal statement that shared space is a learning environment that works, seems rather presumptuous.

**************
Thanks Steve!
-Jer

HDB is short for _________ .

2006-11-15T23:23:00.000-08:00

Apparently this blog is an HDB. Thanks Paul!
To find out what category of blog yours falls into check out this exhaustive list.
-Jer

Stuck Learning

2006-11-12T18:42:00.000-08:00

Sometimes people get stuck not learning. Some stuck places include:
1. Knows Everything Already – These people never allow themselves to be surprised or effected by any new insight. Sometimes arrogant and often criticize without offering solution.

2. Busyness – People who are so busy that they are too busy to “notice” learning. Busyness allows us to only see the immediate survival steps and never imagine the next steps.

3. Boredom – This is normally a side project of ‘knows everything’ people; nothing is ever new, surprising, or engaging – every bit and piece of knowledge is old and frustrating. Bored people generally are boring people who look more for entertainment then learning.

4. Repetition – No one can become better by doing the same thing the same way forever. What worked yesterday and today likely will not work tomorrow. Feel free to tweak and change it up or risk living in a mediocre and non-innovative life.

5. Completed Living – These are stuck places that misinterpret goal completion as finished learning. Incompleteness must be acknowledged in order to move on.

6. Crises Free – You might find that your capacity for learning is stuck if you have not had to work through conflict or find solutions to problems. Learners generate troublems.

7. Unnecessary Failure - This is not a stuck place but rather a metric of being stuck. You might be stuck if you have failed because you have not learned from the knowledge available to you.

8. Isolation – Though not always the case, isolated people generally like to dig holes for themselves; community involvement, collaboration, juxtaposition of ideas, and shared spaces are key learning environments. Learners ruthlessly seek out other learners.

Any thoughts on getting unstuck? Post here in the comments, write a column and we can post it here in a few days, or respond on your own blog.
-Jer
tags: learning

You.

2006-11-04T13:50:00.000-08:00

What are people most interested in?
Themselves, obviously.

Watch anyone look at pictures from last night’s little shindigger and what photos do they spend the most time looking at?
The photos of them, obviously.

Who do news crews interview and which people care the most when disaster happens in India?
Indians who still have family living in India, obviously.

What causes are people most likely to get behind?
The ones that are about them or somehow impact them personally, obviously.

What communities are people most likely to be actively involved in?
The ones that enhance their life, obviously.

What bands, films, songs, and advertisements are people responding to?
The ones that are the closest to who they are and who they want to be, obviously.

What version of truth, certainty, spirituality, and belief do people love?
The version that fits their life, obviously.

Which god do you serve?
The version that fits your life, obviously.

-Jer
tags: self, ego

How Certain is Certainty?

2006-11-01T12:24:00.000-08:00

Merry the Day After Halloween - it's like Boxing Day for candy and you can get pumpkins for nearly free. I dressed up as a kissing booth.......Anyhow, following is an article from a friend who has moved to the UK this year for school. He is also in the process of writing a book on the subject of truth; he would like some of your response to this thought. Enjoy!
-Jer

It seems like one of Christianity’s favourite topics these days is truth. On a blog such as this, the topic needs little introduction. And so, I’ll skip the introduction.

Whatever you believe truth is, whether you believe in absolute truth or not, there is a deeper question, which is the inevitable product of all of these questions. Should we be certain?

Certainty:
–noun, plural -ties.
1.the state of being certain.
2.something certain; an assured fact.
—Idiom
3.for or of a certainty, certainly; without a doubt: I suspect it, but I don't know it for a certainty.

It has been my experience that most of our questions about truth are actually just a form of this question of certainty. Those who believe in absolute truth are just more certain of ideas. A wise man once said to me, “the only certain thing in the world is that only crazy people are certain.” Is that just a statement of relative truth? Or is it wisdom stemming from a realization of the limits of the human brain?

If in fact it is wrong to be certain of something because we are human, where does that place us in relation to God? Belief is a function of the human brain, and I believe that this function is no different no matter what its target is. Thus, if certainty is not a positive modifier of the function belief, certainty in God cannot be a good thing.

I also believe that faith and trust are synonymous, and that faith has nothing to do with belief unless you are trusting in someone who told you to believe something. I do not see faith as a reason to be certain of God’s existence.

The problem with certainty is that we are always capable of being incorrect. Certainty is what stops us from seeing when we are correct. I once knew a Christian who was so certain that God created the world in six days that she said “I wouldn’t believe in evolution even if you proved it right before my eyes.” She then proceeded to say that her certainty came from her faith in God. The equation, as I see it, is as follows:

Belief + Faith = Certainty

I’m almost certain that is incorrect. But what about this one?

Belief + Proof = Certainty

Or this one:

Belief + Proof = Absolute Truth

I must distinguish the difference between certainty and absolute truth. This is hard to do since in my last blog on absolute truth I discovered that people have three different definitions of the term. Certainty is when your belief is “without a doubt,” in an “assured fact”.

The biggest pro of being certain is that it allows you to develop ideas on a firm foundation. When you are sure something is true, you can then base other ideas on the fact you have already discovered. Also, certainty can be considered necessary in order to have assurance of salvation. The main drawback of certainty is that we are human and could be wrong. Also, certainty is offensive to those who believe differently.

I am currently writing a book on the topic “truth”. I have gotten to a point where I cannot continue to write until I know what side I am on in the argument over certainty. I would love to hear your ideas.

Is certainty a positive, negative, or neutral characteristic of one’s beliefs?
tags: truth, philosophy, certainty