Great Expectations

My name is Mark Smith. I'm a guy who loves Jesus, His Word, and His Church. I am filled with Great Expectations for what the future will ultimately bring - Matthew 24:14.

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Location: Sudbury, Ontario, Canada

My favourite verse is Psalm 16:11, my other favourite verse is Acts 20:24, my other favourite verse is Habakkuk 3:17-19, and my other favourite verse is Matthew 24:14.

Friday, September 26, 2008

Driscoll loves Piper

This post is particularly for people like Joe and Jason who love Mark Driscoll but are not as big of fans of Piper as they should be. ;)

If Mark Driscoll loves Piper this much, then shouldn't you as well?

The main points of why he loves him are:

1. He is the most passionate guy I think I've ever met.

2. He does not seem to really care about his approval ratings.

3. He has a father's heart.

4. By not trying to be cool ... he's cool.

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Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Total Church

I really like this interview about a new book called Total Church.

The book sounds great.

I like the catchphrase “ordinary people living ordinary life with gospel intentionality.” They say "It means doing the chores, having meals, watching sports, and so on with an intention to talk about Jesus, to pastor one another with the gospel, and to share that gospel with unbelievers."

I like hearing that "church is not one activity in our lives. Church isn’t a meeting you attend or a building your enter. It’s our identity, our community, our family. It’s the context for the totality of the Christian life."

You should read the whole interview and read the book.

Friday, September 19, 2008

Cambrian College Interview

The other day Shaun Lamirande from the Cambrian Shield came to interview me about happenings at Cambrian. Here are some of the thoughts I shared with him.

When it comes to being unable to start a Christian Club (or any other religious club) at Cambrian, being unable to hand out Christian (or other religious) material/flyers myself, and even a students being told by a professor that they would get in trouble if they handed religious stuff out, I have the following thoughts:

#1: A Post-Secondary Institution of Higher Learning should allow all types of diverse thoughts, even dissenting viewpoints because students should be making choices for themselves about which ones they will accept, and which ones they will reject.

#2: Many Colleges/Universities have Christian Clubs, Islamic Clubs, Wicca Clubs, etc. Why not Cambrian? This seems very narrow-minded – much too narrow-minded for a post-secondary institution.

#3: Saying “No” to one thing is saying “Yes” to another. So saying “No” to all religious stuff is saying “Yes” to irreligion or atheism for everyone. Why not allow students to make choices rather than been so closed-minded? I don’t think saying “No” to all religious stuff is sensitivity – I think it is censorship.

#4: Skepticism, fear, and anger toward traditional religion are growing in power and influence. But at the same time, robust, orthodox belief in the traditional faiths is growing as well. So instead of trying to outlaw or privatize one or the other, students should be aware of both sides and both sides should have a level playing field where they can civilly discuss and promote their view. Once again, anything less than this ends up falling into the realm of narrow-mindedness, and perhaps even censorship.


Friday, September 12, 2008

New Church Website

I'm so happy with how the new church website turned out! Now it will just be a matter of finishing up a few more parts of it and of keeping it up to date. I'm going to have to keep my camera around often to keep taking more pictures and stuff. But I just have to say that Moonfruit is great and Brian Mullins was a huge help getting it going and setting it up so that I just had to fill in information and change things here and there.

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Friday, September 05, 2008

More thoughts about Cambrian

In the New Testament when they were told they could not preach, they preached anyways - and got arrested. Then we they got out, they preached some more.

Gospel For Asia missionaries go into towns and villages all the time that are controlled, not by Secular Westerners, but by Hindus or other religions. The Gospel For Asia missionaries are sometimes told that they are not allowed to preach or hand out pamphlets and stuff. But many times they do it anyways - and sometimes get beaten up.

Should I keep handing stuff out and talking to people even though I'm not allowed to? Or is it best to let it be and give the books to Cambrian Students to give out to friends and fellow students and possibly to stand just off the school property and give them to people walking towards the Mall?

Adventures at Cambrian.... (Grrrr...)

Cambrian College will not let us start up a Christian Group because they do not sanction any sort of religious clubs. So instead of being able to have a club and set up a booth and hand out copies of The Case for Christ and stuff about our C&C group, I had to put flyers in books, pack them in my backpack and hand them out around Rez. However, after only handing out about 50 and knocking on only half the townhouse Rez doors, an RA who said he didn't believe in God told me I wasn't allowed to hand religious stuff out without permission. So I had to go to the office to ask for permission and permission was denied. Grrr...

But at least it's consistent: I asked if a Hindu could hand stuff out and they said no, it was the same for all religions - no clubs, no handing stuff out.

It's just too bad that Western Secularism is not classified by Cambrian as a religion - because then they couldn't tell me not to hand stuff out about my religion because they would be enforcing their own religion in saying that.

Those who decided that no religious clubs or literature are allowed would say the worldviews like Islam, Hinduism, Christianity, etc are all religions while their worldview is not. Maybe not but I wish I could explain to them that Christianity is really not a religion either. Nor is it irreligion - it is something altogether different and better.

Wednesday, September 03, 2008

Simple Wisdom for Rick Warren

"...You must simply get more people to visit! No one becomes a church member without first being a visitor. If you only have a few visitors each year, you'll have even fewer members."



- Rick Warren, The Purpose Driven Church, page 252.

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