And God has done something.  I rejoice now in the hundreds of people we have been able to share the Gospel and life with in this City.  I have been blessed with neighbours and friends who have immensely enriched my life.  One of the things that has remained true of Cityview is that we are a people willing to risk and try new things.  Confidence is helpful.  Trust is essential.  And listening to Jesus and discerning His direction is the way.  I have always sought for us to individually and corporately wrestle with discerning Jesus’ voice.  He is Lord…not me!

This year the Strategic Leadership Team at Cityview has taken another big step in our vision of creating communities of devoted followers in Vancouver and around the world.  They have given me time to invest in people in the UBC Campus Community.  We are convinced that God loves the students and people who live, work, and play there.  And we have heard God’s call to join with other faithful people like Rich Carruthers, Suzanne Perry, and the students in Born for More to plant the Gospel in the diverse communities that together form UBC.

Our vision  is to see a network of house churches or simple churches meeting in homes, coffee shops, and community gathering places because of the transforming work of Jesus and His Gospel of grace in our lives.  Currently I am spending two and half days a week in the UBC Campus Community getting to know people, their patterns of life, their hopes and dreams, and their spiritual journey stories.  As well, I am sharing the Gospel and including people in our community of faith.

This week I was so encouraged by a text from a friend.  ”Hey Craig…you still making trips out to UBC?  I want to encourage you – I think that’s the coolest thing!  Reminds me of soldiers that go into foreign area to do recon…”  So my response was thanks…and you should come out with me!  Now I know that you all can’t come out with me, but do pray for us.  Pray the Luke 10:2b prayer…that the Lord of the Harvest will raise up workers for the Harvest.  We have seen the Lord answer this and we are looking for new disciples of Jesus who will grow in faith and become part of the team.

After 16 years I have had to ask myself, why do I have to keep complicating my life?  I have often done “two things” the whole time we have been here.  It’s just the way the Lord has wired me and my family up and the way Jesus has invited me to be a part of what He is doing.  I have said all along that our call to Vancouver has really been a call to follow Jesus.  I wish that kind of life for every one of you.

“I consider my life worth nothing to me, if only I may finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me–the task of testifying to the gospel of God’s grace.”  Acts 20:24

British Columbians are among the most independent, individualistic and free-thinking people on the continent, according to polls.
They are the most inclined to reject institutions, distrust leaders and to strive to be “true to themselves.” To be “real.”
To be “authentic.”
It’s one reason West Coast attire is so utterly casual. Rightly or wrongly, many British Columbians associate dressing up with being “phoney.” They don’t want to put on a false face.
British Columbians’ continuous quest for authenticity also explains why so many are feeling challenged now that the 2010 Winter Olympics are under way in all their glory — from the stirring opening ceremonies to downtown protests, from worries about melting snow to Canada’s early gold, silver and bronze medal wins.
An Angus Reid poll revealed on Feb. 12 that Metro Vancouver residents are all at sea about the Games. Sixty per cent believe the Olympics are a waste of money that could be used for more important things. But 73 per cent say Canadian athletes make them proud.
In the seven years since Vancouver was named the 2010 Olympic host city, British Columbians, more than other Canadians, have been swamped with leaders urging them to buy into the “spirit” of this sports event.
As a result, the Olympics have been posing a dilemma for British Columbians who generally refuse to embrace anything — whether fashion, food, values, people or giant global sporting events — just because some quasi-authority tells them they should.
That’s not entirely a bad thing, according to leading philosophers from Socrates to Jean-Paul Sartre, from Quebec’s Charles Taylor to the University of B.C.’s Philip Resnick. Most British Columbians are not joiners, but seekers of individual authenticity.

26 Days of Christmas.  Kayleigh from Cityview has come up with a much more cool badge for our exploration of how to bless Main St / Riley Park for 26 Days, from Nov 29-Dec 24.  Hope to hear more of your ideas here and on facebook.

Thanks Kayleigh for and awesome badge!

I was recently asked what I thought about the event.  Here are a few personal observations and the perspectives that shape them–just looking in before it gets started:

1.  The Summit is a remarkable celebration of LIBERTY.  As a philosophical construct informed from a Christian worldview, liberty demands that people be free to hold exclusive and divergent positions or truth claims while maintaining the dignity and high value of all humanity in respectful interactions.  Where liberty is most graciously practiced tension abounds–especially for those who observe people with divergent truth-claims getting along and planning to do good together.

2.  The Summit promotes the difficult task of PEACEMAKING.  The values and competencies required to make peace in a world of hostility will be discussed and made available through the event.  Relational reconciliation begins in our own neighbourhoods and cities.  To break dividing walls of hostility is not an easy task and requires “wisdom from heaven.”  Jesus calls his followers to respond to His grace with lives that promote peace; he said, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God.”  And James writes,

13 Who is wise and understanding among you? Let him show it by his good life, by deeds done in the humility that comes from wisdom. 14 But if you harbor bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast about it or deny the truth. 15 Such “wisdom” does not come down from heaven but is earthly, unspiritual, of the devil. 16 For where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder and every evil practice.

17 But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere. 18 Peacemakers who sow in peace raise a harvest of righteousness.  NIV (James 3:13-18)

2:1 I urge, then, first of all, that requests, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for everyone- 2 for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness. 3 This is good, and pleases God our Savior, 4 who wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth. 5 For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, 6 who gave himself as a ransom for all men-the testimony given in its proper time.  (NIV)

4.  The Summit is a RELIGIOUS event.  Participants, including the Dalai Lama come to the Summit from their own worldview and construct of faith either in themselves, or a set of principles greater themselves, or in a god.  If we understand spirituality as the pursuit required to integrate what we see with what we don’t see then one could say this is a SPIRITUAL event as well.  James, the half-brother of Jesus, writes to the churches that “Religion God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this:  to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.” (James 1:27)  Religion though is most often an exercise in self-justification, self-righteousness, and self-awareness.  When either of these selves is threatened it turns quickly to the desires for power and control in order to maintain this idolatry or balance of a self-satisfied life.  A spirituality flowing out of the Gospel of Jesus Christ will be categorically different in its realization that justification, righteousness and awareness are secured in Christ.  As a resident of a City (Vancouver) that has many who long to be good, I can observe with the Apostle Paul that God has worked in the hearts of humanity a record of His Law or way:  ”Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law, since they show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts now accusing , now even defending them.”  (Romans 2:14-15)  One of the stated goals of the Dalai Lama Center for Peace and Education is the “education of the heart;” participants will be encouraged to explore and develop personal peace from which will hopefully flow compassion for others; that’s religion at its best.  Not a GOSPEL event but a RELIGIOUS event.

5.  The Peace Summit reminds me of the SUPREMACY OF CHRIST.  The followers of Jesus even from the first century have entered into the real and sometimes figurative Areopagus (See Acts 17:16-34)  in order to proclaim the reality and the meaning of the resurrection of Jesus Christ.  The exchange of ideas in the marketplace is exciting and sometimes costly.  Love and Truth do mix.  Our Vancouver- Canadian apprehension of conflict will be challenged by the public exchange of ideas that the Peace Summit elicits.  From the Christian worldview, Christians live their lives in response to Jesus Christ because of His “work” on the cross and His resurrection that confirmed and completed His work.  Jesus is our Prince of Peace.  He brings a peace that the world cannot give.  He brings a peace with God that transcends all other realities.  I don’t want to pretend about the realities of conflict like those who say, “Peace, Peace, where there is no peace.”  (See Jeremiah 6:14)  The claims of Christ are in direct conflict with the dominant messages of spiritual self-sufficiency.  The Apostles who functioned in a world of diverse ideas and claims to truth show us how to live as followers of Jesus Christ:  test the spirits, discern the truth, act in love.    See 1 John 4:1-21 below.

4:1 Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. 2 This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, 3 but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world.

4 You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world. 5 They are from the world and therefore speak from the viewpoint of the world, and the world listens to them. 6 We are from God, and whoever knows God listens to us; but whoever is not from God does not listen to us. This is how we recognize the Spirit of truth and the spirit of falsehood.

7 Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11 Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.

13 We know that we live in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. 14 And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. 15 If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in him and he in God. 16 And so we know and rely on the love God has for us.

God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him. 17 In this way, love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment, because in this world we are like him. 18 There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.

19 We love because he first loved us. 20 If anyone says, “I love God,” yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. 21 And he has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother.  NIV

Recent articles:

Vancouver Sun writer Douglas Todd explores the three goals of the Peace Summit.

Town Hall for Hope with Dave Ramsey

Cityview will be hosting Dave Ramsey’s Town Hall for Hope this Thursday, 23 April 2009, at 7 PM PT.  I believe this will be an informative and inspiring evening on the economy and your money.  Facing a recession when your finances are great can be tough enough, however facing it when your finances are awful can be devastating.  I want you to have your heart in the right place and to have a workable plan with money.  

Many in our congregation have already been helped with the Dave Ramsey Financial Peace University and his book Money Makeover, so let me encourage you to take the time and listen in as Dave talks to Americans.  It’s sort of like listening in behind a closed door when one of your siblings got disciplined.  Sometimes that’s a great time to learn!  

The Cityview building and offices are at 4370 Sophia St., Vancouver, BC, V5V 3V7.