Hey!  So you took up the challenge and did some posting (sort of).  Thanks!  I’ll be wading through correspondence tonight and tomorrow.  But before we go further, it’s great to be back.

Two days in airports and seven days on a cruise ship.  Here are a random assembly of thoughts as I get back:

• I really did unplug.  I haven’t been this rested in years. Maybe ever.

• Sabbath is not over-rated.

• The purpose of rest in our culture is usually recuperation, but Jesus mainly used it for preparation.

• The salt water at St. Thomas was so salty you could float without treading water.  That was fun.

• I have everything in the world to be grateful for.

• I got on the treadmill three times last week – the first in over a year. Not sure why I resist activity. It was fun too.

• Enjoy your family.  Time flies.

• As a communicator, I honestly have nothing to say.  All I really have is a relationship to facilitate and a Person to witness to.

• My mom broke her leg on our trip (there were 18 of us Nieuwhof family
  people on this vacation.)  She simply missed a step on a city street
  and fell hard.  It was nice to be with her to care for her for a few
  days.  Six weeks in a cast and she should be good to go.

• Snorkling rocks.

• Relationship is more important than ideas, but it’s easier to talk about ideas than to infuse relationships with meaning.

• Four of us in a tiny stateroom…makes you really get along!

• I missed worship two Sundays in a row because of our travel schedule, and my soul aches because of it.  I don’t need to preach (although I’m on again this weekend).  I just want to sit and worship.

• I have no natural talent for rock-climbing or surfing (tried them both), but that’s okay.

• I wish I could really get my head around the full scope of Good Friday and Easter.  I only know enough to know that those realities have so much untapped power.

• I am so blessed to be able to do what I do and be surrounded, personally and in every way, by amazing people. I’m just grateful.

Excited to be back this weekend and to gather around the cross and empty tomb.  Back on the blog again tomorrow…

I usually just hang around the house on March break (spring break, to our American friends), but this year we’re disappearing somewhere off the Florida coast for nine days.  And my plan is to totally unplug for nine days.  Zippo internet. No cell phone.  No texts.  Notta.  I might bring Toni’s (my wife’s) macbook to do some photo editing.  That’s it.  Otherwise a bible, a few books, my family and that’s all.  I’m totally looking forward to it. I want to jump into Easter with my heart fully alive and engaged.  That’s what I’m aiming for.

While I’m gone, here’s what I’d love.  While I’m gone…I’d love YOU to run the blog. 

I won’t be monitoring or reading it for nine days starting now. 

You can post comments without moderation (as many of you have discovered) and I would love for you to start discussions and fuel a dialogue in my absence.  Rant…rave…talk about what jazzes you, frustrates you, puzzles you, angers you, delights you.  Rattle some chains. Drive this thing.  I’ll read it when I get back. (I’ve asked a friend to check in once a day or so just to make sure no crazy people have posted ultra-weird or inappropriate stuff, that’s all). 

So…over to you. Talk about your heart, your soul, your life, the church, leadership whatever.  Riff off this post. Hundreds of people read this blog each day…so I know you are out there.  You read it from all over North America and other parts of the world.

So go for it!

Can’t wait to get back and see what you’ve posted.  Don’t chicken out.  It could get really boring over the next nine days if you do.  Then you’d have to listen to me again….zzzzzzz…..

Oprah makes or breaks superstars and may just be the most infuential spiritual "teacher" (or at least facilitator) we have in North America.  Last year, she featured The Secret and catapulted it to fame.  This year, she”s hooked up with Eckhart Tolle to teach a live webcast every Monday night based on his book, A New Awakening.  With Oprah’s endorsement, it jumped to #1 on the New York Times’ best seller list. Their joint just-released podcast is #1 on iTunes in religion and spirituality.

If you check out that list, you’ll also see Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat, Pray Love, her story of love and spiritual awakening through eastern spirituality.  Eastern religion is all over our culture right now. It’s pretty much in the water system.  Everyone ‘s got a view on karma, reincarnation and the path way to God.

How do those of us who follow Jesus make sense of all of this?  How do those of us who don’t follow Jesus make sense of all of this?

As I head off for a holiday on March break, I’m loading up my iPod with a few podcasts on eastern spirituality and am going to finish Gilbert and Tolle’s book, all in preparation for our new series Jesus the Guru which launches Easter Sunday in Barrie and March 30th in Orillia. 

Here’s what can help me:  how have you been influenced by Eastern spirituality?  What attracts you to it? What attracts you back to Jesus?  What do you struggle with most about it?  How is the dialogue going with your friends over eastern spirituality?

I’m all ears and all heart as we launch this series a few weeks from now to talk about Jesus in the midst of what’s happening in our culture. Your insights will be so helpful as I get ready.  Over to you — fire away!

I’ve been thinking a lot about glass ceilings.  You know the expression — we say the sky’s the limit but in reality, there’s a ceiling that prevents us from achieving what’s promised.  The limit is hard to see at first, but it’s there.

Here’s where my brain is in the last month: how many glass ceilings are self-imposed?

I say God can do anything.  Do I believe it?  Do I live it?  How much is the chatter in my head stopping me from realizing God’s potential?  Do I really live like I’m forgiven?  Like Jesus rose from the dead?  Do I actually believe God has entrusted us with a slice of the Kingdom of God? Do I really believe the Kingdom of God is advancing and the gates of hell won’t prevail against it?  Do I live like I don’t want my friends to go to hell?  Do I live like communities and lives can be transformed by the power of Christ? Do I?

I believe all this stuff.  But do I actually live like it’s real?  Truly…

I think the potential for this is huge.  Think about your marriage, your church, your community, your thought life, your giving, your parenting, your whatever.  Hitting your head against glass ceilings you yourself have created?

I’m going to stop reaching for the Advil and hit against them one more time…praying God gives me the strength to shatter some.  What about you?

Had a great time in Grand Rapids last week and a busy weekend.  I had six hours of driving Thursday, eight Friday (plus teaching), about 4 hours in the car Saturday (hockey – only to see Jordan’s team got beat out of the finals), plus a long day yesterday.  Had a great morning in Orillia teaching both services live, and then played hard with my family late into the night.

This morning I am — tired.  Just tired. 

Over the last two years, I’ve been watching my rest.  Getting more sleep and enough sleep, and I’m in deficit mode right now.  Got to catch up.  Then I’m going away on a March Break holiday with my family for eight days.

I was reading through Leviticus and realizing again that the Jews basically had to take one seventh of their life off — doing nothing except worshiping and reflecting on God.  One seventh of life to be unproductive — to be.  To be God’s. Fully. I imagine what my life would be like if I did that — what my relationship with God would be like.  I think it could be amazing.

But I always feel guilty for not answering emails, returning voice mails or missing deadlines. 

So I’ve made a decision — this holiday, no lap top, no cell phone, nothing.  Just books, a bible and some note paper for writing. And sleep — lots of sleep.

How about you?  You tired? Too busy?  What do you do about it?

You make me happy.

While me and several of our staff were slowly coming back from Grand Rapids Michigan last night as a storm swirled around every 400 series highway between Sarnia and Barrie, Rich Birch hosted over 100 Connexus volunteers who gathered at the Guthrie Arena for what I heard was a sensational dinner.  Just a great time for e-team, tech team and music team people to chill and share a meal.  I was so sorry we missed it (took over 8 hours to make a 6 hour trip home).  I am so thankful for our awesome volunteers and team.

We saw a KidStuf rehearsal at one of the churches in Michigan (thanks to Tim and Brian who were such incredible hosts!). It made me both grateful for our team that last year launched such a fantastic KidStuf and made me excited that we’re planning on bringing KidStuf back this fall (have you see the video of our KidStuf last year?  Check it out!)

Bottom line: I love our team. I’m so thankful for you.  I’m so thankful for Connexus. So thankful for our first rate people.  I love getting out and learning from other leaders and discovering better ways to do things and having others sharpen me.  But I love coming home.

I love coming home to our team, to our community to our people, and getting to be your pastor.  You are making a difference in a part of the world that doesn’t have a lot of churches.    We get to impact a community where 85% of our neighbours don’t go to church.  We get to impact a part of the country that desperately needs Christ.  And we get to do it together. 

You guys rock out. 

So what if you every time you sinned, someone had to die? 

Seriously.

I’m reading through Leviticus in the Old Testament, and that’s what happened every time someone sinned intentionally or unintentially.  Some one or some thing had to die.  A goat. A bull.  A turtledove. Some wheat (okay, no one would feel sorry for the wheat, I guess). 

Could you imagine explaining to your kids why you had to kill a bird because you fought with your wife?  Why the priest had to kill and burn a heifer because you  weren’t honest on your tax return or because you were jealous of your neighbour’s plasma tv?   

Could you imagine keeping a body count over the span of your life?

I think I would approach sin and confession differently if there was a death as a direct result every time I messed up my life.

And that’s the irony, isn’t it?

Someone did give His life because I messed up mine.  Once and for all, he gave His life.

I would just encourage all of us to think this through this weekend.  It’s a sacrifice that makes me shudder, and makes me not only want to confess, but to turn — to repent.  To change.  To not take in vain God’s love expressed for me in Jesus on the cross.