Nathan Weselake

Free Book Giveaway!!!

I was really excited yesterday as a wealthy benefactor (Ray Willms) gave me a second copy of the marriage classic “The ACT OF MARRIAGE…the beauty of sexual love.” by both Tim and Beverly LaHaye.  

It’s an absolute gem.  Particularly the Q&A at the end answering tough questions on all our minds like:

“Is it a greater sin to have a vasectomy than to use gel contraceptives?”

Tim figures probably not…

It really is quite the read…although I don’t so much read it as imagine Kirk Cameron reading it to me.  Anyway, it is all you’ll really need to not only be happily married but also sexually satisfied beyond belief until the rapture (which Tim will give us heads up on) comes.  

And it could be yours. Here is how:

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So we are gonna be like…

Was out for lunch with Todd Petkau from this church, who was kind enough to give me some of his time so I could ask him some questions about church leadership and such.  It was time well spent.  Stafford also went and spent some time with the kids pastor from Church of the Rock.

I tell you about us intentionally seeking out coaching for the purpose of baiting someone to ask the inevitable question after I return from a conference, or another church, and learned something.  It is:

“So are we gonna be like (insert name here) now?”

I like the question most of the time because it is a reminder to me that the people of PAC like who we are and they don’t want to settle for an inauthentic or imposed imported experience, strategy, or model.

I agree.  We are not going to be like Willow Creek, North Point, Elevation, Oasis, Toronto Airport Fellowship, Church of the Rock, Christ Our King Presbyterian, Bethel, IHOP, Mars Hill, LifeChurch, or any other church we have visited or studied.  

Nope.  We are going to be like Portage Alliance Church.  See here is what we do.  We go to as many places as we can afford and we buy a bottle of what they are selling. 

 Then we come home and set the bottle on the shelf alongside dozens of other bottles.  Some of the bottles are full and after a few years of use, some are not so full.  But as their contents are helpful or required we take them off the shelf and pour a little into our own PAC bottle, which actually has its own distinct flavour, although if you have a well developed palate you can detect different influences and notes.

Eventually, PAC may be at a place where people seek us out and want to buy a bottle from us.  But even if that happens we will continue to unapologetically look to those who do it better than us, different than us, and who are farther ahead than us and learn everything we can.  

Not to be like them, but to have more bottles to choose from as we figure out who we are supposed to be.

Sunday follow up.

Last Sunday’s message didn’t have time to go as deep as would have been profitable on what for many people is a thorny issue. 

Here are some follow up links:

NT Wright’s transcript from a talk in 2004

A dozen or so articles which would disagree with my sermon.

And here is the talk itself.

Love looks like a fresh start (video of message)

And to my handful of readers who see these things very different than I, keep in mind that this was a sermon and not a thesis paper (although the sermon contains much research displayed lightly).  Not every question could be chased to it’s conclusion and the goal was to send the listener home not convinced I was right, but rather convinced that Jesus invites them to a fresh start and to shed the labels that keep them from full life in Him,