"Don't worry, God has a plan."

A friend of mine approached me on Sunday at Church On The Rock, the local fellowship we are involved with, and told me that he had been fasting all Easter weekend, and three times he felt God had told him to convey to me "Don't worry, God has a plan."

My friend shared this with me in classic Vineyard style (although I don't think he realized it) by saying, "I don't know if this makes sense or not, but I felt the Lord was saying..."

When I asked him if he'd heard that I was no longer employed, his eyes got wide. He hadn't heard yet. "Well, now it makes sense!" he exclaimed.

It's very encouraging to hear people share things in faith, and then realize that they were right to do so. And I was encouraged by what he shared, as well!

Sunday morning at COTR included our youngest daughter, Renee, dancing with the other children in a resurrection celebration dance. Sunday evening's celebration (pictured below) included Wendy painting on stage with the worship band, our eldest daughter Jo dancing, and me playing bass (in my "Got Haggis?" t-shirt). It was a great time for our family to be so involved in making the Resurrection Celebration happen.

It's good to have a worshipping community around you when difficult times hit.

In Christ Alone

As a musician, and a worship leader, songs have the power to completely undo me. Since giving God control of my life when I was in Grade 10, a week after I started playing a beat-up old acoustic guitar, worship leading has always been as natural and common as breathing. All the songs I wrote in those early days were worship songs -- I didn't know they were called "worship" back then, they were just the songs that kept coming to me.

For the past 20+ years, I've either been a youth pastor who led worship, or a worship pastor who worked with youth, or sometimes a volunteer leader who played in a Celtic rock band for a living while working with youth and leading worship as well. Worship has always been a huge part of my walk with Jesus.

I've never been able to get through "In Christ Alone" without tears. It's probably one of the most powerful worship songs I've ever come across.

In Christ alone my hope is found
He is my light, my strength, my song
This Cornerstone, this solid ground
Firm through the fiercest drought and storm
What heights of love, what depths of peace
When fears are stilled, when strivings cease
My Comforter, my All in All
Here in the love of Christ I stand

In Christ alone, who took on flesh
Fullness of God in helpless babe
This gift of love and righteousness
Scorned by the ones He came to save
'Til on that cross as Jesus died
The wrath of God was satisfied
For every sin on Him was laid
Here in the death of Christ I live

There in the ground His body lay
Light of the world by darkness slain
Then bursting forth in glorious Day
Up from the grave He rose again!
And as He stands in victory
Sin's curse has lost its grip on me
For I am His and He is mine
Bought with the precious blood of Christ

No guilt in life, no fear in death
This is the power of Christ in me
From life's first cry to final breath
Jesus commands my destiny
No power of hell, no scheme of man
Can ever pluck me from His hand
'Til He returns or calls me home
Here in the power of Christ I stand

Amen and amen.

It's Friday, But Sunday's A-comin'

There's something very symbolic and correct about the events of this week, and how we are processing them.

Thanks, first of all, for all of the kind comments and prayers represented in the comments from my last post. Wendy & I are truly touched by the outpouring of support.

Today is Good Friday, the day we traditionally set apart to remember the Crucifixion of Jesus called the Christ. As the events of this week have played out in our own lives, Wendy & I see today as a day to bury all of the negativity and put it firmly behind us.

And, as we celebrate the Resurrection of Jesus with millions of Christians around the globe on Easter Sunday, there is a poignant sense of New Beginnings, New Life, New Direction for the Clan McAlpine as well.

I have been fasting from (among other things) television, DVD's, theatre, etc. Tomorrow night, I break my fast by watching "The Passion of the Christ", which I chose not to see during the hooplah surrounding its release a year ago. This time around, I felt that God wants me to break my media fast in this way.

It's Friday, as Tony Campolo famously said, but Sunday's a-comin'. We're eagerly awaiting the discovery of what happens next in our lives, as He leads and directs us.

Whoops...

In a post I wrote last July to explain why I was leaving Winnipeg for Toronto, I made some comment to the effect of "I feel that this position will put me in a place of making a difference..." Apparently, I was a wee bit too optimistic.

I was asked to resign today, and I've just spent the better part of this evening cleaning out my office. The powers that shine have advised me that they've been monitoring my blog, so I have to be careful what I say, from a legal point of view.

Suffice it to say I'm having a less than stellar day, my family is in shock, and we could use some prayer.

Strength of Convictions

Sometimes, having the strength of your convictions can really cost you. Holding firm to your principles often means you evaluate "success" by an entirely different grid than others around you.

One of the cool things about ministering in diverse places like Toronto, Winnipeg, Victoria and Los Angeles, is that you meet many interesting and colourful people. One of them is a great example to me of someone who stood by his convictions even when it hurt -- literally.

He was a recovered alcoholic -- meaning that he was always only one drink away from seeing his life slip back into ruin -- but had been sober for several years when we met. He had previously been known for his brawling ways, and had the muscles to back it up, so violence had been an everyday part of his world.

As a new Christian, he knew God was calling him to crucify his violent nature, so he diligently embraced pacifism as his new lifestyle. For him, freedom from his past left him no option but a life that was devoid of violence. He became a determined practitioner of non-resistance.

One day, he met a bunch of former buddies, who, bouyed by their own copious indulgence in alcohol, began to mock his Christian faith, his renunciation of alcohol, and particularly his pacifism.

"If we start smacking you around," they taunted, "you'll fight!"

He stood his ground, refusing to be baited into either an argument or an actual physical altercation. Then the first blows were struck.

Looking them in the eye, he not only refused to retaliate, he decided to follow Jesus' example before the Sanhedrin, and didn't even defend himself verbally.

Mob mentality, lubricated by excessive drink, took over. More punches. Vicious slaps. Brutal, well-placed kicks. When it was over, he was lying on the sidewalk, bruised, bleeding and gasping for breath, wondering if his nose and some ribs were broken. But his eyes never left those of his tormentors. And he did not retaliate.

"They beat the @%#$ out of me," he admits, shrugging his massive shoulders. Then a twinkle comes to his eye, and a hint of a smile quirks about his lip. "But I won the fight."

Back From the 3rd World

I just got back late last night after eight days in the Dominican Republic, where I was leading a team of 90 people (mostly teenagers) in a building project with Careforce International. We completed two classrooms in the school that Careforce runs, which means that 60 more students can get an education next week that were unable to a week ago. We also invested in helping the community surrounding the school and compound, by finishing off sidewalks that the government had promised the locals but never delivered on -- well, we completed about 75% of that project before armed soldiers forced us to stop; we were making the government look bad, or something like that.

We were also able to aid a local Nazarene seminary by building walls for them, as well as a playground for local children, and reinforce the wall around the compound itself -- they need walls, otherwise squatters will overrun their property and the school will be forced to close, effectively cementing the cycle of poverty for the local children all over again.

It's amazing to me that every March Break, all kinds of people flock to the Dominican Republic, but only see the opulent resorts. You don't have to travel far to be confronted with all kinds of poverty and desperation -- which only serves to make the ritzy resorts seem all the more obscene.

The teenagers we brought with us worked their tails off, and I was really proud of them and the blessing we were able to be to both the school/compound and the surrounding community. It was also a profoundly sobering time for many of them, as the majority had never before seen -- and smelled -- such poverty up close and personal. It was a good time of working on behalf of another part of the advancing Kingdom, and also seeing their worldviews being stretched as they recognized how little the people around them had, in comparison to their own lives back in Toronto.

Now you know why I haven't blogged much in the past week or so. I'm back in Canada, and regular blogging will commence right after I get a really hot shower and a good night's sleep.

Full Circle

When I was in high school, there was a group of us -- from different churches, denominations, and schools -- that somehow found each other. We were all part of our church's youth groups, some from Christian homes and others not, but what drew us to hang out together was that none of us were satisfied with just "doing youth group" and being nice citizens.

Jeff, Pat, Terry and I became good friends because of a common desire to do more with our lives than simply attend church and tithe. We were an interesting mix: a mechanically inclined "live under your car" guy, two preppy jocks, and a long-haired head-banger (that'd be me), from Baptist, Christian Missionary & Alliance, and Associated Gospel.

When our youth groups were studying how many animals Noah had on the ark, we were meeting in Jeff's kitchen, trying to sort out Romans, Calvinism, and Arminianism. When the "Hillbilly Spaghetti Bash" was happening in the Fellowship Hall, we were sitting in my parents' family room with my dad, trying to sort out Creation and Evolution.

We didn't boycott our youth groups or churches, we simply craved a deeper level of fellowship and discipleship, so we met as an unofficial small group whenever or wherever we happened to be at the time. We were so "unofficial" as a small group, that if someone had suggested we were a "small group", we'd have given them strange looks normally reserved for people who claim to be UFO abductees, and replied, "no, we're just friends who hang out and talk about God".

Over the years, as often happens, with university, jobs, etc., some of us lost contact with each other. Pat and I hung out religiously at the King's Head Pub in Winnipeg before we moved to Toronto last summer, but the others lived in other cities, etc. etc.

Fast forward to 2005:

My daughter Jo is not-quite-sixteen, and she's involved in a similar group of friends. They don't all attend the same church, most go to the same high school, but the binding factor is that they share a common zeal to go deeper as Christians, and they love getting together and talking about the "hard questions", their own walk with God, etc. As parents, Wendy and I couldn't be more pleased.

What's funny -- and brings this whole thing full circle -- is that two of the people in Jo's small cohort are Terry's son and daughter. They met at high school, and started hanging out, and are now part of this cohort together. At first, we didn't realize whose teenagers Jo had met and gotten involved with, but once we figured it out, it was great to reconnect with Terry again. And to watch the next generation developing the same hunger for "more" that originally led Terry and I to become friends in the first place.

Cold, Rain, Mud, and the Real Thing

In the summer of 1992, I took a crew of youth leaders and youth group members from Vancouver Island over to the Mainland for a week-long "Worship Festival". Our youth ministry had been enjoying a growing edge of worship, after the initial discouragement in our first year of ministry of constantly hearing the youth complain "we hate the stupid singing -- give us more game nights".

It took a year and a half, but suddenly the youth in the group began to "get it", and the group would eventually become known for it's passionate pursuit of God through worship and the arts. It was worth the tough sledding of the first 18 months, when we finally began to see the fruit of the emerging generations connecting with God through worship and the Eucharist.

During the Worship Festival, it rained almost every day. This was a problem, since the venues were all outdoors. But that didn't stop us from standing in the rain with 4000+ other worshippers, entering His presence in worship. Brother Maynard and friends were there from out East, sitting as a group inside a dome tent they'd brought along to keep themselves dry -- quite comical to see the tent literally bouncing off the ground during some of the celebratory songs!

During one of the evening worship concerts, as we stood in slippery, muddy grass while rain pattered on our baseball caps, Brian Doerksen (the worship leader that evening) called on us to sing some of the songs as intercession over the nearby city of Vancouver.

Being a typical youth pastor, I broke the rules -- "hey everyone, let's sing instead for Victoria" -- since that was the city we were from.

As we began to sing "Remember Mercy", all of us were gripped with an awesome sense of God's holiness and our own (and our city's) sinfulness. Suddenly I found myself face down in the muddy grass, as the rain continued to fall, praying and singing with great intensity for our city. When I looked around some time later, I saw that our entire youth group was similarly prostrate in the mud and pouring rain -- singing, praying, weeping. It was a holy moment. I'll never forget it.

I just came back on Friday from a conference at Willow Creek Community Church. Because of my job, where my co-workers are heavily influenced by Willow Creek, I get the opportunity to attend conferences like this. Some of the messages that were preached there really touched my heart, and were "the word of the Lord" for me. But the worship caused me to pause, and recall that rainy, muddy night in the Lower Mainland over a decade ago.

The worship was very professional in both places, from a musical and technical point of view. Willow Creek had the edge when it came to technology -- huge LCD screens, lots of trendy video backdrops during the music, coloured "mood lights" that grew brighter or dimmer depending on the mood of the song.

But the whole thing -- although I believe that the worship teams were genuinely worshipping and seeking to lead us in worship -- came off a bit too polished, too predictable, too slick, and (to a degree) too hyped. I'm trying to not be too harsh or judgmental, but when I thought back to that night in 1992, everything at Willow -- no matter how polished and professional -- paled drastically by comparison.

In the cold and the rain, kneeling in the mud, wracked with a devastating awareness of a Holy God and our very sinful city of Victoria, we had all we needed to truly and deeply worship God. No big LCD screens, no changable mood lighting, no comfortable cushy chairs, no video-and-lyric backdrops. It was a very real and raw encounter with God that we talked and prayed about together for days and weeks afterwards.

It was the Real Thing. Sans hype or manipulation. I'd choose that cold, wet, muddy night's encounter with God any time, without hesitation or question.