- Oh my friends we are in for such a treat this morning.
It is a gift and we have a privilege
of having Danielle Strickland teach
with us this morning. (applause)
Yeah and she is very worthy of applause.
You haven't even said anything yet!
Look at this, before we talk a little bit
about Danielle I want to highlight
and remind you that starting next week
we enter phase two of our meditation series.
Still Hear, but this time it's H-E-A-R.
And we're gonna continue in understanding
the practices of meditation, focusing
on the words of Jesus as we look
at the things that he has spoken.
So we're very excited to pick that up next week.
And this morning as we listen to Danielle,
I've actually had the privilege
of hearing her speak several times
in the last 10 days and yet, I have yet
to not be captivated by literally
every word that comes out of her mouth.
You saw in the quotes the things
that she's involved in, the history
that she has, she is a ruthless advocator
and ambassador for those in the margins.
She has co-founded organization
after organization that moves these things forward.
And the words that she is about to speak
to us this morning on how we live
our discipleship lives is one I'm so excited for.
So let me pray for Danielle, let us all pray
for Danielle and we'll begin.
Jesus we thank you that you are present here.
And we pray for Danielle that you
just fill her with your spirit.
That the words that you would have
her speak, you infuse her with now.
Thank you for the passion that you've given her
and made that pour out of her this morning
as we sit and listen to her teach.
And we pray this in your name, amen.
- Amen, good morning beautiful people.
It's an absolute honour for me to be
at The Meeting House and my husband actually is really
excited 'cause he listens to the podcast regularly.
So maybe he'll listen to me finally.
(audience laughs)
That's what I was like (yells) this is my opportunity.
Anyway Stephen honey I love you, okay.
(audience laughs)
I wanna talk about following Jesus
'cause really I'm figurin' it out.
I'm still figurin' it out, one of the things
that I've learned in the practice
of following Jesus is that it is a practice.
It is an intentional decision that I've been making
to try to align my life in ways that look like Jesus
in real life and that's really difficult.
In my family, I have three sons.
And one of them is this really amazing active imagine guy.
His name is Judah, he is a deep thinker
but he's also like in another realm most of the time.
So like when we're coloring we're not just coloring.
We're coloring a rocket ship that's gonna go
to outer space and when we're playing
in the backyard we're not just playing in the backyard,
we're hunting tigers in some kind of a jungle.
And I remember saying to him one time,
just something fairly normal like you wanna go swimming?
Just something, you wanna go to the pool?
And he looked at me with these wide eyes.
I could almost hear his brain working
and he goes, for real life Mom? (laughs)
For real life, and I feel like I find myself
asking God that same question a lot, you know?
And when it comes to following Jesus
I'm asking myself question that as well.
Like for real life, we're gonna love God
with all of our heart and all
of our mind and all of our soul?
We're gonna love our neighbors as ourself?
Life for real life or is this just like a hallmark thing?
Is this just like a postcard, is this
just some kind of a super spirituality
that we're gonna like, yes, but not really live out
in our practical day-to-day lives?
And so for me I've been on this journey
of following Jesus for real life.
And what does that look like to make Jesus
sort of the center of my life on a daily basis?
What does it mean to take the words of Jesus
in Matthew's Gospel where he breaks down
to this lawyer what the essence of it all is?
And he breaks that down to say
the essence of it all is this love relationship
with God and then this love relationship with other people.
But what does love look like?
Or maybe Tina Turner asks it well, right?
"What's love got to do with it?" In the culture
in which we live where love is so distorted
and love is so messed up and love
is so broken in our own everyday hyper sexualized culture.
What does love look like in today's world?
And so for me a bunch of friends and I really,
we got together even after years
of being what I would call professional Christians.
You know I'm paid to be good, even that isn't enough right?
There's no payment enough to make me good, right?
Even that isn't enough, we got together and said
like are we really still following Jesus for real life?
Is this something that we're really doing?
Is this happening on a daily basis?
Are we sensing the direction of God?
Are we hearing the invitation of Jesus,
towards living like him?
And so we had this real sober conversation
about whether or not we were just doing
the things that we needed to do.
Doing religious things better than ever before.
Doing those things that we're paid to do
or whether we were really in this fascinated discovery
of who Jesus is and how Jesus invites us to live.
Now this for me is really cool because I grew up
in a Christian context but really
kind of grew up thinking that Christianity
was safe and boring, it was sort of like ordering
a vanilla, non-fat, no-foam latte, sugar free vanilla syrup
which actually was my favorite drink for a long time.
And I used to go in and order it
and I remember a Starbucks barrister saying
shouting out "one why bother", you know?
(audience laughs)
And that's kind of what Christianity felt like for me.
As like a one why bother, you know?
Just kind of flavorless almost and
nothing really... (laughs)
And what I discovered in my own experience
of Jesus is that actually that road,
that invitation that Jesus gives us
is into this much wider, spacious, beautiful,
colorful, adventurous, painful, filled with all
of the ups and downs of passion and love personified.
And pain and joy and this awakening agency in my life.
And so I traded in the why bother
for this full bodied experience of discipleship.
And I wanted to just break down three postures
that I've been practicing on a daily basis
and then finish with a prayer and then
have some questions and answers after that
if there's anything that I didn't explain clearly.
The first posture is a posture of surrender.
This is an alignment that helps me on a daily.
This is like, for lack of a better word,
this is like spiritual chiropractic.
This is free by the way, this chiropractic treatment.
This spiritual alignment to say like
sometimes my alignment gets out
of place and I need God to help me.
And I need to participate with God
helping me get back into a right alignment.
A right way of living and surrender
is kinda the first of those things.
The first posture that is a right alignment
when it comes to the Kingdom of God.
Surrender is the posture that we see
Jesus assuming on a regular basis.
He aligns himself in a posture
of surrender over and over and over again.
One of my favorites, you'll have
in your notes in Matthew's Gospel,
his baptism into a baptism of repentance.
This is a fascinating idea because Jesus
of course we know, knew no sin.
He never did anything wrong and John the Baptist
was baptizing people into this baptism
of repentance for their sin and so when Jesus came
and said yeah do it for me, John's like uh,
I feel weird about this because you
actually have nothing to repent of.
Like I actually know you, you're my cousin.
If there was some dirt on you I would have found it.
This doesn't feel right, and Jesus is like
no it is right because this is a way
by which I can fulfill what it is
that God's desire is for me which is
this full identification which is
this surrendering of his own rights
and his own even holiness, his own even apartness
from humanity so that he can be part of the human condition.
It's a surrender posture, it's a letting go
of his life and a surrendering
into the life that God has for him.
In Matthew's Gospel it says that when he does this,
that right at this act of this surrender
the Heavens are opened the Scripture says.
And the spirit it descends like a dove
and the voice of the Father, you know.
So this is a Trinity, the whole family's there.
And kind of like this is my, and the father says
this is my son, this is my son in whom I'm well pleased.
You know in Mark's Gospel when he recounts
this exact same instance when he uses
the word open, the heavens were open,
the word open that he uses is actually ripped open.
It actually, this is what I love
to remind myself of every day is that surrender
is a power posture in the Kingdom of God.
See many of us grow up, especially in Christian traditions
or in religious backgrounds where we
just kinda have this like, I think I can, I think I can.
If only we tried harder, if only we grabbed more.
If only we fought harder for our own individual rights.
If only we just gave it a little bit more effort
and just drag ourself up by our bootstraps kind of a thing.
If only we made better choices
and maybe those things are all true
for like life decisions but actually
when it comes to a relationship with God
there is no trying harder, there's a letting go.
There's a willingness to say this is not about me.
There's a willingness to open up our lives
and surrender ourselves to the purpose of a God.
If you come from a 12 Step tradition at all
or in the version of recovery in any,
you'll know that one of the power steps,
like the most essential step in the 12 Step series
is the step that is number three, it's surrender.
It's that I get that I can't do it.
I get that this is beyond me but there has gotta be
a power greater than me, there has
to be somebody who could do what I cannot do.
And the only way you can access that power
which of course we know is Jesus, the only way
you can access that power is to stop trying so hard.
To actually let go to the purposes of God.
Now I remember God reminding me of this.
I was trying to give my son some medicine.
He was three at the time, my middle son Judah.
And his favorite words were no way (laughs)
in particular he did not like taking medicine.
I went to the doctor, I said doc, please help me.
Like help a mother out and he gave me
what all the kids loved, he told me
it was liquid flavored, it was
banana flavored liquid penicillin.
And so I took it home armed with this like, the good stuff.
And my eldest son and I created
a little skit trying to convince Judah
to take his medicine so we're like monkeys
pretending like we wanted this medicine.
You know we're like (imitating monkey call).
Who's got the banana and we're giving each other
this medicine and we say to Judah,
Judah are there any monkeys in this room
that might want some medicine?
You know that might want some banana flavored medicine?
And Judah looks at us completely
unimpressed and says no way.
And so we switched our tactics up
to like a tiger and we're like (imitating tiger roar).
Are there any, this medicine's so good
that the tigers eat the monkeys
who eat this medicine you know?
This is, are there any tigers in the house
that want this medicine and Judah
looks at us and says no way.
So I resorted to the deep kindness
that mothers have, you know that well
of love and compassion and loving care
and I just held that little sucker down.
(audience laughs)
Right, I remember I sat on his writhing little body
and I strong-armed his shoulders to the ground
and he's like no way, no way!
And I said Zion quick grab his head!
So my son grabs his head and I like
ever so gently lovingly kindly take that syringe
filled with banana flavored penicillin
and I shove it down his little throat.
(audience laughs)
And I say yes way. (audience laughs)
And that's when God spoke to me.
(audience laughs)
That's partly how you can tell
the Holy Spirit's probably a woman.
(audience laughs)
She's always interrupting. (audience laughs)
But I said what, you know guys I felt God say to me
oh I see you do your salvation like you do your medicine!
And at first I was like well of course.
Hello, people are dying of an infectious disease.
I don't care if they don't like the taste
of it, I'm gonna get that down their throat
for the love of God let's shove it down their throat!
And I felt like God said to me no, no, no,
it's not the quality of the salvation
that's the problem it's the quantity.
See, God has this plan he has this redemptive plan.
I mean Jesus when he came to the disciples,
you'll know this, he didn't say
is there any room in your boat for me?
That's not what Jesus said, Jesus said
I've got this idea, I have this capacity.
I have this plan called redemption
for the whole entire world, as a matter of fact
there's a song that says oh boundless salvation.
It's the founder of the Salvation Army wrote it.
It was this picture that God reminded him
of of the scriptural plan of this ocean
of love, this mighty ocean of justice.
This ocean of salvation that was gonna come
and it was gonna change the whole world, all of it.
And we were invited at this discipleship
posture of surrender to let go of our lives.
To leave our boats, to put down the nets
of what used to concern us and to actually join Jesus
on this redemption plan for the whole world.
As a matter of fact, John 3:16,
even the word world there is under-translated.
It actually means created cosmos.
For God so loved the creative cosmos.
The love of God, so rich, so free,
so filled with mercy for the whole entire world.
And I felt like God asked me on
that occasion one more time, do you really want a syringe?
Do you really want a syringe filled
with banana flavored salvation?
Just enough for what ails you?
Or would you like an ocean of God's love?
Would you like to give yourself
to something greater than your own self?
And to do that is a posture of surrender.
Surrender is a power posture in the Kingdom of God.
When Jesus surrenders himself to the will of God,
every single time it rips heaven open.
If you're interested in heaven opening,
if you're interested in salvation,
you're interested in light and possibilities
and hope and all of the axises of heaven
coming over your family or your community
or your life, the way that you open
heaven is very clear in Scripture.
It happens through acts of surrender.
It happens when you let go of the life
that you want and you let God direct
your life for what he wants.
The posture of surrender has been a key one in my life.
The other posture is a posture of generosity.
This one I've also found confusing in my life.
I learned for many many years
that generosity was just giving more,
giving more, giving more, I come from a giving tradition.
Giving is kinda like this expectation.
You give more, you give more, you give more.
And I never understood that generosity
as a scriptural practice was reciprocal.
I never understood that generosity
from a scriptural standpoint in the way of Christ
is both receiving and giving.
This has been a really fascinating
experience for me but you remember
when Jesus sent out the disciples
on their first mission, he said this to them.
This is, it's written in your notes.
He says this, freely you've received, now freely give.
What are they giving exactly?
What are they giving, like is Peter
giving theology lessons? (laughs)
'Cause he hasn't quite sorted that one out yet in his life.
You know what I mean, like what are they giving?
'Cause Jesus told them not to take
anything with them so like what are they giving exactly?
Like what is it that they have to give?
And Jesus says everything I've given you.
Everything you've received from me.
What is that, what have you received from God?
Because Jesus' generosity principle
is that everything that you've received
so freely from God is what actually you are to give.
We see this at work in Jesus' own life, remember?
When he has, he hints about it all the time.
He says I have food that you know not of, right?
What is he talking about, what is his food?
Jesus will spend all night in prayer.
Jesus will say this, I never do anything
that I don't hear the father already saying to me.
What is that about, this is a posture
that Jesus lives, it's reciprocal all the time.
Constantly receiving from Heaven,
constantly receiving resources.
I mean when we think to ourselves,
how did he bring himself to forgive people
that were literally killing him, how did he do it?
Well I have a hunch that he gave away
what he freely received, that he was constantly
a conduit of the ways of God and the practices of God.
I was at a leadership conference one time
and I ended up helping a homeless couple.
A leader gave me a credit card
and said hey look we have this homeless couple
in the next town, would you help them?
And I wasn't that thrilled to help them.
I was busy and I was tired and I had just finished working
and I really just wanted something to eat.
I had just gone for a run and all kinds of things.
But I was like sure, okay, fine.
Kinda dutifully doing what it was
that a Christian should do, at least
I'm a professional Christian, I'm at least paid
to be good, I might as well try my best.
So I remember sticking this credit card
in my back pocket and picking up this homeless couple.
It was in northern British Columbia
so literally we were nowhere, you know?
It's not even listed on a map.
And I remember saying to them what do you need,
and them saying I need some food and I need a bus ticket.
So I was like okay fine, so we go
to this grocery store and we walk
into this grocery store and I was hungry,
I'd just been traveling, they were hungry, they're homeless.
And we walk into this store and we all smell it
at the same time, it's the smell of strawberries.
I mean these fresh strawberries,
it was like (inhales sharply).
You know your mom said never to shop when you're hungry?
Right? (audience laughs)
It was one of those moments where
I was like nuts, I did the wrong thing.
And I remember all of us panning over
to the strawberry section, you know.
We saw the sign that was like one strawberry $10, you know?
(audience laughs)
And I remember all of us at once
just at the same time just going ahh,
you know that sinking feeling where
what you really want you know you're never gonna get?
And I just remember going ah,
those strawberries smell amazing and then I remembered.
I had the credit card of the organization in my back pocket.
And I remember going, like literally going
like let's get strawberries. (laughs)
This homeless couple was like are you sure?
And I was like I'm positive, let's get the strawberries!
And then like not just the strawberries
but when we went to the bread section
we said 99 cent Wonder Bread can wait for another day.
Today we're getting the olive-encrusted,
the almond, be like we're getting
the bread that we've dreamed about getting,
you know what I'm saying, we're getting that!
And then when we went to the cereal aisle
we said goodbye to the Cornflakes
and yes to the Lucky Charms, I mean
we were just like come on, it was
the best shopping I've ever done.
And we check out of there and I get
to the bus station and we get bus tickets
and I say, you know, I'm hooking them up with snacks
and we're just having a good time.
We're eating in the store, we're just
having such a fun time and I load them
on the bus and I say is there anything else I can get you?
And they said yeah we'd like you to pray for us.
And I remember thinking oh yeah, I forgot, you know?
'Cause that's Ministry 101 but I was like,
I was so enraptured with those strawberries I forgot.
What would you like me to pray for you for?
And they said we would like more of this.
I said what do you mean, they said we want what you have.
And I said well you can't have the credit card.
(audience laughs)
Like I'm literally keeping that for as long as possible.
(audience laughs)
But I'm like you can't have that but what do you mean?
And they said no we don't want the credit card,
we want this, we want joy, we want love.
We want this thing that we've encountered.
We want community, like what is this thing
that we've just been a part of today?
And I was able to explain to them
that this thing that they've been a part
of today is what Jesus brings to people.
It's what Jesus invites people into,
is this life that's kind of larger
than our everyday normal lives.
And they said we would like to follow Jesus
and I was able to pray for them
to be followers of Jesus and then I was driving
back to this leadership thing in the car
and I remember God speaking to me again.
Saying Danielle, what changed?
In this experience you weren't really that excited
to do this job in the first part.
But on the way back you're really excited
about what just happened so what changed?
What was the thing that made
the difference in this experience?
And I realized that the only thing
that changed in this encounter
was that I realized I had a resource beyond my own.
See somewhere in the middle of that encounter
I realized that I had some resource bigger
than my own personal resource.
If there was something I could tap into
that was greater and it was just economics.
I understand and that's a real thing.
Some of us need to tap into economic resources
bigger than ourselves but in the Kingdom of Heaven,
in the ways of Jesus this is what Jesus did all the time.
See when you're running out of forgiveness
you can tap into a resource where the Scripture says
forgiveness is like, it's like covering the whole Earth.
God has already purchased your forgiveness.
You need forgiveness, you can receive forgiveness.
You need mercy, the Scripture says
that mercy is new every single morning, it's fresh.
Like you ran out of mercy today, it's okay.
It's topped up, it's paid off.
Do you need hope, are you lacking in hope?
'Cause there's a resource called hope
that is inexhaustible that Heaven
has these inexhaustible resources
that Jesus taps into all the time.
And this is what he's telling his disciples.
Everything that you've received from me,
vision, hope, forgiveness, love, grace, faith.
Give that away, give that away.
This is the posture of generosity, see it's reciprocal.
And here's one of the ways that I realized
that I need to readjust my posture of generosity.
It's usually when I start getting stingy.
It's usually when I start getting judgemental.
It's usually when I start going like no. (laughs)
I don't have that, no they're gonna want stuff.
It's usually when I see needy people
running towards me and instantly go like
look away, look away, it's too hard, it's too hard.
I realize that I'm actually just giving
out of my own resources and I haven't taken
a generous posture today to receive
the inexhuastable resources of Heaven.
And then freely share them with everybody that I meet.
It's a posture of generosity, the third posture
in my chiropractic treatment is a posture of mission.
This is when I've quoted in the Scriptures
when Jesus is saying to the disciples
like you're gonna receive power.
And you're gonna be my witnesses.
And it's gonna be in where you are.
And then it's gonna be in the regions
where you're a little less comfortable
and then it's gonna be in regions
where literally on the map you've marked out
and you write these are where the dragons live.
I mean it's gonna be places where you're absolutely
frightened to go to, this is gonna expand your world.
And this is what I call a missional posture.
This is when your life from a posture
of surrender and a posture of generosity
keeps expanding and keeps expanding until you realize
that you're living for something beyond your own requests.
You're living what I would call an others-focused life.
I remember 19, 20 years old I was volunteering
with the Salvation Army when they were
reopening their work in the Soviet Union
after the collapse of the government.
The invitation of the church to come back there.
And I remember meeting this guy,
just having this privilege to meet
this guy named Vladimir Mikhaylovich.
He was 88 years old at the time.
And I mean the guy was just, he had spent
his whole life just staying missional.
Just really telling other people about Jesus.
Literally in the gulag, writing,
putting the Bible inside of his clothes.
He was arrested over and over and over again
for preaching the Gospel and still
at 88 years old he was still like
we're alive and well, thank you very much.
The church never went anywhere except in the prison!
And he's like I'm good, and I got to interview him
day after day after day he told
me story after story after story
of these incredible encounters he had
with God doing these incredible things.
One encounter he told me about
in a jail cell, a secret jail in Moscow
where somebody miraculously got him a Bible into the prison.
And he ended up at 17 years old
not even really knowing much.
He was just really became a follower of Jesus at 16 himself.
And he shared the Gospel with all
of these 70 criminals in this cell
and they all get saved and sentenced
to solitary confinement for singing hymns
illegally against the prison rules.
He's telling me story after story after story
and I remember thinking at 20 years old
I wanna live a life like Vladimir Mikhaylovich.
I wanna live this adventurous amazing big awesome life.
God please, and I was traveling
to this with a translator and the translators
that we were using at the time,
it was so fresh that we were hiring them
from the university and most of them were still atheists.
They were very dismissive of this idea of Christianity.
And the one that I had, her name was Anna
and she was very dismissive of Christianity.
And I was thinking to myself this is awesome
because surely one of these stories,
surely this man, Vladimir got through to her.
Like surely, so I was saying to Anna
on the train on the way back to Moscow
I was saying Anna, what was most impactful?
What was the story that impacted you the most?
What was the thing about Vladimir Mikhaylovich
that really really impacted you?
And I'm like waiting, 'cause I,
there was like a whole buffet.
And she said to me, you know Danielle
it's gonna be really hard to explain this to you.
But the thing that impacted me most
about Vladimir Mikhaylovich was the way he loved his wife.
I said to her, were you even listening?
(audience laughs)
That guy got whole prison cells saved.
He got sentenced to the gulag, I'm pretty sure
he got Solzhenitsyn saved, that's a whole other story.
But I'm like this guy, he is revolutionary!
He's literally been changing the world.
Were you even listening?
She said it wasn't even the words to me.
She said see I grew up in a home that was pretty aloof.
She said in the culture that I grew up in
there wasn't a lot of tenderness,
not a lot of intimacy, certainly not a lot of love.
She said but that man, I have never seen
a man so tender, so kind, so patient,
so servant-hearted, so loving towards a woman.
And then this is what she said to me.
If that's what Jesus is like, if that's
what Jesus is like, I'd like to follow him.
See I'm so glad I had that experience
so early on in my discipleship.
Because I feel like it's so tempting
to think that a mission-focused life
is some big glorious outward-focused life.
And to forget that a mission-focused life
is just an others-focused life.
In other words there will be these moments
that are glorious and opportunities
that are public that maybe are like awesome
and we're like ah, remember that?
Remember that happened, remember I was part of that?
But there will also be these moments
every single day where we have opportunities
to love one another in ways that are sacrificial.
In ways that are authentic, in ways
that are honest and that people will know Jesus
by the way we love each other.
In other words, how's your relationships?
See these postures of surrender
and generosity and mission, I align myself.
I get into the right posture every day
so that I can practice living in the way of Christ.
So I can practice living like Jesus in real life.
And one of the ways I do that is an actual daily prayer
that I do and I wondered if you might
risk it and join me in this prayer this morning.
And if you want to you can just stand up where you are.
It's a posture prayer so I invite you
to assume these postures with me.
So you wanna stand up, I know it's a little mean
on a Sunday morning but it's a spiritual
chiropractic alignment so you need your body for this.
I hold up my fists like this.
And if you wanna repeat after me you're welcome to do so.
I say, I confess. - [Congregation] I confess.
- My natural human posture.
- [Congregation] Natural human posture.
- Is to fight for my right.
- [Congregation] Is to fight for my right.
- To try to make something happen.
- [Congregation] To try to make something happen.
- But I choose. - [Congregation] But I choose.
- As a follower of Jesus. - [Congregation] As a follower
of Jesus. - A posture of surrender.
- [Congregation] A posture of surrender.
- I hold up my hands. - [Congregation] I hold
up my hands. - I say I give up.
- [Congregation] I say I give up.
- And I give over.
- [Congregation] And I give over.
- To the leadership of God.
- [Congregation] To the leadership of God.
- You're in charge of me.
- [Congregation] You're in charge of me.
- And then I hold my hands out in fists in front of me
and I say I confess. - [Congregation] I confess.
- My natural human posture.
- [Congregation] My natural human posture.
- Is to take. - [Congregation] Is to take.
- It's to keep. - [Congregation] It's to keep.
- It's to hold. - [Congregation] It's to hold.
- But I choose. - [Congregation] But I choose.
- As a follower of Jesus.
- [Congregation] As a follower of Jesus.
- To open up my hands.
- [Congregation] To open up my hands.
- And my life. - [Congregation] And my life.
- Freely I receive.
- [Congregation] Freely I receive.
- Let's take a couple minutes
to ask for what you need today.
And then I pray everything that I've received.
- [Congregation] Everything that I've received.
- I choose to give.
- [Congregation] I choose to give.
- And the final posture is to cross my arms
and I say I confess. - [Congregation] I confess.
- My natural human posture.
- [Congregation] My natural human posture.
- Is to spectate.
- [Congregation] Is to spectate.
- To criticize. - [Congregation] To criticize.
- To say it's not my problem.
- [Congregation] To say it's not my problem.
- But I choose. - [Congregation] But I choose.
- As a follower of Jesus.
- [Congregation] As a follower of Jesus.
- An open posture of mission.
- [Congregation] An open posture of mission.
- I say to the lost. - [Congregation] I say
to the lost. - I say to the deep needs
of the world. - [Congregation] I say
to the deep needs of the world.
- Here I am. - [Congregation] Here I am.
- Amen, amen you may be seated.
And now it's time for the beloved Q and Eh.
And I'm here, available to answer
any questions you might have.
It's crystal clear? Oh here's one.
- [Man] It seems that you're making...
When you're giving to others it seems
like you're making things happen.
How do you differentiate between surrendering
and making things happen for others?
- Yeah I think that's a really good question.
How do you differentiate between surrendering
and making things happen for others?
Yeah and I think that's probably a tension
that has to do with discernment.
So I think it's practice, here's where I figure it out.
Usually in hindsight. (audience laughs)
Do you know what I mean, usually I figure it
out in hindsight and it usually
is accompanied by like agenda.
Often I find that I've made something happen
for somebody and then they're on the hook for it.
If I have this sense of betrayal
if they don't live up to what it is that I've done for them,
I realize I haven't done that in a posture of surrender.
So I feel, and even generosity.
It's been sort of this agenda.
So for me that's why I think using language
like practice is so helpful 'cause I think
we often have a lot of pressure to get it right every time.
And I don't get it right every time.
I get it wrong a lot but I think
that God is helping us to learn in those spaces.
You'll, even if you just take a quick look
through the disciples' journey,
they get it wrong a lot too. (laughs)
and it's like Jesus is just helping
readjust, re-position, re-posture.
And then the next time I get it,
I recognize what's happening a little sooner
and I get it before I actually jumped all the way in.
Does that make, there are definitely
some times where it's work and effort
to push through for other people.
There's no question, it's just
whether or not I'm doing that in the right posture.
That's the question, and that really
is one of those things just like a chiropractic appointment
where you don't know you need it 'till your back hurts.
It's kind of one of those, I feel like
you don't really quite know that you got it wrong
until you realize oh, wow, that's out of alignment, yeah.
That's my best one on that.
Any other questions?
- [Man] Hi, as I was seeing your CV scroll
in front of us at the beginning,
I thought to myself there's a high achiever.
And I guess my question is how
do you, there's always so much need in the world.
And there's always so much opportunity around us.
How do you know how much of yourself
to give and when is it too much?
- Yeah, yeah obviously I don't. (laughs)
(audience laughs)
I just, no I think for me the rule
of thumb has been what's in front of me.
And that journey has changed and I think
different seasons of your life
require different efforts in different areas.
But for me the rule of thumb is like
what is that think that's in front of me to do?
What is that presenting, I mean,
lots of Scriptural ideas around this.
But where is that thing that's right here?
That's deeply impassioned, it's connected
to my gift mix and the opportunity is open.
So whether or not in someone else's life
that means they have a friend who went
through a domestic violence situation
and they're highly sensitive to
the domestic violence conversation
and then discover that there's a domestic violence shelter
in their neighborhood and they need volunteers,
then I'm always like that's not a rocket science decision.
That's, you give yourself 'cause your heart's already there.
Your gift mix is there, your experience
is there and the opportunity's there.
I feel like that's one of the,
those are some of the rules of thumb
that I used for how to discern what to do
at what time and at what effort, yeah.
But I'm still figuring that one out too. (laughs)
I'm a padawan. (audience laughs)
All the, I feel like this section listened.
(audience laughs)
Like all the, I don't wanna make it a competition
but I'm just saying. (laughs) (audience laughs)
- [Woman] I have a question, can you tell us
how you got involved in human trafficking work?
- Yeah, actually this is one of those exact
discernment areas where I lived incarnationally
in a community called the Downtown East Side.
Which is in Vancouver so I moved
in there with my family and we started
making friends with folks who lived in that neighborhood.
Most of them marginalized and exploited
for many many generations.
And I made friends with some women
who were sexually exploited and I heard their stories.
And at first I just was kinda like
trying to be a good neighbor, trying
to be like Jesus with skin on in the community.
Trying to learn what that looked like.
But then I started realizing that every single person
I talked to didn't just have a personal story.
That all those stories looked similar.
And soon I realized that this is not something
that was just happening to one person.
There was a systemic nature to this.
And that maybe there was a way
of fighting this whole thing, not just one story at a time.
Or at least both together so really
it became something that hurt my friends.
And then I got defensive about it.
Because I was like why are you doing this to her?
And then why are you doing this to her?
And then really just started stumbling
through like what we could do and in those days,
it really was about making people
even aware this was happening, right?
This was 20 years ago so this was like
even just talking about there is this thing
called human trafficking, now I feel
like we're way past that and we're
onto like okay what do we all do about it?
And if you're looking for ways
to get involved to stop human trafficking,
there are many on my website.
There's a campaign I've just launched
in Canada called Brave Global which is trying
to reach vulnerable girls before they're trafficked.
That happened out of a conversation
in the back of a massage parlor which again
was me trying to be a neighbor in a local community
that had places where women were being sold.
So we got a couple folks to bake some goods
and went over and introduced ourselves
as neighbors who cared and tried
to kind of create some friendships
that might lead to some form of empowerment
or at least some sense of camaraderie.
So that was a fascinating discovery.
In the back of one of those massage parlors
with the very hardened madame,
she asked me, told me her story of exploitation
that started at 11 and she asked me
a very pointed question that said
where were you when I was 11?
And that question I couldn't get out of my mind.
I felt like God was like this is,
where were you when, like it was one
of those and then my passion, my experience,
my expertise and then this question
that I couldn't get out of my head.
And all led to this opportunity
of mobilizing churches to reach
vulnerable girls before they're trafficked.
So that kinda was an indicator
that I needed to give my attention to that now.
So I think that's kinda just how God draws us,
doesn't he, into this beautiful boundless salvation.
Yeah thanks guys great questions, great time, God bless you.
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