Occasional family and ministry updates
As you may know, I am in the midst of writing my first book. I am now four months into what I hope will be a six-month writing period. This will be followed many many months of editing, proofing and whatever else happens between the time a manuscript is submitted and a book arrives in…
It is Christmas. Our day began a little bit earlier than I would have liked, but also a little bit later than I had expected. With our children growing older, we are finally able to celebrate Christmas the way I remember it as a child – a day of rising early and trembling with anticipation,…
Aileen gave herself the best birthday present ever. On her thirtieth birthday she gave birth to our daughter, Michaela Joy. It was a great day, even if we didn’t get around to having Aileen’s birthday dinner that day. Now that it is my thirtieth birthday I have proven unable to deliver such a great gift…
(This is part two of an article I began here). I ended the last article with the birth of our first child. It did not take long after the birth of our son to encounter difficulties with our church. I knew nothing of Baptists, but had begun listening to Charles Stanley on my way to…
This Saturday will mark my thirtieth birthday. I am not typically one who takes much notice of occasions such as birthdays or who makes a big deal of them, but as I considered passing a decade barrier, it seemed appropriate that I should spend some time thinking about the last ten years. I was convicted…
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about words. This must sound fascinating, I know, so congratulations if you have even made it to the second sentence of this article! With this being an unofficial holiday in the United States (and National Sleep-in Day, or something like that) I don’t expect too many people to visit…
Last night Adrian Warnock flew into Toronto on a short layover while travelling to a top secret meeting in an undisclosed American city. He will be spending a couple of days with Andrew Fountain, who pastors a church somewhere in Toronto. But last night Paul and I drove out to a restaurant near the airport…
It’s no secret around here that I love the book of Proverbs and consider it my “home page” in the Bible. I work through it at least once every year and always benefit from doing so. And while I love Proverbs and envy the wisdom of Solomon, the man who wrote the bulk of the…
When I find a topic I’d like to write about for this site, but am not quite ready to write about it now, I often jot down a brief outline of what an article might look like and save the file to my desktop. I tend to invest some time in thinking about the topic…
During the past few evenings I’ve been making my way through Suffering and the Sovereignty of God edited by John Piper and Justin Taylor. Based on last year’s Desiring God National Conference, the book is set to release around September 19 and I’ll have a full review of it before then. When I was at…
Several months ago I sat with my wife, discussing future goals and plans. I told her something she already knew: that I wanted someday to begin writing books. Writing runs in my blood and there are few things I enjoy more (though reading would have to come close). As evidenced by this blog, I have…
Through the past week or so my wife and I have been working our way through the Extended Editions of the three The Lord of the Rings movies. I had seen Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers many times in the past, but had not yet had opportunity to watch the Extended Edition…
I hate cars. While they are clearly a necessity, they are just as clearly evil. I guess that makes them necessary evils. I can’t think of too many other significant investments in life that we purchase knowing full well that each time we use it, it will decrease in value. Every day the car becomes…
The Pacific Campaign of the Second World War has always fascinated me. In many ways, it seemed like a nonsensical series of battles between the United States and Japan. As the Americans sought revenge for the devastation of Pearl Harbor, and as they sought to curtail Japanese aggression in the East, they fought their way…
This is my 1000th consecutive day of blogging. This occasion has given me the opportunity to reflect on what blogging has meant to me over the past years and what I expect to see and do in the future. I hate writing about myself. It seems so prideful. So arrogant. So empty. I’ve long been…
A couple of months ago I wrote about Tiazzi’s last day. Tiazzi was our dog and, unfortunately, she began to lose her mind. Because her behavior was becoming increasingly erratic, we conferred with her veterinarian and decided that it would be best to put her down. It was a very difficult decision, but we are…
I continued in my reading of Jerry Bridge’s The Discipline of Grace this morning. I am only a few chapters into the book and have already learned a great deal from it. Though it was written in 1994, it seems that I missed its first publishing and am glad to have discovered it after the…
I was thrilled several years ago to hear that the book The Lord of the Rings was going to be made into a series of epic films. With production budgets in the hundreds of millions of dollars and the bulk of the work being done outside of Hollywood, I knew this series was going to…
It has become customary that on July 1, Canada, I reflect, if only briefly, on my nation. Two years ago I wrote “On Canada Day and Kissing The Mailman.” It was something of a mournful article in which I reflected on Canada’s decision to elect the still-corrupt Liberal Party, despite years of waste, corruption and…
It’s a beautiful day in Toronto. Though it’s a little bit overcast, it is still warm and bright. It’s an almost perfect day to take in a ballgame. And, in fact, that was my plan. Once or twice a season I like to take my son down to the Rogers Center to watch the Bluejays…