A Call for Goodreads

I’d like to think I’m a person of at least moderate intelligence, and that I have friends that are likewise.  With that in mind I am submitting this poll: Are you literate?

I may not be the most prolific reader in the world, but I do enjoy reading good books.  As such, at the advice of my good friend Jared, I joined Goodreads.  It’s a really easy to use site that helps you track what books you have read and lets others keep track of your reading journey’s as well.  I have loved the ability to track, rate and share what I’m reading all on one site that plays nicely with both Facebook and Twitter.  So here’s my request to you: I know the last thing we all need is another social networking site, but I’d love it if some more of my literate friends would join Goodreads too.  Jared and Steve are on there and it has been great to keep up with their reading journey’s but I’d love to share more of what others are reading, learning and growing from too.

Goodreads is free and quite user friendly.  If you can read and like me even a little consider it at least.  There is a link to my Goodreads page in the right hand column of my blog.

Look at me, I’m a readerer.

Organic Church: Growing Faith Where Life Happens by Neil Cole

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars
I loved this book. Cole’s ideas about the church being an organic living entity rather than a mechanical machine really ring true. His ideas about the simplicity of sharing one’s faith and “doing church” really resonated with me and honestly, really make me want to leave the institutional church and live the Christian life in a smaller, organic church much the way he explains. This is where my real problem comes in though: how do I as a career pastor of an institutional church do this? How can I be a part of a small organic church and still support my family? I really feel my heart drawn to this, but the realities of life seem to make it impossible at the time. I really think this is the future of the church as I’ve said before, but I don’t know what to do in the awkward in between transition time. So in that this book was spectacular in giving me a vision for the future and what to be working towards, but frustrating in the sense that I don’t really know how to get there from where I am. I’m changing what I can to be more “organic” with the youth ministry that I can control, but unfortunately I can only change what I can change.

View all my reviews.

I’m a Writer!

Well, I know I’ve been talking about it for a while now.  I even had a post about six months ago about my dreams of being an author.  Thankfully that day has finally come.  It hasn’t been an easy secret to keep over the past while, but Donald Miller finally decided to let the cat out of the bag in a press release this morning.  His new book, “A Million Miles in a Thousand Years”, has a co-author and that co-author is me.  It’s been really busy trying to keep up with church work, be a dad and a husband, but it’s all been worth it.  Make sure you pick up the book, it’s a great read.  More than anything I’m just glad that I don’t have to keep the secret anymore.

Here’s the link to the press release.  I really hope you enjoy the book.

Saskatchewan is Indefensible

I grew up in Saskatchewan, I’ve lived here my whole life and to this day had no intentions of ever leaving.  I’ve seen most of the landscape and lifestyle that North America has to offer and to this day was perfectly content in Saskatchewan.  I stress to this day.  Then I awoke this morning – a morning in the middle of May – to snow on the ground, a blizzard in the air, a daytime high of 2C, and power outages.  This is indefensible.  There is no reason any sane human being should be chosing to deal with this nonsense.  We’re only a couple weeks away from the official start of summer and we’re getting snow and freezing temperatures.

I’m all for being ecologically friendly, but if David Suzuki were from Saskatchewan and not out east he’d be doing his best to create all the greenhouse gas he could here.

All this being said, it’s obvious I’m not moving anywhere anytime soon, but today for the first time I’m wishing I were somewhere else.  If my friend Brad Wall, the premier of this province, wants to keep young people here and grow the province tax credits aren’t going to cut it anymore.  He has to do something about this weather.

The bookshelf loses weight and I can’t

The Shaping of Things to Come: Innovation and Mission for the 21 Century Church by Michael Frost

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars
This was an exciting, encouraging, frustrating and difficult book to read. It left me excited but having no real way to work out what I would like to (not the books fault). If you believe the western church as it stands is flawed and in need of re-creation to be effective at carrying out the great commission in a new world than this book can be a great place to start imagining what it could be like. If you think the church is great as it is than skip this book and save yourself the hypertension and ulcer.

View all my reviews.

As per the title, I’ve managed to knock another book off of my “to-read” shelf, however despite 7 weeks now of going to the gym 6 days a week I cannot lose a single Lb.  In fact I’ve gained 2.  And don’t you dare start in on me with the “you’re gaining muscle” routine.  When average Joes go to lose weight they lose weight and I can’t despite eating well and reasonable portions and getting more exercise than I ever have.  Any advice?

Another Notch on the Book Belt

The Great Emergence: How Christianity is Changing and Why by Phyllis Tickle

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars
Whether you like Emerging/Emergent church stuff this book makes a very clear case exactly where it has come from historically, theologically, and sociologically. It makes a very clear and fairly fact based argument that we shouldn’t be surprised by the rise of emerging/Emergent Christianity and shouldn’t expect it to just go away. Well worth the read if for no other reason than to see where we’ve come from as a church, where we are, and where we might be heading to.

View all my reviews.

The Visitor

Well, I’ve teased it for a while now on Facebook, Twitter, and various other media (strangely enough they are a part of what got me into this predicament) so I guess it’s now time to parlez the tale of the mysterious visitor . . . also known as the story of the lady who called me a heretic. I’m not sure how long it will turn out to be, but I know that hearing the story live from the source including the funny voices and southern accents is far more entertaining than reading it yourself. If you want to hear the original version from the source you’re welcome to take me out and I’ll tell you the tale as it was meant to be told.

Anyways, here it goes:

It was a Sunday morning not that much unlike any other Sunday morning. I woke up early to go the gym, came home to make myself pretty and eat my cheerios before going to church and was gloriously oblivious to the adventure that awaited me only a couple hours into the future. So I settled in and got ready for Sunday School by reading my notes about transcendental meditation as I was teaching a high school class on other world religions. Had my mysterious visitor known I was teaching this class I think blood may have shot out her ears. As per usual, Sunday School went without a hitch, it was only after this was done that the adventure began.

So there I was preaching as I usually do in my golf shirt and dickies pants that will pass as dress pants if I want them too, and throughout the service there were constant outbursts from off stage right. At that point I couldn’t really tell if they were shouts of affirmation or derision but either way it wasn’t really going to affect much. In hindsight however it’s a real blessing that she didn’t give me the “East Side Church of God” treatment that morning as we were live on radio; but more on that later.*

Anywho, eventually the service wrapped up and I made my usual treck out into the foyer to force myself to mingle and shake hands – I say force myself to do so because this isn’t a habit that comes naturally from my personality but rather one that I have forced myself to do because it’s what best not necessarily what’s comfortable. Usually this mingling winds up consisting of a few handshakes accompanied by affirming statements like “good sermon” or “good job” or “thanks for the message”. This however was no average Sunday and my visitor – which I soon came to understand as my heckler during the sermon – was no average mingler. She quickly proceeded to grab my hand and shake it for the following five minutes in such a fashion so as to prevent me from walking away while she delivered her message. She proceeded to let me know that my message gave her “heart trouble”. Not the kind of heart trouble that a cardiologist deals with so much as it made her angry and bothered. You see she, “was the kind of Christian that has a faith that can move mountains. That thou shalt say to this mountain go there and it will” . . . a so on. She also wanted to inform me that there was, “far too much of the world in my message and not nearly enough Jesus.” All this in a sermon focusing on Jesus and his triumphal entry into Jerusalem. She then made a meeting with myself and the senior pastor set for Tuesday morning. Nothing much came from that meeting and we haven’t seen here since, but needless to say it made for an interesting Sunday and an even more interesting story for the kid working at the Shell gas station that night when he asked me how my day was.

*As for the “East Side Church of God” treatment, she was a visitor in town there as well. However there she confronted the pastor directly and loudly during his sermon calling him things like a false prophet and such. When she was asked to leave she proceeded to spend the next few days making uncomfortable phone calls to the church and driving circles in their parking lot.

Struggling With Faith

I’ve been talking about a lot of fairly light and happy things lately.  I have had a lot of good times lately with family and friends, despite some difficulties along the way.  This morning though I’m really struggling.  I’m not struggling with a belief in God, but instead with what I believe about God really means.

Every person has different personality traits that tend to make them struggle more with some things in life than others do, and conversely more easily deal with some things than others do.  My biggest achilles heal that rears its head from time to time is a struggle with anxiety.  I go through periods once or twice a year where seemingly innocuous things send me into a struggle with anxiety that is difficult to deal with.  Strangely enough, I never really took a lot of time to try to sort out why it is that I struggle with this until the past few days.  Instead, I would just tell myself to relax and stop worrying, and just have faith that God will take care of me because he loves me.  After really thinking about it though, I’ve found that I think the root of my anxiety comes from my faith not in spite of it.

I firmly believe that God loves me.  He’s promised that he work towards doing what’s best for me despite what I think is best for me because he knows and understands life and the big picture better than I can with my finite mind.  He’s also promised that life will involve pain and difficulties that he will use to make me a more complete person in his image.  My job is just to accept what he wants for me as best and to work towards it.  This is where my struggle is coming from.

I enjoy my life.  I love my wife, my son, my parents, my brother and my inlaws and my friends.  Life has so many things that I enjoy.  What if God’s “best” for me involves suffering a terrible/fatal illness at a young age?  What if making me into his image involves repeated failures in ministry to teach me perseverance?  What if making the big picture turn out for the best involves me struggling with constant difficulty and pain?  My problem isn’t that I don’t trust God is in control, my biggest struggle is that I do believe God is in control and that he will do whatever is necessary to make things turn out the way they should in the end.  I guess sometimes I feel like I’m more of a tool in his cellestial tool kit that he’ll use to get the job done as it needs to be when I want to feel more like what I want matters and not just what’s best for me matters.

I’m not losing faith at all through this.  I know God exists and that he’s alive and active in the world I live in and in my life directly.  My struggle is how to just relax and expect “life to the full” when he’s promised that if anything, life will be difficult.  What do I do with this?  What do you do with this?  If I’m wrong about anything that I’ve posited here or if I’m misunderstanding anything please set me straight, because right now I’m really struggling because of my faith.

My Flowing Locks

I’m not a big nature person.  I feel like I wasted a sentence in saying that because it’s painfully obvious.  I usually prefer to live in a sealed air-conditioned environment than to just open the windows and let the breeze in at any point.  I prefer my basement to a summer meadow.  I don’t hate nature, I just don’t love it as much as man made residences.

That being said, there is one thing about nature that I love that I was reminded of tonight.  As I was making my way through the Tim Horton’s drive-thru tonight I realized that my car didn’t get appreciably colder when I opened the window to order my large decaf with cream and sugar so I just left it open.  It was only as I drove away though to the soothing sounds of Jay-Z/Linkin Park crooning their version of HOVA/In the End that I was reminded of the inexplicable joy of driving with your window open on a cool but not cold night with good music to travel with.  The smell, the breeze, the music, the darkness: all of it comingles together into one of the most relaxing and pleasing sensory experiences of the year.  Spring is coming.  It’s in the air tonight.

Roll On!

I had a feeling that it was bound to happen eventually and now the time is finally here.  I’m taking up skateboarding again!  Now I know talked about possibly doing this last year, but now the wheels have already been set rolling towards this end.  I wasn’t really planning on it, but when the opportunity to be one of the first riders for Poetic Industries today I just couldn’t say no.  The decks aren’t technically a public offering yet, but I’ve posted a picture of what it will likely look like when I get it.

As I’ve admitted before, my first foray into the world of skateboarding was painful, disastrous, bloody and humiliating . . . although I thoroughly enjoyed all of it.  This time I expect it will be similar but I’ll be eight years older.  My goal is that before I hit thirty I will feel confident in riding my board and be able to pull a consistantly solid ollie.  I don’t think this is dreaming to high, and if anything it may be setting the bar too low, but it’s what I’m working for.

You may be thinking, “Why Ben?  Why now?  What are you thinking?”  Well, it comes down to the fact that I’ve made a decision over the past few months that I’m tired of dreaming about things I could do or worrying about what people might think and instead I’m just going to start working towards my goals and just being an authentic version of me.  Family, friends, acquaintances, and strangers may take it as they will.  I really want to be able to take on this challenge while I’m still in my “prime” before my body starts to legitimately let me down.  Also, buying this deck will be supporting my good friend Daryl and his design company and that’s always a positive motivator.

So for those of you who are in Swiftyvillerton if you see a blood splatter on the sidewalk it might be mine, if you see a really big kid in the skatepark it may be me, and if you see an ambulance drive by say a prayer for me.  I’m not giving up this time.  I’ll post pictures of the deck and my riding exploits as they become available.

BTW for those of you who ride and are reading this: do you have any suggestions as to what I should look at for trucks, bearings or wheels?  I plan on doing pretty much exclusively street stuff.