TREVOR'S WRITING

I am a Christian...I believe in a dude named Jesus and I try to live my life like him...I am also a Pastor, which basically to me means that I get paid to...believe in a dude named Jesus and try to live my life like him. I am increasingly uncomfortable with that idea. I often wonder if it cheapens my christianity, or if it makes who I am unauthentic. I remember when I volunteered to work with young people I would often say things like this to the young people, "I just believe in this so much, I really love you guys, I don't get paid to be here, I do it because I truly care." I can't say that any more. I do believe that I do it because I love it, and I can't imagine doing anything else. I guess I just want to be authentic in my beliefs and in sacrificing for those beliefs...I am not sure how I do that in the situation I am in.

There was a story that caught my attention a little while back in my city. At first I was happy about the story because it isn't often that homeless people are painted in a positive light. Here is an excerpt from the story: Faron Hall, 44, was given a medal of valour by Mayor Sam Katz at a ceremony not far from the riverbank where Hall often sleeps. Hall saw a boy fall into the river last weekend and dove into the chilly, fast-moving water to pull him ashore. Now the man who has been homeless for about seven years has become the talk of the town. I was excited to see that people would see that homeless people have heart, courage and respect for their fellow man. However, when I saw the same thing on the national news a few days later, as the story seemed to take off around the country I began to wonder...is it really that surprising to us? Is it so shocking that people who live on the street care about people? In the time I have spent around homeless people that is the thing t...

We are renovating our upstairs bathroom...so I am going to jackhammer in my basement...makes sense to me. It definitely is something I don't get to do everyday:

I work at a church, I have attended a church my whole life and if I were completely honest I love church (probably a bit of a love/hate). I am scheduled to preach on March 29th and I was thinking about speaking about the church. However, I am not sure that I completely understand what church was intended to be, in fact, I think there are many times when I think that I have completely misunderstood what church is supposed to be about. Sometimes church seems to be misunderstood, sometimes people within the church do not represent it well, sometimes the way it is set up just does not work, sometimes the church does not seem to be at all close to what it should be... I have some thoughts on these questions, but I am more interested in yours. ...but what is church supposed be? What is it that church is supposed to accomplish? What is it that church is doing well? What is it that church is not doing well? Why is it that church is misunderstood? What can be changed about the way it is set u...

Seeing people is at the same time simple and difficult. I remember when I preached a sermon about 1 1/2 years ago. I spoke on the story of the good samaritan and talked about how we should learn from the people we normally look down on (those on the margins - for me...the homeless). I remember that someone talked to me afterward and challenged me on it. He said he knows a lot of people in the inner-city who are not good people at all, in fact they do a lot of evil things. What are we supposed to learn from them? At the time I said that the evil things are not what we are to learn from them, but that we can find some good. I have always felt uneasy about that conversation because I did not think I answered well. At the end of Tim Huff's book, Bent Hope, Steve Bell writes a Benediction. In it he says that Tim has an innate ablility to really see people. Not their problems and tragedies, not their lies, not the external decoys, but truly see who they are and that they are a p...

3 years ago Ben received a prize from his preschool teacher. It was a small bag full of a number of little things. There were little toys and trinkets, but the thing that immediately caught my attention was an unopened pack of Score Football Cards from 1991. I couldn't figure out why the pre-school teacher would be giving these unopened packages of football cards away. I cracked them open to see what was inside, it was a collection mainly of unknown (to me) football players. There was one that caught my attention, it was a Brett Favre rookie card. One of the best quarterbacks to ever play the game! I couldn't believe it. Ben took the other cards and played with them and eventually they were all worn out and in the garbage. But I took Brett Favre and placed him on my bedside table thinking I might have my children's college fund right there. Brett sat there and sat there, through the time I spilled a cup of water all over my bedside table, shoved under whatever I happ...

I have been thinking quite a lot about homelessness (over the last two years especially) and have come to all kinds of conclusions about myself and the things that I (and the church) need to do in order to help people who are in that situation. I have been involved in a few organizations who work with homeless people and met with many people to discuss what I/we should be doing to help. I finally discovered something very important that I can do right now. I am reading t his book called Bent Hope which is a really interesting read. The author is a Youth Worker who works with young people who live on the streets in Toronto. He walks the streets and hangs out with them and helps when he can. He basically just tells the stories of his encounters with people and talks a little bit about what he has learned from them. I am loving it! So, I know what I am supposed to do to help homelessness. In his book, pretty much everyone he encounters he mentions how they come from a family situa...

I got Jesus for President for Christmas and I really enjoyed reading it. Shane Claiborne and Chris Haw really have inspired me to think more creatively when it comes to politics. It was very interesting to read it during the inauguration of Barack Obama and seeing the hope that people put in him. It would seem that a lot of people really look to Obama as a savior of some sort. Of course there are many others who look at him as something much different than a savior as well. This book argues that Christians should not put their hope in any sort of politician or political system but that Jesus really is the only Savior that we can truly put our hope in. Living like Jesus is the way we are political. Christian's started out as being anti-empire when Rome would have nothing to do with them. Everyone was forced to say "Caesar is lord," but this was the time that Christians took their lives into their hands and instead said, "Jesus is Lord!" I think that so ma...

After shaving you go to wipe shaving cream from your hair near the temples and it doesn't come off, because it is grey hair You remember life before computers The computers you first used were measured in kilobytes (Commodore Vic 20) You used to actually "dial" the phone You played Pong when it first came out You love 80s music You used to be able to beat teenagers at most sports, and now you have to cheat to do it You know you are not cool...and you really don't care (in fact you embrace your lack of coolness with bad jokes and purposefully wearing "bad clothes") 5 years seems like a short period of time Your sports heroes who you are sure just came into the league are retiring You are turning 35 today

I have been a youth pastor at Winnipeg Evangelical Free Church now for nearly 5 years.  This means a few things, but one of the things it means to me is that the people who were in Grade 7 (the grade our churches youth ministry starts at) when I came to this Church are now in Grade 12, the poor kids have only had me as a youth pastor.  Apart from feeling sorry for them, I also have a sense of "fatherly(ish?)" pride in who they are as people.   There are ups and downs in being a youth pastor, the ups come when I get to see young people making good choices in their life, the downs come when I see them making choices that have long-lasting negative impacts on their lives.  There are many of each of these. A couple weeks ago was a big up...the youth were in charge of the whole service at our church.  This meant that they ran everything from ushering, to speaking, to singing, to sound and tech stuff.  I know that these young people are talented passionate people, but it really gav...

So I got up yesterday morning and stepped out into the cold. I thought to myself, "boy, it's really cold out here today." I hop in the car and drive to church. My route takes me past the Royal Canadian Mint where they have a screen that shows videos and the time and temperature. I glance at the screen just as the temperature flashes onto the screen. The screen tells me that it is -572 degrees celsius in Winnipeg...I began to be very thankful that my car had started.

This title is a paraphrase of the great theologian and social commentator, former basketball player Chris Webber (I can't remember the exact line but this is pretty close), in the pre-game show of an NBA game today. So true Chris! We often remember (and we should) the stellar contributions to society that people like Martin Luther King have given us.  However, it is so true that a man like Martin Luther King Jr. only exists because of the "significance" of other people, the people that he rightly recognizes in his own immortal "dream" speech: I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of  you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. And some of you have come from areas where your quest -- quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the  veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redem...

I was thinking back a bit on my life...there are many things that I regret, many things I wish would change.  I think about deep things, really crucial things to the survival of my family and my own well-being.  Things like, growing a beard, or driving fast, or watching football, or eating more than I should.   You see I used to grow a beard more or less by accident.  I never shaved more than once a week, and I can pretty much grow a beard in that amount of time.  So, sometimes I would shave, and sometimes I would trim.  Now I shave probably on average about 2-3 times per week, and try to appear somewhat put together on occasion.  I used to drive fast and win any race I was having at any cost (sometimes the cost was quite high).  The other day I was driving next to Nicky and I pulled out to pass her, got to 10 over the speed limit and slowed down because I was worried I might get a ticket.  I feel a bit Granny about that. I used to watch NFL Football on TV no matter what else was going...

I have seen a disturbance in the holy water. People come to the altar to worship, but who are they worshipping. I heard a story recently from another youth pastor (thanks Jon). There was a young boy who decided to become a Christian, and give his life to Jesus. He was very excited to tell people and one of the first he wanted to tell was the worship pastor. He walked up to him and excitedly said, "I gave my life to you today!" The pastor was a little taken aback, "do you mean you gave your life to Jesus today?" "Yeah, that's what I said, I gave my life to you." The worship pastor was a little confused and asked, "son, do you think I am Jesus?" "Well, you are aren't you?" the boy said, "I mean...we sing to you every Sunday." This is a somewhat humorous (although disturbing) misunderstanding. But, I think I have seen this type of confused worship in many ways. Churches grow because people like the preaching, or because t...

Nicky was asking Owen (our 3 year old) a bunch of questions.  He kept answering, "I don know, I don know, I don know."  Finally Nicky said, "well, what DO you know?" Owen's answer was well rounded and thought out... "I know...nothing is impossible with God, I know...how to talk, I know...how to fart." Apparently he knows three very important things.

Our Sr. Pastor mentioned in his sermon a while back that Jesus was 33 when he died.  I guess it struck a real cord with me because I am still thinking about it, I guess the fact that I am 34 has something to do with it.  I wonder at the things he accomplished, things that have had some staying power ( 2.1 Billion people claim to be his follower).   This has stirred me to reflect on my life, what have I accomplished in my 34 years? As I think about that I realize that the things that I pursue as "great things" are not very much like what Jesus considered to be great.  Jesus didn't start any programs, he only spoke to crowds that gathered around him naturally (he didn't do any advertising).  Jesus wasn't a dynamic personality, people were drawn to him because of who he was, not because he was a great leader, or a powerful person.  The only group he formed was a group that just kind of wandered around with him seemingly aimlessly.  He avoided crowds, had a quiet per...

Mac's are cool, PC's are not.  People who own them are also cooler than those who do not.  You can usually tell who is an owner of a Mac before you even ask them.  They probably meet at least 4 of the following 7 criteria: dress a little more on the granola side of things drink organic coffee drive a diesel jetta and may even run it on veggie oil (or a prius, or perhaps ride a vespa) they probably are involved in some sort of social justice cause politically, they lean to the left they are vegetarian very interested in a wide variety of little known musicians I probably fit one of the above criteria, and I don't really think of myself as a "cool" person.  However I did decide to purchase a MacBook.  I am very excited to be typing this post on my new laptop right now. I recently noticed that this series of ads has little to do with the product itself.  Really what these commercials are trying to communicate is, "Mac is cool, PC is not."  This is an attitu...

Mark Oestreicher posted a really great part of a book that he is writing about Middle Schoolers. He and I must be a similar age, because I really identify with this stuff. Makes me feel old when I think about all that has happened in my lifetime. Enjoy the list... scott rubin and i need a little help from you for our middle school ministry book. in the “middle school culture” chapter, we have a list of things that didn’t exist when we were in middle school (well, at least when i was in middle school, in the mid-70s). here’s what we have: - Cell phones - The internet (meaning, websites and buying stuff online and everything else that is so completely normal today) - Text Messages - IM - Hybrid Cars - Social Networking - “Friends with benefits” - “Bi-Curious” - Cable TV - Digital Video Recording (or TiVo) - Mp3s and downloadable music - DVDs - Hi-Def - Satellite Radio - Xboxes and Wiis and other amazing gaming systems (“Pong” was introduced when I, Marko, was a young teen, and “Space ...

Over the last few years I have been really thinking about the church, is it what God wants it to be? What is it that should change? What is it that should not change? As I have done this I have explored the concepts that emergent village explores, reading books by Brian McLaren, Tony Jones, and others. A lot of what they have to say, really connects with me, but I have always been left with a feeling of uneasiness in many ways. I have kept reading them and enjoying their thoughts, but lately I have become more and more int erested in the church/christian concept that is called Missional. Over the last few years I have heard missional talked about quite a bit, and have often wondered what it meant, but never took the time to really look into it. A few months back I decided to check out some definitions. When I clicked on friends of missional I was really blown away! The definition of a missional community fit so well with the thoughts that I have had about the church lately. Thi...

About a year ago, I read Irresistible Revolution by Shane Claiborne and I remember being so overwhelmed with all the things I felt I needed to change in my life. At that point I made a decision to take one thing from each book that I read. I couldn't handle more than that. A few weeks back I finished reading Ronald Sider's book, Rich Christians in an Age of Poverty . I once again could have been overwhelmed, but I decided to take one thing, (I might cheat and take a few) here is the thing I am taking from this book. Sider talks a lot about living more simply and giving more to help the poor (especially giving to micro loan organizations), he mentions in his book that he thinks that most of the people reading the book could go 2 years without buying new clothes. I have decided to take the challenge (many people I know, especially the youth from my church, are thinking - hasn't he done that the last 15 years already?). Regardless, here are the items in my closet that I a...