Chris’ Blog

This weekend, the service at our church was about poverty. It was very powerful and got me to re-examine what I do and think about poverty. Christine and I expect to make some changes in the new year. I find it very easy to forget about the six billion or so people that have a lower quality of life than I do and to resist an attitude of entitlement that I believe is prevalent in our society.

Although I found none of the statistics presented surprising (I’m not sure what is worse: knowing the statistics and doing nothing or being ignorant of what is going on in our world) I did find out that there is an online petition at http://www.makepovertyhistory.ca/ asking for the government to increase efforts to meet the United Nations Millennium Declaration to spare no effort to eliminate extreme poverty in the world. It’s somewhat more of a guest book than a formal petition, but I signed it anyway.

Well, I have completed the seventh and final week of Bible school. Our last week was an incomplete study of the life of Christ. It was the most theological of all the studies, and I would say that the most important thing I learned is that words and word choice are important. Especially when talking about Jesus, I should be more careful to always present myself using words that are not confusing or ambiguous in their meaning.

The time we spent at Bible school was amazing. Looking back and thinking how easily we might not have come I can only trust that God is directing us even when we don’t see the importance of the decisions we are making.

The most important thing I learned through the entirety of the school is to trust God, that Jesus Christ is living in me and working through me each day.

… being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus. Philippians 1:6

by Major W. Ian Thomas, 1961

“The Saving Life of Christ” is the best Christian book I have read. It emphasises the most important aspect of Christian living: Christ living in and through you. Although the language is a little outdated, the message is clear. I recommend this book to every Christian.

See this book in my library here.

Well, our sixth week has come and gone. This week we departed from our Bible studies and did “Creative Life Planning”. The intent is to help you determine a direction, especially with regards to a career for you your life. I was surprised to find that I got as much or more out of it than the students ten years younger than me. In the end we make a vision for our life (or an aspect of our life, but I went for the gusto) and from there we determine goals in order to fulfill the vision.

At the end of the week we attended another church and gave our final preformance of “Jesus Loves Me”. Every week the students perform it in English, Chinese, Spanish, and Japanese. Christine and I also taught a college age Sunday school class.

Monday we went to an elementary school. We spent one class teaching them about our different countries. We were representing Canada, USA, Ecuador, Germany, and UK. Unfortunately I didn’t have time to teach them the “Logdriver’s Waltz”…

The second class, they taught us how to play a traditional Japanese instrument. That was a lot of fun, although I don’t think I could have handled a whole day. There was one small snag, however. Because we stayed overnight Sunday, I packed extra shirts for Monday, but didn’t bother to take extra pants. On Sunday I realised that there was a hole in the crotch of my pants. Actually, Christine noticed, and very discreetly informed me (by screaming, then grabbing my knees and pushing them together). Sunday was mostly standing, so it wasn’t a problem, but on Monday when we had the music lesson we had to sit on the floor, on our knees. Well, halfway through my first lesson, two of the Japanese boys sitting across from me must have noticed the hole and almost fell on the floor laughing. I then became aware of an increased amount of whispering and giggling between the children around me, but when it comes to playing traditional Japanese instruments, the show must go on, so I just kept playing.

by Charles R. Swindoll, 1990

“The Grace Awakening” was an excellent book, although somewhat slow in pace throughout. The content more than made up for any shortcomings in style as the principles put forth were solidly based on scripture. Although I do not share Mr. Swindoll’s conviction that “The Grace Awakening” is a history-making movement in line with “The Great Awakening” of the 18th and 19th centuries, I do believe that grace is not demonstrated by Christians in a way that reflects its foundational importance in our salvation. Of course, I freely admit that I may not be as sensitive to changes in society as Mr. Swindoll and others may yet read of “The Grace Awakening” in history books years from now. Time will tell.

The apostle Paul writes to the Ephesians, “it is by grace you have been saved,” yet many Christians live as if the grace that brought us into salvation is somehow not present for the lives we live after salvation. We trade our bondage to sin with bondage to rules and religion. We give up our God given and Christ purchased freedom and expect others to do the same. This is the core message, as I see it, of the book.

Mr. Swindoll spends a lot of time in Paul’s letter to the Galatians as it speaks a great deal about grace and our freedom as Christians. Reading this book has greatly heightened by interest and understanding of Galatians and has given me a strong desire to share this message with young Christians and new believers before the “grace killers” turn up with their list of do’s and don’ts and crush their spirit of freedom. Grace is a fundamental aspect of Christianity, and although it is important to all Christians, I believe it is especially important to new believers that they be shown grace in order to develop their own relationship with Jesus.

I found the meat of the book to be near the front where Mr. Swindoll takes time to define grace and then identify the enemies of grace and the reasons why people reject grace. It became easy to see myself among the grace killers. More importantly, he goes on to explain why we need grace, in that it is not just by grace that we are saved, but it is by grace that we live. It is grace that sets us free from the bondage of sin and from ourselves. If we reject grace we reject our freedom, and although we are saved we will continue to live a life in bondage, perhaps not to sin, but to expectations and limitations. The remainder of the book is spent talking about how to live a life of grace and how to resist the ideas and people that would reject grace.

Overall, this is an excellent book and I would recommend it to any Christian. Although I do not share Mr. Swindoll’s optimism, I sincerely hope that a Grace Awakening does sweep our land.

The Grace Awakening at amazon.com

We finished our fifth week of Bible school. We did a study of Phillippians and the exchanged life. I really enjoyed the exchanged life — exchanging our lives for the life of Christ. This is something I’ve never really understood, although it’s spoken about all throughout the Bible. I finally have a basic understanding of how to let God control my life, although it’s still a work in progress.

Here’s a picture of a swan from Lake Yamanaka.

Our fourth week of Bible school was the study of Nehemiah. The picture of the Jews rebuilding the walls can represent us taking greater control over what we allow into and out of ourselves.

Christine and I performed another duet in a different church.

We’ve now completed our third week of Bible school which was a study on the book of Acts. Although there was so much to learn, probably the biggest thing for me is that the church belongs to God. We can try to do this or that, but it is God that builds the church. It was very encouraging.

Two of the girls have also decided to get baptised while they are here. It was great to watch that come about since neither had been really considering it before, but through conversation, our study of Acts, and another book we are reading it became quite apparent in the past week that God was speaking to them about this.

We have completed our second week of Bible school. This past week we studied the book of Jeremiah. Most of my memories for Jeremiah are that it is long an boring…what a difference now after going through it and giving it the proper attention. We were able to draw a lot of parallels between the people during the time of Jeremiah and our society today - very focused on pleasure and self, and headed for disaster.

We have also had the chance to visit two different Japanese churches. Both congregations were quite small (20-40 people). Both times we sang a song in English, Chinese, Spanish, and Japanese. As well, Christine and I performed our first public duet together…very exciting!

Well, we have completed our first week of Bible school. We studied the first chapter of Genesis and discussed creation/evolution as well as the moral implications of having a creator god. We have become quite close to the other students and are thoroughly enjoying ourselves.