May 2012
8 posts
The Sound (and Logic) Of Fine-Tuning.
I had done it so many times, but never thought of it this way before.
I was tuning my trusty left-handed guitar before leading my program in worship this past Thursday and had… an apologetics moment. Before everyone showed up that morning, I pulled out my guitar and tuner in an effort to make sure each string was in tune.
I wanted to make sure these were made right, twisting the heads...
Walk A Mile With Sorrow
An insightful poem from Robert Browning Hamilton called, “Along the Road”
I walked a mile with Pleasure;
She chattered all the way,
But left me none the wiser
for all she had to say.
I walked a mile with Sorrow;
And ne’er a word said she;
But,oh, the things I learned from her
when sorrows walked with me.
How The Summer Of 2012 Is Shaping Up
According to my friend Jonathan Sherwin, Oxford got the more rain this past April than in any April in the past 100 years. Rain wouldn’t remind me of summer but it does remind me of Vancouver which then reminds me of the summer.
A few weeks ago I put out a post expressing my excitement that I was able to come home and hit the camp speaking circuit once again. Today I am even more excited...
The Sword That Stood
This cartoon was inspired by a poem I read by a guy named John Clifton. I liked his idea but not his poem. So I wrote my own and then thought a few pictures would bring it some life.
This Is My Friend, Roy
I don’t think it is too morbid to admit that while here in Oxford, I sometimes visit the grave of CS Lewis. I like to visit when giving people my, “CS Lewis Tour” and sometimes I go just to collect inspiration while on a walk.
My friend Roy visits the graveyard where Lewis was buried as well. He never comes with friends, just himself. His deceased wife is buried near Lewis...
April 2012
9 posts
8 Reasons Why You Shouldn't Blow Up Your Youth...
The makers and contributors to Divided want all churches to call off/blow up their youth groups.
Have you heard about this new documentary yet? I hope not. I’m not sure if it will catch on but if its ideas catch on it will be disastrous. I watched parts of this and was annoyed for most of it. I see this trend developing so I thought I would include my two cents for why youth ministry is...
Youth Pastors: Equip Students For Battle
Sometimes I am paralyzed by the fact that there are SO many people out there who do not know Jesus and yet have a hunger for God. How will we tell them? Each time I arrive at the vision of an army of trained apologists who know what they believe and can articulate their faith to unbelievers.
Alistar McGrath has written,
There are many people inside church congregations who are wrestling with...
Help With The 'Christianity Is Just For Wimps'...
I’ve been writing a lot today and thought this worthy of the old/copy paste blog. Since nuclear weapons are blown up in remote areas, I hope you don’t mind me testing some of this stuff out in the blogosphere.
Do Christians Make Up God Because They Are Wimps?
The end of the nineteenth century popularized the idea that weak people only make up the idea of God because they need...
Gems from John Lennox
Richard Dawkins: We only need to use the word ‘faith’ when there isn’t any evidence.
John Lennox: No, not at all. I presume you’ve got faith in your wife — is there any evidence for that?
Dawkins: Yes. Yes, plenty of evidence.
Lennox: Hmmm…
Taken from The God Delusion Debate October 3 2007 Part I 36.20
Spurgeon And The Gospel
“Avoid a sugared gospel as you would shun sugar of lead. Seek the gospel which rips up and tears and cuts and wounds and hacks and even kills, for that is the gospel that makes alive again. And when you have found it, give good heed to it. Let it enter into your inmost being. As the rain soaks into the ground, so pray the Lord to let his gospel soak into your soul.”
-Charles Haddon...
Why I'm An Evangelical Christian And What That...
A guy from my hockey team asked me the other day what could be one of my top five questions to be asked,
“Jon, what does an evangelical Christian believe?”
It reminded me of a joke from church history that the Anglicans would tell:
Q: What do liberal Christians hold?
A: All the highest positions in the Church of England!
I was excited to answer my friend’s question...
Why April 8 Was My Favourite Facebook Day
I think we can agree that birthdays are enhanced by Facebook. My birthday, July 4, used to be my favourite Facebook day of the year. Not anymore. Now it is Easter Sunday. This “Resurrection Sunday” on Facebook brought me exceedingly more joy to me than any social media boosted birthday has ever before.
A Scottish Kind of Easter
This was a unique Easter having spent it on the...
Why Respecting My Elders Means Honouring The...
What do you think that people will say about you when you are dead and gone?
Will they conclude that you were perfect, that you always knew what was right and did what was right?
If you’re anything like me, that is not very likely.
The truth is that our biographers will probably celebrate the areas that we really nailed and then on another page will criticize where we failed. It’s...
Summer Is Coming
I am very pleased to announce that I am going to be coming back to BC this summer. That means that I will be able to hit the camp circuit once again.
This year I have put together a couple of streams to help organize my mind a little. I thought they would help people figure out what I’m most passionate about speaking about. They are posted here.
Please pray that God would lead me to the...
March 2012
11 posts
In 1920 There Was No Driscoll, Just Bernard...
I almost fell off my chair when I read this sermon the other day. I found it in a 1920 issue of an Anglican newspaper called, The Record. In a sermon called, The Anger of Christ, Rev. Bernard Herklots calls out the men of England, particularly the preachers (and it still echoes to all of us who are called to teach). He preached this sermon at St. George’s Anglican Church in Leeds.
The...
On 4 More Years of Research.
The email finally came. It was from the University of Oxford. I don’t get many emails from them so I had a pretty good idea what it was about. Feeling sick in my stomach, I had to get help from some friends getting the courage to click on it. Eventually I did.
My research proposal I had been working on for 5 months was accepted. I was now on the path to getting a doctorate from the...
On Hope
I remember the first night of sprints back in early October. It was raining and I was quickly familiarizing myself with how much I disliked sprinting. It was then that team captain, Gino Bruni, cast vision to the team that all our efforts in training would help us beat Cambridge in March. I remember thinking, “Ok, it will be worth it.”
The veterans like talking about the Varsity...
On Perseverance.
Every once in awhile (spread out during the many hours in the library reading an old Evangelical newspaper) I find some great lines. Finding them is like gold. This one randomly popped out at me. It’s from August 1921 from an evangelical leader who is encouraging his readers that the fight against liberalism and a resurging Anglo-Catholic power play, regardless of how tiring it may be, was...
February 2012
22 posts
WatchThis is why I love Coach V.
Legend.
I can’t stop laughing whenever I see this.
How Denominations Die
This quote from a John Webster Grant book called, The Church in the Canadian Era shows how it only takes a few small steps in one direction before you have lost your way entirely. Here’s an example of a critical turning point in the history of the once flourishing United Church of Canada movement.
It was decision like these that lessened the evangelical missionary fervour and sent the...
On Fine Tuning
Today as I was cycling fervently heading into town, I became conscious of the fact that I had to exert a lot of energy pedalling in order to keep my bike going forward.
Big lads don’t like exerting energy while in transport. That’s the necessary context to this post.
Gravity and friction were seemingly working against my desire to pedal perhaps only once and then glide to my...
WatchFormer megachurch preacher, Ed Dobson, diagnosed with ALS a few years back tells part of his story of life after the pulpit.
Very moving.
On Tenacity.
Enjoy this word from Oswald Chambers in My Utmost For His Highest for February 22.
“Tenacity is more than endurance, it is endurance combined with the absolute certainty that what we are looking for is going to transpire. Tenacity is more than hanging on, which may be but the weakness of being too afraid to fall off. Tenacity is the supreme effort of a man refusing to believe that his hero...
Bread Truck Monday
Last week my friend Dave Smith reminded us all of one aspect of ministry that I had to laugh about. Quoting Mark Driscoll, the two of them get a resounding “Amen” from pastors all over the world as Driscoll honestly speaks about his “Break Truck Monday Fantasy.”
Here it is:
“‘Is there ever a time, even if you love God, that you’re in ministry and you...
March 3, 2012.
The nice thing is that when it’s your own blog, you can post whatever the heck you want.
6 months of running sprints and early morning practices comes down to one sold out game…
Who Is Colin?
A couple days ago I was at a pub with some friends when I recognized a girl from Vancouver that I had met a few days before. Vancouver people tend to have instant connections…unless they’re in, well, Vancouver.
I called out to her, “Hi Alex.” She said hi back and then introduced me to her friend she was with…
“This is Colin.”
Um…
This exchange...
Does Supralapsarianism Hinder Free Will?
I don’t die on the free will hill but I still acknowledge how much our choices matter. I’m sure some will appreciate this.
Supralapsarianism, the argument I’m working on from a previous post claims that this world we live in now is the best of all the possible worlds there could be. I say this because in this world not only God exists but he has come to us and died for us in...
There's Always A Market...
Happy Valentines Day
On Supralapsarianism And The Problem of Evil.
I had fun kicking around a solution to the problem of evil a couple weeks ago and wanted to post something about it.
I did a paper on Supralapsarianism for Christian Faith And Philosophy class that drew heavily from the work of retired Notre Dame professor, Alvin Plantinga. This post contains sections of my paper so it is a little more rigid and wordy but I tried to smooth it out a bit to make...
On Unworthy Servants
“Will any one of you who has a servant plowing or keeping sheep say to him when he has come in from the field, ‘Come at once and recline at table’? Will he not rather say to him, ‘Prepare supper for me, and dress properly, and serve me while I eat and drink, and afterward you will eat and drink’? Does he thank the servant because he did what was commanded? So you also, when you have done all...
On Resurrections.
“So she [Mary] ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the One whom Jesus loved, and said to them, “They have taken the Lord out of the tom, and we do not know where they have laid them.” John 20:2
I like how honest the Bible is about the humanity of the characters involved.
Mary Magdalene was a resurrection skeptic just like many people today. Granted, people...
Don't Give Up
This was an incredibly moving post from Jon Bloom of Desiring God.
God’s Word is sufficient to be our source of encouragement, nourishment and respite. How sad it is for those who do not have God’s word in times of need.
How much more sad it is for those who have God’s word but neither value it nor read it?
I would encourage you to read Bloom’s post taking time to...
To Run Or Fly?
“Run, John, run.
The law commands
But gives neither feet nor hands.
Better news the gospel brings;
It bids me fly and gives me wings.”
— John Bunyan
My Tall el Hammam Trip
“By the time Lot reached Zoar, the sun had risen over the land. Then the LORD rained down burning sulfur on Sodom and Gomorrah—from the LORD out of the heavens. Thus he overthrew those cities and the entire plain, destroying all those living in the cities—and also the vegetation in the land.” -Genesis 19:23-25
I have been a Christian for as long as I can remember and yet I...
