On December 30th, Steve Yzerman will announce the Men’s Hockey team for the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics. I thought I would help him out by naming my 23 man roster.

Goalies
Martin Brodeur
Roberto Luongo
Marc-Andre Fleury

Broduer has been breaking all-time records left and right this year, proving that he is without a doubt one of, if not THE greatest goalie ever. There is no doubt in my mind that he should be Canada’s starting goalie. To back him up, I would go with Luongo and Fleury. There really should be no debate here, as many of the contenders for a goalie spot (ie. Mason, Ward) have played themselves off the team.

Defense
Scott Niedermayer – Chris Pronger
Duncan Keith – Dan Boyle
Mike Green – Shea Weber
Drew Doughty

Niedermayer and Pronger are about as automatic as you can get at this position. Duncan Keith is playing at an exceptionally high level this season, the key guy on a Hawks team that leads the NHL in defense. The argument could be made to bring along his talented partner, Brent Seabrook. However, Dan Boyle has proven to be an elite D-man with the Sharks, and Mike Green’s offense, now complimented by some solid D (+12 on the season) cannot be ignored. The leaves two slots, one which must be filled by Shea Weber, a ridiculously underrated player that no one hears about because he plays in Nashville. As for the seventh spot, it’s hard to ignore Drew Doughty, the second year player who has shown he can play at a high level, a huge reason why the Kings have had some early season success. It hurts to leave out guys like Phaneuf and Bouwmeester, but this is a solid seven.

Forwards
Rick Nash – Sidney Crosby – Jarome Iginla
Patrick Marleau – Joe Thornton – Dany Heatley
Dustin Penner – Ryan Getzlaf – Corey Perry
Jonathan Toews – Mike Richards – Shane Doan
Patrice Bergeron

Wow, I do not envy Stevie Y. when it comes to narrowing down the forwards. Obviously that top line is a 100% lock, three of the very best that Canada has to offer up front. After that, it gets quite tricky. I definitely have some reservations about rolling with the San Jose trio, based primarily on past performance in the playoffs and Thornton’s lack of contribution at the last Olympics, albeit in a more defensive/checking role. Having said that, you can’t ignore the success they have had this year, and pre-existing chemistry is huge in a short tournament. Hence, the third line, which you might recall as being integral in the Ducks recent Cup run. Even though Anaheim is struggling this year, Getzlaf and Perry are as good a combo as you can get these days, providing a valuable mix of scoring and toughness that you would want from a third line. Throw old line mate Dustin Penner into the mix, whose 38 points in 36 games so far this season has catapulted him into difficult-to-ignore consideration, and this could be a huge line for Team Canada. For the fourth line, you have Toews and Richards, two of Canada’s very best young players, and Shane Doan, the veteran leadership presence who personifies Canada hockey. As for the 13th man, I will throw out my huge bias for Bergeron, a fantastic two way player who excels in the faceoff circle. Sure, there are notable omissions that, in the past, would have been considered locks for the team (Lecavalier, Eric Staal, Jeff Carter), others who are playing well that deserve a spot (Brad Richards, Martin St. Louis, Steven Stamkos), and even more that you could make a strong case for (Ryan Smyth, Brendan Morrow, Marc Savard). For me, this is the right mix at the right time, and these guys have earned a spot on Team Canada 2010.

I don’t expect that this will be the exact team that is chosen to represent Canada in Vancouver, as we could literally throw out 2-3 teams that could warrant medal consideration. But, as I mentioned, you have to go with the guys who are playing well at the right time, and who have showed that they can play effectively with the guys around them.

The roster selection will no doubt provide all Canadian hockey fans with some serious points of debate leading up to and after the Olympics (depending on the outcome), so feel free to share your thoughts on who should don the red and white in 2010.

The story of Christ’s birth is a story of promise, hope, and a revolutionary love.

So, what happened? What was once a time to celebrate the birth of a savior has somehow turned into a season of stress, traffic jams, and shopping lists.

And when it’s all over, many of us are left with presents to return, looming debt that will take months to pay off, and this empty feeling of missed purpose. Is this what we really want out of Christmas?

What if Christmas became a world-changing event again?

Welcome to Advent Conspiracy.

Raise your hand if you have ever been in church during the month of December, and the pastor has lamented the busyness of the season or commented on how difficult it was to find a parking spot at the mall the day before. And while we all nod our heads in agreement, little is said in terms of how followers of Jesus are meant to approach the Christmas season.

Year in and year out, we hear the stories of the baby being born into the world in order to save us from our sins, and wait in eager anticipation to see what the various Santa’s in our lives will put under the tree for us, all the while reinforcing the underlying misconception that to be a Christian requires belief in Jesus with little to no change in terms of socially, culturally and politically accepted ways of living.

The people behind Advent Conspiracy believe that Christmas can [still] change the world. Through the weeks of advent, we are to anticipate and embody the coming of Jesus; the telling and re-telling of the great story of his birth is to serve as a reminder that God is deeply interested and involved in the present realities of the world and that he is constantly calling a people together to embody a different ‘way’ of living in it. All those who take the story of Jesus’ birth seriously are to demonstrate to the world that to believe in him is to understand that this message of good news is to be shared with all people, and that to follow him requires a visible shift away from the dominant social, and cultural and political powers and into the world as imagined and revealed in Scripture and shaped by the teachings, example and practices of this baby become man.

In Bonhoeffer’s words, disciples of Jesus called to have a “very real impact on the life of the world” in that they “gain space for Christ.” N.T. Wright, while reflecting on the Gospel of Mark, articulates the implications of what it means for the church as a community of disciples to gain space for Christ and his kingdom in the world today: it is “to abandon its imperialistic dreams on the one hand, and its passive non-involvement on the other, and to become for the world what Jesus was for the world. This is what discipleship, following Jesus, really means.”

And so, as Christmas comes and goes, the people at [AC] encourage us to “Worship Jesus Fully; consider Spending Less on gifts that are bought out of obligation; Give More relational gifts; and use a little bit of the money you didn’t spend to Love All by helping those in need.”

This is an outlook on Christmas that I can get behind; to reclaim the story of Jesus’ power as one which has the power to change the world, and to take tangible steps to enact that change.

Over the past year, I have come more and more to see the value of a disciplined life.

Certainly as a student working withing a fairly independent academic system, I had to stay on top of my reading and writing, treating it as a full time day job so that I could have my evenings free to spend with Lauren. Over time, I was able to develop a certain balance and rhythm to my days and reap the rewards of developing the disciplines necessary for student life. And over the course of the two months or so that we have been home – no longer studying, actively pursuing employment opportunities, and presented with loads of time – I have tried to maintain that sense of discipline.

One way in which I have tried to do that is through running. Lauren has been running for many years now, and has attempted to get me to embrace it on several occasions, to no avail. Through the fall, we would get up on nice mornings and go for a jog, but I still wasn’t feeling it. In recent weeks, however, I have found myself daily getting out of bed, putting on my trainers and heading out the door for a morning run, even if Lauren chooses not to do so in lieu of other forms of exercise, and even as it has started to turn colder. It has actually come to the point that if I don’t go, my day feels thrown off or incomplete.

The more I run, the more I feel the need to continue to run. It helps establish a rhythm during an open time, and has become a regular part of my day.

This is the essence of the Christian practices, isn’t it? The more that we do something, the more it literally becomes a part of who we are, and we can’t imagine our lives without it.

Leading up to my 30th birthday (seriously … ?), I decided that I needed to re-embrace the practice of scripture reading. And so, for the second time in three years, I am attempting to read the Bible in one year. This may seem like a pretty basic or modest goal, but this is something that I all too often overlook. As I look back at the last time I set out to do this, I am embarrassed at how easily I gave up and allowed other useless habits to replace this essential one.

Here’s what I said to myself back then (with a few updates), and what I feel as though I need to be reminded of every day:

Ian,

Even though you were brought up in a Christian home, went to Bible college, keep up with all the latest Christian books, listen to sermons and have a Master’s in Theology, and even though you married a wonderful Christian woman and have always surrounded yourself with solid friends, don’t kid yourself; you do not have it all together and figured out. You talk a good game on your blog and in public situations, but it is imperative that you daily present yourself before God and his Word afresh, ready to continually be transformed from the inside out. You may know about God and his Word, but you need to let the truth of the Message affect you in a way that ripples out of your being and spreads out to your neighbours. Don’t hide behind the Christian tag, but come to the Word ready and willing to learn again what it really means to be a follower of Christ.

Running and Bible reading; these are simple yet essential elements of my day during this period of waiting, hoping and trusting. It is good to get out and spend some time in the quiet morning air, and it is good to spend some time in the Word in the hopes that I will hear the again and again the voice of Christ that calls us to follow Him and Him alone.

From Leading to Being Led

In the third and final section of In the Name of Jesus, Nouwen addresses a certain openness that is necessary for all those who wish to follow Jesus; disciples must be willing to be led. Nouwen explains how he entered his time at L’Arche with a strong desire to be in control, but quickly came to the realization that “every hour, day, and month was full of surprises – often surprises I was least prepared for.” In reality, our ideas of control and autonomy are an illusion; they may at times appear to be within our grasp, and this can lead to some destructive abuses of power or the mistaken notion that we ourselves are the source of that which is good around us. However, we must constantly be reminded that God is the one in control, and that all we are and have is a gift from him. This is a reality that quite simply must be embraced by any would-be follower of Jesus.

Jesus was tempted with the opportunity to control all the kingdoms of the world, and instead of exerting his great power over us, he chose to make his home among us. He chose love, plain and simple. This is the choice that faces all those who wish to follow Jesus. Will we align ourselves with the social, political and economic powers of the day, or will we choose to be witnesses to and the embodiment of Jesus’ great love in, to, and for the world?

The reality, as Nouwen sees it, has all too often been the former.

The long, painful history of the church is the history of people ever and again tempted to choose power over love, control over the cross, being a leader over being led. Those who resisted this temptation to the end and thereby give us hope are the true saints.

The task of the church is to hear the words of Jesus spoken to Peter right after he asked him if he truly loved him and commanded him to feed his sheep; “when you are old you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go.” For Nouwen, therefore, spiritual maturity is “the ability and willingness to to be led where you would rather not go.”

Immediately after Peter has been commissioned to be a leader of his sheep, Jesus confronts his with the hard truth that the servant-leader is the leader who is led to unknown, undesirable and painful places. The way of (Jesus) is not the way of upward mobility in which our world has invested so much, but the downward mobility ending on the cross.

If we are to take seriously the teachings and example of Jesus, then the church is meant not to seek power and control, nor are disciples meant to seek adulation and acclaim; rather, we are to seek “a powerlessness and humility in which the suffering servant of God, Jesus Christ, is made manifest.” Perhaps this kind of language is misunderstood, and rightly so as it does not reflect how we have been conditioned to think and live in the world today. It is not about becoming lifeless and allowing others to walk all over us, but rather truly embracing life and embodying an different way that is modeled after the teachings and example of Jesus. It is “to be so in love with Jesus that (we) are ready to follow him wherever he guides (us), always trusting that, with him, (we) will find life and find it abundantly.” And so, the question remains: will the disciples of Jesus simply abide by the tired the ways of the world, or will we demonstrate to the world that a radically different way of living has been made possible through Christ?

In order to daily make that decision, Nouwen suggests that we adopt the practice of theological reflection. In his book Raging With Compassion: Pastoral Responses to the Problem of Evil, Prof. John Swinton defines practical theology as the following:

Practical theology is critical, theological reflection on the practices of the church as they interact with the practices of the world, with a view to ensuring and enabling faithful participation in God’s redemptive practices for the world.

Furthermore,

Practical theology is rooted in the scripture and tradition of the Christian faith and takes theology very seriously. However, the theological reflection carried out by the practical theologian is never for its own sake; it is always for the sake of developing practices that faithfully reflect the actions and character of the triune God, as God has revealed God’s self in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus.

In Nouwen’s words, this kind of theological reflection allows for the capacity to critically discern where we, as followers of Jesus, are being led.

(The disciple) thinks, speaks and acts in the name of Jesus, who came to free humanity from the power of death and open the way to eternal life. To be (a disciple), it is essential to be able to discern from moment to moment how God acts in human history and how the personal, communal, national and international events that occur during our lives can make us more and more sensitive to the ways in which we are led to the cross and through the cross to the resurrection.

That’s really what it is all about, no? To announce the in-breaking of the Kingdom of God and to enable faithful participation in God’s redemptive practices for the world. It is to hear the living and active voice of the risen Christ in the midst of all the other proclamations competing for our attention and allegiance, and to bear witness to and embody the teachings and example that he left us to follow – teachings that redefine how we are to live in the world, and an example that resisted the pull towards power and into the margins of society, and ultimately to death on a cross.

If, and only if, we choose to follow the Way of Jesus, then “there is hope for the church of the twenty-first century.“

It’s been a couple weeks since we welcomed Sophie into our home, and it has been pretty awesome having her around. She was a bit timid at first, but has become more and more comfortable with us. She spends most of her time lying around, splitting her time between the spare room upstairs and on one of two favorite chairs down here. When she is lying about, I like to call her Loafie. She has also started coming into our room in the mornings and spending some time snuggling up the bed. I really quite enjoy that time, except on Wednesday when she rolled in at 6 and started meowing away. Not cool, Sophie.

Here are a few more photos of her on one chair that she really loves. The bottom one is the position she assumes when she really wants a good rubbing. The moment you stop, she’ll give you an upside down look / meow. Very cute.

In short, Sophie is pretty much the best cat we could have asked for, and she is bringing some serious joy to us these days.

From Popularity to Ministry

Nouwen begins this section by explaining the transition that he had to make from individual to shared ministry in his move from the world of academia to the community of l’Arche; he went from an environment where he was completely free to do whatever he wished, coming and going as he pleased, to one that demanded more accountability. In this transition, he was able to come to see that it is more important to love than to be lauded, and that lasting relationships are more important than fleeting applause.

The second temptation that Jesus faced was to do something spectacular, something that would win him great applause and acclaim; this is a temptation faced by many in the church, especially in an age where celebrity status is easily reached and actively sought after. As Nouwen puts it:

Stardom and individual heroism, which are obvious aspects of our competitive society, are not at all alien to the church. There too the dominant image is that of the self-made man or woman who can do it all alone.

And so, when Jesus called Peter to look after his sheep and feed his lambs, this is not to be heard in an individualistic way, “as if Peter was being sent out on a heroic mission.” Rather,

.. when Jesus speaks about shepherding, he does not want us to think about a brave, lonely shepherd who takes care of a large flock of obedient sheep. In many ways, he makes it clear that ministry is a communal and mutual experience.

First of all, Nouwen argues, we are meant to bring forth Jesus’ message of good news together, in community. In short, we need each other; we can’t possibly do it alone. We need to pray with one another, remind one another of the task at hand, and to challenge one another to stay pure in mind, body and heart. We need that accountability and support lest we come to think that this is more about us and less about the singular person of Jesus Christ and his kingdom come among us. We need to know that “it is Jesus who heals, not I; Jesus who speaks words of truth, not I; Jesus who is Lord, not I.” Therefore, “whenever we minister together, it is easier for people to recognize that we do not come in our own name but in the name of the Lord Jesus who sent us.” Nouwen seems to be suggesting, then, that church is less about gathering around one individual once a week, and more about how we live and interact as a community of disciples on a day-to-day basis. Just as the early followers of Jesus were distinguished as a community of followers of ‘the Way’ of Jesus, so too are we to demonstrate to the world that a different way of living has been made possible through Christ. And this happens most effectively within the context of a worshiping and ministering community of disciples.

Secondly, ministry is to be a mutual experience. Disciples of Jesus, ministering in community, according to Nouwen, are to approach their role “not as ‘professionals’ who know their clients’ problems and take care of them, but as vulnerable brothers and sisters who know and are known, who care and are cared for, who forgive and are being forgiven, who love and are being loved.” Here, Nouwen seems to be walking a fine line. On one hand, as he argues, we have come to believe that “good leadership requires that we keep a safe distance from those we are called to lead.” Many might see a certain wisdom in that, and certainly it is important to keep proper boundaries. On the other hand, however, the following is also true:

But how can we lay down our life for those with whom we are not even allowed to enter into a deep personal relationship? Laying down your life means making your own faith and doubt, hope and despair, joy and sadness, courage and fear available to others as ways of getting in touch with the Lord of life.

Building on the truth expressed in the previous section that we are indeed fundamentally all the same – created to give and receive love – then shepherding must be a mutual experience. Disciples of Jesus do not have to pretend that they are the ones that have it all figured out, and in so doing develop an ‘us/them’, ‘in/out’ dichotomy. As opposed to models of church and Christian leadership wherein power is exercised over others, faith communities must embrace the radically different style of leadership as spoken of and demonstrated by Jesus, in which the leaders are vulnerable servants who needs the people as much as the people need their leaders.

A core discipline that Nouwen identifies as beneficial to this leveling out process is that of confession; disciples of Jesus are to be “persons always willing to confess their own brokenness and ask for forgiveness from those to whom they minister.” If we are too afraid to be authentic and genuine with one another, to readily admit when we fail, how then can we truly demonstrate to one another the all effacing love of God that is meant not only to bind us together, but to quite literally change the world? Again this is a bit of a fine line, for as Nouwen readily admits, this is not a call for us to indiscriminately proclaim to all our deepest and darkest. What it does entail, according to Nouwen, is the following: all disciples are called to be full members of their faith communities, are accountable to one another as members of that community, and are called to minister with their whole being, including their wounded selves.

This, then, is the essence of true, meaningful and transformative ministry: that we gather together to uncover what it means to follow Jesus with our whole beings – even (or maybe especially) the broken and messy bits – seeking not to make a name for ourselves, but rather to proclaim the name of Jesus Christ and his kingdom come.

For a few years now, I have really wanted to get a cat. However, being somewhat transient people living in flats that did not allow pets, adding a furry friend to our little family just has not been possible. As we moved back to Canada, I told Lauren that once we got a bit more settled, we were 100% getting a cat.

Now, I must say that Lauren has traditionally gone above and beyond for my birthday, and definitely tries to and succeeds at making me feel very loved and special every December 1st. But, when Lauren and her Mom went out on Sunday afternoon pretending to get an early jump on Christmas shopping, I had no idea that they would come home with the newest addition to the McLaren family, Sophie!

Lauren had been exploring the idea of getting a kitten, and had recently asked a friend from Tyndale about that whole process, knowing they had three cats of their own. It just so happened that they are soon to be moving to Alberta and had a nice cat in need of a new home. Lauren gladly accepted the offer to ‘adopt’, and now she is with us!

It did take Sophie (or Lady Grey, as I like to call her) a little time to get used to her new surroundings and family. She spent Sunday evening hiding behind the couch in the living room, and most of Monday underneath a bed upstairs. On Monday evening, I managed to coax her into coming to the basement, and she hung out with me for about an hour before retreating under our bed. She also didn’t really eat or drink anything during this time. Yesterday, however, was her big debut. She spent some time relaxing under our bed, but also explored the basement, ran some laps between Lauren and I, and found a chair that she liked and has claimed as her resting space. She now basically stays downstairs with Lauren and I, which is fine by me, and you can tell that she trusts us and is comfortable with us.

She really is a nice cat, and it is a joy to have her around; a fantastic birthday gift from my amazing wife!

From Relevance to Prayer

What Nouwen found when he left the world of academics and entered the world of L’Arche was that all of the skills, connections and achievements that he had previously amassed now meant nothing. He could no longer count on all that he had worked for and the name that he had created for himself. Nouwen, however, counts this as the most important experience in his life because, in his words, it forced him to rediscover his true identity as child of God, completely dependent upon Him for all things. The more time he spent on the margins of society, the more he began to understand the fundamental truth that we are all the same, that we have all been created to give and receive love, and that this love has nothing at all to do with that which we are able to accomplish or achieve on our own.

What does this have to do with ecclesiology and Christian leadership?

I (Nouwen) am deeply convinced that the Christian leader (and therefore the church) of the future is called to be completely irrelevant and to stand in this world with nothing to offer but his or her vulnerable self. That is why Jesus came to reveal God’s love. The great message that we have to carry, as minister’s of God’s word and followers of Jesus, is that God loves us not because of what we do or accomplish, but because God has created and redeemed us in love and has chosen us to proclaim that love as the true source of all human life.

If, as Stanley Hauerwas & William Willimon have argued in Resident Aliens, the theologian’s job is not to make the gospel credible to the modern world, but to make the world credible to the gospel, then what Nouwen is saying here cuts to the heart of what ‘church’ should look like in the 21st century. We, as followers of Jesus, have a different story to tell; we are called to bring light into the areas of the world that have been deemed irrelevant. We do this not to make a name for our ourselves or because we think we can ‘do church’ better than the rest, but in response to the call of God, who, from the beginning of creation, has had in mind to call together a people through whom the world might who He is and what He really cares about.

And so, in the Gospel of John, when Jesus asks Peter “Do you love me?”, Nouwen argues, “the question is not: How many people take you seriously? How much are you going to accomplish? Can you show some results? But: Are you in love with Jesus?” Nouwen astutely understood that in the world today, “there is an enormous need for men and women who know the heart of God, a heart that forgives, cares, reaches out and wants to heal.” This question to Peter was not simply a matter of whether or not he loved the singular person of Jesus, but also if he was prepared to accept the challenge of seeing the beauty of Christ in others.

Therefore:

The Christian leader (and the church) of the future is the one who truly knows the heart of God … Knowing God’s heart means consistently, radically, and very concretely to announce and reveal that God is love and only love, and that every time fear, isolation and despair begins to invade the human soul, that is not something that comes from God.

As we seek the heart of God, Nouwen asserts, the desire to be relevant begins to disappear, replaced by the desire to step out into the margins and remind our fellow brothers and sisters of the simple yet fundamental truth that we are all the same, and we are all loved by God.

The key question to ask here is how does this all come about? For Nouwen, it comes through the embrace of the disciplines, specifically that of contemplative prayer. If the great temptation in the garden was to hear and trust in another word, then it is through contemplative prayer that we re-orient ourselves so that we might hear once again the living and active voice of God. Here, I am reminded of the whole idea of practices v purchases as described by Andy Crouch last month in a lecture at Tyndale. He rightly argued that we live in a society that feeds off of what is hot and trendy, buying into the next best thing until it wears off and we move on to the next. Followers of Jesus are called to abide by a more practice-based way of living, one which does not necessarily pay immediate dividends by gradually shapes us more and more into the likeness of Christ. I asked him that night what we do with the fact that the church all too often resembles the purchase-based model, essentially buying into the temptation to be relevant. Crouch’s short answer: “we need to stop doing that.” Rather than lend credence to and abide by the numerous competing stories the world has to offer, those who follow Jesus are to become increasingly more in tune with the voice that calls us to demonstrate to the world that a different way is possible.

And as we become more and more rooted in and attuned to the voice of God, “securely rooted in personal intimacy with the source of life“, the following will be made possible:

To remain flexible without being relativistic, convinced without being rigid, willing ton confront without being offensive, gentle and forgiving without being soft, and true witnesses without being manipulative.

This first part of In the Name of Jesus has always resonated with me; here, Nouwen provides a beautiful and poignant picture of the kind of church that Jesus had in mind when he called out a people to follow and serve him. This is the kind of church that I long to be a part of.

For several different reasons, I have been thinking a lot about ‘church’ these days. Last night, Lauren and I were at the church for a an evening of reflection that was set up by the discipleship pastor, and in the reading room sat a copy of Henri Nouwen’s In the Name of Jesus. I have read this book on a couple of occasions, and have always loved it. But last night, as I was flipping through the pages, I realized that this book has so much to say in terms of the church today. I decided to go through it again from the beginning and write a series of blog posts based on each section. Here’s part one, drawing from the prologue / introduction.

Nouwen and Ecclesiology: Reflections on ‘In the Name of Jesus’

A Brief Introduction

Published in 1989 and based on a series of talks given on the nature of Christian leadership in the 21st century, Nouwen begins this book by confessing that the invitation to speak on this topic caused him some anxiety; how can one really anticipate what the next month will hold, let alone trying to foresee what that situation would be years in advance?

After twenty years of teaching Christian spirituality and pastoral theology at Harvard, Notre Dame and Yale, Nouwen found himself asking questions about his relationship with Jesus; he wondered about a lack of prayer in his life, his feelings of loneliness, and his pre-occupation with the ‘burning issues’ of the day. Through the person of Jean Vanier, Nouwen felt God calling him to the margins, to live with the poor in spirit, those whom society had deemed irrelevant. As a result of this transition – which, to be sure, was not an easy one – Nouwen was able to come up with new words with which to speak about Christian leadership, finding in L’Arche all the challenges that one might face as a minister of God’s Word. [It must be noted that Nouwen, keenly aware of the call to minister in community, delivered these talks while accompanied by a man named Bill, an individual with special needs and a good friend of his from L'Arche in Toronto. The significance of this Gospel partnership becomes more evident as the book progresses, and provides us with an amazing and tangible picture of what Nouwen believes to be Jesus' vision for the church]. Nouwen explains that his experiences with L’Arche helped not only to shape his views on ministry, but also place his anxieties and fears in perspective.

I (Nouwen) came to see that I should not worry about tomorrow, next week, next year or the next century. The more willing I was to look honestly at what I was thinking and saying and doing now, the more easily I would come into touch with the movement of God’s spirit in me, leading me to the future. God is a God of the present and reveals to those who are willing to listen carefully to the moment in which they live the steps they are to take towards the future.

Nouwen – rightly, I think – argues that the greatest danger facing minister’s of God’s Word is the pursuit of success. With this in mind, he introduces the talks / books by stating that he will not only draw from his experiences with L’Arche, but also from the story of Jesus’ temptation in the desert (Matthew 4: 1-11) and the story of Peter’s call to be a shepherd (John 21: 15-19).

And thus begins In the Name of Jesus; not too much going on in the introduction, but Nouwen definitely provides some important context in terms of what is to come.

Things are progressing, slowly but surely.

I have been in the process of re-connecting with Christian Horizons, an organization that I have worked with in the past. Having been away for a few years, I have had to basically start from the beginning, and it has been slow going so far. Last week, however, I went to check out the program that I am in line to be connected with, and yesterday I was able to go in for a 2nd interview; hopefully in the very near future I will be able to start working. On Lauren’s side of things, there is a potential opportunity brewing with a local Christian counselling agency, and we are hopeful that this will turn into something very good.

On another positive note, the final two boxes that we have been waiting for finally arrived yesterday. We had sent them during the first week of September, and were told that it would take approximately 8 weeks for them to arrive. Having passed that mark quite a few weeks ago now, I was starting to get somewhat concerned / anxious. But, I found out the other day that they had not actually left the UK until later in September, meaning that their arrival yesterday was actually right on time. Score one for the postal system.

So, things are happening, and we continue to wait upon God as all the pieces fall into place. In the meantime, we try to make the most of each day, looking into other prospects while embracing opportunities to read over a nice cup of tea, help out around the house and spend time with family and friends.

To end this post, here are two quick tidbits that I wanted to pass along:

- If you’re looking for a quality movie to go see this weekend, I would highly recommend An Education. While everyone was going vampire crazy at the multiplex last weekend, Lauren and I went to see this at the independent cinema downtown, and it was fantastic.

- Wigan Athletic is a near the bottom of the table football team in England, and last weekend, they were beaten by Tottenham by a score of 9-1, one of the worst defeats in English professional football history. In reaction to this embarrassing loss, Wigan’s players decided to personally refund hundreds of supporters who bought tickets and made the trip from the Manchester to London to take in the match. While the sum of the refund is set to add up to around 15,000 GBP (a modest sum in the world of professional sports), the gesture is something to be admired and one that I would be stunned to see duplicated anytime soon, especially in the sports world of North America. I may have to adopt Wigan as my #2 team in the EPL.