I’m sure all of us have had experiences where the hair on the back of our neck stood up because some unexplained circumstance that defied the odds played out in our lives.

A few years ago I was taking a few young people from church on a trip halfway across Canada. As I was driving I shared about a friend of mine who was dying of cancer. I had met Dave through teaching Sunday school years ago, and we immediately shared a special bond in our faith and love for the outdoors. Dave was a father figure to many young guys and had greatly impacted my life; how sad it was that the cancer was getting the best of him. I dropped off the young people at their destination and decided to start the two day drive back home. more…

Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: Sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. Because of these things the wrath of God is coming. You used to walk in these ways, in the life you once lived. But now you must rid yourselves as all such things as these: anger, malice, slander and filthy language from your lips. Do not lie to each other since you have taken off your old self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of it’s Creator. Here there is no Greek or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all and is in all.

Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, cloth yourself with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity. (Colossians 3:5-14) more…

Ingredients of True Spirituality.

Since you died with Christ to the basic principles of this world, why, as though you still belonged to it, do you submit to its rules: ‘Do not handle! Do not taste! Do not touch!?’ These are all destined to perish with use, because they are based on human commands and teachings. Such regulations indeed have an appearance of wisdom, with their self-imposed worship, their false humility and their harsh treatment of the body, but they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence. (Colossians 2:20-23)

In the letter the Apostle Paul wrote to the church in Colossae, he addressed some of the problems that the church was encountering as a new community of Christian faith. He uses his letter to teach them what true Christian Spirituality is and to avoid the fake spirituality of legalism. more…

Faith or Addiction

When life is tough or unfair we all come to questions in our mind about the reason for those trials. Sometimes it seems impossible to make any sense of the events and circumstances that shock us and bring us to our knees in grief. I’m reminded of the story of Nehemiah in the Bible. We can see in the first chapter of the book of Nehemiah a man who’s wrestling and grieving with life and God. Nehemiah was a nobleman and an educated man in the nation of Israel, who now finds himself as a slave in the courts of a king whose army had killed, raped and burned his hometown to the ground. He now finds himself as the cupbearer for the king; A crash test dummy to test the drinks for poison before they get to the kings lips. Grief and humiliation of this sort is the kind that shakes a person to the core, but as we see when we read through the book, Nehemiah becomes one of the most inspiring leaders of hope as he is granted his freedom to return to his burned out city to rebuild. more…

The Medium is the Message

“He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have supremacy. For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross” (Colossians 1:15-20).

As a teen I would pick up a Bible from time to time and try to read something out of it. I was always perplexed as I read a bunch of jumbled stories and teachings that seemed to make no sense at all. “How can anyone say this book is God’s word?” I thought. Does God expect the average teen to be able to make sense of all these random stories and sayings? It all seemed like a strange mystery to me, until one day it seemed that someone had given me a key to the mystery. more…

As of September 6, 2009 Pastor Sterling Quinn has taken the position of Lead Pastor at Terrace Bay Gospel Assembly. Pastor Sterling’s wife Danielle has been working in the community for a maternity leave at the Terrace Bay Clinic.

If you have ever come into contact with children, you will quickly realize the amount of questions one little brain can process.   My dad was pretty good at putting up with the endless stream of information my little mind required during movies.  And that seems to be the time when my children ask the most questions; during a movie.  It gets to the point sometimes when you just have to hit pause to answer all the questions – or tell them to be quiet.  Dave Matthews has a song written from the perspective of a child.  The questions and comments of this child are hard, deep and searching.  And many times kids do come out with these questions.  Here are the words to the song.  It’s called “Mother Father”.

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For fathers day:  Some hard questions we still ask.

Our family bought a GPS for the car and I love it.  We can travel through the States, type in “Water Park” and boom, it brings us to a water park.  Awesome!  You want a Tim Horton’s, type it in and boom, you’re there.   Looking for that bike store that someone told you about, the GPS brings you right there – “turn left in 100m”.  It has saved us from going in circles many a times.

Now imagine you want your GPS to tell you that where the local grocery store is and it says “Don’t got there, you might get your car scratched by a cart”.  You tell your GPS that you want to go out for a nice dinner.  It replies “No, you may get food poisoning”.

That just wouldn’t work.  The whole point of GPS is to tell you where you can go, not where you can’t.  And that is the main emphasis that Paul is making when it comes to being under the “LAW” or under the “GOSPEL” in his letter to Timothy.

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One of the great things about buying a “Greatest Hits Compilation” of your favourite music artist (at least for me) is the “re-mix version” or “unreleased track” or “free b-side songs” that are usually added on as a bonus.  Unfortunately, this book is an “Emergent Greatest Hits” book with no bonus tracks.  I actually had to look at the publishing date half way through the book to see if this was an old release.  That is the greatest flaw of this book.  The emergents claims that they are a conversant type of group – well it’s time for them to change the topic.

Does this seem harsh?  Yes maybe, but for a book published in 2008, I did not expect to read the same stuff I did 8 years ago.

But there was some stuff  I did like about the book.  And of course some more things I didn’t.  So, let’s change momentum here and bring out the positives.

My thinking in buying this book was this:  I am a pastor who deals with people who feel let down or have given up on Christianity.  And this book does reach out of those type of people… and I will definitely pass this book on to them.

Here are a few pastoral highlights.

Highlight #1 – faith is not a system of beliefs but a relationship

Highlight #2 – meeting physical needs is directly connected to spiritual needs (holistic)

Highlight #3 – sin management vs. story involvement (read the book for definitions)

As a pastor, I  can use this stuff, and I really think people who are struggling could use it too.

Here are a few pastoral lowlights.

Lowlight #1 – Pagitt spends a chapter on deconstructing “systematic theology”, and yet uses that same system to make his case for holistic living.

Lowlight #2 – He tends to say that the bibles narrative is “holistic”.  He uses the word “integrated” to describe the main theme of the bible.  Wright would strongly disagree (and so would I)

Lowlight #3 - Pagitt goes nowhere with this book.  Great, it’s okay to practice yoga and write books in coffee shops, but what was the point?  Maybe he did this so he can write another book about the same stuff.  (sorry for my sarcasm)

My thinking is that this book was written for the person searching.  Well, if there is someone searching the used book shelf, they can buy my copy.  Again, sorry for the sarcasm.  Read it and judge for yourself.  I have to admit though, I was reading Wright’s “Justification” at the same time – night and day, night and day.