I was raised in a church that was somewhere on the fundamentalist-evangelical spectrum. I fell in love with the counter-culture and new left politics and became a Christian through the ministry of charismatics.

We are surrounded by signs and slogans, instructions, advertising and messaging. The world is trying to write on your heart.

There is a story of a famous reformed theologian who began his first class in Systematic Theology by asking one of the students to open in prayer. A student did, and then the prof outlined the heresies, errors, and confusion in evidence in the student’s prayer.

It is subtly easy for us to become one step removed from Jesus. One way this happens is when we focus on the service (or the liturgy) rather than what the service / liturgy is supposed to point to.

Lots of people nowadays are telling you to unplug and just be. They often do this in the context of trying to make you feel guilty about how busy or connected you are.

I told them I was a pastor at a church and I was working on my sermon. As often happens, a chill fell on the conversation. They stayed polite, but made an exit.  In Canada, being a committed Christian is not the path to higher levels of social acceptance.

When orthodox Christian belief becomes one of several options in a church, denomination, mission or Christian movement, then sooner or later orthodox Christian faith will be seen as a threat, and excluded.

Most Canadians think that having hard things happen to you is a good reason to believe that the God of the Bible does not exist. Implicit in this habit of the modern mind is the idea, rarely stated, that if God wants to be known, He should give good things to people.

From about the year 2001 on, the church I serve in, now called Church of the Messiah, was one of the principal churches in the Anglican Church of Canada (ACoC) speaking out against the move by the denomination to bless same-sex unions; perform same-sex marriages, and “baptize” the LGBTQ+ movement.

Most people who are “regulars” or “insiders” at a church are not aware of the force field in their church, which pushes people away. We insiders are also not usually aware that we contribute to pushing people away.

Christians have historically believed that Astrology is wrong, and that Christians should have nothing to do with astrology. It is beyond the scope of this blog to prove this from the Bible, but suffice it to say that the Bible claims only God knows the future …

At the end of December 2009 we still owned a beautiful old building to worship in. We were receiving legal letters from our former Diocese threatening us. We did not have any idea about what was going to happen in the years to come.

They told me that modern science had proven that the virgin birth was impossible. A miracle, I was told, was a sense of the wonder in life. So the Christmas story is a story about the wonder of a newborn baby.

The Bible does not tell us to celebrate Christmas. Today Christmas is an overwhelmingly secular event. On top of this, Canadian Christmas appears to be deconstructing …

Jesus was fully God and fully human yet one person. Many non-Christians criticize this doctrine, and many Christians are uncomfortable with it.

Please pray for all the saints. Remember in the New Testament, the word “saint” applies to anyone and everyone who is a Christian. A “saint” is not a special, elite Christian.

Imagine you are preparing a Bible Study or Bible teaching time on a chapter in the New Testament. You are using a trusted Bible teacher’s book as your guide.

To tell most Canadians that you should not love unconditionally would be to shock them. They would probably think you are clueless or wicked or both. The same is true of Canadian Christians.

Prayer can be hard. For many of us, it is hard to spend time in prayer. On top of this, often when we pray, we only focus on our own needs or the needs of loved ones. Don’t give up! The Devil wants us to be discouraged about prayer.

“If I become a Christian will I have to stop living with my girlfriend?” What do you say?