So the plan is to give something up to remind myself of dependence on God and make a small sacrifice to my comfort to remember the greatest sacrifice ever made, that I benefit from every day. I am specifically choosing to give up something that costs money so that I can then give what I would have spent on myself to those who need it more. I figure I spend around $2-4 on salty junk food a day (actually if I was honest it’s probably usually less on average but I’ll go with it) so I am setting aside $4 per day for the 40 days of Lent.

Don't you just want to hug a sheep?

That gives me $160 – and to buy a sheep for a World Vision child is $150! So that’s my goal – to buy a sheep in honour of the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world on Easter Sunday.

I want to invite my friends along on this Lenten challenge – leave behind a daily treat for 40 days and buy a sheep with me to benefit World Vision children. Together we can give a flock of sheep! What do you say? Let’s give a flock together!

But not when it comes to prayer.  There are some online, but not as many options for apps.

I have been looking for a good prayer manager app since I got a smartphone – my old Motorola Milestone – now almost 3 years.  I’ve graduated to a Samsung Galaxy S2 (and loving it). Haven’t found one yet.

Oh sure, there are tons of Islamic prayer times apps.  There are even a few prayer apps that allow you to mark them down, and check them off as they are answered. But not the robust tools that I can envision off the top of my head.

Because confession time: I suck at remembering to pray.  I work at it all the time but I’d love to have some help.

If you’re an app dev, here’s my wish list:

1. checkbox “todo” lists for prayers, a way to mark them “done” or “not done” (answered or unanswered)
2. multiple lists for different purposes – church prayers, small group prayers, ministry prayers, prayers for community/government – not static categories, but customizable as I am sure everyone would group them differently
3. the ability to schedule prayer times or days for each list and have them sent to you or have the app automatically open to the scheduled list
4. the reminders to pray keep coming until the item is marked “answered”
5. the ability to share prayer requests with other users or even email requests to people who don’t use the app, with an incorporated link to let the download the app
6. (getting really crazy now) the ability to create a shared prayer list for ministry teams or small groups that is updatable by anyone in the list

Who’s up for the challenge?  Any app developers want to make some money off Christians?  I’d pay at least a couple bucks for this if it had all these features.  Make sure you make an iOS and Android version please.

1. Humility is one of the most important assets of a oeader
2. Leaders must govern from the centre. Living black and white is not a luxury for a leader.
3. Leaders lead with vision – more important than teaching every week.

Lots to unpack there but I wanted to put those out there.

I have been reading people who are staunch global warming alarmists complaining bitterly about the snow and how hard it is to manage without a 4×4 truck in the snow. Yet, those same people are adamantly against “gas-guzzling trucks”. It hasn’t occurred to them that if globarl warming is really happening, then they should stop fighting it and encourage it so they don’t need a 4×4 to get around in the winter.

Not that I think we should be encouraging global warming (if it is in fact occurring the way some describe). My feeling is this: far too many people protest against things that may be inappropriate in their local area, but are desperately needed by people in other areas. Yet, for some reason, they feel that their rules should be imposed on everyone.

Take, for example, the thankfully killed gun registry. It was a ridiculous burden to impose on hundreds of thousands if not millions of Canadians who live in or close enough to the wilderness that having a gun is actually a useful and necessary thing, all because criminals in big cities use guns to commit crimes. Never mind that criminals who commit crimes have no compunction about not registering a gun… or for that matter stealing one from a law-abiding, registered citizen. It did nothing to protect citizens, but penalized people for not living in big cities.

But the other irony is connected to the PIPA/SOPA bills in the USA. There is so much buzz about them everywhere this morning, but I wonder if half the people shouting “stop SOPA” even really understand the issues and the bills that are being discussed.

Again, not that I disagree with the sentiment. From what I have seen, the protestors could well be right about the bills and their danger. But what strikes me as funny is the people I know who are shouting the loudest about the hideousness of politicians, knowing nothing about the real issues, attempting to pass law based on the manipulations of lobbyists and the bribery of “big, evil corporations” are the same people who support massive government intervention into every other aspect of our lives. These are the same people who want government to pay for everything from the cradle to the grave, to feed, clothe, house, employ everyone, to protect everyone from themselves and their choices through all kinds of deeply invasive, smothering laws, regulations and taxes.  Do you not think that it is folly to entrust all these other aspects of our lives to these same politicians?  How can they be benevolent, wonderful, caring people who just want to care for us one second and monstrous, evil, money-grabbing megalomaniacs, stealing the internets from the world the next?

I am sorry, but you have just lost all credibility in my eyes, as you suddenly change your stripes so you can continue to download torrented movies, music and software, stealing money and employment from people who otherwise would be better off and more able to support themselves instead of relying on government handouts. I wonder how much these things would cost if people weren’t stealing them left right and centre, because “intellectual property” apparently only applies when you have created something, not when a studio produces a film or music album with millions of dollars of equipment and tens of millions of dollars in paying salaries to those who work to produce it.

It amazes me about these inconsistencies in people’s politics and ethics. I try to keep things simple. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Take responsibility for yourself and your world, and the consequences of your choices. If people actually lived by this then we wouldn’t need SOPA bills. If people lived like this we wouldn’t need gun registries. If people lived like this they wouldn’t live an hour away from their place of work and have to drive through snow and ice and freeways, throwing all kinds of pollutants into the air and endangering each other with traffic and road rage.

I pretty much agree with everything she said.  People move on, nothing is permanent in this life.  But if you are ever that person who is moving on, please share it in person, with honesty and transparency with those who care for you – for your sake and for theirs.  It is never easy, but it does bring closure that blesses God’s heart and leaves less scars.

I think it is impossible for me to say that 2011 has not been the most successful year of

Winter Road in Medicine Hat

my life.  Is it arrogant to say that?  We bet it all on God and He paid in spades.  We ditched a nice house in a nice neighbourhood in Surrey, a fantastic church, solid jobs – all to chase the idea that God wanted to do something with our lives bigger than we could imagine.  We pulled up stakes in 2010 but by the end of last year, all we had was faith that what we did was the right move.  Faith, debt, and very little income.

But 2011… just wow.

It began with hope.  

Blairs Arrive

The team that we had trusted God to form around us to accomplish His plan finally started to form when the Blairs arrived in the dead of winter, after a drive that took them from Mississauga, ON to Kansas City, KS to here.  They were road weary, but ready to begin.

A little over a month later we held our first public information session.  At that information session was a couple who had driven, at the end of February, through the mountains and snow from BC to attend and follow God’s call to join us.  The Greenhows would arrive at the beginning of May.

Shortly after that first information session, Bart and I decided that while we were more interested in looking for potential church planting team members, God was really more interested in the lost, so we should at least open the door to people who are seeking God.  Bart advertised a study in the Gospel of John on Kijiji of all places (like Craigslist but more Canadian).  And he began a relationship with a couple who would prove to be integral pieces of what has become Grasslands Church.

We were still occupied with surviving, and in May made the decision that real estate was not going to provide the support or the space to carry the family through the next season – at least not without compromising the vision to launch the church in September.  God provided a short term solution in a temporary job for me at Census Canada.  We talked about Cheryl putting to use her just completed Master’s degree in Nursing, but didn’t see how Cheryl working full time could make sense.  What we really needed, we prayed, was a part time position, educating nurses, that didn’t involve shiftwork.  And God delivered!  Cheryl was hired as the mental health educator at Medicine Hat Hospital at the beginning of July!

Core Team

At the end of May we had one more long-awaited team member, Megan arrive.  We had people on the ground, and we had been listening to reaction from the people we met through the info sessions.   We saw that we needed to put on something that looked like church so that people could experience what we dreamed about.  We launched a Sunday evening program at the Southview Church of God (who graciously allowed us to use their

Sunday Nights at Southview

space).  Through the summer this Sunday Night Open would provide a place for me to hone my speaking skills while giving us a place to welcome the curious and cast vision for what God wanted us to do together.

Through that process we saw several more families come alongside and move toward God.  In July we saw the couple that Bart met through Kijiji complete a journey of healing with Dean deciding to follow Jesus and the two of them renewed their vows in front of friends and family.  God had restored a dead marriage and given new life!  This branch would continue to bear fruit as I offered the same study to a new couple and to Dean’s two teenage sons.  All four of them accepted Christ by the end of August!

GCA 2011

August was an incredibly busy month as we had a mission team from the USA join us for a week for the Great Canadian Adventure, then the first ever GBCanada Summit – a meeting of people from all 3 Canadian churches here in Medicine Hat, to vision our future together and help launch a 4th church.  The impact of those 2 weeks is still being felt here in December.  God showed Himself to us, as He brought together outreach to the skateboard community, to Habitat for Humanity projects, and into parks and green spaces blessing families.  We held two very successful free car washes and served over 150 automobiles with Jesus’ love.  We made great friendships and had a lasting impact on people through those projects.

And then came the launch.  Somehow God gave us just the team to pull off September 11,

2011.  173 people came through the doors of the Galaxy cinemas that morning, buoyed by

Launch Sunday

shocking amounts of free publicity generated by the ministry teams in August and a front page story in the Medicine Hat News the week before launch.  Since that time, we have been running to keep up with God, and He has continued to work.

In this year, God has:

• restored 2 marriages
• adopted 8 more people into His family
• touched hundreds of lives with His love

Baptisms

All because I had this stupid idea back in 2006 that I wanted to move back to Alberta, but didn’t know why God has connected us to a new church plant in Surrey, BC.  I wasn’t a church planter then.  I thought maybe God could use us for something, but had no idea what or how.  It amazes me to think of the power of just laying your life at God’s feet and saying, “Use me.”  I never really conceived of it then, but what I was doing was presenting my body, my whole life as a living sacrifice.  And God has honoured that.  Not because I am special, but because He is made known and famous by using the weak, the inadequate, to do amazing things.  I don’t take credit for what has happened.  I didn’t even have a major role in a lot of what has happened.  But I do know that none of this would have happened had we not accepted God’s call back in 2006 and stepped on the path of adventure.  And for that I am extremely awed and overcome.

Thank you Lord for 2011.  May your name be made even more famous here in 2012!

On with the show.

So, obviously Jesus is going to have similarities to other great prophets.  His miracles were not just miracles to identify Him as God and King, but to also demonstrate supremacy over other prophets.  So as I was reading through Numbers (which was like a breath of fresh air after 3/4 of Exodus and the Law) I was struck with the similarities between Jesus feeding the multitudes and the whinging of Israel for meat (Numbers 11).

But right smack in the middle of the miracle of the quail, there is this little account of God establishing 70 men to have leadership under Moses.  God gives them a measure of the Spirit that is on Moses, causing them to prophesy.  A couple of them do it in the middle of the camp.  Prophesying when the Spirit is on you obviously involves speaking with a certain level of authority, and Joshua, Moses’ right hand man takes exception.  To him it looks like these two guys are pulling a Moses in front of everyone.  But Moses’ response is strikingly similar to another one.  Check it out:

28 Joshua son of Nun, assistant to Moses since his youth, responded, “Moses, my lord, stop them!”
29 But Moses asked him, “Are you jealous on my account? If only all the Lord’s people were prophets and the Lord would place His Spirit on them!”  -Numbers 11:28-29 (HCSB)

An interlude with Jesus:

⁴⁹ John answered, “Master, we saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him, because he does not follow with us.” ⁵⁰But Jesus said to him, “Do not stop him, for the one who is not against you is for you.” - Luke 9:49-50 (HCSB)

Both feature people who appear to be assuming the authority of the master, and the follower of the master acting jealous for their master.  But in both cases, the master (Moses and Jesus) feels no need to protect what is perceived to be his, and encourages others seeking to emulate himself.  I find that lesson to be enlightening.

ians Like. Read it. For fun and profit.

Jon Acuff will likely never notice this linkage, but his most recent discussion about what pleases God and what doesn’t spurred me to add a thought.

I used to set my timer on my iPhone to 30 minutes, sit down and then try to get my quiet time on. If for whatever reason I could only grab 15 minutes that day, I felt like God was 50% less happy with me. If I missed an entire day, I imagined he was picking out the right lightning bolt to get me with like a golfer picking a club.

My formula was:
“10 minutes of prayer + 10 minutes of writing + 10 minutes of Bible reading = Happy God.”

Trying not to judge him for his trendy use of an iPhone (I still believe that using anything produced by Apple but an iPod constitutes at a minimum being “of the world” if not idolatrous – go ahead, Apple zealots, crucify me for my beliefs!)  He really has illustrated a case-in-point of the all-too-common religiosity of Christians.  Religion Jesus came to destroy.  We can’t satisfy God with anything we do.  We must communicate clearly that there is nothing we can do to please God.  God saves us by grace, a free gift that can’t be earned in any sense.

But what about verses that call Jesus’ followers to obedience?  Sure, I’ll give you that, but I’ll need some help finding the verse that says, “Christ followers shall have a ‘quiet time’ with the Lord every day.”  Interestingly, I didn’t see Jesus have a “quiet time” with the Father every day.

Lest I be chastised for doubletalk (this blog isn’t that big yet, and only a few posts down you will find a couple on my efforts to create a daily office for myself), what I wanted to say was this: quiet time with God is not for His benefit.  He does not love us more or less if we have it, how often we have it, or what we do with it.  It is for ours.  We grow closer to Him.  Our souls become a better reflection of His.  We become more closely conformed to His image.  It is for our own personal holiness and sanctification that we do well with quiet time.

Never think that God is happier with you or you are more blessed because of anything you do.  But recognize that you do profit by seeking first His Kingdom.

"Adam and Eve" from the Creation Museum in Kentucky

Were Adam and Eve real people?  Al Mohler comments on what he sees as a trend in conservative evangelical circles away from a Adam and Eve’s literal existence.  In his article, he cites one such scholar -

Venema … explained that there is simply too much genetic diversity among human beings than would be possible with an original reproducing pair.

Too much genetic diversity…   Notice the assumption implicit in the statement.  Too much diversity, assuming the rate of genetic change stays the same from that time to this.  There is one simple flaw in all discussion of evolutionary theory.  It assumes factors that exist today have always been the same.

Funny, the writers of the Bible (inspired by God) saw this one coming two thousand years ago.  2 Peter 3 reads (emphasis mine):

¹This is now the second letter that I am writing to you, beloved. In both of them I am stirring up your sincere mind by way of reminder, ² that you should remember the predictions of the holy prophets and the commandment of the Lord and Savior through your apostles, ³knowing this first of all, that scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing, following their own sinful desires. ⁴ They will say, “Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation.” ⁵For they deliberately overlook this fact, that the heavens existed long ago, and the earth was formed out of water and through water by the word of God, ⁶and that by means of these the world that then existed was deluged with water and perished.

Peter was explicit in pointing out that it would be the miraculous interventions of God that would be questioned.  That people would try to explain them away or simply suggest that no such interventions ever happened.  Of course, in addition to the great flood being a factor, there are other direct interventions – the curse of Genesis 3, the confounding of languages at the Tower of Babel in Genesis 11 being two that spring to mind as well, which could very well have involved God modifying the genetic code of humanity.

But it really comes down to a simple question.  Do you believe God?  If you do, then there is no need to reconcile evolution or old earth ideas with the Bible.  Man’s attempt to look back into antiquity from today’s perspective is never going to be perfect.  We simply can’t know what conditions existed prior to modern recorded history.  Apart from an eternal being inspiring and preserving a text that recorded it, that is.

Case in point: Ernie and Bert.  They are puppets, who are portrayed as roommates in Sesame Street.  They are also portrayed as being male.

Two men living in the same apartment?  GAY!

Umm, seriously?  No two people of the same gender can share a living space anymore without assuming that they are having sex?  I first heard of this trend when I heard about some gay history researchers concluding that because Abraham Lincoln in his biographies was found to have (and it was by no means hidden)  shared a bed with a couple of different men in the early 1800′s in Indiana.  Of course, by today’s standards, that sounds pretty gay.  But the early 1800′s weren’t like today.  People lived in one room log cabins.  With no insulation or central heating or electricity.  It got stupid cold in the winter.  The best way to stay warm was to share a bed.  It wasn’t gay, it was survival.  And by no means did it mean that you slept naked.

So anyway, I am done ranting.  It just frustrates me that we have reached a point in culture that we assume any sign of affection between people means they are having sex – and by the gender of their partner we then assign sexual orientation.  Men used to have close friends, good friends, best friends, who they could hug and be physically close to – but have NO interest in sexually.  Today, they are hiding something.  I think as a society, we have lost something precious.