November 2008 - Promise Keepers Canada

Transcription

november – december, 2008
Newsstand Price CDN $4.95
TEMPER THE
WARRIOR WITHIN:
Real men need more than the UFC. 18
CONFLICT HAPPENS.
DEAL WITH IT. 14
TI-CATS TAKE ON
BIG TASK 22
BETHLEHEM BEHIND
THE WALL. 24
Unleashed
Unleashed
Discipleship Training
There is a growing crisis of integrity among Canadian
men. Our homes, workplaces and even our churches are
feeling the effect. Recent studies show that men make up
less than 40 percent of adults in most churches, and 20
to 25 percent of married churchgoing women attend
without their husbands.
How did a movement that began with
twelve men lose the interest of men?
Promise Keepers Canada has created Discipleship
Training Unleashed to help men make a lasting impact
in the lives of other men.
What is Discipleship Training Unleashed?
Fulfilling one of the greatest needs in the church today,
DTU is in-depth training for mature Christian men on
how to be effective mentors. Participants will receive
100 hours of discipleship training and emerge prepared
to be mentors to the men around them.
TO REGISTER OR FOR INFORMATION ON HOW TO BRING
THIS EVENT TO YOUR COMMUNITY, CONTACT US AT:
1-888-901-9700 or
info @ promisekeepers.ca
www.pkelevation.ca
Mentoring Men
to Leave No Man
Behind
Equipping Men
to Mentor Men!
contents
november – december, 2008
on the cover
18 Designed to be warriors
Why mixed martial arts battles are so popular.
Publisher: Brian Koldyk
Managing Editor: Doug Koop
Pulse Editor: Robert White
features
14 Holy Hotspots!
Managing conflict in a conflicted world.
Advertising Account Executives:
WILLIAM LEIGHTON: [email protected]
DARRELL FRIESEN: [email protected]
Unless otherwise indicated, neither
ChristianWeek nor Promise Keepers Canada
guarantee, warrant, or endorse any product,
program, or service advertised.
20 Shaken and stirred
Don Ranney lives life on the edge. Once he tumbled off.
22 The wrap on Hamilton
Former steel salesman helps people put their lives together.
Editorial Advisory Board
RON HANNAH: Promise Keepers Canada
KIRK GILES: Promise Keepers Canada
JEFF STEARNS: Promise Keepers Canada
PHIL WAGLER: Kingsfield
SANDRA REIMER: Reimer Reason Communications
DOUG KOOP: ChristianWeek
24 Bethlehem behind the barrier
Security barrier encircles the birthplace of Christ.
columns
departments
5 PK Podium
8-12 Pulse
From good to disaster.
Curious events. Interesting
people. Good ideas.
6 Help Wanted
Fear of conflict. Wayward son.
Ungodly influence.
29 Out of My Depth
Fighting words.
32 Money Matters
What do fluctuating house
prices mean for you?
Distributed by
Promise Keepers Canada
1295 North Service Road
PO Box 40599
Burlington, ON L7P 4W1
(905) 331-1830
[email protected]
Postmaster: Please send address changes to
PO Box 40599, Burlington, ON L7P 4W1
ISSN 1916-8403
13 Reviews
One good read recommends
another.
Cover:
Indigo Ink Studios
iStockphoto.com
30 Power Play
Tools, toys and technology.
33 Shape Up
Take time to get fit.
34 What Women Want
Editorial and Advertising Office
204-424 Logan Avenue
Winnipeg, MB R3A 0R4
Phone: (204) 982-2060
(800) 263-6695
Fighting the good fight
[email protected]
[email protected]
Design: Indigo Ink Studios
www.indigoinkstudios.com
SEVEN is a Christian magazine for
Canadian men that exists to help
men lead more fulfilling lives and
leave enduring legacies.
The name reflects the seven
promises that form the basis of
the Promise Keepers organization,
which works with churches to
minister to men across Canada.
one – A Promise Keeper is
committed to honouring Jesus
Christ through worship, prayer,
and obedience to God's word in
the power of the Holy Spirit.
two – A Promise Keeper is
committed to pursuing vital
relationships with a few other
men, understanding that he
needs brothers to help him keep
his promises.
three – A Promise Keeper is
committed to practising spiritual,
moral, ethical, and sexual purity.
four – A Promise Keeper is
committed to building strong
marriages and families through
love, protection, and biblical
values.
six – A Promise Keeper is
committed to reaching beyond
any racial and denominational
barriers to demonstrate the power
of biblical unity.
five – A Promise Keeper is
committed to supporting the
mission of the church by
honouring and praying for his
pastor, and by actively giving his
time and resources.
seven – A Promise Keeper is
committed to influencing his
world, being obedient
to the Great Commandment
(see Mark 12:30-31) and the Great
Commission (see Matt 28:19-20).
seven – issue three november–december 2008 page 3
Want your own copy of
SEVEN
Magazine?
VISIT WiseChoices.ca OR CALL 1-888-901-9700
PK Podium
From good to disaster
Creation was perfect. Then along came sin...
by Ron Hannah
Remember that story, once upon a time,
or should I say, in the beginning?
The perfect couple lived in an ideal
environment and they experienced what
true love and joy could be like when all they
knew was “good.” They experienced what
it was like to be patient with each other, to
be kind, understanding, gentle and faithful.
Every day was a true adventure of working
together, exploring together and treating
each other with love,
respect and dignity. But then...
Disaster strikes! Dad had
told them they could live this way
forever as long as they listened to
His wisdom and didn’t get tricked
into disobeying the warnings he had
provided for them. But, in a moment
of weakness and believing there might
be even “more” to life than this perfect
experience He’d provided for them, they
made a bad choice. The villain of our story,
wearing an innocuous disguise, slyly
deceived them into going against what
their loving Father had told them not to do.
The result?
Evil entered their perfect world and with
it came pride, jealousy, envy,
selfishness, hatred and all the
other elements that complete
the recipe for sin. Now that
evil had been invited into an
environment that knew only
“good,” it created the ideal
conditions for conflict to be
born and flourish.
Conflict is the result of two
opposites clashing, both
struggling to have their way. In
this case it is the titanic
struggle between good and evil, both
trying to dominate your life. That leaves
us with our “choices,” and ultimately the
choices we make determine our destiny.
This means that no matter where you
are—at work, home, playing sports or
wherever—you will be presented with
areas of potential conflict. Human nature
is going to want you to choose its way but
Dad, in His wisdom, is always going to be
there to offer you the other choice. He sent
his Son to defeat evil and after that victory
was achieved, He sent us His Spirit as a
Counsellor for conflict resolution.
As we await the return of the
original environment, we still have to
make choices. You will know if you are
making the right choices because the fruit
of those choices will be to experience what
the Spirit is providing. On the other hand,
you will know when you are making the
wrong choices by experiencing the fruit
of what our villain brought to the story.
Choose wisely, guided by His Spirit,
knowing that the ideal environment will
return once again. And, as promised,
the story ends with all of His children
living happily ever after.
Ron Hannah is president of Promise Keepers
Canada. His passion is to serve God and
challenge men to be followers of Jesus Christ.
Before joining Promise Keepers in 1998,
Ron was a marketing manager for Hershey
Foods and vice-president at Duracell Canada.
He and his wife Joei reside in Burlington,
Ontario, while his two sons, daughters-in-law
and four grandchildren live in
Winnipeg, Manitoba.
Help wanted
Fear of conflict. Wayward son.
Ungodly influence.
by Rod Wilson
One of the members of our church
leadership team just quit his volunteer
role because he does not feel comfortable
with the pastor. How do I help him see that
he is just avoiding conflict?
Quitting in order to avoid conflict is
alive and well in church life and it is not
easy to resolve. This situation may require
you to buy your friend a lunch and chat
about a few issues around conflict.
The research on conflict typically
describes five styles for resolving it—
competing, collaborating, compromising,
accommodating and avoiding. All of us
have a style and it usually develops as a
result of some of combination of our family
of origin, significant experiences, personal
preferences or firm conviction. It is difficult
to talk someone out of his conflict resolution
style because it is deeply embedded.
Those who quit something to avoid
conflict are usually telling us, implicitly,
that conflict is threatening, frightening
and challenging. They are pursuing a safe
and easy position because entering into
the conflict will be overwhelming. As we
watch this happen it is important to not
just criticize them for avoiding conflict but
also to understand that they are reaching
for safety because they are afraid, even
if they have trouble admitting it.
Often individuals who leave church
roles because of conflict have lost sight
of the common good. Instead of asking,
“what is best for the church?” they are
more occupied with their own fears.
Sometimes we need to encourage people
to not just go on autopilot, pursuing the
conflict resolution style that comes most
naturally, but to step out and go against
their typical style and do what is best for
all. Not only do churches need this in their
volunteer leaders but the paid staff need
that kind of integrity as well. Too many
people are letting their pastor know they
are uncomfortable by leaving a position
or, worse yet, by leaving the church.
My 15-year-old son told me he has
been sexually intimate with his girlfriend.
How can I make him understand how
wrong this is and the danger he is in?
It brings me great comfort to know that
God the Father goes through this problem
on a daily basis. How can you make your
children do what is right and why do they
mess up so regularly?
What makes this situation wrong for you?
That question might make you feel frustrated
because you are more interested in asking
him questions than asking any of yourself,
but this is an important issue. Is he
embarrassing you by what he is doing?
Are you seeing this behaviour as a reflection
of bad parenting and thus you are holding
yourself somehow responsible? Are you
worried his girlfriend will get pregnant or
contract a sexually transmitted disease?
Or do you believe he is violating
God’s desire?
While we do not get excited when
our children tell us these kinds of things,
horizontal confession is not only a good start
toward right living, it is also an indication
that the relationship between the parent and
the teen allows for this kind of transparency.
Having an open relationship does not
always guarantee peace and tranquility,
but it is a lot better than deceit.
If your son’s attitude is contrite and
repentant, for you to grant forgiveness and
grace puts you in step with God the Father.
While He knows we sin and fall short on
a regular basis, He consistently displays
a character of mercy. Parents who soak
themselves in God’s grace and mercy for
their own lives are able to be the conduit
for these qualities in the lives of their
children, constantly trusting that there
will be a long term impact.
But what do I, as a parent, do when
the behaviour persists and nothing I say
brings any change? Those of us who have
lived that experience have a short answer:
Cry for mercy.
I am in my second marriage and share
custody of my children with their nonChristian mom. How do I help my kids
grow to follow Jesus when they are
surrounded with the opposite message
while with their mom?
All of us, whether parenting alone,
with a spouse who is present or with a
spouse who is absent, need to remember
that children are a gift from God and not
a personal possession. While this does
not reduce our conscientiousness and care
for our children, it helps us realize that our
children are in His hands and He loves them
and cares for them. Ultimately, any human
care is of much less significance than the
care that God provides.
Our biggest influence on others is
usually found in our lifestyle, not our words.
The Bible describes it beautifully when it
says those who live their lives with integrity
“make the teaching about God our Saviour
attractive” (Titus 2:10). Christian parents
who live with integrity will have an impact
in the lives of children, sometimes
immediately but often in the future.
If you believe that truth ultimately
will win over evil, and if you believe that
a Christian environment has the capacity
to move people toward a right and righteous
life, then there is no need to be insecure
about the presence of a non-Christian
environment. When you send your children
to school, allow them to play with friends
and send them to their mom’s house,
you do it with the conviction that it is not
inevitable that error will negate what is right.
Often in these situations it is good
to pray not just for the protection of the
children from their non-Christian mom,
but for the influence of the children in
a setting that is spiritually challenging.
Rod Wilson is president of Regent College in
Vancouver, where he also serves as professor
of Counselling and Psychology. He is the
author of How Do I Help a Hurting Friend:
Practical Help for Leaders and Laypeople
(BakerBooks, 2006).
Could you use some help? Don’t shy away
from asking. Send your questions
to [email protected].
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Visit
www.PromiseKeepers.ca
for Promise Keepers clothing, men's ministry
resources, great books and event recordings!
www.PromiseKeepers.ca
s
pulse
Curiousities. Personalities.
Ideas. Information.
by Robert White PULSE Editor
CHAOS BREAKS ON THE DARK KNIGHT
During one of the final scenes of
The Dark Knight—the latest movie in
the Batman franchise—Batman (played
by Christian Bale) explains the Joker’s
motives to one of the film’s main characters:
“He wanted to prove that even someone as
good as you could fall.”
The question of who’s good, who’s bad
and how the two are defined is the movie’s
main theme—but how that plays out and
who’s who seems to change from one scene
to the next.
The Dark Knight isn’t the Adam West,
or even the Michael Keaton/George Clooney,
hero some of us grew up with. Starting with
Batman Begins, the films have become
darker, much closer to the vigilante Batman
Bob Kane created in the early DC Comics of
the 1940s. As Commissioner Gordon (Gary
Oldman) says at the end of the film, Batman
is “the hero Gotham deserves, not the one
it needs right now…He’s a silent guardian,
a watchful protector…a dark knight.”
The plot seems simple: Batman’s spent
a year secretly working with the Gotham
City Police Department cleaning up crime.
Newly-elected District Attorney, Harvey Dent
(Aaron Eckhart), is brought in as the white
knight ready to charge (literally and
figuratively) the crime bosses and clean
up the city for good.
Then the Joker (Heath Ledger),
a psychotic criminal who sees “the only
sensible way to live in this world is without
rules,” is added to this explosive mix.
Batman is faced with a villain he can’t
understand or reason with. As his faithful
butler, Alfred (Michael Caine), points out,
“some men aren’t looking for anything
logical…Some men just want to watch
the world burn.”
As the Joker plays, Gotham descends
into chaos. He pushes people—including
Dent, Batman and Gordon—to make choices
for which there’s more than one right or
wrong answer. This pushes them toward
a madness where each races to the edge.
Some fall, or fly, off—fulfilling Dent’s
prophetic words that some are destined
to “either die a hero or live long enough
to see (themselves) become the villain.”
Others find the strength to pull back just
before they go over the edge.
It’s anarchy the Joker wants and
anarchy he almost gets. In the exchange
Batman has mentioned earlier, the bitter
response was “and he was right.” Which
leads to a question that lingers long after
the film is over: if the good, like Batman,
Dent and Gordon almost, or do, descend
into darkness, can anyone? Because, as
the Joker says, “madness, as you know,
is like gravity. All it takes is a little push.”
The filmmakers left an opening for
a sequel, although the question of
whether the Joker will return still needs
to be answered because of Ledger’s
untimely death. And there seems to
be a glimmer of hope to the lingering
questions in Batman’s words: “Sometimes
people deserve more. Sometimes people
deserve to have their faith rewarded.”
REMEMBER SOLDIERS WITH
CARE PACKAGES, CARDS OR
HOCKEY JERSEYS
On Remembrance Day, a time Canadians
remember those who died serving their
country, set some time aside to remember
the 8,000 men and women serving with the
Canadian Forces abroad—including
the nearly 2,500 in Afghanistan.
Paul Beckingham, chaplain for the
British Columbia Regiment (Duke of
Connaught’s Own), a reserve unit from
Vancouver, suggests care packages while
Leonard Blackmore, whose son Tim just
finished his first six-month deployment
in Kandahar, suggests cards and letters.
“Let them know you care,” says
Blackmore, whose own 26 years in the
Canadian Forces began with the RCAF
and ended at Calgary’s Southern Alberta
Institute of Technology as the university
liaison officer. Tim, who usually works in
a recruiting office, went to Afghanistan as
part of the Kandahar reconstruction unit’s
support staff. Blackmore says the cards and
letters can “be a real encouragement while
they’re there.”
Beckingham says care packages
can contain everything from Gatoradetype crystals (for rehydration), hand
cream, pocket-size packs of tissues,
portable games, books and magazines
and reminders of home like photos and
postcards of Canada. “Boredom is a big
thing,” says Beckingham. “They could be
waiting for action for days. It’s like the airline
pilot who described his job as 99 per cent
boredom and one per cent sheer terror.”
Port Perry’s Jane Twohey uses signed
hockey jerseys to show support for the
men and women serving in Afghanistan.
“The original goal was to send two teams
of jerseys, one red, one white,” says Twohey.
She eventually connected with, and gave
a jersey to former chief of defense staff
Rick Hillier—who then arranged to get 52
to Kandahar, which were handed out as
draw prizes on Canada Day. Twohey says
she’s sent 90 jerseys to Afghanistan.
As word has spread, others started
buying jerseys, getting them signed locally
and sending them to the troops. Twohey
suggests people find a local hero and send
it to them. Money raised from the sales goes
to either the Wounded Warrior fund
or the Canadian Hero fund (which funds
the post-secondary education of children
who have had a parent killed in service).
For details on sending care packages
or messages, check http://www.dnd.ca
/site/community/messageboard/index_
e.asp and for Twohey’s program, check
http://www.teamredtakeastand.com/
home.html.
MORE MEN BECOMING
STAY-AT-HOME DADS
More men are becoming stay-at-home
dads after taking a paternity leave. Just
how many is difficult to gauge, but Statistics
Canada suggests 10 per cent of fathers who
take leave after a child’s birth or adoption
don’t return to work. This doesn’t include
men who decide to work part-time or who
quit working without taking a leave first.
Academics have different opinions about
this development. Some scholars believe
the trend points to growing equality in the
labour market. Others suggest stay-at-home
dads point to the deconstruction of gender
roles. And some say stay-at-home dads are
actually mothering.
Academic theories are meaningless
and trivial to parents who are busy
with routines like those of the Mason
household. When Lance Mason was laid-off
for a second time from a job in the volatile
hi-tech sector, he and his wife decided he’d
stay home to maintain a stable, nurturing
and dependable environment for the
couple’s two children.
“It’s almost like being a CEO of a
company. You have limited time and
you’re trying to figure out where you should
selectively spend that time,” says Mason,
who hasn’t been to the office in five years.
Canadian parents are thinking about
their kids, not gender deconstruction or
feminist theory. A GPC Research poll
commissioned by the Institute of Marriage
and Family Canada in the spring of 2006
found more than 80 per cent of Canadians
prefer to have a parent at home. Statistics
Canada reports 81 per cent of parents who
return to work after parental leave would
stay off longer if they could afford it.
Even if fathers aren’t staying home, more
Canadian men are using the Federal Parental
Benefits Program that increased shared paid
benefit weeks from 10 to 35 weeks in 2001.
There was a 17 per cent increase in the use
of benefits by fathers between 2000 and
2006. A majority take time off around the
birth of a child, and some even take unpaid
leave or use vacation time.
A number of studies show children
want to spend more time with their
parents. Time playing with fathers
contributes to cognitive development and
social competence. And a study of children
whose fathers accounted for 40 per cent or
more of their care found these children were
smarter, mastered environments better and
were more empathetic.
“I don’t know, at the end of day, how this
will come out in my kids lives,” says Mason.
“But I feel like they’re growing up in a stable
environment where they can come home
from school or during the summer time,
that there’s always someone—a member
of the family there.”
Reprinted with permission of the
Institute of Marriage and Family Canada.
TREAT PEOPLE LIKE PLANTS
Authors have used sharks, samurai
and guerrillas as images to teach leadership.
Emmanuel Bible College president Derrick
Mueller has dug up a new one: the amaryllis
bulb. Mueller, who’s on sabbatical to
promote The Amaryllis Way, unearthed
the principle planting tulips in his garden.
“I realized if I treated people like plants—
different plants need different soils to grow,
they bloom differently—if I treated people
individually, they’d grow,” says Mueller.
He thought about using the tulip image until
someone pointed him to an amaryllis bulb.
“They’re like a big softball. And when
it grows it’s just one big, green stem until,
all of a sudden, four trumpet flowers
come out.”
Mueller grafted the amaryllis imagery
into his 15 years of experience as an
organizational leader and business
consultant to create The Amaryllis Way.
The new parable-based book—similar
to Ken Blanchard’s The One Minute
Manager and Jim Brown’s The Imperfect
Board Member— answers the question:
“How do you develop people who are
growing?”
The gardening motif illustrates Mueller’s
eight principles—picture, plan, plough,
plan, protect, prune, pollinate and
propagate—depicting various gardening
methods while condensing a textbook
full of leadership theory into eight words.
Mueller has already taught these ideas
to police officers, librarians and human
resource professionals for the last
four years.
(continues page 10)
pulse
One company, a call centre in Kingston,
prides itself on being an “amaryllis
company.”
Written from a Christian worldview,
but not written as a Christian book,
The Amaryllis Way can also be used
as “soft core evangelism,” says Mueller.
“It’s designed to be a ministry in the
workplace where Christian businessmen can promote biblical values.”
For more on The Amaryllis Way
check wwww.theamarylisway.com
STALKING THE ELUSIVE
CHRISTMAS GIFT
By 8:55 p.m. on December 24, most men
with wives or girlfriends fall into one of two
camps: those frantically searching for a
Christmas gift, card and wrapping paper
among empty store shelves or those who
already bought, wrapped and placed these
gift(s) under the tree and are sitting by the
fireplace in their easy chair sipping a nice
mug of egg nog.
By nature, men don’t shop...they
hunt for either pleasure or necessity.
Pleasure hunters can be seen in empty
shopping malls or department stores
in early November with a
list in hand, proudly bearing
down on the perfect gift.
Hunters of necessity are
found in empty coffee
shops at 10 p.m.
Christmas Eve hoping
the matching
travel and
coffee mug set
isn’t the same
one bought the
year before.
Whether
hunting for
pleasure or
necessity,
here are some Christmas shopping tips:
If your game is a new dress or sweater,
know this about your prey: the proper size,
colour and style. This may require covert
action like paying attention to what your
loved one has worn in the last month and/or
sneaking into her closet to look at the size
tag—(If she has removed this so she won’t
be reminded of their size, you’re sunk.)
Never, ever, ever under any circumstance,
ask her about her size unless you’re
prepared to accept the inevitable
emotional meltdown.
If it’s shiny, has a motor and makes
“vroom, vroom” noises, while you may find
it the perfect gift for yourself, you probably
shouldn’t buy it—either for yourself or her.
However, dropping gift hints around your
loved one is perfectly acceptable.
If it’s silver, gold or platinum, comes with
a chain or shiny jewel, is placed on a finger,
wrist, in an ear or around a neck—and costs
twice your yearly salary—it will probably
result in tears of happiness when she
unwraps it and tears of sorrow when
you pay the bill.
And unless your wife/girlfriend has a
library the size of the Library and Archives
of Canada, a book is the last thing you want
to buy. That is, unless, she’s been talking
about Oprah’s book club pick for the last
month. And never, ever buy her a cookbook
unless you’re prepared to eat at McDonald’s
for the next month.
Only as a last resort, or unless she is
truly a woman who has everything, buy a
gift card. If you have to do this, make sure
it’s from a store your wife shops at regularly
and not the mega-hardware store that has
the shiny thing with the motor that goes
“vroom, vroom.”
Happy hunting!
“The biggest challenge in Christendom has
to do with the Word of God and the use of
the Word of God. It’s quite possible to say
all the right and proper things about the
Bible and not to be really immersed in it on
a daily basis so that it really shapes one’s
thinking and temperament.”—Lutheran
Church-Canada president Robert Bugbee
GENIUS CLUB LACKS ACTING GENIUS
Now that Cloud Ten Pictures has settled a
lawsuit with Left Behind series author Tim
LaHaye, it’s started making and releasing
films again. (LaHaye sued Cloud Ten after
the first Left Behind movie was released,
claiming it wasn’t the $40-million movie he
was promised and that they changed the
distribution arrangements.
The agreement ends all the disputes and
gives LaHaye a chance to make a Left Behind
film in his image by a specific deadline—
or the rights revert back to Cloud Ten which
may make a fourth film based on the 16book series.)
The Genius
Club is one of the
first new DVDs
Cloud Ten has
released. Stephen
Baldwin (The
Usual Suspects)
and Tricia Helfer
(Battlestar
Galactica) star as
two of seven of the
world’s most
brilliant minds—all with IQs over 200. Each
is pulled from their daily life—Baldwin as a
pizza delivery man—and challenged by an
international terrorist to stop a nuclear
explosion…by solving the world’s problems
in one night.
The film’s great dialogue has the seven
geniuses trying to answer the villain’s (Tom
Sizemore of Blackhawk Down) questions
and come up with the bomb’s three-word
password. In what could have been a septet
of talking heads, writer/director Tim Chey
keeps the action moving between the team
defusing the bomb and the geniuses
decoding Armand’s puzzle.
But that’s the problem with The Genius
Club. While Chey produces a tightly-written
script which will give the viewer lots to think
about once the DVD player has stopped,
he fails to produce as tightly-acted a film.
Each of the geniuses has an interesting
backstory—which affects their answers
to Armand’s questions—but their acting
doesn’t draw in the viewer enough to care
about them and whether or not they save
the world.
Still, The Genius Club is worth watching.
Armand’s questions are the questions of
eternity and those many ask—especially
the three-word password which, in the end,
becomes a much larger bomb than the one
Armand threatened to explode.
DVD NAILS IT TO THE CHURCH
When does religious satire stop being
funny and become mean? Vancouver’s
Murray Stiller traveled 20,000 kilometres
in planes, trains and automobiles to
answer that question in the new DVD
Nailin’ It to the Church.
The documentary, the first for the
veteran film editor and sound designer,
began as a thesis proposal.
When Stiller proposed the idea of a biting,
religious satire for a Regent College course,
they told him it was too cynical and mean.
“Why not do
a documentary about why religious satire is
cynical and mean?” Stiller asked himself—
and birthed the project.
Starting with a broad focus, Stiller
wanted to “find the grey line between
when religious satire goes from being
years. For more about the documentary
go to http://www.nailinittothechurch.com.
CONNECT MARRIAGE, WORK FOR
MORE EFFECTIVE WORKPLACE
socially
redemptive and
when it becomes
destructive.”
Research led from
the origins of the
Greek and Roman
satirists to gentle,
self-reflective satirists like Garrison Keillor
(Prairie Home Companion) and Stuart
McLean (CBC’s “Vinyl Café”) and harsh,
biting satirists like Bill Maher (“Politically
Incorrect” and “Real Time with Bill Maher”)
and the late George Carlin.
The focus narrowed on The Wittenburg
Door, a satirical magazine that’s skewered
sacred cows since the early 1970s.
“The people at The Wittenburg Door were
the first I thought of. As the kid of a youth
minister and grandson of a Pentecostal
preacher, The Wittenburg Door was
regularly found in the stack of reading
material under our coffee table. I read it right
alongside my MAD magazine,” recalls Stiller.
In the end, Nailin’ It to the Church
looks at who can and can’t satirize the
church, along with what should or shouldn’t
be a target of satire. Stiller wants viewers to
think critically about what’s being satirized:
the questions about the meaning of faith
and practising what we preach.
Nailin’ It to the Church debuts at the
Dallas Video Festival in November. Stiller
then plans to take it to festivals across
Canada and the U.S. over the next few
A popular business book in the 1970s
and 1980s was What They Don’t Teach
You at Harvard Business School. Whether
at Harvard, Ivey or Schulich, you’ll find
almost no information about the effects
of marriage on business success or the
growth or decline of the stock market.
Business schools have bought into
the systematic secularization of everything
financial and isolated balance sheets from
balanced lifestyles. Even Christians have
endorsed the separation of work and family,
which has weakened both.
Your marriage matters to God as you
take part in the 9 to 5 window. The obvious
conclusion of God’s design and purpose
is that for the Christian, an intimate
marriage relationship is important to
Him and to His kingdom work. Our work
is to love our spouse as we’re loved by
Christ, and work in the office or the
plant in a way that honours the marriage
relationship of all associates, customers
and employees.
This “mystery” has eternal significance
and can’t be ignored by those who want
to honour God at work or who expect God
to bless their business. God will ask the
question: “So how’s your marriage—how
are you growing in your love life at home?”
A harmonious love relationship
with God and with your spouse produces
some pretty special “fruit.” It isn’t a stretch
of the imagination to conclude a CEO or
employee is in a better position to lead
or to work when they have peace of mind
and a contented spirit. It’s also reasonable
to assume conflict, frustration or
dissatisfaction at home will affect a
pulse
man or woman’s performance at work.
Ed Silvoso, a popular speaker and
author who deals extensively with marriage
and the workplace, claims better intimacy
in the bedroom produces better productivity
in the boardroom. A healthy marriage
reduces stress, eliminates most “other
gender” attractions and contributes
to innovative and creative work habits.
It guarantees nothing, but establishes
a great foundation for success in the
complex world of the work place.
Gerry Organ is the director of national
initiatives for OneWayMinistries. A version
of this originally appeared in Business Life,
Spring 2008.
POST-RAPTURE PET CARE
From the “can you believe this” files:
a company in the U.S. is offering to take
care of your pets after you’ve been raptured.
Listed on www.craigslist.org, an online
classified ad service, the ad was flagged
in craigslist’s “best of.”
In a note to those who’d flag it as a scam,
the advertiser wrote: “Over half the United
States is concerned about what will happen
to their pets after the rapture.
Please respect their faith and allow this
service to remain posted, just as the
waste removal and grooming posts
remain posted.”
AUTHOR EXPLORES GENESIS 1
‘WITHOUT ANY ANIMOSITY’
In his latest book, Canadian-born
author Sigmund Brouwer tackles creation.
Inspired by a question from his daughter
Savannah, Brouwer wrote Who Made the
Moon? In it, a father explores how faith and
science agree “for those who have doubts
about their faith because of what science
appears to be telling them in contradiction
to Genesis 1.”
Brouwer, whose books include the novels
Broken Angel and Fuse of Armageddon,
says he runs into many people who have
difficulty accepting the rest of the Bible
“because they can’t see Genesis as a
true account of creation.”
Who Made the Moon? addresses
issues such as the debate on whether
the word “day” in Genesis is a literal
24-hour period that doesn’t allow for
any other understanding of the meaning.
“What I’m really hoping is that this
allows us the room to open the door to
discuss Genesis 1 without any animosity,”
he said. “As parents, we can agree to not
be threatened by any discussion that takes
us away from a 24-hour day of creation, and
we can look at Genesis from a few different
perspectives.”
“For a small deposit of only $50 US,
you can be assured that your pets will be
well cared for from the time you’re raptured
until the end of their natural life,” reads the
ad. “They’ll get adequate food, water, and
shelter as well as plenty of exercise and
socialization as I’d imagine there will be
a lot of pets abandoned that will need to
be cared for.”
There’s no fear the service will
disappear with the rapture—unless
the owner has a conversion experience:
“As an atheist, I’ll surely still be here on
this earth post-rapture and would love to
look after your pets and make sure they’re
still well taken care of after you and your
family have been raptured. You’ll be able
to look down on them from heaven and see
them being well cared for by me and living
happy, healthy lives. Don’t let my atheism
scare you! I’m a moral and loving pet owner
and would never do harm to any animal.”
Does it matter if people trust you at work?
A study by Watson Wyatt Worldwide shows
shareholder returns were 42 per cent higher
in companies where employees trusted top
executives. But only half of the employees
surveyed trusted their senior managers.
“It’s OK for men to get in each other’s
faces and to challenge each other. In the
New Testament, conflict is fine but division
is wrong. They’re not one and the same.
What we’ve done is ‘girlified’ Christianity
so the big emphasis is on peace, getting
along, and being kind and sweet.
Evangelical churches today are
debating tough issues, but the minute
argument starts, people’s knees start
shaking. But if you look at the New
Testament, they wrestled over issues.
It’s true we should be at peace, but we
should be able to get in each other’s faces
and challenge each other. We don’t have
to agree about everything. It’s OK to
debate things.”
—Mark Gungor, author of
Laugh Your Way to a Better Marriage
and senior pastor of Celebration Church
in Green Bay, Wisconsin.
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Coffee, conflict and other delights of life
GOD BUILT: SHAPED BY GOD…
IN THE BAD AND GOOD OF LIFE
By Steve Farrar
Steve Farrar is no stranger to Promise
Keepers. He speaks (and writes) with a
blunt understanding of men’s strengths
(and foibles) and a straightforward
presentation of Christian truths.
God Built is an extended examination of the
fascinating life of Joseph,
a biblical character whose
life had more ups and
downs than a yo-yo.
He knew extreme failure
and great success, abject
betrayal and incredible
good fortune. Using
plenty of football
illustrations, Farrar
extracts principles from Joseph’s experience
and applies them to the familiar terrain of
the average North American male. His main
point? God is in control regardless of how
bad things might seem. Stick with the game
plan, which is godly integrity in everyday life.
THE PEACEMAKER: HANDLING
CONFLICT WITHOUT FIGHTING
BACK OR RUNNING AWAY
By Ken Sande and
Kevin Johnson
No matter who we
are or where we live,
we will end up at
loggerheads with
somebody about
something. That’s the
way life is. Learning to
respond well to conflict
is an important skill and
the authors do a good
job of explaining how. Sande understands
that human beings deal with conflict in three
main ways: Some “fake peace,” escaping
the discomfort by pasting on a smile and
shrugging it off. Others “break peace,”
aggressively pursing their own interests
with little or no regard to others. Those
who “make peace” aim to resolve clashes
by looking for solutions that create real
justice and authentic harmony. How
do you know when it’s best to overlook
something and when to take a forthright
stand? What do you do with unreasonable
people? Sande has sound advice for these
and countless other questions about the
hard realities of human conflict.
THE MASTER CARPENTER:
DEVOTIONS FOR WOODWORKERS
By Hugh Poland
Talk about
specialty tools—
a whole book of
Christian devotions
crafted especially
for woodworkers.
(This comes from
the same author
who, we’re told, “scored a homerun with
his first book, Steal Away: Devotions for
Baseball Fans.”) Carpentry provides plenty
of bits and pieces for life analogies and
biblical insights. From plans, to tools,
to materials, to finishing, Poland finds ways
to hammer home a point about Christian
living. Three short pages about importance
of having the right tool for the right job
and being the right man in the right place
concludes: “You are a tool in God’s hands
in your local church. Are you the right tool
in the right toolbox, ready to be used for
the right task?”
GOOGLING GOD: SEARCHING FOR
A FAITH YOU CAN BELIEVE IN
By John Cox
Join John Cox on his lifelong search for
a credible God. He is a personable guide
who grew up in South Africa, studied in
England and Canada and worked in a variety
of business and
counselling positions
before taking his
current job as a
pastor on Vancouver
Island. He knows
about doubt;
he knows about
depression; he
knows about
longing for something
better; he knows about the ongoing search
for meaning and he knows a few things
about finding as well. Cox is a pilgrim
inviting others to join him on a journey
to discover the delights of God’s ways
in the world.
WHEN GOD GOES TO STARBUCKS:
A GUIDE TO EVERYDAY APOLOGETICS
By Paul Copan
This is a good
book for people who
like to win arguments.
Copan brings a wealth of
research and reasoning
to bear on a host of
common objections to
a Christian worldview.
He addresses, for
example, questions like
“What’s wrong with gay marriage?”
and “Don’t people from all religions
experience God?” He also deals with
perceived problems with Christianity itself:
“How can the psalmists say such vindictive,
hateful things?” and “Why are Christians
so divided?” There’s a lot of information
here. Some will find it helpful to build
wisdom and understanding. Others will
use it to bolster arguments.
“We need gracious, respectful relationships
with our peers,” says Copan. “It is God’s
Spirit in the end that will awaken, convict
and provoke. Not us.” May it be so.
Indigo Ink Studios + iStockphoto.com
features
“Holy hostility, Batman! They’re really
out to get us.” So might the dialogue
have developed between Robin and the
caped crusader in the lingo of the original
Batman TV series. It would have occurred
while ducking punches and chairs thrown
by villainous henchmen.
Heroes and superheroes though,
are not alone in facing conflict. Those of us
who don’t don masks and tights experience
it on a regular basis even if the opponents
we face are not evil personified, like the Joker
from The Dark Knight, nor are the stakes we
play for quite so high. We all, however, must
learn to handle conflict effectively if we are to
experience healthy relationships and enjoy
life to its fullest.
Conflict occurs in every arena of life—
not just those where sports are played.
We encounter it at work, at home and with
our neighbours. Growing up in suburban
Montreal, I remember being terrified by
my family’s next-door neighbour, Mr. C.
He was a grey-haired man with a George
Hamilton tan and terrycloth golf shirts who
was the scourge of the neighbourhood.
If a Frisbee or baseball landed behind the
hedges guarding his property, it was usually
never seen again. If we ever dared a search
and rescue of the missing projectile, it was
taken on with the stealth and purpose of
Navy Seals.
I know my father viewed conversations
with Mr. C as a real cross to bear. On one
occasion I heard my father set aside his
usual patient stance to tell him he was sick
of his constant carping; it was a
delight to my young ears. Even better,
on a Sunday afternoon while family
friends from church were enjoying lunch
on our patio, Mr. C intruded on our gathering
to deliver his latest list of complaints.
It was amazing to watch the transformation
of Mr. C’s disgruntled face as one of our
guests greeted him by his first name.
He stammered a rare polite hello and
quickly left. As it happened, our family
friend was a direct superior of Mr. C’s
at his workplace.
Our neighbourly conflict was substantially
reduced after that encounter.
If you’re not friends with your quarrelsome
neighbour’s boss, however, what’s a man
to do?
!
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H Managing conflict in
a
by Bruce Soderholm
Love thy neighbour as thyself?
Conflict between neighbours has been
around as long as there have been people
to live beside. If it’s not the noise from the
flamenco dancers in the apartment above
that drives you to distraction, it will be the
back-to-the-jungle lawn next door that lowers
your property value.
It may be comforting for the average
Joe to know that even celebrities are not
immune. Madonna was made to trim her
hedges by court order in 1992, while Sean
Connery, shaken and stirred, was ordered
by a New York judge to settle differences
with his downstairs neighbour. One of the
best-known neighbour conflicts on this
continent was the Hatfield-McCoy feud
fought on the Kentucky-West Virginia
border between 1880 and 1891. By the
time the smoke cleared and the graves
were dug, more than a dozen people
from both families had been killed.
While this is an obvious extreme,
it does underscore the importance of
managing conflict in its initial stages
before it spirals out of control.
When push comes to shove between
neighbours, the typical interventions
are likely to involve complaints to police,
civil litigation, and eventually court orders.
In these internet savvy days, neighbours
may even be publicly shamed on
rottenneighbors.com. Recently though,
conflic
ted
more conflicts are being resolved with
the use of mediation. Involving a trained
third party to manage a dispute typically
results in greater success because rather
than focusing on the blame game or
obtaining a court-ordered judgment,
the two parties are brought together
and lines of communication are opened.
Since most disputes aren’t black and
white, it is the open dialogue that helps
the two parties come to agreement. It is
rare to find a conflict where both parties
haven’t contributed to the problem and
if each party can take some ownership of
the issue, a middle ground is easier to reach.
According to Keith Regehr, a professional
mediator who has extensive experience in
conflict resolution with families, workplaces
and churches, mediation is not necessarily
a high growth industry. “When a marriage
is breaking up,” says Regehr, “how many
people say ‘I’m going to call my mediator?’”
Not many—they’re going to call their lawyer.
Nevertheless, with the prohibitive
expense of engaging lawyers, litigating
and making court appearances, many
more families in conflict are taking
advantage of what mediation has to
offer, according to Lou Coppola, an
experienced mediator in Niagara Region.
The benefits of mediation may even
transcend the financial gain. Coppola
notes that on a few occasions, divorcing
world
couples who use mediation to minimize
the fallout for their kids and who’ve
worked really hard at co-parenting
“look at each other and say ‘You know
what? Why are we not together?’ And
they reconcile.”
Face the inevitable
As a baseline, the most important
thing to recognize is that in life, conflict
is inevitable. It’s not a question of what
you should do “if” conflict arises—it will.
It’s what you will do “when” it arrives
that counts. Conflict occurs when there
is opposition or “perceived” opposition
to our individual needs, values, and
interests. Since we live in a fallen world
and are predisposed towards looking
out for our best interests we are likely
to see others’ claims on our lives (e.g.
bosses, spouses, children) as conflicting
with our own goals and desires.
Author Robert Bacal differentiates
between two different types of interpersonal
conflicts: personalized and substantive.
The first of these is often referred to as
a personality conflict. This type is fuelled
primarily by emotion and perceptions
about another’s personality, character,
and motives. This is the guy at work who
just rubs you the wrong way.
(continues on page 16)
features
This is the guy who, even if he brought
you your double-double from your favourite
Tim Horton’s, you’d suspect of poisoning
you. Unfortunately, he feels the same way
about you.
That’s why problem solving on an
individual issue rarely works–both parties
aren’t interested in solving the problem.
This conflict will only get worse with time
since each person looks for, and expects
there to be, problems. To make progress
with this type of conflict, you need first to
learn to respect each other as human
beings—people made in the image of God.
Substantive conflict is about differing
decisions, ideas, directions and actions.
It’s when what you want is at odds with
other people’s goals. It can stem from
differing needs: you feel the need to avoid
conversation after talking to customers
for eight hours, but your wife may need to
converse with an adult after teaching sixyear- olds all day. It may stem from
competition: think five family members
running for a single washroom after Spicy
Burrito Night at Taco Bell. It could also
stem from false assumptions: you’re angry
because you assume your teenage son was
too lazy to empty the dishwasher, but in
reality he didn’t only because the dishwasher
was broken.
It is tempting to believe that if we could
eliminate false perceptions on issues we
could eliminate conflict. If the facts were
obvious—for instance, how many pieces
of cake were left in the fridge and who had
access to them before they disappeared—
then we could really solve the problem.
Regehr suggests that notion is a fool’s errand
because, to use a borrowed phrase,
“perception is reality.” He points out that
even if, in a husband-wife dispute over
how money was spent or how in-laws
were treated, you could supply videotape
evidence of what was said or done,
“it would just add a third perception.
Both parties would see in the tape what
they want to see.”
For that reason, when Regehr is involved
with mediating disputes at the workplace,
he stays away from focusing on individual
issues. He holds that the root problem
of interpersonal conflict is poor communication. He fears that zeroing in on solving
a specific issue will just be a temporary
fix and that a new conflict will surface
a week later if people don’t learn how
to communicate well with each other.
Communication then, is the vehicle
for resolving differences.
Practical steps
To resolve interpersonal conflicts,
parties must have a realistic understanding
of what’s possible. The Apostle Paul gives
“Paul understood that you
can’t take responsibility for
other people’s actions or
reactions you don’t have
control over them, but you
do have control over yourself.”
some very practical advice when he says,
“If it is possible, as far as it depends on you,
live at peace with everyone” (Rom. 12:18
NIV). Paul understood that you can’t take
responsibility for other people’s actions or
reactions. You don’t have control over them,
but you do have control over yourself.
For that same reason,
Lou Coppola
advises that when
you go to address
a conflict you should
“check your self
[and your ego] at
the door.” He also
emphasizes not
getting sidetracked:
“Address the
[primary] issue;
don’t let it get swept
under the carpet.”
When Regehr
is asked what the
three most important
pieces of advice
he would give
to men to deal with interpersonal conflict,
he counts off his fingers, “Listen. Listen.
And listen.”
Add to that the wisdom of good
communication principles:
• State your concern clearly and simply
• Agree on a time limit for the discussion
• Own your part in the problem
• Be honest and share openly
Beyond that, remember to …
• Speak calmly
• Check for clarity often
• Deal with the present (e.g. don’t bring
up the past)
• Offer workable solutions
It’s worth asking, what the payoff is for
all the effort you put into conflict resolution.
Most notably it will reduce the amount of
stress in your life—the kind of stress that
leads to ulcers, anxiety disorders and high
blood pressure, among other things. You will
also gain confidence in your ability to deal
directly with conflict instead of just avoiding
it, and that in turn will result in stronger and
healthier relationships.
And the key once more? It is as Adam
West’s Batman would typically say to his
sidekick Robin, “Listen, old chum...”
Bruce Soderholm is a freelance writer from
St. Catharines, Ontario.
MODELS FOR APPROACHING
CONFLICT
In 1976, researchers Thomas and
Kilman identified five models for dealing
with conflict. These approaches are labeled
as follows: avoidance, accommodation,
competition, compromise and collaboration.
These may be more helpfully seen as
descriptive rather than prescriptive.
Ask yourself which style best describes you.
Consider the following case study as
to how each approach might appear:
You are the head coach for a local
hockey team with a young assistant to help.
The players are children (7-8 years old) and
you have assured them and their parents
that the team is all about having fun, learning
the game, and receiving equal playing
opportunities. As the season progresses,
your chance to win the championship
improves, and you start to give more ice
time to the better-skilled players. One day
a parent and the assistant coach confront
you on what they perceive to be a growing
inequity in playing time. How do you
respond?
In the avoidance model you refuse to
acknowledge there’s a problem. You don’t
respond to telephone calls or e-mails. You
walk away from those who want to discuss
the issue.
In the accommodation model, you hear
their concerns and even though you wish you
could do things differently, you surrender
and accommodate their wishes.
In the competition model, you assert your
position as head coach and disregard the
opinions of others. You rely on your
positional authority to get what you want.
In the compromise model, you hear the
concerns of parents and your assistant but
you don’t give up your interest in winning.
You might concede more ice time for the
less-skilled players. Neither party really
feels like a winner.
In the collaboration model, you meet
with all the concerned parties. If the conflict
has become very heated, you might involve
a mediator. After all parties have been heard
and their concerns presented, you
collectively come to a consensus as to how
to complete the season. With the opportunity
for negotiation, all parties can feel like they
are part of the solution.
— Bruce Soderholm
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Designed
to
be
warriors
Why mixed martial arts battles are so popular
iStockphoto.com
features
by Jerrad Peters
On September 7, 2008, Rashad Evans
knocked out Chuck Liddell at 1:51 in the
second round of their battle at UFC 88.
Evans, the winner of Spike TV’s reality
show The Ultimate Fighter, prevailed after
connecting a vicious right-handed punch
with Liddell’s chin—leaving the former
Ultimate Fighting Champion in a crumpled
heap on the ground.
Why is this relevant? More than 14,000
spectators attended the fight at Philips
Arena in Atlanta. The Ultimate Fighting
Championship (UFC) collected over US
$2.6 million in gate receipts and millions
more from television revenue. Almost exactly
a year earlier, the UFC title bout drew almost
five million viewers. The mixed martial arts
circuit has also recently graced the covers of
Sports Illustrated and ESPN The Magazine.
The Ultimate Fighting Championship
is relevant because men are tuning in to it.
Millions of them. And they’re watching other
men beat the stuffing out of one another on
a nightly basis.
The extreme violence of mixed martial
arts is already old hat. Turn on your
television after dinner or walk into a
restaurant or sports bar on any given night
and you’re bound to see a pair of big, heavily
tattooed men sparring in the chain-link cage,
throwing bare-knuckled jabs at each other’s
heads and kicking one another into a starryeyed oblivion of blood and gore. Republican
presidential nominee John McCain once
referred to it as “human cockfighting.”
He wasn’t far off. The Ultimate Fighting
Championship is not for the faint of heart,
or stomach.
Instead, you’d think it would act as a
magnet for street kids or college dropouts.
After all, these guys look tough. The kind of
men who could cameo on Dog the Bounty
Hunter or who wouldn’t appear out of place
at a Hell’s Angels convention. Think again.
The cast of characters that makes up the
roster of mixed martial arts athletes reads
like a who’s who of Ivy League America.
Current heavyweight champion Randy
Couture is a three-time Olympian. Light
heavyweight champion Forrest Griffin is
a University of Georgia graduate with a
Bachelor of Arts in political science. UFC
Hall of Famer Mark Coleman is both a former
Olympian and Miami University graduate.
And Newmarket, Ontario’s Carlos Newton—
a former welterweight champion—studied
linguistics before taking pre-med at
York University.
Yet each of them interrupted their
education or abandoned a professional
career in the workforce to fight other men on
a day-to-day basis. As gifted sportsmen,
they might have pursued a stint in pro
hockey or football. But that would have filled
the wrong void. These athletes, like those
who watch them perform, are not
articulating a need to play. They’re
expressing a desire for battle.
Slate magazine editor David Plotz
believes that the UFC has done a brilliant
job of capturing what he describes as
“the blood-lust in young men.” Kin Pishna,
the editor of Mixed Martial Arts Weekly,
wholeheartedly agrees.
“Any guy attacking another person—
that feeds into the aggressive nature of a
young male,” he says. “It’s you against the
other guy. You’ve got to stand on your own
two feet. Young men live vicariously
through that.”
Former World Wrestling Entertainment
(WWE) superstar Ted Dibiase, (The Million
Dollar Man), takes it one step further.
“It’s the classic story of good versus evil,”
he states. “Never give up; keep holding on,
getting knocked down and getting back up.”
To Dibiase, that battle mentality is part
and parcel with how God designed men and
the role He intended that they assume.
“God made us this way,” he attests. “This
is the way God made me.”
He’s got a point. Biblical history is filled
with examples of men who felt the call for
battle. The disciple Peter made a futile
stand against the Roman guards as Jesus
was arrested in the Garden of Gethsemane.
Joshua overran Israel’s enemies to complete
the conquest of the Promised Land. And King
David spent much of his life on the run and
fighting off his assailants and pursuers.
David, a poet and a warrior, is often depicted
as bearing the character of God. “I have
found David, son of Jesse, a man after my
own heart” (Acts 13:22 NIV).
Steve Masterson, Promise Keepers’
Director of Teaching, Training and
Development, points out that God has
been doing battle since time immemorial.
“Lucifer wanted to do battle with God,”
he says. “Battle began there and He’s still
doing battle.”
Moses knew God to be a warrior as well.
After the walls of the Red Sea had decimated
Pharaoh’s chariots and cleared the path
for the Israelites’ escape from Egypt, he
declared, “The Lord is a man of war; the
Lord is his name” (Exodus 15:3 NKJV).
Battle is at the heart of God’s character,
says Masterson. And a man’s aggressive
instincts are not only an expression of his
masculinity, but also a reflection of the
image of God. Masterson also believes that
a man’s built-in desire for battle is simply
a yearning to imitate God’s character—
“to make visible the invisible qualities and
characteristics of who God is.” But, he
says, “That passion gets redirected in
carnal, sinful ways.”
“Movies and television are more
violent than ever,” admits Plotz. And Pishna
concurs. “There’s got to be an appeal for the
violent nature,” he says. “There’s got to be
some of that in there.”
The skyrocketing popularity of mixed
martial arts would seem to suggest that
a large number of men agree with them.
Activities such as Ultimate Fighting
represent the extreme of a man’s craving
for combat and produce the blood and
physical damage that goes along with it.
“We are designed to be warriors, to do
battle,” says Masterson. “But men are going
to battle, whether it’s in a business suit or in
the UFC.”
In other words, men will be men and they
will find a battlefield on which to enact their
masculinity. Finding the right battlefield is
the challenge. The chain-linked octagon of
the Ultimate Fighting Championship does
not fall into that category. So what does?
“There aren’t a lot of men working in
church,” says Dibiase. “What’s missing
are men with character and integrity.”
Masterson picks up on that point.
“A pastor can’t fight for all of the men in
his church,” he says. “He needs bench
strength.”
Both also assert that fathers and
husbands need to fight for the hearts of their
families. It’s a battle that has undergone
a very recent and monumental change.
Where once the role of a husband and father
was one of unquestioned authority and
leadership, it is now considerably more
complicated and confused.
“You’re seeing a big change in how
society views the role of a man,” says Pishna,
adding that the contemporary male has
relinquished his role as the “head of the
household and dominant figure in industry.
It’s changed a lot,” he says. “Men are asked
to be equal partners with women.”
That partnership has revolutionized the
battle. Masterson views it as a “fight for the
daughters of Eve—a battle for her heart.”
Still, Dibiase explains that a man’s
strong, godly leadership is vital to the
modern family. “God designed men to lead,”
he says. “This is not a sexist thing. It’s the
way God meant it to be.”
Of course, the diminishment of the
prototypical, powerful, red-blooded man has
become the source of considerable tension
in society. And when men sense tension,
they act out aggression. Their built-in desire
for battle becomes an instinctive longing for
physical combat. It is in that longing—that
yearning for a masculine expression of
battle—that mixed martial arts and the
Ultimate Fighting Championship fill a void.
According to Masterson, all men are
“trying to satisfy that innate desire to be an
image-bearer of God.” They are searching for
a battlefield. They want to be led into battle.
But, he concludes, “Fight the right battle.”
Jerrad Peters is on staff at ChristianWeek and
covers soccer for the Winnipeg Free Press,
ESPN Soccernet, and Soccer 360 magazine.
UFC welterweight champion Georges St. Pierre of Montreal (left) poses with challenger Jon Fitch at a weigh-in for UFC 87
Friday Aug. 8, 2008. UFC president Dana White looks on in the middle.
features
Shaken and stirred
Don Ranney always lived life on the edge. He once tumbled off.
by Ray Wiseman
No one would expect to encounter
Professor Emeritus Don Ranney hurtling
along a county road on in-line skates.
At age 77, he has lowered his physical
expectations somewhat since making
parachute jumps as the medic attached
to a unit of the British Special Air Service
(SAS). However, he hasn’t lost his desire
for excitement, and adds a touch more
speed when he shifts from skates to his
classic Chevrolet Corvette.
Ranney has always lived life on the
edge—but sadly, he once tumbled off.
He took degrees in anthropology and
medicine at the University of Toronto then
moved to England to obtain special surgical
qualifications. While there, he joined a
reserve unit of the SAS–the same elite and
secretive service that inspired Ian Flemming
to create James Bond.
While with that group he was trained in
covert operations and procedures, including
the questionable skill to enter a room and
kill everyone in it in six seconds. On the
positive side, he taught them how to build
a walking cast for men with broken legs—
a distinct possibility with any jump into
enemy territory. He saw it as a major step
up from the accepted practice of putting a
bullet in the head of injured comrades rather
than allow them to fall into enemy hands.
In England, Ranney not only learned
the surgical skills to repair leprosy-ravaged
hands, but also gained a wife
and family. They joined a missionary
organization and moved to India, fulfilling
his childhood dream of becoming a
missionary doctor. Professionally, he
excelled. For nearly five years he restored
function to damaged hands, pioneered
new techniques, and wrote groundbreaking articles for medical journals.
But at the personal, spiritual and
emotional levels, his life began to come
apart. Political battles, racism, deceit
and jealousy marked his work environment.
Marital tension further complicated life.
Ranney says of that time: “I found the
actual situation was far from what I had
expected and left India a discouraged
and disillusioned man, broken in spirit,
rejected by the mission board, by my wife,
and even (I felt) by God.”
By the time
Ranney returned to
Canada, he had lost
his faith and become
an alcoholic. Then his
wife left him, taking
the children with her.
Despite the
personal problems,
he began a new
career. His
qualifications got
him a position on
the faculty of the
University of Waterloo where he founded
the School of Anatomy. But while his career
soared, his personal life continued spiraling
downward. His own words dictate the extent
of his fall from grace: “I smoked marijuana
and had easy access to barbiturates and
narcotics—only had cocaine once. I realized
I had become an alcoholic when I began
finishing off other people’s beer after they
had left the party (can’t let that precious
liquid go to waste!). I had blackouts, but
only once got stopped for drunk driving.”
One day during the summer break from
classes, a beautiful redheaded
student approached Ranney and invited
him to a revival service. Impressed by the
young woman, he accepted the invitation
even though she made it clear her boyfriend
would accompany them. During the meeting
the Spirit of God touched him and drew him
back into a right relationship with God.
When classes resumed in the
fall, a group of students challenged
him. “Professor, we heard that you found
God during the summer. Is that true?”
“No, it is not true,” he answered.
Almost in unison, the class responded,
“Hah, we thought so. We knew it couldn’t
be true.”
Giving the class a moment to settle
down, Ranney said, “The truth is that God
found me.”
From that day on students
and fellow faculty members could see
the change in his lifestyle. His addiction
to alcohol and wild parties ended.
Unsuccessful in winning back his first wife,
he eventually remarried. Of his first wife he
says, “I told her when I married her I would
love her forever. I still do, but now I love her
as a sister, not a wife.”
Now retired from the University of
Waterloo, having taught anatomy for
30 years, Ranney remains active in medical
practice and pain research. In free time he
rollerblades, skis, drives his sports car, does
ballroom dancing and writes. He has shared
elements of his story in the novel When
Cobras Laugh, with the hope that others in
Christian ministry who “live on
the edge” might avoid the despair and
rejection that accompanies a fall from grace.
Ray Wiseman is a speaker and writer.
His latest book is When Cobras Laugh,
a novel he co-authored with Don Ranney.
www.raywiseman.ca
features
The wrap on Hamilton
Former steel salesman helps people put their lives together
Hamilton Downtown Wraparound Project chair David Milmine (l), with Hamilton
Tiger-Cat centre Marwan Hage and FTC Canada representative Ryan Fletcher
by Robert White
What do you do when a 6-foot, 2-inch,
291-pound offensive lineman says you’re
not doing enough to help the poor? If you’re
David Milmine, you put your salesman hat
back on and connect with churches to get
more food.
Milmine retired from the sales
department of one of the major steel
factories in Hamilton, Ontario about a
year ago, only to find himself busy chairing
the city’s Downtown WrapAround Project
and working as Promise Keepers Canada’s
Southern Ontario-Niagara representative.
As the WrapAround chair, Milmine sits at
the table with 35 agencies, all trying to fight
poverty. The unique program uses trained
facilitators who work closely with a single
family, helping determine what kind of
help the family needs by “wrapping around”
them until “they tell us ‘no, we don’t need
you anymore.’”
Through WrapAround, Milmine
met Ryan Fletcher from FTC Canada.,
a Christian international aid organization,
based in Guelph, Ontario, which also helps
locally through occasional food box drops.
The idea for a Hamilton drop at Thanksgiving
came up after Fletcher connected with the
Hamilton Tiger-Cats through former player
and current coaching consultant Danny
McManus.
“Through Danny’s dinner, the Ti-Cats
told us they wanted to do something in the
community this year with our food boxes,”
says Fletcher. “Marwan (Hage) did the
turkeys at Thanksgiving every year.”
The initial plan was to give away 500 food
boxes and turkeys to five different agencies
that are part of the WrapAround Project.
“I told them ‘no.’ I always reach for the
sky in everything I do,” says Hage, the
Ti-Cats all-star offensive centre. “I wanted
to do 1,000. My motto is first class or no
class.” Hage is active in the community
through Hage’s Heroes—where 60 youth
get tickets to a Ti-Cat home game, as well
as a meet and greet pizza dinner with Hage
before kickoff.
The pieces to the food box puzzle
quickly came into place. Through Milmine’s
connections, 35-plus churches collected
food. “One pastor told his congregation
not to bring consommés or tomato soup,
but to bring soup that had substance,”
recalls Milmine. Fletcher sent an FTC truck
to Hamilton regularly to pick up the food
and take back to the warehouse for sorting
and packing. And Hage connected with
former Ti-Cat (and current Toronto Argonaut
defensive tackle) Adriano Belli to buy
the turkeys and ham from Belli’s Mariposa
Meats distribution and meat packing firm.
On the Saturday of Thanksgiving
weekend, the 1,000 boxes of food
left Guelph, the turkeys and ham left
Mississauga, and both were taken to
five downtown Hamilton agencies. “We’re
so pumped that we were able to give that
many away,” says Milmine. “It’s (made)
a big, big difference.”
Milmine’s charitable work stems from
his understanding of the Bible’s command
to help widows, the fatherless and the poor.
He’d already been active in his hometown
of Hamilton, sitting on various boards
including the Dream Centre and getting
involved with the city’s task force and
roundtable on poverty—when former
Stoney Creek mayor Ann Baine asked him
to chair the Downtown WrapAround project.
“God has a reason why He puts people
in these places,” says Milmine, who admits
he’s still relatively new to the ministry
element of what he’s doing. “I left my
career at Dofasco’s sales department after
33 years in the steel industry. I knew God
had something better for me to do. I knew
this was where God wanted me to be.”
“I knew I wanted to make a difference
in the community and make a difference
in men’s lives. I couldn’t do that at my desk
selling steel,” says Milmine, who put threeplus decades of sales experience to use
in his new roles with Promise Keepers and
WrapAround. “I’m out there meeting
people. That’s what I was always good at:
getting out there and building relationships.
Now I’m out there meeting people and
helping them put things together.”
Robert White is editor of ChristianWeek
Ontario and prepares the PULSE
department for SEVEN.
features
“O Little Town of Bethlehem”
a palestinian christian perspective
by Richelle Wiseman with Doug Koop
READING THE WRITING ON THE WALL
It is very difficult for anybody to understand
the complexity of the conflicts in the Middle
East. Residents are fond of saying, “If you’re
not confused, it’s because you don’t understand the situation.” This reality is especially
evident in Bethlehem, the birthplace of
Christianity and geographic focal point of
Christmas.
But these are not good times for
residents of Bethlehem. The town that
Christians around the world sing about
each year is currently administered by
Palestine and separated from Israeli
Jerusalem by an intimidating security
barrier, built to protect Israel against terrorist
attacks that proliferated in the early 2000s.
The barrier both saves and damages
lives. Some 30,000-40,000 Palestinian
people live behind these fences and a high
concrete wall that has become a vast canvas
for graffiti. Local and international artists
have visited the wall dividing Bethlehem
and Jerusalem, and some of the images
they have created are startling and
provocative.
SEVEN asked Bishara Awad, an Arab
Christian resident of Bethlehem whose
father was killed by a stray bullet in the
1949 war, to comment on a few of the
many dramatic images painted on the wall.
Bishara is president of Bethlehem Bible
College, which trains young Palestinian
Christians to lead the Church.
His comments represent the views
of a Palestinian evangelical Christian who
is deeply concerned about the decline of
Christianity in its birthplace. About 70 per
cent of Bethlehem’s residents are Muslim;
the remaining 30 per cent Christian. It used
to be the other way around.
WHY A WALL?
SEVEN: The security barrier separating
peoples in Israel and Palestine is a
testament to injustice, unrighteousness
and vengeance—an ugly affront to Christian
ideals of the way people should get along.
But it was built for a reason: to stop
terrorists from wreaking havoc in Israel.
In 2002, some 289 Israeli citizens and
foreign nationals died in terror attacks.
Since the barrier went up, very few suicide
bombers have been able to infiltrate Israel
and the number of deaths has plummeted.
The barrier is repulsive and tremendously
controversial even among Israelis. But many
see it as the most humane response to the
threat of terror. “Walls don’t kill people,”
they say.
PEACE BE WITH YOU –
ISRAEL TOURISM BUREAU.
Bishara: “This sign welcomes tourists to
Bethlehem, not Israelis, who are not allowed in. The sign for us Palestinians is
controversial. What kind of peace is there
in a closed area where we can’t move
around? It also shows us that the Israelis
are proud of the wall.”
TWO DONKEYS WITH TAILS
TIED TOGETHER
Bishara: Some say this picture is about
Palestinians fighting Palestinians, Hamas
against Fatah. But it could also be about
Palestinians versus Israelis.
SEVEN: What is life like for Palestinian
Christians under Hamas in Gaza, and
under Fatah in the West Bank?
Bishara: Christians are treated well
in the West Bank. There are several in Parliament. Our school is the only Christian Bible
college with degrees recognized by
an Arab government anywhere in the Middle
East. Christians here were middle class;
now they are lower class with small
families. There is no future for them here.
The Church is suffering because of being
under occupation, because of the economics. It is not because of the
Muslims; it is because we are cut
off from Jerusalem, from culture,
from opportunities.
features
GIRL WITH DOVES IN HER EYES
Bishara: “This is beautiful artwork.
I think the girl is trying to see peace, in
spite of the circumstances. The situation
is terrible for us Palestinians. I am reminded
of the verse in Scripture that says, “If the
foundations are destroyed, what will the
righteous do?” (Psalm 11:3). We want to
see peace. We Palestinian Christians are
still people of hope, regardless of what
is going on. I would like to see a one state
solution, where Israelis and Palestinians
can live together in peace.”
SEVEN: Bethlehem Bible College already
depends on Christians in the West.
About 80 per cent of its budget comes
from worship communities in the United
States. These include many Baptist,
Episcopal and Methodist churches,
with occasional input from some
Pentecostal and evangelical congregations.
When SEVEN asked Bishara what
message he would most like to communicate
to evangelical Christians in North America,
he replied: “Dear Brothers and Sisters:
Do not take the media in the west as the
gospel truth. The Palestinian Church and
Christians are looking to you to help us.”
He also asked for prayer. “You have been
instruments in praying for apartheid ending
in South Africa. You prayed against the
Berlin Wall. Why can’t you do it now for
Palestinian Christians?” he asks.
JESUS WEPT FOR JERUSALEM
Bishara: “I believe this picture is so
right. I believe Jesus does weep now
for Bethlehem and for Jerusalem,
because of all the injustices, and
ungodliness, the oppression and
lack of respect, the dehumanizing
of the Palestinians. I believe this
causes Jesus to weep.”
Richelle Wiseman and Doug Koop
visited Bethlehem often during a
20-day journey to the holy lands
last May.The main gateway was
just a five-minute walk away from
the study centre where their
group stayed.
DOVE WITH FLACK JACKET
Bishara: “This one is a dove which
represents peace and freedom. But the
dove is afraid, and has a bulletproof jacket.
That is a message that no one is really safe
in a land where there are settlers and
soldiers who are after the people.
Wherever new parts of the wall are
being built, Palestinians protest
and are harassed by settlers and
soldiers. Every Friday, in Beit Sahour,
Jewish settlers come to claim this land,
and Palestinians come to push them away.
Once the settlers squat on the land, then
the soldiers will move in and help them out.”
CHRISTMAS TREE SURROUNDED
BY WALL
Bishara: “The message is very clear—
that people cannot protect their trees.
You can see tree stumps all around.
Israelis have knocked down thousands
of acres of trees to make land available
for the wall and for Jewish settlements.
These were olive trees and other trees.
The Christmas tree is a symbol for
Christianity itself, here in Bethlehem.
It is walled in, and being squeezed out.
That is how it is for us Christians here.
We don’t know how long we can
remain. But I am proud of the fact
that 95 per cent of our graduates are
still in Palestine, and have not left.”
Note: Beit Sahour is believed to include
the Shepherds’ Fields where angels made
their announcement of Christ’s birth. Of the
15,000 residents, 80 per cent are Christian,
20 per cent are Muslim.
GOD IS LOVE TO ALL –
NOT JUST JEWS
Bishara: “I like this picture. Certainly God
loves the Jews. He loves the Palestinians.
We know He loves the whole world
(John 3:16). The Israelis have no plans
for the Palestinians. To them, Palestinians
are trespassing and should be removed.
There are some estimates that up to 85
per cent of Jews in Israel are secular Jews.
So Palestinian Christians feel that Zionist
Christians who support them don’t have
any love for the Palestinians.”
Out of my depth
Fighting Words
Make sure you pick the right fight
by Mark Buchanan
“What causes fights and quarrels
among you?”
Jesus’ brother, James, asked his
congregation that question a long way back,
and every pastor since, one time or another,
has asked it of their congregation. Why
are followers of the Prince of Peace so
prone to catfights and squabbles? Why do
those called to live by grace so often live by
the lex talionis, the law of retaliation: eye for
eye and tooth for tooth? Why do people who
worship the God who buries our sins in the
deepest ocean and remembers them no
more store other’s sins in shallow trenches
and dredge them up in a blink?
James was clear enough in his diagnosis:
“Don’t they—the fights and quarrels—come
from the desires that battle within you?”
Isn’t your belligerence mostly selfishness
decked out for war?
It rings true. Recently, I nursed a grudge
against someone. With good cause, you
understand. I had arguments with them
in my head where I was brilliant, eloquent
and devastatingly right, while they were
stupid, tongue-tied and humiliatingly
wrong. I got to the place where I attributed
everything this person did to their folly and
spite, cunningly masked, of course, so that
only I could really see through it.
And then I re-read Brother James.
What if the problem was me? What if my
anger and indignation stemmed, not from
the fault of the other, but the waywardness
of my own heart? I opened myself,
tentatively, gingerly, to consider such an
unlikely scenario. And guess what? Well,
you know what: I traced a clear line of
causation right back to my own doublemindedness (to use an earlier phrase
from James), an unresolved dispute in my
own guts.
James pushes his diagnosis further:
the battle within comes from ungodly desire,
and ungodly desire comes from friendship
with the world (James 4:1-4).
I’ve learned to trust James on this.
In the “fights and quarrels” I am tempted
to engage, and in the ones I am, as pastor,
called to help resolve, I’ve found that the
The real issue is entitlement,
envy, rivalry, jealousy, greed,
pride, and the like, things –
that have nothing at all to
do with God's kingdom
and righteousness.
real issue almost never is the presenting
issue. The real issue is friendship with the
world. That friendship feeds selfish desire,
and a battle within erupts. The real issue
is entitlement, envy, rivalry, jealousy,
greed, pride, and the like—things that
have nothing at all to do with God’s kingdom
and righteousness indeed, usually nothing
at all to do with even the matter at hand
though often masqueraded as such.
Most quarrels I see are personal vendetta
dressed up as pious crusade.
Not long ago I stepped in to help
two Christians resolve a fight. They had
formerly been close friends but, over a
deal gone sour, had become bitter enemies.
I asked one of the offended parties,
“What if you never get your money back—
what then?”
“I’ll sue.”
“And forgiveness? Where does that
fit here?”
The person looked at me with horror
and contempt. “Are you serious? Do you
even live in the real world?”
In a moment of James-like clearness,
I responded, “What real world do you
want to live in? Afghanistan? Iraq? Darfur?
The Congo? The real world I want to live in,
and am inviting you to live in, is called the
Kingdom of God.”
Which is a kingdom of peace. But first
it must take up occupancy in our own hearts.
And that’s exactly what James says next.
“Submit yourself to God,” he says, “and
resist the devil…” (James 4:7). Go ahead,
James says, pick a fight. Just be clear who
the enemy is. It’s not God, and it’s not the
person in front of you who’s somehow
foiling your worldly desires.
It’s the prince of darkness who’s set
himself up in enmity against the Prince
of Peace, but who uses people as canon
fodder.
Pray you’ve got enough warrior in you
not to fall for that.
Mark Buchanan is an author and pastor
living on Vancouver Island. He is the
author of five bestselling books and
numerous articles.
power play
Great games. Great toys.
Great gadgets.
Reviews by Sandy McMurray
CLICKFREE AUTOMATIC
BACKUP DRIVE
www.goclickfree.com
What would you lose
if your PC hard drive
crashed tomorrow?
Everyone knows
it’s important to back
up computer data, but most people do
nothing until it’s too late. Unless the hard
drive is making strange sounds or smoke
is pouring out of the box, backups seem
like a lot of trouble.
Enter the Clickfree automatic backup.
This is a ONE step process: connect the
Clickfree drive to your PC then watch as
it finds and copies all your valuable files.
The smart software installs itself, then
does all the hard work for you.
The first backup may take a few hours
but the process is quicker each time after
that. Clickfree is the cheapest insurance
you will ever buy.
ADORABLE HUMIDIFIERS
www.crane-canada.com
I had a lot of trouble with allergies and
colds when I was young. In the
winter, when the furnace
dried out the air in our
house, my parents put
a cold air humidifier
in my room. It wasn’t
much fun, but the mist
seemed to help me
breathe.
Crane’s Adorable
Humidifiers appeal
to the sick kid in me.
Instead of a boring
beige tub, Crane offers
humidifiers shaped like elephants,
penguins, frogs and puppies. Their
whimsical designs transform a practical,
health-related need into something
comforting and maybe even fun.
DUCT TAPE BANDAGE
www.nexcare.com
Band-Aids are for wimps. When a real
man gets a cut, he doesn’t rush to the first
aid kit or the medicine cabinet. He ignores
it and keeps working. Sure, he might need
a bandage if blood is pouring from
the wound. Maybe.
If so, a regular
bandage won’t do.
He needs something
better, something stronger.
A man’s bandage. Nexcare
knows what you need.
Duct Tape bandages tell
the world you’re a man;
a man who is recovering from what
must surely be a very serious injury.
Duct Tape can fix anything. Even
your boo-boo. Be a man. Get Duct
Tape bandages.
LP 2 CD DIGITAL TURNTABLE
www.ion-audio.com
Dig out your record collection!
This handy gadget makes it easy to
transfer old recordings from vinyl to CD.
You don’t even need a computer; LP 2
CD has a built-in CD burner.
Use LP 2 CD to copy your old vinyl
records or connect to your old cassette
deck and recover your old mix tapes.
LP 2 CD can connect to any old audio
source, including 8-track players and
reel-to-reel tape recorders. Hook ‘em
up and record directly to CD.
LP 2 CD comes with a USB cable
so you can copy the new recordings to
your computer, to an iPod or to iTunes.
Software for
PC and Mac
is included.
CONTRAPTIONS
GORILLAPOD
www.joby.com
Grab a Joby
Gorillapod and
secure your camera
or gadget to just
about anything—
anywhere and
everywhere! Unlike
traditional tripods, the
Gorillapod has flexible,
gripping legs, which can
wrap around almost any
surface to hold your camera in
place, even in the most awkward positions.
The Gorillapod Go-Go! uses the same
articulating ball-and-socket design to
provide support for smaller devices like
cell phones and GPS units. The Gorillapod
is available in several models: the original,
the SLR (for heavier cameras) and the SLRZoom (for serious photographers).
ROCK BAND 2
www.harmonix.com
The hottest video
game of the season is
not a shooting game or
a racing game but a
music game. Rock
Band 2 players use game
controllers that look like
real instruments to play
notes that appear on the screen.
In cooperative play, up to four players
can jam together on guitar, bass, drums
and vocals.
In addition to the 84 songs included
on the game disc and 20 free downloadable
songs, hundreds of additional downloadable songs will be released for the Xbox
360 and PlayStation 3 versions. All of these
songs, existing and future, are compatible
with all Rock Band titles.
The special controllers make Rock Band 2
more expensive than most video games, but
you can split the cost with friends and play
together.
GB models that can hold up to 4,000 songs,
14,000 photos or 16 hours of video. All you
have to decide now is who gets your old
iPod when you buy a new one.
Sandy McMurray writes about gadgets
and games for SEVEN. His web site is
TechStuff.ca
LEGO CRAZY ACTION
www.klutz.com
The creative minds at Klutz Press have
a new book for the LEGO builder in your
house. From the supercharged Speedster to
the Squeezeclaw Grabber to the Wall Rocket
Racer, LEGO Crazy Action Contraptions is
full of high performance building projects.
All these contraptions spin, stretch,
speed, or otherwise spring into action, using
a custom selection of LEGO bricks that come
with the book. Step-by-step instructions and
illustrations show you
how to make these
action contraptions
come to life.
The book says ages
7 and up, but you don’t
have to share with the
kids if you don’t want to.
IPOD NANO
www.apple.ca/ipod
The new iPod nano is thinner than any
previous iPod, with a larger, curved glass
display that’s perfect for videos, photos
and games. This model’s new features
include a built-in accelerometer that
changes the display when you rotate the
iPod, and a “shake to shuffle” option that
switches songs when you shake the player.
The new nano is available in 8 GB and 16
money matters
Rising and falling house prices
What does it mean for you?
by Paul Emerton
For years, the value of homes and
condominiums has been rising steadily in
Canada. It’s good news for homeowners,
but what goes up may come down, one way
or another, as the recent crisis in U.S. home
values has demonstrated. Should you be
concerned?
In the United States, one out of five
homes sold between 2004 and 2006 carried
a sub-prime mortgage held by buyers who
did not qualify under traditional lending
policies. When these homeowners were
unable to handle higher mortgage
payments, they lost their homes, creating
a market glut and deeply depressing prices.
Will this affect your financial situation?
Sub-prime mortgages are rare in Canada.
The rate of default as a result of these loans
is negligible, suggesting that prices will
remain steady in comparison with the U.S.
But you cannot assume that your home’s
value has risen in step with the national
average. While Vancouver, Calgary,
Edmonton and Saskatoon have seen home
values increase 50 per cent or more in one
year, homeowners in Windsor, Thunder Bay,
Three Rivers and Newfoundland-Labrador
experienced a decrease in values. Much
of the price change is due to local economic
conditions. A sudden drop in employment
opportunities and wages in any region could
create a similar decline in house values for
that area.
Houses are becoming less affordable
for many. In regions where prices have
increased substantially, the growth
exceeded a corresponding increase in
family income, making it difficult for families
to purchase their first home. This may create
a future slowdown in house purchases and
a correction in prices.
Interest rates may rise. Nothing
guarantees that higher interest rates won’t
return some day, prompted by inflation.
The year 2008 has seen many natural disasters and economic turmoil.
We all know of the earthquakes, floods, hurricanes and cyclones that
have impacted millions of people, but few of us in Canada have experienced them directly--and none of us can really appreciate their impact
on people who were already living in poverty. Many of us, however,
have been personally impacted by global economic conditions,
including increased oil and food prices. But it is difficult to imagine the
impact of these conditions on people who earn less than $2 a
day--and spend most of that on food. We cannot truly comprehend
what life is like for the 1.2 billion people who live in abject poverty
and the 800 million people who go to bed hungry, or what life was like
for the 50,000 people who die every day from poverty-related causes.
In the face of these incredible and somewhat impersonal numbers,
the members of the Canadian Christian Relief and Development Association (CCRDA) continue to reach out on your behalf to show God's love
to men, women and children in great need in many corners of the
world. Together, we can make a difference and through our work in
areas such as health care, education, agriculture and micro-credit we
can impact and empower the lives of millions of people. This year,
please consider adding or increasing your financial support to one or
more of these very worthwhile organizations.
More expensive mortgages will inevitably cut
demand and reduce values to some degree.
Let me suggest three ways to deal with
changing home prices: Don’t forget that your
home is a residence first and an investment
second. Control your urge to speculate on
its value or engage in “trading up” to a home
that exceeds your needs and, perhaps, your
means of financing and maintaining it.
Next, use the equity in your home wisely.
Each dollar increase in your home’s value
increases the equity (the amount that is
yours to keep beyond the mortgage balance)
by an equal amount. When necessary
improvements such as a new kitchen
or bathroom or an addition to accommodate
a growing family are needed, this equity will
qualify you for a low-interest loan. Some
people convert their equity to cash, via
a loan or refinanced mortgage, to cover
existing debt such as their credit card
balances. Paying off one debt with another
debt is rarely a good idea.
Finally, remember it is
paper profit. Discovering
your home is worth much
more than the day you
bought it may give you
a warm feeling, but it’s
not “money in the bank.”
Prices can fall, the economy
can slump and your property
taxes may escalate.
CCRDA MEMBER AGENCIES
“Keep your life free
ADRA Canada
Arms of Jesus Children’s Mission Inc.
from love of money, and be
Asian Outreach International (Canada)
Canadian Reformed World Relief Fund
content with what you have,
CAUSE Canada
for he has said, ‘I will never
CBM Canada
Christian Children’s Fund of Canada
leave you nor forsake you’”
Christian Horizons
Christian Reformed World Relief Committee
(Hebrews 13:5).
Compassion Canada
If you can handle your
Crossroads Christian Communications Inc.
CSCODI
home’s mortgage payments,
EMCC World Partners
Emmanuel International Canada
taxes and maintenance
ERDO
within your current budget,
Habitat for Humanity Canada
International Child Care (Canada) Inc.
fluctuating home prices
The Leprosy Mission Canada
Lifeline Malawi
are probably nothing to
Mennonite Mission Health Association
be concerned about.
Nazarene Compassionate Ministries Canada
Ontario Christian Gleaners
Opportunity International Canada
The Salvation Army Canada
Samaritan’s Purse Canada
SIM Canada
Visionledd
The Wellspring Foundation for Education
Word & Deed Ministries
World Hope Canada
World Relief Canada
World Vision Canada
Paul Emerton is a Certified
Financial Planner and
Senior Training Specialist
with FaithLife Financial.
department
SHAPE UP
by Todd Llewys
Nutrition: Coffee a health food?
If you’ve been considering—or have
already decided—to give up drinking
coffee or tea due to their (supposedly)
damaging effects on your health, think
again. Somewhat surprisingly, recent
studies have shown coffee to be more—
much more—than just a stimulant. The
studies show that coffee delivers more
antioxidants than the benchmark hot
beverage of choice, green tea.
What exactly are antioxidants? Well,
they are the naturally occurring chemicals
that help reduce the effects of aging,
cardiovascular disease and degenerative
brain disorders, for starters. Antioxidants
also help combat the incidence of cancer,
cataracts and the decline of the immune
and nervous system.
Not only that, but antioxidants can also
work to reduce the chance of developing
Type II Diabetes by as much as 30 per cent.
And if diseases such as colon cancer and
Parkinson’s run in your family, drinking
two or three cups of coffee a day can
also help you guard against developing
those maladies, too.
Of course, we already know what
coffee does—consume a cup, and your
performance improves. Knock back a cup
of Starbucks (your choice) in the middle
of the afternoon, and your mental function
will be boosted enough to get out the month
end report your boss needed yesterday.
So, don’t feel guilty about consuming
a cup or three of coffee a day; drinking it
(plus maybe the odd cup of tea to boost
your immune system and prevent gall
stones) could well keep the doctor away.
Oh, and did we mention that a Brazilian
study has shown coffee to increase
male fertility?
Mental Side: Focus on Yourself
Develop a Stretch to Stay Limber Longer
So, you’ve decided to get back into
Perhaps you’ve heard of Gary Player,
shape. Determined to rid yourself of the
the legendary golfer from South Africa.
extra 20 pounds that have gathered on
When he started his career in the late
your waist over the last number of years
1950s, he was the first golfer to stress the
(just how many, you’re not sure), you head
importance of proper nutrition and doing
to the gym, all pumped to start the process.
weight-bearing exercises to stay strong.
Eventually, you make your way to the
He was also an advocate of stretching.
exercise bike or treadmill, only to be flanked
Today, at the age of 73, Player is in
on either side by two fit people. From the
great shape and regularly shoots his
look of it, very fit.
age. He can still hit his drives 250 yards—
This can be disconcerting, no matter
and can kick the top of a doorframe, his
who you are. Naturally, you envy the flat
flexibility is so great.
belly on either side of you. It’s entirely
Now, not all of us need to be capable
understandable; you’re huffing and puffing
of kicking the top of a doorframe
along at three miles an
at 43, or even 33.
hour on the treadmill,
However, staying
“Getting back in shape
while they’re breezing
flexible is
is a process–a process
along at over seven
essential to
miles an hour, jogging
being able to
that takes time. It took time
along at a brisk pace
enjoy everyday
to gain all that weight; it will
without hardly working
life and the oncetake time to lose it.”
up a sweat.
weekly game of
While it’s easier
hockey, baseball
said than done, this
or football that
is where you have to dig in and get mentally
goes with it. Or, for that matter, even
tough. Everyone has to start somewhere,
just throwing a baseball or football around
and the reality of the moment is that you
with the kids. After all, stretching guards
are in less-than-ideal shape. And who
against injury.
knows, maybe the svelte man and woman
Key areas to stretch include the
on either side of you was where you are
hamstrings (back of your leg), quadriceps
only a year or two ago.
(big muscle at upper front portion of your
The point is this: getting back in shape
leg), groin, lower and upper back. Exercises
is a process–a process that takes time.
to maintain flexibility in these areas are
It took time to gain all that weight; it will
relatively simple, and aren’t time
take time to lose it. So the next time you’re
consuming.
confronted with a situation where you feel
All you have to do is run on the spot
less than adequate in a physical sense,
for a few minutes to get warm; then, take
don’t compare yourselves to others; just
maybe 10—15 minutes tops—to stretch out
keep pedaling.
the different areas. The key here is to get
Focus on your routine, and in time you
warm. If you work out, do the exercise bike
will be on your way to looking like the two
for five minutes, and then do your stretches.
long-time gym regulars doing their cardio
Then, do some stretches in between workout
beside you.
stations (elliptical trainer, stair stepper,
running the basketball court, treadmill).
Or, just do your routine at home in
the morning before you work, or on your
afternoon break at work. Take the time to
build stretching into your fitness routine,
Todd Llewys is a Winnipeg-based sports writer
and your body will thank you.
and fitness enthusiast.
What women want
Fighting the Good Fight
by Sheila Wray Gregoire
As a natural debater, I’ve always enjoyed
a good fight. When my husband and I
disagree, we bring out every intellectual
argument in our arsenal to show why the
other person is irretrievably, irreconcilably,
and certifiably off his or her rocker. Early in
our marriage this usually lasted for several
days. Now, at times, I can argue vehemently
for a few minutes, and then shrug my
shoulders, and admit, “I guess you’re
right.”
It took me years to learn to say those
words. During that time I have also learned
that trying to resolve an issue at 1 a.m. is
exceedingly stupid; it’s better to sleep on it,
because chances are tomorrow you’ll forget
what you were fighting about anyway. But
most importantly I have learned that even
if I am right, listening to my husband’s
feelings is more important than winning
the argument.
In other words, I have learned how
to have good fights.
Before our wedding we didn’t fight.
He agreed with everything I said, and I
agreed with everything he said, because
we thought exactly the same way.
Unfortunately, on the honeymoon I realized
that he had some independent thoughts,
and this proved very threatening. I had to
whip him into shape, and he had to whip
me into shape, and we both ended up with
whiplash.
Why does anger hurt us so much?
I think it’s because we misunderstand it.
We think anger is just like flatulence. This
uncomfortable feeling bubbles up inside us,
growing more and more urgent, until it just
has to be released. Problem solved, right?
Wrong. Unlike farting, anger doesn’t just
waft away in the air after you’ve expressed
it. It’s more like a grenade going off,
maiming everybody in its path, including
you. When you explode in anger, you
actually make things worse. You usually
say things you don’t mean, but once those
things are out of your mouth, you can’t take
them back.
I think we feel anger so strongly because
anger is a master con artist. When we’re
angry, it’s usually a sign that there’s
something else going on below the surface,
something that we’d rather not talk about.
And we don‘t like that vulnerable feeling,
so anger helps us deflect attention from
our fears.
Do you often have the same fight, over
and over again, with nothing really getting
resolved? Maybe that’s because in your
anger you’re ignoring the real issues.
Picture this couple: he arrives home late
and she immediately berates him for being
an insensitive clod who doesn’t care about
the family. And he’s an absent father to
boot. He responds in anger by complaining
about how he only works so she can have
a decent place to live, and if she really
wanted him home, maybe she’d make the
house a little nicer to come home to. (By
the way, never say to your wife, “Look at this
place! What did you do all day?” Just trust
me on that one).
Words are flying, but nothing is really
being communicated, because neither
party is willing to open up. And when we
don’t deal with what’s actually going on,
we never fix anything.
On the other hand, if he could be honest,
maybe he’d reveal something like this: “I
just worry that I’m not what you expected
when we got married. I could get laid off,
and I don’t know how to support us. And
maybe I’m failing at home, too. What if I
really am a bad father?”
And maybe she would admit: “I feel
lonely. I love the kids, but sometimes they’re
not enough. What if I’m becoming boring?
Please show me that you still desire me!”
Though women complain incessantly that
men don’t share their feelings, the true fear
we have is that our husbands don’t actually
have any, and that there really is nothing
below the surface. But that’s not true. It’s
just that men’s feelings are often like the
deep ocean: they’re not very well explored.
That doesn’t mean, though, that you can’t
start an expedition.
So next time you’re boiling mad, ask
yourself, “What’s really going on here?
What am I actually scared of?” And then
tell her that instead of blowing up. Sure
you’re risking rejection, but as long as
two people just yell at each other, the
relationship is never going to build anything
except more walls. If you could both stop
lashing out, and say what’s on your hearts
instead, a miracle might happen. It takes
guts to open up. But opening up your heart
is a whole lot more productive than just
shooting off your mouth. And much more
honest, too.
Maybe it’s time we all tried it.
Sheila is the author of several marriage
books, including Honey, I Don’t Have a
Headache Tonight: Help for women who
want to feel more in the mood. You can
find her speaking at marriage conferences
around the country, or at
www.SheilaWrayGregoire.com.
it is a privilege to be associated
with the creation of seven.
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at indigo ink studios, we help
businesses and organisations
achieve success with effective
communication materials.
look us up online at
www.indigoinkstudios.com
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November 2008 - Promise Keepers Canada

Transcription

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