take me to your leader

We went to Ottawa on July 1 to catch some of the Canada Day celebrations. Here is our Prime Minister delivering his address to the crowd. Thanks to Andreas, my new friend from BC, for the use of this picture since I forgot my camera at home; plus he is just a lot taller than I am and actually managed to get shots of something other than the backs of people's heads. Yep, we were that close!

This afternoon I had another one of those interesting phone calls that only church administrators seem to get. A man called me to ask if our church was holy because he was looking for a holy church. I wasn't sure what he was looking for (what does holiness look like at first glance?). I suspect that though he will find our variegated group is far from perfect, he will be able to see Jesus and His holiness if he looks, because we make it a point to invite Jesus into our midst to change us and make us more like him.

Since I refused to give him a straight answer he asked if the pastor was a holy man, and when I mentioned that it was my husband and myself that pastor the church, he wanted to know what translation of the bible the pastor preached from. Why do I not see the connection between holiness and a particular translation? I should have perhaps let him know that I like to refer to the original Greek as much as possible or asked him, "Would that be a French or English bible you are asking about?" Unfortunately, all my good retorts only occurred to me an hour after I hung up the phone. I told him I was currently reading The Message but I had many versions of the Bible in my home that I refer to.

He said he would see me in two weeks and he would know a holy church when he sees it. Well, that makes one of us. Dean said I should have just answered, "No!" and left it at that. I am not sure what God wants to do for that man, but I do hope he encounters Jesus when he comes to visit our group, like I hope everyone does that walks into the room.

I find criticism of leaders all too common in our country and in our churches. Not that I want to be free from honest and corrective communication - not at all. In fact, if you know anything about me it is that I am always willing to learn and change. But we were not put on earth to correct one another or evaluate one another. We have mistaken criticism for that rare gift called discernment. Discernment separates life from death, truth from perversion, flesh from spirit. Criticism just points out shortcomings and does nothing about it. Any 5 year-old can do that.

I admire my husband who is a dynamic and wise leader. I respect PM Stephen Harper who is an honest and straightforward and often refreshing politician. God grant us all the grace to walk in integrity and offer encouragement and hope to each other instead of empty criticism.

Names of God

The Hebrew word "YHWH" (read from right to left) This past Sunday I gave a talk on the Names of God, the beginning of a series on this topic. This first talk was to be a gentle introduction so I thought it wouldn't take too many hours of preparation. Well, I quickly discovered that the research is almost bottomless; every time I thought I had a somewhat definitive list of names, I found another source which added a few more or gave a different twist on some of the names I had already come across. After several hours I was getting overwhelmed by the sheer amount of data (and that was only looking at the Hebrew Bible). I wondered how I could present this to people in an orderly and accessible fashion and within a reasonable time frame. Not everyone is up for a 3-hour lecture crammed full of detail on a Sunday morning. So I took a break and spent a bit of time meditating on this problem and asking the Spirit for guidance. And then I thought that being overwhelmed by Go

it's a mad mad mad world (of theology)

The mad dash for the end of term has begun. I have finished all my required readings and have jumped into research reading. One of my papers is on the madness of theology (the correlation seems more obvious to some of us than to others). Truly inspiring stuff, I am finding. Let me share a few quotes here: There is a certain madness in Christianity – in a desert God who is jealous and passionate, in a saviour who speaks in apocalyptic terms, in a life of sacrificial love, in the scandal of particularity. In principle, a confessional theology should bear the mark of this madness, but the mark or wound must constantly be renewed. - Walter Lowe, "Postmodern Theology" in The Oxford Handbook of Systematic Theology , 2007. “In the Scriptures the odd phenomena constituting the ‘Kingdom of God’ are the offspring of the shock that is delivered by the name of God to what is there called the ‘world,’ resulting in what I call a ‘sacred anarchy.’ Consider but a sampling o

comedic timing

Comic by Joel Micah Harris at xkcd.com One of my favourite jokes goes like this: Knock, knock. Who's there? Interrupting cow Interrupting cow w--- Moooooooo!! Timing is important in both drama and comedy. A well-paced story draws the audience in and helps it invest in the characters, while a tale too hastily told or too long drawn out will fail to engage anyone. Surprise - something which interrupts the expected - is a creative use of timing and integral to any good story. If someone is reading a novel and everything unfolds in a predictable manner, they will probably wonder why they bothered reading the book. And so it is in life. Having life be predictable all of the time is not as calming as it sounds. We love surprises, especially good surprises like birthday parties, gifts, marriage proposals, and finding something that we thought was lost. Surprises are an important part of humour. A good joke is funny because it goes to a place you didn't expect it to go. Sim

outWORD by Matte Downey

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