Oh Canada?!

Indulge me for a moment to comment of the political shenanigans transpiring in our nation's capital. I am not, as it is likely no surprise, particularly worried or bothered by the prospect of a coalition government. But that has less to do with how my ideological bent informs my political desires than it does with the dilemma presented by this form of government. I am also mystified by how media buffoonery has allowed the political rhetoric to once again reflect the contrived notion of partisanship.

That a coalition might be supported/enabled by the Bloc should not concern us in the ways it has in public discourse thus far. The Bloc is a separatist party whose intention is to see Quebec achieve the status of nation. If we are to follow the information given to us by Ipsos Reid and other polling organizations we would do well to note that voters who have sent Bloc members to Ottawa have done so for a myriad of reasons. It is true that Harper had 28% voter share in Quebec before the French debate and after the debate only 18%. The subsequent shift to the Bloc was due to Harpers position on arts funding, etc. Regardless of why they switched it is clear that the spectre of separatist rhetoric was not a direct cause of the shift but the failure of Harpers policies to convince voters to support him. Voters for the Bloc will identify most strongly with many of the more conservative values that the PC's espouse. The point I am trying to make here is that politics makes strange bedfellows. Let's remember that the PC's as it stands right now cannot pass a single piece of legislation without the complicit 'support' of one of the other parties.

Until now this complicity was not seen as a negative light on the PC's regardless if they needed the NDP's or the Bloc. PC's were not seen as compromising their values by being enabled by separatists or socialists. Rex Murphy is right to lay the blame for this crisis at the feet of Stephen Harper's feet for trying to lop off the fundraising power of his rival parties.

What everyone seems to be missing is the clear opportunity that is presented to address the presence of the Bloc as a political force. How can the Bloc truly consider itself a separatist party when it allows itself to become a central cog in the machinery of Canadian governmental system? Why isn't the media jumping all over the Bloc for it flavour of the week political pandering? I think have a feeling that many Quebecers are embarrassed by the childish isolationism and the fickle ideology of a party who would seek to govern them as a future nation. I have a feeling that there are those who are feeling much the way Albertans felt when the separatist rhetoric of the Canadian Alliance clowned its way through the parliamentary system. Alas it seems everyone is too nervous to speak to the blatant inconsistencies that would have a separatist party become part of the government but isn't that sorta what we have already? I mean regionalism is alive and well. We should not be deluded to think that Canadian provinces are or could be viable on their own.

In the end it seems to me that the things we are not talking about is often more interesting than what we are talking about…

secrets and humanity...

WARNING: the contents of this post might push a few boundaries that you may not be prepared to cross.
Tonight, I watched this interview here highlighting Frank Warren's website and subsequent books called POSTSECRET which can be found here.
Frank has invited people to send him thier deepest, darkest, wildest, secrets on a postcard. He recieves a thousand or so each week and posts only 20 on his blog site. If you go there you will see this...

or this...

and even this..

but like I said - there is stuff on his sight that you might find disturbing. And I suppose I have to admit here to at least some level of voyeristic inclination into other people's thoughts and realities. But I am far more intrigued and motivated by what this sight has to say about the human condition. The premise of having a place where the things you choose or dare not say are openly displayed but not quite revealed makes this idea something unique in the its approach to human social, emotional, and mental well being.
A post card is a very small place to encapsulate any idea and as is suggested in the interview it often, I suppose, leaves much more uncovered than it reveals.
Tomorrow, morning I will chew on this as I go for my walk. I'll be thinking about confession, trust, privacy vs. transperancy, and a whole lot more I suspect...

Consulting

So I have been reading Chris Folmsbee’s (president/CEO of SonLife) blog. (I am still waiting to read his book).
His latest post really connected with a number of thoughts I have been chasing in these last few weeks. Check it out:
"I am thinking that in the end, the more glocal (local ministry with comprehensive impact over time is how I am choosing to define this word), contextualized voices we can cultivate and sustain the greater hope we instill and the greater the impact might be."
Being in ministry for as long as I have has not made me an expert in the field by any stretch but it has opened my eyes to a lot to the dynamics of youth ministry. I have seen a lot of stuff that works and stuff that does not. I used to sit regularly with a group of youth pastors (ministerial) and each fall when we would convene our first meeting of the season there would always be a new crop of fresh faces. Youth pastors that had just gotten hired on over summer. And after a while you could to tell which ones would last the year and which ones would be gone by the end of it. It’s sad really but I think I even remember betting on the results one year…
And it’s not just that – I have seen ministries crash and burn repeated. And in my humble opinion the reason has often been because ministry model did not fit the context. (square peg round hole)
Here’s the basic problem:
Ministry Franchising: Whether its willow creek, saddleback, sonlife, YFC, or whatever other stripe you choose there is a tendency to attempt to clone successful ministry models and strategies. Granted: Hybels, Warren, Fields, everyone one of them always say, “Don’t just cut and paste – adapt!” But that advice is rarely listened to. Reason? You just don’t sell the reams and reams of ministry material (books, DVDs, software, etc) by advertising it as something to change. Instead the underlying principle that gets communicated is: If it worked for me it will work for you.
Time: For as much as thoughtful youth leaders want to adapt the material they get – they simply do not have the time or resources to do the work. Almost everything in youth ministry is organized around quick – big results. Basically youth pastors have a year to prove themselves in. On top of that they usually have young families. So the time crunch dictates that they take short cuts. I don’t know a youth leader that doesn’t take short cuts. Curriculum designers know this. They craft their material in bite size chunks so that even if you don’t do any prep at all you can walk into your youth meeting glance at you book and wing it – with success. I’ve done it!
Narrow View: typically I would say youth leaders are only exposed to one or maybe two different types of resources. Their church may be hooked into the Willow network – or they could have a church full of SonLife Coaches – but it is rare to find a ministry that has the advantage of exposure to multiple models/resources. About as rare as it is to find a youth ministry with an adequate budget. So if a person’s exposure is limited one can only expect that the results are going to be skewed in that direction.
So put these factors together and it’s easy to see how ministries often misfit their context. The intentions are good but the results are still lacking. But on top of all that we have people like Mark Yaconelli who comes along and suggests that we need to slow down and be more contemplative. And I think he is right. But in some ways this sorta only adds pressure to the already stressed out youth leader trying to pack ministry into their busy lives. So I have been wondering about a few solutions to this problem but you’ll have to wait till the next post to read about them.

Let me recommend

CBC Radio’s Ideas: The Best of Ideas Podcast
Available as a download here or through iTunes…
A few interesting ideas that are discussed by the three panellists…
-what is the place of charity in tolerance?
-is giving money to someone on the street really a power move that while stemming from what appears to be an act of kindness is possibly more about exerting ones superiority over the person to whom the charitable act is directed?
-in order to tolerate there must be something negative that I must have to tolerate. So instead of the much maligned concept that it is in many evangelical perspectives is tolerance really an act of grace?
-why does it seem that tolerance has come to mean that in order to be tolerant I must deny my own traditions, beliefs and cultural values?
-why does it seem that Christianity has become the area of society that must be tolerant to every other perspective?
I will comment soon on this and more…