A month in.. almost

This week was good! My good buddy Jeff Phillips was in Phoenix for the Southern Baptist Convention for most of the week, so I was left under the mercy of the rest of the Crossings team.

But before I go any further I would like to say Happy Fathers day to all of you daddies out there. (I am 2 hours behind all of you, so it is still Sunday here) Most importantly, I would like to say Happy Fathers day to my personal dad. I like to call him many things: Pop, Papa Bear, Joseph, Big Daddy, and Father. You rock dad. Thanks for all you do! I am blessed to have such a godly influence in my life! Keep being awesome!

Anyway, back to my week...

Being at the mercy of the Crossings team is something I am a little nervous of. Let's be honest here... Im THAT GUY. I'm here to help out with anything and everything. AND THEY KNOW THAT!! As my friend Mr. Brian Cassino says, "Your our missionary buddy!" and he is right.. I am that guy.. but seriously I love it. Which brings me to Monday.

Actually... Let's start at Sunday. Sunday morning I went to church with my host family. It's called Reality. It was really astounding! (Steph) .. It is a new church plant about 2 years old with around 200 people. Mr. Dennis (The guy I am living with) preached that morning, and he brought it. He preached on a topic that I am sure everyone has thought about at least in their minds... "Is God a Monster??" HE FREAKIN BROUGHT IT!!! It was good!

- Sunday Night I led the Crossings gathering while Jeff was gone. WE DID NOTHING! We had a party, and spit out the window on the people 20 stories below us!!! Actually, it went really well! We walked through Philippians 4. Check it out! It is good! After that we ate sandwiches. And I'll be real here... I don't get pumped over a sandwich...but Anna Katherine used her home made bread for the sandwiches and HOLY CRAP!! BEST SANDWICH EVER!!!!!!!! Seriously people... Jesus eats this stuff!!!

Now to Monday..

Monday I did school.. which sucks. I don't wanna talk about it anymore. That afternoon I received one of those text messages that I knew would be coming. It was from Johnny (our Scottish member of our team) . All it said was this, "Hey man, Are you free this afternoon/evening? Would love your help with something around 4."---- Before I go any further I would like to point out that this text message IS A TRAP!! He knew that I wasn't doing anything, and he also knew that by asking in such a nice way that I couldn't say no, and he also knew that I was reading his text message in a scottish accent and I think it is awesome and he knew I couldn't say no to that--------- Anyway, my response was, "Yeah man I'm free, what we gonna be doing?" To which he replied with, "Awesome man, meet me at my place at 4:15, need your help with a few things."--- Boom--- that was it. WHAT THE HECK ARE WE GONNA DO??!!! Once again, I am THAT GUY, so I knew that anything and everything is free game. Did he want me to paint (he and his wife are painters), did he want me to drive with him to Seattle, did he want me to kill a man??? As 4:15 approached many things went through my mind.. but it was good. He and his wife were having a college class come to their house that evening to eat, and he needed my help moving furniture. So it was a good night, and I was able to help wash all the dishes so that he and his wife could mingle about (as Johnny says) with the group.

Tuesday was an exciting day. The people I'm renting from were gone that day so they had a babysitter come to watch the kids. I walked Ciara to school, and had to pick her up. I also bought her some M&M's... I'm a nice guy... (Ladies.. I'm single)

Tuesday night I rode around with the family I'm living with (and their 4 kids), and a girl thats living here named Michelle. Thanks God for her.... the kids pester her, and not me!!! We went to a sketchy Vietnamese place and got soup.. yes thats right. we got soup. I'm already a picky eater.... and I didn't want to know what was in the soup. I just ate it.. and I actually really liked it. (I'm sure it was a dog)

Wednesday was the big final game for the Vancouver Canucks. It was game 7 of the stanley cup finals and the winner won the thing! Well, as I am sure you all know by now... Vancouver lost.. and some people here decided to take out their anger by blowing up cars, hitting people, breaking into stores, setting things on fire and just destroying the city. See my previous post for pictures. I would also recommend you youtube or google image :Vancouver 2011 riot. CRAZY STUFF!! I survived, and I kept thinking one thing while trying to escape the riot ( I was with Mr. Dennis).... WE HAVE TO LIVE TOGETHER, OR WERE GONNA DIE ALONG!! Bad stuff.. But I survived.. do not cry.

Thursday Jeff returned from Phoenix so I spent the day with him. I really like that guy. Cool dude. But Thursday... was the best day of my week!! Why you ask.... I will tell you in one word that should have spaces but doesn't deserve them..... BILLFROMBRENTWOOD!!(NO SPELLCHECK, THIS IS NOT A MISSPELLED WORD) (If you do not understand this I would suggest you just skip ahead to Friday) Sadly, Bill was not here, but a group from Brentwood was. (Sara's cousin is their girls minister) Jeff, Sarah, Ty, Emma, and I spent the evening with them. Cool people. and YES. we talked about BILLFROMBRENTWOOD.

Friday we had the Crossings team meeting at Johnny's and walked though everything for the All Nations Gathering on Sunday. Then Jeff and I rented some musical equipment for Sunday night. BUT THEN... We grabbed some lunch at a McDonalds. but this is not just a normal McDonalds. It's not like it was huge, it was just awkwardly big. I have no way to explain it. It was just big. Also, Jeff and I watched golf.

Saturday-- Check out City and Colour on Itunes... Incredible. Thats all I will say about Saturday.

Tonight was the All Nations Gathering. It was awesome! Brian and Johnny rocked it out!

Hope this blog makes up for all the ones I have missed.. Oh.. and I met one of the actresses from Twilight.

I would also like to point out that Crossgates tweeted this today:

Popeys!!!

so I re-tweeted it!

The morning after

The Riot

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It is very obvious that God wants this team here to start this church in downtown Vancouver. I can't even begin to say how incredible this team is. Some of the coolest people I've ever met.

Monday night I drove down to Seattle with Brian Cassino to pick up his van and to drop off a car he had rented. I'm serious when I say that he is one of the funniest people I've ever talked to. I laughed the entire trip. He told me the story of how he and his family ended up here, and it is absolutely amazing. I would try and blog it, but that just wouldn't give it justice.

Tuesday night I ate dinner with Scott and Anna Katherine Grisham. (For the record... she makes homemade bread that WILL BE IN HEAVEN). They have two little kids who are super funny, but they don't like to talk to me. ha. After dinner and after the kids went to bed, we watched The Office. It is such a cool thing to see how the office brings people together. :) I love that family!

Wednesday, Jeff and I met with Ed to continue walking through Romans. Ed recently got engaged and instead of walking through Romans, we basically had a marriage counseling session. Ed, as a new believer, had a lot of questions that Jeff had to answer. I basically just sat there and laughed and took notes in my head. Good times! (Pray for Ed, super awesome guy, just got saved, he is reading through the Bible) After that I ate dinner with Jeff and his family (who are incredible and they feed me a lot and I love them) and we all watched the Canucks game.------ The Canucks are not doing so well. But honestly I never thought I would be into hockey, and I love it! People get hurt!! It's great!!

Thursday, Jeff and I finished walking through "Prodigal God" by Tim Keller. Great book! I encourage you to read it! Keller talks a lot about Moralism and how dangerous it is. I could go into a rant about that, but I won't on this blog. It is something that will kill the church! Anyway, here are a few quotes from the book. They are tweet worthy, but 140 character isn't enough.

- "God's reckless grace is our greatest hope."

-"Jesus appeared, and declared that he was bringing "the kingdom of God". The people crowded eagerly around to observe and hear him, but nothing about him fit their expectations. He was born not in a palace behind a royal curtain, but in a stable feed trough, on the straw, far from home. During his ministry he wandered, settling nowhere, and said: "Foxes have holes, and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head" (Matthew 8:20). He remained completely outside the social networks of political and economic power. He did not even seek academic or religious credentials. Finally, at the end of his life, e was crucified outside the gate of the city, a powerful symbol of rejection by the community, of exile.-- Jesus experienced the exile that we deserve so that we can come to the Father."

-"Jesus hates suffering, injustice, evil, and death so much, he came and experienced it to defeat it and, someday, to wipe the world clean of it."

-"Christians commonly say they want a relationship with Jesus, that they want to "get to know Jesus better." You will never be able to do that by yourself. You must be deeply involved in the church, in Christian community, with strong relationships of love and accountability. Only if you are part of a community of believers seeking to resemble, serve, and love Jesus will you ever get to know him and grow into his likeness."

Good book! Read it! I know it's summer... but read it.

Here is the link to The Crossings team page. Incredible group of people. Pray for them!

http://www.thecrossingsvancouver.ca/#/about/team

God is not a white man

Let's be honest... I'm horrible at this blogging thing.

Last week was great!!

Went to a Gungor concert with Mike Vickers on Saturday night. That was awesome. Watched Jeff's basketball team play. Meet with Ed. Watched Ty play baseball and hockey games. Watched the NBA finals with everybody. Watched the NHL finals on Granville with about 1000 Canucks fans. Got attacked by a bird... again. Pretty awesome week.

I'll try to do better with this blog thing this week.