the RempelFriesen Tartan

well here it is...

anybody out there wanna sew me up one of these. Maybe I'll throw one on my schnauzer.

New Grey

sample the new stuff at:
http://www.davidgray.com/home.html

out

things fat people should not do...

buy a suit...
so you put this 4 foot by 4 foot frame inside basically any style of suit and turn around in the mirror and you ask the sales man as sincerely as you can, "Is this made by Coleman?" It's a legitimate question because after staring at your slef in the mirror for a mere 2.3817164 second you are convinced that you are wearing a tent. You are about to ask how many people it 'sleeps' - when he tells you, "No, that is just the way it hangs."
then you try on the pants. Now apparently people who normally wear the same size suit jacket as you just had on - have about 3 miles longer legs than you do. And now we find out where the dicky do really comes from as well. Apparently one is supposed to wear your dress pant two fingers below your navel.
Well I've got two fingers neither of which the saleman wants to see. But if i wear the pants under my belly (like i do my jeans) then the crotch of the pants meet at my knees. Even when I do pull them up to under my navel (which you have to recognize is only 2" below my arm pits) I only have a 23.5 inch inseam. This all combines flawlessly so that when you have both pieces on you end up looking more or less like a giant penguin. Kinda like the King Kong of penguins...
So why did you buy a suit?
Wedding.
out

Robertson

check out the August 24th videos (should be available soon) on Pat Robertson's comments. Someone commenting yesterday said, "you in Britain they woul dhave expelled Islamic clerics with similar statements.
here is the link: http://www.comedycentral.com/shows/the_daily_show/index.jhtml
This is my fav show I alsways stay up to watch it...
out

wacky

anybody out there still remember these scenes?!?

black as...

all right so what do you call that last one - - webrage? who knows? Everything is so simple when you are ticked off.
Actually this little ditty ties up a few loose ends:

- Thom S. Rainer (Dean of the Billy Graham School of Missions, Evangelism and Church Growth) wrote a book. It is a text for one of my courses this year. Hold on to your hats here is the title.

SURPRIZING INSIGHTS from the UNCHURCHED

and Proven Ways to Reach Them

Any takers on reading it next. Brilliant insight on many things including what leaders should look like in the church. In fact he gives us a comparison between 'effective' leaders and a 'comparison' group. He breaks down the 168 hour work week and shows what effective leaders spend thier time doing and what the others do. Now after giving us the statisitacl break down in chart form he goes on to evaluate the data and I quote: "Not the significant differences between the two groups: - Leaders of effective churches sleep slightly over six hours per day; other church leaders sleepalmost eight hours per day."

So now we all know what it takes...

Ryan you are leaving me. Please don't make me scold you. A few tips to success. Buy better coffee! drink better coffee! and drink it black. From time to time we all buy a pound of Fo%*#%^!'s ("Folger's" come on these accusations of my reckless abandon as a blogger have got to stop) coffee. Of course eventually we think better of it. Cause we all know that bad coffee leads to hazelnut confectionary products which originate in the fermented carcasses of prehistoric beings trapped between layers of igneous rock thousand of feet below the surface of earth. So sing the song with me as you travel into the promised land of coffee lovers (VAN/SEATTLE) "oh be careful little mouth what you drink!" repeat daily or as needed.

Good to see Sterling taking a shot - there's a candidate for a blog. I know I'd read it!

out

so take off then!

discovered that someone else has decided to 'jump ship' from our congregation...
I love it!!
Someone else who ‘gets it’ about church and their gone. Had enough of the dish we were serving up and found something better somewhere else! Gorgeous! I love it! Why does this just keep happening – people who could make appositive contribution to the future and current function of our church are just deciding to leave.
Abdicate responsibilities.
Find a different church.
Disengage!
Beautiful!
I can’t think of something more selfish!
Honestly.
And what about the church and it’s leadership – can they not see that these people have given the church an honest shot (sort of) and still want keep their heads firmly planted in their nether regions.
We have told the world that it’s hope is in the local church and then we behave like this!
Perfect!
It makes me want to throw a noose around my neck and yank.
I spend 12 years coaxing, cajoling, coddling, chastising, and yes sometimes even lying to students about the importance of belong to the local body. And then WHAMMO in one fell swoop I look like a liar. But do we care about what kind of church is left for our children to pick up when we are gone. Oh wait let me see it goes something like this:
1. Find a church you like and go there
Till another one looks more interesting
2. Make sure you go to a church where you can get fed
Right so that what? You get more knowledge to get what? Hmmm
Anybody heard of service or servanthood?
3. Don’t get too attached to the people who you spend a few years with in the church cause that will only make it hard to leave when something ‘cooler’ comes along.
Yeah that’s right and it also means you don’t really need to be accountable to anyone either.
4. What ever you do don’t become members or in any other way tie yourself to the function of the church
This only leads to awkward visits from the pastor – and letter yeah letters…
5. Oh yeah find a church that has enough things wrong with it that you’ll have a good excuse to leave when you need to.
6. And another thing sacrifice and church do not go together.
And basically the role of leadership in any given church is to facilitate this as much as possible. By being rigid and redundant; ignorant and self absorbed!
And look leadership - if I’m to blame – Fire Me! Now! Please!
Otherwise lead – for God’s sake lead.
out

:: heaven ::

last night's discussion with friends about the nature of heaven rekindled a recent fettish with the place/concept. Lately another discussion thread has centered around hope. And unless i am completely off base i think most of us see heaven as climax of hope. But what of our concepts of heaven - what do we believe about it? Here are some of the questions that I think bear considering.
Where is heaven? Is it somewhere above us figuratively or literally? In what dimension of reality does it exist? Physical? Spiritual? Other?
What is the nature of heaven? Is it a destiny to be enjoyed and hoped for? Is there struggle in heaven? How does the problem of human finiteness and freedom factor into heavens design?
Why does it seem that when most people describe heaven it invariably reflects some sort of selfish fulfillment of pleasure or goodness?
Why does so much teaching on heaven leave it seeming so bland and boring?
Yeah so that's my mini quest for the week - it also happens to be my assignment for the week in my seminary studies.
I'll up date you as to wht i am processing
out

names withheld to protect the innocent

okay so here are the senarios two of them similar yet distinct: what do you think should happen in each case...
1. non-believing friend approaches you for a ride to the nearest big city to get an abortion. you are pretty close to her and she knows your beliefs about abortion. if you take her to the city are you an accomplice to murder or are you one of the only people she trusts and is able to provide her with continued support. do make a point of identifying your convictions about abortion and refuse to take her or by taking her do you have another chance to talk to her and help her sort out her life and this issue.
2. man and woman start attending your Bible study group. they both come from nasty divorces. the man is a christian when he starts attending but you lead the woman to Christ through the influence of your B.S. group. they fall in love. want to get married. ask your pastor to marry them. One couple is very supportive of thier choice to get married but you and your spouse have a clear understanding about what the Bible says about divorce and remarriage - not permitted. so do you attend the wedding or not? if you do what does this say about your convictions? if you don't what does this say about your love?
hmmm...

a funeral

so i go to this funeral
she struggled for three years with weird blood disorder and then dies in her sleep.
okay fair enough - - she gets to fight through three years of suffering and takes it all on the chin. Every one who comes to the mic for an hour and half after her internment talks about her ability to face life with joy. Definately cool! But to be honest for me I'm not sure what funerals are all about. Is it some final closing ceremony? so that us blithering humans can finally get it through our head that the person is gone? have we manufactured these ceremonies so that we can somehow hold on selfishly to the one who is departed? what do we hope to accomplish with these end of life rituals? honor? how is it honor to say awesome things about a person who is gone? are we pretending that we are going to assimilate some of the deceased persons qualities? in the end aren't these things just a stark reality of the end we all face?
So here it is what i want when i die
don' t have no stupid preacher get up and try to convert all my unsaved aquaintences. don't sing a bunch of fanciful songs that ring so hollow in the face of sorrow. screw the pomp and circumstance.
when i die teach yourselves all a lesson
your day is coming too
so throw on the music that makes you shiver, and cry, and dance, and laugh, and scream and if you wail wail for your own freaked out fear of this unknown door that awaits us all.
The irish have got something with thier concept of a wake...
somehow a party at someone's apssing seems more appropriate - - but then again maybe thats all funerals really are - - convoluted funerals.
and whatever you do don't go making no damn excuses about how my passsing is somehow screwed up your life. get on with it.
of course if our destiny was some cardboard cut out robotic musical - like we've been taught in Sunday school - maybe there'd be something to be sad about. and of course it's not like you can make heaven into whatever you want it to be.
so good on you ella that you got to go in your sleep and all. and good on eyou that you fought that cursed disease as long as you could. and good on you for smiling through it all. and thanks for reminding me to get on with my life while i've got it.
peace out

gettin pounded at the pound

so i took a trip past my birthplace - - Swift Current - - to a little spot just north east of Moose Jaw. Buffalo Pound is a provincial park and the contrast could not have been different than the previous weekend. At Wasa Lake in BC - - we roasted with day time temps around 35.
Nope apparently the middle of August in middle of the prairies is dang near the closest thing you can get to the Arctic.
that is when camping turns from relaxation to all out work.
it was awesome to spend some time with my brother who i hadn't seen for a year.
something came out of the weekend. A franklin's ground squirrel lost it's life in a tragic murder in our campsite. we'll spare the naturalists the details. so should there be guilt attached to my association with this murder? I don't know? help me out?




Dale

the slippery slope

well, i've seen it too many times...
the honest soul led down the slithering path from regular behaviour to something else
one goes from drinking coffee (black) to the blithering abyss of Edible Oil Product enhanced beverages

from camping which preferrably happens with a tent or tarp to canvas heater boxes known fondly as tent trailers to these mobile satelite recieving stations with built in jacuzzi's on wheels.

we move from hymnals to overheads to powerpoint - to ahhhh they are imprinting the rock and roll lyrics on my retinas.

you can see it's all caving in

so where do you draw the line
where do you finally stand up and say the eighties ROCKED!
I know where Bono lives
I drive a gas guzzling ASTRO
I wipe my bottom with paper
I refuse to cave in
But then again maybe caving in is abou the only way to get to Jesus
I don't know?
and by the way i know that the fact that gil has a blog was an intentional ploy to get me to get one. Call me a sucker!
out.