• My youth group hit a high attendance of 24 before settling into an average in the high teens
• We had 4 teens come to Jesus this spring.
• I gained more weight, but I’m losing it now (thank you treadmill!)
• My pastor resigned. After a long and dramatic dance, I now work with Reg Thomas (some guy from Nova Scotia).
• I found out the tires I bought in December were lemons and had to replace them…imagine how happy I was!

So, my life doesn’t seem overly eventfull, but it’s been a fun ride. I plan on keeping this up-to-date, so don’t stray too far for too long.

Worship

I’ve been thinking about worship a lot lately (who would’ve thought?). I’m reading a book with the vague title Guiding Your Church through a Worship Transition (what could this book possibly be about) and it’s caused me to look closely at myself, my personal worship and the nature of worship.

Almost everybody involved in church leadership has encountered what has lovingly been called “worship wars”, “traditional” vs “contemporary”, new vs old. I wonder, though, if we’re missing the issue. The book looks at the idea that many of these issues are simply surface-level in nature. Instead the issue is truly deeper; it goes to nature of a person’s relationship with Jesus.

The author (Tom Kraeauter) talks about the importance of a relationship with God and says this: “When people do not grasp the heart relationship- when it is totally a head knowledge understanding of God with no real relationship-for them, changing the style of worship is a threat”. (pg 20)

Another thought in this regard is this: many believers do not make personal worship a part of their daily lives. They come to church Sunday morning and say, “Alright, now I will worship”. And for many people, this is their only time of “worship”. No wonder why the issue of Sunday morning music is so prevalent. The problem with that, though, is worship was never meant to be that way. Worship is meant to be a daily, hourly, minute-by-minute part of our lives. It is to be internal, sparked by our love for Jesus.

“When the heart is set upon God, true worship will not depend upon outward stimulus, it will be in constant progress”. (pg. 19)

We oftentimes come to church, looking for an external stimulus for our worship. We want the music to spark our worship, the preaching, the prayer, the specials, but what we fail to grasp is that our worship needs to be dependant on our real, dynamic relationship with Jesus.

An interesting thought, as well, is that this not just for one side of the argument or another.  My generation oftentimes accuses older generations of being the villains in their search for “real” worship. But I have encountered almost as many young people that rely on their “contemporary” music to spark their worship and “tune out” anything traditional or “hymn-like”.

The final word: we need to make worship a personal, vital part of our lives. Without it, we will never be able to enter into true worship on Sunday mornings…

Philippians 4:4: “Rejoice in the Lord always. Again I will say, rejoice!”

These verses have been on my mind a lot lately, either because of my daily devotions or through conversations with my wife.

Christ said that He has come that we may have life and life “more abundantly” (John 10:10). But how does this abundant life translate into our lives? Over the last several years, I at times look around the Church (universal, not necessarily my local church) and wonder where that joy is. Many Christians are seen as serious, nit-picky, joy-less people. We are somber, devoid of humor, easily and constantly offended and we voice that offense.

I remember when I recommited my life to Christ in high school (I had been a “Christian” as a child, but fell away as a teenager). There was such a profound joy in my life. When I first accepted the call of God on my life to be a pastor, that joy was rekindled and burned bright.

We have been given amazing hope. We have been given amazing grace. And this amazing gift should produce in us, as Christians, a profound sense of joy in our lives. Joy because we have a Saviour who loves us. Joy because we have the hope of eternity. Joy because we have been forgiven our debt of sin and death and hell.

Shouldn’t the world look at us and see this joy? It pains me that Christians are looked at with such disdain. But this disdain seems to be grounded in some fact. What separates us from non-believers? If our “religion” causes us to lose our joy instead of being the source of our joy, we’re missing the mark. We have been called to “rejoice in the Lord always”. This came from the man who was constantly imprisoned, beaten and mocked. Who am I to disagree?

Food For Thought:
I came across an article this week by Keith Drury, a professor at Indiana Wesleyan University. He discusses issues he sees with the Church today. Very interesting stuff. Definitely some food for thought. Check it out here. 

Happy 1000!!!
Happy 1000 visitors day! I feel so popular! Keep coming back and I’ll keep writing!

The End Is Here?
Today, Christians everywhere are watching their backs, wondering if they’ll be trampled by one of the horsemen of the apocalypse will. Yes, today is the inauguration of President Barack Obama and, no, he is undoubtedly not the anti-Christ. It seems that every time a Democrat takes office, somebody manages to proclaim him as the devil, the anti-Christ, a worker of evil…you get the picture. I, on the other hand, would prefer to worry about things that are more within the realms of reality…like the world ending in 2012… (que scary “duh duh duh”)

And Now For Something Completely Different
I preached this week (which is something I do from time to time) and I shared the idea of living for Christ’s return. It wasn’t the first time I’ve shared this idea, nor will it be the last I suspect, but it’s something that always seems to come back to me. My text for this message was Matthew 24:36-44 , where Jesus is telling His disciples that no one knows the day or the hour of Christ’s return. That got me thinking about how we as Christians live. We often fall into the trap of thinking that we are guaranteed 80 or so years and live as such. But what we are missing is the urgency of the early Church.

What set them apart from us? No, it was just because they knew Jesus physically. No, it wasn’t that they had more “miracles” than we see now. It was their urgency. You see, people truly believed that Jesus was coming back soon. And this caused them to spread the Gospel like wildfire because they wanted the world to be ready for His imminent return.

Christ has said that he will come at a time when we least expect it, but to keep watch (like for a thief in the night). I wonder if now is the time we least expect it. It’s been close to 2000 years and many of us doubt he’ll come back… at least not in my lifetime. Wouldn’t it stand to reason that it could very well be in our lifetime? I’m not saying it will, just asking the question. Does this change the way we live our lives? Should it? Like I said, I’m just asking…

You know the premise of Rocky III, right? For those who are hazy, here it is quickly:

Rocky Balboa is the champion of the world. He beat Apollo Creed for the world title. He is then challenged by the newcomer Clubber Lang, played by the illustrious Mr. T. After avoiding him for months, the two finally meet in a showdown that ends in tragedy for Rocky. He is beat. Really, he is creamed by Clubber Lang. Defeated, Rocky falls from grace, depressed and angry with himself. But encouragement comes from an unlikely place: Apollo Creed, his old opponent. Creed pushes Rocky to get back on his feet and reclaim his title.

This idea got me thinking about how this relates to Christians. It’s easy to fall into Rocky’s mindset from earlier in the third movie. Rocky underestimates Clubber Lang. He thinks, “I’ve defeated other foes in the past; this guy won’t be any different”. Because of that thinking, he gets pummelled in the ring.

All of us, no matter what stage of our Christian walk we are in (new convert, renewed believer, age-old believer) can fall into this trap. We’ve seen victories in our lives and so we let our guard down.

But Ephesians 6:13 says: Put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground (NIV).

We have to prepare ourselves now for coming battles. Former victories don’t mean we can slack off; it means we need to train harder. The time to prepare for coming adversities is now. If we wait, we’ll end up in the ring with our enemy bashing our faces in.

Like Mick and Creed, we a “Trainer” (Counselor, Helper, etc…) that will be with us every step of the way. In fact, our Trainer is in the ring with us, fighting right alongside of us. And our Trainer is telling us to prepare for the fight; to be ready when the time comes.  Then we will win the fight.

“Now, when we fought, you had that eye of the tiger, man; the edge! And now you gotta get it back, and the way to get it back is to go back to the beginning”- Apollo Creed