Good Friday – Atonement
It’s a story of people who denied knowing him. It’s a story of abandonment as his friends were no where to be seen. It’s a story of a mob crying out for his execution. It’s a story of an unjust trial, manipulated by leaders in his community. Leaders who are supposed to be representatives of His Father.
It is an incredibly powerful story. A story of a Son who died for many, many people. It’s a story of love, a love from our Father in heaven who allowed His Son to die on our behalf.
A story we wish never had to happen. But God’s love is so great He wouldn’t have it any other way.
This isn’t a story of discipline from an angry, vengeful father. This is a story of love. read more…
A time for prayer
In my last message on this blog, I asked people to join me in prayer for our church.
Since then, my friends in Cruxifusion have formed a team who are praying together daily for our church and those preparing to head to General Council 42 this summer in Newfoundland. Today is my turn to lead in prayer, so I thought I would share it here so you may also join me in prayer. read more…
a need for prayer
Yesterday I shared the following on Facebook (inspired by my friend Richard Bott):
Hello, FB friends.
Many of you know that I’m a minister in The United Church of Canada. Some of you may know that The United Church of Canada is going through a massive restructuring process. From Comprehensive Salaries to governance structures, to oversight of ministers, to… well… suffice it to say, no matter what happens, The United Church of Canada won’t look like it does after this summer, no matter what decisions are made.
Some of you will shrug and say, “That’s the church for ya! About time it blew up”, which is fine. We’ll have that discussion another day.
Some of you come from church traditions. I love that and am thankful for you all.
Here’s what I’m getting at… The United Church of Canada needs help. Big time.
So I’m asking. If you are a person who prays, please hold the United Church of Canada in prayer. We need to pray for the following things:
For compassion and clarity of purpose and direction and sacred living.
For hope and wonder and love and life.
For the guidance of Jesus Christ in our future and our decision making.
For whatever you could offer?Our General Council meets this August. Between now and then, and after then, there will be angst and fear. I know. I’m feeling a lot of it myself.
Many thanks, and blessings on your journey.
It probably needs some explaining.
The United Church of Canada is Canada’s largest protestant denomination. We like to toot our own horns and say we have more churches than there are Tim Horton’s franchises. The problem is we also have a lot of overhead costs to maintain this denominational structure as it is today. In short, we need to cut up to $18 million dollars from our national budget.
And so, for about the last 2 years a national committee has been exploring options as to how we might look in the very near future. Last week they released their final report for all to see.
It is a drastic restructuring of our church, which is needed. However, this report does not seem to reflect many of the concerns lifted up a year ago when a draft document was released. There are concerns over accountability, education, ministry personnel issues, pastoral charge oversight, costs, and how the actual structure may fall into place.
In short, there are still a lot of questions. Too many questions that I can’t see being answered when General Council meets this summer to debate this proposal, which will then turn to our churches to vote on these huge changes.
At some point I will look to document some of those concerns and questions here. But not right away, I’m still processing.
Again, I fully believe we need a new structure in the United Church of Canada. I’m just not fully convinced this is the best one moving forward.
In the meantime, just like I did on Facebook, I ask you to join me, and many other people, in praying fervently for my denomination, the United Church of Canada. We need Jesus Christ to show us the way to serve God’s people for the next generations to come.
invited to the party
Scripture Reading: Matthew 22:1-14
Doesn’t everyone love a wedding party!
You celebrate the love of a young couple and wish them a long, long life together. There is the partying with friends and family. There’s food, dancing, drinking, laughter, tears, storytelling. And we mustn’t forget the murders!
What did we just read in our scripture reading today?
Jesus is telling us another parables, a story he uses to describe the kingdom of heaven. And in the story a king’s son is getting married. So the king is throwing a huge wedding banquet, a great and wonderful feast! This is the king after all, no expenses will be spared. No cost it too high! This is going to be the party of all parties.
The invitations go out to all the dignitaries, friends, family to have everyone come. The king is having a party and everyone should be there! read more…
Fairness and God
I became a Christian when I was 27 years old. 3 years later I was enrolled in seminary to begin training to become a minister.
I often wondered what would have happened had I taken the opportunity to go to church when I was younger. What did I miss? How many years of knowing God did I lose? Did I miss out on starting ministry when I would have been younger? Instead of 35 years old, what if I had been 25? What sort of difference would that have made?
Then I read Bible verses Matthew 20:1-16. The story of the labourers in the vineyard.
At the start of each day, landowners would head into the market early every morning to find people to work in their fields. So those looking for work knew to be there early as well in hopes of being chosen. read more…