I've got a really exciting story for you all today - one that validates one of the core values at the heart of this church planting vision. I hope it insipires you to be thinking missionally this week. 

I believe at the very core of Christianity is our sentness. Jesus said in John 20:21 "As the Father has sent me, so I am sending you". We are the extension of Jesus' ministry here on earth now. The same mission he was given, the reaching of the lost, is our mission. I know at times I lost sight of that. In order to be constantly reminded of that, I want our church meeting place to have a sense of sentness. I don't want to be meeting in a far off place where land is cheap and plentiful but in the heart of Toronto, where the needs are great and the potential for impact is unlimited. I firmly believe if we put ourselves in close proximity to people far from God, making a connection between the church and their lives simple and accessible, the power of God's word will work wonders!

Paradox has done this. They meet at the Warren Community Center. The WCC houses the auditorium and class rooms paradox uses as well as a pool, gym, public library and a host of other services. So, when Paradox has a gathering, people are walking by to go to the gym etc. Sometimes people stop and listen for a minute and sometimes they come on in and sit down.

That happened this past week. I was the Production Director last week and so was standing at the back and noticed about 10 minutes into the service a lady come in with soaking wet hair and a gym bag. My spider sense tingled and I thought "she's probably new". I checked with a few people and sure enough no one knew her.

At the end of the service I made a b-line for her and just chatted a bit. It turns out she's been thinking about God a lot lately, doesn't go to church, and just saw Paradox some time ago and thought she'd stop in. She told me she figures "since I go to the gym on Sundays, I could probably just show up at 9pm and be done in time to go to church". Brilliant!

I don't think this ladies natural tendencies would have brought her to church. But put the word of God right in her path and here she is. Being drawn in. 

Sometimes we underestimate God's capacity to draw people. Simply being where those who are far from God are can create amazing opportunities for the gospel. This illustrates how one church is doing it. I want to model this in our own church. The question for all of us as individuals is am I going, in response to my sentness, to places where God can use my simple activities to draw people towards himself? I pray all of us will find the personal vision for sentness and then act on that vision in our lives. 

I need your help - whoever you are whyever you are reading this I need you to become more than a reader right now. I need you to put on your thinking cap and tap into God's work in your life and those around you for a really important task.

I need you to think about the things that bring you closest to God. The things you do in your life that you know God is proud of you for. 

I need you to think of the people you know who most show Christ to you. The people who most brightly shine the light of Christ in the world around you.

Ok - have you done that? Good! Now, I need you to list for me the things these people do, the life marks, that make you feel they are a true, mature disciple of Christ. 

Right now I am doing this brainstorming and I know there are things some of you will see and say that I'd never think of. I believe in the collective power of God's people when they are inspired by the Holy Spirit.

To get the conversation started I'm going to list these marks that I think a mature beliver has. Hopefully some of them will resonate with you and some might challenge you or inspire different ideas. Here are a few of mine:

- Has a regular time in God's word
- regularly serves others
- gives regularly of their time, money, and life
- is a person of prayer

Those are not all of mine but some of mine. PLEASE - share yours. Even repeat them if they've already been said. Some may be more crucial than others and so bear repeating again and again. 

I really appreciate any time and thought you put into this. I promise that time will not be wasted!

Have you ever felt like your pet is actually a person? I frequently feel that Tele is part wolf. part man, part cat and all awesome! I even think he might have the capacity to fully understand what we're trying to accomplish these days. 

Take last week for example. Tele was out in the yard and took a chance on greeting two other dogs that were walking past our back yard. I'm quite certain that he meant to engage them in the hopes of sharing Jesus with them. Ok, maybe not, but he did create for us the chance to meet and get to know their owner, Yolanda. Yolanda is a very young 60 years and lives just down the road from us. She's stopped by twice now for lengthy conversations with Mel and I and has a very interesting story. She is the care giver for her husband, a man struck with Lou Gehrig's disease. She has very few friends since her only chance every day to get out is when she walks the dogs. Otherwise she works from 6am - 11pm and then all through the night too since her husbands lungs need to be cleared every three hours. She's already calling us friends (after 2 conversations) and has been opening up with us and we with her.

I can't help but be thankful for my dog and for that missional opportunity he created for us with his winsome slobber and loveable face. I'm glad we were at least bright enough to see what God was doing through even him. 

 Right now Mel is out at a Warren City mother's group. I'm proud of her - she's doing it to make unchurched friends. Please pray for her as you read this.

Also, pray for me as I search out my own activities. It seems mens soccer is not that popular or easy to find here, neither is running clubs. I'm going to check out Bally this week, they have a running track and might have group times there. 

Lastly - pray that we'd get to meet families in our neighborhood. Our street is VERY quite to the degree that we hardly ever seen our neighbors. We're considering being the friendly Canadians and just knocking on doors to say hi (please don't think door to door evangelism) but as of yet we haven't done so. Pray for courage and boldness in that. 

Seems like life is full of choices. Some choices are really difficult to make. The options before you are both very appealing, have a great list of pros, few cons, and so both seem like the "right" choice. On the other hand some choices seem really easy to make. In my world, if someone asks me if I'd like to eat my beef at the Keg or at McDonalds (since I'm Dutch let's assume they're buying ;-) )I'm gonna choose the Keg every time. The steak at the Keg is SO MUCH BETTER than the "beef" at McDonalds that the choice is simple. 

I was reading Paul's words in Philippians 3 this morning. Here they are from the TNIV:

⁷But whateverwere gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. ⁸What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ ⁹and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith. ¹⁰I want to know Christ - yes to know the power of his ressurection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, attaining to the ressurection from the dead.

I wonder how often we look at the moral and spiritual choices before us and think "wow - this is really hard!" I know that at times in my life that's how I approach living for Jesus. Like I'm giving up something. Like I'm settling for MacDonalds when the world is offering me the Keg. But you know the truth is that living for the Kingdom, in blessing AND suffering, is ALWAYS the better choice. Even in these days when we are living in trial, not fully knowing how God will provide for us, I can honestly say I'm seeing that His way is over surrpasing value. Anything else I want seems like garbage. My prayer is that I will keep that perspective and never choose absolute garbage again.

I had a conversation yesterday with Craig @ Paradox (at a diner on 8 mile) about starting to formulate the plan for this church plant. I was asking him what the first step was for them and what it should be for us. It became clear again to me that being clear about the vision and having a compelling story to tell is my primary task and purpose in all of this. So, today I've been revisiting a great book on vision and praying about what exactly God is asking us to do. 

It turns out my good friend Andrew framed this task really well on the Xpiritmental Blog today. Check it out - his words are great!

Please pray for me in these coming days as I spend time in prayer, seeking God's will and direction as I write this out. Pray that God will crystallize and sharpen this vision in my mind so well that when I tell people of God's work in Toronto that there is not hint of fogginess and that the words from God will cut like a razor. 

Last week I heard Craig explain a concept with several people that really resonated with me. He was explaining that the Sunday morning experience really happens in 4 quarters. Most churches only worry about maximizing the middle two...the worship and the sermon. However, people are also interacting before and after the service. People show the love of Christ in those interactions, the build gospel community, they even further process the sermon during those moments.

Thinking of four quarters automatically leads me to think of football. Many games are won and lost in the 1st and fourth quarters. If teams don`t get off the line well in the first, the other three quarters might mean nothing. On the other hand, a team in the lead can quickly see it slip away in the 4th. I think the same is true in churches - we can get off to better starts if we begin to maximize the time before service better. Perhaps environments that begin to get people in the groove of being the church together could be created and encouraged so that we aren`t bringing people right off bad morning and expect them to just worship because the music is there. Likewise, perhaps we could facilitate spaces for conversation and discussion after the service so that people who are significantly impacted have a better chance to ask questions and discuss what`s on their hearts.

I think it`s a really interesting concept. I`m curious to know what you think - if your church started offering a great first and fourth quarter, would to come early or stay late to take advantage of it...what would you like to see in a first and fourth quarter experience...

Being weened on Willow for many years in Calgary, the Leadership Summit is always something I've wanted to attend but never seemed to make time for. This year it almost snuck up on me again (just realized on Tuesday that I was signed up to go!). I'm really glad I went because today was definately a cool day. Here are some of the highlights for me:

Bill Hybels opened the day sharing 4 lessons he's learned leading in the economic crisis. The most compelling for me was his first point - the we need to recommit to living the 1st Century Dream in the 21st Century. That is to be the church to on another and to our community NO MATTER WHAT! The church proves Christ when it shows love and perhaps especially when we give and love radically in the face of a bad economy. The good news is that the opportunity to act is still at hand! We can all commit to loving and giving radically even today!

Secondly, I was moved nearly to tears when Gary Hamel spoke straight to my futurists heart. Gary identified inertia as the biggest enemy to the church. In a world that is changing so rapidly the church needs to be prepared to change with it. From our management and leadership styles, to services, to programs it all has to be ready to change if not changing. Gary suggested we do these four things to help us battle inertia:

1. Conquor Denial
2. Generate More Ideas
3. Deconstruct Your Beliefs about how ministry needs to be done
4. Get Rid of Top Down Leadership

Lastly, Tim Keller's telling of the Prodigal Son brought new life to a familiar parable. His main point: both sons were prodigal. Jesus' main point was that neither the religious or irreligious, moral or immoral are in any better shape when it comes to salvation. We are all only saved by grace through Christ. Tim's message was meant to wake us up to the spiritual deadness in our churches and take steps towards seeing the gospel as our only hope - not our religion.

It will take me some time to unpack this but I can tell God is already moving in my spirit. I wonder if any of these brief ideas pique your curiosity?

We're all driven to remember events that illicit strong emotional responses. For me, my favorite white shoes have become an object that illicits a strong emotional response. The (friendly) abuse I took over them when I arrived at WLA has made them sort of a fond memory of days not too long gone by. I retired the shoes for some time at WLA and decided I'd "try them on" again here with the Paradox people. Similar (friendly) abuse insued.

Crocs are an object which are bound to illicit a strong emotional response from me. Let em explain. I think crocs are fine for use at home or the beach. I do not think they are meant to be worn in public by people over the age of 12. They are especially vexing when worn by older men in colors that represent one of the colors of the rainbow. 

In welcoming me to Paradox, the church thought it appropriate the combine the strong emotional responses of my white shoes and crocs to create a lasting memory. I was very touched. It's going to be a lasting memory and spoke strongly to Mel and I of how much they meant to get to know us. These white crocs, adorned with best wishes for a new venture, now sit on my desk as a reminder that as they are trying to build community with us that one of our primary goals is to build community with them. In fact very soon we'll begin talking about how to do that without the crutch of shoes but through the medium of small groups (or whatever we call them). I'm excited about this and can't wait to get to know more people in and through the process. 

Thanks Paradox! Thanks WLA!

This is likely the biggest epiphany for our family over these past months. The Christian life is all about Missio Deo - God's mission. In case it isn't abundantly clear God's mission is to redeem the world and to bring glory to his name. It's that simple. Every aspect of the Christian life is to be about working to see the mission fulfilled. That can really seem daunting and maybe it should be. We are slaves, servants of the king, soldiers in a war. Do those things sound less daunting?

However, there are ways in which one can be living on mission without giving blood, as it were. This got reinforced to me again today. I went to return my uHaul truck this morning and ran into a comedy of errors in doing so. I was pretty frustrated especially since the last time I delt with uHaul in April was worthy of a spot on "The Gong Show" as one of the gonged performances (did you follow me there...nah I don't know that I would have either). Anyway so there I am, standing in the room with these employees who's fault it is not and it's like God says "this is a chance to be missional". So I began thinking...here I am in this family owned car wash where they do uHaul buisness on the side. I know I'll need a truck again in the future and better yet I know I'll need a car wash in a couple of weeks. All of a sudden my selfish annoyance is gone and I'm thinking of ways I can engage these people in friendly conversation. At the end, I assure them I'll be back and wish them a nice day.

I hope that doesn't sound really self righteous - it's not meant to be. Here was God, on his mission, granting me grace when I didn't want to take it, so that I could get in on what he's doing. Maybe this guy comes to faith and maybe not.I don't know. But I do know this; had I been a jerk to him I sure would never get the chance to find out. Maybe I didn't give blood for the mission today but I fee like I was in the army anyhow. 

Anyone else out there have a missional story to share?

And it was suprisingly easy! I didn't show any papers or get held much longer than the average traveller. Mel got drilled a bit about her previous stint in the US but on the whole it took us no time to get into the US. We arrived precisely when we meant to....

So again, this story is one of God doing the remarkable. I mean really, who gets into the US with a UHaul full of stuff without question? I just can't help t be excited about this mightly God who we serve! Everyone needs to get in on his goodness!