Amazing Video

This is an amazing video from the folks at Preaching Today! A Blessed Christmas to one and all.

Norwegian Lefse

Last night my wife and I made our annual Norwegian lefse (pictured above). It is a flat bread made mainly of potatoes and flour. We like to eat it at Christmas time, and for me it brings back very pleasant memories of my childhood years when we used to celebrate Christmas with my Norwegian grandparents and eat all of the traditional dishes. There are several different types of lefse, here is our recipe.

5 cups of mashed and riced potatoes (cool them)

1/3 cup of cooking oil

1 tbsp of salt

2 1/4 cups of flour (we use 1 cup of whole wheat flour and 1 1/4 cup of white flour)

Lefse is eaten in several different ways. We like to eat ours with: cinnamon and sugar (can use either white or brown), various flavours of jams or jellies, and I personally like it with peanut butter too!

God bless you this God jul as you celebrate the birth of Jesus and feast on lefse or whatever happens to  be your traditional Christmas fare!

Latest Scribble-Digital Art

 I've been having fun working with Microsoft Paint, here's a couple examples.

The Other Iranian Revolution

In 'godless' eastern Germany, Iranian refugees surprise pastors with their interest in Christianity.

God must have been laughing up his sleeve," muses Jobst Schöne. The retired bishop of the Independent Lutheran Church in Germany is applying a German paraphrase of Psalm 2:4 to the baptism of seven former Muslims from Iran. Early Easter morning, the seven were baptized in the Berlin parish where Schöne serves as associate pastor. The baptisms were an emblem of something bigger—a nationwide surge of such conversions in several denominations and a spate of reports of Muslims seeing Jesus in their dreams. But Martin Luther's Bible translation, now nearly 500 years old, also played an important role in their story.

The group baptism happened at an unsettling time for European Christians. During Lent, radical Muslims handed out large numbers of Qur'ans on street corners and announced plans to distribute 25 million German-language copies of their holy book in order to win Germans to their faith. But on the night before Easter, some 150 worshipers filed silently into St. Mary's Church in the Zehlendorf district of Berlin to witness conversions in the opposite direction.

Until midnight, the sanctuary was dark. Then Gottfried Martens, senior pastor, chanted from the altar: "Glory to God in the highest." All at once the lights went on, the organ roared, and the faithful broke jubilantly into song: "We praise you, we bless you, we worship you." Like Christians everywhere, they celebrated the Resurrection of their Lord.

For the six young men and one woman in the front pew, the moment had additional significance: They were placing their lives in danger in exchange for salvation. Under Islamic law, apostasy is a capital crime, a fact brought home to the German public by press reports about Iranian pastor Youcef Nadarkhani, an ex-Muslim, who was sentenced to death in Tehran. Some of the converts at St. Mary's were themselves persecuted before fleeing to Germany, now home to the largest Iranian community in Western Europe, numbering 150,000.

"These refugees are taking unimaginable risks to live their Christian faith," says Martens, who ministers to one of Germany's most dynamic parishes, which has grown from 200 to over 900 members in 20 years. He views the conversion of a growing number of Iranians in Germany as evidence of God's sense of irony. "Imagine! Of all places, God chooses eastern Germany, one of the world's most godless regions, as the stage for a spiritual awakening among Persians," Martens exclaims. According to a recent University of Chicago study, only 13 percent of all residents of the formerly Communist part of Germany attest belief in God. Read the whole article here.

What is the point of the Church?

I like the following quote by Anglican bishop, Nick Baines, when he was asked about the point of the Church. “The job of the church is to create the space in which people can find that they have been found by God.” 

 

Happy Father's Day/Eric Clapton's "My Father's Eyes"

Happy Father's Day to all you dads. I like this Eric Clapton song "My Father's Eyes." It's a soul-filled, heart-warming piece. Here's the lyrics and video.



My Father's Eyes

Sailing down behind the sun,
Waiting for my prince to come.
Praying for the healing rain
To restore my soul again.

Just a toerag on the run.
How did I get here?
What have I done?
When will all my hopes arise?
How will I know him?
When I look in my father's eyes.
My father's eyes.
When I look in my father's eyes.
My father's eyes.

Then the light begins to shine
And I hear those ancient lullabies.
And as I watch this seedling grow,
Feel my heart start to overflow.

Where do I find the words to say?
How do I teach him?
What do we play?
Bit by bit, I've realized
That's when I need them,
That's when I need my father's eyes.
My father's eyes.
That's when I need my father's eyes.
My father's eyes.

Then the jagged edge appears
Through the distant clouds of tears.
I'm like a bridge that was washed away;
My foundations were made of clay.

As my soul slides down to die.
How could I lose him?
What did I try?
Bit by bit, I've realized
That he was here with me;
I looked into my father's eyes.
My father's eyes.
I looked into my father's eyes.
My father's eyes.

My father's eyes.
My father's eyes.
I looked into my father's eyes.
My father's eyes.

Bruce Cockburn-Pacing the Cage tonight on Vision TV

“If I try to understand what it means to be a Christian, I look at the two instructions that were given in the Bible that are paramount, and those are to love God with all your heart and mind, and to love your neighbour as yourself. That’s it.” -Bruce Cockburn

Tonight I watched a Vision TV documentary on Canadian singer-songwriter Bruce Cockburn, called Pacing the Cage, which is the title of one of his songs on his The Charity of Night album. I was rather disappointed with the documentary for at least a couple of reasons. i) The documentary was annoyingly interrupted by way too many commercials and that broke the flow of thought and conversation. ii) There were too many fragmented sound bites, without a lengthy, in depth conversation, which I would have appreciated, and I’m sure Bruce is capable of. On the upside, I was amazed at the high quality of Bruce’s live concerts—he still has the gift and after more than 40 years, he's sharing it with the world! Thank God for that! For those who missed it, you can check this link out over at Vision TV.



10 Comments You’re Least Likely to Hear at Church

1. Hey! It’s my turn to sit in the front pew.

2. I was so enthralled, I never noticed your sermon went 25 minutes overtime.

3. Personally I find witnessing more enjoyable than golf.

4. I decided to give our church the $500 a month I used to send to TV evangelists.

5. I volunteer to be the permanent teacher for the junior high Sunday School class.

6. Forget the denominational minimum salary; let’s pay our pastor so [s]he can live like we do.

7. I love it when we sing hymns I’ve never heard before!

8. Since we’re all here, let’s start the service early.

9. Pastor, we’d like to send you to this Bible seminar in the Bahamas.

10. Nothing inspires me and strengthens my commitment like our annual stewardship campaign! [From: Preaching Now Newsletter].



Holocaust Remembrance Day 2012

“Hate is the projection of our fears onto others, and it destroys the hated along with those he hates. So let’s fight hatred together for the sake of our shared humanity. We can’t change the past, but by remembering it, we might just change the future.” So writes Chief Rabbi Sacks in his “Thought for the Day” piece, which you can read here.

Rabbi Dr Raymond Apple, has written an insightful and challenging essay concerning the Holocaust, titled: “Can we forgive & forget?” which you can read here.

Digital Scribble

                                                 Colourscape, April 9, 2012 GW-H

Holy Week Music

J.S. Bach's St. Matthew Passion remains my favourite work to listen to, meditate on, and pray with during Holy Week. 

Mark 8:34, 2nd Sunday in Lent, Yr B

Book Review



Mr. Jones, Meet The Master

Peter Marshall, New York, London & Glasgow: Fleming H. Revell Co., 192 pages, Hardcover

A review by Rev. Garth Wehrfritz-Hanson

Sometimes it is edifying for us preachers to read, watch or listen to the pulpit giants of the past. One such preacher was the Scottish born Peter Marshall, who immigrated to the United States and went on to become the pastor of New York Avenue Presbyterian Church in Washington, D.C., and chaplain of the U.S. Senate from 1947-1948.

   Popular among his parishioners, who were comprised of folks from every walk of life, as well as respected by many of his contemporary colleagues and experts in the field of homiletics—Dr. Marshall is ranked as one of the top twenty preachers of the twentieth century.

   This volume consists of a biographical introduction by his wife, Catherine Marshall; a collection of twelve of Dr. Marshall’s sermons preached at New York Avenue Presbyterian Church; and prayers that were offered in the U.S. Senate. The sermons are produced in the same format as the original manuscripts—which he preached from in the pulpit. Often, for emphasis, and easy viewing, portions of the sermons are written in a series of successive indented lines like this in his first sermon, “Disciples in Clay,” speaking of Peter: “Blustering

                                   blundering

                                       clumsy

                                           impulsive

he does not strike us as material for the ministry.” (p. 36) This format, in its written form, also gives the reader an impression of Dr. Marshall’s poetic inclinations.  

   As for the content of these sermons, the reader soon learns that Dr. Marshall was a master of rhetoric, highly proficient in the English language, he had the gift of witty turns of phrase, that at times could be: poetic, idealistic, earthy, folksy, practical, insightful, and inspirational. To tease your curiosity, here are a couple of my favourite examples:

   In his sermon, “The Saint of the Rank and File,” waxing eloquently about the disciple Andrew: “You see, it is the Andrews after all who carry on the work of the nation and of the church. For after all the five-talent men and women have flashed like meteors through the skies leaving behind a trail of glory after their great gifts for organization after all their visions and their plans they depend upon Andrew to do the job.” (pp. 59-60)

   In his sermon “The Grave in the Garden,” here is his arresting description of a contemporary scientist: “And you feel quite funny—almost ridiculous—for you have your microscope in your hand your measuring tape your litmus paper your biology textbook your test tube and your college diploma. In the half-shadow in the womb of time your microscope glitters like a diamond. Your tape measure gleams like a line of gold. Your litmus paper is a purple ribbon from a royal standard. Your test tube, a sliver bugle to sound a note of triumph, And the noise and confusion of unbelief has died away.” (pp. 113-114)

   The sermons, by today’s standards, are lengthy—most of them are over ten pages. The language employed by this pulpit giant is somewhat dated—reflecting the U.S. during the first half of the twentieth century. One can argue with the biblical exegesis and theology of these sermons. However, ultimately Dr. Marshall’s sermons and prayers are classics in the sense that they capture the reader’s imagination as they invite, instruct and inspire him or her to go deeper into the living encounter with God and neighbour. For that, I am most grateful!     

  

5 Epiphany Wordle

January 15 is the birthday of Martin Luther King Jr

Tomorrow, January 15, is the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King's birthday. I rather like this tribute done by the Irish band, U2.