For Driscoll anything less than the assertion that God himself is a gun-slinging son of a bitch makes one into a wuss who deserves nothing more than ridicule.

the rest here.

A lot of us have tried drugs. It’s a right of passage for a lot of people, part of freedom of choice. There’s a lot of people who do a bit of weed or speed or meth or whatever and that’s it, it’s recreational – nothing really comes from it.

Following a recent blog I have received some mail asking me about the whole drug thing I have alluded to. I thought I would come clean. Mom if you are reading this, stop here. No seriously.

I wasn’t one of those people. I have a fairly addictive personality. Right now I’m addicted to Annette. I mainly said that to score points for later but, I have one of those temperaments where you have to watch what you eat, what you ingest, what you watch, where you go. I want to do the right thing, but like Paul in the bible, it’s hard, cuz the things I don’t want to do I find myself constantly doing. It’s a sin thing.

I was introduced to drugs at a very young age. My sister and her boyfriend thought it would be funny to get a pre-teen stoned. And it was. I liked it too. The problem was, it just got worse the older I got. It kind of came to a head when I was pastoring a church in Denver. I had developed quite a cocaine addiction and was stealing from the church offerings, home, and anywhere else I could get money. I was getting high at the church and a few times before I went up to preach. People noticed I was different but who would believe a pastor was doing drugs on Sunday morning. I got to tell you though, that’s a pretty messed up way to experience church. A few of you know what I’m talking about.

It was a low point in my life. I hated who I was, but I couldn’t seem to help what I was becoming. I needed help but I wasn’t about to ask anyone for it. All the people I knew were very conservative Christians who I was pretty sure would not understand what I was going through and would be pretty judgmental. The church has a hard time dealing with pastors who screw up. There is this whole celebrity culture thing – we expect more from our leaders and extend far less grace when they mess up.

I had a pastor friend in Fort McMurray who got involved with a prostitute while on a missions trip. Think about it. He alleged that nothing really happened and when he got home he went straight to the senior pastor and confessed, asking for counsel and guidance. The senior pastor threw him out of the office and called the denomination. Then, he called my friend’s wife. It was a trainwreck. He needed a confidant, he needed a friend. What he got instead was a verdict.

To whom more is given, more is required. Apparently.

I used to belong to an exclusive club – NTLA.

I won’t tell you just what the initials stand for yet so it’ll give you something to do for a few minutes in case I am boring. The members of this club were passionate about canoeing and not just any kind of canoeing – whitewater.

We would pattern our whole year around the NTLA. We would plan and share pictures. Whenever a few of us and our wives were together that’s all we would talk about. The NTLA. It was like being in a room with a bunch of teachers. Many of my finest friends are teachers and they are awesome people… alone. But put two teachers in the same postal code and you can pretty much leave the room. You know who you are.

Teachers love to talk about teaching. In Fort McMurray my three best friends were teachers and if we were all together… it was sooo boring. I could pretty much leave the room and they wouldn’t care. I would try to enter into the conversation and they would all turn to me, give me the little patronizing smile and pretty much pat me on the head and say to each other… “oh, isn’t that cute. He thinks he knows something about teaching". They would throw me a cookie and go back to talking...

There were no women allowed in the NTLA. Not that any of our wives were interested in it in any way. By the time the NTLA would come around, they were pretty much begging us to go away. So everyone was happy. It was called the “No tan-line annual” NTLA. 6 guys, 3 canoes, beans, testosterone, burping, farting and no toothpaste, no bathing suits.

There was a cardinal rule. No bathing. I used to wear the same clothes pretty much the whole time we were out there. It was guy heaven. If we would have had a remote control it would have been perfect.

We were passionate about it - collected all the info, planned overly, prepared anally. We were into it. It was important to me.

Then one year it fell apart. It was the year I first found out my wife had breast cancer and I was an emotional wreck. I phoned my best friend at the time in search of emotional support and before very long it denigrated into a conversation about how he didn’t feel that we should do the canoe trip anymore. I couldn’t understand why and my emotional state did not aid in my comprehension of what was really going on.

A few months later, on a whim, I phoned my best friend to see how things were. His wife answered the phone and said in a slightly surprised way, “aren’t you with him? Why aren’t you on the canoe trip?”

7 years before I had started this canoe trip. For years it had been the center-piece of my year. I had taught them how to paddle, read maps, make wet fires, shoot whitewater, look for a campsite. Now they had gone on a trip and did not want me there. I was crushed. Later on the phone with one of the guys he explained that I was too intense, they wanted a casual trip not an adventure every year. He said that they did not value my friendship, that there had been personality and leadership conflicts. They simply didn’t want me around. Five guys whom I had considered close friends. One whom I thought of as a brother. I felt beaten. My feelings of self-worth plummeted. Not only could I do nothing to help my wife during her hardest battle of her life; now I began to realize my friends wanted nothing to do with me. Many of my handholds were being stripped away. Like most of us it occurred to me again for seemingly the hundredth or thousandth time - I'm a loser.

...we were at Lou’s Grill. If you haven’t been there, they make the best blackened chicken burger and spuds in the world. I guarantee it. (I sound like that suit guy…. I guarantee it…)

So anyway, we’re at Lou’s grill. Myself and two guys I kind of hang with. And I gotta tell ya, these guys are gorgeous. I know, I’m a guy and I’m not supposed to notice but as you’re about to understand, that fact was made pretty clear. Let me go on cuz there is no way I can back out of that compliment now even if I try so whatever.

So we’re at Lou’s Grill and the weirdest thing happens. These gorgeous women start coming over and giving us their phone numbers. I am, at this point, using the word “us” incorrectly. Perhaps I should rephrase that.

So we’re at Lou’s Grill and the weirdest thing happens. These gorgeous women start coming over and giving “them” their phone numbers. It was at this point that I was reminded of Sesame St. why you may ask? Do you remember Sesame Street when they had that game they always played with Grover? Anyone remember which game I’m talking about?

“One of these things is not like the others….”

“Can you guess which one is not like the others…”?

Me and two studs and I’m playing this game in my head and it dawns on me, I think for the very first time, “You’re not as good looking as they are”. You see, to this point I didn’t really know that. My mom thinks I’m a total stud. My wife seems to like how I look. But maybe, I’m thinking love is blind or at least nearsighted… I don’t think anyone truly believes they are unattractive. Hence the 3 Billion $/yr cosmetics industry. “Cosmetics” comes from the Greek word “Cosmos” which literally means, “to make order out of chaos”…think about it.

So I’m sitting there and humming Sesame Street and I’m thinking to myself, Yo, ugly, you have never seen this before. For some of you this happens all the time, but for me, I’ve never been given a woman’s phone number in my life. You may not believe me, but I’m no Brad Pitt. I cannot remember a single time in my life when any woman even hit on me. In fact, I was talking to a gay friend of mine a year or so ago, feeling pretty insecure about the whole thing so I say to this guy, knowing how picky men are (is she breathing?) I said, “am I even attractive to another guy” to which my friend says, “don’t quit your day job.” I think that was a negative.

Any of you ever been ashamed of your appearance? I have been most of my life. It’s more common than you know. Any of you ever been ashamed of, let’s say, your body? Your grades? Your past? Abuse? Any of you ever done anything a long time ago that you just can’t seem to put behind you? You may have prayed about it, asked for forgiveness the whole deal, but it just didn’t take? And of you have any recent sins that keep bugging you and bugging you. Anyone think they don’t measure up to other’s expectations? Maybe its your spouse or your school or your parents. A lot of you have parent issues. We spend our lives trying to impress, to stick out, to be something or someone that we secretly believe will "matter".

Some time ago my family and I were listening to a grad address as a mother was describing how the growth and welfare of the grad is most influenced by their home environment and how they get their values – how important their parents influence upon them was – how crucial the parents are to their child’s success (and at this point, my son Nathan turns to me, takes a hard look at me and says, with a totally straight face… I’M SCREWED…

Like the majority of us, rejection has left it's scars. as my close buddy Jordon says, "I have a face for radio". We live in a world that tells us constantly that we don't measure up, we're ugly, we're stupid, we don't matter. Like you I know that sting. And like you I struggle to make sense of life and my role in it. We have a desire to be significant. We want to be loved unconditionally... and yet we aren't. Maybe that's the good news of faith in Jesus, that in spite of the fact that we cannot measure up, it doesn't really matter. I love what Campolo says, "I'm not ok, you're not ok, but the good news is... that's ok." And it is true, you're not ok. Me neither.

So I may not get many girls giving me their number but my wife is strangely ok with that and God thinks I'm pretty hot anyway...

Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind. ~Dr. Seuss

it's wednesday morning, just after 7 am, and i'm at work. i'm not whining, really, i love it here in the morning. i am alone and the world is at peace. i work in a professional kitchen and when all the stars are aligned in just the right configuration, i love to cook. i hope i'm good at it, this past year has certainly given me enough practice. after you make your first 200 omelettes you should probably be able to do it well. or 500 beef dips, or 100 steaks, or 1000 warm candied bacon and mushroom spinach salads. right now i'm baking homemade granola, carrot cake, and cleaning the deep fat fryer. my eldest son is on his way in for his daily muffin and mocha. my dad is visiting and will undoubtedly help with the few dishes. the world is ok at this moment.

but it is a daily grind.

in many ways i am very immature with regard to the real world. it was only a few years ago that i lived in the bubble where my time was my own, i could travel when i wished, there were few if any restrictions on my life. i miss it almost everyday. i don't miss the whiny, needy, never satisfied pariahs but i do miss the lifestyle.

many ministers do not experience the level of freedom i enjoyed. i simply demanded it and it was forthcoming. i am independent and strong-willed by nature and chose a life starting new churches so i was not forced into a constitutional mold. when the situation became too tame, i could always leave. there are few church planters who have done more than one church so as my experience grew, so did the freedom. i could, after all, find someone to fund a churchplant anywhere i wanted to go. churchplanting is trendy, and i was a proven commodity for hire. and church planting was easy. as long as you had enough start up funds you could simply attract enough church shoppers to get a base. flavor of the week, and all that. anyone who tells you attracting a crowd is not a money thing has not tried it without funding. but as usual, i rant.

the past three years of my life have drastically affecting my views on the world. leaving the bubble has forced me to confront my own sense of privilege, my own laziness, my own misunderstanding of the work-a-day world. it was easy for me to stand up front and give people life lessons, my life was my own. many pastors go to college, then seminary, then get a church where they are immediately expected to dispense earthy life lessons and spiritual truths to people who have experienced more than they have. within a few years they are flying on missions trips, going to conferences, and eventually writing books about their deep insights. it reminds me of when churchill wrote a book at 25 to tell british parliament how to run it's foreign policy, believing because he had been in one skirmish that he understood the breadth of the issue. i thank god i never wrote a book in my 20's, or even in my 30's - i would be embarrassed now by the nievette i operated in.

i have mentioned this before but continue to ponder it. it shocks me how woefully unprepared i was for how mundane going to work is everyday - there is no goal, no endgame, no great aspiration to make a difference, it's just a job. you cannot measure the work but mega-events or strategic planning steps. people do not line up to tell you how good you are doing or buy you stuff. there is no christmas hamper, no free tickets to foreign countries. real life is... just life. it is no wonder that the book of ecclesiastes was written. it has always been my favorite bible book but, until i had to get a real life, i don't think i truly understood it. how could i, my life was a series of events and accolades, crushing defeats and miraculous miracles.

real people don't live like that.

it's hard for me to admit it but i have a close friend who is a mennonite. we try to put an "o" in front of his name to make it sound irish, but to no avail.

he lives in abbotsford, potentially the most 'christian' town in north american. it is the home to most of canada's largest churches, and you can't swing a badger without hitting a mennonite or a reformed christian. it is the home of "the shepherd's guide", a shopping list of all the christian retailers so you don't have to frequent pagan establishments. abby is rife with christian schools and youth groups, old folks homes and denominational headquarters. there is the token, vastly overpriced, christian book store. so it is no wonder that from time to time it's residents may get a skewed perspective on life and faith. in abbotsford it is still possible to imagine we live in a christian nation.

but we don't.

one day at the local pub i was talking with my token mennonite friend when the subject of my club came up. for the unitiated, the club is a post-everything pseudo-church/restaurant/rock venue that we run on saturday nites. we have an ophanage in haiti we pretty much support single-handedly and a few local projects. most of the people who wander in can barely shave. anyway, i digress.

my friend struggles to understand why i would be a part of something so left-of menno. at one juncture in the conversation he happened to mention that "projects like mine are probably good for those 5 or 6% of canadians who don't want to go to a normal church. i was stunned. i sought clarification. apparent he thought that most people in our nation are basically christians. he assumed that most people would resonate with the average evangelical church. i began to wonder if he was drunk.

for most people in contemporary society church is not something they wake up on sunday morning and consider going to. in fact, it is not even on the radar. the average citizen is not looking for a "community church" or the newer emerging gathering called "motion" or "burn" or some non-relevent latin phrase. no one has died in their family this week so why would they look for a church? they don't care if you have a great sunday school. they don't listen to acoustic guitar songs (ok there is jack johnson and ben harper but let's be honest, isn't it time we stopped listening to them? i mean really, jack johnson? his name is an alliteration, and not even a cool one like j. jonah jameson). for most people in canada today christianity is just another cult; an option with no more credibility than j.w's or the secret.

it is not my intention to slam the faith, that's too easy. it is time, however, that we as a church begin to realize that we do not have the corner on faith. people are not, and will not, necessarily start coming to church just because they are looking for god. they cannot, and will not relate to your hymns and your sub-culture and your cultic language. it's time to wake and and smell the coffee - sunday morning is not an option for a great percentage of people. we need to take a serious hard look at the way we are continuing to change the window display but not address the root issues. re-imagining the future of evangelism could be the healthiest and most radical legacy we leave. church is great, necessary, but let's be honest - it's an insider event. bill hybels is wrong for the majority of people in our country. attending a church event or even 'alpha' is years and many steps further along the road than they are willing to commit to in the foreseeable future. most people don't live in abbotsford. most non-christians i know will never, and i mean never, see church attendence as the solution to their spiritual hunger. and as for getting up on their only day off to go to a foreign culture to hear music they do not understand and watch a spiritual exercise they do not comprehend...

some stuff i'm milling around in my book project with Jordon Cooper. Unedited and unsubstantiated by Jordon in any way. in fact, he'll probably hate it...

Once upon a time, a long long time ago, I went to Chicago. Nine times. There was, in an alternate universe, a church that everyone wanted to emulate. They were big, they had talent, the pastor had great hair. It was the eighties.

I remember the first time I was there. The music was incredible. You could see their lake through the several story high floor-to-ceiling windows. Pure Disney magic.

After the conference in never-never land I remember driving the five hour road from Edmonton Alberta to the northern town I was working in. If you have never been in the north let me explain it to you – there are two gas stations. I wondered how far I could steal the ideas and bring them to northern Canada. I remember wondering what it would be like to pastor a mega-church. I remember Bill’s hair. If I did nothing else I had to figure out how to get that hair.

Bill talked to the audience about being normal. He was, he liked to point out, just like us, only with a wildly successful church, a home in one of the riches communities in Illinois, and a staff of more than attended my church. Legend has it they have a tunnel under their stage. I was struck by the chasm between us – the five foot stage, the suit, the success. I think I was also experiencing a low-burn jealousy that was to last for many years. Bill was not like me. He lived in a particular culture that would lend itself to a church growing to thousands in a short period of time. I am from Canada, where rapid church growth only happens in the cities where we regularly shuffle the evangelical sheep.

A lot has been made in the post-evangelical religious movement with regard to ordinary people. Those who start churches and those who blog and Facebook want to believe they are free of the trappings of their forefathers – a generation of television superstars and celebrity endorsed bibles. The emerging church movement wants to let you know that it is made up of little people, regular fallible leaders and friends. We want to be known as ordinary radicals – regular people who do extraordinary things. We write books and do lectures/write about the power of real people. Then like the generations that preceded us we are quick to jump on the lecture circuit, speak at conferences and work on book deals. We create the un-celebrity.

Some time ago I happened upon the Ordinary Radicals website, a website featuring some of the most highly regarded thinkers in the North American church. Among the names I noticed Tony Campolo – the man I would elect pope if anyone cared about my opinion. It is hard to overstate my regard for Tony, it is the closest thing to hero worship I can admit to. The blog is an advertisement for the upcoming documentary and as it lists, features Interviews with: Becky Garrison, Shane Claiborne, Jim Wallis, Brian McLaren, Tony Campolo, Rob Bell, John Perkins, Brooke Sexton, Michael Heneise, St. Margret McKenna, Logan Laituri, Zack Exley, Aaron Weiss and many more Ordinary Radicals.

When I read a list like that, though admittedly I do not know who a few of the people are, I am frustrated by the absolute “un-ordinary-ness” of the people it is about. Several of the people on the list are international superstars in the religious world, have been on “The Colbert Report” and any number of high profile talk shows and television appearances. Most of the above names are regulars on the conference circuit. They are highly educated and enjoy flexibility and some notoriety. Wallis is the founder of Sojourners, a prolific author, and teaches at Harvard. Campolo was a personal adviser to Clinton and a protégé of Albert Einstein. Claiborne is the flavor of the month. McLaren is considered by most to be the foremost spokesman for the emerging church. Bell has been tagged by some in the press to be “the next Billy Graham”. The list goes on.

Though I genuinely laud the intentions for such projects it is simply symptomatic of the problem in North American faith and culture. We cannot seem to get beyond the love affair we have with celebrity culture. Even in a climate of anti-heroes we are easily infatuated with the cult of personality. It is a sad fact that very few people who pretend to speak for the average Joe have ever lived like him. Few of our leaders can truly understand the crushing grind of a lifetime of thankless labor for insufficient money. They do not know what it is like to only have two weeks of vacation a year. They are, after all, on a book tour, or “ministering” in Thailand and conferencing in the Bahamas.

after 8 years i have been finding some closure to the first half of my life... a life of what at the time seemed like utopic bliss but which was, only in retrospect, quite dysfunctional.

i am trying to honestly reflect on what went wrong with the process when everything went catastrophically awry. years later a church board member would come to my house and accuse me of socially drinking following my spousal abandonment. i would explain to him, to his terrible discomfort, that there was nothing social about my drinking. i got hammered on what seemed like countless occasions in a twisted attempt to numb the minute to minute crushing pain that did not seem to subside.

i still pastored a church.

in point of fact i never missed a day of work. there was no forced sabbatical, no itinerate solutions, no strong board to step in and take over. i was too strong of a leader at the time to ask for help, though i asked for help in a million passive aggressive gestures. if it wasn't for my kids, susan kirchmayer (who's husband had just left as well but she put her own need aside), chad, mark, and a few kind souls and long distant relationships, i would have killed myself. i even tried once, though i have never publically admitted to this. and yet, in the midst of being absolutely insane and completely out of control, i still preached every week - bizarre, twisted, self-absorbed pieces of whiny drivel that i have only recently placed in the trash bucket. for some reason the denomination i was a part of had nothing in place to deal with such a scenario; and i wasn't asking to be relieved. later a few church leaders would admit that they didn't know what the church would do if i wasn't there, so it was just easier to pretend i was fine. but i wasn't.

people tend to avoid you when they don't know what to say. and i cried a lot. i cried so much in that first few years i find i can no long cry, something is still broken.

i think about my friend bob alot. like so many professional clergy he made some mistakes and one day found himself without a job, without a spiritual community, without his peer group. i wonder how he is doing, living in obscurity. people pretend that people like bob no longer exist, they jump to conclusions. a year after i quit my denomination someone actually told me they heard that i had an affair and got defrocked. people love conspiracy theories.

i hope that bob had a safety net to catch his broken heart, but i somehow doubt it. denominations are still learning how to deal with fallen people and they have their own issues and politics to negotiate. i don't blame the church for my crash, they did what they knew. my two bosses were great, real stand-up guys. they were, however, woefully unprepared for such a problematic situation - two pastors in the same church losing their spouses, in only a month. they had no mechanism to replace me, there were no funds for a sabbatical, no vacation pay to draw upon, no counselors set up for such an eventuality. and no idea what to do.

as we head into a murky future of changing mores and uncertain leadership i wonder if religious institutions will ever come to grips with the fragile nature of morality and accountability. businesses allow for mental health days and offer employee assistance programs. churches have annual meetings and denominational leaders stopping by. it is also very difficult to come clean in a religious context without massive ramifications. the pastor who has been inappropriate sexually, for example, should probably not go to his denomination looking for support and encouragement. pastors who fail morally can look forward to every single leader in their tribe receiving a letter explaining the nature of their crime. there is no non-partisan support network in place, at least not in the circles i have known. the result has been a host of professional clergy with hidden sexual issues and addiction problems. a large percentage of the religious leadership would admit to struggling with significant, unconfessed issues if given the right amount of anonymnity, support, and tequila.

bob, if you are out there, drop me a line.

oliver scott cooper made his way on to the world stage today, read about it here and see the video of the world's best baby on youtube.com

summer is almost here and so i thought i would impart a bit of important wisdom to you guys over 35, as you contemplate what you will wear outside in the coming months.

1. and i can't stress this enough. under no circumstance, unless you have qualified for the winter olympics, should you ever, and i mean ever, wear a speedo.
some time ago we were at the water park in the west edmonton mall and this one dude was wearing a speedo... with his basket full. a white speedo. so i decided to approach him and impart this folksy wisdom to him as well. i believe that the conversation opened with the line, "what were you thinking?"
2. and i specifically targeting ministers here... no socks with sandals. in fact, no strap up sandals at all. did i mention, no freakin socks!
3. if you haven't purchased a pair of shorts since 9/11, it's time. and as you stroll down that aisle (stay away from the damn speedos!) and wonder whether to try on that cool pair of short shorts that give the ladies a glance and your white thighs.... keep walking. let your kids pick out your shorts. cover your knees. better yet, if this seems strange to you, wear pants.
4. guys over 40 should only take off their shirts when it is dark out or you are actually entering the water.

there are other handy bits of advice i could give you. most of them start with the line, 'don't wear a speedo.'