050226 Abraham Unknown

Adventure into the Unknown

Main point: He leads from the known to the unknown, so that he can make our name great (character) so that we will be a blessing to others.

Several years I ago with a couple of friends, I did something that I wanted to do for a long time. I went skydiving.

We went up in this rickety twin engine plane, and some slides the door open, the wind comes blows into the little plane and when it’s your turn, it’s really quite the rush to free fall, then at the right time you pull open your parachute, it’s huge relief when it opens and you know you’re live to see tomorrow.

We love adventure--whether it’s adventure through sky-diving or snowboarding or traveling or the adventure of a relationship or pursuing or art…

But, the greatest adventure we can experience is the adventure that begins when we step out in response to God’s call upon our lives.

This morning we’re going to look at the nature of that adventure through the life of Abraham…

If you Bibles to Genesis 12… (first book in the Bible).

Abraham’s adventure begins with a call from God.

In Genesis 12 we read 1 The LORD had said to Abram, "Leave your country, your people and your father's household (in Ur, Southern Iraq) and go to the land I will show you.
2 "I will make you into a great nation
and I will bless you;
I will make your name great,
and you will be a blessing.
3 I will bless those who bless you,
and whoever curses you I will curse;
and all peoples on earth
will be blessed through you."
4 So Abram left, as the LORD had told him; and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he set out from Haran…
Our adventure or our journey with God doesn’t begin with simply a personal resolution become a better person, it doesn’t begin with simply a personal resolution to improve by exercising more, reading more and a little splash of spirituality. Our journey with God begins as we respond to call from God…

Abraham begins his journey of faith at age 75—ten years after modern retirement. (It’s never too late (or too early) to begin a journey with God.)

God says to Abraham I will make your name great. Part of the call of God is a call to greatness.

In the preceding chapter of Genesis we see how people were seeking to build this great tower, The Tower of Babel, in order to “make a name for themselves.” But their project failed miserably. When we try to make a name for ourselves we will ultimately lose our name…

Abraham did not have any ambitions to make a “great name” for himself. But God says to Abraham, I will make a name for you… When you think of Abraham, we think of a famous name. We think perhaps of the man who was a founding father of the Jews, the Christians and the Muslims. Or perhaps, we think about the fact God, himself, doesn’t being publicly associated with Abraham. God calls himself the “God of Abraham and Isaac.”

In our culture when we think of having great name, we think of a name that’s well known or famous… Paul Martin or Wayne Gretzky or Oprah but in this ancient near eastern culture, name was more than simply a label, but a revelation of character.

And God calls us to have a great name--not necessarily a famous name—but he desires us to have a truly great character… so that we would be a blessing to others… God wants to bless us so with a great character so that we will be blessing to others…

God calls us and wants to make our name great… but how does he call us and how does he make our or character name great?

Abraham’s call begins with a call to leave… When God calls us and when God wants to make our name or character great his call always begins with a call to leave something.…

As teenager what was most important to me was have fun and being part of the cool and popular crowd.

So I played on cool sports team: football and basketball (though my body was better suited for badminton!) I drank alcohol and using drugs, before I turned 16 I was into temporarily borrowing people’s cars without telling them—joy riding.
My parents, understandably, grew concerned about me. My dad decided to expose me to Christianity. He took me to seminar… one of the final days of the seminar the speaker asked, "If you were to die tonight, would you know for sure that you would go to heaven?" I hung my head, thinking that although I had been to church all of my life, I had turned my back on God. The speaker went on to explain that because Christ died and rose again, we could have a new start, we could be forgiven. But even as in the moment as I was thinking about the possibility of giving myself to God, I thought to myself, I’m going to lose something, perhaps some of the crazy fun of my life, perhaps popular friends… but I also knew I would beginning a new and greater adventure with God.
Every call involves some of call to leave. What did Abraham and Sarah leave?
Abraham and Sarah leave their familiar surroundings. Abraham and Sarah had lived in their community of Ur, a leading metropolitan city for the time (map). Abraham had lived in this city for 75 years (Sarah 65). They knew the city. They knew the roads. They new the markets They had supportive families. They had a home decorated as they wanted it.
(crmfh)

Yet God called them out of this familiar place to the unfamiliar… In. 12 vs. 1 he says leave or as the old King James get thee out and go to a place a I will show you. He doesn’t Fed Ex Abraham and Atlas and this is where I going to send you. It’s about 1000 kilometers and it will take you about 14 hours by car. He says to to the place I will show you.

And as was true for Abraham, God will call us from known to unknown, from the secure to the insecure…God says, along unfamiliar paths, I will lead you…

God does this so we can learn to trust him and so God can make our name (i.e. our character) great.

When I finished undergrad… I went to Tokyo because I had an informal offer to work for a corporate conglomerate… But I had no place to stay… The first Sunday in Tokyo I was asked to share briefly at a church in Tokyo to a group of young adults. The man who was supposed to be my interpreter was too tired too busy so on the spot he asked someone else to translate, I looked the translator, I thought this guy doesn’t speak Japanese…

He did and afterwards we out for coffee with Sakiko—this first time I ever met Sakiko… and she suggested that he and I live together, I ending serving at his small home church as a volunteer preacher, getting some of my first back to back preaching experience…

As I look back at Tokyo and other places where God has led I see how he has provided…
Sakiko, my wife who was born and raised in Japan, had a been magazine editor and a book publisher in Japan. Part of “her” call to marry me, involved her leaving her country of Japan, which, of course, meant leaving her family, her church, her job, and her language, and her culture….
She was being called to leave Japan for a land unfamiliar and unknown to her…
In response to God’s voice it may mean leaving a place of security, it may involve an actual physical, geographic place we leave or may be about leaving a person or a group of people or a position, a job.
Sometimes the leaving of one place for another is very clear and concrete leaving Tokyo for Vancouver—clear and concrete.

Other times our “leaving” one is more of a metaphor or symbol. E.g, the journey into the unknown, may be a journey inside our souls.

When Abraham left his place of safety Ur… he faced temptations he had never experienced before.

His wife Sarah 65 was attractive (pre-botox)… he sensed powerful men would want to take her sexually and kill him so they could add Sarah to their harem (if they discovered he was her husband).

So when he was in the presence of a certain powerful men, he told Sarah to lie and say she was his sister (a technical half-truth, but a half truth with the intent to deceive which is a lie).

Abraham succumbs to both the temptation to lie and the Abraham’s and to put his on wife body on the line on the, so he could save his own skin… line

Sometimes when leave the places of safety and security… we face pressures temptations that reveal dark-side of our character, part of ourselves that will not willfully trust God…

Perhaps the journey into the unknown that God is calling us to is a journey to explore our darkside and deal with that stuff there…. Perhaps with a help of a psychologist, counselor or friend…so we can experience healing and in some case perhaps break the cycle of brokenness that gets passed on from generation to generation…

There is a man in his early 50’ whose come from a Chinese culture where it’s considered a stigma to counsellor or therapist. But, in the last couple of years person has decided to hire a counselor to explore issues from his childhood that still affect him today… Why? He says so that in the second half of his life he can be used as more effective instrument of God.

It takes courage to leave the safety of ignorance or denial about ourselves, and to confront the unknown places inside us.

He is seeking to make a journey to the unknown regions of his soul…

Moving from the known to the unknown, may involve leaving something concrete a place, a people, a position it may involve an inward journey… The unknown may even involving feeling like we’re not moving, like we’re stuck… and waiting.

Part of the journey with God involves waiting on a promise from God.

God promised that Abraham would have a child, the name Abram means father, his name will later change to Abraham, which means father of many. Abram means daddy, Abraham Big Daddy. God has promised Abram a child.

and if you read Genesis quickly because it doesn’t take long to read a 8 pages (10 chapters), it may seem like God fulfilled his promise to Abraham—quickly.

But do you long it took Abraham to receive the promise of a son?

He received the promise that he would have a child when he was 75 years old.

He waited 25 years. Abraham was 100 and his wife was 90 when they had their child.

The second promise that God gave Abraham and Sarah was the promise that God would give land of Canaan to his family. That promise was never fulfilled in Abraham’s lifetime.

Abraham likely assumed that the promise that his family would receive the promised land in his and Sarah’s lifetime (as we would have assumed if we were in his shoes), but God’s promise of Abraham receiving the land isn’t fulfilled for Abraham in his lifetime…

Part of our journey with God involves waiting for a promise to be fulfilled or a dream to come to pass. Everyone one of us has unfulfilled dreams. Everyone has something we’re longing for…

Being in a place of waiting can be frustrating. That feeling that we’re not moving ahead!

Sometimes God wants to be involved, as someone has said in, “Waiiit training”…

But waiting is part of God’s strategy to make our name, i.e. our character great.

WAITING… WAITING…. WAITING For someone… or something…

John Ortberg… says what God does in us while we’re waiting for is just as important as what we’re waiting for… 2x.

So we develop our trust in him.

Abraham is considered a man of great faith. He made it into the Hall of Faith, but he had his down turns, his failures… he was very human… but he kept him going, as Darrell Johnson has said sometimes, up some times down, but always forward. What kept him going?

In Hebrews 11 we read that Abraham was looking forward to the city whose architect and builder was God.

He kept his eyes on the unseen promises of God.

Where do we get that faith?

The book of Hebrews tells us that faith comes by hearing and hearing the word of God.

Faith comes as we receive and nurture the words that God gives in Scripture or the words that we sense God has given us directly.

It’s was focus on the call and the word of God that we can keep going.

George MacDonald wrote a book called the Princess and the Goblin. In this book there is a little princess who is 8 years old who has a fairy grandmother, who at one point says to the little princess, you’re in a great deal of danger and the goblins are coming to get you. When the goblins come to get you, I want you to come find me. The little princess says, it is a little hard to find you, grandmother. Here is what I want you to do, says the grandmother, she brings out a ball of thread, gives the Princess a ring and puts the ring on the princesses finger and attaches the thread to the ring and she puts the other end of the thread to her own, i.e. the grandmother’s cabinet, and the fairy grandmother says, when you are in real trouble, take off your ring and put it under pillow and you will be able to feel the thread. Nobody else will able to feel it, but follow the thread to me, the thread may take you directions that seem dangerous and wrong, but whatever you do follow the thread. If you leave the thread you will be lost. If you hold onto the thread, you will be lead to me, I will be at the other end. One time princess was in danger, she puts the ring under her pillow felt the thread but instead of leading her to grandmother, the thread led her out the door, up the mountain to the Goblin’s den, I don’t get this said, this must be some mistake, and she tried to go back and the thread disappeared. She follows the thread and ends up meeting the hero Curdie. She did not even know he was there in the den and was in danger. How did you find me? He asks. I followed the thread. But, he can’t see the thread. How do we get out of here? She says I have to follow the thread. When she tried to go a certain way to escape, he said you cannot get out that way, I tried it and could not escape, but she, she says I have to follow the thread, even when it looks stupid or that we’ll die, I have to follow my thread and then she breaks down and cries, he says alright, alright, already and they follow the thread leads them to her grandmother.

We are the follow the string… the string for us are the words of God in Scripture, the words he has given us to follow him.

Those words and that call will lead us to the unfamiliar, unknown places… sometimes into places of vulnerability, danger, loss and but we’ll meet God in those places…
And the string of God word and call will ultimately lead us to himself.

As it was for Abraham, our great reward and our shield is God himself.

Dietrich Bonhoffer said in the Cost of Discipleship, following this call of Christ is costly grace… costly because it will cost our lives, but it is grace because that it will give us our only true life… 2x

Jesus said, if trust him enough to allow ourselves to lose our live in response to his invitation to follow him, then, we would find them.
-----------------------

Prayer…
Is God leasing to unknown place, outer or inner, wait…

Trust… him enough to follow… Jesus let the security of heaven to come for us…

Pray: like Abraham and Sarah, to help us follow you into the unfamiliar places and through place lead us to you. Amen

050219 Stewardship Friendship

When Bob Kuhn a lawyer that I am acquainted with here in the greater Vancouver area was about to turn 40 he wrote, “When I get to the rocking chair of old age, I don’t want to have to look back in despair, realizing that I have wandered aimlessly over a faceless terrain”

When Bob was 39 years old, he reflected deeply on his life purpose…

Aristotle defined virtue as something fulfilling it’s purpose. A knife’s purpose is to cut and so a knife is virtuous so far as it cuts.

What is the purpose of a human being?

Our purpose is to relate God and people.

(The Scriptures tell us that we are made in the image of a God who is relational. God is relational. Darrell Johnson has said at the center of the universe is a relationship: One God: the Father relating to the Son and the Spirit.)

When we relate to people, we fulfill a central part of our design as human being made in the image of God.

This morning as we come to the last message in our stewardship series, we are going to look at what it means to be a steward of our relationships and I want to focus on three relationships (I did a whole series on relationships and marriage about a year ago, if you think that would helpful the tapes and cds I believe are available at back).

When I was at end of my freshman year in college, I was invited to Amsterdam to attend a conference for young ministry leaders hosted by Billy Graham. One of the messages I remember well was given by a Sri Lankan leader named Ajith Fernando.

I don’t remember all the details of this message, but his theme was that every one of us needs 3 kind of relationships, we need a Paul (i.e. we need a mentor figure in our lives, Paul was a key mentor and teacher in the New Testament), we need Barnabas (i.e. we need a peer in our life who is an encourager) and we need a Timothy someone younger that we are investing in.

We all need a Paul figure in our lives. We all need someone we are learning from.

Paul in 1 Corinthians 4: 15 says


15There are a lot of people around who can't wait to tell you what you've done wrong, but there aren't many fathers willing to take the time and effort to help you grow up. It was as Jesus helped me proclaim God's Message to you that I became your father.

We need spiritual a father or mother to help us grow up.

Tuesdays with Morrie is the best selling book of a young man re-connects a wiser man dying of Lou Gehrig’s disease. This older man teaches this younger man some of life greatest lessons, over 14 Tuesdays

I’ve benefited greatly from having mentor figures in my life--People like Presbyterian minister Leighton Ford. The first time I had significant interaction with Leighton Ford was when I was driving him across Massachusetts taking him to the home of one his board members.

It was quite late at night when I picked him up from Boston’s Logan airport and I remember saying to him as we were leaving the city and driving onto the West bound freeway, “You’re welcome to recline your chair and sleep if you want.” He said, I said, I don’t think I’ll sleep, but I will recline my chair and he tilted his seat back and turned and said why tell me your life story.

Across the years Leighton has been present to me to listen to my story and then at the right time to give wise feedback.

Ideally, a mentor will listen to your life and give you perspective.

I have friend named Chris Woodhull who’s poet and a politician. Chris is blind in one eye. He says that community or a friend is like having a second eye, they gives you depth perception. A mentor or a friend can be that second eye, giving us depth perception.

A mentor also ideally will challenge you. My friend Scott Gibson is a former seminary professor. He’s an encourager, but he’s also challenges and questions me. He regularly asks are you facing temptations? Are you facing sexual temptations? If I haven’t called in a long time he’ll ask. “Are you hide something?” I’m like… “No I’ve been real busy.” Honest. He holds me accountable. I don’t always like that but I need that.

I have people that I learn from here in our city.

The key in a mentoring relationship is hunger to learn and become…

Recently a woman named Mari Matsunaga, a Japanese businesswoman, was named Asian woman of the year. She wrote a book called the Heart of Work. In her book she says the chances of your finding a good mentor by chance is about as likely as your winning the lottery, but if you possess a heart that is hungry you learn you can find one.


Finding a mentor begins with a hunger to learn, grow, and to change.

When you find someone from whom you want to learn—some perhaps someone who is is older and wiser—you have will the ask the person if you can spend time with them.

Some has said that a mentoring relationship is a little bit like 2 jr. high students at a dance--both boy and girl standing against the wall want to dance, but are afraid to ask. If you want a mentor you have to ask.

Now the fact is that there are young people who’ve asked someibe to be their mentor and the potential mentor was unavailable, perhaps too busy.

Here are some alternatives if that’s the case:

See if you can help them.

I’ve know of a young woman who grew up in dysfunctional home who wanted to get exposure to a family that related to each other in a healthy way. She volunteered to do ironing for this family so she observe this family’s culture.

There are people who I’ve wanted to spend with whom I offered to drive places in order to connect with them. They need to get somewhere, I can drive and we connect and they don’t lose time.

Books can serve as mentors to us: some of you know Eugene Peterson, I’ve met him, but I don’t know him. But I’ve read his books, he’s been a mentor through his writing. As have so many others: Parker Palmer.

One other thing I want to say about mentors is that sometimes the person who we think at first will be a good mentor is not a good mentor and sometimes a person who we don’t think of as a good mentor may be a great mentor.

Let me explain, a number of people want to have mentor who is either considered very successful or famous. I want to be apprentice to Donald Trump or Martha Stewart. I want to be able to say Billy Graham and Pope John Paul II is my mentors.

The fact is often famous people are NOT the best mentors. They are usually too busy. Some famous people possess public remarkable gifts, but some times they are not good one on one. Studies that often women over 65 make the best mentors. According to my friend Elizabeth Archer Klien older African American women make good mentors. I say to this say to that sometimes good mentors are not the people we immediately would think of as being good mentors. African woman over 65 typically don’t have higher educational degrees nor have typically been a ceo, but they often wisdom from deep faith in God and life of suffering…

We need a Paul, ideally, but we also need a Barnabas. Barnabas was a friend of Paul’s and an encourager, peer of Paul’s that you can read about in Acts. David had Jonathan. We read in 1 Samuel 18 David and Jonathan making a covenant with each other because they loved each other as friends.

We need a Barnabas, an encouraging peer. We need a Jonathan a friend who we can enter into a covenant relationship with.

In the early 1990’s I was in something called the Arrow Leadership program. And through Arrow I meet Hugo Venegas a pastor was born in Costa Rica. At the end of Arrow we talked in his room about staying friends. We decide to encourage each other across our lives to stay close to Christ, to grow in our character and leadership—to be faithful in the stewards of our lives.

We made a kind of covenant to be present for each until the end of our earthly lives.

(Vancouverite David Bentall the many benefits of his covenant friendship with Carson Pue and Bob Kuhn is excellent book The Company You Keep (listed in the progam).)

One of the benefits of having this of friendship covenant is that you feel a certain security in the relationship because the person you’ve promised to be present for each in thick and thin (kind of like in marriage).

Because of this security you can be open and transparent (and vice verse).

I remember some years ago, sharing with Hugo, that I was in a situation where I was asked to help a friend who was in a vulnerable situation… I sensed the appropriate emotions boundaries were being blurred and I was moving into a grey zone…

I remember Hugo saying, if you crash and burn, I’ll be here for you… but I’d rather you not crash and burn…

This ideally what a mentor or covenant friend says to you. I’ll be here for you no matter what, but I want the best for you and I will all in my power to help you choose the best… That’s a true friend.

A true friend isn’t someone who just I’ll be with you no matter what, but the person who also gently says, I want the best for you.

A friend is someone with you can be open and transparent…

James Houston has said “friendship is built on the mutual sharing of weakness.”


Mentoring is primarily a relationship of receiving, though you give, peer friends is more even giving and receiving, is really mutual.

According to Val Cole the cost of Nik and Va Show in the radio CFUN, Vancouver is filled what she calls relational skimmers. People don’t want to go deep, they want dip and come up and move on… Though she talking about dating the same can likely be said of so called friendships. A covenant friendships are the antithesis of skimming.

We need a Paul a mentor, we need a Barnabas or Jonathan, and we need Timothy a younger leader who we can invest in.

Paul invested in a younger leader named Timothy whom you read about in 1 and 2 Timothy. Paul says:

2And the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable men and women who will also be qualified to teach others.

I think particularly when we pass age 30 mark, we must think increasing investing in others.

My friend Hugo recently told me that there are a lot of in their 20’s and even 30 who want community, but have a very little capacity for relationships. I think he’s right.

I want to say gently and loving, but for those of us in our 20’s and 30’s, we (I’m 38) we need to grow up and grow into wholeness.

Part of what it means to be human is to become the kind of person who will bless others out of an overflow of who we are.

One of areas, where for years, I’ve felt I’ve need to grow is in the area of listening.

I remember as younger person being criticized for not listening well.

As a child, I didn’t pay attention in school. (People have asked me did you have ADD, I said don’t recall being described that way, but I maybe I wasn’t paying attention).

One summer in college, I was working as the summer coordinator for a student leadership development program. My boss was talking to me and part way through she started screaming at me saying, “You’re not listening to me; you’re trying to formulate a response….” People nervously turned their heads towards… Her response was over the top… but she was right. I need to work on that.

At times I’ve listening too much with the view to respond.

At other times, I’ve simply been too preoccupied to listen well.

Realizing this is a weakness, I’ve tried to work on it.

I’ve been serving as mentor for scholarship foundation. I recently had the opportunity to look and some anonymous student evaluations that come in for the faculty members. Several said, I was good listener.

That means a lot to me because it has been a weak area for me and I’ve been working on that one.

Are there areas you need to grow so that you will related better love others?

Maybe for some of us we need to simplify our lives and rest: some of us must simply our lives and rest well and so we can present to others.

Rest is such a foundational virtue. If we’re not rested well, we will not be present with people well (nor will be good stewards of our minds, our bodies, our finances… and all the things we’ve been talking about in this series). Gordon MacDonald says if you are available all the time, you’re available none of the time.
Maybe for some it’s inner work… to explore our past… or perhaps with a mentor or a Barnabas or perhaps with help with professional counselor.

There is a young adult in our community… who life experience illustrates all 3 levels of relationship. And I’ve asked Jacob Buurma to share with us (TESTIMONY)

Friendship takes time and energy and effort, but it is worth it. In Luke 16, Jesus gives the parable of a shrewd manager, it’s a difficult one to interpret (Biblical scholars are in disagreement as to what it means), but one thing is clear that when we bless others in this life people in the life, it will remembered by people the life to come and they will welcome us into our eternal dwelling place. Love and friendship seem to be remembered and carry over into the life to come.

Stephen Covey tells the story of a lecturer who had a jar and rocks. He asked the class how many of these rocks do you think I can put in this jar? People gave various answers. The lecturer put in the big rocks… and asked, “Is it full? People said no… He put in the little rocks… is it full now? A few said, yes… But then the lecturer poured in sand and asked is it full now? Most said, yes… The lecture says No… He pours in water… He asks, What’s the point? One eager student said, “we can cramp more in the gaps of our lives that we think.” The lecturer said NO the lesson is unless the big Rocks go into the jar first, you’ll never get the big rocks in the jar….

The point is not to fill as much into your life as possible, the point is that your important rocks go into the jar of your life first… and if they don’t won’t fit in…

The big rocks represent what is most important and so we put those rocks into our life first. And one of those big rocks is friendship (friendships with our mentors, peers, and those younger people we investing). It is fundamental to our life purpose and it is an investment of love, which according to Jesus, will last on into eternity.
050219 Stewardship Friendship

When Bob Kuhn a lawyer that I am acquainted with here in the greater Vancouver area was about to turn 40 he wrote, “When I get to the rocking chair of old age, I don’t want to have to look back in despair, realizing that I have wandered aimlessly over a faceless terrain”

When Bob was 39 years old, he reflected deeply on his life purpose…

Aristotle defined virtue as something fulfilling it’s purpose. A knife’s purpose is to cut and so a knife is virtuous so far as it cuts.

What is the purpose of a human being?

Our purpose is to relate God and people.

(The Scriptures tell us that we are made in the image of a God who is relational. God is relational. Darrell Johnson has said at the center of the universe is a relationship: One God: the Father relating to the Son and the Spirit.)

When we relate to people, we fulfill a central part of our design as human being made in the image of God.

This morning as we come to the last message in our stewardship series, we are going to look at what it means to be a steward of our relationships and I want to focus on three relationships (I did a whole series on relationships and marriage about a year ago, if you think that would helpful the tapes and cds I believe are available at back).

When I was at end of my freshman year in college, I was invited to Amsterdam to attend a conference for young ministry leaders hosted by Billy Graham. One of the messages I remember well was given by a Sri Lankan leader named Ajith Fernando.

I don’t remember all the details of this message, but his theme was that every one of us needs 3 kind of relationships, we need a Paul (i.e. we need a mentor figure in our lives, Paul was a key mentor and teacher in the New Testament), we need Barnabas (i.e. we need a peer in our life who is an encourager) and we need a Timothy someone younger that we are investing in.

We all need a Paul figure in our lives. We all need someone we are learning from.

Paul in 1 Corinthians 4: 15 says


15There are a lot of people around who can't wait to tell you what you've done wrong, but there aren't many fathers willing to take the time and effort to help you grow up. It was as Jesus helped me proclaim God's Message to you that I became your father.

We need spiritual a father or mother to help us grow up.

Tuesdays with Morrie is the best selling book of a young man re-connects a wiser man dying of Lou Gehrig’s disease. This older man teaches this younger man some of life greatest lessons, over 14 Tuesdays

I’ve benefited greatly from having mentor figures in my life--People like Presbyterian minister Leighton Ford. The first time I had significant interaction with Leighton Ford was when I was driving him across Massachusetts taking him to the home of one his board members.

It was quite late at night when I picked him up from Boston’s Logan airport and I remember saying to him as we were leaving the city and driving onto the West bound freeway, “You’re welcome to recline your chair and sleep if you want.” He said, I said, I don’t think I’ll sleep, but I will recline my chair and he tilted his seat back and turned and said why tell me your life story.

Across the years Leighton has been present to me to listen to my story and then at the right time to give wise feedback.

Ideally, a mentor will listen to your life and give you perspective.

I have friend named Chris Woodhull who’s poet and a politician. Chris is blind in one eye. He says that community or a friend is like having a second eye, they gives you depth perception. A mentor or a friend can be that second eye, giving us depth perception.

A mentor also ideally will challenge you. My friend Scott Gibson is a former seminary professor. He’s an encourager, but he’s also challenges and questions me. He regularly asks are you facing temptations? Are you facing sexual temptations? If I haven’t called in a long time he’ll ask. “Are you hide something?” I’m like… “No I’ve been real busy.” Honest. He holds me accountable. I don’t always like that but I need that.

I have people that I learn from here in our city.

The key in a mentoring relationship is hunger to learn and become…

Recently a woman named Mari Matsunaga, a Japanese businesswoman, was named Asian woman of the year. She wrote a book called the Heart of Work. In her book she says the chances of your finding a good mentor by chance is about as likely as your winning the lottery, but if you possess a heart that is hungry you learn you can find one.


Finding a mentor begins with a hunger to learn, grow, and to change.

When you find someone from whom you want to learn—some perhaps someone who is is older and wiser—you have will the ask the person if you can spend time with them.

Some has said that a mentoring relationship is a little bit like 2 jr. high students at a dance--both boy and girl standing against the wall want to dance, but are afraid to ask. If you want a mentor you have to ask.

Now the fact is that there are young people who’ve asked someibe to be their mentor and the potential mentor was unavailable, perhaps too busy.

Here are some alternatives if that’s the case:

See if you can help them.

I’ve know of a young woman who grew up in dysfunctional home who wanted to get exposure to a family that related to each other in a healthy way. She volunteered to do ironing for this family so she observe this family’s culture.

There are people who I’ve wanted to spend with whom I offered to drive places in order to connect with them. They need to get somewhere, I can drive and we connect and they don’t lose time.

Books can serve as mentors to us: some of you know Eugene Peterson, I’ve met him, but I don’t know him. But I’ve read his books, he’s been a mentor through his writing. As have so many others: Parker Palmer.

One other thing I want to say about mentors is that sometimes the person who we think at first will be a good mentor is not a good mentor and sometimes a person who we don’t think of as a good mentor may be a great mentor.

Let me explain, a number of people want to have mentor who is either considered very successful or famous. I want to be apprentice to Donald Trump or Martha Stewart. I want to be able to say Billy Graham and Pope John Paul II is my mentors.

The fact is often famous people are NOT the best mentors. They are usually too busy. Some famous people possess public remarkable gifts, but some times they are not good one on one. Studies that often women over 65 make the best mentors. According to my friend Elizabeth Archer Klien older African American women make good mentors. I say to this say to that sometimes good mentors are not the people we immediately would think of as being good mentors. African woman over 65 typically don’t have higher educational degrees nor have typically been a ceo, but they often wisdom from deep faith in God and life of suffering…

We need a Paul, ideally, but we also need a Barnabas. Barnabas was a friend of Paul’s and an encourager, peer of Paul’s that you can read about in Acts. David had Jonathan. We read in 1 Samuel 18 David and Jonathan making a covenant with each other because they loved each other as friends.

We need a Barnabas, an encouraging peer. We need a Jonathan a friend who we can enter into a covenant relationship with.

In the early 1990’s I was in something called the Arrow Leadership program. And through Arrow I meet Hugo Venegas a pastor was born in Costa Rica. At the end of Arrow we talked in his room about staying friends. We decide to encourage each other across our lives to stay close to Christ, to grow in our character and leadership—to be faithful in the stewards of our lives.

We made a kind of covenant to be present for each until the end of our earthly lives.

(Vancouverite David Bentall the many benefits of his covenant friendship with Carson Pue and Bob Kuhn is excellent book The Company You Keep (listed in the progam).)

One of the benefits of having this of friendship covenant is that you feel a certain security in the relationship because the person you’ve promised to be present for each in thick and thin (kind of like in marriage).

Because of this security you can be open and transparent (and vice verse).

I remember some years ago, sharing with Hugo, that I was in a situation where I was asked to help a friend who was in a vulnerable situation… I sensed the appropriate emotions boundaries were being blurred and I was moving into a grey zone…

I remember Hugo saying, if you crash and burn, I’ll be here for you… but I’d rather you not crash and burn…

This ideally what a mentor or covenant friend says to you. I’ll be here for you no matter what, but I want the best for you and I will all in my power to help you choose the best… That’s a true friend.

A true friend isn’t someone who just I’ll be with you no matter what, but the person who also gently says, I want the best for you.

A friend is someone with you can be open and transparent…

James Houston has said “friendship is built on the mutual sharing of weakness.”


Mentoring is primarily a relationship of receiving, though you give, peer friends is more even giving and receiving, is really mutual.

According to Val Cole the cost of Nik and Va Show in the radio CFUN, Vancouver is filled what she calls relational skimmers. People don’t want to go deep, they want dip and come up and move on… Though she talking about dating the same can likely be said of so called friendships. A covenant friendships are the antithesis of skimming.

We need a Paul a mentor, we need a Barnabas or Jonathan, and we need Timothy a younger leader who we can invest in.

Paul invested in a younger leader named Timothy whom you read about in 1 and 2 Timothy. Paul says:

2And the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable men and women who will also be qualified to teach others.

I think particularly when we pass age 30 mark, we must think increasing investing in others.

My friend Hugo recently told me that there are a lot of in their 20’s and even 30 who want community, but have a very little capacity for relationships. I think he’s right.

I want to say gently and loving, but for those of us in our 20’s and 30’s, we (I’m 38) we need to grow up and grow into wholeness.

Part of what it means to be human is to become the kind of person who will bless others out of an overflow of who we are.

One of areas, where for years, I’ve felt I’ve need to grow is in the area of listening.

I remember as younger person being criticized for not listening well.

As a child, I didn’t pay attention in school. (People have asked me did you have ADD, I said don’t recall being described that way, but I maybe I wasn’t paying attention).

One summer in college, I was working as the summer coordinator for a student leadership development program. My boss was talking to me and part way through she started screaming at me saying, “You’re not listening to me; you’re trying to formulate a response….” People nervously turned their heads towards… Her response was over the top… but she was right. I need to work on that.

At times I’ve listening too much with the view to respond.

At other times, I’ve simply been too preoccupied to listen well.

Realizing this is a weakness, I’ve tried to work on it.

I’ve been serving as mentor for scholarship foundation. I recently had the opportunity to look and some anonymous student evaluations that come in for the faculty members. Several said, I was good listener.

That means a lot to me because it has been a weak area for me and I’ve been working on that one.

Are there areas you need to grow so that you will related better love others?

Maybe for some of us we need to simplify our lives and rest: some of us must simply our lives and rest well and so we can present to others.

Rest is such a foundational virtue. If we’re not rested well, we will not be present with people well (nor will be good stewards of our minds, our bodies, our finances… and all the things we’ve been talking about in this series). Gordon MacDonald says if you are available all the time, you’re available none of the time.
Maybe for some it’s inner work… to explore our past… or perhaps with a mentor or a Barnabas or perhaps with help with professional counselor.

There is a young adult in our community… who life experience illustrates all 3 levels of relationship. And I’ve asked Jacob Buurma to share with us (TESTIMONY)

Friendship takes time and energy and effort, but it is worth it. In Luke 16, Jesus gives the parable of a shrewd manager, it’s a difficult one to interpret (Biblical scholars are in disagreement as to what it means), but one thing is clear that when we bless others in this life people in the life, it will remembered by people the life to come and they will welcome us into our eternal dwelling place. Love and friendship seem to be remembered and carry over into the life to come.

Stephen Covey tells the story of a lecturer who had a jar and rocks. He asked the class how many of these rocks do you think I can put in this jar? People gave various answers. The lecturer put in the big rocks… and asked, “Is it full? People said no… He put in the little rocks… is it full now? A few said, yes… But then the lecturer poured in sand and asked is it full now? Most said, yes… The lecture says No… He pours in water… He asks, What’s the point? One eager student said, “we can cramp more in the gaps of our lives that we think.” The lecturer said NO the lesson is unless the big Rocks go into the jar first, you’ll never get the big rocks in the jar….

The point is not to fill as much into your life as possible, the point is that your important rocks go into the jar of your life first… and if they don’t won’t fit in…

The big rocks represent what is most important and so we put those rocks into our life first. And one of those big rocks is friendship (friendships with our mentors, peers, and those younger people we investing). It is fundamental to our life purpose and it is an investment of love, which according to Jesus, will last on into eternity.
050219 Stewardship Friendship

When Bob Kuhn a lawyer that I am acquainted with here in the greater Vancouver area was about to turn 40 he wrote, “When I get to the rocking chair of old age, I don’t want to have to look back in despair, realizing that I have wandered aimlessly over a faceless terrain”

When Bob was 39 years old, he reflected deeply on his life purpose…

Aristotle defined virtue as something fulfilling it’s purpose. A knife’s purpose is to cut and so a knife is virtuous so far as it cuts.

What is the purpose of a human being?

Our purpose is to relate God and people.

(The Scriptures tell us that we are made in the image of a God who is relational. God is relational. Darrell Johnson has said at the center of the universe is a relationship: One God: the Father relating to the Son and the Spirit.)

When we relate to people, we fulfill a central part of our design as human being made in the image of God.

This morning as we come to the last message in our stewardship series, we are going to look at what it means to be a steward of our relationships and I want to focus on three relationships (I did a whole series on relationships and marriage about a year ago, if you think that would helpful the tapes and cds I believe are available at back).

When I was at end of my freshman year in college, I was invited to Amsterdam to attend a conference for young ministry leaders hosted by Billy Graham. One of the messages I remember well was given by a Sri Lankan leader named Ajith Fernando.

I don’t remember all the details of this message, but his theme was that every one of us needs 3 kind of relationships, we need a Paul (i.e. we need a mentor figure in our lives, Paul was a key mentor and teacher in the New Testament), we need Barnabas (i.e. we need a peer in our life who is an encourager) and we need a Timothy someone younger that we are investing in.

We all need a Paul figure in our lives. We all need someone we are learning from.

Paul in 1 Corinthians 4: 15 says


15There are a lot of people around who can't wait to tell you what you've done wrong, but there aren't many fathers willing to take the time and effort to help you grow up. It was as Jesus helped me proclaim God's Message to you that I became your father.

We need spiritual a father or mother to help us grow up.

Tuesdays with Morrie is the best selling book of a young man re-connects a wiser man dying of Lou Gehrig’s disease. This older man teaches this younger man some of life greatest lessons, over 14 Tuesdays

I’ve benefited greatly from having mentor figures in my life--People like Presbyterian minister Leighton Ford. The first time I had significant interaction with Leighton Ford was when I was driving him across Massachusetts taking him to the home of one his board members.

It was quite late at night when I picked him up from Boston’s Logan airport and I remember saying to him as we were leaving the city and driving onto the West bound freeway, “You’re welcome to recline your chair and sleep if you want.” He said, I said, I don’t think I’ll sleep, but I will recline my chair and he tilted his seat back and turned and said why tell me your life story.

Across the years Leighton has been present to me to listen to my story and then at the right time to give wise feedback.

Ideally, a mentor will listen to your life and give you perspective.

I have friend named Chris Woodhull who’s poet and a politician. Chris is blind in one eye. He says that community or a friend is like having a second eye, they gives you depth perception. A mentor or a friend can be that second eye, giving us depth perception.

A mentor also ideally will challenge you. My friend Scott Gibson is a former seminary professor. He’s an encourager, but he’s also challenges and questions me. He regularly asks are you facing temptations? Are you facing sexual temptations? If I haven’t called in a long time he’ll ask. “Are you hide something?” I’m like… “No I’ve been real busy.” Honest. He holds me accountable. I don’t always like that but I need that.

I have people that I learn from here in our city.

The key in a mentoring relationship is hunger to learn and become…

Recently a woman named Mari Matsunaga, a Japanese businesswoman, was named Asian woman of the year. She wrote a book called the Heart of Work. In her book she says the chances of your finding a good mentor by chance is about as likely as your winning the lottery, but if you possess a heart that is hungry you learn you can find one.


Finding a mentor begins with a hunger to learn, grow, and to change.

When you find someone from whom you want to learn—some perhaps someone who is is older and wiser—you have will the ask the person if you can spend time with them.

Some has said that a mentoring relationship is a little bit like 2 jr. high students at a dance--both boy and girl standing against the wall want to dance, but are afraid to ask. If you want a mentor you have to ask.

Now the fact is that there are young people who’ve asked someibe to be their mentor and the potential mentor was unavailable, perhaps too busy.

Here are some alternatives if that’s the case:

See if you can help them.

I’ve know of a young woman who grew up in dysfunctional home who wanted to get exposure to a family that related to each other in a healthy way. She volunteered to do ironing for this family so she observe this family’s culture.

There are people who I’ve wanted to spend with whom I offered to drive places in order to connect with them. They need to get somewhere, I can drive and we connect and they don’t lose time.

Books can serve as mentors to us: some of you know Eugene Peterson, I’ve met him, but I don’t know him. But I’ve read his books, he’s been a mentor through his writing. As have so many others: Parker Palmer.

One other thing I want to say about mentors is that sometimes the person who we think at first will be a good mentor is not a good mentor and sometimes a person who we don’t think of as a good mentor may be a great mentor.

Let me explain, a number of people want to have mentor who is either considered very successful or famous. I want to be apprentice to Donald Trump or Martha Stewart. I want to be able to say Billy Graham and Pope John Paul II is my mentors.

The fact is often famous people are NOT the best mentors. They are usually too busy. Some famous people possess public remarkable gifts, but some times they are not good one on one. Studies that often women over 65 make the best mentors. According to my friend Elizabeth Archer Klien older African American women make good mentors. I say to this say to that sometimes good mentors are not the people we immediately would think of as being good mentors. African woman over 65 typically don’t have higher educational degrees nor have typically been a ceo, but they often wisdom from deep faith in God and life of suffering…

We need a Paul, ideally, but we also need a Barnabas. Barnabas was a friend of Paul’s and an encourager, peer of Paul’s that you can read about in Acts. David had Jonathan. We read in 1 Samuel 18 David and Jonathan making a covenant with each other because they loved each other as friends.

We need a Barnabas, an encouraging peer. We need a Jonathan a friend who we can enter into a covenant relationship with.

In the early 1990’s I was in something called the Arrow Leadership program. And through Arrow I meet Hugo Venegas a pastor was born in Costa Rica. At the end of Arrow we talked in his room about staying friends. We decide to encourage each other across our lives to stay close to Christ, to grow in our character and leadership—to be faithful in the stewards of our lives.

We made a kind of covenant to be present for each until the end of our earthly lives.

(Vancouverite David Bentall the many benefits of his covenant friendship with Carson Pue and Bob Kuhn is excellent book The Company You Keep (listed in the progam).)

One of the benefits of having this of friendship covenant is that you feel a certain security in the relationship because the person you’ve promised to be present for each in thick and thin (kind of like in marriage).

Because of this security you can be open and transparent (and vice verse).

I remember some years ago, sharing with Hugo, that I was in a situation where I was asked to help a friend who was in a vulnerable situation… I sensed the appropriate emotions boundaries were being blurred and I was moving into a grey zone…

I remember Hugo saying, if you crash and burn, I’ll be here for you… but I’d rather you not crash and burn…

This ideally what a mentor or covenant friend says to you. I’ll be here for you no matter what, but I want the best for you and I will all in my power to help you choose the best… That’s a true friend.

A true friend isn’t someone who just I’ll be with you no matter what, but the person who also gently says, I want the best for you.

A friend is someone with you can be open and transparent…

James Houston has said “friendship is built on the mutual sharing of weakness.”


Mentoring is primarily a relationship of receiving, though you give, peer friends is more even giving and receiving, is really mutual.

According to Val Cole the cost of Nik and Va Show in the radio CFUN, Vancouver is filled what she calls relational skimmers. People don’t want to go deep, they want dip and come up and move on… Though she talking about dating the same can likely be said of so called friendships. A covenant friendships are the antithesis of skimming.

We need a Paul a mentor, we need a Barnabas or Jonathan, and we need Timothy a younger leader who we can invest in.

Paul invested in a younger leader named Timothy whom you read about in 1 and 2 Timothy. Paul says:

2And the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable men and women who will also be qualified to teach others.

I think particularly when we pass age 30 mark, we must think increasing investing in others.

My friend Hugo recently told me that there are a lot of in their 20’s and even 30 who want community, but have a very little capacity for relationships. I think he’s right.

I want to say gently and loving, but for those of us in our 20’s and 30’s, we (I’m 38) we need to grow up and grow into wholeness.

Part of what it means to be human is to become the kind of person who will bless others out of an overflow of who we are.

One of areas, where for years, I’ve felt I’ve need to grow is in the area of listening.

I remember as younger person being criticized for not listening well.

As a child, I didn’t pay attention in school. (People have asked me did you have ADD, I said don’t recall being described that way, but I maybe I wasn’t paying attention).

One summer in college, I was working as the summer coordinator for a student leadership development program. My boss was talking to me and part way through she started screaming at me saying, “You’re not listening to me; you’re trying to formulate a response….” People nervously turned their heads towards… Her response was over the top… but she was right. I need to work on that.

At times I’ve listening too much with the view to respond.

At other times, I’ve simply been too preoccupied to listen well.

Realizing this is a weakness, I’ve tried to work on it.

I’ve been serving as mentor for scholarship foundation. I recently had the opportunity to look and some anonymous student evaluations that come in for the faculty members. Several said, I was good listener.

That means a lot to me because it has been a weak area for me and I’ve been working on that one.

Are there areas you need to grow so that you will related better love others?

Maybe for some of us we need to simplify our lives and rest: some of us must simply our lives and rest well and so we can present to others.

Rest is such a foundational virtue. If we’re not rested well, we will not be present with people well (nor will be good stewards of our minds, our bodies, our finances… and all the things we’ve been talking about in this series). Gordon MacDonald says if you are available all the time, you’re available none of the time.
Maybe for some it’s inner work… to explore our past… or perhaps with a mentor or a Barnabas or perhaps with help with professional counselor.

There is a young adult in our community… who life experience illustrates all 3 levels of relationship. And I’ve asked Jacob Buurma to share with us (TESTIMONY)

Friendship takes time and energy and effort, but it is worth it. In Luke 16, Jesus gives the parable of a shrewd manager, it’s a difficult one to interpret (Biblical scholars are in disagreement as to what it means), but one thing is clear that when we bless others in this life people in the life, it will remembered by people the life to come and they will welcome us into our eternal dwelling place. Love and friendship seem to be remembered and carry over into the life to come.

Stephen Covey tells the story of a lecturer who had a jar and rocks. He asked the class how many of these rocks do you think I can put in this jar? People gave various answers. The lecturer put in the big rocks… and asked, “Is it full? People said no… He put in the little rocks… is it full now? A few said, yes… But then the lecturer poured in sand and asked is it full now? Most said, yes… The lecture says No… He pours in water… He asks, What’s the point? One eager student said, “we can cramp more in the gaps of our lives that we think.” The lecturer said NO the lesson is unless the big Rocks go into the jar first, you’ll never get the big rocks in the jar….

The point is not to fill as much into your life as possible, the point is that your important rocks go into the jar of your life first… and if they don’t won’t fit in…

The big rocks represent what is most important and so we put those rocks into our life first. And one of those big rocks is friendship (friendships with our mentors, peers, and those younger people we investing). It is fundamental to our life purpose and it is an investment of love, which according to Jesus, will last on into eternity.
050219 Stewardship Friendship

When Bob Kuhn a lawyer that I am acquainted with here in the greater Vancouver area was about to turn 40 he wrote, “When I get to the rocking chair of old age, I don’t want to have to look back in despair, realizing that I have wandered aimlessly over a faceless terrain”

When Bob was 39 years old, he reflected deeply on his life purpose…

Aristotle defined virtue as something fulfilling it’s purpose. A knife’s purpose is to cut and so a knife is virtuous so far as it cuts.

What is the purpose of a human being?

Our purpose is to relate God and people.

(The Scriptures tell us that we are made in the image of a God who is relational. God is relational. Darrell Johnson has said at the center of the universe is a relationship: One God: the Father relating to the Son and the Spirit.)

When we relate to people, we fulfill a central part of our design as human being made in the image of God.

This morning as we come to the last message in our stewardship series, we are going to look at what it means to be a steward of our relationships and I want to focus on three relationships (I did a whole series on relationships and marriage about a year ago, if you think that would helpful the tapes and cds I believe are available at back).

When I was at end of my freshman year in college, I was invited to Amsterdam to attend a conference for young ministry leaders hosted by Billy Graham. One of the messages I remember well was given by a Sri Lankan leader named Ajith Fernando.

I don’t remember all the details of this message, but his theme was that every one of us needs 3 kind of relationships, we need a Paul (i.e. we need a mentor figure in our lives, Paul was a key mentor and teacher in the New Testament), we need Barnabas (i.e. we need a peer in our life who is an encourager) and we need a Timothy someone younger that we are investing in.

We all need a Paul figure in our lives. We all need someone we are learning from.

Paul in 1 Corinthians 4: 15 says


15There are a lot of people around who can't wait to tell you what you've done wrong, but there aren't many fathers willing to take the time and effort to help you grow up. It was as Jesus helped me proclaim God's Message to you that I became your father.

We need spiritual a father or mother to help us grow up.

Tuesdays with Morrie is the best selling book of a young man re-connects a wiser man dying of Lou Gehrig’s disease. This older man teaches this younger man some of life greatest lessons, over 14 Tuesdays

I’ve benefited greatly from having mentor figures in my life--People like Presbyterian minister Leighton Ford. The first time I had significant interaction with Leighton Ford was when I was driving him across Massachusetts taking him to the home of one his board members.

It was quite late at night when I picked him up from Boston’s Logan airport and I remember saying to him as we were leaving the city and driving onto the West bound freeway, “You’re welcome to recline your chair and sleep if you want.” He said, I said, I don’t think I’ll sleep, but I will recline my chair and he tilted his seat back and turned and said why tell me your life story.

Across the years Leighton has been present to me to listen to my story and then at the right time to give wise feedback.

Ideally, a mentor will listen to your life and give you perspective.

I have friend named Chris Woodhull who’s poet and a politician. Chris is blind in one eye. He says that community or a friend is like having a second eye, they gives you depth perception. A mentor or a friend can be that second eye, giving us depth perception.

A mentor also ideally will challenge you. My friend Scott Gibson is a former seminary professor. He’s an encourager, but he’s also challenges and questions me. He regularly asks are you facing temptations? Are you facing sexual temptations? If I haven’t called in a long time he’ll ask. “Are you hide something?” I’m like… “No I’ve been real busy.” Honest. He holds me accountable. I don’t always like that but I need that.

I have people that I learn from here in our city.

The key in a mentoring relationship is hunger to learn and become…

Recently a woman named Mari Matsunaga, a Japanese businesswoman, was named Asian woman of the year. She wrote a book called the Heart of Work. In her book she says the chances of your finding a good mentor by chance is about as likely as your winning the lottery, but if you possess a heart that is hungry you learn you can find one.


Finding a mentor begins with a hunger to learn, grow, and to change.

When you find someone from whom you want to learn—some perhaps someone who is is older and wiser—you have will the ask the person if you can spend time with them.

Some has said that a mentoring relationship is a little bit like 2 jr. high students at a dance--both boy and girl standing against the wall want to dance, but are afraid to ask. If you want a mentor you have to ask.

Now the fact is that there are young people who’ve asked someibe to be their mentor and the potential mentor was unavailable, perhaps too busy.

Here are some alternatives if that’s the case:

See if you can help them.

I’ve know of a young woman who grew up in dysfunctional home who wanted to get exposure to a family that related to each other in a healthy way. She volunteered to do ironing for this family so she observe this family’s culture.

There are people who I’ve wanted to spend with whom I offered to drive places in order to connect with them. They need to get somewhere, I can drive and we connect and they don’t lose time.

Books can serve as mentors to us: some of you know Eugene Peterson, I’ve met him, but I don’t know him. But I’ve read his books, he’s been a mentor through his writing. As have so many others: Parker Palmer.

One other thing I want to say about mentors is that sometimes the person who we think at first will be a good mentor is not a good mentor and sometimes a person who we don’t think of as a good mentor may be a great mentor.

Let me explain, a number of people want to have mentor who is either considered very successful or famous. I want to be apprentice to Donald Trump or Martha Stewart. I want to be able to say Billy Graham and Pope John Paul II is my mentors.

The fact is often famous people are NOT the best mentors. They are usually too busy. Some famous people possess public remarkable gifts, but some times they are not good one on one. Studies that often women over 65 make the best mentors. According to my friend Elizabeth Archer Klien older African American women make good mentors. I say to this say to that sometimes good mentors are not the people we immediately would think of as being good mentors. African woman over 65 typically don’t have higher educational degrees nor have typically been a ceo, but they often wisdom from deep faith in God and life of suffering…

We need a Paul, ideally, but we also need a Barnabas. Barnabas was a friend of Paul’s and an encourager, peer of Paul’s that you can read about in Acts. David had Jonathan. We read in 1 Samuel 18 David and Jonathan making a covenant with each other because they loved each other as friends.

We need a Barnabas, an encouraging peer. We need a Jonathan a friend who we can enter into a covenant relationship with.

In the early 1990’s I was in something called the Arrow Leadership program. And through Arrow I meet Hugo Venegas a pastor was born in Costa Rica. At the end of Arrow we talked in his room about staying friends. We decide to encourage each other across our lives to stay close to Christ, to grow in our character and leadership—to be faithful in the stewards of our lives.

We made a kind of covenant to be present for each until the end of our earthly lives.

(Vancouverite David Bentall the many benefits of his covenant friendship with Carson Pue and Bob Kuhn is excellent book The Company You Keep (listed in the progam).)

One of the benefits of having this of friendship covenant is that you feel a certain security in the relationship because the person you’ve promised to be present for each in thick and thin (kind of like in marriage).

Because of this security you can be open and transparent (and vice verse).

I remember some years ago, sharing with Hugo, that I was in a situation where I was asked to help a friend who was in a vulnerable situation… I sensed the appropriate emotions boundaries were being blurred and I was moving into a grey zone…

I remember Hugo saying, if you crash and burn, I’ll be here for you… but I’d rather you not crash and burn…

This ideally what a mentor or covenant friend says to you. I’ll be here for you no matter what, but I want the best for you and I will all in my power to help you choose the best… That’s a true friend.

A true friend isn’t someone who just I’ll be with you no matter what, but the person who also gently says, I want the best for you.

A friend is someone with you can be open and transparent…

James Houston has said “friendship is built on the mutual sharing of weakness.”


Mentoring is primarily a relationship of receiving, though you give, peer friends is more even giving and receiving, is really mutual.

According to Val Cole the cost of Nik and Va Show in the radio CFUN, Vancouver is filled what she calls relational skimmers. People don’t want to go deep, they want dip and come up and move on… Though she talking about dating the same can likely be said of so called friendships. A covenant friendships are the antithesis of skimming.

We need a Paul a mentor, we need a Barnabas or Jonathan, and we need Timothy a younger leader who we can invest in.

Paul invested in a younger leader named Timothy whom you read about in 1 and 2 Timothy. Paul says:

2And the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable men and women who will also be qualified to teach others.

I think particularly when we pass age 30 mark, we must think increasing investing in others.

My friend Hugo recently told me that there are a lot of in their 20’s and even 30 who want community, but have a very little capacity for relationships. I think he’s right.

I want to say gently and loving, but for those of us in our 20’s and 30’s, we (I’m 38) we need to grow up and grow into wholeness.

Part of what it means to be human is to become the kind of person who will bless others out of an overflow of who we are.

One of areas, where for years, I’ve felt I’ve need to grow is in the area of listening.

I remember as younger person being criticized for not listening well.

As a child, I didn’t pay attention in school. (People have asked me did you have ADD, I said don’t recall being described that way, but I maybe I wasn’t paying attention).

One summer in college, I was working as the summer coordinator for a student leadership development program. My boss was talking to me and part way through she started screaming at me saying, “You’re not listening to me; you’re trying to formulate a response….” People nervously turned their heads towards… Her response was over the top… but she was right. I need to work on that.

At times I’ve listening too much with the view to respond.

At other times, I’ve simply been too preoccupied to listen well.

Realizing this is a weakness, I’ve tried to work on it.

I’ve been serving as mentor for scholarship foundation. I recently had the opportunity to look and some anonymous student evaluations that come in for the faculty members. Several said, I was good listener.

That means a lot to me because it has been a weak area for me and I’ve been working on that one.

Are there areas you need to grow so that you will related better love others?

Maybe for some of us we need to simplify our lives and rest: some of us must simply our lives and rest well and so we can present to others.

Rest is such a foundational virtue. If we’re not rested well, we will not be present with people well (nor will be good stewards of our minds, our bodies, our finances… and all the things we’ve been talking about in this series). Gordon MacDonald says if you are available all the time, you’re available none of the time.
Maybe for some it’s inner work… to explore our past… or perhaps with a mentor or a Barnabas or perhaps with help with professional counselor.

There is a young adult in our community… who life experience illustrates all 3 levels of relationship. And I’ve asked Jacob Buurma to share with us (TESTIMONY)

Friendship takes time and energy and effort, but it is worth it. In Luke 16, Jesus gives the parable of a shrewd manager, it’s a difficult one to interpret (Biblical scholars are in disagreement as to what it means), but one thing is clear that when we bless others in this life people in the life, it will remembered by people the life to come and they will welcome us into our eternal dwelling place. Love and friendship seem to be remembered and carry over into the life to come.

Stephen Covey tells the story of a lecturer who had a jar and rocks. He asked the class how many of these rocks do you think I can put in this jar? People gave various answers. The lecturer put in the big rocks… and asked, “Is it full? People said no… He put in the little rocks… is it full now? A few said, yes… But then the lecturer poured in sand and asked is it full now? Most said, yes… The lecture says No… He pours in water… He asks, What’s the point? One eager student said, “we can cramp more in the gaps of our lives that we think.” The lecturer said NO the lesson is unless the big Rocks go into the jar first, you’ll never get the big rocks in the jar….

The point is not to fill as much into your life as possible, the point is that your important rocks go into the jar of your life first… and if they don’t won’t fit in…

The big rocks represent what is most important and so we put those rocks into our life first. And one of those big rocks is friendship (friendships with our mentors, peers, and those younger people we investing). It is fundamental to our life purpose and it is an investment of love, which according to Jesus, will last on into eternity.

050212 Stewardship

M3 Environment

Outline:

Introduction:

What do you think is the most beautiful place on earth? (it could be either a place you’ve heard about, seen in photos or art or have actually been to)?

This past Sunday I was speaking at a church in Hawaii (someone has to do it).

One afternoon we were at a park overlooking the ocean on the Eastern side of Oahu. We saw this skit of a pirate who was invading a little island. The pirate shouted from his ship to a man on island, I know you have treasure--hand it over or die! The man on the little island says, “We have no treasure on the island. The pirate shouts, I’ve heard you have treasure, hand it over! Then there is a voice over which says, “The treasure is all the natural beauty all around us.”

In beautiful places like Hawaii or Vancouver or in places we’ve thought of we are especially conscious of the fact that the treasure that is all around us.

This morning as continue our series on what it means to be manager of a steward of things that God has entrusted to us, we’re going to look at what it means to be a manager or a steward of creation.

Psalm 24 tells us that the earth belongs to the Lord…

1 The earth is the LORD's, and everything in it,
the world, and all who live in it;
2 for he founded it upon the seas
and established it upon the waters.
Historically whether people were Christian or not, many have intuitively understood that the land belongs to someone or something bigger than themselves.

The earliest settlers in what we now call North America, the First Nations or aboriginal peoples did not believe in “private property.” They believed the land was sacred and should belong to no particular human being.

As Jeremy Rifkin, the president of the foundation of economic movements points out, during medieval times in, Europe life had much more of a communal or collective quality.

The land was divided into commons are (photo Edale). People farmed the land as a collective. The land was administered by the church or the aristocracy or the lord of the manor and these people managed the land as stewards of God who owned the land (photo of the people farming the land).

People belonged to the land--the land did not belong to people. The land belonged to God…

When we’re aware that the land belongs to God, we’re much more apt to cultivate and farm it as a kind of act of worship (slide of the Angelus).

Beginning with the enclose of movements of the commons lands in the 14-16 centuries in Europe, the great common lands, were reduced to private property. Later countries would claim the oceans waters close to them, and in the last century air corridors have been bought and sold… and now in recent times in places Bolivia even the rain fallen from the sky has been privatized… sold to a U.S. based corporation…

My point is not to say that “owning property” real estate or other kinds of property is wrong or that we should adopt a communist system, but us to remind that in a time when we assume land is owned “some person or corporation or government” we can forget the reality of Psalm 24 that the earth belongs to the Lord.

Title deed or no title deed, strictly speaking we don’t own land, strictly speaking God owns the land: he owns the world, and we are simply managers of what he’s entrusted to us (use globe).

In Genesis 2:15 we see how God calls us to serve as stewards or managers of the land.
15 The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.
If the land was really “ours”—I suppose we could do with it what we wanted with but if it’s someone else’s property we don’t have that freedom.

We live on a corner lot not too far from here… and on the Western side of our lot is a sidewalk and between the sideway and the road list a grassed area about 9-10 feet wide that runs about 120 feet with 3 fairly newly planted trees. It’s not our land but I understand we’re responsible to take of it. We are to the cut grass, water it and the trees in the summer, and remove the litter from this area, etc. I think we take better care of this piece of property than our “own” yard. Because this someone else’s property, I guess it’s a common area, and we’ve been entrusted to take care of it.

If we’re asked to take care of someone else’s home or plants or dog or cat while they’re away on vacation, isn’t true we’ll likely better care of these things than if they were own?

The more we care for and respect the owner the better we’ll take care of their property.

After graduating from theological seminary in the Boston area, I was pretty much broke and the first position I had was serving as a pastor of a new church plant to be started in Southern California.

The church had no denominational backing and no major financial backing. A couple in Southern California who I had never met heard that I was coming to Southern California to plant a church. The husband called me and explained he and his wife traveled up to half the year and asked if I would be willing to live in their home, which over looked the Ocean, in exchange for taking care of their plants and dog while they were away.

The choice was either I’d be living in the back seat of my car or living in place overlooking the ocean… I’ll take #2.

John and Carol the owners of the home became friends of mine. Because of their care for me and generosity, I wanted to really do a good job of taking care of their plants and dog. I wanted honor them by taking good care of their home.

Part of the way we people honor is by taking care of things they’ve entrusted to us.

Part of the way honor God is by taking care of the earth he has entrusted to you us.

We honor God by gathering and singing song of worship to God, but we also honor God by taking care of the things he has entrusted to our care.

The earth is the Lord’s (Psalm 24), he has called us to take care of the earth as managers and stewards and we honor him by taking good care of the earth… and finally one of the many motivations we have as people who believe or are coming to believe in God is the fact the God tells us in his work that the day the earth will one day be renewed.

In history of Christianity, there have been periods when Christians have not taken care of the earth because people believe that it would one day be destroyed and replaced.

There is much evidence in the Bible, however, to suggest that the earth rather than being destroyed will be renewed.
In Revelation 21:1

God says 1Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea.

Later in Revelation 21 God says God in Revelation 21 “Behold I am making all things new.”

Darrell Johnson in is book on Revelation says for years he misread read these words to mean I am making “all new things.”



Darrell says for years the future meant for me scrapping everything of the old creation, and starting over with a whole new plan.

Now he reads it—I am making all things new; God can make all new things, but point of Revelation 21 and 22 is that he is making all things: people and creation new.

If we believe that this world and all that is in it will one day be obliterated or just absorbed into nothingness as some religions teach, then we’d have much less motivation to care for the earth (we’d some, especially if we think about future generations).

But if we believe that this earth will one day be redeemed and made new we have tremendous motivation to take care of earth.

The famous baseball player Mickey Mantle said when he was dying from a disease that had been brought on by a lifetime of alcohol abuse; he said if I knew I was going to live this long I would have taken better care of my body. When we realize that God has a plan to renew the earth and that it has future… as renewed earth… then we also will take great care, for the glory of God, for the good of future generations, and in anticipation of its renewal.

Caring for creation and being ecologically sensitive is simply a natural overflow of who we are and what we believe.

Let’s move into some application how does this apply to us personally?

Sonja Bruce is one of the members of the community who has thought a lot about this and is really seeking to live this out with her husband. I’ve her to come and share some ways we can do this.

The population of North America of Canada and U.S. is about 5 percent of the world and yet we use over 25% of the worlds resources.

As Loren and Ruth Wilkinson remind in their book Caring for Creation in your own back yard we caan reduce, reuse, and recycle:

We can turn off the lights or the heat (when we’re not in the rooms), we can save energy, we can stop the water when we’re not brushing our teeth (I’ve started as I’ve gathering ideas in preparing this message), we can avoid over use water in show (guilty of this—long time), re-use…paper printer… that’s only been used on one side (paper), we can recyle (bin) and try to walk or bike when possible…

(The archbishop of Cantebury is urging the Anglican church toward a Green Revolution. He was quoted in a recent edition of the Vancouver Sun, saying we can try to find out where our products and wherever possible try to encourage fair trade goods.

On the C.B.C. local News Friday night there was a feature on buying fair trade roses. Roses that have been developed in places where people are conscious of both not polutting the environment or paying their workers fairly.

Where possible and as we can afford we can try to buy food from companies that are conscious of treating animals well….whether or about free range eggs, free range turkeys, Dolphin free tuna, ecological laundry…)

I love nature but I don’t kiss or hug trees. But I really want to think through what it means to decrease my ecological footprint… I haven’t done this very well.
On a personal level I want to play my part…

We can care for the earth through our personal lifestyle, but we can care for the earth by using our influence to promote care for creation.

The Pantanal region of located along the borders of Brazil, Bolivia, and Paraguay is considered the largest freshwater wetland in the world (depending on exactly where you draw the borders it’s about ¼ of the size of British Columbia) and home kind of animals and various endangered species.

It’s been described as kind of Jurrasic Park without the dinosaurs…

But, as New York Times Columnist Thomas Friedman pointed out this area was put at
risk through the forces of globalization.

Soy farmers on the plateau above the Pantanal basin were eager to get their soy to a rapidly expanding global soybean market.

To get their soy to market they wanted to straighten the winding rivers so that barges could navigate them more easily and quickly—but in ways that would harm the ecosystem (show the photos of rivers and animals).

But what happened in Pantanal is that local environmentalists engaged environmentalists here in North America to put pressure on the Inter-American Development Bank, which was planning to fund the new straightening of the river system (re-show image of the winding river)…

The Development bank, sensitive to its global brand name reputation, responded by pressuring the local governments sponsoring the river project to do a complete environmental assessment. In the end, the government figured out ways to improve the navigation of the rivers in the Pantanal without altering their shape.

20 years ago according to Vice President of Conversation International, Glenn Pricket, in a country like Brazil where most of Pantanal wetland is located… If foreign environmentalists critical of development in practices in the Amazon, the general would say “Butt out, this is our sovereign terroritory.” But with the coming of globalization and more and more companies investing in places like Brazil it creates a new dynamic. With global companies concerned about their global brandname sometimes it only takes on environmentalist waving an email message on the floor of her parliament to hold up a major power plant or project or some environmentally sensitive deal.

Some times the concerns of individuals not only lead to a company become more environmentally sensitive out of concern for their brand name and their profitability, but in some case the leader of company actually experience a kind of conversion.

Like Ray Anderson, head of the largest carpet manufacturing company in the world.

“Show video Clip”

For 21 years Ray Anderson never thought about how their products were affecting the environment and then because of the questions of some customers… set in motion a series of events that change him and his company.

I show this to demonstrate how the concerns of individual customer can turn a company but also to illustrate that when and if we have a position in the world, like Ray Anderson, we can implement change.

I know some people in this community are seeking to use their influence to care for creation. I have heard of how people like Dr. Marcello Veiga, a member of our community, who is professor mining engineering at UBC is doing this. He serves as consultant to United Nations Industrial Development Organization…giving them counsel on how to reduce mercury pollution of international waters by emissions resulting from gold mining.

As a professor at UBC he says, "My responsibility to students is to get them thinking about ethical behaviour (particularly as it affects the environment and poor), which has been sadly lacking in the history of engineering."

He and his wife Sonia are using their influence informed by their Christian conscience to care for creation.

Ron Sider, a Christian very committed to caring for creation, has…

“Noone can do everything, everyone can do something and together we can change the world.”

“Noone can do everything, everyone can do something and together, by the grace of God, we can change the world.”


(Carpet CEO 51:55—54:33)

050212 Stewardship M3 Environment

Outline:

Introduction:

What do you think is the most beautiful place on earth? (it could be either a place you’ve heard about, seen in photos or art or have actually been to)?

This past Sunday I was speaking at a church in Hawaii (someone has to do it).

One afternoon we were at a park overlooking the ocean on the Eastern side of Oahu. We saw this skit of a pirate who was invading a little island. The pirate shouted from his ship to a man on island, I know you have treasure--hand it over or die! The man on the little island says, “We have no treasure on the island. The pirate shouts, I’ve heard you have treasure, hand it over! Then there is a voice over which says, “The treasure is all the natural beauty all around us.”

In beautiful places like Hawaii or Vancouver or in places we’ve thought of we are especially conscious of the fact that the treasure that is all around us.

This morning as continue our series on what it means to be manager of a steward of things that God has entrusted to us, we’re going to look at what it means to be a manager or a steward of creation.

Psalm 24 tells us that the earth belongs to the Lord…

1 The earth is the LORD's, and everything in it,
the world, and all who live in it;
2 for he founded it upon the seas
and established it upon the waters.
Historically whether people were Christian or not, many have intuitively understood that the land belongs to someone or something bigger than themselves.

The earliest settlers in what we now call North America, the First Nations or aboriginal peoples did not believe in “private property.” They believed the land was sacred and should belong to no particular human being.

As Jeremy Rifkin, the president of the foundation of economic movements points out, during medieval times in, Europe life had much more of a communal or collective quality.

The land was divided into commons are (photo Edale). People farmed the land as a collective. The land was administered by the church or the aristocracy or the lord of the manor and these people managed the land as stewards of God who owned the land (photo of the people farming the land).

People belonged to the land--the land did not belong to people. The land belonged to God…

When we’re aware that the land belongs to God, we’re much more apt to cultivate and farm it as a kind of act of worship (slide of the Angelus).

Beginning with the enclose of movements of the commons lands in the 14-16 centuries in Europe, the great common lands, were reduced to private property. Later countries would claim the oceans waters close to them, and in the last century air corridors have been bought and sold… and now in recent times in places Bolivia even the rain fallen from the sky has been privatized… sold to a U.S. based corporation…

My point is not to say that “owning property” real estate or other kinds of property is wrong or that we should adopt a communist system, but us to remind that in a time when we assume land is owned “some person or corporation or government” we can forget the reality of Psalm 24 that the earth belongs to the Lord.

Title deed or no title deed, strictly speaking we don’t own land, strictly speaking God owns the land: he owns the world, and we are simply managers of what he’s entrusted to us (use globe).

In Genesis 2:15 we see how God calls us to serve as stewards or managers of the land.
15 The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.
If the land was really “ours”—I suppose we could do with it what we wanted with but if it’s someone else’s property we don’t have that freedom.

We live on a corner lot not too far from here… and on the Western side of our lot is a sidewalk and between the sideway and the road list a grassed area about 9-10 feet wide that runs about 120 feet with 3 fairly newly planted trees. It’s not our land but I understand we’re responsible to take of it. We are to the cut grass, water it and the trees in the summer, and remove the litter from this area, etc. I think we take better care of this piece of property than our “own” yard. Because this someone else’s property, I guess it’s a common area, and we’ve been entrusted to take care of it.

If we’re asked to take care of someone else’s home or plants or dog or cat while they’re away on vacation, isn’t true we’ll likely better care of these things than if they were own?

The more we care for and respect the owner the better we’ll take care of their property.

After graduating from theological seminary in the Boston area, I was pretty much broke and the first position I had was serving as a pastor of a new church plant to be started in Southern California.

The church had no denominational backing and no major financial backing. A couple in Southern California who I had never met heard that I was coming to Southern California to plant a church. The husband called me and explained he and his wife traveled up to half the year and asked if I would be willing to live in their home, which over looked the Ocean, in exchange for taking care of their plants and dog while they were away.

The choice was either I’d be living in the back seat of my car or living in place overlooking the ocean… I’ll take #2.

John and Carol the owners of the home became friends of mine. Because of their care for me and generosity, I wanted to really do a good job of taking care of their plants and dog. I wanted honor them by taking good care of their home.

Part of the way we people honor is by taking care of things they’ve entrusted to us.

Part of the way honor God is by taking care of the earth he has entrusted to you us.

We honor God by gathering and singing song of worship to God, but we also honor God by taking care of the things he has entrusted to our care.

The earth is the Lord’s (Psalm 24), he has called us to take care of the earth as managers and stewards and we honor him by taking good care of the earth… and finally one of the many motivations we have as people who believe or are coming to believe in God is the fact the God tells us in his work that the day the earth will one day be renewed.

In history of Christianity, there have been periods when Christians have not taken care of the earth because people believe that it would one day be destroyed and replaced.

There is much evidence in the Bible, however, to suggest that the earth rather than being destroyed will be renewed.
In Revelation 21:1

God says 1Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea.

Later in Revelation 21 God says God in Revelation 21 “Behold I am making all things new.”

Darrell Johnson in is book on Revelation says for years he misread read these words to mean I am making “all new things.”



Darrell says for years the future meant for me scrapping everything of the old creation, and starting over with a whole new plan.

Now he reads it—I am making all things new; God can make all new things, but point of Revelation 21 and 22 is that he is making all things: people and creation new.

If we believe that this world and all that is in it will one day be obliterated or just absorbed into nothingness as some religions teach, then we’d have much less motivation to care for the earth (we’d some, especially if we think about future generations).

But if we believe that this earth will one day be redeemed and made new we have tremendous motivation to take care of earth.

The famous baseball player Mickey Mantle said when he was dying from a disease that had been brought on by a lifetime of alcohol abuse; he said if I knew I was going to live this long I would have taken better care of my body. When we realize that God has a plan to renew the earth and that it has future… as renewed earth… then we also will take great care, for the glory of God, for the good of future generations, and in anticipation of its renewal.

Caring for creation and being ecologically sensitive is simply a natural overflow of who we are and what we believe.

Let’s move into some application how does this apply to us personally?

Sonja Bruce is one of the members of the community who has thought a lot about this and is really seeking to live this out with her husband. I’ve her to come and share some ways we can do this.

The population of North America of Canada and U.S. is about 5 percent of the world and yet we use over 25% of the worlds resources.

As Loren and Ruth Wilkinson remind in their book Caring for Creation in your own back yard we caan reduce, reuse, and recycle:

We can turn off the lights or the heat (when we’re not in the rooms), we can save energy, we can stop the water when we’re not brushing our teeth (I’ve started as I’ve gathering ideas in preparing this message), we can avoid over use water in show (guilty of this—long time), re-use…paper printer… that’s only been used on one side (paper), we can recyle (bin) and try to walk or bike when possible…

(The archbishop of Cantebury is urging the Anglican church toward a Green Revolution. He was quoted in a recent edition of the Vancouver Sun, saying we can try to find out where our products and wherever possible try to encourage fair trade goods.

On the C.B.C. local News Friday night there was a feature on buying fair trade roses. Roses that have been developed in places where people are conscious of both not polutting the environment or paying their workers fairly.

Where possible and as we can afford we can try to buy food from companies that are conscious of treating animals well….whether or about free range eggs, free range turkeys, Dolphin free tuna, ecological laundry…)

I love nature but I don’t kiss or hug trees. But I really want to think through what it means to decrease my ecological footprint… I haven’t done this very well.
On a personal level I want to play my part…

We can care for the earth through our personal lifestyle, but we can care for the earth by using our influence to promote care for creation.

The Pantanal region of located along the borders of Brazil, Bolivia, and Paraguay is considered the largest freshwater wetland in the world (depending on exactly where you draw the borders it’s about ¼ of the size of British Columbia) and home kind of animals and various endangered species.

It’s been described as kind of Jurrasic Park without the dinosaurs…

But, as New York Times Columnist Thomas Friedman pointed out this area was put at
risk through the forces of globalization.

Soy farmers on the plateau above the Pantanal basin were eager to get their soy to a rapidly expanding global soybean market.

To get their soy to market they wanted to straighten the winding rivers so that barges could navigate them more easily and quickly—but in ways that would harm the ecosystem (show the photos of rivers and animals).

But what happened in Pantanal is that local environmentalists engaged environmentalists here in North America to put pressure on the Inter-American Development Bank, which was planning to fund the new straightening of the river system (re-show image of the winding river)…

The Development bank, sensitive to its global brand name reputation, responded by pressuring the local governments sponsoring the river project to do a complete environmental assessment. In the end, the government figured out ways to improve the navigation of the rivers in the Pantanal without altering their shape.

20 years ago according to Vice President of Conversation International, Glenn Pricket, in a country like Brazil where most of Pantanal wetland is located… If foreign environmentalists critical of development in practices in the Amazon, the general would say “Butt out, this is our sovereign terroritory.” But with the coming of globalization and more and more companies investing in places like Brazil it creates a new dynamic. With global companies concerned about their global brandname sometimes it only takes on environmentalist waving an email message on the floor of her parliament to hold up a major power plant or project or some environmentally sensitive deal.

Some times the concerns of individuals not only lead to a company become more environmentally sensitive out of concern for their brand name and their profitability, but in some case the leader of company actually experience a kind of conversion.

Like Ray Anderson, head of the largest carpet manufacturing company in the world.

“Show video Clip”

For 21 years Ray Anderson never thought about how their products were affecting the environment and then because of the questions of some customers… set in motion a series of events that change him and his company.

I show this to demonstrate how the concerns of individual customer can turn a company but also to illustrate that when and if we have a position in the world, like Ray Anderson, we can implement change.

I know some people in this community are seeking to use their influence to care for creation. I have heard of how people like Dr. Marcello Veiga, a member of our community, who is professor mining engineering at UBC is doing this. He serves as consultant to United Nations Industrial Development Organization…giving them counsel on how to reduce mercury pollution of international waters by emissions resulting from gold mining.

As a professor at UBC he says, "My responsibility to students is to get them thinking about ethical behaviour (particularly as it affects the environment and poor), which has been sadly lacking in the history of engineering."

He and his wife Sonia are using their influence informed by their Christian conscience to care for creation.

Ron Sider, a Christian very committed to caring for creation, has…

“Noone can do everything, everyone can do something and together we can change the world.”

“Noone can do everything, everyone can do something and together, by the grace of God, we can change the world.”


(Carpet CEO 51:55—54:33)

050212 Stewardship M3 Environment

Outline:

Introduction:

What do you think is the most beautiful place on earth? (it could be either a place you’ve heard about, seen in photos or art or have actually been to)?

This past Sunday I was speaking at a church in Hawaii (someone has to do it).

One afternoon we were at a park overlooking the ocean on the Eastern side of Oahu. We saw this skit of a pirate who was invading a little island. The pirate shouted from his ship to a man on island, I know you have treasure--hand it over or die! The man on the little island says, “We have no treasure on the island. The pirate shouts, I’ve heard you have treasure, hand it over! Then there is a voice over which says, “The treasure is all the natural beauty all around us.”

In beautiful places like Hawaii or Vancouver or in places we’ve thought of we are especially conscious of the fact that the treasure that is all around us.

This morning as continue our series on what it means to be manager of a steward of things that God has entrusted to us, we’re going to look at what it means to be a manager or a steward of creation.

Psalm 24 tells us that the earth belongs to the Lord…

1 The earth is the LORD's, and everything in it,
the world, and all who live in it;
2 for he founded it upon the seas
and established it upon the waters.
Historically whether people were Christian or not, many have intuitively understood that the land belongs to someone or something bigger than themselves.

The earliest settlers in what we now call North America, the First Nations or aboriginal peoples did not believe in “private property.” They believed the land was sacred and should belong to no particular human being.

As Jeremy Rifkin, the president of the foundation of economic movements points out, during medieval times in, Europe life had much more of a communal or collective quality.

The land was divided into commons are (photo Edale). People farmed the land as a collective. The land was administered by the church or the aristocracy or the lord of the manor and these people managed the land as stewards of God who owned the land (photo of the people farming the land).

People belonged to the land--the land did not belong to people. The land belonged to God…

When we’re aware that the land belongs to God, we’re much more apt to cultivate and farm it as a kind of act of worship (slide of the Angelus).

Beginning with the enclose of movements of the commons lands in the 14-16 centuries in Europe, the great common lands, were reduced to private property. Later countries would claim the oceans waters close to them, and in the last century air corridors have been bought and sold… and now in recent times in places Bolivia even the rain fallen from the sky has been privatized… sold to a U.S. based corporation…

My point is not to say that “owning property” real estate or other kinds of property is wrong or that we should adopt a communist system, but us to remind that in a time when we assume land is owned “some person or corporation or government” we can forget the reality of Psalm 24 that the earth belongs to the Lord.

Title deed or no title deed, strictly speaking we don’t own land, strictly speaking God owns the land: he owns the world, and we are simply managers of what he’s entrusted to us (use globe).

In Genesis 2:15 we see how God calls us to serve as stewards or managers of the land.
15 The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.
If the land was really “ours”—I suppose we could do with it what we wanted with but if it’s someone else’s property we don’t have that freedom.

We live on a corner lot not too far from here… and on the Western side of our lot is a sidewalk and between the sideway and the road list a grassed area about 9-10 feet wide that runs about 120 feet with 3 fairly newly planted trees. It’s not our land but I understand we’re responsible to take of it. We are to the cut grass, water it and the trees in the summer, and remove the litter from this area, etc. I think we take better care of this piece of property than our “own” yard. Because this someone else’s property, I guess it’s a common area, and we’ve been entrusted to take care of it.

If we’re asked to take care of someone else’s home or plants or dog or cat while they’re away on vacation, isn’t true we’ll likely better care of these things than if they were own?

The more we care for and respect the owner the better we’ll take care of their property.

After graduating from theological seminary in the Boston area, I was pretty much broke and the first position I had was serving as a pastor of a new church plant to be started in Southern California.

The church had no denominational backing and no major financial backing. A couple in Southern California who I had never met heard that I was coming to Southern California to plant a church. The husband called me and explained he and his wife traveled up to half the year and asked if I would be willing to live in their home, which over looked the Ocean, in exchange for taking care of their plants and dog while they were away.

The choice was either I’d be living in the back seat of my car or living in place overlooking the ocean… I’ll take #2.

John and Carol the owners of the home became friends of mine. Because of their care for me and generosity, I wanted to really do a good job of taking care of their plants and dog. I wanted honor them by taking good care of their home.

Part of the way we people honor is by taking care of things they’ve entrusted to us.

Part of the way honor God is by taking care of the earth he has entrusted to you us.

We honor God by gathering and singing song of worship to God, but we also honor God by taking care of the things he has entrusted to our care.

The earth is the Lord’s (Psalm 24), he has called us to take care of the earth as managers and stewards and we honor him by taking good care of the earth… and finally one of the many motivations we have as people who believe or are coming to believe in God is the fact the God tells us in his work that the day the earth will one day be renewed.

In history of Christianity, there have been periods when Christians have not taken care of the earth because people believe that it would one day be destroyed and replaced.

There is much evidence in the Bible, however, to suggest that the earth rather than being destroyed will be renewed.
In Revelation 21:1

God says 1Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea.

Later in Revelation 21 God says God in Revelation 21 “Behold I am making all things new.”

Darrell Johnson in is book on Revelation says for years he misread read these words to mean I am making “all new things.”



Darrell says for years the future meant for me scrapping everything of the old creation, and starting over with a whole new plan.

Now he reads it—I am making all things new; God can make all new things, but point of Revelation 21 and 22 is that he is making all things: people and creation new.

If we believe that this world and all that is in it will one day be obliterated or just absorbed into nothingness as some religions teach, then we’d have much less motivation to care for the earth (we’d some, especially if we think about future generations).

But if we believe that this earth will one day be redeemed and made new we have tremendous motivation to take care of earth.

The famous baseball player Mickey Mantle said when he was dying from a disease that had been brought on by a lifetime of alcohol abuse; he said if I knew I was going to live this long I would have taken better care of my body. When we realize that God has a plan to renew the earth and that it has future… as renewed earth… then we also will take great care, for the glory of God, for the good of future generations, and in anticipation of its renewal.

Caring for creation and being ecologically sensitive is simply a natural overflow of who we are and what we believe.

Let’s move into some application how does this apply to us personally?

Sonja Bruce is one of the members of the community who has thought a lot about this and is really seeking to live this out with her husband. I’ve her to come and share some ways we can do this.

The population of North America of Canada and U.S. is about 5 percent of the world and yet we use over 25% of the worlds resources.

As Loren and Ruth Wilkinson remind in their book Caring for Creation in your own back yard we caan reduce, reuse, and recycle:

We can turn off the lights or the heat (when we’re not in the rooms), we can save energy, we can stop the water when we’re not brushing our teeth (I’ve started as I’ve gathering ideas in preparing this message), we can avoid over use water in show (guilty of this—long time), re-use…paper printer… that’s only been used on one side (paper), we can recyle (bin) and try to walk or bike when possible…

(The archbishop of Cantebury is urging the Anglican church toward a Green Revolution. He was quoted in a recent edition of the Vancouver Sun, saying we can try to find out where our products and wherever possible try to encourage fair trade goods.

On the C.B.C. local News Friday night there was a feature on buying fair trade roses. Roses that have been developed in places where people are conscious of both not polutting the environment or paying their workers fairly.

Where possible and as we can afford we can try to buy food from companies that are conscious of treating animals well….whether or about free range eggs, free range turkeys, Dolphin free tuna, ecological laundry…)

I love nature but I don’t kiss or hug trees. But I really want to think through what it means to decrease my ecological footprint… I haven’t done this very well.
On a personal level I want to play my part…

We can care for the earth through our personal lifestyle, but we can care for the earth by using our influence to promote care for creation.

The Pantanal region of located along the borders of Brazil, Bolivia, and Paraguay is considered the largest freshwater wetland in the world (depending on exactly where you draw the borders it’s about ¼ of the size of British Columbia) and home kind of animals and various endangered species.

It’s been described as kind of Jurrasic Park without the dinosaurs…

But, as New York Times Columnist Thomas Friedman pointed out this area was put at
risk through the forces of globalization.

Soy farmers on the plateau above the Pantanal basin were eager to get their soy to a rapidly expanding global soybean market.

To get their soy to market they wanted to straighten the winding rivers so that barges could navigate them more easily and quickly—but in ways that would harm the ecosystem (show the photos of rivers and animals).

But what happened in Pantanal is that local environmentalists engaged environmentalists here in North America to put pressure on the Inter-American Development Bank, which was planning to fund the new straightening of the river system (re-show image of the winding river)…

The Development bank, sensitive to its global brand name reputation, responded by pressuring the local governments sponsoring the river project to do a complete environmental assessment. In the end, the government figured out ways to improve the navigation of the rivers in the Pantanal without altering their shape.

20 years ago according to Vice President of Conversation International, Glenn Pricket, in a country like Brazil where most of Pantanal wetland is located… If foreign environmentalists critical of development in practices in the Amazon, the general would say “Butt out, this is our sovereign terroritory.” But with the coming of globalization and more and more companies investing in places like Brazil it creates a new dynamic. With global companies concerned about their global brandname sometimes it only takes on environmentalist waving an email message on the floor of her parliament to hold up a major power plant or project or some environmentally sensitive deal.

Some times the concerns of individuals not only lead to a company become more environmentally sensitive out of concern for their brand name and their profitability, but in some case the leader of company actually experience a kind of conversion.

Like Ray Anderson, head of the largest carpet manufacturing company in the world.

“Show video Clip”

For 21 years Ray Anderson never thought about how their products were affecting the environment and then because of the questions of some customers… set in motion a series of events that change him and his company.

I show this to demonstrate how the concerns of individual customer can turn a company but also to illustrate that when and if we have a position in the world, like Ray Anderson, we can implement change.

I know some people in this community are seeking to use their influence to care for creation. I have heard of how people like Dr. Marcello Veiga, a member of our community, who is professor mining engineering at UBC is doing this. He serves as consultant to United Nations Industrial Development Organization…giving them counsel on how to reduce mercury pollution of international waters by emissions resulting from gold mining.

As a professor at UBC he says, "My responsibility to students is to get them thinking about ethical behaviour (particularly as it affects the environment and poor), which has been sadly lacking in the history of engineering."

He and his wife Sonia are using their influence informed by their Christian conscience to care for creation.

Ron Sider, a Christian very committed to caring for creation, has…

“Noone can do everything, everyone can do something and together we can change the world.”

“Noone can do everything, everyone can do something and together, by the grace of God, we can change the world.”


(Carpet CEO 51:55—54:33)

050212 Stewardship M3 Environment

Outline:

Introduction:

What do you think is the most beautiful place on earth? (it could be either a place you’ve heard about, seen in photos or art or have actually been to)?

This past Sunday I was speaking at a church in Hawaii (someone has to do it).

One afternoon we were at a park overlooking the ocean on the Eastern side of Oahu. We saw this skit of a pirate who was invading a little island. The pirate shouted from his ship to a man on island, I know you have treasure--hand it over or die! The man on the little island says, “We have no treasure on the island. The pirate shouts, I’ve heard you have treasure, hand it over! Then there is a voice over which says, “The treasure is all the natural beauty all around us.”

In beautiful places like Hawaii or Vancouver or in places we’ve thought of we are especially conscious of the fact that the treasure that is all around us.

This morning as continue our series on what it means to be manager of a steward of things that God has entrusted to us, we’re going to look at what it means to be a manager or a steward of creation.

Psalm 24 tells us that the earth belongs to the Lord…

1 The earth is the LORD's, and everything in it,
the world, and all who live in it;
2 for he founded it upon the seas
and established it upon the waters.
Historically whether people were Christian or not, many have intuitively understood that the land belongs to someone or something bigger than themselves.

The earliest settlers in what we now call North America, the First Nations or aboriginal peoples did not believe in “private property.” They believed the land was sacred and should belong to no particular human being.

As Jeremy Rifkin, the president of the foundation of economic movements points out, during medieval times in, Europe life had much more of a communal or collective quality.

The land was divided into commons are (photo Edale). People farmed the land as a collective. The land was administered by the church or the aristocracy or the lord of the manor and these people managed the land as stewards of God who owned the land (photo of the people farming the land).

People belonged to the land--the land did not belong to people. The land belonged to God…

When we’re aware that the land belongs to God, we’re much more apt to cultivate and farm it as a kind of act of worship (slide of the Angelus).

Beginning with the enclose of movements of the commons lands in the 14-16 centuries in Europe, the great common lands, were reduced to private property. Later countries would claim the oceans waters close to them, and in the last century air corridors have been bought and sold… and now in recent times in places Bolivia even the rain fallen from the sky has been privatized… sold to a U.S. based corporation…

My point is not to say that “owning property” real estate or other kinds of property is wrong or that we should adopt a communist system, but us to remind that in a time when we assume land is owned “some person or corporation or government” we can forget the reality of Psalm 24 that the earth belongs to the Lord.

Title deed or no title deed, strictly speaking we don’t own land, strictly speaking God owns the land: he owns the world, and we are simply managers of what he’s entrusted to us (use globe).

In Genesis 2:15 we see how God calls us to serve as stewards or managers of the land.
15 The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.
If the land was really “ours”—I suppose we could do with it what we wanted with but if it’s someone else’s property we don’t have that freedom.

We live on a corner lot not too far from here… and on the Western side of our lot is a sidewalk and between the sideway and the road list a grassed area about 9-10 feet wide that runs about 120 feet with 3 fairly newly planted trees. It’s not our land but I understand we’re responsible to take of it. We are to the cut grass, water it and the trees in the summer, and remove the litter from this area, etc. I think we take better care of this piece of property than our “own” yard. Because this someone else’s property, I guess it’s a common area, and we’ve been entrusted to take care of it.

If we’re asked to take care of someone else’s home or plants or dog or cat while they’re away on vacation, isn’t true we’ll likely better care of these things than if they were own?

The more we care for and respect the owner the better we’ll take care of their property.

After graduating from theological seminary in the Boston area, I was pretty much broke and the first position I had was serving as a pastor of a new church plant to be started in Southern California.

The church had no denominational backing and no major financial backing. A couple in Southern California who I had never met heard that I was coming to Southern California to plant a church. The husband called me and explained he and his wife traveled up to half the year and asked if I would be willing to live in their home, which over looked the Ocean, in exchange for taking care of their plants and dog while they were away.

The choice was either I’d be living in the back seat of my car or living in place overlooking the ocean… I’ll take #2.

John and Carol the owners of the home became friends of mine. Because of their care for me and generosity, I wanted to really do a good job of taking care of their plants and dog. I wanted honor them by taking good care of their home.

Part of the way we people honor is by taking care of things they’ve entrusted to us.

Part of the way honor God is by taking care of the earth he has entrusted to you us.

We honor God by gathering and singing song of worship to God, but we also honor God by taking care of the things he has entrusted to our care.

The earth is the Lord’s (Psalm 24), he has called us to take care of the earth as managers and stewards and we honor him by taking good care of the earth… and finally one of the many motivations we have as people who believe or are coming to believe in God is the fact the God tells us in his work that the day the earth will one day be renewed.

In history of Christianity, there have been periods when Christians have not taken care of the earth because people believe that it would one day be destroyed and replaced.

There is much evidence in the Bible, however, to suggest that the earth rather than being destroyed will be renewed.
In Revelation 21:1

God says 1Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea.

Later in Revelation 21 God says God in Revelation 21 “Behold I am making all things new.”

Darrell Johnson in is book on Revelation says for years he misread read these words to mean I am making “all new things.”



Darrell says for years the future meant for me scrapping everything of the old creation, and starting over with a whole new plan.

Now he reads it—I am making all things new; God can make all new things, but point of Revelation 21 and 22 is that he is making all things: people and creation new.

If we believe that this world and all that is in it will one day be obliterated or just absorbed into nothingness as some religions teach, then we’d have much less motivation to care for the earth (we’d some, especially if we think about future generations).

But if we believe that this earth will one day be redeemed and made new we have tremendous motivation to take care of earth.

The famous baseball player Mickey Mantle said when he was dying from a disease that had been brought on by a lifetime of alcohol abuse; he said if I knew I was going to live this long I would have taken better care of my body. When we realize that God has a plan to renew the earth and that it has future… as renewed earth… then we also will take great care, for the glory of God, for the good of future generations, and in anticipation of its renewal.

Caring for creation and being ecologically sensitive is simply a natural overflow of who we are and what we believe.

Let’s move into some application how does this apply to us personally?

Sonja Bruce is one of the members of the community who has thought a lot about this and is really seeking to live this out with her husband. I’ve her to come and share some ways we can do this.

The population of North America of Canada and U.S. is about 5 percent of the world and yet we use over 25% of the worlds resources.

As Loren and Ruth Wilkinson remind in their book Caring for Creation in your own back yard we caan reduce, reuse, and recycle:

We can turn off the lights or the heat (when we’re not in the rooms), we can save energy, we can stop the water when we’re not brushing our teeth (I’ve started as I’ve gathering ideas in preparing this message), we can avoid over use water in show (guilty of this—long time), re-use…paper printer… that’s only been used on one side (paper), we can recyle (bin) and try to walk or bike when possible…

(The archbishop of Cantebury is urging the Anglican church toward a Green Revolution. He was quoted in a recent edition of the Vancouver Sun, saying we can try to find out where our products and wherever possible try to encourage fair trade goods.

On the C.B.C. local News Friday night there was a feature on buying fair trade roses. Roses that have been developed in places where people are conscious of both not polutting the environment or paying their workers fairly.

Where possible and as we can afford we can try to buy food from companies that are conscious of treating animals well….whether or about free range eggs, free range turkeys, Dolphin free tuna, ecological laundry…)

I love nature but I don’t kiss or hug trees. But I really want to think through what it means to decrease my ecological footprint… I haven’t done this very well.
On a personal level I want to play my part…

We can care for the earth through our personal lifestyle, but we can care for the earth by using our influence to promote care for creation.

The Pantanal region of located along the borders of Brazil, Bolivia, and Paraguay is considered the largest freshwater wetland in the world (depending on exactly where you draw the borders it’s about ¼ of the size of British Columbia) and home kind of animals and various endangered species.

It’s been described as kind of Jurrasic Park without the dinosaurs…

But, as New York Times Columnist Thomas Friedman pointed out this area was put at
risk through the forces of globalization.

Soy farmers on the plateau above the Pantanal basin were eager to get their soy to a rapidly expanding global soybean market.

To get their soy to market they wanted to straighten the winding rivers so that barges could navigate them more easily and quickly—but in ways that would harm the ecosystem (show the photos of rivers and animals).

But what happened in Pantanal is that local environmentalists engaged environmentalists here in North America to put pressure on the Inter-American Development Bank, which was planning to fund the new straightening of the river system (re-show image of the winding river)…

The Development bank, sensitive to its global brand name reputation, responded by pressuring the local governments sponsoring the river project to do a complete environmental assessment. In the end, the government figured out ways to improve the navigation of the rivers in the Pantanal without altering their shape.

20 years ago according to Vice President of Conversation International, Glenn Pricket, in a country like Brazil where most of Pantanal wetland is located… If foreign environmentalists critical of development in practices in the Amazon, the general would say “Butt out, this is our sovereign terroritory.” But with the coming of globalization and more and more companies investing in places like Brazil it creates a new dynamic. With global companies concerned about their global brandname sometimes it only takes on environmentalist waving an email message on the floor of her parliament to hold up a major power plant or project or some environmentally sensitive deal.

Some times the concerns of individuals not only lead to a company become more environmentally sensitive out of concern for their brand name and their profitability, but in some case the leader of company actually experience a kind of conversion.

Like Ray Anderson, head of the largest carpet manufacturing company in the world.

“Show video Clip”

For 21 years Ray Anderson never thought about how their products were affecting the environment and then because of the questions of some customers… set in motion a series of events that change him and his company.

I show this to demonstrate how the concerns of individual customer can turn a company but also to illustrate that when and if we have a position in the world, like Ray Anderson, we can implement change.

I know some people in this community are seeking to use their influence to care for creation. I have heard of how people like Dr. Marcello Veiga, a member of our community, who is professor mining engineering at UBC is doing this. He serves as consultant to United Nations Industrial Development Organization…giving them counsel on how to reduce mercury pollution of international waters by emissions resulting from gold mining.

As a professor at UBC he says, "My responsibility to students is to get them thinking about ethical behaviour (particularly as it affects the environment and poor), which has been sadly lacking in the history of engineering."

He and his wife Sonia are using their influence informed by their Christian conscience to care for creation.

Ron Sider, a Christian very committed to caring for creation, has…

“Noone can do everything, everyone can do something and together we can change the world.”

“Noone can do everything, everyone can do something and together, by the grace of God, we can change the world.”


(Carpet CEO 51:55—54:33)