Eric Bailey's

What a drive. I managed to get to Ignace before I could no longer drive. My wife took over and she drove the rest of the journey for yesterday. It is odd stopping at a reasonable time instead of driving non-stop to our final destination. I am more used to driving like crazy, but it was nice to have a break.

Today we shop and then head to Regina to meet up with the boys grandma who will be taking them for the weekend. A part of me wishes that we were staying at a hotel in Calgary instead of with friends, but my Scottish side thinks that staying with friends is a better idea.

We are looking at a 4 hour drive today. I could sleep for that whole part of the trip. Kind of funny because I slept a lot on the way here and had trouble sleeping when we got here. I wonder why?

Time to check out the metropolis of Brandon.

I love to travel. That is one of the things that my wife and I really shared from early on in our relationship. She though thought of bigger travel than I did. I enjoy so much just getting in the car and going places. It is especially fun when you don't have an agenda and you don't feel money pressure so you can stop where ever you are at the time.

Soon we will be visiting friends in Calgary. I am itching to hit the road, but there are details to take care of first. I could probably have done them earlier this week, but it takes the looming deadline to make the details clearer. Sometimes I don't realize the things I have to do until the deadline is close and some other details are out of the way. Time to do some details.

I was reading "The Connecting Church" by Randy Frazee the other day. The focus of that book was on what it would take in our modern, fast paced, instant world to create "real" community (maybe I should just say "awesome" instead). One of the key points that this author spoke of as a gage as to whether community was happening or not was spontinaity. The ability and willingness to drop in on each other without having to plan ahead. The author's concern was based upon churches with members spread out across metropolises like those wouth of the border.

Thanks people for the visit Monday night, I loved it. I enjoyed being grilled, being challenged and being affirmed. I liked hearing what other people were experiencing and discovering different perspectives. We need more of those meetings.

I haven't been able to post much lately. I'm not sure why, or what the trouble has been with the thinking but hopefully by continuing to post I will work my way through it and get back into regular writing.

Big news is that this past Sunday we finally presented the vision statement for our church. This has been a long process with many bumps along the way. Yet as we kept working through the process we kept getting more people on board with the idea. Kind of like a snow ball gathering snow and whatever else as it rolls recklessly down a mountain.

Our vision is:
"A SAFE PLACE to grow in relationship with Christ and with others."

There are many ways in which this can be written to see one go to nwpcofc.org.

Now we are launching into the real work, and I think that as we start looking at church and life through the eyes of this vision, excite will spread through our little group. Now we have our vision, lets push on.

I need to do more thinking this vision still has a long way to go.

There seems to be a game going around blogs that has extended into the people I know. A friend who was tagged describes it, "It is the latest form of those 'get to know you' chain letters. You know those emails you get that say 'If you were a bucket of water, how full would you be,' or "Are you a gerbil or a frog person?' They then say to reply to the sender and send off to 5 friends." - T

Like him, I am not going to name names and try to compel 5 of my friends to continue the chain, plus I think it would be more interesting to see the responses kind of like another T is doing with his movie list. Feel free to answer the questions yourself or not, no "should"s.

How many books do I own?
I don't even have a rough estimate. My bookshelves at the church are full, my bookshelves at home are full, and I still have books in boxes. I have a lot of books, and yet still see many others that would be good and helpful to me (or just fun).

Last book I bought?
Well, the last book I bought was "A Storm of Swords". It is the third book in a series. I thought that it would be a trilogy, but I hear there is another book coming out this fall sometime (hard cover, I'll have to wait a while before the soft cover comes out).

Last book I read?
This is not a fair question. I am in the midst of reading "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire", but I am not done. I have recently reread parts of "Risking Church" by Jim Kallam Jr. but not all of it. I am still working my way through Brian McLaren's "A Generous Othodoxy." The last book I have read, cover to cover would be an extremely abridged version of "Finding Nemo" last night at bedtime.

5 Books that meant a lot to me?
1. "Longing For A Homeland" by Lynn Anderson. I just liked it, some of the stories touched near to other stories I had heard. Also he signed my copy.
2. "I Don't Want To Talk About It" by Terrence Real. A book that looks at depression from a male persepective and seemed to approach this right for me to understand.
3. "AquaChurch" by Leon@rd.Sweet (how he writes it on the cover). I felt like some of the parts of this book was challenging my perspective. He may not write as well as McLaren or explore as deeply, but he got me started thinking with book and "Soul Tsunami."
4. "The Soul of Fire" by Terry Goodkind. My current favorite fantasy writer, he has a series called the Sword of Truth. My wife started reading the series, and then I picked them up and enjoyed them. So far this one has been be my favorite, it started exploring things that he seems to have left again. Each book introduces a "Wizard's Rule" which the lead character has to learn on his own and understand. In this book the lead character starts to realize the art and creativity that exists beyond the rules. The rules shape and direct, but don't have to limit. That I think seems to summarize some of the journey I have been on.
5. "Risking Church" by Jim Kallam Jr. I wasn't sure whether I should put this one down, it is one of a long line of various church books that help at particular points in time, but I am not sure of the lasting value. It touches on some key ideas for our church and for where we are moving to for this next while, in a way that I can related to and that is not so removed from reality. I could have put the "Purpose Drive Church", or a Barna book on vision or some other church growth book but right now this seems more relevant. The odd thing is I bought and read it a year ago, but it is now that the book really means something to me. Kinda like a hand granade ...

Anyone else feel like sharing (once I get a copy of Tim's book, then I can list it on here, right?)

// posted by Eric @ 9:31 AM 1 comments

Continuation of the discussion in the comments of the previous blog:

I love it when we get interesting discussions going. I am intrigued by this whole of idea of play and aversion and the impact of these ideas on our enjoyment and sense of safety in a church setting.

Then my thinking is what is fun at church? What do we enjoy about that worship time that makes us feel safe, that gives us that sense that we are in the right place?

I enjoy singing, I enjoy discussion, but for me one of the things I enjoy is the people (not really things are they?). Is that why I go to church and look forward to it?

Can we pinpoint the idea of play verses aversion so easily in this kind of a setting? I wonder if we have such different expectations that the things that I would consider play may not be the same there as elsewhere...

I'm not sure if I am getting anywhere, but I sure would appreciate some help trying to sort through these ideas.

Risking Church is a book by Jim Kallam Jr. It is an interesting book to read in part because he lays himself out for us to see. He talks about his own weakness and his failings, rather than some magic formula. The focus of the book is about community, a place where people feel at home, a safe place, a place to let your guard down so that we can become the people God intended us to be.

One of the chapters specifically addresses this idea of safety and what it is. Jim asks the questsion "What is a safe church?" The possible answers he gives are:
"Many leaders would answer 'Doctinal Purity'".
"For many, predictability is a factor for creating safety."
"Safety is sometimes measured by control."

He tells us that none of these live up to the billing. These do not create a safe place, in fact unless you have the power it is the opposite of a safe place. The real answer to creating a safe place is relationships, relationships that allow others to grow, to become what they never dreamed, what they only wished. Only in true community can we feel safe enough to risk, to try and fail and know that we are not going to be booted out of the "family" or as they say now a days "voted off the island."

I have finally seen the movie and I am not impressed. I heard different opinions about the movie and none of them told me much about the movie itself. I thought the plot was going to be what was basically taken care of in the opening.

The message of the movie is that Christians are bad. They all are hiding a dirty little secret and because they all sin they have no right to stand up and say that something is wrong.

I attended two different (different in style and ages) Christian Schools growing up. I do not remember hearing people talk like these people. Maybe it is because I was brought up in a very conservative tradition (fundamental was a good word) but I simply did not relate right at the beginning to the characters and their language.

I get very nervous when I hear about movies portaying Christians, because these movies are either made by Christians and often not done well, or they are made by people who have an agenda against Christianity. I would put this movie in the later. I am quite sure this movie was not done to help people grow, but rather to offened Christians and then be able to point at them and say "See you guys are just not accepting."

You can disagree with me if you want about the movie, but I didn't like and I think it struck one of my nerves. Or maybe it was just the mood I was in tonight.

As I sat down at the worship ministry team meeting and looked around me I thought, "Hey this is a blogger's meeting!" I didn't get distracted with all the other ideas until after the meeting, since the meeting was filled with its own ideas.

First I realized we were missing T. Not Mr. T but just T. T doesn't wear quite as much gold, but sometimes they talk the same.

Also I began to wonder how a church blog would work, if it would fly. It would have some the group who could all blog on it. We are kind of doing this on each other's blogs already, carrying on conversations as a group (some people are even getting 10-12 responses on their daily blogs).

What would we discuss? Would such an idea be any different than each of us just using our current blogs? Would the blog show up on the dash board of everyone who can blog on it? Is anyone interested? I'm still not sure if I am yet, but I'm thinking.

It took me most of the day to realize why everyone seemed so wiped on Sunday morning. Our worship servvice was planned fine, led fine, but as a group it kind of felt like we just were not quite there. Our small numbers (smaller than usual) may have contributed, but I think that the garage sale was to blame. I think that we had a very tired Sunday. Maybe it was just me (I know I am tired - too many nights with too little sleep), but I felt like we were not quite there.

The church garage sale went well on Saturday, I always find the first while in the morning amusing. For the first few minutes while I am trying to get going I will get up and stumble around the house. If I sit down or rest my head for a second, I am out again. Once in a while my legs or my body just decides it wants to lie down and I almost do. This doesn't happen very often, but I think that I have experienced it too often for me. I should probably be trying to get more sleep. The sad thing is the strange macho pride I take in being able to survive and function in those situations. It is the same idea as playing sports with a pulled muscle or a broken bone.

After the worship time I went and "ump"ed a slow pitch ball game. I floundered here and there, but mostlly did okay. By the time the teams got to the end of the tournament I guess that they were just happy to have an "ump" at all. I'd rather not do that again, but I am closer to feeling like I could "ref" a football game. I know those rules at least. I am not great at making a quick call, and I am too willing I guess to hear the opinions (although if I don't agree I won't change my call). I guess maybe I "ump" okay, or maybe not whatever you think...