Blog
Vision
It seems obvious doesn’t it? When you are driving at night you put on your headlights? Why? So you can see where you’re going. Mission is about knowing where you are going and vision is about seeing where you are going. At Faith, our mission and vision statements are like the headlights on our...
What’s it All About?
The messages I get often start with Why or Where. Why is God letting this happen to me? Where is God right now and why isn’t he answering my prayers? Why am I here? Rick Warren, in his book Better Together (p. 12), says “the purpose of your time on earth is not primarily about acquiring...
What Else Is Out There? Don’t Read This – part 2.
Being a parent seems to be getting more challenging all the time. We’ve hardly got our children walking and we’re being warned to “stranger proof” them at the same time we’re trying to socialize them; we’re encouraged to get them into SMART start but not to expose them to too much social media or...
Don’t Read This
Once again, don’t read this if you don’t want to know how bad things are in our city. Don’t read this if you don’t want to admit how hard things are just to be human in this environment. Don’t read this if you think you are the only one struggling with sexual temptation. The British apologist C....
What Should I Ask For?
The Lord’s Prayer is a great template for us as we begin to grow in our intentional communication with God. We see him as our Father, someone to be honored in his place of authority as we submit ourselves to his designs for our life and our world. We express our trust in his protection and...
Does Prayer Change Anything?
One of the most frequent requests I get as a pastor is for prayer. Regardless of whether the issue is sickness, finances, relationships, housing, spiritual confusion or lack of wisdom the natural desire for many of us is to ask for prayer. But does it really change anything? Is it supposed to...
Distinguishing God from nature
We live in an age where many seem to worship the creation more than the Creator. The lines between stewardship of creation and worship of creation are blurring. This probably shouldn’t surprise us as the signs of this shift are evident in our culture. We have people who create havoc over how cows...
More impact ministries
When Jesus told us to go make disciples he had, as our Creator, already equipped us with a creative mind and a hunger for relationship. In our Fellowship there are numerous creative expressions of outreach. We already looked at the role WINGS (supporting women) and CAMP QWANOES (children and...
Can Different Generations Really Come Together as One?
It’s no secret that while building up a church family with multi-generations is the dream of most congregations that this is more challenging than it seems. Different generations have different soul language with the music they respond to; they have different heart language in what they feel...
What do disciple-makers look like?
The reality of vanishing disciples means that we need disciple-makers who know how to make disciple-makers. How do we know that we’ve got a disciple-maker? Their regular commitment to reading and applying the word of God, their involvement in a small group for accountability and encouragement, and...
Disappearing disciples?
When you think of disappearing disciples your mind might fixate on what happened in the garden of Gethsemane when the close followers of Jesus hustled away as Jesus was arrested and taken to trial. In our country of Canada, with new progressive liberalism steamrolling traditional Christian values...
Have You Really Left Home?
This is an incredibly challenging time and place to find a new home – especially if you’re young. Spaces and dollars are few for many of you. It takes a reorientation of your expectations to find your roots and to dig them down so that you hold on and grow where you are. This day is often focused...
Don’t You Love It?
On the verge of Valentine’s Day the flowers are filling the shops and cards and chocolates are finding their way into grocery bags. Does giving a special gift one or two days a year make up for everything else we do or don’t do the rest of the year? Okay, I don’t live your life and I don’t know...
Start where you are
The great British author (Oxford and Cambridge professor), C.S. Lewis once said that “you can’t go back and change the beginning, but you can start where you are and change the ending.” C.S. Lewis started his professional career as an atheist. He ended his life as a follower of Jesus. He was...
Blessed Bubble-Wrapped Believers
I still can’t find the verse. You know, the one that says believers will be bubble-wrapped and protected from having a hard time in this world. I did find what Jesus said in his sermon on the mount: “Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against...
Part of Something Bigger
One of the passions of youth – when they surface from their phones or tablets – is that they want to put their energy into something world changing, meaningful, significant, bigger than they are. Actually, most of us are familiar with that feeling. Missionsfest 2018 was another reminder how we are...
Open Doors lead to Open Hearts
Do you remember the first few people who welcomed you at Faith? How about at your first work place or your school? Sometimes that welcome has a lasting impact on us. There is nothing like feeling welcomed. When I enter someone else’s place it makes all the difference if the welcome is warm. When I...
Why does God Choose the Foolish?
Growing up in today’s world, where you might get a participation ribbon for showing up and a hero’s reputation for doing anything thoughtful, it isn’t hard to start feeling like you are someone special – a cut above the average. Being somewhat, half-decently good as a prep for your eulogy seems to...
Would Anyone Notice Us If We Left?
Have you ever had that secret fear that if you stepped away from everyone you knew that no one would really miss you? No one at work, school, family or church. Who in our neighbourhood would notice if our church stopped meeting? Do people notice us because of what we provide for them or because of...
Have you reached that age yet?
There’s something about us that likes to think we’re at an age different than we are. If we’re younger we like to feel and act older. If we’re older we like to think or act younger. Maybe that’s only me and the people around me. It takes a certain level of maturity to be who you are and to be...
Our Big Picture Thinking
Apologist Ravi Zacharias lays it out clearly in his book The Grand Weaver (p. 42) “What the brain is to the body, the mind is to the soul.” Zacharias notes that what we call faith is “a thing of the mind. If you do not believe that God is in control and has formed you for a purpose, then you will...
He sets the lonely in families -II
Psalm 68:6 says “God sets the lonely in families.” The Vancouver Foundation consistently claims that loneliness is one of the biggest challenges for people living in this city. Seniors isolated in their apartments, care homes or rooms are lonely; young moms struggling to raise children are...
Is it really real?
I have a pastor friend who loves to scour the dregs of Value Village to see if perhaps a treasure has slipped through unnoticed for a bargain. He once found an old coin which he was convinced would gain him a small fortune. He paid the $42 price tag and then tried to pawn it. It was valued at...
Working It All Out
Why do you get out of bed in the morning? If you work, or have worked in the past, why spend your energy and time putting out effort to accomplish anything? Who is going to remember what you did day after day, week after week, year after year? What a way to get depressed at the start of a year -...
What if You’re Not Alone
Have you ever been certain that you were alone until you heard that noise in the darkness? Was it a creak from the house, a footstep in the hallway, a mouse in the wall? Sometimes we live our life as if we’re alone. We go through dark struggles and feel alone; we engage and break relationships as...
Is there room for doubt in our faith?
Have you tried to share your faith lately with an unbeliever? What was that like? Did you know how to respond to the questions you were being asked, the doubts that were being expressed, the pushback you were being given? Peter, Jesus’ lead disciple, had this to say in I Peter 3:15, 16. “But in...
Helping or Hurting?
Can you imagine going to a doctor and getting a diagnosis which says you have an infection when in reality you have a brain tumour? One of the families we helped with some grocery gift cards recently faced this experience. How do you help someone who can’t get enough to eat because they have...
He sets the lonely in families
Have you ever experienced loneliness - Deep, heart-throttling dread which squeezes all the joy, hope and sense of being loved out of you? Or perhaps, just a sense of wondering whether you belong – if anyone notices you or cares about you more than the ‘like’ you can give to their smiley ‘post.’...
Vision Beyond Your Resources
Have you ever dreamed a dream that was so big you knew it could never happen? – but it didn’t stop you from hoping. When the leadership at Faith Fellowship decided in 1996 that they wanted this church to reflect our community more they agreed that we should become more culturally diverse. Our...
Is That Someone Watching You?
Do you ever feel that someone is watching you? As if your life is being lived out on a grand stage and there’s an audience taking note of your every move? It’s a new year but you’ve probably had this feeling before if you’ve had it. If you haven’t had this feeling maybe you should think about...
Does your life need a trellis?
If you’ve ever seen grapes or roses or vines growing you might have noticed the importance of a trellis. A trellis is the support structure which enables the vine to grow up enough to bear fruit. This structure keeps it from slumping on the ground where its fruit will be ruined. Ken Shigematsu, in...
To pray or not to pray
Thursday was set aside for 12 hours of prayer with different leaders hosting each hour. During an hour hosted by our intern Yosef he played a song with a short clip of a John Piper sermon. The message declared that no pain that we have ever experienced is without purpose or meaning. God is working...
Disciples of All Nations? Really ?
Someone has challenged me that they don’t think churches are making disciples anymore. In fact, they don’t think most people calling themselves Christians are really followers of Jesus. They believe there are a lot of deceived people inhabiting churches feeling secure and comfortable without...
Are you living the right story ?
We live in a world of stories. We love to hear stories and tell stories. Our stories fill out our sense of identity, purpose, need and hope. My son Richard was home from Rwanda a month ago and he and his sisters and I were sitting around our living room sharing stories. It got a little weepy at...
A Question !
Happy New Year. A question to start us off. Is there a parallel between the physical and spiritual climates in our country? A few days ago the warmest place in Canada at 3 degrees celsius was still colder than many other countries have ever experienced. For example, Taiwan, Indonesia, Cuba, the...
Daring to faith it
Today’s rising generation in our church needs the courage of Daniel and the daring of David to embrace a faith that is rapidly falling out of favor with their peers. It’s no longer uncommon for even church goers to go for weeks or months without considering what the Bible has to say toward the...
Part 3 – Walking Your Son Into Manhood
This is part of a series; read Part I here. Chapter three The concept for tasks came from observing the initiation rites of my African and missionary friends in Kenya while I raised my son there. While the Kenyans had long held traditional rites, my missionary friends adapted their concept...
Walking Your Son Into Manhood – Part 2
This is part of a series; read Part I here. This past winter I watched a new family from Latin America inch their way from their car up an icy ramp toward shelter in a church. A chilling wind seemed to reach inside their good clothing and create a sense of shock and confusion. The ground beneath...
Walking your son into Manhood
Chapter One From the moment the first man walked out of Eden and looked at his new reality the weight of his future threatened to crush him. He sauntered out of paradise with a fear he had never known before - a fear that somehow the future of his offspring depended on the effort he put out to...