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Two Votes
Two historic votes this past weekend up here –
1. On Sunday night, our church voted to move ahead on name change. Lots of churches have done this recently but the thing that makes it unique for us (other than that fact that it’s our church) is that we are getting ready to celebrate our 150th anniversary later this month. It has been incredible to see this group of people willing to give so much in the pursuit of reaching more people for Christ. For us, our name has been a hindrance to that so we are moving to replace the geographic & denominational expectations some people have of our congregation.
2. On Monday we voted for a new government in Canada. We have a different system than in the US – each voter has one ballot, cast for a local member of parliament. The party (we have several, not just two choices) who has the most MPs voted in to office is considered to be the ruling party and the leader becomes prime minister. For the first time in 10+ years Canadians voted in a majority government meaning that more than half the seats in parliament are occupied by a single party. This is significant for us as a country and will have an impact for the next four years.
Interesting to me that these two votes would happen only hours apart. The outcomes of both of these votes will have great impact on me personally and on my family for the next several years.
Worship pastor position – Kelowna, BC
My friend Scott Cochrane let me know that his church, Trinity Baptist Church in Kelowna, BC, is hiring a full-time worship pastor.
If you are looking for an opportunity to be part of a growing congregation that is willing to try some new things to reach their community for Christ, this may be something you would like to explore. You can find a full job description and instructions on how to apply for the position here.
The Worship Pastor at Trinity is someone with a deep love for Jesus Christ, for His people and for those not yet part of His Kingdom. This individual has a passion for music and the role it plays in congregational worship; someone who is able to thrive in a team environment; and someone who is able to envision and energize a community that is grounded in the many expressions of worship.
GMA Canada announces 2010 Covenant Award nominees
More info here – Covenant Award nominees
Congratulations to all of the nominees – pretty incredible to see the amount of Canadian talent that is being shared with the world. Make sure you head over to the site and check out the full list of nominees.
Here are the artists nominated for Artist of the Year -
O Canada!
Ever wonder what it looks like when thousands of ecstatic Canadians celebrate winning the Olympic gold medal in hockey? A little like this –
I was watching the game with a few friends and when Sidney Crosby scored the winning goal there might as well have been a thousand of us crammed in to the basement – we went nuts. What a game, what a day, what an Olympics!
O Canada!
“We Are More” by Shane Koyczan
Hundreds of millions people tuned in to the Vancouver 2010 Olympics opening ceremony last night and witnessed an incredible display of Canadian history, heritage, culture and talent. I watched the ceremony this morning with my family and was amazed at the production at the event as well as at the ability of the performers to really capture the sense of what being Canadian is all about.
I watched with great pride as Canada was represented so well in so many ways – from the First Nations welcome to the fiddlers from every region of Canada to the incredible use of staging and projection to bring BC Place alive. Beautiful.
My favourite moment had to be Shane Koyczan’s spoken word piece, “We Are More” – it captured so much of the heartbeat of Canadians and told a side of our story that is not often told.
This is not video of his actual performance but if you missed it, you need to watch this video -
William Paul Young (author of “The Shack”) on The Hour with George Stroumboulopoulos
Lots of you end up on this site because I’ve talked about “The Shack” several times – both about my interaction with the book and about my interaction with William Paul Young, the author. Paul was in southern Ontario last week and was part of a show on CBC called “The Hour” hosted by George Stroumboulopoulos. George has become a very well-respected journalist in Canada and I love his interview style.
If you want to see the interview (it’s less than 13 minutes) you can see it here – http://www.cbc.ca/thehour/videos.html?id=1124988848
After you watch, I’d love for you to come back and drop your thoughts in a comment. Here are mine -
- .George is a fantastic interviewer. He gets to the heart of the matter very quickly and knows enough of the story & context to come off sounding well-informed and intrigued by the answers.
- .Paul has heard every question in the book over the last couple of years and has an answer ready for every one of them. He has become very experienced at the interview thing.
- .I am amazed and excited that a book written for this guy’s six kids has opened these kinds of doors for spiritual discussion. Agree or disagree, like him or not, Paul’s book has given the church new opportunities to talk about the gospel with those who have questions. Are you taking that opportunity??
- .What is the deep, preconceived, misguided notion of God in my own life that I need to get rid of?
- .Big thought on this one – there is NO WAY that CBC would have given this guy 15 minutes of airtime 10 years ago. No chance. Pretty awesome that he was given that opportunity to declare Jesus is the Word of God, that God is existent as the Trinity and that He is exceptionally fond of each of us. That is very cool.
