Pastor Darrell Johnson's Communion message at First Baptist Church Vancouver from May 2009.
I was 3rd in a Div of 10 in the Victoria Scrabble Tournament last Saturday. Not bad for being 4th seed, I'd say... what a weird distribution of wins, no one with 4 wins out of 7 (or 0, which is always nice too).
Some YouTube-y goodness, or How Not To Sing (Edna, do we need one of these in the FBC Choir?...).
I've occasionally thought about working out life on paper before living it. I called it brainstorming my life. "Editing" is shorter, though. Neat article, I particularly like this bit:
Miller concluded his talk by encouraging Christians to stop shouting about what they don't like -- and to focus, instead, on what they are for, and what they think is beautiful.
"We have to start telling better stories," he declared.
Zoiks: my first blog entry as a married guy is about bad behaviour.
Just behind on a bunch of "breather" activities. It feels like we hit the ground running on many things when we got back.
Entitlemania is the new social disease alluded to. I do so enjoy getting my news all grouped-up and commented on like this...
My nephew Griffin got to run the bases after a Vancouver Canadians game where they scored 2 home runs! (because Griffin wanted to see homers!).
Griffin's in black. Sorry, not the best video quality...
It took me till the 7th Season to follow a full season from start to finish. These shows like 24, Heroes, Lost, they're a bit like homework. Anyway, I'm imagining Jack Bauer doing a "I'm not dead yet" like in Holy Grail. I could totally write for this show.
Did they have you at "Free"?...
This is a pretty straightforward doc as far as letting people state their case. As much as the views are wide-ranging, I get some sense of grace, that the opposing sides express and are allowed to, and somehow it still works that we are all following Christ. It's an hour long but even the first interview with Tony Campolo plants a seed for some interesting thought.
If this works as I think it will, it will link back to the blog post, then you scroll down to the movie where there's two or three options for download.
Other interesting note: this was originally posted on my birthday!
The anchors at ESPN are showing what I'm sure are fairly typical reactions to this bit of annual surrealism. To think that eating 64 hot dogs in ten minutes is good for second...
I was kind of blindsided by this song on the drive in to work. The DJ said to listen to the words, and I was actually ready to not be impressed. I wasn't totally paying attention. Then there was a mention of God. Then one soon after. Then the realization, this is a song about God. Or rather, about our reactions to the God we perceive.
Regina Spektor is no theologian (I don't think) but what she expresses about God rings true. And lately I'm appreciating this qualitative "true" more than the "true/false" kind. A broad stroke simplification is right brain/left brain, or feeling/thinking. While our feelings aren't important, they point out way more than I was led to believe growing up.
That said, I'm not a big fan of the last line, and leaving it at who's laughing and who isn't and leaving us all hanging to consider "so what do we do about that?" rings truer, albeit probly less song-like.
Still, I'm overall pleased that God is "out there". For what it's worth, I'm thankful for your song, Regina. It spoke to me.
Same gender attraction and Christianity.
It’s kind of a big deal, isn’t it?
A big, complex, multi-faceted and often scary deal.
Current conventional wisdom (at least in a few of the circles I’ve been reading) recommends breaking down a big, menacing deal into a number of smaller, more manageable deals (I’m paraphrasing a whole lot here, and clearly not citing any sources), so here’s what I suggest is an attainable Step 1. Maybe not even 1, maybe it’s Step 0.5. And it’s as simple as breathing.
In fact, it is breathing.
So we hear about another legislation about gay marriage, or someone confesses a friend’s (or their own) struggle with sexual identity...
And one of our gut reactions… is to wince.
And we’re not talking about just a facial expression: I see it played out in an extreme, instantaneous facial expression, and the very next breath we take in is audible, and shrill, and quite honestly, often heartbreaking.
Why we wince is a whole big, complex, multi-faceted deal within the big, complex, multi-faceted deal we’re already dealing with, having a lot to do with engrained learning so many of us grew up with (and many still grow up with) in our churches.
I wonder: what if we slow down that first breath?
I used to read about a 10-second rule, that if you’re inclined to respond with full frontal rage, to count to 10 before reacting harshly. Maybe this kind of thing has fallen out of favour, maybe it didn’t really work (was 10 not enough, maybe?...), but I do think that slowing down is, at times, the beginning of wisdom. As is taking a deep, intentional, life-giving breath: connecting a few dots here, I was reminded in a PodCast from The Meeting House that the Greek word pneuma (pronounced NOOMA… yes, that Nooma) describes both 'wind' or 'breath'… and the Holy Spirit.
I honestly don’t know how much we can, or should, control that automatic reaction but I see some pluses in a world where the church is seen less as the people who freak out about morals, more as the people who embrace, love & accept people with differences, like Jesus did, because we draw on the resources that He did (or rather, breathe in THE Resource).
New Direction is taking a stand in a battle that could very well define us as a church. They do so with tons of grace and wisdom, as I witnessed from taking their Sexual Identity & The Local Church seminar. It’s an important part of the even bigger, complexer, multi-faceteder and often scarier deal of our collective identity as Christ’s followers. I believe that if wince less and “breathe the right stuff” with more intentionality in these instances, it will help us take good, proper breaths in all instances.
Please check out the other blogs (I really liked Beth’s) at:
www.btgproject.blogspot.com
Dr. John Stackhouse is perhaps the funniest preachuhman I evuh did hee-ah.
Quote me on that on your blog, Dr. Stackhouse, please please please do!
This mp3 also has me reading Scripture.
I volunteered.
They used the take where I slipped up.
...also available at www.FirstBC.org/sermons
I told my fiancée Dana it's my speaker crush, and now she mentions it to me almost daily.
Rest assured, Dr. Stackhouse, I refer to you as Stax in conversation, but that's as far as it goes! If there's a tent out in the bushes outside your house, that is not me.
Next trick: seeing if posting an mp4 totally messes with Posterous or no.
Metrotown is an oversized mall in Burnaby, a suburb of Vancouver. The mall is big enough to have a dinosaur display. So we got some video of model dinosaurs in a mall. This was the baby T-Rex. And yes, that is fur. Apparently they've recently discovered that the babies were furry.
Note the absolute lack of fear in everyone at the mall. Not the dinos' proudest moment.
I haven't been a huge mall fan for years, but it's something that I've grown to appreciate as a predictable leisurely pursuit, and a pretty good walk indoors.
If you're hiring women and it's 1943, this is the guide for you!
This was kind of a random thing Mary here in the office handed to me, reprinted in Savvy & Sage magazine in 2007. These looks back on ourselves are always such a trip. The weirdest thing for me? Besides the obvious sexism here, there were a few personality traits attributed to woman where I was saying, "Hey, I do that!". I'm not exactly sure what that means. And I'll leave it to you to guess which items I thus resonated with...
I'm blogging this stuff so I don't lose it or forget it.
This seems neat. A lot of over-my-head neat, but neat nonetheless.
http://www.citizentube.com/
...is a YouTube Channel linked from my GMail: citizen empowerment, believing in the power of Internet to make things better here on earth.
Posted this vid as the instructions for getting to the blocked video of protests in Iran.
This came after a morning staff prayer time at our church, where we watched a video of work to get Refugees out of a camp in the Middle East. There is much to see in this world, lots of injustice. So it also seems providential to have stumbled across this quote this morning:
“If I look at the mass, I will never act. If I look at the one, I will.” Mother Teresa
Testing continues... seeing how these audio thingies work and look on Posterous.
This one also happens to be one of the best sermons ever. imho.
Speaker is Darrell Johnson, the next Senior Minister at First Baptist in Vancouver.
Would this be a good way for First Baptist Church sermons to be posted online?
Please comment!...
