The Bread We Receive
Scripture Readings: Ephesians 5:15-20; John 6:51-58
It’s good to be home. 6 weeks is a long time to be away. Between vacation and General Council, it’s been a busy summer.
I won’t go into great detail about what I did all summer long this morning, but it was a good summer. We rested. We saw friends. We traveled. We laughed. Aside from some small moments which weren’t the best, it was a good summer. A little hot maybe, but a good summer.
One story I will share is from the time Bev and I spent in the Niagara region. We had the opportunity to go mainly because if I preached in a church in Niagara Falls, we would have free house for a week! Seemed like a pretty sweet deal. So we took it.
You thought it was hot hear in Cape Breton this summer? You should have been in Ontario. We went to the church, and it was a lovely service. Hot, but very nice. There is no air conditioning, no fans… just hot.
We went outside after church, and it was cooler than in the church. And it was 35C outside! So to cool down, we thought we’d go to a local outlet mall. The only problem was, it wasn’t a mall. It was laid out like a mall. It had stores all lined up just like a mall, but you had to go outside. So basically it was a mall without the covered hallways.
Did I mention it was hot? read more…
So What’s Next?
Scripture Reading: Matthew 28:1-20
9 years ago today my family left a home we were renting in Halifax and made our way to Cape Breton. We were on our way to Sydney Mines. We had no idea what to expect. We had no idea how long we would be here. All we pretty much knew is that we were excited to be coming to a place where we wouldn’t have to move for a while. We had moved far too often. Anna was 5 and had lived at 5 different addresses. Anthony was 3, and he had lived at 3 different addresses. So we were very happy to be settling down for a while.
I’ll be honest though, I’m not sure we would have thought we’d still be here 9 years later! But we are, and we are very happy to still be here. We’ve seen God do so much and we also see how God is leading us to do even more. It’s very exciting and we look forward to seeing what God has in store for us all next!
As I think back to 9 years ago, I think about my ordination. I think about the long, long process it took to be ordained. The interviews, the traveling, the education, and even the hurdles I encountered along the way. But in the end, it’s all been worth it. read more…
How Do We Love?
Scripture Reading: John 21:15-25
Love is such a powerful emotion. So often it makes us do things we might have never considered otherwise. Love asks us to commit our lives to one other person for the entirety of our lives. Love asks us to change things, try new things; love invites us to act.
When we look at the life of Jesus, he did so many things because of love. He healed people. He educated crowds. He saved people from punishment. He even brought people back to life. All because he loved them.
Some of them, he didn’t even meet before. Yet, because Jesus is both fully man and fully God, he knew them more than we know ourselves. And he loved them.
The scene we are looking at today is another story of Jesus spending time with the disciples, his friends, after his resurrection from the tomb.
In Need of Hope
Scripture Reading: Luke 24:36-49
It has been a … weird week. I think that’s one way to put it. Two prominent public figures in their respective fields committed suicide. The Ontario election results are disappointment to many people as they fear current American style politics are moving north. Which they did temporarily during the G7 meetings in Quebec, which was another strange process of conversations with clashing personalities. We also had that terrible fire in Baddeck at the historic Inverary Inn. Don’t get me started on the weather either. Temperature swings much?
When someone famous dies, we mourn. Whether it’s movie stars, royalty, musicians, whatever their field of excellence they were in, we do mourn. And if that particular person is someone we really look up to, it hurts a whole lot more. Sometimes, the loss of a celebrity we adore can tap into our own grief of unresolved pain from our own lives.
We don’t do grief very well in Western society any more. We really don’t. We bottle it all up, he hold it inside, we hide it. It’s not healthy to grieve this way, I really believe it’s not. And even if we do try and release and share how we’re feeling, someone will make fun of us. read more…
Out For A Walk
Scripture Reading: Luke 24:13-35
On Thursday evening I went to a public meeting at the Emera Centre for Northside Rising. With 15 months of research and planning, Northside Rising made gave the community an update as to what they were up to. They shared their research, they shared stories of the struggles of young people on the Northside, and they shared they want to see things change.
And I agree, things need to change.
There were some interesting stats in their report. They had consulted over 500 people on the Northside about their impressions of living in the area. They asked questions like:
“How connected do you feel?”
“What keeps you up at night?”
“What needs to change?”
Those are just a couple of examples, and they also gathered some basic demographic data, such as age, gender, work status, to name a few. read more…