Messages

As far as inspiring stories go, there is hardly a better source than the Bible. It is filled with incredible (sometimes, literally in-credible) stories about an incredible God using incredible people to bring the rescuing, healing life and love of Jesus into a broken and dying world. Yet sometimes the stories of the Bible can only be described as confusing and bizarre... like the time when, after...

Exodus is, in part, a story about the incredible way that God uses Moses to set Israel free from slavery. He becomes a prophet for God, an instigator of mass protest, a miracle worker, the leader of a nation, the mediator of Israel’s relationship with God, the giver of the Ten Commandments, and the architect and builder of Israel’s sacred worship space. There are few greater people in Israel's his...

As a church, we talk a lot about encountering the God who is revealed in Jesus. We talk about encountering God in worship, either in the moving, truth-filled songs we sing, or in the truth of the scriptures being exposed, or in the moments of spiritual practice that we share, both together on Sundays and on our own throughout the week. We talk about encountering God in community, through the quest...

The questions surrounding elections seem to be in the air these days. With a newly elected leader of the Conservative Party of Canada, the potential for a federal election now looms on the horizon. On November 3, Americans will go to the polls to elect a president for the next four years. The question behind election questions is always this: what kind of person can actually accomplish the importa...

The renowned British historian Edmund Burke once wrote, "Those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it." Yet, we live in an era of declining interest in the past, where even many of the shows on the history channel aren't actually about history! People seem less and less interested in what happened in the past, imagining that it is irrelevant to their present or to their future. But what if...

As if there wasn't enough division and polarization already, add to issues like COVID-19 and racial injustice a generational divide across our society. In the church though, aren't we all supposed to be a family together? What does it take from each of us - and from each generation - to live out God's "from generation to generation" vision? What can different generations give to each other, and -...

In addition to navigating the pandemic, this season has been marked by another theme: racial injustice. And again, strong feelings emerge that have greater potential to further divide than unify. What ought the church's role to be in such a time as this? And is there a "right way" to fight for what's right? How would God intend His people of faith to advocate for justice and equality? And what wou...

If this pandemic has done nothing else, it's polarized our society. Some are paralyzed with anxiety regarding the medical threats while others rant about conspiracy theories. Parents are ravaged to know whether to send their kids to in-person school or keep them home to learn online. Some people are taking every precaution, wearing facemasks and observing physical distancing, while others are eage...

If COVID-19 has done nothing else to Christians, it's challenged them to ask, "How can you continue to be a church without going to church?" This has not only confused faith-based families; it's muddied the waters for how the world understands what the church is and is supposed to be and do. But what has the pandemic actually helped clarify about the church's purpose and its role in the world toda...

A lot has happened since we began our journey into the book of Galatians. We began this series in the fall of 2019, as a way to re-explore the biblical concept of grace. We wanted to ask ourselves what our church would look like if it was fundamentally shaped by the Gospel: the good news that our life with God is given by grace alone (as the free gift of God), through faith alone (not earned by hu...

"No good deed goes unpunished," or so the saying goes. It is a sarcastic commentary on the frequency with which acts of kindness backfire on those who offer them. In other words, those who help others are often doomed to suffer as a result of their being helpful. And everyone likely has a story that validates the truth behind the cliché. It kind of makes you wonder, at the end of the day, what the...

According to some recent studies among people who are disillusioned with the church, people who avoid the church do so because it is too political, judgmental, patriarchal, homophobic, arrogantly exclusivistic, and fundamentalist. Examining these reasons closely, it is striking to note that almost all of these reasons directly relate to how Christians treat each other and those outside the communi...

As a western democracy, one of the values we cherish the most is the value of freedom. Whether it is the freedom of conscience and religion, the freedom of thought and speech, or the freedom of assembly and association, people from all over the world leave their homes, sometimes making treacherous journeys, just to immigrate to our country, in search of the very freedoms we enjoy and even take for...

From parents to teachers to bosses to politicians, people who are responsible for social groups of various sizes and shapes and characters all seem to share one fundamental question: what does it take to make people behave? In parenting, for example, the philosophies range from the flexibility and affection of Dr. Spock to the strict boundaries and strong discipline of Dr. Dobson. Societally, thes...

We live in a world of options. There are a seeming infinite number of alternatives available to us, from the type toothpaste or deodorant you use, how you consume countless genres of music and media, to the endlessly increasing number of car models, clothing brands, restaurants and religions, airlines, workouts, paint colours and flavours of ice cream. All these options are intended to improve our...

Jesus said that, if His followers would stand together as one unified community, the watching world would be compelled to believe in God’s love. Unity was such a high priority to Jesus that His final prayer as He was being betrayed to be crucified wasn’t for courage or personal protection, it was that His followers would remain united. Our desire is to be an answer to the one prayer of the One who...

Jesus said that, if His followers would stand together as one unified community, the watching world would be compelled to believe in God’s love. Unity was such a high priority to Jesus that His final prayer as He was being betrayed to be crucified wasn’t for courage or personal protection, it was that His followers would remain united. Our desire is to be an answer to the one prayer of the One who...

Jesus said that, if His followers would stand together as one unified community, the watching world would be compelled to believe in God’s love. Unity was such a high priority to Jesus that His final prayer as He was being betrayed to be crucified wasn’t for courage or personal protection, it was that His followers would remain united. Our desire is to be an answer to the one prayer of the One who...

How many times have you asked someone how they're doing, only to have them reply, "Busy." For how many of us is that our regular answer too? So much of our lives have felt propelled by the forward momentum generated by the multitude of commitments that dominate our schedule, and the multitude of things that we think we "need." In a world that has, for many of us, come to a screeching halt, what if...

Many of us have had to acclimatize to this weird dynamic of "working from home," or being home and trying to get work done (as well as homeschooling and/or parenting and/or disinfecting, and/or...). Others aren't working and are collecting cheques from the government. So many of us are trying to figure out who we are to be if we're can't be productive. But what if not working is just as spirituall...

There are probably more than a few of us who have found that, with our schedules freed up, the one activity that is not canceled is consuming. We snack because we are bored or stressed. We shop online for things we don't need because we can (and even if we can't). We scroll social media for endless hours because we are lonely or anxious about the news. Far from being canceled, consuming is how man...

It is easy to go negative when life isn't going the way that we had hoped. Emotions like fear, envy, greed, entitlement, resentment, anger, and regret seem to live just below the surface of our hearts, and emerge quickly in times of difficulty. In fact, at times it can feel hard to resist the pull of the disappointment embedded in these kinds of reactions. But what if there was a way to resist, a...

We live in a world where there seem to be a million ways to maintain relationships. Whether it's Netflix Party, Houseparty, Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Skype, FaceTime, texting, or even (worst case scenario) making a phone call, there are no shortage of options for staying in touch. Yet many of us feel desperately alone and/or we invest enormous amounts of energy to avoid being alone. But as much as re...

We live in a world filled with noise. Between music and media, traffic, lawn care, construction, people (and more!) we experience barely a moment of silence in our regular routines. It entertains, it distracts, it fills our days, and it prevents us from hearing what we would hear if we could experience some moments of silence: the sounds of creation, the thoughts in our heads, and the voice of God...

Martin Luther once wrote that we ought to "Work as though everything depends on us, because it does. But pray as though everything depends on God, because it does." Because of our wealth and privilege, for most of our lives we have had no trouble living by the first half of Luther's encouragement: working as though everything depends on us. But that's where it has stopped. We have been functional...