young voices

Summer Camp Bodies

A few weeks ago, my sister and I swapped stories about our summers spent working for Camps with Meaning. In a conversation that ranged from outrageously horrible mosquitoes to silly camp songs to holy, breathless evenings spent in worship around a campfire, we spoke often of how empowered and inspired we felt after a summer of camp. My sister then mentioned that it was when she was at camp that she felt the best about her body.

Fearless Generosity

I preached for the first time a few weeks ago--a challenging, stressful, and rewarding experience. I chose the topic of generosity with the help of one of the pastors from my church thinking “Hey, what’s a little stress at the end of my summer!” I didn’t realize that the parable that came with this topic was pretty confusing and not very warm or fuzzy. Still, things sort of came together in the end, and I thought I would share the thoughts on generosity and the parable of the talents that I collected for that sermon here as a blog post.

An accessible heart

Disrespect is nothing new for Michael Mifflin, who was born with spina bifida. In high school in Winnipeg, he was shoved into lockers and had his canes stolen and hidden by other students.

Now, as an adult, he navigates public transit with canes and a wheelchair, an effort sometimes greeted with impatient eye-rolling and complaints from comfortably seated transit users.

Change wisely, dude

When I came back to church after a faith crisis in my early 20s, the first one I attended regularly was a place called Praxis. It was the kind of church where the young, hip pastor hoisted an infant into his arms and said with sincerity, “Dude, I baptize you in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.”

God's Epic Dream

The other day my housemates and I had an interesting conversation. We asked ourselves: if we are dreamers and made in the image of God, what is God’s dream?

This is what we realized: God’s dream is that He wants to redeem and reconcile the WORLD!

God's Epic Dream

The other day my housemates and I had an interesting conversation. We asked ourselves: if we are dreamers and made in the image of God, what is God’s dream?

This is what we realized: God’s dream is that He wants to redeem and reconcile the WORLD!

The Work of Love: A Sermon

With my colleague Doug being away on holidays, this past Sunday and next Sunday I'm going to try my hand at a two-part sermon series on some themes in the second and third letters of John. If you've read both letters you'll know that they are probably two of the very shortest books in the Bible. And as I read second and third John this week I realized that both of two short books point back - intuitively enough - to the first letter of John. The first letter of John is a bit longer - almost four pages - and it seems like a more developed version of John's second and third letters.

My Most 'Precious Gift'

A couple of months ago I read a post that had been shared around among some of my Facebook friends. It told the story of a bride-to-be, just moments before her wedding, praying with her husband-to-be and thanking God for their blessed ability to keep it in their pants. One select quote from this story reads: “See, he is not only my Prince Charming because of his incredibly handsome looks, or wonderful humor, or the fact that we have so much in common. He is my Prince Charming because he helped me protect the most precious gift that I owned, my purity.”

Pages

Subscribe to RSS - young voices