Sep 09

Hello readers,

Well August was another great month, this summer has flown by, and the last few weeks have delivered some summer weather. sunny in the high 20s this week. beautiful.
I have finished up at TransCanada, as I head back to school at U of C on tuesday. this week I have been hanging out with friends and preparing for school.

I went camping with some of the youth and my buddy Jake a few weeks back. we went to Drumheller for a weekend, it was awesome, and we were blessed with Justin's mom letting us borrow her van (we needed more space!). it turned out to be a beautiful weekend. forecasts a week earlier were calling for rain, but we had sunny skies and mid 20s weather. we did some hiking, some swimming (in the Red Deer river) and ate lots and lots of food.

This past weekend I helped Nat and Ryan with their garage sale, which was somewhat successful. A friend from Capernwray and her boyfriend (Lisa and Micheal) were travelling in North America (from Germany) and they stayed here for a night. We had dinner at the Calgary tower, walked around downtown and hung out at Eau Claire on sunday night. On monday we drove out to Banff and hung out there for the day, with beautiful weather. it was a great time to catch up and hang out with them, and to be a tourist in my own province.
Also got to catch up with a few other friends from Capernwray (Tyler and Daralynne) before they took off for Colorado.

As for Football, our team has been in several close games this last month, with a 1 point loss, a 6 point win and last night, a 14 point loss to the top team in the league. We are now 7-6, with one game left and a bye week, we are in 6th and need some help (one team to lose one of thier last 2 games) or to beat the 2nd place team in the league without our starting QB to make the playoffs.
we have one game left.

It has certainly been a great summer, and I will have to enjoy the last few days before school starts.

For my thoughts portion, i thought i would take a look at some of my notes from the Hillsong conference i attended back in July 2008 in Sydney.

One of the speakers was Mike Pilavachi, he is always interesting to listen to. He discussed how worship, evangelism and Justice belong together.

ok so worship, when you love someone you tell everyone. When we praise God, we are showing him love, but worship isn't just praise. Worship communicates our love for God. True worship, in whatever it is, shouldn't be forced. it is merely us doing something that will bring glory to God, we can imagine that God is enjoying it, or that we are doing whatever it is in a way that shows his love and how we feel about him.

Evangelism is an overflow of worship. hmm, how does that work? Evangelism is telling people about Christ, so our worship is seen by others (but doesn't always have to be). when our worship is around other people (like serving for example) it is Evangelism even though we aren't doing it as evangelism. we are serving doing something because we want to (as worship to God, to show love) and in doing it we show people the love to Christ. This is evangelism and worship, where they meet. our worship effectively can evanglize to others, and they might in turn ask questions or at least think about why we are doing what we are doing, and why we believe it, what is driving us to do it etc.

If you look in Acts, it talks about the Pentecost, where the Holy Spirit poured out upon the people as they worshipped. the worship led to evangelism, telling people about Jesus was not nearly as effective as the Holy Spirit. Its God that saves people, not us, we can lead people to that point, but just like in worship, it has to be a decision in the heart, and only the Holy Spirit can truly reach that.

the first response to the Holy Spirit at Pentecost was worship, the second was evangelism. one lead to and created the other. "worship is a glimpse of heaven."

then there is Justice. the New Testament talks more about justice than heaven, hell, the 2nd coming and sex. Paul and others realized that justice is important, Jesus came to not only save, but to help us to be better people. We shouldn't just worship and neglect the poor and broken. a few verses, Amos 5:21-24, Isaiah 58:6, Micah 6:8.
Justice is worship, a form of it at least.

ok, so justice is important, what does that mean? i guess it means to treat everyone the way Jesus would treat them, justice means fairness, so treating them like sons and daughters of God, because we all are. even if some don't believe in God, he created them, for a purpose, and with love, so they should be treated with love. Kind of like a few posts ago i mentioned loving people even though they aren't doing the right thing, love the person behind the actions and words. Like Hitler (I discussed this a few months ago, so won't go further into that again).
Mother Theresa said "we do it for Jesus", she spent many of her later years working with Lepers, the most rejected and poor people, just loving them. She is seen as a saint, "we do it for Jesus", that puts it together. She was worshipping God by treating them with love, she was evangelising through her actions and she was treating them like they should (ie Justice)

John 4 - with the Samaritan woman. Jesus doesn't preach, he asks for water. This doesn't seem to matter, but looking at it, Jesus started where she was, with water. He didn't start with his agenda or telling her she was a horrible person. This is evangelism, sure there was some intention of helping her, but he just wanted to care for her. God loves everyone, not matter what they have done.

God wants a church without walls, not a church that preaches the good news, but one that is good news. Yes its good to bring people to church, or for them to come on their own, but not everyone wants to go to church (the building) or is able to, but we are the church everywhere, we can be Jesus to people, and its worship. Worshipping God, showing love, treating people with justice, and letting God shape our lives.

I think its important to say here, that we can't do this on our own. We are selfish, we aren't perfect, we find it easier to find imperfections in people than to love them despite those imperfections. its like when we are younger, we easily find faults in people "your stinky, your ugly, your poor" etc, but as we grow up we look past faults in people. Some people take longer than others.

My point though is, that the Holy Spirit works in us, on our hearts, and as we get closer to God (prayer, praise, devotions, learning, trying to listen to him) the fruits of the Spirit come out. God shapes our hearts. He pulls us closer, even when we try to resist. If we try to get closer to God, slowly things start to change, we start to develop things like faithfulness, self-control, goodness, patience, gentleness, kindness, love, joy and peace. We can embrace these things, and realize the good that God is doing in us, raising our confidence in what we are, who we are, and the knowledge that with God in control, life won't be perfect, but he is shaping us into people of God, to do great things and have an impact.
Worship at first is more of a struggle, justice doesn't make sense and evangelising seems too hard, but over time, and with practice, God works in us so that it is natural. We start to love worship, care about justice and naturally practice evangelism, without even knowing it. Often we have a bigger impact than we think, and God loves us more than we think sometimes too (in the hard times)

wow ok, so that is alot. I hope that made you think, not sure if there is any practical application, but there probably is. Think about the impact you have had on your friends lives, think about what you can change, think about how you can help to bring justice in our world, think about how you can show God's love, how you already worship in different ways, how you serve, and think about where your faith is.

How evident is your faith to people around you?

well some things to think about,

thanks for reading,

Adam

August 09 thoughts

Hello readers,

well its been about 2 months since my last post, so I will post something!
lots has happened in the past 2 months for me. well I finished up my spring semester at school in June, meaning I have only 10 classes left until I have my Bcomm. I will have a bachelors degree in 9 months! also I turned 22...ok thats not that exciting, kind of crazy to think actually. 22, wow. so i have been working the past month at TransCanada, good times, its been a great opportunity with Employee Communications, but sadly my summer student experience only has one month left! (well, maybe i can extend this job into a part time role in the fall like I did at Nexen!)
hmm, well Ryan got the job at the baptist church in lethbridge! congrats to him, Nat and Ryan will be moving down there at the end of the month and get thier house in November! yay for them! I will miss my little Abi and Silas though, as well as of course Nat and Ryan.
it will be wierd having them move out and not live here (tho Ryan has been living mostly in lethbridge lately). my mom and step-dad came up for a visit in June as well, always good to see them.

went camping in Sandy McNabb first weekend of July with some of my friends, went for a bike to downtown the week before, and attended some work functions during Stampede week!

also I bought a new phone last week, got an LG Rumour through Solo mobile, its a pretty cool phone and a cheaper plan than the ripoff that called itself Rogers.

hmm, oh I went to camp for a week, as a cabin leader for Junior camp, good but wild times. I wasn't feeling great going into it, but got through and enjoyed leading the boys in my cabin, and there were alot of them (11 boys with 2 leaders for our cabin). It was great to get back out to camp, it was still tiring, but its a different tiring than sitting in an office all day!
It would have been great to be out at camp for the whole summer like I used to do, but those days have passed unfortunately(stupid need for money), but I still enjoy going out for a week or two during the summer.

Right now it is a long weekend, an extra long weekend for me as friday was a designated day off at TransCanada, and monday is a holiday. 4 day weekend, I didn't end up going out of town, as much as I thought I should, but thats perfectly fine. its funny how even taking a weekend off ( a long one even) you still end up busy, or at least I did. not too busy, but not extremely bored either. Friday was good because it was a sleepin, a relax no rush day, I went for a bike and had a little devo at a bench in fish creek on a beautiful day. then helped dad with some yard work and spent time with family, then watched football. its nice being able to just do whatever, not trying to get heaps done in one short period.

saturday was the same deal, I slept in, was expecting to fill in for a soccer game but it got cancelled. my day opened up even more. I went out into the heat and wandered around best buy, eventually buying a microsdhc card for my cell phone, getting a starbucks and heading home, only to head to Shawns to hang out for a bit. played some NHL 09 and went home, where I enjoyed homemade burgers (via my dad) and watched the Stamps-Riders game.
I guess that is a little busy, but not organized busyness, just freeflowingness (i know, thats not a word).

today I went for lunch with my friends Jake and Jeanie then played a game called discipleship at Sam's place for the afternoon, enjoying the beautiful weather (we played outside) and hanging out. I went for dinner at Montanas with my Dad, Nat, Ryan and the kids. also made plans with Jake and Jeanie to go to Banff tomorrow and then meet up with some of the guys about a campin trip next weekend.

anyways i guess my point is that I'm glad I decided to hang around town this weekend, glad to have a mid-summer long weekend to enjoy, and thankful for friends that had the same mindset on this long weekend!

hmm well some other thoughts I guess.
In anyones spiritual journey (or whatever you want to call it) there are good times and bad times, peaks and valleys. over the years I have had some peaks and valleys, but over time it gets less extreme, or at least it as for me. in the Good times, you feel great, all facets of life seem to be going well, and most importantly you have a passion for God, unfortunately this doesn't always stay the same. Sometimes we have rough times, times when we just aren't feeling it, we aren't sure what we are doing, where we are going (this isn't always bad though!) and maybe feel God isn't right there or that lifes trials are hitting us all at once....
wait - sometimes you are thinking about something or in this case writing and a song comes on or something happens that fits, right now is one of those times. I am writing about good and bad times, and just noticed that a song called "the lining is silver" by Relient K is playing. part of the chorus is "isn't it nice to know, that that the lining is silver, isn't nice to know, that were golden". cool. (well at least i think so!)

in bad times, things seem to suck, but we have to remember that God is there for us, and that these trials or tough times we are going through will pass. That God has the vision, we don't need to know where this is going (though in the tough times we really Want to know), we just need to trust God. The lining is silver, take the positives out of it, remember what you have, remember the good times and know and trust that there will be good times again. The song that is on right now is "Praise you" by Fatboy Slim. haha. anyways we need to praise God in all of our 'seasons', part of the words in this song are "we've come a long, long way together, through the hard times and the good". wow.

another song, and some people say this one is overplayed, but I think its for a reason, it speaks so much to us about life and us and God in that life. The song is Blessed be your name, I really love this song, its about us praising God, at all times everywhere, including in the desert place.

Ok so the reason I was thinking about this, was that the other day I was thinking that maybe I'm in a spiritual rut, I had slipped on some things, like prayer. upon realizing this, I got to thinking about how our rough or downtimes end/start.
Do our bad times end when we start to figure out whats going on? or does God prompt us in subtle ways we don't realize, so that we come back. when we are in a good time, does it end because we realize we are doing good and get overconfident and complacent? I don't know but that has to be part of it. Another part has to be that it just is human nature, look at the old Testament, we would come back to God, then go away, then back again, realizing at different points.

bottom line, it happens, but I think we can actively do things to get out of the tough times, but not always, and often we don't feel like it, and eventually God (who is faithful) will nudge us out of the spot, but that doesn't mean we should wait. I've seen people have trouble and instead of seeing God pulling them back, they saw it as something else and thier faith crumbled.

another song playing on my stereo, Citybus Lovesong by NewWorldSon (one of my latest favourite bands to listen to, since YC), in the chorus: "where would I go without you, without you to guide my way? where would i be without you, I'd be wandering day by day"
where would I go without you God? I would be wandering day by day, in a far off worse state then I am, if still on earth.

Ok, one last thing (this has turned into a much longer post than I expected, a brain dump of sorts).

I started writing in a journal each day as a practice when I went to Australia, so to remember my times and have been reading through some of my writings that last little while. such good times, I'm so glad to have the pictures, the DVD and my journalling (as well as reunions with Capers friends) to look back at the great times had and things learned. keeping a journal is a good idea, even though sometimes its like a chore. if it becomes a habit (which apparently happens after 2 weeks or so?) it is a nice memory and way to look back to see how much we have changed. anyways its been almost a year to the day (a year to the day on friday!) since I got back from Australia. one year ago I was exploring Sydney one last time on my own before returning for one last visit to Capernwray to see my friends and get my luggage.
oh the memories!
another odd coincidence, our waiter tonight was from Australia.

as always, thanks for reading (and congrats for getting through all that) and I hope some of my thoughts got you thinking!

Adam