Canadian Elections are tomorrow night.

The elections were officially called in Canada six weeks ago and will be over long before the twenty-three of campaigning in the U.S. elections wraps up.

Some folks I know created electionproject.ca to help people decide and the Toronto Star has a decent section on the 40th Federal Election. Some groups have created sites to help with strategic voting based on issues rather than parties such as voteforenvironment.ca

Is it unpatriotic that I’m a hundred times more tuned into the American Elections though?

I know I’m not alone though.  Polls even show that the majority of Canadians prefer Obama over our own leaders.  I guess in this case it would be unpatriotic for me not to be an Obama-fan.

See sites like Canada votes Obama & Canadians Love Obama

and if that wasn’t enough check out this youtube video.

Love him or hate him, Driscoll’s quite the preacher.

Josh Harris did a series of posts on preaching notes and managed to get Driscoll to share a bit of what he does.  Below is a scan of his notes.

I actually do the same thing with the sticky notes.  Sometimes I have a small page with a typed outline inserted, sometimes nothing at all.

I never have a problem with content, but it’s the transitions if there’s multiple passages or ideas being conveyed that I need supporting notes for.  I have no idea how guys like Erwin McManus or Rob Bell go for hours without peeking.

I stopped going to Christian bookstores maybe six-seven years ago.

At first it was just completely revulsion as I saw my own spiritual lust in others concentrated in a single space… once I somewhat repented over that, it was sheerly the benefits of online pricing and convenience that kept me away.

I guess that makes me part of the problem, but maybe someone should have seen this coming a long time ago. Maybe those of us who knew better should have expressed the need for changes earlier, rather than abandoning these faith-focused stores and moving on to the next best deal.

Although I think there will always be a place for what we know as Christian book stores, changes are obviously needed.

Some completely unresearched suggestions

Close immediately, and offer what’s liquidated as seed money for new kingdom advancing adventures.

Revamp into a less religious third space. People are desperate these days for a space to reflect and connect. Create cafes, artist spaces, community led workshops, etc.

Partner up with larger secular corporations without compromising your values. Sell-out in the best sense of the phrase and serve these larger institutions with your expertise and Christ-shaped attitudes.

The silver lining is the reality that things come and go. Jesus both grows and prunes his church, but He still prevails. Just because something ended, closed, or failed, doesn’t mean it didn’t serve it’s purpose honorably in its time. Sometimes it takes a bit of death to bring a bit of life.

Check out salem store house if you’re in Ottawa that has dedicated space to a cafe with free coffee and tea or booksforchrist.com as an alternative to amazon and chapters.

I like the Obama is a ‘one man terror cell’ bit… oh my.

I’m currently on the board of directors for the Nidus Festival.

Nidus is a movement uniting the many streams of Christ-followers to celebrate faith, the arts, and justice culminating in a three-day festival. It first launched in 2006, and we will be bringing it back for August 14-16th 2009. Mark your calendars, immediately.

Our last festival had over a hundred bands, visual artists, and performers. Speakers and workshops were ecumenical in spirit and included Shane Claiborne, Brian Walsh, Frederica Mathewes -Green, and Bruxy Cavey amongst many others.

Right now, we’re looking for contributors of all sorts. Everything from fundraising, promotions, project management, artistic talent, to expertise on social issues.

Let me know if you can help, or know of others that might be interested.

A friend of mine was just messaging me about their church’s inability to find an additional pastor.  The church is currently fixated on finding someone to maintain existing programs, while he would like something much more expansive.

Here’s an idea, and I challenge any church to seriously consider take this up.

How about rather than spending 30 thousand dollars a year filling up another position, the church gave 30 people a thousand dollars each to do something kingdom advancing with?

Imagine the ideas and innovations this could birth in your community.  Imagine what this would say about your church as a community of faith.

What would 30 people affirmed and empowered in your community look like?  What people might they rally?  What causes might they honor God with?

What do you think?  Would this fly?

I just finally finished Tim Keller’s “Reason for God”.  Keller’s been noted for saying that his book is ‘Mere Christianity’ for dummies.  While he quotes plenty of C.S. Lewis, I personally think it’s better than Lewis.

I haven’t read apologetics in a while, but I think I’ll try to read this over again once every year.

I’d recommend it to believers and skeptics alike, even if they’re not all that into ‘reason’, Keller has a way of confronting doubts without being confrontational.

I finally got around to having an intentional day of sabbath yesterday.  

What did I do?

Hung out with my daughter (Ikea breakfast and a community center for kids)

Indulged in a large lunch with my parents

Took an afternoon nap

Read Scripture and some light reading on rest

Fiddled with my new ipod touch

The iPod Touch is my first apple product.  I’ve been mostly been using a Palm for the past 5+ years as a pda and music player.  

I’ve only been messing around with it the past day, but here’s the latest on it, and you apple nerds can tell me if there’s anything life altering I’m missing.

The mail client is fetching from my gmail account

I’m using something called nuevasync to sync my google calendar and gmail contacts

Evernote app installed to sync to my laptop/desktop notes

Other apps currently installed - wordpress, facebook, youversion bible reader, obama 08, idoodle, flashlight, and a whole bunch of free games.

I’ve got 3 different “to-do’ apps, 3 different im applications (palringo, IM+, and Fring), any one have suggestions on what’s worked best?

Some related questions:

Is there a way for me putting mp3 talks or sermons into the ipod without mixing it up with songs?  ie, some way of inserting it into the podast section even though they weren’t podcast downloaded?

Is there something that can make the player auto-shutoff?  ie. yesterday I took my nap with mark driscoll yelling at me… and he kept yelling long after I dozed off. 

Is there a way of syncing the photos with picasaweb albums or flickr?

Are there workarounds with playing flash video?  I tried iTransmogrify to no avail…

 

I’m blogging from the iPod touch my amazing wife just bought me !!!

With the google android phone still a long way off from arriving in canada she wanted to quench my obsessing with it.

I’m loving it… More on it later. Did I mention that my wife was amazing??