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Show me your friends and I'll show you your future! The truth is, we are shaped more by the relationships we choose than by any other thing. That's why around here we often say, "Life change happens best in relationship." But depending on the relationships we choose, they may or may not be bringing out the very best in us. How do we make sure we're investing our best relational energy into the ver...

It's said, You are what you eat. Beyond our diet, our lives are increasingly defined by the content we consume. It's never been easier to scroll, stream, and shop for anything our hearts desire. But how has this affected they way we think about our spiritual lives? Is faith just another product and service to be enjoyed? What if, at our best, our lives are meant to be defined, not by how much we c...

Xunzi, a Confucian scholar who lived 300 years before Jesus, once said, “What I hear, I forget. What I see, I remember. What I do, I understand.” Modern science confirms that humans learn best through active participation and experience. But does this also apply to how we grow spiritually? Can true discipleship happen in an exclusively classroom-style environment, or does Jesus invite us into some...

There's an old joke that asks, "How do you get to Carnegie Hall? Practice. Practice. Practice." The simple truth is that in order to be good at anything, you need to work at it. But there's a huge difference between the kind of practice it takes to play Mozart, and the kind of practice it takes to be a Mozart. Even in our faith, there's a difference between learning how to emulate the behaviours o...

It is said that the opposite of courage is not cowardice, but conformity. Whether you're part of a friendship group, a family, a workplace, or ethnic community, it can feel like you've got to "fit in" to be "in". And too often, the church has behaved in much the same way. If you don't believe exactly what everyone else believes, you've gotta buy into the group think, or go somewhere else. And so w...

Every car has a user manual and every dish has a recipe. Every subject has a textbook, every building has a blueprint, and every IKEA bookshelf has assembly instructions that are undeniably impossible to follow. And every religion too has its own manual or religious text - the Qu'ran, the Bible, the Torah, the Four Vedas, the Gita, etc. But we are not cars or bookshelves. Our lives are impossibly...

We live in a world increasingly defined by camps: the political party we support, the team we cheer for, the brands we're loyal to, whether you're wealthy or working-class, outdoorsy or a homebody, and the list goes on and on. Whichever camp you’re in, the one thing that's clear is that there is, in fact, a camp with clearly defined borders. And this same kind of thinking has crept into the world...

In 1965, a folk band called The Byrds turned the words of Ecclesiastes 3 into an international hit single called, “Turn! Turn! Turn!” To everything, there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven: A time to be born, a time to die. A time to plant, a time to reap. A time to kill, a time to heal. A time to laugh, a time to weep. Perhaps its popularity stems from the universality of the...

An early Sunday morning that changed the course of human history; that is what we celebrate at Easter. There's no weekend more significant in the life of the church, so we invite you to join us for a celebration of the resurrection of Christ and our new life in Him. We'll sing songs of hope, hear stories of faith and transformation, and be challenged to consider how this one event can change every...

Good Friday is an opportunity to reflect, contemplate, and embrace the significance of Jesus's death on the cross. It's a chance to appreciate his loving sacrifice through song, scripture and the Lord's Supper. It is an invitation to come and belong, a reminder that Christ is no stranger to suffering and a celebration of gift of new life that flows from His death. We invite you to join us on Good...

Maybe the truest thing about two years is simply that it has caused unprecedented amounts of stress. We have been overwhelmed by everything that has happened, and continues to happen, and we have felt unable to cope with the emotional pressure of it all. For many of us, the stress of COVID has triggered anxiety like we've never known before. For others, it has manifested as an apathy, or a sense o...

Perhaps the most laughable line in the poem, "In the Time of Pandemic," is the one that imagined COVID as a time when we would experience "the absence of people living in ignorant, dangerous, mindless, and heartless ways." Regardless of where people came down on the questions of masks, lockdowns, vaccines, and mandates, COVID has often brought out the worst in us, rather than the best, whether in...

There probably isn't a better word to describe our collective experience over the last two years than the word "loss." At one time or another, for one person or another, COVID has taken nearly everything: economic security, health, loved ones, friends, community, weddings and funerals, school and graduations, stability and safety, personal freedom, future dreams, among other things. And every sing...

In February, 2021, the BBC refered to the global pandemic as the "first global mass trauma event for several decades. It's arguably the first of its kind since World War Two, and likely the first of such severity in your lifetime." It is more than just a contagious disease. It has become a collective trauma that has worn down our mental resiliancy and deeply affected the way we see ourselves, the...

One of the things that we've seen over and over again during this study of The Ten Commandments is that what God describes in them is more than just a way to live in the world, but a way of Being in our soul. The commandments don't merely describe things we should or shouldn't do, but attitudes of heart we should cultivate. Since that's true, it makes sense that the last one of these commandments...

Have you ever been lied about or been the victim of the rumour-mill, where jealous or hate-filled people have spread malicious and salacious gossip about you that just isn't true? The Bible says that a good reputation is more valuable than great wealth, that it is better to be well thought of than it is to be on the Forbes Billionaires list with Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos. That is why it is so emoti...

Have you every been the victim of a mugging, theft, or had someone break into your home? On the one hand, they are only "things." Yet, on the other, it is an incredibly violating experience. One that can leave anger, distrust and fear in its wake. That's why the home security industry is expected to grow by almost 20% in the coming five years: because we want to protect what is ours from being sto...

One of the dangers of a list like The Ten Commandments is that it feeds our insatiable desire for self-righteousness. Those who have not broken these commandments feel a smug self-satisfaction, and those who have are saddled with crippling judgement and shame. And this is probably nowhere more true than with the commandment: "Do not commit adultery." Statistically speaking, more than a quarter of...

How would one commit the perfect murder? It is a question that people have mused about for a long time. It would have to be one where there are no witnesses, no relationship to the victim, no obvious motive, and a plausible, defensible alibi. The crime scene would need to be squeaky clean, and the weapon would need to vanish without a trace. Maybe under those conditions, someone could get away wit...

Joyce Maynard once said, "The portrait of my parents is a complicated one, but lovingly drawn." This statement probably resonates for many of us. Our relationships with our parents are complicated. For some, they are largely filled with joy and gratitude. For others, they contain a lot of sadness and regret. For most, they are comprised of a significant mixture of both. Regardless of how complicat...

There's been a lot to feel hopeless about over the last couple years. Not only has this been hard on each of us personally, but it's likely affected our relationships. So in a time when we all need hope, what can we learn about the role that hope plays in how we love? How can we become people who embrace and extend a love that always hopes?

It's been famously sung that "love hurts." And while relationships certainly involve the risk of putting yourself out there and potentially experiencing the hurt of love, is there also a love that actually avoids hurting? Or one step further, what would it look like to love in a way that not only avoids hurting but seeks to actively protect? How can we become people who embrace and extend a love t...

In some ways it is very ironic to celebrate a New Year hoping that we can final go back to the way things used to be! So much has changed in the last two years, so much has been lost, so much has been stressful or frustrating, disorienting or depressing. There’s a sense of impatience for things to finally “get back to normal.” But what if God’s deepest desires for us has very little to going back...

Christmas is the one time of year when, for many people, everything finally seems to be the way it is supposed to be. For that short season, lives are filled with the joy of gathering with loved ones, the laughter of giving and receiving gifts, the beauty of the kind of relationships that happen over food. For a time, there is hope that our lives could be what they were supposed to be and that pea...

Our goal as a church is for every one of us to take our place at the table, participating in seeing the church change and grow in compassion and Christlikeness. But that takes more than just hard conversation and good intention. Ultimately, it takes the wholehearted investment of our time and resources to make the changes required for us to actually become this kind of community and people. So, wh...