I apologize already for the intensity of this post...

BCI has initiated a more intensive congregational prayer schedule, that now occupies my monday evenings, tuesday-thursday mornings (5-6 am) and my friday nights. While attending one of the prayer meetings, the pastor invited the congregation to experience "an outpouring of God's love" over all the congregation...an immersion. While the pastor prayed...and I watched as people seemed overwhelmed by what they were experiencing, I wondered what the love of God looks like? I have no doubt that God's love takes many forms...but for the Church, God's love should take a much more radical, altruistic form...looking for creative ways to show this love that has graciously been given to them for free!

God's love is really what Christian spirituality comes down to...it is what binds us together in community, it is what propels us into the mission field, it can help us through whatever were going through. However, sometimes the Church can get caught up in debates that do nothing to show God's love (gay marriage immediately comes to mind), these debates often expose an ugly, hypocritical side of Christianity. I'm not saying that these issues don't require addressing, I just think that while there are people suffering next door to us, these issues can (and likely will) wait.

In the end, if the world wide church (specifically the North American Church) wants to remain relevant for years to come, it must embrace the love of God, and fully understand that if we (the church) have the love of God within us, we have no choice but to move it outwards towards the rest of the world. This should affect how we do everything from grocery shopping, to politics. We need to start thinking of creative ways to live in a system that has been corrupted by greed, racism, religion (in ways), and selfishness, in order to serve a minority that reaps the benefits. The Church must become a social conscience once again.

Ok, enough of this...lets move on to something a little less deep. Here is a list of songs that I think you must listen to. They are my top 10songs from the year of 2009!

10.) Serpentine - Chris Bathgate
9.) For me, This is Heaven - Foreverinmotion
8.) Gimme Sympathy - Metric
7.) Until Morning - DC
6.) Medisin - The Classic Crime
5.) True Love - Angels and Airwaves
4.) Running up That Hill - Placebo
3.) Desperate Times, Desperate Measures - Underoath
2.) Stolen - DC
1.) Transatlanticism - Death Cab for Cutie

Hope you enjoy!

Holiday Blog

The past few weeks have been BEAUTIFUL here in SA! We spent a lot of time with friends, celebrated the holidays, and got to travel down the coast for Menno Retreat 2010! We also have only recently Obviously, celebrating the holidays in another country, very very far away from family is bittersweet experience, but luckily, the sweet out weighed the bitter in this case! Also, I was able to see how amazing and hospitable the people from church are, as they had no problem having us over for meals and even having us down for Christmas day! Here are some of the highlights from the past few weeks:

1.) Being invited down for many many meals. It was such a blessing through and through.
2.) Being outside at 2 in the morning on new years in shorts and a t-shirt...and still being hot.
3.) Capturing the "Goulet award" at Menno Retreat 2010 by means of dominating "The Suderman Race" created by Andrew and Karen Suderman.
4.) Having NO carpenters working outside our door...thus waking up to relative silence.
5.) Praying in the new year at church....very cool.
6.) Going for a run at 5 am on new years day....losing my key to get in...waiting outside for about an hour until Gabby finally poked Anna through the window in order to wake her up. She wasn't happy.
7.) Initiating our first (of hopefully many) Ultimate Frisbee days with some friends.
8.) Going skating in Durban....be cautioned, Skating is a VERY strong term used to describe what we were capable of doing on that ice.
9.) Going to the beach a few times and continuing to get owned by the sun every single time.
10.) Not singing Christmas songs on christmas morning...there's a first for everything.

This is a short, not so deep blog entry....but hopefully (if i find time in my very very busy schedule) I will post a more meaningful blog post! Hope all is well for you guys...and thanks for following!