Author: Ron Baker

So, our boarder who came for a few weeks and will have been here two months, found a house!  A private sale, close to work and school.  They (his wife Annette and their three children) will move down the end of December.  The new year will see them enjoying the delights of Kindersley!

For the last few months John has been checking our realty listings as often as possible.  He has explored local hamlets and villages.  His car can find roads that others haven’t seen for a while.

These listings have been complemented by private listings that are kept in the heads of friends, colleagues, and anyone else who might be helpful.  In the end the network paid off!

Now, what if our lives were made up of listings?  Lists of things to do, places to go, people to see.

Guess what, I am affected by lists.  I’ve yet to be persuaded that we are “list”less people. 

The real matter, then, is — what lists are we going to follow? 

I tend to think that we need to be listing to the right!

And for all you boat people — the ship is not going to sink!  If you can keep you life on an even keel, your list will be just right!

Have you noticed?

Christmas cards are predominately being delivered by email!  We still have some cards arriving brimming with the update for the past year.  Usually we would have had two strings of cards already on our wall.

This year I think I count three cards.

As with any transition, there are certain traditions it is hard to leave behind.  I enjoyed the color of the Christmas card strings.  I appreciated the people who took time to write.  I never tired of the sagas that unfold in the yearly update.

Oh, the updates are still there, and people do take time to write.  But, for all my forays into the technological age (and I do love computers and gadgets), I still miss the tangible feel of card stock.  I miss the handwritten signatures and the little P.S.’s at the end of the photocopied letter. 

I still remember a remark made when I was taking my Master of Library Science.  “Paper will never be replaced.”  I’m not so sure that is true, but I understand the sentiment.  I still want to hold those paper packages.  I haven’t yet figured out how to hold onto bits and bytes of digital input!!

I preached a sermon this morning.  Like I do every Sunday (except when I don’t!). 

The sermon today was on peace.  I talked a bit about peace brought by the world around us.  This peace includes racism (of the benevolent type where we separate warring factions); religion (let everyone develop their own approaches to God); rationalism (the world around us is a closed system, just figure it out and make peace with it); and righteousness (tip the scales of good and bad hoping that enough good is good enough).

On the other hand, Jesus provides peace.  All Christians are brothers and sisters together with Jesus — we have an obligation to work together.  There is one way to God — Jesus is the Lord of all.  The world contains mystery because we are not God — we can have the mind of Christ to help us know God.  One wrong thing is a conviction of evil — but Jesus provides forgiveness of sins.

When we live in the ambiance of either system, we begin to develop actions and activities that reflect that system.  A worldly system will lack trust and a sense of truth, a lack of mystery and people who seek to do good only for the sake of overcoming what they do wrong.

A Christian system works from trust, is based in certainty, invites God and his activities into our daily lives and does good because we love others.

Quite a contrast that needs further development. 

20 years ago I was researching archives for a book some professors were writing.  I just saw a footnote for the book in a recent article.  I guess someone is still reading books published in the 1980’s (tangent — who reads books now that the internet is here?  Well, I do, but there is a great share of my reading that is done on the Net — a point a computer friend of mine made a decade ago — libraries will soon become “bookless.”)

The book (getting back to where I started) was called Birth of a Vision.  The theme was the life and thought of Albert Benjamin Simpson.

Simpson was the founder of a society called the “Christian and Missionary Alliance”, so named in 1893 after a decade of existence as two separate societies.  The society has moved on to become an international family of churches.  The largest national group of churches is actually said to be in Vietnam.

Where did this man start?  Believe it or not (and Ripley would love this), he was born in Prince Edward Island in Canada.  I understand his father was in the ship building business.  When there was a depression in that business shortly after Albert was born, the family moved to outside of Chatham, Ontario.  His father was said to be a poor farmer.  At the same time he took seriously his responsibility to lead his family in spiritual matters.  Albert knew Scripture and the Westminster Cathecism.

Why mention this?  First, I am a strong Canadian and alway willing to celebrate our native sons!  Second, there is a resurgence of Reformed thinking in response to what is often called the Emerging Church.

I think the North American church would be well served to examine Simpson’s life.  You will find that he echoes the stability of theology brought about by his upbringing.  At the same time, he was aware of the immigrant population, social stirrings, and the emerging life of the country.

A challenge for some of you if you have time!!