Brother Loewen's Traveling Salvation Show
In my own church tradition, we would regularly have spiritual revival meetings, where a guest speaker would come to our humble town and speak every night of the week to whoever would come to hear him. Revival meetings became a passing trend, and as congregational focuses shifted and the emphasis of inter-church dialogue changed, they stopped altogether. I heard recently though of an attempt to revive the revivals. Cliff Loewen, no relation, a former youth pastor at our church, and his family, are spending a week in Mount Salem, giving a series of evening services with the intent of spiritual revival.

I drove home to hear him, and I was surprised to see the church almost full. I had certainly seen it emptier on Sunday mornings in the past. The music was moving, the message was full of both well researched Biblical understanding and emotional calls for revival, etc. Cliff, like his father, is a great speaker, confident in his words, and passionate about his message. As a new pastor myself, I seek out effective speaking styles in others.

Many of my contemporaries, fellow MCEC (Mennonite Church of Eastern Canada) members and emerging church bloggers etc., would say that revival meetings and altar calls are a remnant of ancient society, but I'm not so sure. I know I would need to produce more evidence than a rural conservative evangelical Mennonite church full of people on a Wednesday night. I know that some still see this as ineffective old methods in a new world. However, I look around and see a lot of failed new methods too.

There is some emerging church language (sorry if I'm putting words in your mouths guys) that I wish Cliff and other evangelists would use though. I of course see the moral degradation of our society as a bad thing, but I don't think forcing people to comply to Christian morals is the solution. The lessening role of the church in our society is of course a sign of failure, but we need to use it as an excuse to purify the church. All Christians need to revive their faith to one that is real. I too want to see growth in Canadian (and global) churches, I want that regrowth to be thoughtful and spirit-led, not just the return to the pre-existing system.

I'm rambling I know. I liked the service tonight, with a few exceptions, and I was challenged, intellectually, spiritually, and in speaking styles. No plans on my own Brother Loewen's Traveling Salvation Show, but time will tell what gets incorporated into my work.

   [ posted by William @ 11:26 PM ]

Making the Climb, One More Time
Last year, with a group of Rockway Environmental Club students, I climbed the steps of the CN Tower as a fundraiser for the World Wildlife Fund. I've registered again, and am hoping to beat my last year's time of 18:29. I am proud of last year's time, given that I had no training at all, and had a job where I just walked around and sat on my rear end. While I have a similar job, I at least get to know about it well ahead of time, enough to prepare physically for it. I am aiming for under 17:00.

Maybe the MCC (Mennonite Central Committee) should have something like this so that I could test my physical limits while contributing to a greater cause, like refugee relief in Sudan or Afghanistan etc.

I would appreciate any kind of support, which you can give three ways, 1.) communicate your well-wishes (via email, HaloScan comment (see the end of this post), by phone or verbally), 2.) join me, or 3.) financially support me (You'll need to do a search for my name "William Loewen"), all donations appreciated.

Thanks.

   [ posted by William @ 5:35 PM ]

Cell phones
In my class tonight (I'm taking classes part time to finish my degree), there was one of these moments that I despise, and generally makes me people uncomfortable. A guy's cell phone went off. Now, normal protocol in this situation, is to immediately do what you can to shut it off, and do so as meekly and apologetically as possible. This guy however, let it keep ringing, picked up his jacket that held the phone, and walked out of the room. Now this isn't a big class, there are only around 30 people in the class, so the prof even made notice of it. As if it wasn't bad enough that he was obviously going to take this call over anything the prof had to say, but he barely stepped outside the door to answer it. I hate cell phones, and things like this make me want to hate the people that own them too.

   [ posted by William @ 12:07 AM ]

Reunions and Reality
So I had some time to kill yesterday, and I was flipping through the channels on the TV, I found this new reality TV show, based on a high school reunion in Texas. Initially, I thought this was a good idea. It's people that already know each other, and they're being put back into their normal setting. So this is as close as any network has come to "reality" in their reality TV setting.

But before I got a chance to like it, I sat down and watched it. I only saw the introduction, and maybe the rest go better, but I didn't like what I saw. High school is of course an ordeal we all need to go through, but when we leave, we realize the errors of our youth, and we move on.

We, the viewers, got to see their introduction, including a short bio of who they were, and then we watched them walk in and be recognized and greeted. In the personal interview portion, they seemed to be answering a set list of questions. This is roughly how it went.

1. Tell us about your high school experience.
- Option 1 - I was a loser in high school because were mean to me and made fun of me. I don't why people couldn't be nicer to me.
- Option 2 - In high school I was always really hung up on and people never really gave me a chance to be anything more.

2. Why are you coming on this show?
- People in high school didn't give me a fair shot, and I want to show them now that I'm better than they remembered, so they'll be jealous that they weren't nicer to me.

I don't keep in touch with my high school community much, except for people that I knew through church, but the idea of a reunion like that did perk my interest. It'd be easy for me to fall into the self-centered trap that each of the TV contestants did (ie. Those girls that didn't think I was good looking, would they pay attention to me now? Is my religion still a social deterrent?). It's easy to see that wrong that was done to me, but if I remember back, it isn't too hard to remember either the times when I was a jerk to other people.

Here would be my answers:

1. I was worried quite a bit about fitting in, and I wish that I had taken the time to be more genuine, and have fun being myself, not what I thought other people wanted.

2. I want people to see me for who I am, but I also want to take the opportunity to apologize to anyone that I was a jerk to, and I want to thank them all for helping me to become who I am.

   [ posted by William @ 3:03 PM ]

Winning in March Madness
Being a sports guy, it should come as no surprise to any of you that I participate in an annual sports gambling ritual. I put down $5 to say that my ability to predict the outcome of the NCAA basketball championship tournament every March. Generally I'm pretty frugal with my money, so you'd think I'd be pretty confident in my skills, and I am. You'd also think then that I have a solid understanding of NCAA basketball schools and their programs, but you'd be wrong.
Quick math suggests that there are roughly 2 to the 64th possible brackets. That works out to 1.84 times 10 to the 19th power, but really only about 1/8th of those are within the realm of possibility. Given that many possible outcomes, anybody can win, and anybody can lose. Hardcore basketball people lose these pools all the time to people who know next to nothing about sports.
Although I agree that the principle behind college basketball makes for a more interesting sport to follow than the NBA, I do feel that intense fanfare around it worsens the commercialization of the amateur game. I also feel that not following gives me an advantage in this pool, yes you read correctly, an advantage, here's why:
- I have no emotional allegiance to the success or failure of any one team, because I don't follow any one team, and I generally forget from year to year who my good picks were
- I follow the trends, I know that the #10 seed wins 55% of their first round games, and the 9th seed wins 60% of theirs
- You can't predict the obvious and still call yourself an expert, even if it then comes true. Hardcore ballers know this, and avoid the easy picks, I don't care how easy the picks are.
Here is how I fill out my brackets.
- First round - every #1, 2 and 3 seed advances, only one from each #13, 12 and 11 seed advance, and half of the #9 and #10 seed advances
- Final Four - 2 or 3 #1 seeds, never four
- Pairs - this is an authentic Will suggestion
- pick four first round pairs (teams with similar names, same state, similar mascots, whatever)
- two of those pairs advance, one pair advances to the Sweet 16 as well
- one pair does not advance
- with the final pairing, one team advances that shouldn't, and the other that should win, doesn't
(make it tough too, don't just say UTEP and ETSU have similar names and they both get eliminated, that's clearly already going to happen, but if you pick them to both advance, and they do, HELLO!)
- Make up your own quirky method. If you win, hey you've got a good selection algorithm, if you lose it doesn't matter, because you don't know anything about sports anyway.

   [ posted by William @ 1:11 PM ]

Sap Sucking Will
I am a proud Canadian, as many of you know, and part of that, is my affinity for maple syrup, and my appreciation of the process in which it is produced. Today I went to visit some friends of mine, and on their property, they have a few tapped sugar maples, with buckets hanging to collect sap. I asked for, and received permission to get myself a drink. It brought back some fond, fond, memories:
- Walking across a river on a makeshift rock walkway
- Stepping into the river after misjudging the sturdiness of one of the rocks
- Lunging the rest of the distance putting full faith in a tree to pull me to safety/dry land
- Shaking a bucket to separate the ice from the unfrozen sap
- Licking my lips to delay the freezing of my skin to the metal bucket
- Turning the bucket so that enough sunlight gets in so that I know when various tree chunks are floating toward my mouth
and of course,
- That sweet sugary goodness of the just the sap, a pleasant foreshadow of what is to come with the 40 times boiling off of water
To those oversees, Canadians or not, make sure you make it here once to taste fresh maple sap, you can't beat it.

   [ posted by William @ 4:37 PM ]