Change Your Prayers; Change Your World - Week 2

Please watch this 6 minute sermon starter video in advance of Sunday February 2nd 2014 and then use the comment section below to answer the question:

If the #1 problem related to prayer is "not enough time", what have you tried to make more time for prayer?

Thanks. 

What does the Fox say? It's never too cold to play on the ice of the Niagara River!

Wood-Fired Community Oven - Niagara This Week Front Page

Church Size Determined by Type of Vowels in Your Church Name

Interesting study from the University of Toronto which shows that the sounds your product's name or title makes on the tongue of your potential attendees or clients has a significance impact on their presuppositions about you.

In particular what seems to matter is whether your product name has a front or back vowel sound. Front and back referring to where in the mouth the tongue moves to make the sound in question. Here is a graphic showing some short and long vowel sounds and where they are formed in your mouth.

According to Sam Maglio, “Front sounds are matched with notions of sharpness, brightness and being small, while back sounds are associated with dullness, darkness and being large.”

Applied to church names then if you re-name and re-brand your church with a name dominated by "front sounds" you are likely to create a sense of an active, small engaging community. Pick a "back sound" name and your church will feel larger but perhaps not as friendly as you imagine. So here is my attempt to categorize church names into "front" and "back" sounding lists.

And please note I am only counting the first name of almost all these church names as invariably churches become known by only the 1st word in their name. For example "Glengate Alliance Church" simply becomes the brand name: "Glengate"

Front Church Names

Glengate Alliance Church
Liquid Church
Saddleback Community Church
Westburne Alliance Church

Back Church Names
Mars Hill Church
Branches Alliance Church
Bolton Alliance Church

Which is your church name?

Change Your Prayers; Change Your World - Week 1

Watch this video introduction to the sermon for January 26th 2014 at Glengate Alliance Church 10am 6009 Valley Way in Niagara Falls.

The video challenges you to respond by answering the question: How do your prayers need to change?

Do they need to be longer? shorter? have a deeper theology? Do you just need to start praying... period? Here are 6 ways to answer this question:

1.Use the comment section here on this blog.
2.Use the comment section in Youtube under this video.
3.Tweet your comment in 140 characters or less to @jacobbirch8
4.Email your answer to pastor@glengatealliance.ca
5.Download and use the YouVersion app on your phone to comment in the Glengate Alliance Church group
6. Just talk to Pastor Jake personally or on the phone 905 354 9073 about what needs to change in your prayer life.

Thanks for your openness and willingness to share. All answers will be considered for use in the sermon on January 26th 2014.

Here is the preliminary results of the YouVersion poll about this topic this week...

PM Harper's Visit to Israel

Some great pics from Prime Minister Harper's visit to Israel, the West Bank and Jordan.

For more pics visit this page and for some videos taken while he was tour in Israel see below. 

Guarding your Valleys and Fighting Your Giants OR A Tale of 2 Vales - Part 1

In November when bus #9 was standing on top of Mount Carmel our tour guide Ari - who had been an officer in the IDF Armoured Corps - said something that really made an impact on me, in the context of looking down at the Jezreel Valley spread below us. He said, "Battles fought for the mountains are won in the valleys." Here is the view we had: 

Pray for Syria

These are pictures of what is purportedly the same street in Homs, Syria before and after the war.

Pray for Syria. Please.

Lazarus, Van Gogh and John 11

So in my sermon prep over the last week i was taken with Vincent VanGogh's painting "The Raising of Lazarus".

Some of the many features that critics and expositors talk about this painting and its connection to John 11 are: 

• The look of horror/astonishment/fear/shock on Martha's face (4 days of rot changing before her eyes)
• The red beard of Lazarus (possible self portrait of VanGogh) 
• The absence of a visible Jesus
• The fact that VanGogh painted this and his other "biblical" paintings while recovering from his dementia in the Saint Paul Asylum in Saint Remy France. 

As a pastor what i find most intriguing is VanGogh's painting of Jesus in-absentia - in other words NOT including him in his version of these events. Especially compared with the etching that Rembrandt did of this same subject which we know was brought to VanGogh and partially inspired his version of this same scene from John 11. Rembrandt's "Raising of Lazarus" is here for comparison...

JUMP - 1 Timothy - Following, Learning and Leading at a Christian

Michael Bay "Bombs" at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas

Director of Armagedon, the Transfomer's franchise and my favourite of his movies The Rock does the sensible thing in many ways... when you have nothing to say about something and what you are being paid to say is not properly displayed on the teleprompter... just get off the stage.

The Selfie Pope and Evangelical's Search for Significance

So Pope Francis was awarded Time Magazine's award Person of the Year for 2013. 

In the words of Time, this award is given to the person that, "for better or for worse...has done the most to influence the events of the year."

As disciples of John Maxwell, evangelicals are especially attuned to the idea of "leadership is influence". So when told that the Pope is the person that influenced the world the most in the last year, I along with most of those in my tribe should sit up and taken notice.

What can we - as evangelical's - learn from the influence this religious leader's ministry is obviously garnering for himself and Catholicism specifically and perhaps Christianity in general? 

What is "The Gospel"?

What is the "good news" that Jesus came proclaiming, showing, defending and dying for?

I have grown increasingly - over the last 15 years - uneasy with the composition of "the good news" that i have learned and promoted myself that solely concerns me, God and our relationship. I clear presentation of this understanding of the gospel in contained in this blog post from Ligonier Ministries R.C. Sproul.

Why i am uncomfortable with that presentation of the "good news"?

The BBC's take on the Supreme Court of Canada's landmark decisions about prostitution

I listen to the BBC news every day, twice a day. I find that hearing about the world and North America from an "outsider's" perspective is very helpful. Here is a thoughtful summary of the opinions and issues surrounding the impending changes to the prostitution laws in Canada from the BBC. It was tweated out by Defend Dignity Canada.

The most powerful paragraph for me is this one:

According to Tara Klage, in the Guelph Mercury, those who compare sex work to other kinds of jobs are making a fundamental mistake, however.

"Sex is not the same as unclogging a toilet," she writes. "Because of the vulnerabilities of the people who get sucked into it, the world's oldest profession requires a level of scrutiny and vastly more public involvement across a spectrum of services, from law enforcement to social welfare supports. Legalization is not the answer, if for no other reason than because no man anywhere at any time should ever be permitted to view a woman - any woman regardless of choices, background or personal circumstances - as a collection of apertures available for rent."

A New Blog to Follow

What do all these items below have in common? 

These were all items confiscated in the month of December by the Transportation Safety Authority (TSA)... those sometimes annoying often very bored looking airport security people. My favourite is the pink stun gun made to look like a cell phone. The TSA Blog is a new destination for me but one - as an infrequent traveller - that i find at the same time hilarious and beyond scary.