August KM Report

I did 608 KM, making August 2006 my best month ever. At least I can't remeber passing the 600 km point in one month. I know I've hit the 580s or 590s before but never quite got past 600. The brings my total to 2338 for the year, 262 short of the plan goal of 2600 km. At 600 a month that's less than a couple of weeks of ridding. If I can keep up the pace for Sept and Oct then I have shot of making my goal for the year.

- Peace

Passed 300 Cars today

A head wind and rain and it was still a good day to bike to work today. I passed at least 300 cars heading north on Elbow Drive between Southland and Glenmore Trail because of this:

AM770 CHQR - A traffic nightmare for motorists in southwest Calgary began Wednesday night. Northbound 14th Street had to be shut down Heritage Drive and 75th Avenue, after a tractor trailer unit crashed into the pedestrian bridge in that area at about 9:15pm Wednesday. Director of Roads for the City of Calgary, Mac Logan, says the bridge suffered major structural damage, and may have to be torn down. He says engineers will try to determine the best way to fix the bridge, but he adds it will be closed to pedestrians for several months.

Elbow drive is the next north/south road way east of 14th Street so it was getting a ton of extra traffic this morning. I was able to use the side walk for those blocks and passed cars that were just sitting there or moving 15 km/h for a few seconds at a time.

- Peace

Ice Cube

Really Need to view at Large Size to get the full effect.

It's Nice to be the Hero

Kim need to pick something up at a store and I stayed in the Element. There was a black Jetta parked in front of me. The Jetta started to roll forward. It took me a second to prorcess that it was empty and rolling towards two women packing their car. Of course a rolling car makes litle noise and the women had their backs to the car. I started to beep my horn rapidly and the women took notice and jumped out of the way of the Jetta. There was no harm done to either car, but bumpers are desinged for such things, legs are not.

OK so it's hero in the totaly no risk to the hero sense of the word. Still it felt nice.

- Peace

The Black Night Inn WiFi

The Black Night Inn in Red Deer has free WiFi in the lobby and banquet salons.

- Peace

Post Post Modern

It's offical I'm Post Post Modern.

- Peace

Eugene Peterson on Spiritual Theology and the Laity.

An Interview with Eugene Peterson by Richard J. Foster.

RJF: Who is the primary audience for this book?

EP: Richard, as you know, I've written a lot of books for pastors trying to communicate this same message.

They've been well received, and people have given them the dignity of reading them. I can't complain.

But to tell you the truth, and I don't know if you're going to want to put this in your publication . . .

RJF: We'll make sure our readers see it.

EP: I've kind of given up on pastors, so I've deliberately not used any references to pastors or other leaders in this book. I have written this book for the lay person. They're in the forefront of what's going on in our churches, in our world, and I think if spiritual theology has a chance to make an impact in the Church, it's going to come mainly through the laity.

As seen on Ian's Messy Desk.

- Peace

Don't Download This Song

Cause if you do, you may rekindle a latent love of Weird Al Yankovic as he parodies the music industry. Weird Al's latest single is currently available to download here. But don't do it!

- Peace

Columbia Ice Cube Tours

Thanks Mike :)

Ice Cube Stack

2050 km, 17 days behind

passed the 2050 km mark today, that was the goal for the end of July so I'm 17 days behind the plan. That's beter thans the extra 20 days it took to get the end of June goal.

- Peace

MXPX, Calgary I'm there.

From my inbox:
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - AUGUST 17, 2006

MXPX with guests
SEPTEMBER 11 at MacEwan Ballroom, Calgary AB
doors 7 pm - all ages - general admission

TICKETS ON SALE SATURDAY AUGUST 19 AT UNIONEVENTS.COM, TICKETMASTER.CA, CHARGE-BY-PHONE 777-000, MEGATUNES AND SLOTH RECORDS - OR BUY HERE

- Peace

Fruits Basket and Mike's Twin

Dave made me blog it.
Fruits Basket, A story of redemptive grace.
(Wiki has a link here)
Sometimes I just fall in love with an anime…
Fruits Basket is the story of a young girl who, in spite of great tragedy in her own life, maintains an extraordinarily positive outlook. Not only that but when she meets a family beset by a strange curse she responds with kindness and love even when they treat her badly. Her love begins to change the entire clan and they begin to treat others with kindness.
Yup, I’m a sucker for a story in which love conquers all.

Mike's Twin?:
My hat,..
my glasses,..
my size,..
plays guitar a lot like me too.

Are Sheep Spiritual?

I have nothing against sheep, I think counting sheep is cool. But are they inherently spiritual? Last night at Xalt we spent an hour for about an hour talking about bikes and the spiritual life. Afterwards one woman remarked that she was surprised by how much of the spiritual life could be described in terms of bikes. I'm guessing if I'd spent the time on shepherds and sheep no one would be surprised. Are sheep inherently spiritual or have we lost the habit of understanding the spiritual in everyday terms?

- Peace

Would you spend a weekend with these guys?

Jadon

Kevin

Darcy

Michael

Leighton

I did and I'd do it again.

- Peace

Speaking at Xalt on Sunday

I'll be doing my Bike Parable / Half Sermon at Xalt this Sunday. Just in case you were interested.

- Peace

1900 km, half way

It feels good. You need to think James Brown when you read that.

- Peace

The shame of not being ready

Leighton played a bit of a conference MP3 from Wolfgang Simson that talked about house church as a return to a more biblical model of the Christian life. In a summary a church that was relationally driven instead of event driven (Church once a week on Sunday being an event not a relationship)

I wasn’t ready.

I hold somewhere in my head the echo’s of Ephesians 4:14 (Then we will no longer be like children, forever changing our minds about what we believe because someone has told us something different or because someone has cleverly lied to us and made the lie sound like the truth.) So whenever I hear about a new movement or a new way of doing things in church I’m sceptical. That’s not all a bad thing but I think I take it too far. It wasn’t Wolfgang’s words on the tape so much as reading through much of his book “Houses that Change the World” that made me change my mind. After Constantine, the church changed forever becoming an official political instrument. The reformation overturned much of the bad doctrine but kept the hierarchical power structures. The historical 1st and 2nd century church was small and simple, meeting in peoples houses not in cathedrals or even “church buildings”. Wolfgang sees a new reformation by returning to this simpler way of doing church. Nothing wrong with that, right? So why do I resist?

Here’s what I think is going on in my mind. An over adherence to Ephesians 4:14 (above) and not paying attention to Mark 7:7-8 (These people honour me with their lips, but their hearts are far away. Their worship is a farce, for they replace God's commands with their own man-made teachings.' For you ignore God's specific laws and substitute your own traditions.") The church has developed a whole range of apologetics defending the way of doing church as biblical (which it is) without looking at other ways of doing it that would also be biblical. We have ignored our own history and attempted to cover our mistakes.

My Problem.

I’m still not ready. I’m not ready to give up on church as I know it. Even though I agree that it is not the only biblical model for fellowship, discipleship, ministry, evangelism, and worship. I’m just not ready and that’s a shame because if those five things are the important ones then I have to confess we are not doing any of them very well or in a way which is easily multiplied.

Someday I hope I can leave my cocoon of safe, “politely disconnected” (as Dave calls it) church and allow myself to go where He tells me, when He tells me, and how He tells me.

Home

Aurora
Originally uploaded by Kevin Saff.

Well I think a good time was had by all. Not sure how you sum up a weekend road trip ... but Kevin saw his first northern lights and captured some fantastic shots.

LT introduced us to his pasion for the house church movement
We also met his wife and family.

Need to find URLs for the wonderful guys we met this weekend.

We talked, we ate, we listened to music, we drove.

I'll be posting pics soon.

- Peace

Heading Out to Chitek Lake

Michael J. Fox
Originally uploaded by Jordon.

Well must get some sleep so I can drive Kevin and Mike to Chitek Lake and see LT. Be back Monday.

Picture of Mike by Jordon Cooper.

- Peace

Community and the Story

Let me give you a new command: Love one another. In the same way I loved you, you love one another. This is how everyone will recognize that you are my disciplesÂ?when they see the love you have for each other.

Jesus as quoted in John 13:34-35

That's the core verse for the call to live in community, the core of why we can't do this on our own as individuals. To understand it fully you need the rest of the Gospel stories, we need to know how Jesus loved thediscipless so we can follow his example. We don't need to look far for a start.

John 13 is where Jesus is found washing his disciples' feet just before telling them that he will be going away and gives them his new command. The next thing that happens is this exchange.

Simon Peter asked, "Master, just where are you going?"

Jesus answered, "You can't now follow me where I'm going. You will follow later."

"Master," said Peter, "why can't I follow now? I'll lay down my life for you!"

"Really? You'll lay down your life for me? The truth is that before the rooster crows, you'll deny me three times."

Mattheww 26 recordes the same prediction, but precedess it with the famed last supper.

Taken together John 13 andMattheww 26 show Jesus washing his discipless feet, especiallyPeter's, and brining them into communion knowing that Peter would deny him three times by morning.

Love one another. In the same way I loved you, you love one another. This isn't easy, cause the Church is still made up of Peters like me who will deny even knowing you by morning. Yet knowing that we're called tod love and serve one another as Christ has loved us.

- Peace

Not User Friendly

I've seen people come to a complete stop at this sign on the Glenmore Reservoir pathway. I know a couple who had an argument about what it meant. While it makes logical sense it's not intuitive. Do they ever test these things with people before puting up the sign? Green Circles telling people what path to take would be much clearer.

- Peace

Barnyard: a review

Somewhere in the multiverse there is a dimension between fisher price world and the Far Side; a world where cows have opposable thumbs and two genders: cow and man cow. Bull is an distant cousin of some form. In this world is a Barnyard where a Lion King / Batman story arc takes place - cause it's a story that gets played out in every world. Barnyeard is laugh out loud funny in places, there's some brilliant product placement, many sight gags, a pun or two and a couple of politicaly incorect comments. It's a good set of gags and animation wraped around a well worn story. The kids at the preview enjoyed it and I wasn't the only adult laughing. It was more fun than Super Man Returns and about as deeply spiritual.

And yes I got two free tickets to see this movie.

- Peace

Pelicans at the Weir