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Del Rio and our Haitian Brothers and Sisters

September 23, 2021 1 Comment

I have struggled to know even where to begin to express my deep dismay at the treatment of the dear people who have sought refuge under the Del Rio International Bridge. Many of them began their journey for refuge as many as ten years ago by departing from the shores of Haiti.

These are survivors. These are strong, ingenious, creative people who have learned languages, leaned into deprivation, and held onto hope.

Some blame their journey on an earthquake. But there are other factors too that contributed to the violence, poverty, and political alienation that compelled them to leave. America stirs the pot with the left hand and crushes the hearts of people who climb out with the right.

Our neighbours have come to the border asking for refuge. But, we treat them with contempt.

During the week in which men on horses chased down and flayed away at the backs of our sons and daughters, in which people where corralled onto planes and flown back to Haiti without due process, I began reading Dominique DuBois Gilliard’s book, Subversive Witness, Scripture’s Call to Leverage Privilege. He writes,

“Hosea 4:6 explains that God’s people perish because of a lack of knowledge, and the masses also suffer when they lack godly leadership.

Narcissistic political leaders fear losing their power, influence, and possessions more than they fear God. Their insecurities lure them into idolatry, fear distrusts their vision, and paranoia prohibits them from affirming the imago Dei inherent in all their neighbours. Consequently, their dictates exacerbate existing chasms between the privileged and disenfranchised.

Immoral leaders understand that when marginalized people are politically diagnosed as a social albatross, it becomes acceptable–if–not patriotic–to vilify them, infringe on their human rights’ and become apathetic toward their plight….”

Subversive Witness, p. 22.

Immoral leaders.


Today, Daniel Foote, the special envoy to Haiti, has resigned in protest of immoral leadership. No one is listening to him and the Biden administration seems to be intent on going ahead with the forced transport of people to Haiti. Daniel Foote describes the situation, “I will not be associated with the United States inhumane, counterproductive decision to deport thousands of Haitian refugees and illegal immigrants to Haiti, a country where American officials are confined to secure compounds because of the dangers posed by armed gangs in control of daily life.”

Grieve and lament.

Affirm those who offer refreshment.

Call for the due process and kindness required to be given those who seek refuge.

Are you a follower of Jesus? Beware the evil wrapped up in patriotic justifications for the sacrifice of God’s dear children in order to “secure our borders;” it’s the siren call; it’s a tasty morsel; it bears death to the soul; it wounds the conscience and numbs the mind. It has nothing to do with Jesus. It’s a wooden idol; it leads us astray and we become unfaithful to God. It brings rot and eases all of us into a habitual rejection of the Kingdom of God.

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Cultivating Community For Good

May 7, 2021 0 Comments

Note to subscribers: Origin Church begins a series through the book of James this weekend. I’m providing an introduction to the series here:

HI Originals — We are getting ready to study the book of James together. And here’s the theme for our life together over the next two months. : Cultivating Community for Good.

James writes:

“Don’t be deceived, my dear brothers and sisters. Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. He chose to give us birth through the word of truth, that we might be a kind of first fruits of all he created.” James 1:16-18

Community in the Church is a gift from the Father. It is produced, it is birthed, by the word of truth, the Gospel in our hearts. He has made us brothers and sisters in this new family. And it’s meant to be good! I’m convinced that community is a good gift and that God wants us to be a community for good. I’m excited about that and terrified at the same time. I’m excited because being a community that produces good fruit is what Jesus envisioned for the church. Goodness characterizes all that God makes. The good quality of God’s Creation is summarized in Genesis 1. After each day of Creation, God says, “It is good” and of people, “It is very good.” 

In good community diverse people are brought together by Jesus to become like Him and act like His family. lLves are restored, souls are saved, people are healed, kindness and generosity are common and gifts are redeemed. That’s exciting! 

But I’m terrified because I know we are not perfect. I know that goodness may not be the dominant memory or experience of the church for some people. With Jesus we know expectations are high. The followers of Jesus’ church are to be like trees producing good fruit. We must be realistic though — people are a mess and can be desperately wicked right at the core of who we are. Yes, to be in Christ is to know Jesus is changing us, Yes He has made us a new creation, but we let plenty of deathly rot creep back in. 

For every Christian leader that has abused their position, for the Christian parent who has resorted to violence or abandoned their spouse and children in neglect, for every church that has tried to cover up sexual abuse, for every community that has tolerated angry controlling malicious leaders, for every committee that has attacked, ignored, or discredited the messengers who were blowing the whistle— I’m sorry. It pains me. We should all be pained.

We have to be realistic about our situation. It’s not just that people are sinful. As Scot McKnight and Laura Barringer rightly observe in A Church Called TOV, church cultures, can become toxic. We know pollution kills. A toxic environment poisons the tree and therefore the tree yields bad fruit. And here’s the rub, toxic environments are not equipped to deal with sinful hearts and with leaders who are behaving badly. 

Jesus had plenty to say about trees and bad fruit. In Matthew 12 he says, 

33 “Make a tree good and its fruit will be good, or make a tree bad and its fruit will be bad, for a tree is recognized by its fruit. 34You brood of vipers, how can you who are evil say anything good? For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of. 35A good man brings good things out of the good stored up in him, and an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in him. 36But I tell you that everyone will have to give account on the day of judgment for every empty word they have spoken. 37For by your words you will be acquitted, and by your words you will be condemned.”

Look, a church community is like a tree and the good person— we bring good things out of what is stored up in us and we are judged by what say and what we do. Sisters and brothers, a church that is cultivating community for good, that is cultivating good community is going to have to attend to the heart! But more than that — we are going to have to attend to the Father of Lights who reveals hearts, and who gives good gifts, He can “make a tree good.” But, he invites us to be participants in the process. Did you notice that? Jesus holds to the common  capacity of the farming community to make a tree good or to make a tree bad. The community is a system that feeds into itself. He says, “Make a tree good and its fruit will be good. Make a tree bad and its fruit will be bad.” What about our “making?”

What if we have allowed toxicity to infiltrate our cultures at home, at work, and even in church? Are we done for? Should we pack it in, chop it down and burn the orchard? One more tree parable offers hope to me. Changing culture requires continual prayer, nurture, truth telling, and action. Changing culture is not just one sermon series and then done! We know that — our adventure in 2021 is to Be More Like Jesus Together — but none of us believe that one series is going to complete that work. Cultivating Christ-likeness is an ongoing response to the grace of God in Christ and the whispers of His Spirit.

That’s why I’m encouraged by this parable from Luke 13 — God gives new chances to people and the church. When it comes to church and community do you come at it with an axe or with a spade? Here’s Jesus parable of hope but also urgency:

6Then he told this parable: “A man had a fig tree growing in his vineyard, and he went to look for fruit on it but did not find any. 7So he said to the man who took care of the vineyard, ‘For three years now I’ve been coming to look for fruit on this fig tree and haven’t found any. Cut it down! Why should it use up the soil?’

8 “ ‘Sir,’ the man replied, ‘leave it alone for one more year, and I’ll dig around it and fertilize it. 9If it bears fruit next year, fine! If not, then cut it down.’ ”

(Luke 13:6-9)


The person tending the vineyard hoped that changing the environment of the tree would ultimately change the tree. That’s cultivation. That’s what we could be doing for each other in the church. We could be cultivating goodness in the way we relate to each other. We can cooperating with the Holy Spirit to cultivating goodness in our hearts, so we yield or produce goodness in our community. But only if we will take the actions that cultivate our church culture towards goodness.

There’s so much available to us in the book of James — but here’s what we are going to focus on over the next two months. Church that cultivates goodness is able:
to Listen
to Include
to Act in Faith
to Speak
to Make Peace
to Humble Ourselves
to Pray and
to Restore.

It looks like we have a few more months of gathering online here in Vancouver. Our experience of christian community has been good but  variable over the past year. For some of us we have grown with Jesus by leaps and bounds ( we feel rich with Jesus), others of us have languished, and some have almost given up. (these feel impoverished). But James in the first part of Chapter One encourages us to not give up on Jesus or each other—instead we are called to persevere even though we are under pressure and facing trials of many kinds. 

Here’s what I’m trusting — even through this pandemic and the contraction of our liberties we can grow with Jesus! We can enjoy the gift of community that has been born among us through the Word of God sown into our hearts. God is creating good community in Jesus name now — if only we will remain open and responsive to Him and to each other.

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Prayer of the People, 30 April 2021

May 3, 2021 0 Comments

Heavenly Father,

You are the Lord of all Creation; You spoke, “Let there be light” and there was light. Your Son Jesus is the Light of the World. And now, by His Spirit, His Word illuminates our lives. Thank you for this grace in which we sit, walk, and stand. 

Speak again Lord, to our dark hearts. “Let there be light.” Awaken us to you. Teach us to walk in Your light and to fellowship with each other in this world according to your grace and truth. We are longing for you and our spirit calls out, “Abba Father!”

We confess that having our lives exposed in your light can generate fear. First we tremble at the thought of your holiness. Save us according to your Word and not our word. Forgive our sins and may willful sin not rule over us. Second we tremble at the thought of being out of step with our world. Your light invites us into what is unfamiliar and makes us look peculiar. Please replace our fear of people with your perfect love. 

We long for leaders who walk in the light, who lead with wisdom and who pursue justice. We ask that You will bring Your comfort and help to those traumatized by violence, greed, and cold apathy. Both the one who raises the hand in anger and the one who receives it have suffered. It is your revealing light that can usher us all into healing and reconciliation. With your Spirit we groan with longing that we might be revealed fully as your children in your New Creation.

We cry out to you on behalf of the people of India who the many who have suffered under poverty and sectarian violence. But now Covid 19 has cut across many segments of this nation. Comfort those who grieve. Please bring healing to many suffering under the pandemic. Empower your Church to serve their neighbours and to share the promise of life in the Gospel of Jesus. Fill them with your Spirit and bring joy again to the lives of many. Come Lord Jesus Come.

We pray now as you have taught us — (Please join me in the Lord’s Prayer)

Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread.
And forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from the evil one;
for yours is the kingdom,
and the power, and the glory, 
forever. 
Amen.

This prayer was part of the Origin Church Weekend Broadcast on 30 April 2021.

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Generational Vision

April 29, 2021 0 Comments

“One generation commends your works to another; they tell of your mighty acts. They speak of the glorious splendour of your majesty — and I will mediate on your wonderful works.” Psalm 145:6-7

Followers of Jesus are connected in His Church to a great host of witnesses. The writer of Hebrews insists we “are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses,” and therefore must throw off the sin that would entangle us and keep us from running the race marked out for us by Jesus (Hebrews 12:1-2) The evangelical impulse is to join in the pioneering or in-breaking life of Jesus’ Kingdom but we do not actually live the Christian life as innovators of a new spirituality. We draw from for in living well of Christ and the testimony of God in the Scriptures.

But It’s easy to be short-sighted and selfish.

I serve Jesus and His church in a university campus community. I have met people within the academy who know they are seeking to grasp the knowledge drawn out from Creation by those who have gone before them. But for the students of these professors the pursuit of new futures frustrates them. The looming need for a good paying job, for taking care of parents and siblings, and for paying for the “education” they have signed up for drives them to make the grades at the expense of deeper understanding and retention of knowledge. I believe the need to succeed limits the growth of character possible through our engagement with knowledge and each other. Their teachers are particularly aware of the corpus of knowledge that the students don’t know so they seek to stimulate learning. However time is limited. All learning must happen fast. The end of the term is coming. Fast learning is the plan. Fast money is the need. Some students confess — the ones who are doing best are the ones who have stellar short-term memory and can take up the strategies necessary for getting facts and formulas into place quickly. And though I haven’t read it yet, I have come across at least two professors know we need to slow down. I can’t wait to read The Slow Professor: Challenging the Culture of Speed in the Academy.

Our North American culture seems short-sighted. I’m not sure if it is a global phenomenon but perhaps it is. We have a difficult time planning ahead with the generations to come in mind. It’s as if we don’t care. Like generations before us we adopt the stance of “Eat, drink, be merry for tomorrow we will die” (Ecclesiastes 8:15 and Isaiah 22:13) Like Hezekiah we know enough to know that the future for our children’s children children is dim on the planet. But we shrug and say, “At least I have peace in my generation” (Isaiah 39:8) and become careless.

That was never to be the way. In the Torah God directed His people to commemorate the Passover and His deliverance of them from Egypt’s enslaving powers when they had “settled down” by making it their habit to talk with their children about the Word of God and to derive the meaning of this peculiar way of life by recalling what God had done. “We were slaves of Pharaoh in Egypt, but the LORD brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand… to bring us into… the land he promised on oath to our ancestors. The LORD commanded us to obey all these decrees and to fear the LORD our God, so that we might always prosper and be kept alive, as is the case today. And if we are carful to obey all this law before the LORD our God, as he has commanded us, that will be our righteousness” (Deuteronomy 6:21-22). God wants us to live with the coming generations in mind by keeping Him in mind.

God has the generations in mind. Jesus treated the generations as a living reality. He grew weary of his generation that sought a sign as if faith had no personal living point of reference (Matthew 16:1-4). He was the living sign right in front of them. While previous generations had put down stone markers in the land as reminders of God’s activity, Jesus rolled the stone away at His resurrection, fulfilling the Law and the prophets. He lives and is able to call us into a living relationship with the God of Abraham, Issac, and Jacob (Mark 12:27). The Holy Spirit makes generative community life a reality (2 Timothy 1:6). The promise of the Resurrection draws us forward into days and The Day in which all things are made new. (Revelation 21:1-8)

Some may hear this promise and retreat into pessimism taking up a license to consume the earth with abandon. But others, anticipating their participation in the new Creation and the ethic of the Kingdom — loving your neighbour, and loving as the overflow of life in Jesus’ Church — try not to disconnect their life today from the life of others in the future. (Matthew 22:36-40) We are thinking of the children. Maybe. During the pandemic I realized that I have cynicism about the forward thinking and supposed generational vision of the church when pandemic remakes of The Blessing swept the globe. Here’s Canada, The US, Ireland, and the chorus, “and the children rang out in my head” and across our living room on more than once occasion! But I want it to be true and I want to offer God’s blessings to those to come!

Thinking Ahead

It’s hard to take what we learn and experience (what we know) and then think ahead and act accordingly for the benefit of others. Bina Venkataraman in her book, The Optimist’s Telescope (published by Riverhead 2019), has scanned the planet for stories of “thinking ahead” for the benefit of the coming generations. I was challenged by the stories of two villages, Aneyoshi and Murohama in Japan that successfully guided future generations on how to survive a tsunami in their areas.

In Aneyoshi, Japan, an aging stone tablet stands sentinel, warning future inhabitants, “Do not build your homes below this point!” No homes stood below its elevation in 2011. The waves of the recent tsunami lapped just three hundred feet below the marker.

These two communities are exceptions, not the rule. Hundreds of other stone markers commemorating tsunamis are scattered across Japan, many erected after devastating tsunamis in 1896 and 1933. According to a study by the Nuclear Energy Agency of the international Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, virtually none of the other communities with such markers heeded them as Aneyoshi and Murohama did.

What made these villages, but not the others, heed history?

The communities in Japan where the historic markers made for effective warnings were small villages, with cultural continuity across generations. Schoolchildren learned the history of the past tsunamis and the need for vigilance. And the stone markers in Aneyoshi and Murohama stood out relative to the hundreds of others in Japan for offering specific actions rather than just vague commemorations of history: Do not build homes below this point. Do not flee to this hill.

The spiritual legacy of the church of Jesus is not marked on a stone. The most significant “stone,” the one covering the tomb of Jesus was rolled away and discarded. However, what remains is the capacity of Jesus to raise up living stones for Himself. Our future is not in our buildings nor in our digital markers. Our future is in Him. We receive from Him a living trust that includes the Gospel, this Creation, and His children. Every wise steward thinks ahead. Generational stewardship is one in which we think ahead and act with the best intention to generate conditions in which they may thrive too. Now we write not on stones but one human hearts. This has been the way of the church from its conception. Paul says of the Corinthians, “You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, known and read by everyone. You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tables of human hearts” (2 Corinthians 3:2-3)

I have the Rich Mullin’s song The Other Side of The World in the front of my Bible. It’s a song that sees the present church but also the church to come. Whether Rich was considering the other side of the world or the New Jerusalem, he was seeking to live in what some may call hard places with love and with the promise of Jesus’ sure destruction of the powers of Hell through His Word.

But I see a people who’ve learned to walk in faith
With mercy in their hearts
And glory on their faces
And I can see the poeple
And I pray it won’t be long
Until Your kingdom comes

As a follower of Jesus I am having to ask, “How does having an eye on the future and a vision of people in the future influence the decisions we make today?” Are we treating what we know as things to commemorate or as reasons to give clear directives and invitations? This is wisdom — but it must be done gently, not passively, but with a presence that is non-anxious. The conveyance of generational benediction cannot be done with a heavy hand. Instead by having an eye on the future we seek to create the conditions in which the possibility of thriving in the communion of God and the knowledge of His Word and the creative power of His Spirit is present. We manage the tension by valuing both old and new wineskins (Mark 2:22) but perhaps giving preference to the new as often as possible.

The purpose of the post is not to line out all the aspects of this kind of stewardship. This post is a shout out commending generational vision. That’s a starting place. Whether we are caring for the environment or caring for the political futures of a people, or caring for Jesus’ church, followers of Jesus are not to just live for today thanking God for our good fortunes while caring little about the future of our neighbour’s children’s children’s children. Generational vision in the Kingdom of God has to think about a place, but also accepts that Jesus may call some to leave. In that case we are thinking of what and who they carry in their hearts. Thus at Origin Church in a University campus community we are seeking to joyful invest in people to spark a life journey with Jesus!

In the maskil of Asaph that we call Psalm 78, the Psalmist encouraged a generational vision and recommended leadership under the call of God.

Generational Vision: “…things we have heard and known, things our ancestors have told us. We will not hide them from their descendants; we will tell the next generation the praiseworthy deeds of the LORD, his power and the wonders he has done. He decreed statues for Jacob and established law in Israel, which he commanded our ancestors to teach their children, so the next generation would know them, even the children yet to be born, and they in turn would tell their children. Then they would put their trust in God and would not forget his deeds but would keep his commands.” Psalm 78:3-7

Leadership Under the Call of God: “He chose David his servant and took him from the sheep pens; from tending sheep he brought him to be the shepherd of his people Jacob, of Israel his inheritance. And David shepherded them with integrity of heart; with skillful hands he led them.” Psalm 78:70-72

Such a high view of David’s messy leadership right!? But what can be said of David is that at some points he was not thinking just of himself, but was considering what the future generations could be in relation to God. He wanted to build a temple, but God only let him do the work of getting things ready for Solomon to do it (1 Chronicles 22). When that limit was clear David didn’t quit, he actually gave himself in his later years to gathering what Solomon would need.

I have a friend, Peter, who serves with me at Origin Church and who often points to Psalm 78 as part of God’s call in his life and for the church to care not only for our generational cohort, but also for the generations arriving on the scene. Oh that our leadership may be done with skill and integrity of heart!

In campus ministry and in the church these generations are actually in front of us, so we are doing what we can to plant the seeds of the Gospel and God’s Word in their lives while also creating space for them to serve, to lead, and to have their own stories of God’s wonderful grace with us. This requires making space for emerging leaders to have their own adventures in trusting and obeying God in all their relationships. Sometimes a leader who is ahead in years and experience just needs to listen, other times the leaders need to provide clarity and some boundaries, and other times we let the emerging leaders be freely with Jesus in the wild goose chase of His Kingdom.

In the book, A Church Called TOV, Scot Mcknight and Laura Barringer are calling on the church to think and act with generational vision. They are hoping that churches will learn from the scandals and pain before us in the North American church to value the formation of “a goodness culture that resists abuses of power and promotes healing.” Ultimately churches nurture christliness. McKnight and Barringer commend pastors as men and women who have been called by God to “nurture people in Christoformity.”

Generational vision is about people but must applied to more than the people. When it is applied to the land and a place we ask, “Does what we are doing today negatively impact the generations to come?” and “What practices are we doing today that continually re-give into the land — soil, air, and water? Likewise generational vision when applied to a community and congregation compels us to ask, “What are we doing to create an environment where followers of Jesus can thrive? What are we attending to the makes Jesus known and cooperates with the Holy Spirit so people are free to respond to Him and to let His new creation power flow through them? In both of these arenas — the land and the church — people who are shepherding have to be realistic about the human condition and our propensity to be greedy and short-sighted steals from the generations to come. After seven generations, even after three generations, you and I may be forgotten, but what we do to today in Christ and with love (John 15:1-8) has promise to bear fruit in generations for years to come!

Change, Church

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Inflection. Sunshine & Sovereign is God.

April 7, 2021 0 Comments

One day spent in your house, this beautiful place of worship,
beats thousands spent on Greek island beaches.
I’d rather scrub floors in the house of my God
than be honored as a guest in the palace of sin.

All sunshine and sovereign is God,
generous in gifts and glory.
He doesn’t scrimp with his traveling companions.
It’s smooth sailing all the way with God-of-the-Angel-Armies.
Psalm 84:11-12, The Message

I remember feeling shock when those words went from my eyes to my mind to my mouth for the first time, “All sunshine and sovereign is God, generous in gifts and glory. He doesn’t scrimp with his traveling companions…” Who writes this way? Is this ok? This is the Bible! I don’t know why I started reading The Message in the Psalms, but that’s where I cracked it open. Dr. Peterson would have approved.

The writers of the Psalms wrote for the dramatic conveyance of their souls and Eugene Peterson did too. I was a slow fan of Eugene Peterson. After reading, A Burning In my Bones, The Authorized Biography of Eugene H. Peterson, by Winn Collier, I am assured that Dr. Peterson would have been happy with that — with the slow warm up.

Dr. Peterson was not a fan of celebrity life. He would have rather been with the Lord, alone in Montana, with his wife and family, with his church, intently present and listening to another person sort their soul with Jesus. Peterson knew that affection for the rave was toxic for the soul. He was not a fan.

Throughout my years of service to Jesus and His church I have felt tension between pastoral care and active entrepreneurial mission leadership. Sometimes I created an internal voice of condemnation and would alternate between these two ways of being in search of some kind of recipe for success.

Over the last week while reading Winn’s account of Eugene’s life I became aware that the Lord has helped me bring what might be considered “opposite” ways of being together. Loving people and joining Jesus in building a congregation in a university setting has let me grow pastoral roots in community while simultaneously entering into the annual renewal and experimental aspects of mission.

I was glad for this realization. So there it is even in Psalm 84: A house and a journey, a life and people of worship. My life with Christ doesn’t need to look like anyone else’s, nor does anyone else’s need to look like mine. The same God-of-the-Angel-Armies is sunshine and sovereign for us all! One of the benefits of reading biography is the inflection made possible by observing another person’s life. The words I had been using to describe my own life are given a new voice and new perspective as I listen into the other person’s journey with God.

I never met Dr. Peterson when he was teaching at Regent in Vancouver. But his influence has been all around me. While I completed a Doctorate of Ministry through Golden Gate Seminary, two of the students in my cohort had Dr. Peterson as their field supervisor. They met regularly with him at his home in Montana. I was so impressed and I was so happy. From a distance our whole cohort benefited from the realism provided by his hospitality. Because a “celebrity” made time for two very normal fellows we were all reminded to keep it real: love Jesus, love people.

Every normal life in Christ is meant to be a new song. I have come to believe that one of the evidences of new life in a local congregation are new songs. While pastoring at Cityview, previous to Origin, my friend Lalpi wrote new songs. Here’s one — I offer it again in honour of Dr. Peterson, “Sing to the Lord a New Song.” The lyrics written and performed by Lalpi Guite include this phrase that took my breath away: sunshine and sovereign.

Change, Work

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