UNIVERSITIES CANADA's END-RUN ON FAITH BASED INSTITUTIONS

I am on a mailing list, and this morning my inbox held this communique from Dr. Carson Pue. I have affinity for Trinity Western University which maintains impeccable educational standards within the context of Christian heritage and values. Because it has met Universities Canada’s standards for decades, and because McLeans magazine has annually cited TWU for excellence, the reported amendment to Universities Canada’s bylaws is deliberately shocking. The proposal would affect all faith-based institutions. Read Dr. Pue’s statement.   

ME & MYERS BRIGGS - YEP THAT’S ME

The test is familiar. I took the test, popping up on  Facebook. Answered questions as well as I could. It identified me accurately enough.

Results: ISFJ - Nurturer

ISFJ (INTROVERTED SENSING FEELING JUDGING)

As an ISFJ, your primary mode of living is focused internally, where you takes things in via your five senses. Your secondary mode is external, where you deal with things according to how you feel about them, or how they fit into your personal value system.

REAL MIRACLES - SENSIBLY PRICED

Comedian Steve Martin starred in a movie called ‘Leap of Faith,’ a spoof on faith healers in which a promotional display advertises his faith healing service with the slogan, ‘Real Miracles – Sensibly Priced.” It could really be humorous if it were not so accurate. (from my new book, GOD IN THE OPEN,’ come these following remarks.

“See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the elemental spiritual forces of this world rather than on Christ.” (Colossians 2:8)

I’M STILL STANDING

Don't you know I'm still standing longer than I ever did

Looking like a true survivor, crying like a little kid

I'm still standing after all this time

Mouthing the lyrics of the songs without praise on my mind

I'm still standing yeah yeah yeah

I'm still standing yeah yeah yeah

With apologies to Elton John, "I'm Still Standing.”

If you don’t immediately recognize my point, let me explain. For the past two decades evangelical churches have been extending the length of the praise song packages within the Sunday worship service format. It began with three songs in 10 minutes, then four songs in fifteen, then twenty minutes and it can be thirty minutes in duration. And some music leadership somewhere decided it would be true to biblical form if we stood for the entire time, so we do, weekly, weakly. Granted if the lyrics contain a 'rise up’ or a 'stand up’ motif, then act the biped. God created us with ’sitter-downers’ too.  Just saying, the LORD is okay with us sitting for some of these songs. 

FREE BOOK:HEARING GOD IN CONVERSATION BY SAMUEL C. WILLIAMSON

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Christians are comfortable saying that Christianity is about a relationship with God. Yet many might also say that they sense little meaningful actual connection with God in their own lives. The foundation of good relationship is communication - but conversation with God often seems to go only one way. We may sing of walking and talking with God in the garden, God's voice falling on our ears, but few have heard that beloved voice themselves. Sam Williamson acknowledges the fundamental human longing to hear God's voice and offers a hopeful supposition: God is always speaking, we've just never been taught how to recognize God's voice. Williamson handles this potentially heady topic with his characteristic straightforwardness and leavening humor. This book deftly bridges the gap between solid biblical spirituality and practical application, addressing how to truly pray without ceasing, how to brainstorm with God, how to navigate our emotions, how to answer God's questions, and how to hear God's voice for others.

PERCEIVING GOD

Perceiving God

I see a young man standing in the sun at a bus stop. He stands with a backpack slung over one shoulder. He has a pleasant face and he looks purposeful. He is of university age. He is travelling locally so he may attend a technical college. He is living in the moment. His mind may be on what lies ahead in his day, an assignment, a project, a person with whom he will spend some time. I surmise that he is not thinking, "How did I get into this world?" "Why am I here?" Big picture thinking for this fellow as the bus moves toward him, is probably concerned with nothing more extensive than what he will do after graduation? 

Yet, seated in my car, I pass him and my eyes are multi-tasking, observing the road ahead, vehicles attempting to merge, the speed I am travelling, the time on my car clock, and the blue sky that expands forever. I am projecting my thoughts into the frontiers of space and to the metaphysical reaches of origins. I am a man with a faith but fleetingly I seek to consider how a person without faith can imagine the genesis of all things.

I think of the other 7.125 billion humans on this planet, 2.1 billion of whom are overweight like me. Still we expect to live 70 years on average, and that's that. We will be gone. Others will take our place just as they presently are doing at a rate of 1.2% annually, which is why only twenty years ago we were 6.5 billion people. Forty years ago there were only 3.999 billion people on earth, and while we have almost doubled the world population, we still depend completely and solely upon this biosphere and minerals of this sphere. I marvel at my earth home being one of the four terrestrial planets in our Solar System, yet it is the densest planet and the third from the Sun, and earth is the only planet that is known to accommodate life. Mercury, Venus and Mars have not supported life. But why here on this earth and since when were we here, and who or what started this?

This is what my mind is doing as I drive to my gym to keep this body healthy for a few more years.

EVEN SINCERE CHRISTIANS ATTEND CHURCH LESS OFTEN

Even sincere Christians are attending church less often in our North American culture? This is a statement of fact rather than approval.

As we entered church yesterday I said to Christine, "it feels like we've been gone for six months." Really, it's been a few weeks when we have had commitments, preferences and holiday elsewhere. We are not the only absentees. This compelled me to read and to think about why good Christians are attending church less frequently than before. (Here is what I thought.)

Susan Mattinson, 2012-2016. Reproduction permitted with permission of creator