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You start to notice how people talk about God. We think god is absent when things are bad. Even Jesus did on the cross. But we instantly thank him when things are good. We thank God for all the blessings and all goodness that comes our way (well Christians do). Then we cry out to […]

  We love to run things. We also love good things. So we started a festival in Sarnia at Sarnia Bay Marina called Festival of Good Things. You can buy your tickets here. It’s all day on August 31 with a ticketed show in the evening. It would be worth coming and hanging out in

I’ve been in the ‘website industry’ now for ten years or so. Working with Storyboard I’ve been working with clients and friends to make them look beautiful on the internet and make sure they are being effective in how they communicate. As the world of tracking reach, social media, Google analytics and other kind of

“One way to inoculate ourselves against part of worship’s power is to think of going to church in superstitious terms, as if we are hedging our bets with God. If we participate in worship and simply hope that our being there will cause God to bless us, what we are doing in church really amounts

I’ve been wrestling with the idea of faith a lot lately. For some, faith is aligned with some sort of God of the Gaps explanation where you only need it whenever you can’t explain something and faith explains everything that can’t be explained. For others faith is simply a cop-out used so that you don’t

Here is a little thing I wrote to give some context in why we would run a conference like this in the first place. Update: This conference happened and it was a great time! You can listen to all the talks here. A response from someone who actually attended the conference. All the talks from

Light, I'll Call Your Name Out Darkness by Grey Kingdom Sometimes I listen to an album for the first time and I know it’s going to get played a lot. That is the case with Grey Kingdom. I’m far from a talented writer and so I don’t really have a lot of fancy words to

Two common atheists rebuttals or arguments are: 1. You can be good without God 2. Look at all the evil religion does in the world If one believed both those statements completely it isn’t hard to see how religion has such an uphill battle. I wonder if we are even able to have conversations with

In my lifetime, I tend to have a lot of spiritual conversations with people that I’ve never met. I get pegged as the pastor or religious guy and then end up talking about some pretty sensitive and deep issues with people in the middle of a crowded room. Good thing I love it. Last weekend

I often hear two things about complexity and simplicity repeated over and over again. 1. We should strive for simplicity in our lives 2. The more we know the more grey everything becomes and the more complex we realize life and issues are. As people get older, they tend to confess to both of these

Creativity isn’t all its cracked up to be. I’ve written about this before in Innovation as Offensive Failure where my basic argument is that creativity appeals to the masses because it doesn’t require change. You get a lot of “ohh, that was cool” and no life change. I am so tired of cool and creative

Louis CK is my favourite comedian on a number of levels. His rants are unforgettable and face into some of the most ridiculous parts of our culture. His TV show is excellent as well. This clip is from one of his stand up routines and was recently highlighted from the Webby awards where he won

I enjoy some good comedy surrounding the ideas of taking the Bible literally and the reality that we constantly make the Bible say whatever we want it to say to suit our own beliefs. This comic also goes well with the video below, which focuses more on our poor hermeneutics.

Story One. Gerry D came to Sarnia and did a comedy show last summer. A bunch of us went to see it, a number of us teachers who connected with him on a different level. He started his act with spending about five minutes just making fun of Sarnia. He was convinced there was a crack

I haven’t run into too many atheists that think or admit that there are smart theists in the world. I haven’t run into too many theists that would call an atheist intelligent or thoughtful. What I find fascinating about the entire divide is that both sides are convinced they are right and that the other

I found this from something Mirosalv Volf shared tonight and thought it was jam packed with brilliance. It is the text of Dr. Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury and Primate of All England and the Anglican Communion, during his address to the Synod of Bishops.  Read it all if you have time, here are some of the

I’ve now got a solid six years or so under my belt of preaching sermons to a pretty broad group of Christians at my home church in Sarnia. You can read all my sermons, as I’ve posted them in full transcript here. The only thing these sermon posts will be lacking is the dialogue that