Mega churches

One of my students just sent me this link and I thought it was really funny. We've been talking this term a little about mega-churches and why people join certain churches. So here are the Hills trying to decide what they are looking for in a worship experience.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QtI2pa2m5cg

Sick visits and prayers

Ten days ago my friend Paul was in a really serious car accident and I'm going up to Calgary to see him today. Paul is Jewish and claims to be an atheist but many of us have told him often that he is actually having a tift with the God he claims not to believe in. In any case, he made me promise years ago that I would never pray for him. So the question is, can I be held to this promise under these circumstances? I've been really distressed about the accident and so it seems normal to pray about it but I've been very aware of the promise and have tried hard to honour it. When my parish asked if they could pray for him I told them to pray for the nurses who have to look after him. In any case I'm using the occasion of his being too weak to thump me to have some fun. I'm taking these delightful items up to him to bring him comfort.

Lent - Day 32

What Wondrous Love is This

What wondrous love is this, O my soul, O my soul!
What wondrous love is this, O my soul!
What wondrous love is this that caused the Lord of bliss
To bear the dreadful curse for my soul, for my soul,
To bear the dreadful curse for my soul.

When I was sinking down, sinking down, sinking down,
When I was sinking down, sinking down,
When I was sinking down beneath God’s righteous frown,
Christ laid aside His crown for my soul, for my soul,
Christ laid aside His crown for my soul.

To God and to the Lamb, I will sing, I will sing;
To God and to the Lamb, I will sing.
To God and to the Lamb Who is the great “I Am”;
While millions join the theme, I will sing, I will sing;
While millions join the theme, I will sing.

And when from death I’m free, I’ll sing on, I’ll sing on;
And when from death I’m free, I’ll sing on.
And when from death I’m free, I’ll sing and joyful be;
And through eternity, I’ll sing on, I’ll sing on;
And through eternity, I’ll sing on.

Words attributed to Alexander Means.

Lent - Day 31

The Hebrew word for "salvation" means literally "to make wide," or "to make sufficient," and our friend had recognized that the road he had taken was not wide enough to sustain his life; it was sufficient only as a way leading to death. I was glad to learn from The Oxford Companion to the Bible that "the primary meaning of the Hebrew and Greek words translated 'salvation' is non-religious." The Hebrew words usually come from a military context, and refer to victory over evil or rescue from danger in this life. And in the gospels it is often physical healing that people seek from Jesus, relief from blindness, paralysis, leprosy. When he says to them that their faith has saved them, it is the Greek word for "made you well" that is employed It seems right to me that in so many instances in both the Hebrew scriptures and the gospels salvation is described in physical terms, in terms of the here and now, because I believe that this is how most of us first experience it. Only later do the more spiritual implications of salvation begin to make themselves known.

Kathleen Norris, Amazing Grace: A Vocabulary of Faith

Lent - Day 30

"Prayer heals. Not just the answer to prayer. When we give up our competition with God and offer God every part of our heart, holding back nothing at all, we come to know God's love for us and discover how safe we are in his embrace. Once we know again that God has not rejected us, but keeps us close to his heart, we can find again the joy of living, even though God might guide our life in a different direction from our desires."

Henri Nouwen, Show Me the Way

Lent - Day 29

"To believe always means: to believe someone and to believe something....The Believer-- in the strict sense of the word--accepts a given matter as real and true on the testimony of someone else. That is, in essence, the concept of belief."

Joseph Pieper, Faith, Hope, Love

5th Sunday in Lent

Today was a really good day at church. Lots of folks I hadn't seen for a few weeks were there and everybody seemed to be doing well. Coffee hour was really sociable afterwards too. On Friday, when I told the folks at Cuppers about our Lenten project they got really excited and decided to buy a goat. So here are some of our kids adding a goat to our farm yard.

I spoke in my sermon about Oscar Romero who was martyred 27 years ago yesterday. Back then I was attending a Jesuit parish in Winnipeg and we were really aware of what was happening in El Salvador. One of my profs from the University of Winnipeg went down to El Salvador with a church peace group several times and later his daughter was arrested and thrown in jail there while working with a peace group. So for those of us in that university Christian community the struggle for peace and justice for Salvadorans was very present. Now I am so grateful for the formation that I received then. Fr. Bert Foliot and the Rev. Carl Ridd both had a deep personal faith but it wasn't individualistic or privatized despite being personal. It seems often to be a difficult balance for Christians.

Carl died a few years ago - Dad went to the funeral and said it was incredible. The church was packed and every extra room in the church had a feed to it. He had had an incredible impact on the city, particularly on decades of U of W students. We called students who became Carl's groupies Riddians and they were many in number.

Fr. Foliot continues to be a real mentor to me despite the fact that I probably haven't seen him in twenty years. He works in Northern Ontario I think now and we've only had contact a couple of times over the years, the last time when I was ordained a deacon five years ago. I think of him very often and in moments of dilemma will often ask myself what he did in similar circumstances. I chuckle when I realize that he was only in his 30s back then and I'm now in my 40s. He seemed even then to be a real father figure.