The Village Voice

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.

-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?

As you might have noticed, my frequency of posts around the old blog have decreased severely over the past little while.

There are 3 reasons for this:

-As a family, we’ve been away a fair bit
-Personally, I’ve been very busy with writing projects otherwise, and I haven’t really had my mojo going for more writing
-As a church, we’ve been shifting gears and navigating new waters, and that hasn’t really lent itself to a lot of downtime for me

Here’s some detail on each:

1. Angie and I have a semi-tradition of combining some of our Christmas shopping with a night or two away for us as a couple. Typically this means heading to downtown TO, but this year we found a great deal and made it a trip to NYC.

We ended up spending four days there last week and we were at a taping of Letterman, toured NBC Studios, went skating at Rockefeller Center, saw Phantom of the Opera on Broadway, visited Ground Zero, shopped in SoHo, swung by Chinatown, and left the day before US Thanksgiving in the middle of an al-Qaeda terrorist alert in the subway (Note: we took a cab that day).

2. We’ve had an awful lot of creative/writing/prep stuff happening recently as we gear up for Christmas and beyond, and a lot of this has fallen on a few of us all at once.

In one 10 day period awhile back, I wrote two messages (12 pages each), helped create two sex calendars (a half-day’s work), compiled over 40 pages of other writing for booklets we were doing, wrote a 15-page study of how to read the Bible for our house churches, wrote 10 pages of notes for our first ever Mens Advance, and then put together a 12-page booklet for a missions team that was here.

Truth be told, I was burnt out from that sort of output and I lost my blogging fire.

3. As a church, we’re looking ahead to 2009 with a sense of newness and opportunity.

We’ve been working hard to get our feet underneath us with planning and vision, and a big part of that has involved including more people in that process. This has opened the floodgates creatively speaking, but it necessarily involves more prep, more input, more turnaround time for decision-making, and more oversight (with less direct contact) from me.

In short, that is why my blogging has been less frequent lately…though I am looking forward to some more time for it in the near future.

As some of you may have noticed, I’ve been away from the blog for awhile. To fill everyone in on what’s been happening (or, the 411, if you will…I love talking ‘young’), here are some thoughts from my recent blog hiatus…

1. You should never take an unannounced blog hiatus. It makes people think you’ve disappeared. Whoops.

2. Re-visioning a church’s outreach and web presence is a laborious task…but one that kind of gets me excited. We’re currently transitioning from a front-door/flyer-based approach to a computer screen/web-based approach, and it’s been cool navigating some new areas as we seek to be groundbreaking in all that we do.

3. The east coast of Canada is a very intriguing place for me. I was born there; I came to know God there; I went to school there; and after visiting there over Thanksgiving, I realized that I don’t feel a connection there. I feel very much like an Ontarian.

4. I think I have some of the best friends in the world…and, the people in our church constantly pick me up in amazing ways. I love that.

5. My kids are cuter than most. That’s not a dig on anyone else’s kids…just one of those cruel, entirely biased truths. I can’t think of something I’d rather do than spend time with them and just be their Dad.

6. Politics are a very funny business, both in Canada and the States. We have an election in our country and nobody seems to care (see: very low voter turnout), and they have an incredibly hard-fought election in the States where the candidates are pilloring each other in public, and then chumming up in other circles. Check out these videos where the candidates are roasting each other at a recent event:

7. We’re gearing up for a lot of stuff this Fall and it’s like being caught in a whirlwind. More on that soon.

I know what you’re thinking…he’s starting a God @ The Movies series this Sunday so he’s trying to pump it up by telling us to go see the movies.

Wrong.

In fact, I’m very leery of ever telling anyone which movies I enjoy, or even which ones I’ve watched, because what that amounts to is a pastoral endorsement.

Problem is, most every movie out there has some objectionable content in it, and if I don’t notice the violence or language in a film and it happens to offend you…well, you can see the dilemma.

(I do draw a much firmer line when it comes to the sexual content of a movie, but that’s another story altogether)

Anyway, Angie and I sat down to watch a movie last night, and it turned out to be one of the most meaningful and heart-touching film experiences of my life.

The movie is called ‘Once’, and those who know me will be shocked when I mention that it’s essentially a muscial!

Me describing the movie will not do it justice…you just have to sit and be immersed in it to get it.

Now, to be clear, there is some strong language in it (but no sexual content whatsoever), and it might not be your cup of tea.

But, I am going to recommend it wholeheartedly.

It’s truly magical.

Just to give you a taste of what I mean, here’s a montage video from one of the songs in the movie ‘Falling Slowly.’ It won the Best Song Oscar last year, and it is truly haunting.

Enjoy.

My family got away earlier this week for a quick camping trip to Sauble Beach.

We had a very nice time together, but encountered a few bumps along the way.

-our youngest daughter Cait, doesn’t really enjoy her car seat right now, so the 3-hour drive up was trying at times
-the weather was a little sketchy, so we enjoyed a few instances of sweaters and hoods on the beach
-I’m not sure if the Ontario government released mosquitoes into the area the day before we arrived or what, but they were thick
-finally, we had a bit of a bear incident at the campground (a large black one came and took our garbage while we were gone), so it kind of got us thinking a bit

All told though, it was a great time.

The highlights?

-when we arrived at the campsite on our first night both Kier and Rory jumped around screaming, ‘This is the best day of my life!’
-we met up with some friends who were in Sauble as well, and the kids loved hanging out together
-Rory went for a canoe ride with her Mom, and then went out in the paddle boat with her friends…she loved both
-Kier went for a canoe ride with me, and then jumped into a kayak by himself afterward…and did great!
-Cait was in heavy bonding mode and I spent two entire games of bocce holding her in one arm as I threw…our routine was I would pick up my ball, she would lean in and kiss me on the lips, and then I’d throw…loved it

To celebrate our recent Anniversaday (Our anniversary and my wife’s birthday are one day apart, so I have combined them into one celebration) we went to downtown TO.

Normally I don’t care for Toronto very much, as I’ve really cemented myself as someone who’d much prefer to drive further west out of the GTA, than venture into the cement jungle to the east.

Anyway, we went down with friends and we had a very nice time.

While we were there, I went into a store called Forever XXI with my wife.

It was nice enough, and she bought a few things while I stood there examining the lighting layout

(Hint: Guys, that’s a great thing to do in these situations. Try to see where they hide their speakers; look for how they disperse the light; and sometimes you can even track the plumbing pipes through the ceiling. Great way to pass the time. But I digress.)

After getting home, Angie was putting some stuff away and she noticed that written on the bottom of the bag from the store were the words: John 3:16.

Cool, eh?

After doing some research on the company I discovered that it was actually founded by a Korean Christian couple in California, and that while they seem to have their fair share of detractors (apparently the company has been accused of ripping off designs), virtuall nobody assails the faith of its founders.

Here’s an excerpt from an article I found on them…

The garment industry isn’t exactly known for its humanity. From the infamous Kathie Lee Gifford case in Honduras to the mid-’90s controversy over Nike’s practices overseas, it’s a business built on moral relativism. Or as one anonymous fashion buyer tells me, “Everyone in this business is a scumbag to some degree.” But the irony is that Don and Jin Sook Chang also happen to be hardcore evangelical Christians.

Every Forever 21 shopping bag bears the words John 3:16, pointing customers to the Bible-thumpers’ mantra: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son….” The verse, according to Meyer, is simply “an exhibition of their faith.” The Changs are charitable people who give to their church, he tells me. “They travel on mission trips, and that’s part of their being.” In May 2006, the Fuller Theological Seminary dedicated its new housing commons to the Changs, who had reportedly ponied up $3 million. The Pasadena-based seminary seeks to “best equip leaders who are ready to serve the Church and the world.” According to a business insider who spoke anonymously, Mrs. Chang, who attends predawn services every day and strongly encourages her vendors to do the same, makes it a point to give Christians in the industry a leg up, too. “She plucks young designers out of the companies she’s working with,” he says. “And if they’re Christian and religious, she puts them in business.”

Rowena Rodriguez, a 33-year-old fashion consultant and onetime “unbeliever” who was born again with Mrs. Chang’s help, may be one of those lucky designers. “In the short time I worked with Mrs. Chang, my life was transformed, and I accepted Jesus Christ as my lord and savior,” she recalls in an e-mail interview. “Mrs. Chang prayed me into the kingdom!” Rodriguez says she has been approached by executives looking for the secret to Forever 21’s phenomenal success. “I usually say, ‘If you really want to know, I’ll tell you. But you won’t believe me. … The Changs love Jesus!’”

If the religious fervor fazes Meyer, he doesn’t show it. “They’re proud of being Christian,” he says. “We are who we are because of the inspiration they give.” He attributes the company’s growth not to divine intervention but thrift. “We share rooms when we travel,” he says. “We don’t spend money the way other people spend money.”

Compared to their attention-addicted fashion-world colleagues, the Changs are careful to maintain a low profile. There is exactly one photograph of them available online. Last year, after consenting to an in-person interview with the New York Times, they unexpectedly sent a proxy instead. (The surprised reporter described the substitute interviewee as having “a born-again zeal.”) Still, despite their best efforts, the intensely private pair have become a hotly discussed topic in L.A.’s close-knit apparel industry.

My son came home from school today having aced his oral book report on bats…and, having taught himself how to skip rope after a few weeks of frustration.

It felt really awesome to see him succeed.

Life has been…weird…lately, and I must admit I’m somewhat out of sorts.

One of the things which has always helped me in life has been my scheduling, preparation and planning.

For the past two months or so, these three things have been tough to come by in Casa del Rob.

We’ve had visitors, special projects, personal stuff, hiccups here and there, growth periods with our kids, and an overall life shake-up.

It’s been nothing bad, per se, but what it has done is leave me a tad perplexed when it comes to nailing down my schedule and pupose on any given day.

God’s been teaching me a lot through this free-form time, but I feel like it’s time for me to cement a few things and get back on track, so to speak.

The summer is no time to enter aimlessly, and I’d hate to lose any opportunity I had to do something awesome for God.

So, here’s some stuff Angie and I are going to be knocking out in the next little while:

-figuring out our weekly schedule
-determining which projects we want to undertake around the house
-getting our vacation plans cemented
-setting some goals for the kids for the summer
-figuring out our finances and working off of a set budget

In some ways the past few months have been a time of real ‘blessing’ for us (Oh, I hate that word…but you know what I mean), and now I think it’s a case of us learning how to manage those blessings and fold them into our life.

I’ll keep you posted.

I used my kids in an illustration this past week, and as I thought about it more and more, I realized that my family is the greatest source of material and inspiration that I have in my life.

Kieran is my mini-me, and if I ever want to know what pure innocence and wonder should look like in my life, I just look in his direction.

Rory is my eternal playmate, and in between playing Polly Pockets and helping her get dressed in one of her outfits, I am always struck and inspired by her purity and simplicity.

Cait is my passionate girl, and there’s nothing I love more than seeing her nose scrunch up as she smiles my way. It always warms my heart and reminds me of the love that I feel for her.

Angie is not only my wife, she’s the most amazing woman I have ever met. Everytime I look at her, I melt, and I think the only thing more beautiful than her appearance is her spirit. I am so in love with her.

I’m a lucky, lucky guy.