Update and future direction of this Blog

Sorry, it's been a while since I updated, but I had a theology test last Friday, so most of you should understand what that is like. I'm glad to be updating and hope you guys haven't missed me that much. Kyla, Nick and myself went out and didn some coummunity surveys on Saturday and we sure had a good time doing that. We met some really neat people and were actually invited into several homes to talked for more than just a few minutes, which is a huge deal for us. I'm also looking foward to taking this blog in a fresh, more new approach in the next few weeks as I'm gonna try and post some of my "theological thoughts" something like a mini-bible study thing about what I'm learning or thinking about at the time. For example, I have chosen my topic for my Theology research paper now and I'm gonna be posting about that and hoping to get responses. I'm going to look into the current International Mission Board (IMB) controversy and examine the reasoning behind the new baptism guidelines, and examine them in relation to the church policy of Landmarkism. I'm looking foward to learning about the issues and the beliefs of Southern Baptists in this area and will encourage responses from many of you on this issue.

Also, I'm looking foward to a great trip next week. Rebekah and I are heading over to Westbank, British Columbia to visit the people at The Potter's House Community Church
I haven't seen these guys in about a year and a half and it will be fun to catch up with again soon. I'm also hoping to attend a Kelowna Rockets game while there. Huge fan of the Western Hockey League and it should be fun. We are also going to be doing some exploring and scouting of some cities along the way and see what these cities are about, who lives there, what kinds of churches are there, and maybe discover what God is doing. There will be a future post on the three cities I am planning on visitining so look foward to that in the next week.

Here are a few topics I'm going to address in the next 2 weeks on this blog.

1. Landmarkism and the IMB controversy

2. Why planting new churches is more important than anything else Christians can do to grow the kingdom of God. (Yes, I said anything!)

3. Reports and prayer requests on all three cities Rebekah and I are planning on scouting on our way and way back from British Columbia. All three cities are in British Columbia and they are between Cochrane, Alberta and Westbank, British Columbia, if you would like to leave a comment and guess what they might be.

Until then, enjoy your weeks!

Weather update.

Things are great here, and I thought if might be fun to post a comparison of the forecast from Calgary and New Orleans.


Calgary

5 Day Forecast from Environment Canada

Wednesday night

• Low -20 °F
• POP 40%

Chance of flurries

Thursday

• High -6 °F

Sunny

Thursday night

• Low -22 °F

Clear

Friday

• High 12 °F

Sunny

Saturday

• High 25 °F
• Low 1 °F

Sunny

Sunday

• High 23 °F
• Low 10 °F

Sunny

These icons are a summary. See complete text below



New Orleans, LA

5-Day Forecast for ZIP Code 70126

Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday	Sunday
75 ° | 59 °	72 ° | 60 °	71 ° | 53 °	66 ° | 53 °	62 ° | 54 °
Partly Cloudy	Partly Cloudy	Chance of Rain 20% chance	Chance of Rain 30% chance	Chance of Rain 40% chance

Kevin Madden- The Potter's House Coummunity Church article

As many of you know I served a summer and a semester at The Potter's House Community Church in Westbank, British Columbia. The article that I am going to post under my ramblings comes from SBC Life, the journal of the Southern Baptist Convention and is a great encouragement to me, and a good update for many of you that know about The Potter's House and their ministry in BC. If you don't know anything about The Potter's House, I would encourage you to read this article and check them out. For those you who are interested or involved in church planting, I would encourage you to read this as well, as The Potter's House has done a great job of planting a church that is working great and is already, only 3 years old, is helping to plant another church in Kamloops, British Columbia and they have plans for many more church plants that they will sponsor. Great reading. I'm going to post an update of what I've been up to sometime in the near future, but until then enjoy this great stuff.

Shining the Light of God's Love in Western Canada

For ten years now, North American missionaries Kevin and Alicia Madden have lived twenty-two hundred miles away from Kevin's birthplace, Washington, Georgia — a historic little town located about one hundred miles east of Atlanta. Today, their home and hearts are firmly rooted in Canada.

Madden is a church planting missionary and senior pastor of The Potter's House Community Church in Westbank, British Columbia, a community of thirty thousand people, located about four hours from Vancouver. British Columbia is Canada's far-western province, just above Washington State.

"We are so blessed by the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering," says Madden. "As part of the Canadian Convention of Southern Baptists, we work very closely with the North American Mission Board. The funds from the Annie Armstrong Offering help as a supplement to my salary, and help us with many of the ministries we carry out as a church plant. The chairs we sit on in church were provided by Annie Armstrong money.

"It's really hard to imagine our work and our ministry without the kind of support we've had through the Annie Armstrong Offering and through our network of partners. We've been very blessed as a church, but the need is great."

Westbank runs counter to every image Americans have about Canada. There's no frozen tundra, and the climate is mild compared to most of Canada. It's a rich agricultural region — known for its wine country and fruit orchards, including cherries, pears, apricots, plums, apples, peaches, and grapes. Gigantic Okanagan Lake nearby draws thousands of tourists who come for the fishing and water sports. During a couple of weeks in the summer, temperatures can climb up to one hundred degrees.

Canada is different from the United States in a myriad of subtle ways, according to Madden. There's not a single Canadian language, but both French and English are spoken. There's no famous Canadian cuisine. While America is often characterized as a melting pot, Canadians rally around diversity.

"Canadians consider themselves to be more like a tossed salad," Madden explains. "They celebrate differences. They don't expect conformity to language or to dress or to religion. Diversity is celebrated, and by and large, Canadians are very tolerant, even to the extreme."

Canada is the world's second largest sovereign country in terms of land area. Huge yet sparse, Canada has a population of "only" thirty million, about the same as the state of California, but spread out over an immense chunk of North America.

"Our Southern Baptist association alone spans a length of twelve hundred miles from north to south and nine hundred miles from east to west," Madden says. "There are pastors that I've never met in our association, even in the almost ten years we've been here."

Reflecting the country of Canada at large, there's an overwhelming need for more churches in the Westbank area, according to Madden, who says that only five to eight percent of people in the region profess a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. Some 90 percent of the population never darkens the doors of any church on any Sunday.

After graduating from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Ft. Worth, and serving as pastor at churches in South Carolina and Texas, it was a close relationship with another couple that pushed Canada to the front and center of Madden's radar screen for missions.

"We became overwhelmed with the lostness of Canada. God pushed us out of the nest and into churching planting. We saw a great need in Westbank, where the population is growing tremendously and is projected to continue to grow."

While the spiritual potential is great, the current spiritual climate can be somewhat bleak.

"Many students go to a school where they don't know of another Christian in the school," Madden says. "Alicia and I grew up in Georgia — in the middle of the Bible Belt — where we didn't know of a non-Christian in school. Here, people are not aware of Christian teachings and don't know much about the Bible.

"It's not popular for kids to be Christians in the schools. Kids who wear Christian T-shirts or who promote Christ in any way stick out in a negative way by local standards. It's just not cool or culturally acceptable for Christian kids. Students who try to stand up for their faith and take a stand for Christ are definitely the odd man out," Madden said.

Paradoxically, Madden says that Canadians are people who want to be loved and want to be accepted, and who are open to spiritual things.

"There's a great openness and hunger for God, and a lot of talk about God. Canadians are a very hospitable and friendly people. But as Christians, we have to develop relationships with them, not try to push a message down their throats or take a harsh approach to sharing the Gospel," said Madden. He said the best method is to let Canadian people witness the authentic Christian life, to speak about Christ, and to live out and model Christ's love and message.

Consequently, Madden uses some unorthodox methods to try to win over the Westbank community and attract the locals to his church, The Potter's House Community Church, which meets in a rented community center gym.

Potter's House derived its name from Jeremiah 18, in which God told Jeremiah to go down at once to the potter's house; there I will reveal My words to you. Jeremiah went and watched the potter shaping the imperfect clay into something useful and beautiful. Madden likes the potter and clay imagery for his church — believing that he and his members are the clay God, the potter, is using for His purposes.

Madden extends the pottery theme out into the community. One way he and Alicia welcome and invite business people to Potter's House Church is to stroll down Westbank's main street, handing out free potted flowers to the merchants.

"I got the idea from the Scripture that said we need to try and gain favor in the community with the people," he said, "and to build a bridge with them. So, realizing we're going to be here for a long time and wanting to make a good first impression as a church, we use the potted plants as a way to serve the community without expecting anything in return," said Madden. He's also been known to distribute thousands of water bottles at local beaches in the summertime or during the Canada Day parade, the biggest community event of the year.

When people ask him why he and Potter's House are committing these acts of kindness, he simply replies that "it gives us an opportunity to tell you why we're here and that we're trying to share God's love, that we are a church reaching out to unchurched people, and that we want to invite you to come to our church and check us out."

But despite the Maddens' creative ways for drawing Canadians to Christ and the church, their workload remains formidable — almost overwhelming.

"You could get a map of Canada and close your eyes and just point to any place and I promise you that wherever your finger landed, that location needs not only one church but many Southern Baptist churches." In his role as a church planter, Madden has a vision for additional churches in twelve other sites within a day's drive from Westbank.

"We need more pastors, more Bible study leaders, more Mission Service Corps missionaries," Madden said. "We need to reach out more to people with addictions and those struggling with some negative habits or behaviors in their lives. We need a specialized recovery ministry for these people."

Why are the Maddens — along with their three sons — spending the days of their lives in a world twenty-two hundred miles away from the American South they know and love?

"The short answer is that God called us and we felt a clear calling to come to this country. And He brought some people across our path who helped us understand the tremendous needs of Canada. The more we became aware of Canada, and after we came here for a visit, He called us in a very special way to fall in love with the people here and invest our lives here. Oddly enough, this feels more like home now than when we go back to Georgia," said Madden.

These four articles were written by Mickey Noah, news specialist for NAMB.

Great article about the Olympics and a Baptist Pastor. The chaplain and pastor serves as a church planting pastor in Canmore, Alberta, about 45 mintues from where I am living. I was also able to help with the VBS they had last summer and this pastor was sharing about this story a few weeks ago at the Alberta Pastor's Summit. He gave a great testimony about this upcoming experience and all of us here in Alberta will look foward to hearing from him when he gets back. The article comes from Baptist Press.




Olympics match Baptist chaplain with Costa Rican skier
By Tim Ellsworth
Feb 10, 2006

TURIN, Italy (BP)--It might not be as widely known as the Jamaican bobsled team, but the Costa Rican cross-country skiing team has been a fixture at the Winter Olympics for more than two decades.

Steve Sellers, a Southern Baptist pastor in Canada, serves as the coach for the lone member of the ski team, Arturo Kinch.

“We came before the Jamaican bobsled team,” Sellers said. “It goes all the way back to 1980 in the Olympics in Lake Placid. So [Kinch] was two Olympics before the Jamaican bobsled team.”

In addition to his role as Kinch’s coach, Sellers also will serve as a chaplain during the Olympic Games in Turin, Italy. The Games officially begin tonight with the opening ceremony, with athletes from across the world chasing Olympic gold for the next 16 days.

Sellers hopes some of the athletes may encounter God amid their quest for Olympic glory.

He recalls his experience as Olympic chaplain in 1998, when numerous athletes from Eastern European countries stopped by the chapel center every night for a Bible discussion group.

“All these different athletes were there for the Olympics, but a lot of them were really investigating the Lord,” Sellers said. “It was an exciting time. We’re hoping things like that will materialize again, but only God can make that happen.”

Sellers began serving as a chaplain during the Olympics in 1998 in Nagano, Italy. This year he’s one of 10 chaplains who will staff the chapel center, which serves the two Olympic villages.

As chaplain, he’ll lead Bible studies for those who want to attend, listen to those who want to talk and pray with those who have needs.

“You’ve got to watch your evangelistic practices,” Sellers said. “For me, that’s the idea, but you have to be careful in that setting. The organizers don’t want you out there proselytizing.”

Sellers is pastor of Alpine Christian Ministries church in Canmore, Alberta, Canada. For the past 12 years he’s also served as chaplain for the National Sports Center in Calgary, where athletes from around the world come to train and compete.

That included Kinch, who came to Calgary in 2002 for a competition. A mutual friend put Kinch in touch with Sellers, and the two became friends. Kinch asked Sellers to serve as his coach.

The son of a missionary couple in Costa Rica, Kinch moved to Colorado in 1974 to attend Rockmont College, now Colorado Christian University. His main sport was soccer, but he went out for the ski team to get in shape.

“He really took to it,” Sellers said. “He loved it and was really good at it, so he kept it going.”

This year in Turin will mark the fifth Winter Olympics in which Kinch has competed as a cross-country skier.
--30--

Having a good day today, which is following a really good day yesterday. I spent the majority of my day on the road and the C-Train (Calgary Transit) I have a car to use for the next two weeks, so I spent my first day with the car utilizing it. I also picked up 2 tickets to the Calgary Hitmen Hockey game for Saturday night. Rebekah and I are going to the game Saturday night, and we are going to be sitting on the 2nd row behind one of the nets. Should be great fun. I also got some shopping done for a little something that is coming up this coming Tuesday.

I also stopped by Tim Horton's to pick up a few gift certificates for the church's outreach plans, which I am now in charge of and leading the church in. One of the recent focusses of the church plant, Tapestry Rocky Ridge, is going to be some community survey work in Rocky Ridge in order that we might learn more about the community, but more importantly that we might encounter people that we can tell about Jesus, and invite them to participate in our Bible studies and other things. About 2 weeks ago we had 2 particuarly good conversations with a guy named Raj, and another guy who we didn't get his name, but he was a older man that has recently moved to Calgary from Ontario. We just wanted to stop by and reconnect with these two guys again. Raj wasn't home, so we'll have to go back. The guy from Ontario wasn't home either, but his wife came to the door. A few weeks ago, this guy had told us to not waste our time on him, he wasn't interested in God at all, and did not want to have anything to do with church. He was very nice about it, but he just clearly let us know that he didn't do the "church thing." He said we were welcome to come back, but he didn't plan on coming to church. We had told him thanks for talking to us, and asked if we could stop back in sometime, he said sure, so yesterday was our day to go back and see him again, even though he had told us he was wasting our time. We went with a Tim Horton's gift certificate and a small card inviting him to our church dinner party and discussion group that has been set for March 18th. We did not have high expectations of our return, but we wanted to go anyway. When his wife answered the door, it became very clear that he had told his wife about us, which initially we didn't think was a good thing. His wife told us how much her husband had enjoyed us stopping by, and even though he still wasn't interested in church, he had spoken very highly of what we were trying to do in the community. We left the card and thanked her for talking to us. We walked away pretty surprised that the man had a positive image of us,and we were very excited about it. In western Canada, it's these little, initial things that can be very important as we seek to start a new church that will impact the kingdom. Start small, and continue to have an impact for God, that is our vision for the outreach of Tapestry Church.

Jonathan and Rebekah 

Wednesday, February 08, 2006

Yukon Trip Recap Finally, here is the Yukon trip update, Full and un-edited, probably. We departed on our Yukon trip on monday night January 2nd. We left around 9pm to drive all night and go as far as we could northwest and hopefully stay tuesday night somewhere before continuing wed morning. We picked up our 7th and final team member, Emily Buck, at the Edmonton airport around midnight and continued on our journey. We drove, and drove, and drove, and drove, and drove until the sun came up Tuesday morning and then we kept driving. I stayed in the front passenger/shotgun seat until about 5am until I couldn't stay awake any longer. If you were riding shotgun, you had to stay awake and keep the driver awake. You got the best seat in the van, but you couldn't sleep. Fair trade, but at 5am I was too tired to stay up any longer. Slept a little bit after that, woke up and guess what, we were still driving! And still had a long, long way to go. We finally exited Alberta and made it to British Columbia, which was nice, at least a new province. When we made it to Dawson Creek, British Columbia, which is the start of the Alaska, highway, which we would be on for the remainder of the trip. After Dawson Creek, our next big thing was Ft Nelson, BC (British Columbia) where we stopped for gas and a quick time to make sandwhiches for Tuesday's lunch. We kept going, planning on going as far as possible before it got dark, as we didn't want to travel extremely rural, isolated roads after dark. About 15 minutes outside of Ft Nelson, we got a flat right front tire. We stopped and had major issues trying to change the tire. If you ever rent a Dodge Grand Caravan with the extra deep storage in the back, just know that the spare tire is under the middle of the van and the access area for lowering the spare is inside the van between the two front seats! Strangest thing I have ever seen for a spare tire setup, but oh well. It was very frustrating, but once we changed the tire, we headed back into Ft. Nelson to get a new tire, and this delay caused us to have to stay the night in Ft. Nelson, which we had not planned on doing. We called some hotels, but were not able to find a place that was within our budget, so we just called this random Pentecostal Church we found in the phone book and asked is we could stay at the church for the night. The pastor said sure, so we went back there and had a free place to stay. Since we were not going to drive further we spent the afternoon prayerwalking in Ft. Nelson and found out about the huge needs in the city and some of us had begun to think about this city as a place for a summer team. That night, we met the pastor’s wife who shared her passion for reaching the city’s youth, just as we had noticed that same need, and she told about her and her husband’s plans for the summer. They would be out of town for about two months and were hoping to have a missions team use their house for the summer! Bells began to go off in our heads and we began to think about sending a team, having a free place for them to stay ,(one of the most difficult to overcome when sending a team to northern Canada) but more importantly we realized why God had given us a flat tire and made us stop in Ft. Nelson. We headed out the next morning to continue our trip on to Whitehorse, Yukon. We drove and drove and drove, the further we went the colder, more isolated, and worse the roads became. We celebrated wonderfully when we entered the Yukon, but we still had a long way to go. We finally made it Whitehorse on Wednesday night around 9pm. It had taken exactly 48 hours to make the trip, with most of that driving, as the only real stop was in Ft Nelson. Once we were in Whitehorse, we slept well and for the entire night, it was really great. We went out to go scouting and begin exploring what God is doing in Whitehorse. Everyone but me and Sammy went to the Canada Games Centre, a large recreational facility in town. Sammy and I headed into town and made our way to the Whitehorse and Yukon Visitor's Information Centre. We met Isabelle there and she gave us tons of great info about Whitehorse and the Yukon. Finding out about the place is one of the most important things that you attempt to do while scouting new communities. A good night's sleep followed. We were staying in the home of a great family that we have very limited knowledge of except that we knew the sister of the lady at the house. They are not believer's but they just readily opened their home to 7 strangers. Friday morning, we headed out to the remote cabin where we are going to stay for one night. Lots of adventure ensued. The cabin is on a frozen lake, has no power, running water, only a gas stove for heat, and the 2nd nicest Outhouse in the Yukon. We stayed there the night, froze for a bit, then got really hot when the wood stove really got heated up. Fun night, we didn't have enough water to cook with so we melted snow and had a great time "ruffin it" out in the woods of the Yukon. After we left the cabin we headed back into Whitehorse to do some more scouting. I spent a lot of time in a coffee house in town and learned that this is a very good strategic location in town. Sunday, we went to Riverdale Baptist Church, a fairly good sized church, of about 100 people located in Whitehorse. For those of you outside of Canada, 100 people in a Canadian church is a very large church. After church we grabbed a quick bite to eat and then it was back out into downtown Whitehorse to attempt to meet people and connect with them while learning about Whitehorse and the Yukon. We had a good afternoon, and we went to dinner at our host family's parent's home. It was great to connect with so many people. The seven team members were there, along with about 10 family members, of which there is only one believer, so we were able to have great converstaions with them. Monday was our last full day in Whitehorse and we attempted to make the best of it. We tried to wrap up some things and continue our hearing from God about what he might want to do in the Yukon. We were able to interview the mayor of Whitehorse and the premiere of the Yukon, which is the equivilant of a govenor of a US State. Both interviews went really well, and we were able to film both. We are going to put together a promotional video from some of the footage that we have shot while on this trip. Our last full day in Whitehorse was a success and we hit the road again to head back to Calgary. For those of you reading this that are not familiar with "scouting and exploration" as a way of ministry and hearing from God, and that would be most of you that have not done Current or live outside of Canada, this trip we took might not seem like a mission trip at all. Let me encourage you, that hearing from God, praying for a city, and seeing what God might want to do in a place is just as much a mission trip as painting a church or holding a Backyard Bible Club. Both trips are missional in their nature, but very different in their approach. I would encourage you that read this that seem a little confused about how you can take a mission trip without sponsouring a VBS or Revival meeting, or doing construction work to learn to hear from God and seek to attach youselves to what he is doing in the different places you go. God uses many different methods and ways to have his Gospel spread around the world, and simply going to a place to hear from him is an extremely effective way to be on mission with God. We started our long trip back to Calgary on Tuesday January 10th with our only real planned stop in Ft, Nelson, BC in order to meet with the pastor we met on the way up to discuss a possible Current Mission Team spending their summer in Ft. Nelson this coming summer. Our meeting and dinner with the pastor and some church leadership was very successful and fruitful. We spent 2 nights in Ft Nelson in order to do some scouting and praying there and we headed out on the last leg of our journey on Thursday morning. We had planned on stopping somewhere Thursday night and driving on to Edmonton to drop Emily at the airport about 4am Saturday, but we just kept driving. Emily was able to change her flight to Friday morning so we just drove until then, stayed at the Edmonton airport Thursday night and headed back to Calgary around 4am Friday. We arrived back in Calgary/Cochrane around 8am Friday morning where we all went to bed for the rest of the morning and half the afternoon. I got back up early afternoon and headed down to Okotoks, Alberta, about an hour from Cochrane to go see Rebekah, who I had very much missed over the last month My profile picture here on Xanga is of Rebekah and I. That completed our trip to the Yukon. I am going to post a good many pictures that I took on the trip under this text. Feel free to comment or email me if you want to know more about the trip. For those of you that were prayer and financial supporters of this trip, let me say thank you very much from me, and Thank you from the people of Northern Canada that will be impacted by the ministry that our team had while on this trip, and the ministry that God will continue to do in northern Canada. God Bless all of you. Let me explain a few of the pictures. Most of scenery, the roads and other things we saw along the way. There is a pic of the girls of the team at the welcome to the yukon sign, a few pics of our flat tire, my bed while staying in Ft. Nelson, the road signs you see are from Watson Lake, Yukon, in the "Sign Post Forrest, where there are over 50,000 signs nailed to posts, the pics you see are ones that I connected with such as Kelowna/Penticton. I took some others for people I know, Joe, Mobile is for you, Miriam, Mars Hill is for you, Michelle, Jackson is for you. The U-Haul Trailer you see was parked at a gas station in Whitehorse, but it was an image of New Orleans and Mardi Gras, which I just found funny was in the Yukon so I had to have a pic of it. There are some pics of of "cooking snow" to make water, that was pretty fun, The guy I'm standing with in one of the pics is the mayor of Whitehorse, and that hand is to give you perspective as to how large the cinnamon buns we ate were, they are the world's largest. Sorry for the random picture descriptions, hopefully you have a clue what they are! Enjoy and feel free to comment!