Still Thankful

Apparently, it's a rare thing for everyone to get along in a family. But by some miracle, whenever my siblings and all of our spouses get together, we have a fabulous time. That's ten adults, each a leader in his or her own right, who can be together for a week without one person ruining it for everybody else.
For us, it begins with liking each other. And it continues with all of us accepting each other, quirks and all.
Perhaps the real key to our compatibility is another rarety: all ten of us love Jesus and are actively involved in a local church. All of our parents get a lot of credit for modeling joyful commitment to each other and to the Lord. But God gets all the glory for five couples in their fifties who enjoy each other's company and still have a living faith despite life's ups and downs.
A family wedding last weekend brought us together. And once again we talked non-stop and wished we could spend still more time with each other. That's why, despite feelings of sadness about their departure, I'm still thankful four days after the Thanksgiving weekend.

There But For the Grace of God Go We

The news that David Dewees, the Grade Ten teacher from Toronto accused of sexual luring over the internet, committed suicide over the weekend is devastating not only to his students and colleagues, but to all of us. Such a desperate act! We can only imagine this young teacher's agony as he made his way to the subway station and placed himself before an approaching train. We can only imagine the confusion and pain of every young person he ever taught at school or led at Camp Pioneer. We can only imagine the horror and sorrow of his parents and family.
At times like this we must rely on God's grace and remember that Jesus died for us while we were yet sinners. This includes Christians who struggle with double lives or face the future without hope.
If the charges against him are proven to be true, we will need to pray for any and all the victims of his alleged sexual abuse. In the meantime, our prayers are with his extended family and all the kids who experienced him as a wonderful role model.
As we sort out our own feelings, let's be quick to admit "There but for the grace of God go I" and examine our own lives for anything that would hurt others and harm the cause of Christ.

A Devastating Week

It's been a devastating week for the Christian faith. The Catholic bishop who brokered a $13 million dollar settlement with the sexual abuse victims of the Mount Cashel orphanage in the Maritimes has allegedly been caught with kiddie porn on his laptop. A 32 year old Toronto teacher has been charged with sexually luring two teenagers that he met while working as a camp counselor at Camp Pioneer, a Christian camp in Huntsville. Not unexpectedly, many people are more suspicious than ever about anything related to the church and to Christianity.
I hope that these two men will get the help that they need, that their alleged victims will find healing and that the cause of Christ will not be harmed. I also pray that Christians everywhere, including all of us at Hope Fellowship, will take stock of our personal and private lives and make daily choices that lead us closer to the Lord, instead of farther away. This bishop and this teacher are not the only ones struggling with sin; their exposure and the devastating aftermath may be just the wake up call that many of us need with respect to our own vices, temptations and deceits.

Fear or Faith

Fear keeps driving the world in a negative, downward direction. It's contagious and making even believers afraid of the future. Will I have a job next week? Will I be able to give next month? When will I become one of the layoff statistics? For times like this, faith is the only antidote. We have to trust that the Lord will give us our daily bread and more. We have to relax in God's identity as "Jehovah Jireh", the one who will provide in even the most desperate circumstances. What is faith for, if not for a time like this! As Christians this is an opportune time to let our neighbours and colleagues see what it means to trust in God and to give all of our cares, worries and fears over to him. Rooseveld was right when he said, "The only thing to fear is fear itself." And the apostle Paul had it even more right when he said, "The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything."

Watching the snow fall

Authentic worship is not possible unless we recover three "in's". First, we need to be "in awe " of God. As I watch the snow fall through my window, I realize that the number of flakes that fall in one minute on the tiny patch of the world that I can see is more than the world's biggest number. Multiply that by all of the snowflakes that have fallen on the world since time began. Then consider that each snowflake is different. If that doesn't fill you with awe for God, I don't know what will. I am definitely "in awe " of God today, and I urge you to recover your awe for him so that you will see the glory of the Lord filling your life. I'll tackle the other two "in's" in my next two blogs.

Winter Wedding

Whiteouts and iced-up wiper blades could not prevent us from reaching Niagara On the Lake where a young couple and their twenty guests gathered in a small Anglican Church for a winter wedding. As the gale winds battered the church, we listened to the bride and groom say their vows. The groom's family, a very musical family, sang a blessing to them. Then we formed a circle around them, laid our hands on them, and offered up sentence prayers to God. On the table, the license and Christ Church's Marriage Registry lay open, all the signatures properly and legally inscribed. The flame of the unity candle flickered slightly in the breeze, not so much from the strong winds outside as from the prayers we breathed up to the One who came up with the idea of two people becoming one. How good is this idea? Thousands of years and millions of weddings later, it still has the power to draw people together in the worst conditions to hear and see the two best things that a couple can exchange: a promise for life and a kiss to seal their commitment.

We're a one car family. It works because I try to use my bicycle as much as possible. Last week, however, I wiped out on my bike. I didn't notice that the road was covered with a thin sheen of ice and when I turned into my first corner I slammed to the ground. It took my breath away and messed up my chain and my gears. It took me almost two hours to set my bike up again that night, and I've put it away until next spring.
But we're still a one car family, so how would I get to work on the days that Marja needs it to get to her job? I decided to walk. It 's 3.7 kilometres to the church and now I know that it takes just under thirty-three minutes. Cycling this distance, by the way, only takes nine minutes. But I've discovered that walking this distance is great. I see things I haven't seen before and I have time to think. And what I thought about this morning was how excited I was to come to the office and write a sermon about the simplest but most important message that we have for the world, that Jesus is the Son of God and that in Him we have eternal life and the power to overcome whatever the world throws at us (I John 5:1-13). A simple message birthed while engaged in the simplest of human activities: walking!