Aug 13
Christianity.ca – Two Weeks Overseas
This was an article I was interviewed for in response to Short Term Missions preparation
May 06
    “Would you like to know what it is like to do mission with North Americans? Let me tell you a story,” said David Coulibaly, a ministry leader in Mali, West Africa.
Elephant and Mouse were best friends. One day Elephant said, “Mouse, let’s have a party!”
Animals gathered from far and near. They ate, and drank, and sang, and danced. And nobody celebrated more exuberantly than the Elephant.
May 01
My friend Matt at the STM Network recently put together a few Dangerous STM questions … I responded to this one … #2 in his series …
Apr 16
Why is it that some take responsibility for that which they are not responsible? A communication piece from September 3, 06.
check out others at the podcast page.
Nov 19
I just got back from a weekend in Ottawa. I helped a friend put on a Short Term Mission (STM) clinic for 40 people, facilitated a missions committee as they worked through their issues surrounding the start-up of short term initiatives, spoke about micro-finance issues to a couple of hundred people, had supper with an old childhood friend, and then spent today in a conference with a dozen and a half leaders in international work. It was a fun weekend.
While I was speaking to the missions committee, I found myself challenging them to engage with the partners they presently have in place. A partner they had just read a report of to a crowd that exhibited evident excitement and interest. They were thinking of international engagement, but as is often the case when people are deciding to take a trip overseas, they make the decision based on fear of danger, ease of the travel arrangements, or a low financial cost. At first blush, these reasons do make perfect sense, after-all – shouldn’t we ease into engagement?
My thoughts were this. It is far easier to raise an extra $1000 per participant, than it is to raise interest in a new inititiative. I think it is important that we engage where we are engaged. This sounds so self-evident that it might be almost foolish, and yet for some reason it is all to easy to think of a STM trip as a ends in itself … this should not be the case. The most effective STM experiences always take place within the context of relationship … extended and continuing … for this is Short term mission, wiht a long term focus.
Oct 29
I have begun putting some of my communication online … this is from August 06 … click on the link above, or check out the file at this link here
Oct 20
i am doing a day of training with the STM network … helping churches prepare to take teams around the world effectively.
An old friend Rob Shepherd was just talking about how our normal reactions to culture shock tends to follow a few normal patterns … i cant remember them all, but i will get them from him soon …
Oct 03
i am heading to Red Deer tonight to teach a session for Perspectives … a faith based cross-cultural course. in prepping for the day, i have to use material from the course, some of which i found i did not totally agree. i hope this is why they call it perspectives, as i will share my own perspective tonight … we shall see
Jul 22
Anne Sexton writes this poem …
i particularly love the line about hats …
eight years old
When he was a little boy
Jesus was good all the time.
No wonder that he grew up to be such a big shot
who could forgive people so much.
When he died everyone was mean.
Later on he rose when no one else was looking.
Either he was hiding or else
he went up.
Maybe he was only hiding?
Maybe he could fly?
Yesterday I found a purple crocus
blowing its way out of the snow.
It was all alone.
It was getting its work done.
Maybe Jesus was only getting his work done
and letting God blow him off the Cross
and maybe he was afraid for a minute
so he hid under the big stones.
He was smart to go to sleep up there
even though his mother got so sad
and let them put him in a cave.
I sat in a tunnel when I was five.
That tunnel, my mother said,
went straight into the big river
and so I never went again.
Maybe Jesus knew my tunnel
and crawled right through to the river
so he could wash all the blood off.
Maybe he only meant to get clean
and then come back again?
Don’t tell me that he went up in smoke
like Daddy’s cigar!
He didn’t blow out like a match!
It is special
being here at Easter
with the Cross they built like a capital T.
The ceiling is an upside-down rowboat.
I usually count its ribs.
Maybe he was drowning?
Or maybe we are all upside down?
I can see the face of a mouse inside
of all that stained-glass window.
Well, it could be a mouse!
Once I thought the Bunny Rabbit was special
and I hunted for eggs.
That’s when I was seven.
I’m grownup now. Now it’s really Jesus.
I just have to get Him straight.
And right now.
Who are we anyhow?
What do we belong to?
Are we a we?
I think that he rose
but I’m not quite sure
and they don’t really say
singing their Alleluia
in the churchy way.
Jesus was on that Cross.
After that they pounded nails into his hands.
After that, well, after that,
everyone wore hats
and then there was a big stone rolled away
and then almost everyone -
the ones who sit up straight -
looked at the ceiling.
Alleluia they sing.
They don’t know.
They don’t care if he was hiding or flying.
Well, it doesn’t matter how he got there.
It matters where he was going.
The important thing for me
is that I’m wearing white gloves.
I always sit straight.
I keep on looking at the ceiling.
And about Jesus,
they couldn’t be sure of it,
not so sure of it anyhow,
so they decided to become Protestants.
Those are the people that sing
when they aren’t quite
sure.
Dec 30
It is during this season that Calgary has the early evening, the thick darkness that descends to end our short days. This is the heart of our winter. Solstice, the longest night, has just passed. The cold has driven us indoors and hot drinks and a slow pace are in order.
Sometime immediately after boxing day and just before the new year breaks is this twilight season where I often find myself in a contemplative mood, staring past the lights, seated in a fine chair, pacing myself with a good book and a great glass of port.
I am up late at this time of year, the night seems to stretch on forever – broken only by these shorter hours of sunlight. At times the nighttime clouds lower and the city light reflects back this warm rose hue onto snow-silenced streets. I find myself in a content melancholy at this time.
Expectations on my time lower, and I find my pace slow … I am given time for remembering, reflection. Friends and family who are no longer around me show up as happy ghosts, faded memories recalled by candlelight. For many of us, it is in that very brief space – after Christmas sentimentality and just before the New Year crests and breaks – it is in this lull that we may find the luxury of a moment, this pause. The shopping is over, Family has been welcomed, Friends have dropped by. Dinner has been already been served and re-served, (re-served and re-served).
We are now in this is the season of waiting
The new year is about to begin.
I have sometimes felt that the beginning of the new year in mid-winter is somewhat strange, the year begins when most of the earth is sleeping, dead and quiet. This time seems the quietest of the seasons. Chinese custom has the new year celebration in February, sometime just before Spring. This makes a lot of sense to me. Spring definitely is a season of new beginnings. The start of Spring brings the gardeners out in many of us. We step out onto the lawn, critically examine the plants, greet our neighbors, trim the garden. For the ranchers surrounding Calgary, the cattle have come – usually sometime during those early spring storms. The Farmers are preparing equipment, finalizing loans for seed and gear to carry them through another planting season. In the unofficial new year celebration of spring there is a sense of looking forward of preparing for this time of birth and growth.
Even September brings another type of beginning. A time to sharpen pencils. Freshly scrubbed five-year old faces are soon salt-streaked as moms cry their tears to mingle with the new start in new schools. The late teenage push to finish up the summer job, buy the futon and laptop, and pack it all somehow into the cases that mom and dad drive to the new dormrooms in college. Friends return to town from holidays at cottages and families. The unofficial Calgary Stampede Slack season is drawn to a very firm close as downtown firms gear up for freeze-up. The Fall season is another unofficial new year, one looking to our future goals, our dreams.
I suppose this is why I think that this click of the calendar year in mid-winter is perhaps the most unusual of our beginnings. Unlike our springtime or September start where we look forward, it is in this winter new-years where we spend the most time looking backward. This is the time for reflection. Like your own face reflected in the winter darkened living room window. We find our gaze pointed into our past.
we remind ourselves of where we have just come from. We all look back. ‘This year in review’ is Journalism 101 – at no other time of year are Bush, Brittany and Borat so frequently collaged together to share the same magazine frontpage.
Recent Comments