US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has admitted the US has made thousands of tactical errors in Iraq, but said it was right to remove Saddam Hussein.
from bbc

Praying for the health of strangers who have undergone heart surgery has no effect, according to the largest scientific study ever commissioned to calculate the healing power of prayer.
NI_MPU('middle');
In fact, patients who know they are being prayed for suffer a noticeably higher rate of complications, according to the study, which monitored the recovery of 1,800 patients after heart bypass surgery in the US.
The findings of the decade-long study

a study. wow.

know that many people face accusations if they decide to leave-accusations that they are abandoning their relationships, accusations that they lack commitment, and accusations that they are out of God's will. They will also likely experience separation and rejection. Sometimes people are threatened that they are spiritually in danger because of leaving the flock. The banana that leaves the bunch gets peeled. The ember apart from the other coals soon dies out. They are told that they are an open target for the enemy.

more here.

...is hard to do.

i think there is something within all of us that begs to be in charge. you may call it what you like - control issues, fear of letting go, whatever. fact is, it is a universal struggle.

i spent some time with an old friend in maple ridge this week. he made an keenly insightful comments about his marriage, his covenant with his wife. we agreed that both of us had grown up with the assumption that marriage was a contract. a rock solid commitment to something that barely deserved any consideration. it was for life. end of story.

he explained to me how, after enduring some relational hard times, he has come to realize that his marriage is simply an agreement. they choose to stay together. they choose to work things out. he realized he could not control his spouces choices. she could, in the twenty-first century post-christian culture, choose to leave him at any time. Rather than feeling stress about this reality he shared how he felt a sense of freedom. he understands, maybe for the first time, that he cannot control her actions. no matter what he tries, he cannot make her do anything.

as i approach a new phase of my life i too have come to see such relationships in a new light. i have spent too much of my life trying to control situations and people. i am learning to let go - let go of what people think of me. i'm learning to hold things less tightly. learning to find what i need in my faith and my hopes, not in those i love and cling to.

like many of us i have been far too approval seeking. when that has not come i have felt insecure and fearful. this past year i have learned the hard way that approval is fickle. i have had to let go of my need for acceptance. i have faltered somewhat into obscurity, even disdain. it has been wonderful.

well, not wonderful, strickly speaking. but it has been an amazing learning time. learning to allow myself to be human. learning to let go.

ten years ago tomorrow.

ten years ago i met with two crazy guys in a coffee shop in mission.
ten years ago i realized that something weird, something special could happen.
ten years ago i was in the right place at the right time. a magical moment. a once in a lifetime opportunity.
ten years ago.

tomorrow a church i love will come together and celebrate ten years. times have changed. methodologies change. people change. pastors change.
jim peetoom, jim tooie. jason johnson. greg elford. susan phillips. scott williams.
ten years.

tonight i feel a sense of melancholy. a sense of loss. a sense of love. i was a part of an amazing experiment and experience. part of me still is. i hope the best part. thousands and thousands of visitors. hundreds and hundreds of lives changed and decisions made. incredible flexibility. incredible guts.

times change and people move on. but for a brief moment this night i am back there.

i miss you new heights. i pray for you tonight. for tomorrow.

church for people who hate church.
stay classy.
rock on.

more here.

In his post Politics of a Different Kind he says:
Jesus intended to create a new community, a new people, marked by a new approach to being people in community and characterized by a radical, subversive approach to authority and power. If this contention is true, and I am fairly confident in it, then what we must recognize is that the gospel calls us, as participants in and members of that very community, to follow in the footsteps of Christ in our relationships, in our approach to authority and power, and in our understandings of citizenship and politics in the more traditional sense.
via grace

this story is cracked.
wow does this bring back memories.
japanese researchers have succeeded in making the sweet smell of vanilla come out of cow dung.
she wanted a bigger butt?
ya, the chair was farting...
maybe waiting forever at tim hortons isn't so bad after all.
a 45-year-old man in cedar city, utah, is accused of using electric dog shock collars to discipline his two children.
a $150,000 grant to study the mating habits of flying squirrels should be stopped in mid-flight, ontario conservative leader john tory says.

sadly, it survived.

soon to become a bigger buzz phrase than "pandemic".
bunnies, in a brokeback kind of way...

rockin at the club

from the telegraph:
The US military has begun investigating claims published this week in Time magazine that American Marines killed 15 civilians in Iraq in November last year.

Bodies in a morgue after an incident in Haditha
The alleged massacre is said to have taken place after a roadside bomb killed a Marine in the town of Haditha, west of Baghdad.
Residents in Haditha allege that American troops entered two family homes shortly after the attack and shot dead 15 members of the two families, including women and children.
"I watched them shoot my grandfather, first in the chest and then in the head," one child was quoted by Time as saying. "Then they killed my granny."
The US military yesterday acknowledged that a criminal inquiry had been launched into the incident, which is said to have taken place on November 19 last year.

i'm getting married this summer. seems weird to even speak those words. i have been single for years now and never saw myself getting married again. i like being single. it took longer than it should have but i have grown accustomed to being alone. i fell in love accidently. i do not need to get married.

but i want to.

relationships have a way of molding a person. i have spent an inordinate amount of time analyzing how my relationships have altered my perception of myself, be that in a positive or negative fashion. anyone who knows me understands how much i struggled with self-esteem most of my adult life. it seemed i had a need to be affirmed by one person, a need for affection and intimacy. when that was not reciprocated it left me needy. add to this the fact that most of us live with varied relational expectations. expectations that i have failed to live up to. it is hard to live one's life believing another is constantly disappointed. it can leave you co-dependent or bitter or people pleasing.

as i head into another adventure in my life i have pondered again what it means to live with someone else. i am keenly aware that all relationships come with expectations. i am quite sure i will not always measure up. but no longer do i wish to live my life in the hopes that i can find my fulfillment in another person. i no longer have a desire to hang my hopes on whether or not i am appoved of, on a given day. i hope i can live my life in such a way as to not be needy, not be draining, not find my value in the whims of another.

it leaves me with this thought. why is it that we seek so often to mold others to our own likeness? why is it that we are so consistently disappointed in others? i have told annette that i am no longer interested in playing the insecurity game. i will not pretend to be one thing and live a secret life on the side. i will not live in the shadow of disappointment. i am who i am... period. i will try my best to love sacrificially and give consistently but i will not pretend i can be other than i am.

and i desperately hope that i will be a person who does love without agenda.

that those who feel my affection will not have to perform; will not have to be something other than what they are. that my wife does not feel the need to impress me or earn anything.
that love is freely given.
that there are fewer and fewer expectations.
i am tired of those who put strings on their approval. i do not want to be such a person.

it reminded me today of an old marvin gaye song. and it reminded me of ruth graham one more time. when asked about billy's shortcomings she commented, "it's my job to love billy. it's god's job to change him."

amen.

Piece of Clay - Marvin Gaye

Father stop
Criticizing your son
Mother please
Leave your daughters alone
Don't you see that's what wrong
With the world today
Everybody wants somebody
To be their own piece of clay

Everybody wants somebody
To be their own piece of clay
We all talked about Candice
But it's only only a word
Brother turned on a sister
In this cruel cruel world today
That's what's wrong
With all in this world today
Everybody wants somebody
To be their own piece of clay

Somebody to play with
Wanna mold you, mold you
Shaker your love baby
Wanna do their thing
Children are told
To give not just to take
If we were all children
You know the world
Will be a better place
Everybody wants somebody
To be their own piece of clay

May those who love us, love us
And those who don't love us,
May God turn their hearts
And if he can't turn their hearts,
May he turn their ankles
So we will know them by their limping!

talk is cheap.

If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don't love, I'm nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate. If I speak God's Word with power, revealing all his mysteries and making everything plain as day, and if I have faith that says to a mountain, "Jump," and it jumps, but I don't love, I'm nothing.
If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don't love, I've gotten nowhere. So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I'm bankrupt without love.

Love never gives up.
Love cares more for others than for self.
Love doesn't want what it doesn't have.
Love doesn't strut,
Doesn't have a swelled head,
Doesn't force itself on others,
Isn't always "me first,"

Doesn't fly off the handle,

Doesn't keep score of the sins of others...

annette's mom takes a jump out of an airplane here.

this week i had a frank discussion with another soon-to-be-ex-pastor. we spoke of this next phase of our lives, this new adventure. at one point i became somewhat nostalgic.

it was easy to reflect on how good we had it - the incredible flexibility, the lack of accountability, the freedom, the utter freedom. it was interesting to reminisce about a shared experience; about the good parts of life as a full-time minister. then it hit me.

for twenty years of my life i have been praised almost weekly. for twenty years i complained about the criticism a pastor has to endure, and rarely even glimpsed the true magnitude of what had become so normal for most of us in full-time church work. we are used to being on a pedestal, with people encouraging us regularly. we grow accustom to positive feedback.

i work at a normal job now. people don't go out of their way to compliment me or tell me how much i have changed their life. no one takes up a love-offering or gives me a huge christmas bonus. there are few groceries that mysteriously appear on my doorstep. there is, however, a fair amount of criticism. my boss doesn't seem to really care if i am feeling affirmed or valued. the state of my emotional well-being is not a topic of conversation. i'm paid to be there. there are expectations. if i don't show up i do not get paid. eventually i will be fired. no one will hold my hand in the real world.

you see, pastors tend to bemoan the fact that they are the most criticized people on the planet. turns out they aren't. sure they are the topic of an insane amount of backbiting and gossip by people who consider themselves holy, but all-in-all... well here's what i realized - regular people get criticized all the time too. my boss at work demeans me on a regular basis without the added cloak of my religious authority. people in real jobs get slammed all the time too. they are put down and talked about and criticized with very very rare praise.
with little or no encouragement. no one comes up to them on a regular basis and showers them with accolades. but it happens to pastors all the time. all the time.

it is hard to not come away thinking that i have been coddled a great deal over my professional life.

from darren:
Tony Campolo was the guest on The Colbert report. He was great, as you would expect. Check out the interview here. You have to scroll down a bit and click on Tony's face.

When sex becomes commonplace, when the girl you want is trying out half your suburban community and the same is true of you, where are the romantic and secret pleasues you need out of sex?
more here.

finally on tour!

this is funny.

this actually happened to us at an evening church gig for another church years ago. it was amazing.

from mark...

I don't think I wanna Be A Christian if...
I don't think I wanna be a christian,
If we support the fact of war.
I don't think I wanna be a christian,
If we forget about the poor man.
I don't think I wanna be a christian,
If no gay people are allowed.
I don't think I wanna be a christian,
If we all pack guns.
I don't think I wanna be a christian,
If all we do is gossip.
I don't think I wanna me a christian,
If people are constantly condemned.
I don't think I wanna be a christian,
If I have to go to a boring church.
I don't know about being a christian,
I just want to be like Jesus.

In light of everything that has been happening around me and in my circle of influence I have to say that it really pisses me off how self-centered and selfish some of us so called 'christians' can be.
read the rest of sue's rant here.