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Confirmation Camp : June 29 - July 4 (Nanoose Bay) |
Bike Hike : July 19 (Location TBA) |
Canadian Lutheran Youth Gathering:
Aug 14-17 Whitehorse, Yukon |
Family Day Camp : September 6 at Cultus Lake |
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 So you’ve found our website. Maybe it was a fluke, maybe it was just lucky, maybe you don’t know how you got here, but I’d like to think of it as a blessing. A blessing for us because every guest is a blessing. We value that, we value you. More importantly, God values you.
And then we believe that we don’t just live for ourselves, so we hope that we can be a blessing to you.
Perhaps you will find here something useful, interesting, or inspiring. Hopefully you will see that while this site has many purposes we’d mostly like this to be an invitation, an invitation to believe but also to explore the Christian faith. Maybe, if you live close, you’ll find a reason to drop in in person. We would be very glad if you did.
Pastor Christoph Reiners
on behalf of the people of Peace Lutheran
| What the world needs and how it matters to us |
I was driving home from an Abbotsford Christian Leaders’ luncheon and thought to myself:
“Why do we get excited about things we don’t need and don’t get excited about things the world needs?”
We get excited about new electronic gadgets, sports equipment, clothes, home renovations, etc. All things that, by and large, we have too much of already. Why else would we have such difficulty finding presents for each other?
My point here is not that it is wrong to get excited about something new. That is often a treat and as such can be an affirmation. Just as dressing up can be a sign of taking pride in oneself, so a new item we have longed for can be affirming (as long as we know God affirms us without any of that).
My question is: Why don’t we get as excited about ‘giving’ as we get about ‘getting’?
When I was 15 I learned to windsurf. Even though learning to windsurf is not a matter of instant success (initially you spend much more time in the water than on the board), I was instantly hooked. I was determined to save up for a board. I got a job collecting shopping carts off the lot of the local supermarket and spent every hour I wasn’t working (or going to school) gazing at windsurf catalogues and magazines.
It is true, it was the response of a 13 year old and I have matured some since (at least so I hope) but I still don’t get as excited about buying a goat for an African farmer, giving to Surrey Urban Mission, or to the Cyrus Centre as I get about getting ‘stuff’ (or at least not until I actually do it). Our excitement about things makes us very focused on attaining them. Just imagine what we could achieve if we could get equally excited about sharing our bread with the hungry, about clothing the naked, about loosing the bonds of injustice,(1) or about funding an outreach or youth pastor for our church, or about building a gym! Our excitement about everything becoming new in Jesus would make us focus on bringing change and being change.
Our excitement shapes our priorities. My answer to my question about our lack of excitement about things that matter has to do with the culture in which we live. Our culture deems having more important than reaching out, deems possessing more important than becoming. But it is when we reach out with the love of Jesus that we grow into the full stature of Christ. (Eph 4:13)
Thus the preliminary answer to my question is that we need to change the culture in which we live, at least the culture on which we orient ourselves, the culture which we live and breathe.
The culture we need exists in the pages of the Bible; we make it ours by reading, breathing, and living the story of God and His people.
I suppose the best part about Thanksgiving is not the family gathering, or the Turkey (you knew I’d say that :-)), but the refocusing of our lives, of how gifted we are, of how blessed we are. And people who engage in thanksgiving need someone to give thanks to. When we give thanks to God we encounter the One who gives us new direction, new goals, new excitement, it is the One who sends us out beyond ourselves. As we go, we grow more and more into his likeness.
Yours,
Pastor Christoph
(1) Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke? Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover them, and not to hide yourself from your own kin? (Isaiah 58:6-7)
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| Posted by J. Christoph Reiners on Monday, October 06, 2008 at 10:31
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View Pastor's Messages from Prints of Peace
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