A Lovable Screw-up, but not so lovable

Well, I have a day off now. I neeeeeed some time to relax and I am getting it now. This afternoon I went out for what they call some Redneck church. We went out of town to the gun club yard or the shooting range or whatever they call it with some of the guys from the church. And we shot off a whole bunch of guns. I shot clay pigeons with shotguns, shot some fancy .22s and some deer-hunting rifles and all that jazz. A wild time. It was quite a bit of fun.














These fancy scopes make me feel like a real marksman, hitting gongs and stuff from 200 yards away.Now, I just finished watching a DVD that Joe lent me, called "You, Me, and Depree". It's a cookie-cutter comedy but I really enjoyed it. It won't win any awards but I will admit that it was thoroughly entertaining anyways. Quite fun and funny. I laughed out loud quite a bit even though I watched it alone. Owen Wilson plays a character within his range (which is quite limited), but this one is the most lovable one yet(in my opinion). I believe the character has a humble quality that surpasses all the previous Owen Wilson characters, so he comes off much less annoying. Check it.
By the way, we got the van situation solved. We have some vans offered to us today. Nice!

Incapable of finding Vans

Hi. I need to go to Legacy Youth Conference. I also need to take a butt-load of youth. As it turns out, I am completely incapable of finding a rental company within 2 hours' drive of here that has a 15 passenger van. Did the world stop creating those, or renting those out or something and no one told me? I am having a hard enough time even finding rental companies in my area. I need one of these!!!!!

4 reasons to burn our pews

So, I wrote up this report yesterday morning to present to the senior pastor. I figure this might be a good forum to place these ideas as well. In reality, they are all nothing new, and are done all over the place already. I just formalized it in writing the types of things I would like to see here and am thinking about starting. #1 we already do, but I wrote it down anyways because it relates to the others as well. I know this is boring and nothing new, but I would like your opinions on which ones of these would appeal to you if they were done at your church.

#1) Saturday Night Worship Jam
Purpose: A chance for believers to gather and worship and develop musically and learn new worship songs. For musicians and singers to play and worship together with musicians and singers of other churches. To increase exposure to styles of worship and songs and learn them.
Format: Musicians and singers gather in an informal setting and play worship songs as they are suggested, planned or instigated. Everyone joins in equally to contribute in worship, suggestion, and feedback about possibilities for songs and how they could be done. Sometimes CDs are listened too to learn new songs.
Frequency: weekly

#2) Saturday Night Worship Service
Purpose: A chance for worshipers to gather for worship. To promote and environment of unity among believers. To seek to connect hearts to God in creative worship.
Format: A band is practiced and prepared in advance for these special worship services. The arts are embraced in a service that consists of mostly singing with prayer and scripture readings and a very short message about 2/3rds through.
Frequency: once every couple months or so

#3) Songwriters Development/Feedback Circle
Purpose: To encourage songwriters in their art. To network songwriters and musicians in a method that develops the people and the creative process. An opportunity for the church to promote the creative process and the arts within the community of Elkford. A chance for the church to take its rightful place at the forefront of the music and arts world through encouragement and development and hosting. To introduce non-church people to a church people and building in a non-hostile and positive manner. To create connection between the churches and the community in a way that helps the community.
Format: Signs are put up around town to promote the Circle. Songwriters and music professionals are encouraged to come to share what they are working on and provide encouragement for each other and suggestions in order to assist in the refinement of songs. Participants gather in an informal manner and take turns introducing their songs and playing/singing them so that the group can provide feedback, suggestions and encouragement.
Frequency: once every month or two

#4) Open Mic Coffee House
Purpose: To provide an avenue for songwriters to introduce their songs to the public in a laid-back and encouraging manner. An opportunity for the church to promote the creative process and the arts within the community of Elkford. A chance for the church to take its rightful place at the forefront of the music and arts world through encouragement and development and hosting. To introduce non-church people to a church people and building in a non-hostile and positive manner. To create connection between the churches and the community in a way that helps the community. A fun evening of getting together and connecting.
Format: Signs are put up around town to promote the Coffeehouse event. Everyone in town is welcomed. Songwriters and musicians are encouraged to come to share what they are working on. The place is decorated with ambience (coffee tables, lamps, comfortable chairs). Coffee and other fancy coffee-type beverages are provided. Musicians sign up beforehand to play one of their original pieces or cover a song.
Frequency: quarterly or bi-annually

Sleep When You Are Dead

So, I preach this morning, and apparently I am unable to get much sleep beforehand. At least I will try to get everything ready and packed so I can make my escape to Calgary immediately after the service from the church parking lot.
Anh is singing with the choir at First Alliance this morning, so if you are in Calgary, get over there right away.












Hey, Anh, is this kinda that thing you were talking about?
Click it for the link. Aren't I impressive for my page design today?

Births, Weddings, Hockey Games, Highschool Aquaintances, and Pew Acrobatics

So, here's the latest and greatest news. I went for Chinese food for lunch today with the Pastor and his wife and a few others. Brian was in town yesterday, but left early this morning for Edmonton because his sister, Monique (Joe Chan's wife) just had a baby boy last night.
In other news, my cousin Dara is now engaged to be married on August 11 down in the Lower Mainland. Let's not forget that my another cousin on the other side of the family, Rachel (Zac's sister) is getting married down in Abbotsford on May 26th.
Hmm, what else? My parents watched the Yukon Team take on Quebec last night for the Canada Winter Games and put up a really good fight for such a tiny Territory (population-wise). And it turns out that their coach was a childhood friend of mine that actually got me into playing hockey back when I was in Grade 7. I often wondered what had happened to Mike Young. It turns out that a lot of my peers from my youth are back in Whitehorse now. I heard from Sara (my grade 12 grad partner) this last week too, and it turns out she is back there as well. Everyone has careers now of course, and a lot of them own their own homes up there too.
Anh is still down in California for a couple more days.
My electric guitar is still keeping me company. I played it again in church this morning. We did a bit of a more rocking song at the very end of the service (My Glorious), but I tried to tone it down (which really shouldn't be done!). I just switched to a different pickup and lowered the volume but we ended up making the song too draggy(my fault). [portion edited out] I am trying to be sensitive to the variety of musical tastes (I even did 2 hymns today). Everyone has to accommodate musical styles that may not be their own first preference but I'm hoping most people can identify with some part of the music when they are worshiping. No one can get what they want all the time (some people think they should) but hopefully we can touch on the variety of music that is represented by the vastly different musical tastes found in our town...otherwise we will be stuck with a dieing church, or a bunch of people that are all exactly the same.

My Girlfriend is SO cool!

Ok, so, as some of you know. Anh is down in California this week. She is visiting Thuy(Too-ee) and the rest of her cousins there. Anyways, you need to know that today Anh went to Disneyland. The cool part is that she got in for free and do you want to know why? Thuy is friends with Mike, who is Mulan's cousin! Here is Thuy, Mike and Anh:















Can you believe that. Anh got let in free because she was a VIP guest of Mulan!
Yep, that's right, Anh knows her:

Why bother going out in public?

I am still on my new-guitar honeymoon. I will come back to the world again some day.

I shouldn't go out in Public

Thankyou to everyone who shared some first time experience. I really enjoyed having this discussion. I have decided to move on by introducing the first time I wanted to buy an electric guitar really really bad-which would happen to be yesterday.

So, I have desired to own an electric guitar for quite a few years now and that desire has increased in intensity over recent years with the largest increase being in recent months and now a huge spike being in recent days. While I was in an undisclosed Urban City the last couple of days, I decided to start researching in a physical way what I had been narrowing down through online study. Yesterday I actually went to guitar stores and tried out different guitars with what I was looking for as far as tone and range of sound in mind. I fell upon one of this guitar and now I can't get this picture out of my mind. I think I am falling in love. It seems that John 5 knew exactly the type of guitar I needed and designed it for me. Who knew that I would have guitar needs similar to the guitarist for metal band, Marylin Manson and country singer, KD Lang. Well, it makes sense because I was also trying to design a guitar that is so versatile in sound styles and tones. Anyways, notice the Fender Telecaster body with a Humbucker by the bridge and the single coil pickup by the neck. That pickup arrangement is what I desired to get the range of sounds I felt I need. It sounds beautiful. Of course this guitar is like a grand, but the one they had at the store was a second-hand one and is on for $675. Wow, a dream guitar for so cheap. Unfortunately, I am a small town assistant pastor and that does not translate as cheap for me. I don't know when I can afford it or how long this deal will be available for. That's why I have told no one which store it is at.
This guitar haunts my dreams.

First Times

I remember possibly the first time driving a vehicle. I may get some of the details wrong but I think that is insignificant. I was helping my dad one day and we were doing yard work probably when I was about 14 or 15. The yard work involved hauling some large things (like dug up stumps) around the yard in the big brown Ford truck. It was really big and quite new; it was a four-door-duley truck with lights all over that lit it up like a Christmas tree in the dark. Anyways, I was told to go get the truck and back it up to a certain area. It seemed like a big deal to me because I was to get in and drive it all alone. I was trusted with this big new beast of a vehicle all on my own. I could ram it into a tree, but I didn't because I was so overly cautious because I didn't want to blow this. Anyways, it was some sort of right of passage for me because I drove a vehicle as the only one in it.
Does anyone want to share any first-time stories that were significant in your lives?

Very inconvenient, Very messy

Why do I always end up sneezing when I eat shredded wheat?

In Revelstoke

I wish I knew how to dlete posts. I posted yesterday's twice, so I was able to delete the text from one but not the entire post. I'm too dumb.
Ok. Goodmorning. And Aparently I posted something this morning, so now I have to say stuff so that it isn't an empty post again. I am a slave to my own computer stupidity.

Kelowna

I sampled the McCain's Frozen pizzas and I would say they are no match for the (I think) cheaper Deliscio pizzas. Anyways, this was on sale locally here so I had bought and ate one last night. I think the meats involved gave me terrible spicey gas. There's some info for ya. On another note, I will likely not to keep up with me new resolution with blogging regularly because I am leaving in a few minutes for District Prayer Retreat in Kelowna and I won't be back till friday night. I hope the internet will function OK without me... or perhaps it will just cease to exist. Hmm, I don't know.. that is deep.
Ok, have a lovely week everyone.
Do I need shorts, tank tops and flip flops if I am going to Kelowna?

Mechanics

My Senior Pastor, Ted, used to be a mechanic. Well, he has been a lot of things but that is not my point. I kind of wish he still was a mechanic, because I know for sure I would take my car to him, but now I can't too much because that would be taking advantage. But, I sure wish there were more known reliable mechanics out there. And by reliable, I mean "someone I can trust has my best interest at heart when he recommends what I should do with my car, and not someone that would cause me to sacrifice eating for the next six months because the twizzlestick needs rotating" Some people like to pay mechanics too much for fixing their cars because their pride tells them that they make enough money to not put up a fuss when someone covered in grease tells them how much to pay. I have no such pride. I make sure that they know that I barely make enough money to eat and pay for gas and I would rather put off any work that will not directly prevent my car from exploding in the very near future. So, when they say that I should consider getting something done I respond by saying, "Thanks, I'm saving up for that. I might be able to afford it later this year...if I'm lucky". Then I watch their response and judge what I should do accordingly. If they sincerely look scared for me, I should actually consider getting it done later that year. If they try to get me to sign up for their own in-garage credit card, I know they weren't trying to save my car, and they just want all the pennies I will ever make, a pound of my flesh, and ownership of my children someday.
It's sad that I'm not a real man and I can't fix things myself, or know what they are worth, such as cars, laptops, guitar amps. Instead, I try to take these items to honest tradesmen. I'm just not sure which ones are the honest ones and I have to learn the hard way or let my things die. (That is what is happening to my laptop; there is no way I will ever pay a crook over $200 to open it up again...I don't care how much my screen flickers at me and flashes vertical lines, I'd rather go blind first!!!! Bitter Much? Heck Ya I am!!!)

Where to go with this...

Hi, I'm back and it has been over a month since my last entry. I have a problem. I am always second-guessing what I ought to write about. What themes should I stick to? What should be the feel of this space? Do I go for the recording of my deeper ponderings? Do I stick to mundane everyday life details? Do I talk about things that can be easily turned to humor? I really don't know. Without an outline or context, or goal or vision, I am sooooo lost in any part of life and I hold back completely. Soo, for a short time, this space will be about anything. Or if I am going to be about something, I can make it about regularity. The fear then is that absolutlely no one will read it and it might not feel worth it... but then I can blog for more selfish reasons. I guess that is the fear that holds me back; the fear that most of what I may write will be too boring for people, including myself. Friiiiiig, I've bored myself already. I want to go drink some water.

Make them feel like they earned their commission

I'm pretty sure that I could never work at a job that paid commission. I don't like people thinking that I'm helping them for what I might gain out of it finiancially. That is also why I hated being a waiter. I hated the idea of being tipped. The customer's satisfaction really was my reward and the tip made me feel cheap and stripped me of any good feelings. I believe i have talked about this all before... but I have a new idea.
I thought of a sport to enhance my enjoyment of shopping. I will try to make store employees feel that they are helping me in much more meaningful ways. For instance, I will allow them to solve deep or serious issues in my life of the sort that are usually reserved for mental health professionals, counsellors, philosophers, pastors, and theologians.
For example:
I walk into the Gap and say: "I am struggling with the meaninglessness of my life. Can you reccomend a pair of jeans that would help me discover meaning, or perhaps distract me from my realization?"
Or, walk into a ski-shop and say "I need a pair of goggles that will help me to get over poor self-esteem issues and make me feel that I am really valuable. I need other people to govern my self-worth, so if they tell me I am cool, I might believe it. Which pair will cause people to tell me I am cool?" If this seems to be going well, I can get more specific and perhaps taunt a bit:
"Now, I believe you that these goggles will make me cool, but I don't want to be too cool in the sense that people will see me as unapproachable and better than all of them, because I wouldn't be able to handle that kind of loneliness." or "I am also concerned about girls throwing themselves at me if I look too cool becasue I am unsure how I would handle that kind of temptation. Can you reccomend something that will avoid that dangerous problem while still fixing my self-esteem issues?"
Ok, you get the idea. Have fun with it yourself. I don't want to overdue it here because I fear I am already boring you, (and my self-esteem can't handle the rejection of you not reading my whole blog and therefore not commenting).

An update

Well, it seems that I still have computer problems but the level has now been adjusted from "major" to "annoying". I finally got my video drivers to work again. Now it is merely the hardware problem that started all these shinanigans. There are constant flickering vertical lines all over my screen. My eyes get sore really easy now and the picture doesn't look so good, but at least my icons are back to normal size and the computer is at least usable now.
What else is new? Well, Christmas season has started. My birthday was last monday. Thanks for all the "Happy Birthday" wishes. It is much appreciated seeing as this was my "champagne birthday" (meaning that I turned 27 on the 27th of the month). I had a wonderful time with Anh at noon on the 27th as she took me to the Pizza Hut Lunch Buffet. I loved every minute of it.
I also went to the AUC-NUC Christmas Concert. It was quite fun. Here's a picture or two that we took during the intermission... ok, maybe like 3.

Major problems

Sorry, I have not been using my computer much lately (and therefore not blogging) because of major video card/driver problems of some kind. Everything I see is absolutely rediculous and unbearably painful. Isn't this what computers looked like about 25 years ago? Maybe not. There was a couple less colors but it was much clearer what you were reading.
Anyways, hopefully, this can be fixed. Otherwise I will have to survive the rest of my life without a computer. I think that may get me fired though. Nowadays, people get hired based on the technology that comes with that person. I hope that wasn't the case with me. OK bye.

What was once lost...

So, last weekend I had a day off. I read the book, "Voyage to Venus" (Perelandra). I really got into it this time. I think I read it once over 10 years ago. I've heard that it has similar ideas in it to Lewis' commentary on Milton's Paradise Lost. Pathetically, I have not yet read Paradise Lost but it is these themes that got me really thinking this week. It got me thinking so much that I have now changed my passage and sermon topic for this Sunday. (Ted is gone this week for his ordination interview and I am left to do church this week). Anyways, is it wrong to change my sermon for this reason? I wasn't so excited about what I was going to preach on, but I had hardly started the work for before. It was going to be on the faith of the Centurion in Matthew 8. I had shortly discussed that one with Ted a couple weeks ago and he seemed happy with it. Anyways, I don't think he'll care much that I changed it, but what is a good reason for changing topics? I wanted to study what I am presently interested in. Perhaps that is wrong. I was interested in the other passage a couple weeks ago, but not as much as I now am in this one. Oh, by the way, this one I am preaching out of Romans 5:18-21. This talks about how everything got mucked up starting with the disobedience of one man, Adam, and then how the the obedience of another man, Jesus, gets us out of it. We can be under the one or the other. What draws me to this passage this time is a few things I think. 1)I get to preach about the gospel specifically 2)It deals with issues that stretch from the beginning of creation, through now, and into the future/return 3) I get to dwell in this story that I have gotten into lately about how the world was made so good at first but we somehow defiled it. Perelandra helped me understand just how tragic that first mucking up was and made me get into a part of the story of our world that I had not really cared too much about before. I mean, I always already knew whenever I read about the Garden of Eden that it doesn't last and it is ruined and it is all lost. Ya, I deal with it before I even get to that part. I'm not horrified with that part of the story because that is the only reality that me and everyone else I know has known for the last thousands and thousands of years. We've gotten pretty used to it by now. I can't read that without seeing it in the context that it's gonna all be solved by Christ anyways. So, what I am saying about Perelandra is that it helped me get into the tragedy of that part of our story. It made me long for what could have been. It made me imagine a perfect world without sin, and no separation from God. All of nature and humanity living in harmony. (Really, for once, I can imagine that in a way where it seems cool and exciting and not boring) People are real and they don't rebel against God and they live in a unique position of looking after the world under their care that is also not spoiled by any act of rebellion. I can't know exactly what that would have looked like... no killing by anyone or anything, no death etc. Anyways, that was all lost. It was spoiled, ruined, defiled. We thought there was something better than trusting God and now we have learned from experience that there isn't. Sometimes experience is not the best source of knowledge. In the case of sin, experience ruins knowledge and confuses almost beyond repair. In Perelandra, the character, Dr Ransom uses the analogy that sinning to learn about evil is like trying to study sleeping patterns by going to sleep. (Something like that, I'll have to search for that part.)
Well, once I could appreciate what was actually lost (to some small imaginitive degree), I think it helps to see more fully what God has done to fix the problem. It was no half-conceived experiment to save us through incarnation. Here is the turning point for all of humanity. Christ's obedience replaces Adam's disobediance, and guess what? It can be applied to us in the same way. The actions for one man can be applied to us. This gift works for all of humanity. We have all already chosen to align ourselves with Adam's sin. When Adam sinned, so did we. And, we have continued to sin. Our world is so muddled, messed up, confused, cut-off, lost by this sin, we can barely even figure out which way is up and what the difference is between straight and bent. I think we can alot of times admit that things have been lost and we got it wrong, if we are really honest with ourselves. I'll admit that sin and its effects of messed me up and confused me so much that I don't even know what the right, the good, the pure even look like. I'm trying to learn, through the renewing of my mind, by the power of the Holy Spirit, but there is alot that has been messed with since this whole sin thing started thousands and thousands of years ago.
So, where are we now? Things have been fixed, through the biggest scandal in the history of the universe. God takes on full humanity in the very stinking, messed up, rotten middle of it and says that He made it good. He talks about the Kingdom of Heaven and what it is like. He points out what it is like and what that things are near to it. Jesus shows us how to live like we are apart of that kingdom even though we look around us and see that we are still in the middle of this world we already destroyed. But, what? It still works? We can live for God's kingdom before Christ returns and fully sets everything fully right again. He has started with those of us who are willing to have His obedience apply for us in a way that says we never sinned in the first place? We walk around as The Undefiled in the middle of this world that we ourselves remember defiling? So now we go about reconciling this world that God, through Jesus, decided to reconcile back to himself. We get to work that out. We are reconciled to God by the work of Christ on the cross; now we get to be there and involved as we see Him continue to reconcile others and our world back to him. He's doing it, and he will finish it. Soon, EVERYTHING that was lost, will be regained. I'm not smart enough to deal with the "what ifs". Only God really knows. Would we have still gotten the human visit from God if we hadn't blown it all and needed him to fix it for us? Who knows? Maybe I should write a Sci-Fi novel about how God became incarnate in a world that never rebelled against Him, and how much better and cooler that whole thing went. It worked out pretty well for us though, in the real world, despite how shameful our actions have been toward him in our defiled world, and he visited us anyways. What a brick that guy is. (I hope that was proper usage of that early 1900s british slang) I think it means "a great chap".
hmmm, sorry, I think I ruined my train of thought with my "brick" usage. that's ok. I was too scared to talk about what the future holds anyways. I'm not studied enough to talk much about it.
Well, writing a blog about this stuff was fun enough. The problem is, how do I write a sermon about this...before sunday?

Arrived at Last!!!!

I'd been nagging the women at the post office every business day, asking them if my package from Grand Prairie had arrived yet. They assured me that I would get a card in my box when it did. Well, this morning there was a message on the church answering machine, letting me know that my package had arrived. My Matthew A. Wilkinson CDs finally arrived today. I love these CDs so much. All three are stylistically quite different (one is country sort of, one is instrumental ambient sort of, and the other is umm, standard Matthew Wilkinson stylings which is all sorts of cool sounding songs). Anyways, check out his website and really check out his music for yourself. This guy really inspires and motivates me to write my own songs. He has basically dedicated the majority of his time to writing and recording, and finishing songs, and it is really coming together now. He is a real veteran at songwriting by now even though he is so young... well, check out his site for yourself:
http://www.matthewawilkinson.com/