Ordination

So, what is the point of ordination ... anyway? A little over a year ago I was asked to officiate a wedding for a young couple who have served us at Camp Squeah. I felt privileged and wanted to support them in this way. It was a wonderful experience and I truly felt the good weight of solemnity and importance of the covenant and commitment that marriage is through that experience. I loved it!! And I got to rejoice with this young couple.

Since then I've been asked to do a number of other weddings including my mother-in-law's (she has been twice widowed) and my brother-in-law (my wife's only brother). It has been an incredibly rich experience in every case. My wife and I are encouraging another young couple in their journey to become married, now engaged, as I will also officiate their wedding this coming May. I'm allowed to do so by requesting a temporary license to marry through the Camp denomination through which I am considered clergy through my title/position. It's a neat perk (to some) and I've taken advantage of it. Through this experience I started wondering about the process of ordination and asking what exactly it is. I've received a variety of responses in my search. Some think it's rather useless ... like testing someone in geography when they've already traveled the world, and others think it's imperative - the only true sign of a committed worker in God's Kingdom.

I'm still wrestling (in a good way) as I walkt the path to become ordained. The really cool thing (in my opinion) is I'll get to essentially be clergy for two denominations at the same time (Mennonites of British Columba and the Nazarene's). The positive implications are I get to take a few classes in theology and biblical studies that I've never had the chance to (never been to a bible college) and I'm pumped to dive into this and write a few papers ... which is weird because I don't usually like writing papers. Plus I get the benefit of having a whole denomination keeping me accountable for my actions as a minister of Jesus. Though in truth I already am and have been for a good chunk of my life.

So what is Ordination? It's considered a sacrament to the Catholics. I have likened it to the wedding ceremony and the baptism ceremony as well ... though the analogies don't always quite transfer. But if the wedding is the agreement of the community and the church that what the couple have ALREADY chosen to do and be to each other is right and good ... and baptism is the symbolic assertion and confession of faith that is ALREADY alive and active in a believer, then it seems reasonable to view ordination as the careful & thoughtful recognition of a believer by the community of the church as an ALREADY committed worker/minister in God's Kingdom. The implication in all these statements is that what they are agreeing to that is good has already happened - marriage, salvation and ordination. So, in honesty and humility I am committing myself to the journey of ordination through the Nazarene's, not because I don't think I'm ordained (I believe I am), not to become a pastor or worker in a church institution (I am committed to and love being a program director at a camp), but to grow deeper in my faith and understanding of my part in the Kingdom and to learn more of this mystery called faith in the Life of Christ and to seek to tie myself closer with other Christians both for accountability but for loving support and encouragement for the rest of my life. This is an encouraging thought.

So ... what do you think of ordination?

A return to blogging

Hello blog lovers and readers,

My apologies for the extended hiatus from blogging. My life is full and this is a good thing ... for the most part. I will begin blogging again and I would love to continue to hear your thoughts as I explore and discover the mystery of the great thing called life. And this great person called Jesus.

Over the last few months a lot has happened. My oldest son (Griffin) turned 3 years old. He's now truly testing the limits of our sanity and our love and he seeks to know that we care for him even when he chooses (continually) to NOT eat his food at the dinner table :). He has also, miraculously, begun using the toilet! How this happens I'm not certain but essentially from one day to the next he goes from refusing to the fiber of his being to choosing to empty the fiber from his being into a proper waste disposal system. Hallelujah.

Maerk turned 1 in November and is loving life. He's getting more teeth ... again. He has lots of words, but none of them are in English. Well, very few of them, anyway. He certainly enjoys making sounds. Sometimes he'll talk whole sentences without opening his lips. It's like trying to read muted tonal inflections. VERY difficult. He's a cutie.

Kari is doing well - ever the beautiful and wonderful woman I've loved and grow to love. She continues to sew her baby sleeping bags for people (if you're interested, let me know!). She has helped in facilitating a number of great book studies for friends and other women in town and has had a great time doing that. Among the books they've studied are Dr. Laura's 'The Proper Care and Feeding of Husbands' (very good book) and a book study on Esther called 'Esther'. Not sure who writes that one. We're also still having people over regularly for open house brunch potlucks once a month and whatnot.

Personally, I've jumped into a few different things over the last little while. Along with being a member of our local fire department I have been helping to organize the British Columbia Camping Conference this coming week, becoming a member of the BCCA executive taking the position as Accreditation Chair for all summer camps in BC (with some help), moving forward in becoming an ordained minister through the Church of the Nazarene and otherwise working my buns off for Camp Squeah with everything we do through this time of the year.

Christmas was great. We spent it at home and enjoyed a relaxing time together as a family.

Posts are a comin'!

The need for a mixture

I found these few statements on the maturation process of children to be quite interesting. What do you think? This is taken from "Hold Onto Your Kids; Why Parents Matter" by Gordon Neufeld & Gabor Mate:



"Maturation in the psychological realm involves the differentiation of the elements of consciousness - thoughts, feelings, impulses, values, opinions, preferences, interests, intentions, aspirations. Differentiation needs to happen before these elements of consciousness can be mixed to produce tempered experience and expression. It is the same in the realm of relationships: maturation requires that the child first becomes unique and separate from other individuals. ... More fundamentally, a sense of self first needs to separate from inner experience, a capacity entirely absent in the young child. The child has to be able to know that she is not identical with whatever felling happens to be active in her at any particular moment.



... Without the capacity for reflection, they [two immature children] were defined by the inner experience of the moment. They immediately acted out whatever emotions arose in them. They could be their inner experience, but they could not see it. This inability made them impulsive, egocentric, brazen, dogmatic, reactive and impatient. Because fear did not mix with hope, there was no courage. Because frustration did not mix with caring, there was no patience. Because anger did not mix with love, there was no forgiveness. Because frustration did not mix with either fear or affection, they lost their tempers. In short, they lacked the fruits of maturation in their lives."



I find this thought that the mixing of many or more than one feeling at any one time as a tell tale sign of a mature individual is incredibly interesting. I work with and meet many a person who I find rather immature. This makes some interesting sense and is worth reflecting on some more.

NHL statistics

I'm a bit of a statistic nut. When I was but a teenager I would sit and watch cars pass my house and I would mark down what colour they were. I had a bar graph to show the ratio of car colours on the road. Maybe I was more than a nut.

I've recently been interested to know what the make-up of the NHL is. This all comes from the official sites of the the NHL teams.

You might be interested to know that 56% of the NHL players are Canadian born while 23% are out of North America and 21% are from the USA. By the way, there are 954 players on team rosters currently. Of the 56% Canadian players 39% of THAT number are from Ontario, 17% from Alberta, 12% from Quebec, 11% from Saskatchewan, 10% from BC, 6% from Manitoba, 2% from Nova Scotia and the remaining 2% from Newfoundland and New Brunswick.

Of the 23% from other countries, the greatest number of NHL players in this category come from Sweden making up 22% of that statistic. The Czech Republic, Finland and Russia hold the next highest spots with 19%, 17% and 13%. Slovakia is next in line with 8% of the total international playes and then Germany with 5%. The few remain players come from a variety of countries - 5 from Latvia, 4 from Belarus, 3 from Denmark and Switzerland, 2 from the Ukraine, Slovenia and Kazakhstan. There is only 1 person from each of these countries currently on an NHL roster: Italy, Austria, Poland, France, Ireland, Lithuania, South Korea, South Africa, Brazil, Japan, Norway and Brunei. The fella from Brunei was raised in Alberta Canada and has the last name Adams which leads me to suspect that though he was BORN in Brunei (tiny Asian country near the equator) his parents could very likely have been Canadian already.

Some other interesting facts: The Philadelphia Flyers have the highest percentage of Canadian players on their roster - 80%. Pittsburgh Penguins have the highest % of American players - 39% of their total players are American. And the Florida Panthers have the highest % of international players - 40%. The New York Rangers are the only team's roster who's American and International players outnumber their Canadian players ... and that only by 1 - 8, 8 and 7. It is also interesting to note that there is quite the discrepancy in the number of players that any NHL team may have on their roster. While the Detroit Red Wings have 48 players on their roster, San Jose have only 19. It may be that teams chose to put players on their roster that they are still considering for their team for the coming year while others choose to limit to those they know they will play. Florida's website has two lists. One with 20 players (called their roster) and one with 48 (called 'In the System'). San Jose have 4 different lists on their site. Their Roster - 19, their Rookie Games Roster - 26, their Training Camp Roster - 29 and their 'In the System' Roster or all their prospects - 48. For the purposes of my statistics I took only players who were on what a team called their Roster. I did not include prospects intentionally.

What Does it Mean to be Human? part 2

Sorry for the delay. This post carries on from the one below and continues the conversation through the last number of posts. I hope that you'll continue reading and enjoying them. Our summer camp season was busy and full and we're glad to have some time to spend together as a family. So, here you go:

So what I tried to argue was that from the bible’s point of view, starting in Revelation, it looks like it’s coming back here. What do we do with John’s odd description of this New Jerusalem that’s as big as the cosmos, shaped like a cube – track that imagery through the Old Testament and John’s vision is that God is going to come and dwell in a cosmic holy of holies with us. And that’s what he’s always intended to do and that makes sense all the way through the biblical narrative. Ours is a God who comes to us. He built us this wonderful place Eden, which means ‘the light’ and his concern is, he wants to dwell here with us. That’s why in Genesis 1 seven times, unparalleled in the rest of the biblical text, seven times God says this place is good, and we say ‘We believe the bible and all God wants to do is burn it up.’ How do you put that together? You don’t. That’s why Romans 8 Paul can say creation groans waiting for its redemption. That’s why John 3:16, the verse we all know, ‘For God so loved the ... cosmos.’ And now ... you ... know ... why! It’s his palace! It’s his temple! And he cares profoundly about it. You can ask people, ‘Do you love the cosmos? If you don’t this morning’s a good morning to become a Christian.’ So when you’ve gone walking through this extraordinary country Canada, you’ve stood on the beaches of Tofino and you’ve watched those breakers roll in and your heart wells up within you – this is not a non-spiritual aberration. That welling up is exactly what God intended. You’re struck with the wonder and the beauty of the temple of the palace He has made. Try thinking through that imagery.

When I’m driving on my way to work to Regent in Vancouver and I see the mountains rising up and in my mind I think of them as the pillars supporting the canopy of God’s temple. It changes the way you see the world. And this might sound really goofy, but I was out raking the leaves about two weeks ago and I had this epiphany. I was overwhelmed with emotion as I looked at each one of these … have you ever looked at a single leaf? Each leaf – the colour! And the shape. And this is all by accident. No. The bible rejoices in this. That’s why you get the Psalmist just overwhelmed by the beauty of creation. But what’s happened in the Christian tradition ever since the second century is we’ve been wanting to leave this place, get away from it. That’s what Nietzsche so repudiated about Christianity. He hated Christianity for that reason – because it treated the body and this present world with contempt and you know what, Jesus would agree with him in that critique. And we’re living with Nietzsche’s influence because we have lost sight of the biblical view of creation. Why should God care less? Because THIS IS HIS PALACE!! It’s HIS TEMPLE! And he’s going to get it back whether by hook or by cross. This is my Father’s world; I rest me in the thought. Yeah! Some of you look as if I’m speaking heresy here. [some laughter] How can it be any other way? So go search the scriptures.