27cents

Thursday, December 28, 2006

Happy Holidays

I ran across a quote I found particularly striking: "Sin is dysfunction. It is an unfulfilled promise birthed in the blinding heat of some initial flush of feeling, but then you wake up old and used and forgotten and useless. Sin is the pleasant tickle in our throat as we swallow poison."

It's not really fitting for the holidays, but food for thought none the less, and also related to one of the questions recently submitted for our new series starting January 7th entitled "Deep Questions, Messy Answers". The question was, "What is sin?"

We hope you have enjoyed your time over the holidays as much as Abby was in the attached picture. This Sunday we have a light brunch at 9.45 followed by a one hour service, "Your life one year from now". I hope to see you there and I hope you bring someone with you. Visit our website for directions or tune into the podcast through the week.

A special thanks again for your kindness to us over the holidays and your passion through this past year.

Cheers,

CSW
CUSTOM BUILT TEACHING SERIES
For the first 6 weeks of the new year, the teaching segment is completely at your disposal. Have you ever wanted something said to the people you live and work beside? Have you ever wanted to ask a question of your own? The whole series will be available for free on CD and DVD so it can travel around. Hit reply to submit a question.

LAST SUNDAY
The Other Christmas Story... Visit our website and tune into our podcast.

THIS SUNDAY
Your life one year from now, a whole new way to approach decisions and the reason you're alive

THE HOLIDAYS
Join us at 9.45 for a light brunch and a one hour service.

Thursday, December 21, 2006

Eyes Wide Open

The following is a copy of the Thomas Question email devotional. You can subscribe to the email edition from our website and tune into our podcast.
Years ago I visited a friend who’s house backed onto a railway track in London, Ontario. And it was at some point during the odd hours of the first night – some unholy time like 2:36 or 3:01 or something like that that the train roared it’s way into the safe, quite place of my dreams and left me bolt upright with a racing heart. It was absolutely unbelievable to me that anyone could actually sleep through such a thing. But they did – and every night, too, and by my last night, so did I…

In The Magicians Nephew, CS Lewis describes a place wrapped in a thick, sleepy magic that lulls it’s occupants to daydream. It’s called “the wood between the worlds” and anyone arriving there almost immediately forgets where they came from, why they came and almost everything else of importance. It’s a place where it’s possible to sleep with your eyes wide open – and sleep your whole life long.

That’s become a favorite mental image for me, because I’ve wondered if such a place doesn’t exist around us right now. Do you remember where you came from, why you came and anything else of importance? Or is your life a steady drifting from one familiar thing to another without any real awareness? Are you fully awake? It’s truly amazing what we can learn to sleep through – even with our eyes wide open.

It’s the process of habituation which makes it possible. We have an amazing ability to adapt to a wide range of environments over time. We can get used to loud noises (IE trains), strange routines (IE shift work) and even the taste of a beverage which likely caused us to recoil the first time we tried it (IE coffee – and now you may even like it).

But this isn’t always a good thing, this ability to sleep while wide awake and tune almost anything out over time. It means we can sometimes get used the sounds of things we need to respond to. And what if the noise you’ve learned to “tune out” is something like a smoke alarm or a warning sign or even just the sound of a life gradually breaking down? People who live next to breath taking mountains often lose sight of them because it’s hard to have the same thing take your breath away every single day.

The reason I’d care to bring all this up the week before Christmas has to do with the very “reason for the season”. Why? Because I wonder what happens when you get used to the sound of a story or the sight of a manger or the very idea that God has been among us? Maybe we’ve heard it so many times we no longer hear it even when we’re listening… Maybe it’s become like a freight train we could sleep through… Maybe it’s a part of what we’ve forgotten in our “wood between the worlds”…

This Sunday I’d like to try to come to a familiar story with a brand new set of eyes and I invite you to do the same. There is another Christmas story that’s hardly ever told and I’d like to get into it. So let’s not merely hear this wildest tale of the last 2,000 years – this bit about God actually among us, as one of us – let’s not just hear it, let’s actually listen to it with a brand new set of ears (if we can find them).

I hope to see you there and I hope you bring someone with you.

…And one more thing… Monica and I would like to thank all of you for the kindness shown to us in the form of our “Christmas surprise” and at the same time wish you a very merry Christmas as well. This has become our church and a thing we look forward to each and every week…

Cheers,

CSW
CUSTOM BUILT TEACHING SERIES
For the first 6 weeks of the new year, the teaching segment is completely at your disposal. Have you ever wanted something said to the people you live and work beside? Have you ever wanted to ask a question of your own? The whole series will be available for free on CD and DVD so it can travel around. Hit reply to submit a question.

LAST SUNDAY
A final question: Is it really even actually possible to love someone in the God spot?... Visit our website and tune into our podcast.

THIS SUNDAY
The Other Christmas Story (see devotional above...)

THE HOLIDAYS
Join us at 9.45 for a light brunch and a one hour service for December 24th with "The Other Christmas Story" and December 31st with "Your Life One Year from Now".

Wednesday, December 13, 2006

The Other You

The following is a copy of the Thomas Question email devotional. You can subscribe to the email edition from our website and tune into our podcast.
The Sims™ is one of the larger video game franchises and it’s based on nothing more than ordinary life turned into a video game. It’s a “simulation” of life itself. You have a house, a job, a set of friends, whatever. Then you just make your choices and build a simulated life.

One may be left to wonder where is the appeal of an online 2 dimensional “copy” of a life you could actually live in real time. A life pictured seems a poor substitute for one lived. But whatever the game may lack in it’s ability wrap around you with real experiences it more than makes up for with this one little caveat: control. You can make a choice, click a mouse and have it executed. No other questions asked.

It may seem like a small thing – control – but imagine what your life could look like if it was as easy as programming a new pattern of choices and then have them carried out without argument, lapse of will or any other complication. Imagine if your choices were as easy as a mouth click. “Tomorrow morning, I will get out of bed one hour earlier and perform a daily exercise routine…” Or, “From now on, I’m going to read a book a week… Or say nice things… Or do my job with a bit more verve…” (Just roll with it).

I think it reveals a principle: that WE are our own complication in life. It’s not for lack of knowing what to do that we are as we are – it’s for a lack of ability to act on it. The Sims™ provide a reprieve – a chance to pretend you have it better. I’m not sure I want a chance to pretend.

The Bible asks in Proverbs 8:1, “Does not wisdom call, and understanding lift her voice?” It says in Deuteronomy 30:11 that what you need to know is not “…too difficult for you or out of reach…” It is not “…in heaven so that you have to ask, ‘Who will go up and get it for us…” Nor is it “…beyond the sea, that you have to say, ‘Who will cross the sea for us [and] get it…” No, it says, it is “…near you, in your mouth and in your heart that you may observe it.”

In it’s original context, that passage is about the lifestyle principles laid out in Deuteronomy, but I don’t think it’s a complete scandal to apply it to wisdom in general. Both scriptures seem to support the same idea: wisdom isn’t complicated. It “calls” aloud and it is “within our reach”. So again it seems that we are not held back for lack of knowing what to do. It must be something else.

I would suggest it’s the cost. The search for anything other than what’s obvious is usually undertaken from a desire to find something easier. Maybe that pursuit is costing us too much time. Could you build a better life online than the one you actually live? Wisdom calls aloud…

This Sunday is the final message in our “A Guide to the Satisfied Life” series and I’d like to end it with a strong question: is it even actually possible to really love the one in the God spot? Join us Sunday for Starbucks at 9:45 (visit our website for directions) or tune into the podcast through the week.

I hope to see you there, and I hope you bring someone with you.

CSW
CUSTOM BUILT TEACHING SERIES
For the first 6 weeks of the new year, the teaching segment is completely at your disposal. Have you ever wanted something said to the people you live and work beside? Have you ever wanted to ask a question of your own? The whole series will be available for free on CD and DVD so it can travel around. Hit reply to submit a question.

LAST SUNDAY
What are you turning your stuff into, what will matter most over time and what is the 76 year old you saying... Visit our website and tune into our podcast.

THIS SUNDAY
A final question: Is it really even actually possible to love someone in the God spot?

THE HOLIDAYS
December 24 and January 31 are both 1 hour services with a continental brunch buffet. December 24, "The Other Christmas Story" and the 31st, "Your Life One Year from Now".

Thursday, December 07, 2006

You Are Being Asked as of Right Now

The following is a copy of the Thomas Question email devotional. You can subscribe to the email edition from our website and tune into our podcast.

I’ve used this illustration before and can’t resist coming to it again because it tells itself so clearly. More than 30 years ago, two grocery chains faced the same critical question: “What will consumers want 10, 20 and 30 years from now”, and they came up with two very different answers. A&P decided it was price and they continued to offer a limited selection at the lowest price while Kroger decided we’d all want greater choice and began to build the first versions of the monstrous super stores we’ve all come to know so well. I don’t think you need to tell you who “won”. Kroger and the super stores.

For a long time, I’ve personally believed that most of what you really need to know could come as an easy answer to an obvious question if you just new who to ask. Kroger asked consumers, A&P didn’t. Don’t know what to wear? Ask Stacey and Clinton from TLC’s “What Not to Wear”. Got a job interview? Someone knows exactly how to impress your interviewer, be it a spouse or a co-worker or a secretary. Anyone on the “inside”, really. If you only knew who to ask.

And then this in particular… In 2nd-tier corner offices all over major downtown sectors, there are marketing VP’s straining their brains deep into the night trying to come up with the next great strategy to get you and I to shop with them instead of someone else. The thing is – you and I actually know what they’re trying so hard to figure out… If they’d only think to ask us instead of themselves.

As an aside, here, I can’t resist a rant just in case there are any of those marketing VP’s listening – so hey – how about a little customer service? You may think I need a slickly worded ad campaign about vitamin B1 infused this and that… But in truth, I’d gladly give ½ my soul and pay a 10% premium for retail staff that didn’t flee to the next isle whenever I looked like I had a question and might make a purchase… Wal Mart sells things cheap, but where do you go when you want things sold WELL? Or how about the customer service rep at a Canadian Tire store last week that made me wait at her till while she placed a personal call, then carefully counted a mountain of “funny money” and put it neatly in her tray before even beginning to consider the useless peon of a customer who dared interrupt her routine with a purchase… The only way there could have been more irony is if she would have done all this and THEN place a “Till Closed” sign in front of me. It wouldn’t be the first time.

Do you see what I’m saying? It’s hard for any of us to escape our perspective – unless we ask and listen for another point of view. I don’t want us to be a church that doesn’t ask. And I don’t want to be a church-nerd burning the midnight oil trying to come up with some slickly worded Sunday message that is too many steps removed from what you really need to hear. So, for the 6 weeks starting January 7, I want to let you ask the questions. It could take our Sunday’s past what just one or a few minds could do.

So… If you could hear a message on absolutely anything you like – anything in the world – what would it be? Consider the possibilities not just in terms of what this might mean for you, but also for the people you live and work beside. Why not ask them, too? And have you ever wanted something said to them – perhaps better than you could say it? Have you ever been asked something you didn’t know how to answer well? Let’s be a church that asks and listens.

As an example, here’s 2 of the few questions are already submitted: “What do we "do" with sincere, moral, seemingly "godly" people who do a better job at living than most Christians but who belong to another religion?” And, “What is deliverance and does it still happen today? And is that what we should all be trying for?”

Now let’s take this one step further and make the whole series available on CD for FREE in a fancy jacket so that even if you can’t get someone to come, you can still take the message to them. It’s just one more thing which could be like “menthos in the pop bottle”. Remember, it will be small steps actually taken which can lead to surprising outcomes over time. So hit reply, write your question and let it all begin.

Be the menthos!

Join us Sunday for Starbucks at 9:45 (visit our website for directions) or tune into the podcast through the week. I hope to see you there and I hope you bring someone with you.

CSW
THE WALLS
Don't be distracted by them. Our podcast goes out to over 870 people per week, so clearly our church involves more than just those that show up on Sunday. Let's learn to think like that right from the start.

ASK!
Click reply to submit a question for the series starting January 7th.

LAST SUNDAY
A Global Warming sized truth about how you look at OTHER PEOPLE. Visit our website and tune into our podcast.

THIS SUNDAY
What are you turning your stuff into, what will matter most over time and what is the 76 year old you saying...

AGAIN, A NOTE OF THANKS
Part of the message prep involved a look back over the last year and it left me wanting to say thanks. Every single thing you do - even the samllest things - even just showig up - all go into the mix to make our beginning possible.