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Sauerkraut Spirituality
September 16, 2020
What do you do with a giant head of cabbage that may be past its rolling days?
Make sauerkraut of course! Sure, if you’re super cool and have a pantry that includes gochugaru, dashima and myulchiaekjeot, you’d make kimchi.
My pantry is too full of chips to accommodate this.
Cabbage and salt it is.
Alan Kreider studied the growth of the early church in the Roman Empire. He noticed what may seem counter-intuitive to us in our mega-church culture today:
The growth of the church was organic not organized
They never wrote about ...
What's in your Sandwich?
September 03, 2020
Once upon a time - when my older daughter still needed, or at least tolerated, parental supervision, we hit the local mall with a good friend of hers. After meandering the shops, we went up to the food court for lunch. Bella’s friend asked for a veggie sub - but without the tomatoes, peppers, and onions. I tapped my credit card. $5 for a white bun with 4 cucumber slices and a leaf of lettuce. Huh.
How often do we live like this?
One order of Christianity please. Oh wait. What does it come with? Loving my enemies? Nah - too ...
The Thing About Church Plants
August 26, 2020
In early 2019, when Tap Nights was still a baby church plant, we decided to give every person or family in our congregation a plant. It was part of this teaching in 1 Corinthians 3 where Paul spoke about ministry and church planting, using the metaphor of casting seed, watering, and growth. We even had a dedicated Tap Nights “church plant” plant called “Pauly” (you know, after the Apostle himself). The plant is called a “prayer plant” because in the evening its branches lift up and come together like hands clasping in prayer (not kidding you, ...
Decluttering
August 13, 2020
“Seriously? Another. Crystal. Bowl.”
Feel free to substitute “crystal bowl” with candleholder, coffee cup, or crocheted something or other…
We recently helped my parents move - and there’s nothing like having to put stuff into boxes, transfer and unpack it into another home, to make you realize the human tendency to accumulate.
It would be easy for me to point and waggle my finger at my folks, but I think about the four spatulas in my utensil drawer, pairs of high heels sitting in my garage unworn, and way more books in my online ...
Top Drawer Peace
July 29, 2020
I tug at my top drawer. It catches. A mail-slot-narrow slit. Squeeze right hand through. Press down on the unruly tangle of socks and undies. The drawer slides open. Dig through - striped, blue anklet, woolly lumberjack (you can guess which are socks and which ones undergarments) - success! Press down once more. Shove that sucker shut.
Bed neat, bookshelf tidy, chairs cozy by the window. This room is the picture of rest. Peace. Let’s not address that drawer. Ever.
But that drawer threatens to spill every time I open it. The ...
I’ll Carry You
July 10, 2020
Oftentimes I am shellacked by the tenderness of the Old Testament. Yes, I believe the Old Testament has some of the most tender portions of Scripture. Like Isaiah 46:3-4 “Listen to me, you descendants of Jacob, all the remnant of the people of Israel, you whom I have upheld since your birth, and have carried since you were born. Even to your old age and gray hairs I am he, I am he who will sustain you. I have made you and I will carry you; I will sustain you and I will rescue you.”
YHWH says to Israel, even through exile and captivity: I ...
Waiting
June 30, 2020
“Let’s remember that though we may have to wait and see, we never have to wait to be.”
- Emily P. Freeman, The Next Right Thing
Pulling into the parking lot, I notice the line - people dutifully positioned on lines taped onto the pavement. Girding myself to join the tail of the snake, I pull out my mask and step out, ready to inch forward, six feet at a time.
Nothing like a pandemic to teach you about waiting. We wait in line for groceries, at home in quarantine, for canceled appointments to be rescheduled and favourite restaurants ...
Idols vs. Icons: A Theology of Zoom Calls
June 25, 2020
I’ve been living in a box for the last three months. You know what box I’m talking about: that Zoom box. Seeing people in these Zoom boxes has become a defining image of this season for me. And I worry that I sometimes forget that each person is their own flesh and blood reality. They are not just images in a box, on a screen.
And this makes me reflect on the distinction the Church has made between idols and icons.
An idol is something or someone that you look at and it absorbs all your attention.
For example, in the Scriptures idols ...
Jesus Pooed
June 22, 2020
There is a tendency in Christians to be ashamed, prudish in discussing our bodily functions, our sexuality, our “fleshy”-ness. We prefer to see ourselves as ethereal souls and spirits…not wrinkled, pock-marked, near-sighted, pubic-haired creatures.
Yet at the very core of our faith is the Incarnation. The Creator and Sustainer of the universe came to us as a historical, fully human being: “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us...” (John 1:14) - a fragile baby crying for his mother’s milk, a curious toddler tugging on his ...
Cancer
June 11, 2020
Our young adult discipleship group has been memorizing one verse a month, and a few weeks ago, one of the leaders offered 1 Corinthians 12:26 to memorize. About the body of Christ, the apostle Paul writes this, “If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honoured, every part rejoices with it.”
The first part seems easy - I feel the suffering of those who suffer. But Paul isn’t talking about mere pity, or even empathy. He doesn’t say we “feel” suffering with our suffering brother or sister, he says we suffer. ...
COVID - 19 Response Plan
June 10, 2020
It has been an unusual and unprecedented time for us all. Although this pandemic has greatly affected the manner in which we have done church, it has not stopped us from still being church. Church is about more than a building or a service; Church is about a people. Especially now, even more so during these disruptive times, we will continue to be church.
The Province, under the BC Restart Plan, has begun to ease restrictions and gradually re-open businesses, schools, and social venues. What then is our response as the Tapestry Ch ...
Justice, not Just Us
May 28, 2020
“It’s not fair, mommy! If she gets to have a cookie, then I should get to have one too!”
Some of us have this idea of justice. Fighting for my rights, to get what I deserve, to get what others have.
If this was Jesus’ idea of justice, this almighty God would not have been born as a fragile baby to a poor teen mom. If this was Jesus’ idea of justice, this perfectly sinless, all powerful Lord of heaven and earth would not have subjected himself to a criminal’s death on the cross for our sake. If this was Jesus’ idea of justice, we would ...
How God Tends to Work: More on Unanswered Prayer
May 25, 2020
I just had a preach on unanswered prayer and there was just so much to say. One thought that I have been wrestling with that just didn’t make the cutting room floor was of how God seems to work in the world.
Sometimes I have heard God work suddenly or through these miracles. Sometimes I seen God work in coincidences that are just too perfect or too timely to be a coincidence. But JI Packer is quick to note on his book on prayer that How God tends to work is within the, “ordinary processes of ordinary life”1. In other words, Packer notes how ...
There's Something You Should Know Before you Decide
May 20, 2020
You’re doing it!!! Congratulations is in order. You’re surviving a global pandemic, and that’s no small thing!
Everything depends on how you look at it! Like your hair, for example. You can look at it and say I’m struggling. Or you can say, I’m overcoming some serious challenges. By God’s grace, I’m growing; personally, emotionally and spiritually.
If you’re like me, this season of upheaval has left you craving certainty. When is my area reopening? When will there be a vaccine ready? When will life resume some kind of normal?
The truth ...
The Son Run Isn’t Cancelled
May 13, 2020
For the first time in Tap Nights albeit brief history, we were going to participate in the Vancouver Sun Run. And oh, let me tell you—we were pumped. We came up with a team name: “Nights in Tights” (…don’t ask). We began to regularly train together for the run. And why did we want to do this? Because, it was a fun thing to do! And I know that for some running 10K is not your idea of fun, it sounds more like torture. But we thought it was a nice way to get out there with 60,000 other people, to be active and involved in a Vancouver-y thing to ...
Breath Prayers are for the Weak
May 06, 2020
This poem was written as a reflection on my attempts at pausing for prayer this week.
Karen Schaffer is the pastor of spiritual formation for The Tapestry Richmond Photo by Amaury Gutierrez
Compline Prayers
April 30, 2020
If you're like me, the moment you wake up in the morning, life finds a way of crashing in with a hundred things that need to get done. And while some of it may be exciting and motivate you to jump out of bed, others might cause you to pull the covers over a little tighter and push snooze. Getting up and facing the day is not always easy.
Lately, I've been finding great solace, sanctuary and strength through the practice of morning prayers. These quiet mornings before my children and spouse wake up are precious times when I'm able to sit ...
He Sneaks Through Locked Doors
April 27, 2020
We are now fully in this season of Eastertide (the 50 days between Easter Sunday and Pentecost), where the church is called to rejoice and reflect on the reality-altering good news of the resurrection of Jesus.
But this good news never sandpapers over our grief and disappointment, but speaks in the midst of it. For example, I’ve been sitting with that story of Jesus appearing to his disciples who are hiding in a locked room (this is from John 20:19-23) Here we see what the resurrected Jesus is up to. He pursues the very people he called ...
Arts and Crafts
April 24, 2020
As for many of us COVID has completely changed the landscape of work life and home life amongst the staff at The Tapestry Richmond. It has caused us to wrestle with questions like: how do I know if I'm doing a good job in this time? What is being expected of me in this time of ministry? What am I expecting of myself? What makes me look back at the day and say this was a productive day? Am I still feeling God's love and acceptance in the midst of it all?
After a Zoom meeting discussing this topic I wrote this letter (mildly ...
"An Ode To Looking Up"
April 22, 2020
This past January I flew to Taiwan to visit my family. And as I was walking in the neighboured that I had lived in for about six years of my life (from 2003-2009), I saw something that left me shook. As my wife, Kristi, and I were walking, I looked up and saw this massive five-story mural on the side of a building in the neighbourhood. It beautifully depicts the famous parable of the sower and the seeds from the gospel accounts (you can read that parable in Luke 8 for example). If I had been wearing socks at the time, this would’ve blown them ...
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