Leadership

Stuck at a crossroads.

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I remember feeling stuck!

Not sure what to do next I worked myself into a corner trying to figure out God’s will. Discernment is often a process. We can get impatient. But I also felt stuck with the foreboding sense of fear: “I might make the wrong decision.” It was a major decision. Literally. What was I going to study?

The following verse from Psalm 37 helped me to relax and trust that God would use, shape and change the internal desires of my heart as my heart took delight in Him. All of Psalm 37 is helpful in setting a course of life during these periods of decision and transition.

“Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.” Psalm 37:4

Delight yourself in the Lord! I began to know that I could make a decision. Aim at something. And trust that God would lead me to the next decision.

To make God my delight is turn the affections of my soul first to Jesus and to trust that He will guide me into how to relate people, the stuff of earth, and myself.

Following Jesus and Busy

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Last night at our community vision night our speaker Tyler Miley taught us that the sense of stress & anxiety grows as the distance between our responsibilities and our  capacities grow.  Finding the right balance for life in order to reduce that space and to find our individual and even seasonal balance is essential.

I was reminded me of another reflection I had on the growth of the church in Philippi. In Acts 16 we hear about a business woman named Lydia:

13On the Sabbath we went a little way outside the city to a riverbank, where we thought people would be meeting for prayer, and we sat down to speak with some women who had gathered there. 14One of them was Lydia from Thyatira, a merchant of expensive purple cloth, who worshiped God. As she listened to us, the Lord opened her heart, and she accepted what Paul was saying. 15She was baptized along with other members of her household, and she asked us to be her guests. “If you agree that I am a true believer in the Lord,” she said, “come and stay at my home.” And she urged us until we agreed.

 

Lydia was a business woman.

She ran a household. And was clearly influential  — she created the space for others to hear the Gospel and respond.

Her expensive purple cloth business was likely quite successful and connected her with the upper levels of society.

As there was not a synagogue in Phillipi (it required 10 Jewish men) they had a place of prayer.

 

Lydia was probably a busy person. But her pattern of life created the space for thoughtful engagement with God. Her pattern of life was influenced by the Sabbath and she created space for rest. Her pattern of life included her extended family and community so she created space for support. Her pattern of life had margins so she was able to extend hospitality.

 

And now God had opened up her heart to Jesus and brought salvation to her and her circle of influence. She says, “I am a true believer in the Lord.”

 

I wish we could observe in the Scripture what the pattern of her life looked like in the days following her baptism. But this thought remains with me: to think I’m too busy for Jesus misses the mark.

Some things you might want to be true about your church

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Some things you might want to be true of your church.

“Ever since I heard of your strong faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for God’s people everywhere, I have not stopped thanking God for you.  I pray for you constantly…”  Ephesians 1:15-16

I want this to be true of the church I serve:

We have a strong faith in the Lord Jesus.

We have a love for God’s people everywhere.

There are people who are thankful for us.

There are people who are praying for us.

The Water School in Haiti

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This past year I was introduced to The Water School and its activities in Haiti through the UBC Alumni magazine Trek.  Here is an excerpt introducing The Water School and the work of a UBC alum, Bradley Pierik, who is extending the SODIS approach beyond bottles to bags:

The Water School was founded by Robert Dell, a retired water chemist who ran Dell Tech Laboratories, a chemical regulatory compliance company, for 21 years. After a trip to Kenya in 2001, he began researching water treatment technologies that could be useful in Africa, and came across solar disinfection. The method had been studied extensively by a Swiss aquatic research institute (EAWAG), and after his own field work in Uganda, Dell made some further simplifications to the process. The Water School works in five countries, and maintains a “train-the-trainer” approach, so that teachers or other leaders promote the method to their own community.

As an undergraduate engineering student at University of Toronto, Pierik spent a summer in Africa working for a church organization and digging wells. The next year, while working at a large Canadian water treatment company, he met Dell, who later asked him to work for the Water School. He completed a thesis project on various aspects of the science of solar disinfection. At UBC he built a sunlight simulator and wrote his master’s thesis on the effectiveness of using plastic bags instead of bottles. The idea proved successful, and several other organizations that promote SODIS are now looking at using bags for treating water in disaster relief because they are easy to transport.

Pierik has studied many methods of disinfection, and often finds that great ideas work well in the lab but not in practice. His favourite part of his job is traveling to places like this and meeting the people who use the technology.

Read the Trek article.

Learn more about SODIS and The Water School.

Respecting the Old and the New

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36He also told them a parable: “No one tears a piece from a new garment and puts it on an old garment. If he does, he will tear the new, and the piece from the new will not match the old. 37And no one puts new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the new wine will burst the skins and it will be spilled, and the skins will be destroyed. 38But new wine must be put into fresh wineskins. 39And no one after drinking old wine desires new, for he says, “The old is good.”   Luke 5:36-39

Both are valuable.

New wineskins and old wineskins.

Because of what they hold: wine.

Jesus tells this parable as His new community is under attack.

I believe He conveys the value of both the old and the new.

Put new wine in old wineskins and you spoil both.

Those who have partaken of the aged wine prefer the old rather than the new.

Most people who have experienced good times in community don’t really like change.  We want to hold onto those moments when we experienced God’s grace together.

The church is Jesus’ discipleship movement. But our assets like buildings, culture, music, books, and websites distract us from the fluidity of His Kingdom.  We are seduced into illusions of permanence and legacy that have little to do with His Kingdom.

We require the regenerative work of the Holy Spirit in order to live in the tension of honouring people graced by Jesus in the old and in the new. I know… I’m a church planter. I’m living in-between; sent from the old in order to plant seeds and gather the new. I’m learning that our critique of either will lead to sin if we fail to cherish the people He has and is drawing into the family of Jesus.