TIMMY'S, DEAD RATS AND A CLICKER

I certainly have to add my thoughts on this matter. David and I woke up with Laura handing us both a Tim Horton's coffee (extra large, one cream). After our two weeks vacation, we arrived from BC the night before and so it all made sense...our little girl missed us!!!! Or so I thought. Turns out Laura loved having the house to herself! What she was actually doing with the Timmy's was simply getting the day off to a good start.

We were expecting Jamie and Cam for lunch (Dave had to work so he couldn't make it....we missed you Davy boy!!!). Once they arrived, the girls prepared us a delicious lunch. Afterwards, they marched us to the front of the garage, handed us this tiny little package. David unwrapped a remote control and voila! The double car garage door opened like magic!

I think I screamed for at least a full minute (that's what I do when I am really excited. I can imagine how loud that came out 'cause this time I was REALLY, REALLY excited!!!! Jamie got it all on video. Oh, joy.

Certainly David was the most surprised.

To help ya'll put this into proper perspective, you have to understand that when the garage door opener broke over 4 years ago, David was heart-broken. Afterwards, every time he drove up to the garage, he would click the remote control, remember that the mechanism was broken and then.... let out a big sigh. Sad really. I don't think he ever quite got over it. He could have bought another one right away but as every home owner knows, there is always something needing fixin'. And so he prioritized which means that this beloved do-hicky would have to go on the bottom of his honey-do-list...and I mean WAY on the bottom. So for the past four year, he had to open and close the door MANUALLY. Sigh. Sigh. Sigh.

And now, fast forward to the present. David and I were so surprised and thrilled with this gift that the kids had to point out that they had done more than buy and install a new garage door opener. They had also cleaned, patched up, and painted the entire double car garage...which was no small feat. The old freezer was also painted and new window coverings were added along with new wooden frames for the windows.

I had wanted to do just that for a number of years but the task was simply to much. Besides, it was just a garage, right? As long as it's clean and organized, what else do you need? A GARAGE DOOR OPENER AND A NEW PAINT JOB!!! And what a difference it makes. I still walk in there and the first thing I notice is how PRETTY my garage is....and it still smells like fresh paint. Oh my! Guys go nuts over a new car smell...I never did understand that...but now I got my very own new garage smell...especially now that Laura found and got rid of those two dead rats....yuck.

You have to understand that Laura won't even kill a spider so finding and actually touching the dead carcasses and tossing them in the waste can was undoubtedly a giant act of selflessness.... she can clean, she can scape, she can paint, she can organize, she can do a full course load in university plus a couple of extra courses to boot and still have time to kill, she can travel the world and back.... all that comes easy for Laura.....but the strange thing is I could never get her to kill her own spiders. As Davy boy would say, true dat. And so, having to actually touch a couple of dead rats, well, now that is love.

Thanks Laura. How you came up with the most perfect gift for us is absolutely astounding. We had no idea you were so in-tune with what we wanted. Double wow. And then getting your brothers and Cam to help out was significantly wonderful because you allowed all of them to participate in this awesome gift-giving!.....not to mention that you could not have done it alone in such a short time especially when we know you went to Fanshawe to teach every day. Excellent ma belle fille!

And so I end this blog by saying thanks to my boys and my daughters, Dave, Jamie, Laura and Cam. This was certainly an unforgettable day for pa and me. We must have done something right for ours kids to have gone to such great length to bless us like this. The most precious moments for parents is when kids give back to them. Jamie, David, Laura, you have given us plenty of moments of joy, moments when we were proud of each one of you. But this tops them all because it was such a surprise to both of us. And now we have another daughter to add to this blessed time in our lives....Cam.

Cam, you have chosen to enter into our family which has warts and all. David and I are the first to admit that our family is, like many families, and to say the least, somewhat imperfect. And in spite of what you've seen so far, you still married Jamie!!! Thanks for seeing the best in us.

What happened last weekend is one of those family moments pa and me shall never forget. This kind of love can indeed cover a multitude of crazy and imperfect stuff.

We shall never forget this act of love from the four of you.

Bravo.

written by Therese (Therrie) Grant

A Fantastic Gift

WOW!!! Jamie, Cam, Dave and Laura really outdid themselves this year for Therrie and my birthdays. They did a complete garage makeover. New garage door opener, new track system for hanging up stuff, new blinds for the windows, fresh coat of paint (including patching up tons of holes), and even a fresh paint job on our freezer.

It took countless hours and lots of elbow grease to get the job done and they did it while Therrie and I were on one of our greatest vacations ever sightseeing in British Columbia.

Apparently this was Laura’s little brainchild but everyone pitched in and went above and beyond my wildest expectations. Not too many gifts truly surprise me but boy did this ever shock and delight. They even put on a fabulous lunch to go with the already great gifts.

What else can we say?

Thanks for the super fantabulous gift.

Love,
Ma et Pa

Kindness

I was pleasantly surprised several weeks ago by an act of kindness from a perfect stranger. Therrie and Laura were on a shopping trip to Toronto when our car broke down. Thankfully they were able to stop in a relatively safe place and had road side assistance.

I have a great mechanic friend here in London and its always annoying to have to trust a mechanic that you don’t know. The answer for the girls was to get towed to Canadian Tire in Toronto because that is all that my particular plan allowed for. It would mean me driving to Toronto to pick them up. The car wouldn’t have gotten fixed that day so I would have had to go back on another day. No big deal, just an annoying waste of time and money.

It turns out that the tow truck driver was an immigrant from China. On the way to Canadian Tire he found out that they had been to China. On hearing this he pulled some strings and managed to work it out so that he could tow our car to my mechanic here in London at no extra cost to us. It also meant that Therrie and Laura had a ride back to London.

That was the greatest act of kindness that I have experienced in my life.

Join the Club

Once upon a time there was a man who wanted to change the world. He thought of the different ways that he could have influence in the world, and soon his sole passion in life was to help other people. One day he heard about a club that existed to help people in need, so he went to one of their meetings. He found that he was accepted there and loved and encouraged to come back to the meeting. After a few weeks, he found that although he was accepted there, he was also expected to come to the meetings every time they met. The man didn't mind, because he was getting accepted and loved, so he played along, hoping to be a part of helping people in need.

After a time, the man was asked to give money for people in need, which he gladly did. Finally he felt like he was giving to something that mattered, that made a difference. He had been told by this time that not only was club attendance expected, but he had to do things for the club. They weren't big things. Just simple acts of service that he was glad to do to be a part of the club. Over time, he came to know that it was expected of him to attend regularly, serve in ways that benefited the club, and - the part he loved the most - give to help people in need.

Then one day there was a big club meeting. He went because he had heard that the club would be talking about helping people who were in need. As the head of the club stood up, a budget of all the money that had been given to help people in need was handed around. The man was shocked to find out that 90% of the money given to help people in need was really used to profit the club. The club evidently needed nicer chairs for its meetings and a newer bus to drive its members around to different activities, and the carpet that had been put in 2 years earlier evidently needed to be replaced already because it was out of style. The club already had a new sound system and there was more money set aside for a whole new clubhouse. Why they had 2.5 million dollars set aside for the new club house!

He thought to himself, "Surely we could give some of that money to helping people in need!" The man was shocked. When he looked at the budget line where the numbers were for helping people in need in other countries, it was very small, and when he looked for the line where the numbers were to help people in need in their town, he couldn't find anything. He did find a line for the many club members who were paid to work for the club, and he was stunned to see that some of them made a lot more money than he made. It seemed, as the man looked at the big picture, that the club was the one who benefited from the club. The truth was that the only people that got helped by a club that was supposed to be helping people in need was the club!

The man felt angry when he realized that all the money he and others had given was being used to make the club a better place. He met with the club president and shared his concerns, but the president said that making a better club WAS meeting people's needs. The man argued that meeting the club's needs and helping people in need were different things, and the president suggested that maybe he should go somewhere else if he was so bent on helping people in need and not interested in making the club a better place. So he went to another club, but found the same self-serving agenda wherever he went.

Finally he decided that he would stop trying to go to any club and take his money to help people in need directly instead. This made him feel like he was really doing something that mattered. But every time he met somebody from one of the clubs, they tried to tell him he was bad for not going to a club, and questioned if he was a real Christian. He tried to love them, but they never understood why he wanted to help people in need more than he wanted to go to the club.

Obviously, this new path he'd chosen would not be easy, and he would be often misunderstood. Nonetheless, he knew without a doubt that he was meant for more than he'd experienced in the club, and he would go wherever that path led him.

Life coaches Mike and Laura Ege challenge people who are tired of shallow, ineffective faith to go beyond the brink of what they've always known and ignite a spiritual journey full of adventure, purpose, and freedom. To learn more about living a spiritual edge-venture and sign up for a FREE email series, '7 Radical Freedoms', visit their site at http://www.OutsideEdgeCoaching.com.

Everything Must Change

This is poignant excerpt from a book, "Everything Must Change" by Brian D. Mclaren.

In a modest church in a township near Capetown, South Africa, twenty-some local Pentecostal, charismatic, and Baptist pastors were seated in a circle. Two guests of paler hue were present as well: my local host, Johannes, and me. We had paper plates on our laps and coffee cups on the floor beside each chair. The group had gathered at my request, as part of my search for answers to the two shaping questions that give rise to this book.

Question #1: What are the biggest problems in the world?
Question #2: What does Jesus have to say about these global problems?

We were discussing ministry in the postcolonial, post-apartheid world.

One fellow, a handsome dark-skinned man in his early thirties (I'd guess), had been strangely silent so far in our conversation. He made eye contact with me, and as he did, I noticed how his brow was furrowed and his jaw tense. Was he afraid of something, perhaps angry?

Do you want to say something? I asked him.

"Yes, I have something to I... need to say," he began. He moved forward to the edge of his chair, elbows resting on his knees. Slowly, his hands stretched open, and they remained extended this like this until he was well into his impromptu speech. "Brothers, I am not a pastor. I am a healthcare worker. I do HIV/AIDS work in Khayelitsha." At this everyone nodded. Known as an informal settlement to some, a squatter area to others, Khayelitsha is the third-largest township in South Africa. Its shacks made of scavenged building supplies stretch along the nearby airport road as far as the eye can see, providing substandard shelter for immigrants from villages across the eastern half of the country. Around half a million black and colored people had landed there seeking a better life after the fall of apartheid, but now they suffered from the predictable problems associated with migration, poverty, and unemployment: substance abuse, domestic violence, and HIV infection. Many of these pastors were working in Khayelitsha, setting up tents to conduct services there Sunday by Sunday.

The young man continued, "You pastors are..." He hesitated as he raised one outstretched hand toward heaven. "You are causing such destruction in Khayelitsha. It reaches to the skies. I know you mean well, but you don't realize that you cause devastation in the lives of the people among whom I work."

Eyes widened, pastors shifted in their seats, and the young man continued, "You come to Khayelitsha every Sunday and set up your tents, which is good, but I have listened to your preaching, and you are preoccupied with three things, three things only. First, you constantly talk about healing. You tell people they can be healed of HIV, and some of them believe you, so they stop taking their medication. When they stop, they develop new resistant strains of the disease that don't respond as well to the medications, and they spread these tougher infections to other people, leaving them much sicker than they were before. Then you've always telling the people they need to be born again, but after they're born again on Sunday, they're still unemployed on Monday. They may be born again, but what good is that if their problems are the same as before? You know as well as I do that if they're unemployed, they're going to be caught in the poverty web of substance abuse, crime and gangs, domestic violence, and HIV. What good is that? All this born-again talk is nothing but nonsense."

At this, I could see some of the pastors bristling. I wondered if a shouting match would erupt, but the healthcare worker leaned a little farther forward, and the pastors constrained themselves a little longer.

"Then what do you do? After telling these desperately poor people to get born again and healed, then you tell them to tithe. You tell them to "sow financial seed" into your ministries and they will receive a hundredfold return. You could be helping so much. You could motivate people to learn employable skills, you could teach them and help them in so many ways, but it's always the same thing: healing, getting born again, and tithing.

"Even the religious organizations that try to help people with HIV - most of them get US aid money, which only allows them to talk about abstinence and fidelity. They can't even mention condoms, and as a result, a lot of people die. And most of you--you won't talk about abstinence and fidelity, because the subject of sex is taboo among us. And so more people die.

"You know your problem? You Pentecostals and evangelicals specialized. You specialized in healing, in getting people born again, in creating financially successful churches--but you need to go beyond that. It's time to get a better message--something bigger than just those things. If you stop there, all your preaching is nonsense."

Nonsense was the verbal grenade, lobbed a second time now, unleashing the pastors' vigorous response. For the next twenty or thirty minutes, one pastor after another replied with impassioned speeches, testimonies, sermonettes. Some were fatherly; some were brotherly; some were stern; some were gentle. But each defended the fact that being born again and getting healed were biblical, which means they weren't nonsense. We never got to the subject of tithing.

The young man listened. As the older pastors spoke, he respectfully gave them his full attention and didn't defend himself when they used words like "heresy" and "false doctrine" to discredit his words. When there was a lull in the conversation, he responded in a quiet but firm tone: "Brothers, I am not your enemy. I am your friend. I believe in Jesus. I am born again myself. I even speak in tongues, so I'm Pentecostal like most of you. I'm sorry I offended you by the word nonsense. But if you would simply teach them some practical things that relate to their daily lives, that could make such a big difference."

(The meeting ended and the healthworker continued on with a private conversation with Brian.)

"The opportunity that's being missed, the incredible cost as they keep up the routines of their various forms of the Christian religion, that's what makes me so passionate. That's what makes me speak out, even though they try to make me look ridiculous by quoting the Bible to me about being born again, as if that negates all the the truth I told them. I love God. I love Jesus. That's why I'm in Khayelitsha trying to help and serve. But I can't stomach what goes on there in the name of God. I see what's going on--all the shouting and singing and raising money--and I know: this is not what Jesus intended. By talking only about individuals being born again, they keep Khayelitsha and our whole nation from being born again in a fuller sense of the term."

At that moment, I realized this man saw clearly what I had begun to see: that religion, even the religion we are committed to and in which we have found God and purpose and meaning and truth, can become captive to a colossal distortion. It can become a benign and passive chaplaincy to a failing and dysfunctional culture, the religious public relations department for an inadequate and destructive ideology. It can forgo being a force of liberation and transformation and instead become a source of domestication, resignation, pacification, and distraction.

A right understanding of God and faith can train people to hold their heads high, to doubt the lies of a dysfunctional society and to work for its transformation. But a misguided understanding can be an opiate that keeps their heads down in submission or desperation so they continue to serve the societal system that is destroying them, believing its lies, performing to its self-destructive script.

The Scandal of Tithing

Many churches preach a message of tithing. The spin is that when one practices this they will in turn receive financial blessings as well. It’s an interesting self-serving proposition seeing that the one preaching this message is dependent on the tithe to get his salary.

The goal is to always grow a bigger church because it’s obvious that the bigger the church, the bigger the salary. They say that growth is about more people having received the gospel but when it’s linked to the size of a pay cheque, personal motivation is a realistic consideration.

I have never heard of a pastor of a small church of less than 100 making $100,000 or more. The biggest pastor’s salary that I have heard of was by a well loved pastor in Toronto making $450,000 per year.

The key New Testament verse that is supposedly the pattern for the weakly tithe is 1Cor 16:2 (NIV) On the first day of every week, each one of you should set aside a sum of money in keeping with his income, saving it up, so that when I come no collections will have to be made.

But here’s the COMPLETE SCANDAL misrepresenting this verse. You only have to back up one verse for the “true” context on this passage on giving. 1Cor 16:1 (NIV) Now about the collection for God's people: Do what I told the Galatian churches to do.

This offering was to be sent to Jerusalem to help the saints who were in physical need because of persecution.

This was not an offering to be used for brick and mortar and for the spiritually strong “pastors” to make a decent living.

It was not an offering based on a tithe where the person making $200,000 a year would give $20,000 and have to suffer through on the remainder.

It would have taken weeks, if not months to deliver this gift to the saints in Jerusalem. And yet we are living in a day when Africa currently has 13 million orphans, 43 million by 2010; 7000 people dying every day; As this breath-halting reality of HIV/AIDS stuns and burns across southern Africa, the rest of the world waits, paralysed and overwhelmed by the magnitude of such pain.

Generally the North American church, including myself, has been apathetic to the cries from both here at home and overseas, that have been ringing throughout our lifetime.

I believe we have cursed ourselves into believing we are doing something noble when our tithe goes to our beautiful buildings and paying our pastors to make us feel good about doing so.

The priority in our churches regarding giving is in this order:
1. brick and mortar
2. pastors
3. programs
4. missionaries
5. the scraps (usually there isn’t much left over) for the poor, the widow and the orphans.
(When it is done, it's usually for bragging rights to show we really are making a difference.)

James 1:27 (NIV) Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.

I’ve heard many pastors say that if all (currently it’s about 17%) of God’s people would tithe we would then be able to really help.

That simply isn’t the track record.
Bigger offerings = bigger buildings + bigger salaries.

Every week people gather to raise their hands in praise to God and then joyfully tithe to their buildings and pastors.

Every week, in other parts of the world, people despondently wait with no jobs, no food and no hope.

Let’s finish this thought with a song that I’m sure some orphans are singing in Africa.

Count Your Blessings

Verse 1
When upon life's billows You are tempest tossed,
When you are discouraged Thinking all is lost,
Count your many blessings Name them one by one,
And it will surprise you What the Lord hath done.

Chorus:
Count your blessings Name them one by one.
Count your blessings See what God hath done.
Count your blessings Name them one by one.
Count your many blessings See what God hath done.

Verse 2
Are you ever burdened With a load of care,
Does the cross seem heavy You are called to bear.
Count your many blessings Every doubt will fly,
And you will be singing As the days go by.

Verse 3
When you look at others With their lands and gold,
Think that Christ has promised You His wealth untold.
Count your many blessings Money cannot buy,
Your reward in heaven Nor your home on high.

Verse 4
So amid the conflict Whether great or small,
Do not be discouraged God is over all.
Count your many blessings Angels will attend,
Help and comfort give you To your journey's end.

Why Sunday?

What do I need to worship You Lord? Do I need some religious icon set in stained glass to carry my spirit up out of this earth's vain pull? Do I need music to lift my soul to another plane? Do I need to have someone tell me how I should think about You, and what I should say to You? Do I need someone else's words to communicate with You? Do I need someone else's song?

Do I need to be religious to worship You, or can we just walk along and talk like You did with Your disciples? Do I need the proper prayer order — you know, thanksgiving first, then confession, then protection, then petition, then praise — or will "Help!" suffice? Can You fill in all the rest? Aren't You here, anyway? Right here? I have the feeling I have Your attention all the time; the bigger question, I suppose, is do You have mine? I have to honestly say You do not.

Not always, and certainly not enough. Forgive me Lord for forgetting — for missing You breathing down my neck. I worry so much about things that You already know about. You know how this is going to turn out, anyway. If I could just trust You….

Hear me today, O Lord. Accept my worship today even though it's just an ordinary day. Teach me something today that will change me tomorrow. May I bring You pleasure as much by walking through my day today as I would singing in church, or reading my Bible or praying in a fellowship group.

I'm not a religious person, O God, and if You want the truth, I don't want to be. I just want to know You and know You are with me. I know You are, in my head, just help me to see You with my heart today. All day. Any day.

Author

John Fischer