I think I am glad that December is finally over. It seemed like there was so much that needed to be done before the end of the year. Just as things started to end something would come up, like our sudden trip to Edmonton to see Shane’s grandfather. The Monday before I had finished teaching my nursing students at the local hospital. I was looking forward to not being in a hospital the next Monday. Where did I find myself the next Monday? At a hospital in Edmonton. We were happy to get a visit in with family before Christmas though as we weren’t originally going to go out to visit anyone this year due to finances. When a family member is sick, you put off paying down your debt a little bit longer.

BC has been getting a record snow fall this year. We have broken records set in 1964. Shane and I have been shoveling snow. I shoveled twice and Shane has done it more than that. The snow just wouldn’t stop falling. It is now raining and it is nice to hear the water rushing down the gutters finally. We hardly saw any snow plows on the road which meant getting anywhere was difficult. I can’t remember ever seeing this much snow in such a short period of time…. probably because I wasn’t around in 1964.

This year was Dannan’s first Christmas. He enjoyed checking out the Christmas tree in the weeks leading up to the big day and loved to play with the non-breakable ornaments. He needed a few reminders to leave the lights alone but for the most part he was very good around the Christmas tree. As for gifts, he had no clue what to do about the wrapping paper. We tried to interest him in the ripping sound to get a picture or two of him opening his own presents but it didn’t happen. He wanted to see the presents that his brothers had already opened. Once his presents were opened though he quite enjoyed his brothers showing him how they all worked. I think Dannan enjoyed his first Christmas even though he didn’t have a clue what was going on. I wonder how he’ll be for his first birthday in January?

In other news, I finished reading the Bible finally. I finished just before Christmas. I started reading it in January a week or two before Dannan was born. I got busy doing my coursework and took the Summer off from reading. I finally got back into it this Fall and completed it. I don’t know for sure how many weeks it took me to read it but what counts is that I started in January and finished before the next January. I’m pleased with that.

After I finished reading the Bible I needed something else to read so I asked Shane what he would recommend and he suggested “I Don’t Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist” which was interesting. It makes me want to read more apologetics books. Usually any books that Shane recommends are written in such a way that I want to pull out a dictionary but this book wasn’t written that way and I actually understood and enjoyed it. The book took only a couple of days for me to chew through and now I’m onto another book.

The one I’m reading now is “Discipling Our Nation”. I’m about halfway through and while I don’t find it as interesting as the apologetics book I do find the statistics regarding churches in Canada quite fascinating. I’ll write more about this book later as I came across something last night that I found intriguing and want to discuss later on.

For your edification, I thought I would give you an idea where all the different towns and cities are, and what we know about them right now.

Starting with the extreme southeast of the province:

Medicine Hat/Redcliff

This was actually the first community we became interested in.  Population around 55 thousand, it is out on the prairies, in the valley of the South Saskatchewan River.  3 hours from Calgary.  Interesting fact: the city owns its own natural gas reserves, so heating is cheap there.

Our specific interest is actually in Recliff, a small town abutting against the north side of the city.  It has a population of 5000 people but only one(!) evangelical church.  That makes it a community of interest according to Outreach Canada.

Pros:

• Out of the way, appealingly slow pace of life
• Close proximity to Cypress Hills Provincial Park, a unique area for camping, fishing, etc.
• Growing communities, but not as fast as some others (+17k over the last 20 years).

Cons:

• Far from Edmonton or Calgary, where most of the “action” is.  One of the main considerations we have to factor in is how this church fits into Grace Brethren Canada’s vision of creating churches that support more plants.  Being further away from where most new churches are needed means less potential impact on the province for God.
• Unclear why Redcliff has so few churches, or if everyone in town is fine with just going to Medicine Hat for church.
• Medicine Hat itself has a good number of churches, and we are in contact with one church planter who is launching in 2009 there, so it may be a bit much to come in and plant again in 2 years.

Last night was our leadership Christmas dinner. A lovely time was had by all, by appearances. It looks like we may have a new couple joining us - more hands make lighter work!

So, going into the holidays, I can feel momentum beginning to build with my wife and I, and also with my pastor, Philip, about what needs to be done to move our dream of planting in Alberta forward. I thought you might be curious, so I’ll let you into the next few months.

First on the plate, I will be seeking licensure with the Grace Brethren. This means I will be able to marry people! Ooooo… However, being quite rigorous, theologically, I have some study to do to pass it. I have a major written test to write, then based on that, they do an oral review as well. I hope to complete that before spring.

After that, my wife and I are beginning to plan a trip to tour about 5 or 6 different communities in Alberta with regards to seeking God’s will in which community to target. At this time the list includes Cochrane, Okotoks, Lethbridge, Medicine Hat (Redcliff), Spruce Grove/Stony Plain and perhaps St. Albert. We want to do this in the May/June time frame.

This fall we hope to form a small group made up entirely of prospective team members who will accompany us to Alberta. We are praying that some people are stirred by God to join us.

This fall there is a church planting conference in Calgary - details on speakers and such have yet to be finalizedd but we are already in agreement that we should go. That will be a great learning experience.

So, that is a big picture snapshot of what 2009 will look like for us. We still need to colour it in, but Lord willing, our future will take a much clearer shape as we go next year.

This is my second attempt at writing this blog entry and it’s a long one! I’ve been so busy with kids and my studies that I haven’t had the free time I’ve wanted to write my thoughts out here. I wanted to talk about my trip down to Florida. Shane has already covered the experience of the conference but I wanted to focus on my travel down with the kids.

We all traveled together from Vancouver to Toronto, however, we had to split up in Toronto with Shane taking Aydan (age 4) and going by car to Buffalo where they would fly out and we’d reconnect in Orlando. I stayed at the Toronto airport where I would depart with Dylan (age 7), Lyndan (age 5) and Dannan (6 months) and the bulk of our luggage since it was uncertain how much time Shane would have to check in once he got to Buffalo.

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I was reading another few pages from Planting Missional Churches by Ed Stetzer this morning, and in the early going he rides the importance of cultural exegesis hard.  I was already familiar with the concept as I just took a course this spring on “Christianity and Culture” from Bruce Guenther over at ACTS (awesome course by the way).  One of the most important texts in the course was called Everyday Theology - a compilation by Kevin Vanhoozer.  This book was awesome for giving a framework to analyze cultural trends in light of Jesus.  It’s given me a very different angle on looking at my culture ever since.

So the two of these sources collided with me while I was driving to work this morning.  Two songs on my iPod came on - “It’s Probably Me” by Eric Clapton and Sting, and “Your Life is Now” by John Mellencamp.  It occured to me that both of these songs have very Christian overtones, though I somehow doubt the writers thought of that.  (Actually, in retrospect, from what I know of Eric Clapton’s spiritual journey, maybe that one wasn’t unintentional.)  I was picturing actually opening a sermon by having everyone come in with that song playing, or the worship team playing (given the mad skillz of Eric Clapton, maybe I had better play the CD).

I was even thinking of doing some kind of youtube, or powerpoint set to coincide with the lyrics to illustrate some profound points to ponder as the music washes over you.

Just some crazy ideas for the future, I guess.  Two of my favorite things are music and movies.  I will be spending more time thinking about how to exegete them and teach with them as illustrations or foci for points.

I was looking around for church plant blogs from BC and Alberta, to see who’s doing what.  I encountered a blogger who also pastors The Open House in East Vanouver.  Reading over his and his church’s websites gave me a few clues as to his approach to church planting.  I had a few thoughts as I surfed it.

The Open House is advertised as “A missional community walking in a Jesus direction”.  From everything I have read about missional churches and the theology behind them, I am totally in agreement with much of their understanding of the purpose of a church body.  The flavour of missional churches that leans in an emergent direction becomes dischordant in my mind though, because it seems to lean too heavily on a concept of postmodernism that doesn’t really exist much.

I read the other day an author that claims that postmodernism doesn’t really exist.  That the classic anarchic view of young people or whoever, the rejection of absolutes does not exist.  That if you drill down any postmodern, you will find someone who is modern, and recognizes the necessity of modernity.  I think that could be true.  The stereotypical community of emergents as a fellowship body, meeting casually in bars or coffeeshops, talking about God and ancient forms of devotion doesn’t go anywhere.  It relies on the personality of the leader to hold it together because there is no call for loyalty or commitment from its constituent members.  Each member is ultimately self-directed in their own personal quest for deity, and only incidentally fellowships.

What this results in is a community that is temporary and transient.  It comes and goes in wisps.  It relies on flighty noncommital people to dedicate themselves to themselves and in so doing, a community.  Except, I have to think that the Bible teaches the opposite.  It teaches commitment to the body of Christ first, and your person second.  “Love the Lord your God with all you heart and all your soul and all your mind and all your stength, and love your neighbour as yourself.“  Where does the self come?  Last.

So when I see an emerging church with suspended services, I am not surprised.  I wish human nature wasn’t what it is, but that and a dollar will buy you a can of Coke.  I am convinced that one of the factors of a successful church is eliciting real concrete commitment - to doctrine, to fellowship, to service, to God, and to one another.  What comes of that commitment is growth in yourself.  Personal growth is the result of commitment - it can’t be sought for its own sake, and it should never come before anything else.

Now, to figure out how to communicate that to people who disagree.

Heh.  Still working on that.

We were back in front of storefronts last night.  I was feeling spiritually, emotionally, and physically exhausted yesterday afternoon, and seriously considered staying home.   I didn’t get notified where we were going until I was already late which was kind of frustrating but that’s the vagaries of technology.  We set up in front of Save on Foods at 70th and Scott.  The whole evening we were looking across the parking lot at the massive Sikh Gurdwara.  It challenged me to show love to all, but especially to the many people coming in and out from India.

The numbers of people coming were much higher because a grocery store is much busier.  It was a different type of people than in front of the pet store with all these spoilt little toy dogs coming in and out.  We were also right in front of a liquor store so that was fun.  Robert was there with me and he is a machine when it comes to meeting and establishing conversations with people.  I was blown away with his gifts in that area.  He had several conversations with a couple of homeless guys and encouraged them to come out to our new street ministry starting tomorrow night.

We also had several other positive conversations.  Many more people were asking us why we were doing what we were doing.  It was great to bear witness to God’s love for everyone.  One guy promised to come this Sunday to our church.  Another lady said she was glad to know where we were so she could come and volunteer and help out.  I don’t know what that means, but if she comes to church that will be amazing.

At one point I wound up doing some runaround work, picking up more water to hand out and dropping off team members.  I was grateful for that opportunity to exercise more administrative and organizing muscles.  Despite my fatigue at the beginning of the evening, it was altogether important that I was there and working, for my own development.