This past week...

... we got an update from a few of the members of the Collide cluster who are in Mexico sharing Jesus with people in need. Jordan, Adam and Daniel have been in Mexico City for three weeks now and we were so thrilled to hear they’re safe, healthy and having an amazing experience. The boys have partnered with the YWAM base in the city and have made themselves available to whatever the base needs them to do, wanting to serve in the best ways possible instead of creating their own agenda.

Jordan writes, “we have been working with IPHC, which is a health care school from YWAM, and it has been rad! We went to an area in the mountains and worked with World Vision for a day, giving shots and praying for the people there. We also went with a church group and took blood pressure and and syringed out ears and cleaned equipment, it was a riot!” This might seem like an extreme example of the principle that ‘in order to live our missionality in our individual lives, we also need to be living it out in community together’, but it’s a beautiful one. We’re so excited to see the ways God uses Jordan, Adam and Daniel in Mexico City and then how he will continue to use them in powerful ways when they're back in Langley. Be in prayer for them as they wrap up their time there and return home in a few weeks!

I've been thinking...

... more about the comment I made in my sermon on Sunday that 'in order to live out missionality in our individual lives, we also need to be living it out in community together.' I've been thinking about this because one of the common responses I get from people in the church when suggesting that they need to be in a cluster, living out mission with a group of people, is that they are living out mission in their own world and they don't have time to also being doing it with others. Though it sounds reasonable, I think that for most people it's inaccurate - and it's from reflecting back to my time in university that I see this most clearly. When I was a student at SFU I got plugged into a Christian group on campus called Campus Crusade for Christ. For the first year and a half I resisted much involvement beyond a bible study, because I was so 'busy'. As time went on though I started getting more and more involved and I started engaging what I can only in hindsight clearly identify as a cluster. We had about 40 of us gathering fairly regularly for meals, having fun together, worshipping together, breaking off into small groups, and doing mission together. And it was in doing life together like this that I experienced a fuller joy in my faith, learned to live missionally, and became motivated to then engage people in my own world. I encourage you to keep fighting for us to be a people on mission together.

God has been moving...

... in some really exciting ways in the Aduro cluster over the past few weeks. Last week the group headed into Langley in small groups to pray over the city and listen to God for where He might be calling them to step out in faith. One of the groups met a young girl, new to Canada from Mexico, who they invited out to their cluster. She came this week to their gathering where they ate dinner, played frisbee and worshipped around the campfire late into the night. “It was so neat to see the relationships developing as members of the group got to know her and spent the night sharing their lives with her,” explained Elisha, who leads Aduro. Be in prayer for this young girl and the Aduro cluster as they share Jesus with her through living life together.

Last week...

... I decided to play hooky for a couple days and take Thursday and Friday off (and I had already planned to not preach on the Sunday). I had been noticing some signs of weariness lately, and I thought it'd be a good idea to get a rest. Obviously we all experience weariness, but this was one of those times when I felt that I needed to step back, slow down and get perspective. One of the things that I'm trying to be more sensitive to in my life is indicators that I'm not in a healthy rhythm (my friend calls them 'tells'). So for instance, getting impatient with Taylor and Matthew is a 'tell' for me that I'm not managing my energy or stress well - because when I'm healthy I don't respond in anger to them. Another 'tell' for me that something is wrong is when I frequently close my office door during the day - it's an indicator that I'm weary of interacting with people and need alone time. I could go on and list other 'tells', but you get the point. I think as leaders we all need to be able to identify our 'tells' that we're out of rhythm or not managing stress and weariness well. And if you don't know what your 'tells' are, ask the people close to you - they'll be glad to let you know! We all need to be conscious of our tells, and then what we need to do to restore ourselves.

One small group ...

... has been experiencing the fruit of digging into sermon questions in some really intimate and unique ways. One of the small groups off the Wanted Cluster has been doing sermon questions for the past year. By doing the sermon questions every time they gather they’ve seen discussion building off each week, allowing them to not only dig deeper into the sermon, but into the whole book of Matthew. Each time they gather there is brokeness and real life issues that the scripture has stirred up in people and they have a space to discuss it, pray for one another and then carry what they’ve learnt and processed into the week. Each one of them has said at some point that they would otherwise hardly remember the sermon by Wednesday, let alone have processed what it means to them and how they need to change because of that.

Monday night at...

... our small group we were chatting through the sermon questions and I was struck by the depth of the discussion. I've known it cognitively, but it struck me again just how much we all need to not only listen to a sermon, but also to have a place to process through our questions, struggles and insights, and then figure out together how to apply it to our lives (even for me, and I preached it!). I know there are times when doing a different study as a small group is healthy, but in general I wonder to myself, 'why move onto learning something new when we haven't even processed, applied and prayed through what we're already learning?' I want to encourage you to have small groups off of your clusters going through the sermon questions together so that, as the scriptures encourage us in several places, we're not just hearers of the Word, but doers of it.

Tomorrow night ...

... (Friday) I get the chance to share at the Trinity Western Graduation Banquet. I've been thinking a lot about what to share there. I never went to Trinity myself, but a lot of my friends did. For some reason preparing to speak there has gotten me thinking about my friends who went to Trinity (that was a lot of years ago!). Interestingly, one of the things that strikes me is that so many of them, and others I knew at the time who were strong in their faith, are really not walking closely (or at all) with the Lord anymore. While they were in university, at Trinity or elsewhere, they were passionate about their faith. But over the years they've moved away, pursued various careers, started families (ie. done all the things they're supposed to do), and somewhere in the mix they lost their center. I've wondered to myself, how did that happen? Did they lose Christian community? Did no one track with them and keep them accountable (including me)? Did life just become too busy? And were there warning signs that could have been addressed in their life earlier? One of the realities for you and I as we shepherd people in our church is that down the road many of them will likely not be walking with the Lord. We need to ensure that we're praying for our people, getting them connected into community (clusters), following up with people when they stop showing up, and being intentional about helping them understand how to navigate life and faith. We're here to shepherd them - let's not just assume they'll finish well, but let's fight for it.