Community
Community is where the person you least want to be with.. is. (Henri Nouwen)
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How Our Histories Shape Us: Grace for New Beginning
Our history has shaped what we notice, what we fear and what we think is normal. Through Ezra and the resurrection of Jesus, we find an invitation to face our past honestly, receive grace for another beginning and give ourselves to what God is doing now.
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Do You See This Person? Learning to Love Your Neighbour
Jesus asked Simon, “Do you see this woman?” It’s a question that challenges our fears, our assumptions and even the way we help. Loving our neighbours means seeing beyond their labels—and allowing them to love us too.
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When our friends become prospects
Would I still want to be your friend if you never became a Christian? A reflection on ulterior and ultimate motives, loving our neighbours, and sharing how Jesus meets us in ordinary life and pain.
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Find Real Friends: How to Build Friendship in a Lonely World
We have never had more ways to connect, yet many of us feel increasingly alone. Real friendship begins when we stop waiting to be noticed and take the brave first step of noticing someone else.
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Eat With People — But Don’t Hide at the Table
Most meals don’t change anyone’s life. But Jesus changed the world while sitting at tables. In a culture drowning in loneliness, eating together is not enough. Real connection requires welcome, honesty, and courage. Don’t hide behind distraction or polite conversation. Be present. Be truthful. See people — and let yourself be seen.
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Is group decision making possible?
This article introduces a framework for corporate discernment in Baptist churches that moves beyond reactive problem-solving. By slowing down to name where we are, where Jesus is leading us, and how we respond, churches can surface assumptions, attend to Scripture, resist cultural pressures, and learn to listen faithfully together under Christ.
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A Bigger Story: How the Real Gospel Changes Everything
The gospel is more than a quick fix for sin. It’s an invitation to live from a new foundation—God’s reality. These six levels of repentance help us name the tensions we carry and discover a better way to live, rooted in God’s truth, grace, and a vision of new creation.
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Two words we need to reclaim: Intimacy and Chastity
I think it’s a travesty that the word intimate has been adopted by our culture mainly to mean sexual. We all need intimate relationships. For Jesus, the central question is loving each other and there is no way to love someone without letting them into your heart. Coming and bouncing off people on a Sunday morning is not what Jesus has in mind. He is talking about the kind of relationships where people actually know the best of you and they know the worst of you. Consider these words: I don’t think our culture shapes us to do this. I don’t think we believe the church is a place where…
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No man is an island
John Donne declared "no man is an island." As we face a global pandemic, global environmental crisis' and global political polarization we need to hear those words like never before.
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Too many of us live in a two dimensional, colourless world of our own making.
I vividly remember my first Sunday as a Pastor. I was on the platform being introduced to a sea of faces who were completely unfamiliar, and feeling more than a little overwhelmed. The closest analogy I could find to explain the experience was a brand new colouring book, where you can see the outlines but none of the shades or shadows that bring those outlines to life. Four and a half years later, the outlines had been filled in by experiences, conversations and stories. The faces had become people and the people had entered my heart. Throughout the first three weeks of our new adventure with Citywide Baptist Church, I have…
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Our Dogs build our Neighbourhoods.
Article in yesterdays St. Albert Gazette. Two weeks ago we said goodbye to our dumb little dog. We are preparing to head back to Australia to live, and the quarantine regulations Down Under make it almost impossible to justify bringing her with us. We inherited Chica from my daughter’s friend. A mixture of Chihuahua and Pomeranian, the little fur-ball had no idea how small she actually was. A trip to the local dog park would often see her try to tackle a German Shepherd or St. Bernard. Fortunately the bigger dogs never really saw her as a threat, so didn’t respond to her rather comical aggression. Chica quickly became part…
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Jesus was Un-Albertan
St. Albert Gazette Article published on Saturday In Alberta we like to achieve. We pride ourselves on our ability to push though, to power ahead, to “get ‘er done.” Most of us are busy, and even our time outside of work is full. We take pride in just how much we can cram into 24 hours. Deep down we all know that living life at this frantic pace is not healthy… which is why we devote so much time an energy to planning our vacations and retirement. We tell ourselves that once we “make it”, everything will be better. I’m fascinated by how un-Albertan Jesus was.
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The Awkward Truth about Churches in North America: lots of bonding, not so much bridging.
Article published in today’s St. Albert Gazette As you have no doubt heard and also experienced for yourself, relationships matter. In fact the University of Minnesota published data to demonstrate that having a number of strong relationships significantly increase health, decrease crime and corruption and increase generosity and reciprocity. Relationships are so beneficial that to almost every area of life that they are a real form of capital, in the economic sense of the word. The term “social capital” has been used for at least two decades to describe the number and strength of relationships people have. As you would probably expect, going to church produces social capital. One study…
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I might not love everything that Mike Pence stands for, but I’m impressed at his self awareness and choice to recognize his own limitations.
Apparently Vice President Mike Pence has a policy to never eat alone with a woman other than his wife and that he won’t attend events featuring alcohol without her either. Pence’s policy is very similar to one adopted by Billy Graham at the start of his ministry (which came to be known as the Billy Graham rule). The revelation of Pence’s strategy in a Washington Post story last week has caused quite a stir. The Post article was simply re-stating something that was printed 15 years ago however publications like Fortune and Newsday have slammed Pence, and, as the Atlantic pointed out some celebrities have responded very strongly. What’s the big deal you might ask? From…
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Is the church the moral compass for the world? I hope not.
Last week I wrote about pornography and received a lot of feedback, some of which focussed the question of whether the church should be trying to be a moral compass. In a world where we see different wings of the Christian church lining up against each other on almost every issue you can name, it is an obvious question. That question though, leads to another… what is “the church”? I think what most people mean by “the church” is the organizational structures that are represented by personalities we see on the television or at events in out local communities. When we get most frustrated with the church, my guess is, it is that structure we…
