un californien à paris

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Joyeux Noël

clic here ---> Christmas Card <--- clic here

Tis the season

Joyeux Noël de la part des frenchy FINLEY !

WE HOPE YOU WILL SHARE OUR JOY !

TO US A SAVIOR IS BORN.

HIS NAME IS JESUS.

HE IS THE MESSIAH,

THE CHRIST,

OUR LORD.

DO NOT BE AFRAID,

HIS REIGN WILL NEVER END.

NO FEAR !  JOY !   JOY ! 

HEART POUNDING JOY !

Vélo Love

There is an advertisement running on French television right now for Christmas shoppers that touches something deep inside me.  Karen and I saw it for the first time together.  We laughed for a very long time...but for different reasons.  You can laugh with us here.  BTW, ladies out there reading this with condemning eyes...the reason Karen can laugh is because she knows I love her more than my bikes.  She also knows that I love her better when I do ride.  So get over it and send your man out the door for a nice long ride.  You can thank me later.

In January, my brother and I are going to take the bikes and go, a continued celebration of 40 years of life with the person who, except for the first 20 months, has shared the entire ride with me...and who shares my love of pedaling two wheels into endless open spaces.   I'm really looking forward to it.

Mikey's Day

It was Mikey's 4th birthday today.  He came home early from school with a fever, slept all afternoon, and had enough energy to pick out a Mickey cake and blow out the candle.

Four years ago, I put my own creative energy into my blog as my wife was giving birth to our warrior-angel, Michael, while her own health/life was in danger.  Today, I enjoyed rereading what I wrote and meditating on God's goodness to us over the last four years.  Remembering God's faithfulness to us in the past brings peace in the present, and hope for the future.

Yesterday morning at Faith Community Church of Santa Cruz, my friend, Andy Lewis, who also has a son named Michael, poured his creative energy into retelling the Christmas story from the perspective of Michael the Arch Angel (Revelation 12).  You can listen to Andy's dynamic interpretation here.

Who's Story is it?

• We ask, “Where does God fit into the story of my life?” when the real question is where does my little life fit into this great story of God’s mission.
• We want to be driven by a purpose that has been tailored just right for our own individual lives (which is of course infinitely preferable to living aimlessly), when we should be seeing the purpose of all life, including our own, wrapped up in the great mission of God for the whole of creation.
• We talk about the problems of “applying the Bible to our lives,” which often means modifying the Bible somewhat adjectivally to fit into the assumed “reality” of the life we live “in the real world.”  What would it mean to apply our lives to the Bible instead, assuming the Bible to be the reality—the real story—to which we are called to conform ourselves?
• We wrestle with the question of how we can “make the gospel relevant to the world” (again, a least that is clearly preferable to treating it as irrelevant).  But in this Story, God is about the business of transforming the world to fit the shape of the gospel.
• We wonder whether and how the care of creation, for example, might fit into our concept and practice of mission, when this Story challenges us to ask whether our lives, lived on God’s earth and under God’s gaze, are aligned with, or horrendously misaligned with, God’s mission that stretches from creation to cosmic transformation and the arrival of a new heaven and new earth.
• We argue about what can legitimately be included in the mission God expects from the church, when we should ask what kind of church God expects for his mission in all its comprehensive fullness.
• I may wonder what kind of mission God has for me, when I should ask what kind of me God wants for his mission.

Wright, Christopher J.H. 2006. The Mission of God:  Unlocking the Bible's Grand Narrative. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic. p. 533-534

St. Germain-en-Laye

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3 Décembre 1967

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Santa Cruz-sur-Marne

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