Category: Uncategorized

We start life where the way we live informs the way we think. We are raised as children and then eventually grow into adults and we only know life how we experience it. The majority…

Bill Maher has been growing in popularity as of late. People are really jumping on his no-shit direct opposition to religion. In particular, he was recently on the Jimmy Kimmel show where he stated that…

This morning we chatted a bit about guilt, shame, repentance, confession and this quote: The one way of not doing anything about a situation is feeling guilty about it, because when people feel guilty about…

In most conflicts between white folk and aboriginal folk we are usually presented with quite the bit of rhetoric that someone isn’t following the rules. In the recent situation at Ipperwash where Kettle and Stony…

In trying to follow the unfolding of the Michael Brown shooting and protests and the Burnaby mountain protests I am noticing several different trends in the conversation. 1. Individual Justice vs Corporate Justice – Many…

I spent an hour of my evening tonight listening to Pastor Tim Gibb (the senior pastor of a decade or so at the Sarnia Pentecostal Church that I grew up up) ripping into the “gay…

The last three weeks of the church calendar have been awfully depressing. Especially if we read them right. Parable of the Virgins (Matthew 25:1-13) Must read David Henson’s take | My sermon here Parable of…

Early in May our house decided to get some ducks. Why? Well I think everyone had their own reasons. Rachel wanted someone to cuddle with. Dallas wanted to raise his own meat. Nick wanted companionship….

So this is interesting. The Pregnancy Centre in Sarnia applied for a grant from Ontario Trillium Foundation to open a second centre in Petrolia (a nearby town). The pregnancy centre here is well supported by…

Zygmunt Bauman’s book, Does Ethics Have A Chance In An Age Of Consumers is one of those books that I don’t know if I ever will finish. I’ve been reading 3 pages a week for…

We have an affinity for stories. We like to tell them because they create a summary of something that we found important in our life. The stories we tell, the way we frame them all…

Just watched this little exchange with Sam Harris, Ben Affleck and Bill Maher. Not sure why someone like Affleck was on the show. Not only can he not debate well, he got all too personal…

Christianity as a religion really isn’t that spectacular (and no it’s not because Christianity is a relationship and not a religion). We’ve got some interesting stories, most of which are rewrites of other stories. There…

The first time I heard of Clooney/Alamuddin wedding – it was in a coffee shop in Toronto, and I was scrolling through the newspaper (I believe it was the Toronto Star). I started laughing and…

Every once in a while I like to sit in front of Facebook and leave some comments that will stir some thinking, or just confront strange statements or conversation. I don’t know what comes over…

The nature and origins of our institutions has been something that I’ve become more aware of over the last little while. By institution I mean systems of organization assembled by people. These organizations turn into…

I’m preparing the service for this Sunday where we are performing three baby dedications/baptisms. I’ve been reading through the Free Methodist language and liturgy surrounding it. There is one section in our Manual that struck…

In Acts 11 we find out the “The disciples were called Christians first at Antioch.” What we don’t really know is when the term Christian was self-applied. In the three instances it shows up in…

Since about 2006, when I moved back to Sarnia, and having read just enough Claiborne to be naive, I have always intentionally moved into the poorest and roughest area that I could find in Sarnia….

Humans have this sort of innate ability to adjust to their surroundings. Well, I guess everything does. But with humans I find it interesting because there is more to the adjustment then just thousands of…