The Village Voice

For the past couple of years I have kept virtually a daily journal of my thoughts here on www.villagevoice.ca.

Looking back, I could always judge how fired up I was about the blog and about the things around me by the frequency of my posts.

Some days I had trouble limited it to two or three. Other times, I had trouble coming up with something intelligent to say once a week.

All in all, I’ve really loved blogging and I think I’ll look back on it with real fondness as time goes on.

However, for now, www.villagevoice.ca (as we know it) will be no more.

My stated purpose for the site was to give people a window into the heart of The Village Community Church and allow them to experience a slice of the life of our church through their computer screen.

At the end of the day, I feel like this was accomplished, and that’s very cool.

As we grow as a church though, and as my life evolves as well, I’ve begun to see that 640 posts is enough (for now) and that the purpose of villagevoice.ca has run its course.

Over the next several months we will be using the same url and transitioning the site into something bold, daring and hopefully something that will connect with everyone in Milton…not just those who happen to wander onto a church blog.

We’re passionate about connecting people with the message of Jesus in a relevant, down-to-earth way at The Village, and we’re now charting a course to make www.villagevoice.ca an active part of that dream.

It’s been awesome chatting with all of you these past few years, and check back periodically to see what becomes of this site.

I think you’ll be glad you did.

Love,
Rob

Every year in January I get a package emailed to me by our financial team. In it, there are a myriad of Excel files which detail every possible aspect of our giving for the past year: which months were best…which trends were there…etc. There’s nothing in it about who gave what or details like that, but there is a lot of information about where we stand in terms of our giving at the church.

To be honest, our giving is something I think about three or four times a year when we’re doing some planning, and I am so, so, so, so, glad that we are a church which rarely deals with this subject and only does so from a spiritual (as opposed to guilt-based) perspective.

Anyway, within the package this year was something new - a breakdown of our weekly giving for the past 6 years.

I thought it was very interesting and encouraging, so I thought I’d share it here on the blog:

2002 – $263.43 - Our first year of existence in Mississauga; 3 families
2003 – $521.89 - We launched publicly in Mississauga, and weren’t yet viable
2004 – $978.72 - Things pick up attendance-wise
2005 – $1,023.22 - We reach our upper size number-wise in attendance in Mississauga
2006 – $979.32 - We relocate to Milton with a smaller group and virtually no overhead; saving for our launch
2007 – $2,062.06 - Our first full year of existence here in Milton
2008 – $3,003.91 - This past year

For as much as I hate to gauge the success of anything by looking at money and numbers, I found these numbers super encouraging.

For me, what it shows is that we’ve come from a small group of 3 families who were doing our best to prop up a crazy dream of launching a church, and now we’re at a point where we’re a group of 150 or so who are now helping own this dream to impact Milton in amazing ways.

Very cool stuff.

This week, we’re launching into our first ever mega-series here at The Village.

It’s going to run for fourteen weeks, and I am chomping at the bit to get it started.

Here’s the graphic and the title:

One of the weird aspects of being a pastor is that people can take what you say and immediately use it to form part of their moral framework.

What I mean by this is that if I stand up on a Sunday and say that…oh, I don’t know…’God is using the economy to bring our country to its knees’ (please note how hypothetical this is, and is in no way what I actually think), some people will immediately bring that into their thinking and say it’s true.

The same holds true for some spiritual issues, some family issues, and, oddly enough, some entertainment issues.

As a pastor, what I ‘endorse’ and talk about from up front can easily become the acceptable standard in our church. It’s just one of those odd traits which comes along with the role that I have.

As a pastor, what I ‘endorse’ and talk about from up front can easily become the acceptable standard in our church.

Because of this, I am usually very leery of addressing anything too head-on when it comes to entertainment. For instance, if I say something like…

‘Wow, I love the Simpsons’
or…

‘I truly believe everyone should go and see The Dark Knight’
…then I’m endorsing those shows/movies.

Of course, when people then go and watch them and see vulgarity, off-color stuff, swearing, odd themes, or anything else, they then look at me and wonder why I endorsed it.

So, I shy away from stuff like that.

But, here we are early in 2009, and I am going to give you my one and only movie recommendation for the year - Adam Sandler’s Bedtime Stories.

Here we are early in 2009, and I am going to give you my one and only movie recommendation for the year

Now, I know what you’re thinking: ‘This pastor just told us to go see a movie with the guy who made Happy Gilmore.’

I know, I know. Trust me, it was only after I checked four parental review sites that I even dreamt of taking the kids to see it…and wow, was I ever glad I did.

I laughed out loud at least ten times; my 7-year old son was giggling with delight for a good 45 minutes; and my 4-year old daughter was enthralled by all of the fairies and such.

There was no language…no thematic foolishness…and no Adam Sandler-like humour either (ironically enough).

Even the music was awesome, and I can’t recall ever seeing a movie that ended and then had appluase and literal dancing in the aisles as people left (Of course, having ‘Don’t Stop Believin’ as exit music will do that).

So, take it from me, go see Bedtime Stories.

It’s good.

You know you’re doing the right thing with your life when every week from Tuesday to Thursday you have butterflies of anticipation about what your job will bring with it that Sunday.

I truly feel like I was born to pastor one church…The Village Community Church.

-Christmas without family would be very, very different
-Christmas without kids would be very, very different
-For most of the month of December the kids have been going through a bit of a rough patch…who knew that all it would take to snap them out of it was about 12 hours a days spent with family for a week? It constantly amazes me how reversible most of my children’s moods are…more often than not, they’re simply asking for love and a connection
-I’ve now reached that age where I look at the presents under the tree and say something like, ‘Look at all of the stuff. Boys, kids sure are lucky nowadays, aren’t they? When I was young…’ (It’s usually around this spot that my wife hits me on the arm and politely tells me to be quiet)
-Our saving grace almost every year present-wise is the Playmobil outlet store in Mississauga…the kids love their castles, pirate ships and fairy princess houses
-At various times, all three kids performed for us this year: Kier and Rory rocked out a version of The Little Drummer Boy playing plastic swords, and Cait worked the crowd for a full hour at her great-grandmother’s house in Oakville
-On that musical theme, Angie and I took our lives into our own hands by giving Kier a set of drums this year
-On Christmas Eve I was about to read from Luke when Angie and I realized that Kier could do it…so we let him. Then, a few paragraphs in, we realized that Rory could help too…so she chimed in on every other paragraph. I’d have to say that was my Christmas highlight this year.
-By the way, if your child is aching for a video game and you’re caught in-between about the appropriateness of it, then check out the Lego series (Indiana Jones, Star Wars). My son is only 7, so I’m leery of the whole video game thing (in fact, I really don’t like them at all, but I’m trying to be open-minded), and these games feature none of the edgy stuff at all, with all of the fun. I’d highly recommend them.
-On what other day of the year than Boxing Day can you justify a meal of Toffifee, leftover nacho dip, candy canes and cheese?

Every once in a while, a delivery truck will whizz by my house on it’s way somewhere. Over the course of a month I’ll see FedEx trucks, UPS trucks, Purolator trucks, and one other truck which always leaves me a little baffled.

It’s a non-distinct grey van, and it’s adorned with a full-wrap advertisement for The Children’s Miracle Network, or the Make-a-Wish Foundation, or the Children’s Wish Foundation…one of those organizations.

Now, as I’m telling yo this, note two things: 1) I don’t even know the name of the delivery company (I think it’s Canpar, but I can’t be sure); 2) I don’t know the name of the charity either.

By all accounts, this very noble attempt at promoting a very worthy cause is actually shooting the entire effort in the foot.

By all accounts, this very noble attempt at promoting a very worthy cause is actually shooting the entire effort in the foot.

Why?

Because in promoting the cause, the cause itself became the identity of the company. I see this all the time in churches as well.

They give a lot to missionaries…so they become a missions church
They’re connected to a soup kitchen…so they become a socially-minded group
They have teens in their church…so they build a rec centre for them
Etc., etc.

The list goes on and on.

While these are all great steps, and possibly very effective moves to make, what they symbolize is a group that is willing to divest itself of its main identity in the search for another cause to follow.

Instead of a group promoting a cause and having it become part of who they are…they allow the cause to take over. In every instance this is a very bad idea, and one that is doomed to fail.

Instead of a group promoting a cause and having it become part of who they are…they allow the cause to take over. In every instance this is a very bad idea, and one that is doomed to fail

.

When organizations don’t have enough clarity about who they are and what role they fulfill, they’re sitting ducks for an eventual regression and evaporation.

In churches you see this take shape in the form of entire congregations locked into outdated summer children’s ministries, Sunday morning habits, mid-week scheduling traits, even bussing programs, which are leftovers from decades past.

These all typically started as niche ideas that worked like a charm, but eventually they jumped the boundary of adding to the church’s vision and became the vision itself.

Here’s an interesting link.

I’d be curious to know what your guys’ thoughts are about this.

A touchstone of ours since day one, and something we learned from our sister church - Grace Community, was to always speak in series.

It’s such a part of us now that we don’t even think about it, but I know a lot of people/churches still grapple with the concept.

For us, the reasoning behind it is simple:

-you get a focus for your speaking
-you can easily discern the topics you’ve covering in any given year
-it helps with planning
-each series gives you a sense of newness and excitement
-you’ve got a built-in creativity point and advertising foothold

As a leadership team we always grapple with series topics and lengths, as this is one of those things that often sparks (healthy) disagreement.

One of us will typically speak out of our own experience and discernment and determine Issue A is paramount right now…while someone else will make the exact same claims about Issue B, etc.

Starting the first week of January we’ll be kicking off our first ever mega-series - 14 weeks long!

To give us an anchor in this area we’ve decided to go back and forth, series by series, from a topical approach to an exegetical approach (i.e. a series based on a topic or idea…to a series based solely on a particular book of the Bible)

Well, we just wrapped up Sex and the Suburbs (which was topical), and now we’re headed into the new year with an eye on a particular book of the Bible.

In this case, Genesis.

Starting the first week of January we’ll be kicking off our first ever mega-series - 14 weeks long!

We’ll be covering creation/evoluton, good/evil, God/man, Noah/flood, and then tracing the origins of our life and faith down through the 50 chapters of Genesis.

Should be a good one.

Consider yourself invited.

-I loved the rotating party idea. I really did. Having 25 people in your house for an hour, and then having another group come for the next hour was really cool.
-Carlos, Melanie, and of course, my wife Angie, and Mat’s wife Myriam (our hosts) did an awesome job getting everything lined up.
-Like I said on Thursday night, we just wanted to have a party which reflected the ideals of the church - a simple time where we could personally connect and hang out
-I never knew that sausage rolls could be so filling…and so good as leftovers the next day
-The most common score in the Rob or Mat? Trivia Game we had…11 out of 15 (several people stumbled on which one of us won speed skating competitons as a youth [Mat] and which one of us was on the high school quiz show Reach For The Top [Me])
-I tell you, if you haven’t connected with a church yet in Milton…and ours didn’t tickle your fancy for whatever reason…then check out Milton Bible Church. Honestly, they give us their building about once a month for various events, and I couldn’t imagine more gracious hosts.
-I think the mark that we have a humble group of people at The Village is that during the presentation of the door prizes everyone was trying to give theirs to someone else who they felt deserved it more…good on you, guys