'Faith' Tagged Posts
Honestly, I’ve Been Anxious about My Return to Ministry
I first felt the call to ministry a few years ago and I did all the normal things one does. I spoke with family and friends, sought guidance from my pastor and eventually went to seminary. The church has been nothing if not affirming and welcoming. I have been leading a congregation for almost two years here now and things are by most measures going swimmingly. In fact, we sprinted to raise a large sum of money and are about…
Walking a Dog…What’s That Smell???
What’s that smell? It’s spring here on Vancouver Island and the flowers are budding and many tulips have already blossomed and many others stand sentinel straight waiting for just the right moment to grace the earth with their blooms. I was walking my dog this morning amidst the splendor and sunshine when we had an inauspicious start. She laid a deuce that scented the air with sickness and my alert brain immediately discerned that something my bubbly 2-year-old mutt ate…
Walking Through the Motto in Lent
It’s Ash Wednesday and the internet is a flutter with what people are giving up (cheese, chocolate, booze, saying no, television, Facebook), and what people are picking up (saying yes more, saying I love you more, praying, meditating, running, scripture reading, small groups). What the Pope says we should do (love others better), and various other takes. Common among them is the notion that Lent is a time of preparation, preparation for Easter and for the life of faith. I…
Do I Need to Check My Brain at the Door?
Frederick Faber once wrote about one of the most challenging paradoxes of the holy life; that God is best known in the heart rather than the intellect. Darkness to the intellect/But sunshine to heart, wrote Faber. It is a paradox that I, like Jacob, have been wrestling with. I am someone who grew up in a largely secular culture and was mostly schooled in secular halls. I left high school to attend CEGEP (where I am still technically viewed as…
The Life of Faith Involves the Community of Faith
I have been meeting more and more people, both in person and online through social media sites like Facebook, who aren’t sure they need to go to church to be Christian. They make various arguments, at times they are sincere, but rarely are they based on the bible. I suppose, perhaps, you could be a Christian who doesn’t hold God’s word to be particularly important, but I wonder what sort of Christian that would be. Taking a time away from…
A Woot-Woot of Thanks
This weekend the generous spirit of the church I serve humbled me. Scripture speaks more of money than just about any other daily topic and many churches are scared to talk about it, many preachers are scared to ask for it, and many congregants are reluctant to part with it. I regularly hear stories of churches where the minister is stuck, hamstrung and unable to be “effective” because they cannot get the funds to put into place any of the…