Church Family Update - June 12, 2020

Hello everyone and welcome to the weekend! According to my kids today is our 90th day of staying at home! We have been so thankful for the slower schedule and time together as a family. But we’re ready to start getting back to normal! How about you?

You may have heard that today, June 12, begins phase two of reopening for Alberta. As a council we have discussed how we can safely and responsibly begin to gather again for Sunday worship. We are not yet prepared to begin having members attend worship services this Sunday but we’re working hard on putting together guidelines that will enable us to begin gathering while observing social distancing practices. Later today you will receive communication from council regarding how we’ll begin the process of reopening our services. You’ll also have the opportunity to provide us with feedback so that we can determine how many people would like to attend our services under the current phase two guidelines and how we can accommodate that. 

Thanks for your patience and support as we do our best to reopen in a way that’s safe and best for everybody!

And now…it’s time for our

 Friday Book Discussion!

This week we read chapter 6: “Feasts of Attention” from Recapturing the Wonder by Mike Cosper.

I’m a little pressed for time today as a few unexpected things have come up. But that’s okay. I think I can summarize this chapter fairly succinctly. Here goes:

Attention is a finite resource. In other words, contrary to popular belief, you just can’t pay careful attention to more than one thing at a time. The point of the chapter is to encourage us not to waste our attention by squandering it on things that don’t really matter or dividing it between multiple things so that we’re not really paying attention to anything. 

For example. What would you think about a person who carried a hammer around all day and stared at for a total of four hours per day. You’d think that person was a fool for squandering his precious hours staring at an inanimate object. And yet, most people do that very thing with their phones. 

A phone is a tool. It’s a useful tool. But it’s not worthy of the amount of attention that we give to it. Just like a hammer is a useful tool for pounding in nails but then it should go on the shelf when we’re not pounding in nails. So the bottom line is this: don’t give your precious attention to your stupid phone when there’s a whole big beautiful world out there waiting for you to engage with it. 

When you’re having a meal, pay attention to the people that you’re eating with and to the food that you’re eating. When you’re around other people, learn to see the image of the Creator in them and honor them with your full attention. When you’re alone, learn to encounter God in every moment. 

Don’t be afraid of boredom! Boredom is an essential part of the human experience. And if we fill up every moment with noise and screens and entertainments then we’ll miss what’s really important. Learn the art of paying attention and in the process you’ll experience God in ways that you’ve never experienced before.

As far as I can tell, that’s the main point of this chapter. How about you? What did you get out of it? Did I miss something? Did you find this chapter helpful? Where are you failing to pay attention and how will you start? 

Have an awesome weekend. I hope you’ll experience God in amazing and unexpected ways!

Pastor Jason