Progress is Dirty

The following is a copy of the Thomas Question email devotional. You can subscribe to the email edition from our website.

www.worldometers.info falls into the category of truly neat websites which are worth a visit. It can give you an idea of the staggering amount of activity going on throughout our planet at any given moment. Births, deaths, hectares of forest lost, CO2 emissions, numbers of books published, etc, all of the numbers dancing wildly before your eyes. Particularly frightening is the section on the environment about a third of the way down. It gives an impression of alarm, to be sure. One can be left asking, “How long is this sustainable?” It’s almost like where in the cockpit of planet earth staring at gauges on a dashboard which have us on a collision course with something ominous. There’s no two ways around it. Progress is dirty, costly, wasteful and impossible to sustain at this pace.

Lester Brown reports that at the current rate, the Chinese economy will generate as much per person income as in the United States. It can be easy to feel happy for them – any movement away from poverty is a good thing. But what if they choose to live a North American lifestyle with their new found wealth as is the dream of so many around the world? Well, the results would be too disastrous to imagine. Their grain consumption alone would equal 2/3rds of the current world harvest. They would consume twice as much paper as is now produced and 10% more than the total world production of oil at current levels. And should they adopt the North American habit of having 3 cars for every 4 people, there would be 1.1 billion cars in China alone, which is well beyond the current world fleet of 800 million cars. Progress is dirty, costly, wasteful and impossible to sustain at this pace.

Two weeks ago, I said something in our Sunday service and it keeps coming back to me in my own life: “A need met and a need forgotten both feel the same.” Think about that. You can either meet your “needs” or forget your “needs”. And how much more efficient is the latter? Our pattern of wild consumption looks and feels like gluttony if you just take enough of a step back from it to see it objectively. We don’t just buy cars – we borrow huge sums in outrageous ways in order to buy shiny new cars. And what difference does it really make? (My friends will think I’m only writing this out of bitterness associated with our recent purchase of a station wagon – and they may be right).

We must look like terribly desperate people to be gobbling up so much. How much time does it take for an anticipated, shiny new purchase to make it’s way to the bottom of a closet and then the bottom of a landfill? Jesus imagined a vastly different and far more rewarding lifestyle for us. Maybe what we all need is a “stuff” diet in a big way.

Starting September 24th we’ll be diving into a whole new train of thought about the satisfied life and what it looks like. All with a single, over arching emphasis: how do we extract more genuine fulfillment with far less goose-chasing and resource-wasting. Is there a way we can sustain the state of being fulfilled without a sea of purchases to sustain it? True freedom isn’t having everything you need to feel good, rather, it’s not needing much of anything to feel good, at all, in the first place.

Invite someone to lunch this Sunday and bring them to The Thomas Question first. I hope to see you there,

CSW

LAST SUNDAY
The final message in our series on small, intentional steps to an actual practice of ancient Christianity. The focus of each week has been a single sentence you can carry with you as you go. Much of what we’ve looked at so far has been about how to do your life better. This final installment will have a much more intensively spiritual message, because, after all, the Christian life is about Christ. Listen to the whole series on our podcast or visit or website.

WE CAN NEVER DO THIS
Many of Jesus’ analogies about the Kingdom have a single thing in common: they anticipate an investment first and a reward later. Think of his agricultural analogies, the image of casting a net and that of building a house on rock or sand. It means Jesus, Christianity and church can never be a purely mental exercise. So don’t just ask yourself if you’ve experienced God lately, ask yourself if you’ve taken the kind of steps that could position you to experience God lately because they go hand in hand. And we’d love it if you would take a step at the Thomas Question. Who knows? Maybe in the process of building a great church for someone else, you may just find you give yourself The Kingdom.

SEPTEMBER 10 & 17
These will be great Sundays to bring anyone you can think of. We’ll be looking at the power of a dream and the problem with a dream – both of them having to do with passion, adventure and the life you could be living. It’s something almost anyone can identify with. I can almost guarantee they will go home surprised at what they’ve heard.

Leprosy Didn't Have to Kill Him

The following is a copy of the Thomas Question email devotional. You can subscribe to the email edition from our website.

Follow this link to see this Sunday's video clip.

I recently watched the directors cut of Kingdom of Heaven and found myself completely absorbed in the story. What a difference Ridley Scott’s extra hour of footage makes. The sad plight of Jerusalem’s king is one of the most tragic figures I’ve seen in film recently. Disfigured by leprosy in it’s final stages, the king wears a silver mask and bandages to minimize the greater distraction his wounds would cause.

It left me thinking on some of leprosy’s ironies – particularly the realization that the cure has always existed (it’s a fairly simple antibiotic). It just took us centuries to find it. Think about that. I’m willing to venture that Jerusalem’s king died within reach of that cure, if he had only known the necessary combination of the necessary substances. Right now other cures are possible for what ails us, too, but we haven’t figured those out yet, either.

All of that leaves me wondering how many of us are limited only by our knowledge and imagination not by the extent of what is actually possible around us. Are our limits around us or inside us? Are we limited by what’s possible or simply by the knowledge of how to make it so? At any rate, I didn’t intend to take this illustration where it’s going, so let me get back to my outline.

One of my passions has always been to find a way to reconnect pulpit and pew, sanctuary and sidewalk. Pastors often lock themselves away in their studies surrounded by books and unseen promptings and they cook up a sea of words for Sunday – all kinds of advice about a life they no longer live – the life on the other side of the platform – the life you live right now. It can be all too easy to speak only from the world you know. But I’ve always suspected that other great cures and breakthroughs can be made from new combinations of what we already have. In my case, I’ve always assumed it could come from listening. I greatly desire what no book can tell me as I’m locked away in my office – and that’s what you’re actually thinking, facing and doing.

So what’s it like to be you? What’s the most moving spiritual experience you’ve ever had? What doubts do you struggle with? What’s it like to attend church? What’s the single greatest ongoing contributor to your spiritual growth? What questions hold you firmly in their grasp? What is the hardest part of Christianity to accept or believe or practice? What’s the most moving part of our faith? And what are the things that seem to matter most to the people you live and work beside? What do your conversations with them entail? If you could say one thing to the entire world about what you believe, what would it be?

By the way, I didn’t ask any of those questions rhetorically. All you need to do is hit “reply” and I’ll receive it. This devotional is read by a little more than 300 people each week and I would love to have a little more than 300 replies to go through in prepping for our next series which starts September 10th. Imagine a platform touched by 300 voices. That’s the kind of living research you can’t pull from the shelf of some book store.

I think the Kingdom exists best in the mix of a single book (the Bible) and a sea of great conversations between people trying to “figure their stuff out”. Imagine a pulpit in close connection with all that! Give me the other part of this equation – your part – and I’ll do my best.

Starting September 10th, we are endeavoring to connect directly with the people you live and work beside. We’d love it if you can bring someone. And if not, we’re taking steps to make it possible for you to bring it to them in better ways. You can connect me to that world by simply hitting reply and stabbing at a few of those questions. What you write down won’t seem profound to you because you live with it all the time. But, then, the stuff that became the antibiotics that cured leprosy didn’t grab our attention until less than a hundred years ago, either…

I hope to see you there – and I hope you bring someone with you.

CSW

LAST SUNDAY
We’ve received a lot of feedback from last Sunday as we looked into the unexpected side of giving. Make the switch from consumer to producer. Hear how and why on our Podcast.

TAKE A STEP
Two weeks ago, we talked about how you don’t need to be a hero – you just need to take a step. This past Sunday, we talked about what a step could look like. It doesn’t take a few hero’s doing huge things to get it done. Hero’s a few and far between. It takes a thousand people doing simple things they really mean – like shaking a hand or tearing down the speaker stands. Listen to our Podcast to hear why giving doesn’t just give away. It may simply be another kind of getting.

STARTING SEPTEMBER 10
See devotional above.

LABOUR DAY
Join us for a slightly shorter 1 hour service and then take someone to lunch.

The Other Life You Could Have Lived

The following is a copy of the Thomas Question email devotional. You can subscribe to the email edition from our website.

I apologize for the length as it’s a bit longer than I prefer, but it’s also something I feel very strongly about.

It’s easy to wonder why it seems like the path to inner significance is a different journey than the one that leads to outward acclaim. Why aren’t true hero’s making basketball-star-salaries (no offense to the basketball stars)? It’s easy to wonder why these journeys seem so far apart because we long for them to be the same on such a deep level that it almost seems like we were made for them to be the same. We bandy the phrase, “that’s not fair” as though the very fabric of the universe was offended along with us. And it’s human nature that for as long as these two aspects are kept apart (inner significance and outer acclaim) that even after you’ve chosen one of these paths you may find yourself looking with longing at some aspect of the other journey you could have chosen. It seems like we’re doomed with the tendency to see greener grasses everywhere we look.

There was a man who touched on these issues when he said to Jesus in Luke 9.16, “‘I will follow you, Lord; but let me say farewell to those at my home’”. And Jesus’ reply can seem uncharacteristically firm: “No one who puts a hand to the plough and looks back is fit for the Kingdom of God.” Boom. There is no soft appeal clause at the end, no typical “grace” escape, just a difficult admission that the Kingdom does not include a place for “rear view mirror distractions”.

Do you look back? Do you look with longing on some aspects of the other life you could have chosen or could still choose again? I must admit this verse has terrified me for long phases of my journey with Christ. At times I’ve felt like I didn’t just look back, I stared back with intense longing. Not because I regretted anything about Jesus but because I think all of us are prone to the fantasy of “both”: that we could have Christ and the best parts of the other journey, too.

What we are experiencing is nothing more than Eden’s wound. Perfection occurs when we have the inner journey match outer acclaim, when true hero’s are also handsomely rewarded, when those “at the top” also deserve to be there. But that’s what we lost on the way out of the garden – the connection between the two. And for as long as we’re alive, those two paths will be far enough apart that one cannot adequately span the distance between them and keep “one foot on each”.

So I realized recently that heaven is what I really want – or at least the state we will be in once we get there. I want those two things back in lock step where they belong: the inner and the outer. I want heaven – not the whispy clouds with harp strumming cherubs – I want the journey restored to it’s intended holistic state: work and reward put back in proper ratio’s. I want heaven – I just don’t know it as such. I want the thing twisted into the image of a BMW, a crisp suit and a look of importance, but I want it to be for real.

However, I’ve also come to realize that for as long as we’re alive, the image doesn’t contain what’s whispered in it, and image is our problem. We were made in God’s but chose our own in Eden. It’s why we’re image obsessed – we want to fix the wound. Ever since that moment, the look of importance can be separated from the substance beneath it. And that’s the paradox: one can either have the look of significance or the significance, itself. And Christ, in gentleness, is trying to tell us that we only have the capacity to choose one.

So which will we choose?

Join us this Sunday for Starbucks at 9:45 and we’ll get into this and a little more besides. Visit our website for directions. I hope to see you there – and I hope you bring someone with you.

CSW

LAST SUNDAY
Another single sentence to focus on every day as you seek to build an intentional practice of Christianity: “You don’t need to be a hero, you just need to take a step.” You can listen to this message and the rest of the series by visiting our website or subscribing to our podcast..

THIS SUNDAY
In North America, we’re addicted to fossil fuels. As a source of energy, they don’t come much cheaper than simply burning oil or gas. But we’re also finding out that it’s not quite as easy as it once seemed. So what’s the energy source that drives you from the inside and might there be a better “bang for your buck”? Jesus taught about an alternative source of energy. This Sunday, we’ll talk about how to find it.

STARTING SEPTEMBER 10
We’ll be your voice. Help us find the things you long to say to those you live and work beside. Then we’ll start to say them on September 10th. We’ll be announcing more details on Sunday and through the email devotional.

The Physics of Time and the Future in the Past

The following is a copy of the Thomas Question email devotional. You can subscribe to the email edition from our website.

If I can pull this off in three reasonable paragraphs, it will be something worthy of note. And if I can't, well, you won't be reading it because I'll write something else. At any rate, I bought a book recently because of a single sentence. On page 141 of The View from the Center of the Universe it says this, "Much of our future already exists - it just hasn't gotten here yet." I thought it was brilliant and it crystallized something in my mind which has been turning over in there for some time.

Now the author's happen to be using that sentence to describe a special relationship between space and time. Let me use one of their examples. Because of the distance between us and the sun it takes a full 8 minutes for it's light to get here. And it also means you never seen the sun as it IS, but only as it WAS - 8 minutes ago. And in a strange kind of way, it also means we never really see the present. We only see the past - and it also means the future has already happened. Even when you look at the light switch across the room - you're not seeing it as it is. You're seeing as it was some fraction of a second ago.

Why do I care about all this? Because I think it's a fantastic analogy for something I've been encountering over and over again in Proverbs. It's about integrity and how the end of a thing is sown at the beginning. "The righteousness of the blameless keeps their ways straight, but the wicked fall by their own wickedness" (Proverbs 11.5). It means that a die is cast at the very first step in any decision. The integrity of our choices determines the outcome. And like a stream making it's way to the ocean (sorry for mixing analogies), it may take a long and meandering route but it will still get there. It means, like the sun, it may take some number of minutes, hours, days or years, to see the outcome - to see what's already happened - but it was there all along.

That's it. Three paragraphs and I'm happy with it. I have a sentence in my daily journal I read every morning and it says, "Character is a deep conviction that anything outside integrity simply won't work." So again, in the words of these authors, much of our future already exists - it just hasn't gotten here yet. I hope that will serve as a challenge to you in the choices you're making right now.

Join us this Sunday in our new location in the Encore Cinema's on Speers Road just East of Dorval Drive. Visit our website for directions.

I hope to see you Sunday and I hope you bring someone with you,

CSW

LAST SUNDAY
Another of our 8 small steps you can actually take toward Ancient Christianity: find the free prize inside. You can listen to this message and the rest of the series by visiting our website or subscribing to our podcast..

THIS SUNDAY
There's a red wire and a black wire in most every device that uses energy. Get those wires wrong and nothing else will work. I'd like to talk another kind of critical switch we all need to make.

OUR NEW FACILITY
This past Sunday was our first service in the Encore Cinema's on Speers Road. Join us this Sunday at 9.45 for Starbucks. Visit our website for directions.

I'M WORKING THROUGH THE LIST
If you signed up, don't worry, it's happening.

A SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT
A few of us have been working on an idea for a fall series that is about more than just a topic we pick and tell you about. We'll be making an announcement about it this Sunday in preparation for the fall.

Have You Thought About Your Own End?

The following is a copy of the Thomas Question email devotional. You can subscribe to the email edition from our website.

It may be a difficult thing to accept because so many of us are at a place where our mortality is only theoretical, but it would be foolish not to try to understand what it means. One day you will end. In the words of James Fowler, “This body, this mind, this lived and living myth… will cease to be. The tide of life that propels me with such force will cease and I – this “I” taken so much for granted by “me” – will no longer walk this earth.”

I know we are all somehow vaguely aware on an intellectual level that many of the things we care about on a day to day basis won’t really matter in the bigger picture of our life as a whole. We wouldn’t die to do many of the things we do while we’re dying. Think about that sentence. You wouldn’t die to do most of what you’re doing. But you’re dying while you do it. Shouldn’t we make ourselves more aware of what this might mean?

Most of the people who find out that they only have a fixed amount of time left to live were already dying before they were told this sad news. A process had already begun and had existed for some time. And they only thing they lost was their illusion that they had a lot more time. I remember reading an article in a newspaper about a woman receiving cancer treatment and the reporter asked her, “What’s it like to live every day knowing that you’re dying?” She responded with a question of her own, “What’s it like to live every day thinking that you’re not?”

It’s no secret that it’s purpose that matters most. The secret is to find a way to find a way to feel the need to act on it now. The secret is to find a way to turn down the volume on that deep and pervading sense that we will all, always have “more time”.

So what do you stand for? What do you want your life’s energy converted into? The steps we take to please ourselves turn our life’s energy into something that is within us – a sensation which turns into a memory – and it evaporates with us, leaving no residue in it’s wake. It could be said of many people after they are gone that they, “Lived for a while and pleased themselves…”

Purpose begins at the point where our life’s energy is used to touch someone else. When you touch someone else you’ve made a “noise” outside yourself – you have created something that can outlast you. In a very real way, you transcend your own mortality. As I said this past Sunday, when it comes to us and our so-called needs, maybe the key is not so much how do we meet them – because this is a daunting task and may not even be possible because it seems that they never end. Maybe the issue is how do we forget them, instead, because the effect is the same (to listen in visit our podcast online). A need met and a need forgotten both go to the same place in our minds where we no longer feel them.

It’s a brilliant challenge from an ancient teacher: use what time you have to touch someone else and you may just find that you set yourself free along the way.

Just a thought.

Join us this Sunday in our new location in the Encore Cinema’s on Speers Road just East of Dorval Drive. Visit our website for directions.

I hope to see you there,

CSW

THIS SUNDAY
“Be the one that Comes Back Part II”. On the outskirts of a village 2,000 years ago, 10 lepers were healed. Only 1 came back to say thanks. What did the other 9 miss? Our first service at our new location on Speers road. Visit our website for directions.

I’D LIKE TO MEET AS MANY OF YOU AS ARE WILLING
Before we left our last location, I indicated I would love the chance to have coffee and talk life before September. I just need to know if you’re willing and how to get ahold of you. Email me at info@askthequestion.ca.

WE’RE MOVING THIS SUNDAY (AUGUST 6TH)
Don’t forget! We’ve been bounced around and so far we’ve stayed in tact. Just one more time and we’re done. Visit our website for directions.