TREVOR'S WRITING

I started taking guitar lessons a few weeks ago. I have been playing guitar for like 7 years, but after learning the basics 7 years ago I have never taken the time to practice, so I decided now was the time to learn some new stuff (plus Nicky gave me the time as a Christmas present...woohoo!). So, I walk in to my first lesson in this tiny little studio and there is a young guy (maybe about 19-20) with long greasy hair, he is sitting there with his black electric guitar (with whiteout all over it and a few band stickers). He just kind of says hi and then plays a quick little solo (about 5 notes) on his guitar. His guitar is not plugged in so you can barely hear it. He says, "so today we basically (6 note solo) need to find out (8 note solo) where you are at (25 note solo)." So I start to tell him a little bit about where I am at, I show him a little on my guitar. He sits and listens, seeming antsy, when I am done, he plays a little solo on his guitar, and says, "OK...

What a great way to do a concert! I really enjoyed going to see U2 at the IMAX. I have never really enjoyed a concert as much as I did doing it this way. You totally felt like you were there, the sound quality was amazing the 3d made you feel like you could touch Bono and the crowd was lovin' it. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that basically all the concerts I go to I am going with a group of people that are at least 17 years younger then me, and apparently music has changed a little over the last 17 years. U2 would probably rank as my favourite (if I really had to choose) and I liked that they were trying to say something in the concert. One of the major themes was "Coexist." The "C" being the Islamic symbol of a moon, the "X" being Judaisms star of David and the "T" being the Christian symbol of a cross. Bono at one point sang the following lines: Some graphitti was written up on a wall not too far from here It says coexist Jesu...

I did a little illusion in church on March 2nd, it created quite a stir, so I thought I would video tape it and show it to you here. The "child volunteer" is Mike Kiewitt, adult ministries pastor at our church.

I have never been one to really care about my birthday, but this year I felt more celebrated then ever. It was actually quite enjoyable and did my ego well (or maybe not so good...if it was already too big). On Friday night we have our youth program and during my talk I mentioned that my birthday was tomorrow and there was a huge cheer from the crowd (I didn't even think they listened during my talks). Saturday, Nicky and I both got to sleep in because the kids were at my parents, then we went out for breakfast, came back home and had lunch with Nicky's parents who had just returned from Israel...it was so cool to hear what they got to do there, and to sense how much they really enjoyed it. Someday I want to go there myself! They left me a very awesome present, then I got to have a nap before we went out for supper. Having a sleep-in and a nap in the same day...that is like my ideal day! Then we went out to dinner and a movie with our friends Colin and Jodene (it was Jod...

This is the coverpage of the Free Press a while back: This whole thing bothered me quite a bit and so I wrote a letter to the editor that went like this: Dear Editor When do we care about the homeless? When they make us feel uncomfortable, or guilty. When do we decide that we should do something about the situation? When we realize they are costing us money. This is a sad reality of our culture. We are not concerned that there are 38 people who obviously are in a very rough situation, who really need our help…we care that they are costing us. By presenting the story the way it was on the cover of the Winnipeg Free Press, you are perpetuating this societal reality. The result of the cover is that people will be angry with the homeless people who are burdening us taxpayers. The reality is that we as a society have failed these people. We have not provided them with the support they need to beat their addictions. We have not distributed our resources in a way that helps them. I know that ...

Not only will it be my 34th birthday making me feel old, but I also had the experience of feeling old this weekend at YouthQuake at Briercrest. They always bring in some great bands, and the bands they brought in this time were some of our groups favourites. Family Force 5 and Disciple . They were so pumped! I have listened to their music a little, but when it came time for the concert and the music started pumping out of the mass of speakers so loud that my pants shook because of the subwoofers, my head immediately began to ache and I kind of laughed to myself. The antics on stage were sort of comical to me. I got in there in the mosh pit and had a good time, but the thing that made me realize that I was getting old was that I really don't like the music that youth like anymore (sorry to any of my YQ friends that are reading this)! That doesn't really bother me though, I really appreciated that they were having a good time, so I did too. Here is a video of some of it (mostly...

I just started reading this book called The Truth about Social Justice. I think it is going to be amazing. The author talks about how we should advocate for people who are poor or on the margins of society, because they often don't have people looking out for them. This could perhaps include political advocacy, but could also include personal advocacy. Here is an example that came to mind for me: If I had a son, who got addicted to drugs (I hope this does not happen, but it is not out of the realm of possibility given what kind of Father he has to live with). I would do my best to love him (probably with some tough love, and with some soft love) I would fight for him, I would strongly encourage him to quit, and I would do what I could to help him. If he decided he wanted to quit, I would probably help him out, probably paying for and supporting him in the time he needed in Rehab and whatever else he needed. The problem is, that there are many people out there who do not have ...

I was looking for some pictures and came across these ones instead. ht: Jon Enns

A few weeks ago I decided to go to a downtown Winnipeg mission for lunch to try and understand what that is like and to get to know some people down there. I wrote a sort of journal entry that I wanted to share with all of you, here it is: Just came back from am inner-city mission where I went “undercover” for a while. This morning during my morning prayer and reading time I decided that I should go there and pose as a customer in need of food and just sit around and visit with people. This morning, I went outside, shoveled the driveway (big snow storm last night), got dressed in an old jacket and some older jeans, drove the boys to school, went to church, looked after a few emails, and took care of some other business and went to the downtown library to do some work on some talks I needed to prepare. All morning I was trying to talk myself out of going, so I had built in a little accountability. I told Nicky that I was going to do this, then at the office, I told Pastor Ron that I w...

I was pointed to an interesting discussion by one of the youth in my Church (thanks Dustin)between a bunch of young people discussing whether God or Science is the answer. The discussion can be found here (if you have a Facebook account), but I will warn you there are 96 posts at the time I am publishing this. There are so many interesting comments, but I wanted to share with you a little of what happened. This was the discussion starter: i wondered...is science wrong???or is god wrong???i believe in god, but what i'm wondering, is that how come that science is more believable than god? whats the difference? (have pity i'm 14 years old) science was created by mankind... so how come mankind isn't wrong?we've been wrong before... tons of times hell we may even be wrong about everything...haha just realized science made computers...but still... we think the big bang made everything, and it did...it also made godBTW!!! god didn't make mankind... if you've been to c...

I preached at my church on Sunday. A couple people have asked about getting the mp3 of it...so here it is. DOWNLOAD FILE (just click on Request Download Link, then click on Download File) Basically I preached what I blogged here .

A friend of mine recently put up this great blog. It is a conversation between an adult and a youth. It totally captures the generation gap that I see quite often. Check it out here .

Owen, our 2 year old son, was singing a song the other day, that I was not able to recognize for the first while (he is 2 after all - and makes up most of the lyrics), but I really cracked up when he got to the chorus. All I could hear was, "hmmm, hmm, la, la, la, pa rumble bum bum ." Fart jokes are always funny right?

Lately God has been tugging at my heart and challenging me to make my faith more alive, by loving people. He has specifically challenged me to be more aware of poverty in Winnipeg, he has also been challenging me to do something about it. As I have shared this with people, many have responded and said that they have been receiving a similar challenge from God and I truly believe that God is at work in our Church and that he wants us to respond to the needs that we see (or that we ignore) everyday. This will be a long post, but I wanted to be more specific about how God has been challenging me… This summer, a hand injury gave me a chance to spend more specific time with God, and during that time God began to challenge me with very heavy (not easy) stuff for me. Over the last few years I have often felt the need to challenge our church to be more of a help to people who live in poverty…I often felt that our church has been blessed with many financial blessings and that we could be doin...

We had a party at our place the other night for the volunteers that I work with. It is always a great time when we get together, but this time was a particularly good one for me. It wasn't that we did something special or had an amazing time it is just that I realized how much I appreciate the people who volunteer their time to work with me. I realize that this is not an easy endeavor (working with me can't be!), I also realize that they sacrifice a lot in order to give to the young people in our church. They also take the time to connect with our kids and that really means a lot to me. I really appreciate the way they encourage me and even hold me accountable on stuff. The people I work with are just great people who care, and are fun to be around. How can I express my appreciation? Word's do not come easily, but emotion does. Thank you to all of you: Matt and Andie Graham Danae Jason and Pamela Jeff Andrea Quinn Lyla Chi Jordan Phil Tanis Wes and Ashley Andre and R...

I, with the help of my friend Stephen (thanks Stephen), was moving my desk to the other corner in my office - to make it more homey :). I had my computer on the desk and a bunch of other stuff. In the process I knocked over a small computer speaker (weighing about 1/8 of a pound), it fell about 3 inches, landed on the side of a Pepsi can. I hear a loud POP! almost like a gunshot, and all of the sudden there is Pepsi everywhere. Because of this experience I have come to the conclusion that PEPSI SUCKS...for two reasons: The taste is terrible - if it actually tasted good it wouldn't have been sitting on my desk in the first place, it would be in my belly. Somebody left this can on my desk months ago, and I haven't taken the time to drink it. Obviously the quality of their cans leaves something to be desired - I know let's put something that can dissolve a nail in a month, put it under pressure in a thin aluminum can...this should be fun

A preacher is speaking on Love and someone's cell phone rings...what follows made me laugh for a long time! Check it out...it's only a minute.

Thursday morning I came into the office to see Debbie sitting at her desk wearing her jacket and gloves. I thought, "I guess she just got here and hasn't taken her jacket off yet." I went into my office, took off my jacket and realized that she had it on for a reason...it was 12 degrees Celsius in there! That's 53 fahrenheit for my metrically challenged friends. The furnace had quit blowing heat over night and had been blowing -25 degree air into our office area for who knows how long. We sat in that office...wearing gloves at our computers all morning before the furnace was fixed at 12:30. I took a picture of myself just to show you how cold it was.

I met this young lady who works for an inner city organization that works with children. She has been working there for 10 years. She said one thing in particular that really struck me. She said, "I used to think that when I came to the inner city to work with these kids that I would bring Jesus to them, but when I got here and started working with them, I started to realize that Jesus was already here." It struck me because I think that we middle class people (not just Christians) think that we should go into the inner-city and "rescue" people from their situation. We often feel as though we have all the answers and they have everything wrong. Is it possible that it is the other way around? Is it possible that people who live on the streets...those who don't worry about tomorrow, those who are not obsessed with money or material possessions actually have something to teach us? I think so. So in response to the question, "Should I bring Jesus to the po...

I went to a convention in St. Louis a few weeks ago. It was a convention for Youth Workers all over North America. There were 3500 other youth workers there, and it was a blast! I went two years ago, and am still inspired by what I saw, heard and learned there. The best part is just making connections. This year I actually got an email that I wrote to be read in the general session, here's the story: Nicky and I were reading through the information that was given to us at the convention that explained what all the seminars were, there were 12 options for every time slot and it made for difficult decisions on where to go and where not to go. One particular presenter caught my eye, his name was Winfield H. Tutte, here's his bio (as quoted from the National Youth Workers Convention 2007 booklet): H. Winfield Tutte "Windiddy," as he's known to his friends, has a PhD, BVD, DVD and YWAM. He's a world-renowned youth worker, writer, speaker, plumber, gymnast, z...