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The 3rd Coming of Jesus

This past Sunday, Steve Bell offered a reflection during his concert at Hilldale Lutheran that has stayed with me (btw, our son Graham played a few tunes with him on guitar and did a great job. Very proud). He spoke about the three comings of Jesus that the Church has always celebrated in Advent. Now, we usually talk about “two comings” 1. Jesus came once, as a baby in Bethlehem 2000 years ago and 2. Jesus will come again, in his glory, to renew all things. This past Sunday we noted how we’re in the in-between of these two comings and the work of the Church is to figure out what that is to look like and what we are to do in this in-between time. I noted the Church is called to witness to the reality of heaven coming to earth and we are to participate in this reality, joining in with the work of bringing heaven to earth through working for justice, peace, beauty and reconciliation efforts around us.

Advent and All of the Things

I’m moving into my third Advent as a pastor and truth be told, it still snuck up on me. Maybe you feel that too. One moment we’re pushing through the noise and cacophony of distractions vying for our attention and the next we’re lighting a candle and straining to hear once more the ancient invitation: ‘Wake up. Pay attention. Hope is on the way.’”What do we do with those things in our lives that look like the Kingdom of God (alleviating suffering, justice, reconciliation, etc.) but don’t derive from Jesus’ people? In fact, they might even be antagonistic toward Jesus and his Church, etc.?
I noted the Church is called to witness to the reality of heaven coming to earth and we are to participate in this reality, joining in with the work of bringing heaven to earth through working for justice, peace, beauty and reconciliation efforts around us.

Setting the Boundaries of the Kingdom

So last week our community encouraged one another through sharing some pretty cool glimpses of the kingdom of God. Before doing so, I addressed a question that has been brought up a few times over the past few weeks:
What do we do with those things in our lives that look like the Kingdom of God (alleviating suffering, justice, reconciliation, etc.) but don’t derive from Jesus’ people? In fact, they might even be antagonistic toward Jesus and his Church, etc.?
I noted the Church is called to witness to the reality of heaven coming to earth and we are to participate in this reality, joining in with the work of bringing heaven to earth through working for justice, peace, beauty and reconciliation efforts around us.

Glimpses of the Kingdom

Encourage. Build up. Carry each other’s burdens. Strengthen each other’s faith. All of this, it seems, is rather important to Paul and the rest of the New Testament authors. When we gather as followers of Jesus, the overwhelming vision for the church is about participation—where each of us brings something that stirs life in others and points us to the hope of the reconciliation of all things happening now. Sweetgrass, we learned, is sometimes called kindness medicine. It’s a plant used in ceremony and teaching, a gift from the Creator that helps people remember how to live with grace for one another. As braids of sweetgrass were passed through the congregation, the community touched it, smelled its sweet vanilla-like fragrance and noted its two-sided nature – rough and smooth.

Understanding the Time by Growing up Within It

Last Sunday we heard from Dr. Samuel Sarpiya as he shared how the tribe of Issachar “understood the times and knew what Israel should do” 1 Chronicles 12: 32. To use Samuel’s line of reasoning to tie back to our series on spiritual maturity, it seems many of us have good clarity as to what “these times” might consist of – we’ve been watching the news, we’re spotting trends, paying attention to many troubling facets of society right now. What we lack, if I may offer us, including myself, a little finger waggy critique, is a failure to allow these “times” to grow us up.
Sweetgrass, we learned, is sometimes called kindness medicine. It’s a plant used in ceremony and teaching, a gift from the Creator that helps people remember how to live with grace for one another. As braids of sweetgrass were passed through the congregation, the community touched it, smelled its sweet vanilla-like fragrance and noted its two-sided nature – rough and smooth.

Sweetgrass and Self-Flagellation: A Kinder Theology toward Transformation

This past Sunday, we continued our Spiritual Maturity series with something a little different – a hands-on exercise focusing on kindness, courtesy of the Anishinaabe Sweetgrass teaching.

Sweetgrass, we learned, is sometimes called kindness medicine. It’s a plant used in ceremony and teaching, a gift from the Creator that helps people remember how to live with grace for one another. As braids of sweetgrass were passed through the congregation, the community touched it, smelled its sweet vanilla-like fragrance and noted its two-sided nature – rough and smooth.

Allow Your Coattails to be Grasped

Another week, another borrowing of some profound insight I came across on the Internet…
Sarah Bessey is a favourite Canadian author of many in our community and if you haven’t heard of her or read anything by her, then do yourself a favour and check a Bessey book out of our library. You won’t be disappointed. I’m not sure if the below excerpt comes from some previously published work or if these are just thoughts off the top of her head but they were shared on her story and I was so captivated by them that I typed them out for you to read as well:

High on Coincidence; Higher on Conviction

Rhonda and I have an ongoing thing in which we rate coincidences that come up in our lives on a scale from 1-10. 1 is basically a “huh, that’s cool” but could happen any day. A 10, though, happens exceptionally rarely. I think to date, maybe once in our 21+ years together we could point to what was such a bizarre coincidence that words fell short and we were convinced there had to be more going on beneath the surface. This past Monday morning we didn’t experience a 10, per se, but certainly a story worth sharing.

Random Wisdom; Holy Nudges

Thinking about what to write this week, I kept circling back to three moments — a tweet, a podcast, and a conversation — that have been living rent-free in my head throughout the summer. They seem unrelated on the surface, but each one, in its own way, has something to say about following Jesus faithfully in 2025.

Love in an Age of Rage: Some Thoughts on Charlie Kirk

By now, you’ve no doubt heard that Charlie — the conservative commentator and founder of Turning Point USA — was shot and killed while speaking at an event in Utah, which is just wild. If you didn’t know much about him beforehand, you almost certainly have learned of him in the days that followed. And if you do, you likely hold a strong opinion one way or the other — and chances are, so do the people in your feed. The man was certainly a divisive figure.

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The Bible Stands Out… like… a LOT!

Jan 22, 2025

This series we’ve been doing on the Bible has not only been challenging–at least for me–but somewhat unexpectedly, it’s been a major eye-opener for me. My study has led me to learn all sorts of new things about the Bible and if I were to summarize it in a sentence it would be simply: Objectively, the Bible is the most unique book in history.

Cultivating Next Gen Generosity

Jan 7, 2025

It’s New Year’s resolution season which, in our home at least, has brought up the discussion of becoming a more generous person. If you’ve got kids, this is probably something you want to instill in them but the challenge is, how do you teach being generous? I know the best way to teach anything to your kids is to model it in your own lives so, yes, we’ve sought to do that, but when it comes to generosity, the whole “Don’t let your left hand know what the right hand is up to” (Matt. 6:3) teaching makes this somewhat tricky.