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Reading hy·giene

March 3, 2021 0 Comments

When you read a book do you just read it without context or concern for the author?

Do you find out about the author and their own story?

Do you explore the influences and relationships that may have shaped the author?

Do you wonder about when it was written and why?

Do you think about the original audience who may have taken up the book before you?

Do you look up unfamiliar places on a map?

Do you read the preface and dedications?

Do you explore how other readers experienced the book and may have critiqued it?

Do you explore the cultural perspectives of the people who inhabit the pages of the book?

Read A Book!

All of these practices are like washing your hands. Let’s call it reading hygiene. I know one can just read the book anyway without any thought to these matters. However, habits of reading hygiene will also help when you take up the newspaper, read an email, watch a YouTube video, read a tweet, or even read the Bible.

Maybe you don’t read critically all the time. I get it, we don’t turn on our “observing self” all time. However, maybe you can start with it when you pick up the book and then leave it. Maybe you could get to the end of the book and then decide you’d better wash your hands, or “wash your mind.” But then, you have already consumed the delicacies of what was presented with the germs of your assumptions, proclivity for preoccupation with self, and de-contextualized readings.

Read The Bible

Interested in developing your reading hygiene with the Bible? Here’s some books you might find helpful.

How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth, 4th Edition, Gordon D. Fee & Douglas Stuart

How to Read the Bible Book by Book, Garden D. Fee & Douglas Stuart

Read the Bible for Life, George H. Guthrie

Guerrilla Gospel: Reading the Bible for Liberation in the Power of the Spirit, by Bob Ekblad

Society

Prayer of the People, 26 February 2021

March 1, 2021 0 Comments

Prayer of the People  —  26 February 2021

Heavenly Father,

Thank you for rescuing us from a cascade of lies and for bringing us into the truth of your Son Jesus Christ our Lord. In your communion — of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit — there is nothing false. Transform us into true worshippers through the love you pour into us.

Thank you for providing us with food and shelter. 
Thank you for the promise of each new day. 
Your faithfulness continues to all generations.
Thank you for the warmth of friendship with others.
Thank you for the strength to make meaningful contributions through our work. 
Bless the work of our hands and our minds.
Thank you for our remembrance of your interventions in difficult days past.
Thank you for the promise of your company through difficult days to come.
Thank you for the joy we find in simple moments of quietness.
Thank you for the breath we breathe.
May your Spirit  blow through us again. Come Lord Jesus. Come.

May faithful generosity emerge from our delight in you and your word.
May faithful attention to our accepted responsibilities and duties bring glory to You.
May faithfulness be formed in our character as a fruit of lives deeply enriched by your Spirit.

Oh Lord we lift up your church under pressure in Myanmar, Tanzania, and in Hong Kong. Enable your disciples to share their lives with neighbours and to see the promise and power of Jesus’ good news released into people’s lives.

Oh Lord we need you and so we pray as Jesus teaches us:
(Please join me in the Lord’s Prayer.)

Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread.
And forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from the evil one;
for yours is the kingdom,
and the power, and the glory, 
forever. 
Amen.

This prayer as part of the Origin Church Weekend Broadcast on 26 February 2021.

Prayer

Conveyance

February 26, 2021 0 Comments

CON VOIE MENT

pipes water shit
wires energy ground
souls wellness confession

cord name death
canal relations rites
babe character wake

thought christ cross
word breath blood
creation people love

View the picture to see the poem.

Poetry

a pilgrim’s doxology

February 25, 2021 0 Comments

a prayer 

morning’s light barely registers
but with a turn of the wrist light
floods the room

the shock of emerging from 
a comforting womb mitigated 
by socks and a puffy coat

down the stairs where with four
pushes of a button a stream 
of gas and flame warm the frames

of a home whose foundations 
were set well before my parents 
lived and well within the years of theirs

another button and water warms
another button and beans grind
another turn of the wrist and water pours

the warm elixir finds its mark as 
words from an open Book call
and draw forth songs

for the heart melodies with 
ancient rhythms lost in translation 
but just as real today

Poetry

Prayer of the People, 19 February 2021

February 22, 2021 0 Comments

Heavenly Father,

In the moment before you said, “Let there be…” your love existed and was shared within your eternal communion, the communion of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. 

Your holiness precedes the billions of galaxies you made and infiltrates every vast expanse between them. You see us. You are able to locate us. You have made us. We are the people of your pasture purchased through the blood of the Lamb. So say the Word — Say the Word that awakens us to the reality of you and to the reality of your love. Call out to us, “Wake up O Sleeper, Rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.”

For some us the joy of our salvation is preceded by the knowledge of our havoc to which we had become numb. And so — we fear.

We confess Lord, we have been foolish; we have been rebellious; we have been lovers of darkness. Forgive us and usher us into your ways of peace. May the righteousness and kindness of Jesus replace all the bitterness, rage, malice, unforgiveness, and apathy that has rushed in to fill the places created by desire and disappointment. 

Lord, grant us the grace of repentance and the grace of obedience that comes by faith. 

Indeed, fill us with the joy of your salvation!

We lift up our brothers and sisters
who weep; comfort them Lord.
who fear the future; assure them Lord.
who wrestle with decisions; guide them Lord.

We lift up students at UBC and at Langara College. We pray that your would call out disciples for Jesus — who rejoice in your friendship, and delight in your love. Cause them to be new creations from the inside out.

Oh Lord we need you and so we pray as Jesus teaches us:

(Please join me in the Lord’s Prayer.)

Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread.
And forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from the evil one;
for yours is the kingdom,
and the power, and the glory, 
forever. 
Amen.

This prayer with part of the Origin Church Weekend Broadcast on 19 February 2021.

Prayer

,