So here is an update: I plead excuses because (if you have been keeping up on Twitter or Facebook) you know that last weekend I had a bit of a double-whammy: I graduated from ACTS Seminaries with a Master of Arts in Christian Studies, and the following Sunday I preached my third sermon ever at Community of Hope.

The graduation ceremony went very smoothly.  Having 6 Seminaries working together is great while you are going there because the interplay between denominations and the collegial environment despite distinctive approaches to theology, life and practice makes for a very rich experience.    However, graduation ceremonies are a bit of a bear because legally, conferment of your degree only happens when the representative of said body says the “magic words” so we had to listen to the legalese from each Seminary AND from Trinity Western Univeristy who simultaneously grants the degrees to all graduands.

I was surprisingly calm all things considered.  If this had been the only thing I had to worry about that weekend, then I might have been more nervous.  But as it was with Sunday looming in my mind this seemed to be a cakewalk.

Thursday night my parents rolled into town (one day early), and we had dinner at the restaurant attached to their hotel.  I had Friday off, and Grandma and Grandpa Edwards pulled up around noon, so we had them over that afternoon, and had a big Chinese Food feast that night with them and my aunt and uncle: my Dad’s twin brother at our place.  That was a good party.

Saturday I had to head to the venue for the graduation by 10am, and we were out there until 3pm.  It was good to be finally finished, and I did get to touch base with the two professors that I wanted to speak to the most: Bruce Guenther, the History professor who I was Teacher Assistant for on my first go-round, and also Kent Anderson, professor of Homiletics, who was my faculty advisor at Northwest Baptist College in 1997, and advised me because I had taken a lot of college (at different colleges) that I would actually be eligible for Seminary.  If it hadn’t been for him, I wouldn’t have graduated today.  Of course, he did not recall that at all.. but then again at that time I was just another college student 23 year old, and strangely, I have never gotten around to taking any of his classes.

Saturday night we had a bigger family dinner at the restaurant again, with all the kids there and with my Uncle Paul, Aunt Sonya and two of their three teenage girls, as well as Dad’s bother and his wife, and Grandma and Grandpa.  It was a lot of fun, and I received some gifts for graduating which were a surprise , and very welcome.

Sunday I was to preach.  Pastor Philip had taken half the church to Goldendale, WA for the Northwest District Grace Brethren Conference, but the other half – some 50 people, were still coming.  I spoke about the “Calling of God” (go ahead and listen here), and actually came in fairly short – only 25 minutes was my message.  I feel like I started off a little scattered but settled down ad feel like I did pretty well – especially since this was my first time preaching in front of family – my parents and my grandparents stayed to watch me.

So obviously, such a weekend took some time to come down from.  That’s my excuse for not writing anything in this space for a couple of weeks.  What are we up to now?  Well, I am going to start picking away at either a rewrite of the “Attitude of Hope” membership class, or an entirely new version that will become the beginnings of a vision and mission framework for our church in Alberta.  I am going to be teaching our Discovery class for 7 weeks starting in May, to introduce some people to the truth about Jesus in preparation for membership.  We also have our “Great Canadian Adventure” coming up in mid-June, and Philip says he wants me to take a hand in organizing that, then begin to prepare and plan for the 2010 version which will take place in Medicine Hat.   We don’t have anythign big planned for this summer because the Twins could be arriving anywhere between the beginning of July and mid-August.  The Dr. told Cheryl he would be making sure that things wrap up by the 38th week, with the earliest we could deliver (unless something is amiss) being the 32nd week.  That pretty much devours the summer.

Stay tuned!

I will make one more excuse: with a federal election in Canada coming up on October 14 and the presiddential election in the USA on November 4, there’s lots of political fodder that drags my attention away too.  But I am sure many of you are experiencing the same thing.

Heh.  I read on an economics blog speculation on how the USA would completely collapse if all the hardworking, independent, responsible, conservative people suddenly vanished.  While I don’t pretend to think that all Christians are that way, I think a larger percentage of them are, at least if they are truly following the Bible.  I half wondered as I read it, is this the reason end-times prophecy doesn’t talk about America?  Because when we’re raptured, there aren’t enough people like this left to support the social systems and the nation becomes a non-factor politically?

• Today’s our 10th Anniversary!  Happy anniversary to my wife, who has staggered my imagination by her dedication to me and our life together for ten whole years.  Thank you for everything you have done and ever will do – I love you.
• Good news on the graduating essay front.  My faculty advisor (who also happens to be the program director, so I didn’t really have anyone to complain to) has finally started returning my emails.  I have been granted an extension on my project.  Now, to get it done!
• Check out Rodney Olsen’s thought-provoking piece on Christians who ignore their families.  I think some of the commenters thought he was talking about their spouse and children, but I think he was talking about extended family – aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents, grandchildren.  It’s easy to keep connected with them when they share your faith, but harder when they don’t.  Where’s the balance? 

  The irony is this exact issue is staring me in the face on Labour Day weekend.  Which to choose: sticking around and helping three church families move, or travelling up to Vernon to visit my grandparents, who aren’t getting any younger, and whom I haven’t seen in a year?

• We’ve got the big Awana Basic Training coming up this weekend.  I need to rustle up my leaders and make sure as many as possible are going.  I think phone calls are in order tonight.  Pray for our leaders that they would make this a priority.
• I’ve got a couple of ideas about how to more effectively share my faith.  I’ll let you know how they work out.
• Hey God, could use some blessing at work.  Anytime now.  Thanks in advance!

We heard there was a church planting couple hanging out with our church.  At the time we were attending Cedar Grove Baptist Church, a church of 1200-1400 people in North Surrey.  It’s easy to get lost in a big church like that, but I saw them around once or twice in the halls and at general meetings and such.  It seemed like every time I looked at the guy, Phil, he was looking at me and grinning.  I was thinking, “Who’s this guy grinning at me?” I finally decided that God, or something, wanted me to talk to him.

One sunny day in August, I caught up to him at the bike racks (seriously!)  I was just curious at that stage about what their plan was to plant a church.  I had no idea how one goes about planting a church at that stage.  He invited me out to their core team small group.  At that time, it consisted of themselves and two other couples.

I went home and asked Cheryl if she’d like to come.  She was fine with me going, but “I am NOT interested in planting a church!”

The meeting was great – the food was fantastic, and I got to see their “future logo”.  But I didn’t get a lot of questions answered.  Hardly any in fact.  Cheryl was still not interested in meeting with them at that stage.  I was interested enough in what they we doing, but didn’t know if I wanted to be involved.  I decided to just ask God to bring Cheryl around – I knew if she wasn’t interested then we would not be united and it would not be good or God-honoring.

It would not be until October, after Cheryl attended a worship conference, that she came to me and said, “I am thinking we should take Phil and Beth up on their dinner offer.”  We went over, and promptly switched roles, just like Cheryl said in her last post about how we always switch roles.  This time, it was she who was getting more and more excited as Phil and Beth filled us in on how they were called out to Surrey, and showed us a video about their journey.  For me, one of the biggest signs of God’s blessing on our decisions as a family is when we are united in spirit over it.  That was crystal clear.  By the end of the evening, we did tell them we would be happy to help them plant in Newton.

One of the most exciting things about the new church plant was that it was part of a larger vision.  They had originally come to Canada to see a movement of new churches begun across the country.  Their vision was to have a church in every major city in Canada by 2020.  This was a church with a purpose – not just to see people in the neighbourhood come to know Jesus, but to see new churches created and growing in every part of the country.

It would be a month later when we looked at our finances and discussed education.  I had gone to Seminary back in 1999, pursuing a Master’s in Church History.  Now that we were involved in a church plant, I felt like I should be learning more about how they work.  I also wanted to finish that degree, because I hated that I  left it unfinished.  I re-enrolled, but this time into a different program.  Unfortunately, I couldn’t take courses on church planting like I wanted to – but on the other hand, I was able to take a whole series on christian leadership which were amazing.  I learned so much about myself during those classes.  One aspect of the course was that I needed to be mentored.  Mentoring was a need I had been feeling for a number of months, and I had already asked Phil if he would be my mentor with regards to my Christian walk and development.  He had agreed.

In the new year of 2007, we sat down and had a discussion about where our family was going.  My heart had been changed from my original days in 1999 at Seminary.  I recalled at that time, my Grandparents and other relatives, when I told them I was at a Seminary, they said, “Oh, you’re going to be a pastor?”  I practically yelled in response, “No!”  But now, I was looking at where life had led me, and wondering if maybe that really was what God wanted of me all along.  Cheryl had a hard time conceiving of herself as a pastor’s wife, and I understood that, but my proposal was up until now, we had been letting life just happen to us.  I wanted us as a family to set a course, a long-term course, and work towards that.  She agreed with that.  The goal we set was to prepare ourselves to be in leadership in another church plant by 2010.  It was a lofty goal, but we thought if God had a better plan for us he would make it known.  In the meantime, it would give us a chance to orient our lives and move with purpose, measuring our time and our investment based upon our goal.

So now that is where we are.  Community of Hope has given us a vision not just for our own lives, but for a larger picture – a picture that spans across the country.  When we thought about where we would like to plant a church, my lingering affection for the province of Alberta gave it a focus.  It also helped that at Christmas 2007 we went to Edmonton to visit my family, and the drive through the snowcapped mountains to the cold prairies awakened in Cheryl a vision of herself there and overcame her previous fears of the cold and snow.  This was so effective in fact that when we returned from Christmas, Cheryl’s accounts of the trip alongside my continued affirmation of Alberta as a great place to live led to her family uprooting from their lives spent entirely in the Vancouver area, to move to Red Deer, AB.  So we know that is where we are being called to plant, but not yet.  We have a lot of growing and developing as leaders and as a family before we go.  What is here is a chronicle of that journey.

Anyway, I have a ton of reading to do to research this paper.  I am probably reading slower than I should.  Normally when I write a paper, I find resources and skim them until I hit upon the areas that I need to include for my paper’s subject.  Instead, I am actually reading the whole book as I know that ultimately, it will serve me better as we think about planting our own church one day.

So, currently I am chewing through the 360 page Ed Stetzer tome, “Planting New Churches in a Postmodern Age”.  Although the resort community seems to be a microcosm or an ultradense monoculture of postmodernism, there is no question that the overall societal trend is towards this philosophy or worldview.  It is good stuff.  I am just looking at the “generation” question right now and he made a very good point – with postmodern cultures it is almost irrelevant to speak of ages as having anything to do with their worldview anymore.  A postmodern could be of any age and they will have more in common in that case than with anyone just close in age to them.  Limiting oneself to a “generation” will not serve the cause of Christ when it comes to these people.

I’d write more but a) I have to actually work on the paper, and b) I have to ride my bike over to get the van out of the shop.  Bye for now.