Eric Bailey's

Yesterday I received a note in my son's backpack that invited me to come to school with a bag lunch and join my son for family literacy day. My wife and I made all kinds of jokes about this notice arriving so late (not that I would have done better if I were at the school). So I am preparing to go and take with me my youngest son as well.

I am taking some high quality books, like Garbage Delight, Diary of a Wombat, and An African ABC (because it is from Africa, my son is well past his ABCs). I am also taking the phot album of our African trip. There are many stories inside and pictures to go with it. We will see when we get there what he is interested in and what we will be looking at (especially since I will have a young child there as well).

Focusing on this is kind of fun, other than that I think that I having a rougher day than normal. My thoughts dwell on situations out of my control, that have happened already, and I just can't seem to get away from them. At least I did my homework today and maybe it has already helped me deal with those memories or thoughts a little bit. I think I have better things to do with my thinking. "I eat Monsters, Yum Yum..."

Vision, Mission, purpose, goals, strategies, planning, 5 year plan and dream a bunch of words that get used somewhat interchangeably, and yet between all the words we can see some differences.

My wife and I came to T-Bay with a dream. The founding families of our church came with a dream. Everyone comes with expectations, maybe even a dream or a hope for what the church will be. I wonder how different and maybe even opposite some of those dreams are?

It is time for a new dream, a new plan, a new vision. Not that the old ones were bad, not that we have to discredit what has been, but rather what has been has brought us to what it. I think that every generation needs a dream, a vision of the future. I wonder if, in planning, every few years would need a new vision of the future.

Acts 2:17 & 18
And it will be in the last days, says God,
That I will pour out My Spirit on all humanity;
then your sons and your daughters will prophesy,
your young men will see visions,
and your old men will dream dreams.
I will even pour out My Spirit
on My male and female slaves in those days and they will prophesy.

A prophesy from Joel. How does this work out in our era? How do we experience dreams and visions. I feel a little like the dream is a jigsaw puzzle, we have different pieces in our midst and if put together maybe we can make out what the box is supposed to look like. Then again, maybe that is too rational for understanding God's plans.

I have shared a little bit of two pieces to the puzzle that I think I am holding. First our group here is ecclectic. We are not trying to be mainstream anything, but rather we come from a variety of church and life experiences and together we make an interesting group. The second part flows out of that, our ministry is to the outskirts. Christians who don't fit into "normal" churches, and people who don't fit into "normal" catagory. Even when we look at our artists we see that they are not mainstream, their work is not based on what is popular, but rather it flows out of who they are, thus we have an ecclectic community ministering on the outskirts of life. I wonder what other pieces of the puzzle to our identity and vision are out there?

I keep hearing the threat of more snow this weekend. I still haven't caught up from the last snow fall and yet somehow we are expected to deal with more!!!!!

Tonight I get to have the fun of going to a Thunderwolves Game. I haven't seen them play, and I haven't watched much University Hockey so I am not sure what to expect. I am taking my own hockey stuff with me though. Not to join the team on the ice, but to run from that game to my own game. After having so much fun at football, I am looking forward to having that kind of fun at hockey too. The other great event I am anticipating is that at lunch time I pick up my wife and we are going out to eat.

I've been trying to do responsible chores around the house, things like organize and clean out clothes, and do the laundry. Oddly enough I am still doing laundry on the second day. Today I think I will finally use my new mop bucket that I got my wife to buy me this week. I guess that just sounds like too much fun.

I have been teaching the junion high or youth class this year. As I was looking for materials I stumbled on a website that had cards of different Bible characters. There was so much detail on the cards that I wonder if a game could be made with the cards. Not being creative in that kind of way, I will have to take my idea to a couple other friends of mine. I can adapt games, but not invent. Check out the link if you want to find out more about the cards.

For all you football fans out there, the game today was awesome. We beat our opponents senseless, and I had 3 touchdowns. I was razzed during the game because my best catch of the night was on a one point convert, a finger tip stretch. I played well, the quarterback played well, the whole team played well. It might have had something to do with the fact that this was this teams second game ever, but I don't want to dwell on that idea.

Life is good when you find a quarterback who trusts you to get the ball and is willing to put it up for you to run under it. I feel pretty good right now.

While I have a black shirt on instead of yellow, I am feeling much more mellow today. Yesterday I had things to discuss and I am sure that I would enjoy those discussions still, but today I don't have the drive to post on my reading right now. I am done the book and ready to pass it on to another friend before the book reaches its original owner. I am sure he won't mind. Since he underlined, I thought I should highlight in the book (no I did not really do that).

Hopefully tomorrow will be more energetic but then the day after tomorrow (no copyright because I am not referring to the movie) is a prayer retreat. I don't have a ride yet so I am not sure I am going, but I think it would be good for me. I should probably go for a walk as was suggested to me as a form of mental health, but I am not ready to do that yet today, so instead maybe I'll just brood for a while.

I am amazed at how much I rely on routine. I wake up at 7:30 to get the boys ready for school. Today my older son was awake at 6, but I was not getting up until 7:30. I needed to drag every second of sleep possible out of the night. Which one of us does not deal well with change? The routine is I feed them, I prepare lunches, I start the coffee, I get the paper, I get clothes out for the boys and nag them to get dressed until they are finally ready, then they have to brush their teeth. From that time until 8:10 they have free time (often not much if any time at all). Then it is on with the winter coats and pants, gloves, mitts, and hoods. Then the boys want to play outside until the bus arrives (anywhere from 5-10 minutes later - but every once in a while it arrives before we are ready). After that I usually can get my own breakfast and take my wife her coffee (if she is not up already) and even read some of the paper before I have to drive my wife to work (usually by 9:00).

Doing this 5 days a week means that when the weekend comes I do not want to get out of bed until at least Monday! But on Saturday I am often up by 10. It is a slow day, but it can get busy. By Sunday night I often wonder where the weekend went.

Routine is great for getting things done and for dealing with the little tasks that face us every day. Routine makes sure that the kids have what they need to get through the day when I send them off to school. However we need to step outside that routine once in a while. It makes the routine fresh if we can break it occassionally. Such as getting away for a conference, or just a holiday and not having to be responsible for the usual things.

Brian McLaren talks about 5 different things as some of the deep spiritual experiences that people have now a days, youth retreats, short term mission trips, some small groups, many one-to-one relationships, and people getting involved in leading or serving. He compares these to Medival or ancient spiritual disciplines, suggesting that these are the ways to reach and impact the new Christians. The first two are specifically about breaking routine, changing your environment and experiencing new things together with other people. The others can do this to a limited extent.

Are these more spiritually formative than regular Bible reading and prayer? He suggests that regular Bible reading and prayer is about achieving or earning your spirituality. Does it leave people feeling guilty for not doing more of it? I understand his point about Bible reading, but I wonder, doesn't it need some place in the new kind of Christian? While getting away can be a great spiritual adventure, should there not be a place in the spiritual disciplines for routine?

Strange thoughts for such a cold strange day.

I found this link on a blog and took the test and turned out this way (it would probably change each time).

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Which File Extension are You?

No I am not going to start talking about escatology, or I would have had to include panmillenialism. Rather I have been doing some reading on post modernity and yesterday attended a satellite conference on Developing Leadership in a Post Modern Culture. Information on this can be seen at ccn something or other, I'll have to look it up when I have my notes back again (they are hiding in my Bible which I left at a friend's house last night). It was extremely intersting.

One presenter, Rex Miller, change the terminology and did not talk about post modern much, instead he seemed to be suggesting that it would be better understood as "broadcast". This website has a comparison of his categories of the different world views, http://www.jordoncooper.com/matrix/sld001.htm. Jordan Cooper is a S'toon guy who is even referred to at Leonard Sweet's website. Some friends of mine (my former dentist) attend the church that Jordan works at in S'toon.

Rex Miller does not call our society post modern, instead he uses the term Inclusive/Interactive. At the conference he used a "d" word like dynamic or something but I am not remembering it now (instead of Inclusive). I like this idea for a couple of reasons. First it gets away from the reactionary nature of the term Post Modern, it gets away from comparisons and competition with the previous world view. Secondly it sounds more like a definite direction that can be seen as opposed to a worse than blurry image of the future.

I am interacting with different writers on this topic including right now I book I borrowed from a friend that is written by Brian McLaren. A guru of post modernity. It is interesting but I wonder how far the world view has moved from where it was at when he write the books to where it is now. This is where my mind is going, I would love to interact more on this idea, other's impressions of post modernity or Inclusive/Interaction and our churches, our movements, and even our culture.

I know it isn't sixth sense, because these are not dead people I am seeing, but rather live people. I am guessing second sense, sight.

I could handle days like this. I drop off my wife and visit a person at their work, for half an hour. I rush over to another place and visit for a while before rushing back to my office to visit for a while. A day of visiting is a great way to spend a day. I suppose that if I did that everyday I would not get some of the more administrative tasks done, nor any of the details done. I would probably also suffer from coffee overload. I do like coffee.

I would like to direct people to a website that shows what the church in Dauphin is doing and planning. But there is no Parkland Crossing website. They have some great plans that they could never achieve on their own, but have been doing by the grace of God. It sounds great and like they have some vision for their ministry. It would be good to hear more and to learn more from what they are doing.

I can't talk about my other conversations, but they too were very productive and encouraging. I think I enjoy meeting with people and talking about life or ideas (especially ideas). Glimpses into people's lives and into who they are is enjoyable. I guess at some point I need to go get things done (like the dishes). More administratives stuff!

Some different things are happening now. We are contacting the school to talk about my oldest son and his diagnosis. We hope to have a learning program in place for him so that he can acheive what he needs to acheive in school. It has also been strongly suggested that he get help with speech therapy, suggesting that this will make a big difference for him. That said the schools are not likely to pay for that and we are most likely stuck with the bill.

I am officially on a six week leave from preaching. I am doing my other tasks as well as a couple of other new focuses, but I do not have to prepare a sermon each week. Some of the focus includes visitation and encouragement, trying to help our members reach out to other people in their lives. Also I have a lot of follow-up work for the town-hall meetings we had just before last summer.

In a couple of days there is a satellite conference at a church near by. It is on training leaders in a post-modern world. "Post-modern" often brings to mind the chnaging times. But the discussions I have had with people lately, remind me how difficult it is to define as a movement or as a philosophy. As much as things change, they also seem to stay the same.

This week my childhood friend has been in town. we have had fun visiting, trying new games, and just catching up.

While I am still working with the church here, I have been given a leave of 6 weeks (then it will be reviewed) from preaching as I refocus my ministry. We will see how this goes and how I can reenergize myself. One of the tasks that I am to focus on is to work on the vision for the church. Who we are as a group and who we are best equipped to reach. This is not me coming down with a mysterious word on high, but rather I am to compile what we have discussed as a congregation and bring to a group who will help flesh it out and focus it. From there we hope to be closer to a brief statement that can be introduced at the next congregational meeting. I also have issues to deal with here in talking about why we are doing this and what benefits we have for this process. Some of the is best done in the one on one visiting that I do through out this time. The more work I put into this, the more I like the possibilities, I like the strange congregation we are and the kind of ways that we could build on that to reach different people. Oh the possibilities.

My wife is sick. For her to be sick enough to stay home, she has to be really sick. On Monday we were able to get some rest during the day and make that a better day, but then we went on with the week as if we were healthy (I too have a cough). That involved staying out late Monday night, and maintaining our busy schedule Tuesday (my wofe at least got to bed by 10 or 10:30). Her temperature is quite low and so she is covered in blankets with the electric blanket on and trying to sleep. Meanwhile I will try to give her apple juice, take her temperature, and at lunch time give her chicken broth (or something).

I noticed yesterday that I had not yet posted about the trip home from Dauphin. I have told the story to some people, but since it is not written, I have not officially recorded it. On Thursday December 30th we left Dauphin, knowing that at some point a big snow storm would be coming and if we waited another day we would be stuck for two days. What we didn't know was that the storm had already started on the road ahead of us. about 30-40 minutes outside of Dauphin we started encountering highway conditions that made me a little edgier as I drove.The snow blowing across the road was no problem, but where there was a bunch of trees there would be snow drifts on the road and that was a problem. They would shift us around on the road, there was ice under them, I did not feel safe driving through those drifts, but I had or we would get caught in a storm. We got to Portage la Prairie and the snow was flying pretty good by that piont, but the main highway was not closed down. After a brief lunch we set out again (my wife drove this part). When we reached the bypass at Winnipeg, we found it unpassable - unless you wanted to crawl along behind the snowplows. We took the first exit off the bypass and tried to find our way back to the main road through Winnipeg. This was a challenge because we did not know where we were and the windshield kept melting and freezing the falling snow so that we had to stop and scrape. We stopped for directions (I cleaned the windshield) and started out again, but we missed something somewhere and had to stop at another place for directions. At this point I started driving so that my wife could read the signs and direct me (this system works well for us). We soon were back on the main road and heading through Winnipeg quickly. This did not take much time once we got back onto the main road.

On the other side of Winnipeg we grabbed a coffee to go and I continued driving. On this divided highway where there is 2 lanes going each way, the cars were driving in single file down an unscraped road. We could drive in the one lane, but not the other. As we go further and further out of town we lost our travelling companions until we found ourselves as the leaders of the pack (not much behind us though).Being in front I could set my own pace and I was getting comfortable with the road conditions, I was able to go a little faster than the car we were following. Once in a while we would catch up to someone and follow them until they too left the main road. The strangest thing happened when the divided highway ended. The roads were plowed and looked after. The snow was still coming down, but roads were better for driving. We went on past Kenora, although at the far side of the town, the last turn off to get into Kenora traffic going west was stopped, and there was a truck in the eastbound lane stopped with his hood up. A car was behind them. This looked like car trouble and enough people around to assist so we went on. A couple hours later we arrived a Dryden. We refueled and wanted to hit the road as quickly as possible. But the roads were now closed. We were stopped in Dryden (where the roads looked better than what we had been through). At the sign was a policeman, so I drove up to ask about the roads ahead and he just replied that they are closed. No explaination about the condition or anything, and I never argue with a man with attitude and a gun. We got a hotel room and stayed the night, hoping that we would not get stuck in the huge snow storm that had been chasing us. It turned out that everything was good to go the next day, and we had an uneventful drive back home. A couple days later we were shovelling snow again.

Well I am going to blog on a couple of different and unrelated things today. Is it really blogging when you are outlining?

Anyway, I need to address this movie first because I was told by a friend to blog on it. The movie is... (oops that is the way of In the Actors Studio, not me). The title was Something Happens (or something like that). It was an East Indian film, done with subtitles. I was asked to comment on it because of my vast international experience, because I have great insight into other cultures and because I am so cultured and knowledgable about international movies (oh yeah, you can't hear sarcasm on the internet).

One of the strange parts of this movie was hearing the mom of the one girl lecture her about marrying for love. The mom told this girl that she had always dreamed of her daughter marrying for love and that would bring happiness. There was such a strong emphasis on this idea that love, true love, happens once, everything else is comprimise. First I don't agree (I often don't agree with movie definitions of love - the movie itself disagreed at times but not consistently). Second I just found it weird watching a movie from a culture that still accepts arranged marriages and that we generally expect to hear moms talk about these as the norm, preaching on the idea of marrying for love. It was just weird that way. While I enjoyed the evening, I did not connect with the movie (maybe someone who watched it can reply and post the title for those millions of readers who may wish to view the movie - not that I recomend or condemn it).

Today I had a meeting and at the meeting I talked about what I do during the day, at which point we discovered that I have fairly busy days actually. It is not just my feeling (although that could influence the way that I express what is happening), but someone else confirmed that I am busy. That alone feels better.

Yesterday I went and saw an asthma and allergy specialist and we are starting to work on improving my breathing (I didn't think I was doing bad until we did the blow test and I registered fairly low). I had allergy tests (he was glad he did not test for penicilin because I reacted so severely to the other molds, it could have been a bad thing). Now I have some medications to try out and some things to do to the house (anyone have extra hardwood lying around?) so that breathing will be easier and when spring comes I won't make my annual trek to the hospital (breathing chamber).

We also went to the gym yesterday. I was busy there, but everything is bright and shiny and new so I like that part. Hopefully joining a new gym will reinvigorate us to go regularly again. Last year we did, but this year we are having trouble getting started.

Should I include something about Christmas? Well we have Christmas at home before driving all afternoon and evening to my in-laws for another Christmas. At home my youngest son open the first gifts and yelled excitedly "Bionicle!" Both boys had great Christmases, presents here, presents at grandma's, and everything they wanted and more. I was quite pleased with my gifts, the new Star Wars DVD set, the final extended version of LOTR to complete my set. I also recieved a number of books, a coffee cup, gift certificates, cards, a game, chocolate, life is good. "Bionicle!"

I normally don't post on weekends, but since I was away all last week I thought I would spend this week catching up, starting right now.

I will talk about our exciting trip some other time, but right now I want to post on the event the past two days. Nothing outstanding or worldshaking (unlike the news that has my wife so shaken up). Instead we have just been cathcing up with people's lives in town here. Yesterday night we were out till about 5:00 am with the New Years party, playing games and talking about life with some friends. Then tonight we visited with some other friends whom we have not seen for a while. It was good to catch up on their lives and to share some time with them. This being New Years' Day however, we were all very tired and so we did not go as late into the evening as we would normally. Infact I am home now posting.

Lots of fun, but I am very tired now. In a couple of days, my friend comes here and so I am waiting and looking forward to this visit.