steve

We say we start church at “10ish.” And honestly, I like this. I like the laid back way of getting things going around 10:10-10:15. It feels relaxed and casual, which is definitely the vibe we are trying to foster on Sunday mornings. And I know you like it, too, because the sanctuary is relatively empty at 9:57. People start to trickle in after 10 and we hit critical mass at about 10:10 typically, which is about the time we begin our announcements. A few more folks will arrive right up until about 10:30, usually. On one hand, this is all fine and dandy if everyone in the community is on the same wave length and understands the very relaxed start time of our Sunday morning services. 

These are some days of celebration for me as of late! This week Rhonda and I celebrated 20 years of marriage, which, when I was a kid and my parents did the same, I remember thinking they were ancient. This means, I guess, that I’m now firmly on the trajectory toward becoming “ancient” if you were to ask my kids. Sigh. And in other celebratory news, this week coming will be my official 1 year anniversary as the pastor at Grassroots!

Hi friends! Our family is back from holidays, rested (ha!) and ready for serving this beautiful community the rest of the summer. So if you missed it, last week we held an inspiring service at Trowbridge Falls, immersing 4 of our community members into the waters of baptism. It was seriously wonderful and if you missed it, I’m really sorry! Baptisms are maybe my favourite part of being a pastor I think. The whole thing is just packed with meaning and significance but underlying all of it is blissful celebration.

We’re having an outdoor service at Trowbridge Falls on July 21st and, as is tradition in our community, if someone is looking to be baptized, we’ll make that the focus of our morning together. Baptism is a bit of an odd thing to our modern sentiments and maybe we don’t appreciate or recognize its significance in the life of the Christian. Maybe we see it as a sort of “nice to do” rather than any sort of prerequisite for life in Jesus. And to be fair, Jesus will never reject us if we don’t get baptized but this is not to downplay the importance of this sacred act.

If you missed this past Sunday’s message, I closed off the series on Revealing the Jesus of the Centre by considering the means in which we take all of these great, beautiful, inspiring truths we’ve been learning about who Jesus is and have them move from a bunch of facts we hold in our heads toward something that we hold in our hearts that changes us, transforms us, does something to us toward inhabiting these same traits of Jesus ourselves.

This past Sunday we looked at an aspect of the character and nature of Jesus that the Church has, as a whole, really seemed to have passed over throughout history: Jesus’ non-violence. This is not entirely true – there are pockets of movements over the past few hundred years that would challenge this assertion, but it does seem that overall, the Church has failed to emphasize the non-violent nature of Jesus.