Occupying Time & Mind

When we first moved to Winnipeg in 1997, we had the privilege of being a part of David Ruis' Vineyard church plant in the inner city of Winnipeg. David is a radical and a radical worshipper of Jesus.

David was in the process of destructuring our church into a network of missionally-focused home groups and groups of homegroups, but unfortunately not all the leadership wanted to go that direction. David resigned, the church decided to buy real estate (all in the same meeting), and a few months later David & his family relocated to Los Angeles. David & Anita have since begun a destructured community of faith called Basileia. Well worth checking out what they're up to, in a post-charismatic, charis-missional way.

I've also been keeping busy with finishing up my teaching notes on "The Father Heart of God" (YWAM week-long course for DTS students), and pursuing one of my favouriate passtimes: reading. My current reading list looks like this:

	Perspectives on Spirit Baptism: Five Views I've always liked these Perspectives books, because they give a broader view on different theological topics, and are dialogue-based. The authors present their views, the other authors interact with their views, and then the next author present their views, etc.
	Why Not Women?, by YWAM's founder, Loren Cunningham, dealing with the whole issue of women in ministry. YWAM has a great deal of breadth in theological opinions, and they don't usually take definitive stands on many "hot" topics, so when the founder of the mission writes a book like this, I'm interested on several levels.
	Can You Hear Me? by Brad Jersak, has been recommended to me by various people as a great resource on prayer and hearing the voice of God; heartily recommended by Anne From Alaska, who can talk like a pirate with the best of them. And Brad (like his brother Rod in Winnipeg) is Canadian.
	Exiles: Living Missionally in a Postmodern World by Michael Frost (co-author of the excellent Shaping of Things to Come) has been highly recommended to me by anyone and everyone lucky enough to already have a copy, and the only reason I haven't read it yet is because it's still on order. But I'm looking forward to it.