World Hunger Fund Piece

Here is a presentation I put together this weekend for our denomination's annual conference. There are few mediums that are, for me, as effective at conveying information AND emotion as the combination of text, imagery and music! I've become a bit of a one-trick-pony, though, in that much of my work looks the same. I said that once to a coworker, and he said, "No Jamie - you are a consistant artist." I think one-trick-pony is a funnier way of saying it. :)

Imago Christus - Good Friday 07

Good Friday is one of those highly significant days in the annual life of The Meeting House. It's one of the times that all our sites gather together for services in Oakville. It's also one of the times that we break from our standard mold of service and try to come up with something really special and creative.

After the incredible service we did in 2006, some of us thought we'd never pull off another like it again. But God has gifted us with some incredibly talented and creative people, and once again, we were inspired to pull together something that was very meaningful, artistic, contemplative, and worshipful.

No point in going into alot of detail - it's not possible to explain it with words. If you weren't there, you missed something special.

But I do have photos to share. These photos really highlight one thing well - the incredible lighting. Kudos to Dave B. for his beautiful work over the past couple months in designing the light show that we currently have. We rented a fantastic hazer that really made the lights so much more effective.

Enjoy the photos. Thanks to Dave M. for shooting them!

One of the many pieces of artwork in the background.


"Purple Haze"


Jamie Ball worships as he shreds on the electric!
Behind - Josh Harris laying down the funk.


Three lovely ladies lead with passion.
L to R: Amy, Michelle, Sarah


One of the most gifted music pastors in Canada!


Dave's lighting creates incredible depth of stage.
On Craig's left - Juan - our brilliant percussianist.
On Craig's right - Steve - one killer bassist.


My TMH acting debut.


A great shot of the stage and video.

Picnic @ Webster's Falls

Living on the edge of the Niagara Escarpment has its advantages. Besides the famous Niagara Falls, there are numerous other water falls. Hamilton actually has many of them.

One of the neat things about our area is the numerous walking trails, conservation areas, streams, falls, etc. We have started in years past to explore some of these and use them as opportunities to get the girls interested in the beauty of nature.

This past Friday was one of those opportunities. It was a lovely spring day - a little chilly and partly sunny, but still nice. So we decided to do the first picnic of the year. About 15 minutes drive from our house is "Webster's Falls Conservation Area", near the town of Dundas.

We had a nice picnic near the stream (which at this time of year was more of a river!). Then we found the trail (okay - more like TONS of steps) that leads down the escarpment to the bottom of the falls.

What a wonderful experience. Almost as impressive as Niagara Falls and so much more natural and non-commercialized... and all within a short drive. And this is just the beginning. There's many more waterfalls to see... the walking trails/boardwalk along the Grindstone Trail (where the birds eat from your hands)... the creek minutes from our house... the beach at Christie Lake... and of course, many opportunities to paddle once I pick up the boat! We certainly do love being outside in the spring.

Here's a few pictures from the day....

The Falls from below.


Anyone ready to paddle?


Three Wonders of God's Creation!


The Family @ the Falls

Ottawa from the 8th Floor

Here I am, sitting at the computer in the apartment of the Member of Parliment for Kitchener-Conestogo. This is the man that used to be my dentist, then he became my father-in-law and then he became my pastor. But I guess he got bored, so he decided to run for office. What a career path!

The view from up here isn't much worth mentioning. Just another apartment building across from us.

We arrived in Ottawa yesterday for our first family visit. A short 6 hour drive in the Honda and we were here before lunchtime. I'm not sure what was the highlight yesterday - viewing parlimentary "Question Period" (what a bunch of over-grown boys bantering and heckling each other!), or the date night with Arja while Grandma kept the girls. Okay - the date night wins! But Question Period *was* fun.

We were quite impressed with Prime Minister Harper. He handles himself well, speaks clearly, switches back and forth between French and English with great ease, and responds to criticism with passion.

Considering I'm not a Canadian Citizen yet and thus cannot vote, I haven't ever really aligned myself with any party or platform. But I would probably support the Conservative Party based on yesterday's observations.

We also got to hang out at the MP's office for a bit - not a shabby place.

The Centre Block of Parliment is amazing. I didn't do a tour yet, but what I saw of the building is incredible.

Dinner was nice. We went to a casual upscale place called The Blue Cactus. Arja had the most incredible (virgin) Strawberry Daquiri ever! I *settled* for a pale ale. ;)

After dinner was of course the obligatory stop for Starbucks. I know Craig thinks they are evil... but I refuse to believe it. The price I pay makes me believe they MUST be paying fair-trade prices. Okay - I should do my research I guess. I'm afraid to - ignorance allows me to enjoy the coffee experience. I certainly have turned into a coffee snob, though. The Tim Horton's coffee at 5:30am on the drive up was drinkable (Starbucks wasn't open yet), but it certainly wasn't "wonderful" like the Starbucks in the evening was!

Arja gets to go to the Chinese Embassy today with mom - some reception for MP's spouses. I'm taking the girls swimming down in the apartment and then just hanging out. Dinner is at the Parlimentary Restaurant tonight.

What a beautiful city this place is. I could hang out here for longer, especially in the summer. I hear that the paddling in the Ottawa River is incredible. You can also paddle through the locks in the Rideau Canal. That would be fun. But I would have just as much fun hanging out downtown - trying all the pubs and restaurants, seeing all the upscale shops, etc.

So that's the first 24 hours in a nutshell.

Next post... living simply

The call to "Live Simply" is one of the distinctive beliefs of our church and our denomination. It's been a topic of discussion in our family recently. I'll talk more about this in my next post.

Past and Present at The Meeting House

This is the series we just finished up. 5 weeks of talking about sex from a Biblical perspective. VERY honest, open, and to the point. Did people ever love it! The branding was alot of fun too. A 16 ft piece across the stage with the word "sex" - that'll get your attention when you walk in. Doing my own remix of Salt-n-Peppa's "Let's Talk about Sex", then mixing in a little Barry White... that was cool. The podcast has gone THROUGH THE ROOF in popularity - #1 in Religion & Spirituality in all North America. So much that it completely crashed our host server. We've had to move it to accomodate the demand.



Starting this Sunday, a new series called "From Synagogue to Sanctuary". This is the third bit in a group of series about the first couple hundred years of Christianity. This one looks at how we got from Judaism (Jesus being a Rabbi) to a completely unJewish (and in many cases, anti-Jewish) movement. The branding for this one has been alot of fun, too.

An attempt at a come-back

Righto - so I keep promising that I'll make a comeback to my blog... and then I don't do it. It seems like it's been so long (wait... it HAS been so long) that I don't know where to start again.

I wanted to daily keep at this, then for some stupid reason I couldn't log on for weeks. Now that I can, where to start?

Okay - let's start with what's on my mind... discipline. Why am I so undisciplined? Like in every area of my life? (Here I go being honest... sigh.)

There's lots of things I *want* to do. I *want* to work out at the gym. I *want* to eat healthier. I *want* to get up early every morning and have some time to just sit, think, read my bible, drink some coffee, give myself a chance to be awake and alert when my girls get up. I *want* to spend time regularly praying with and for my wife. I *want* to be wiser with my money. Okay - that's a good laundry list of wants. Not such a good list of accomplishments.

I keep coming back to it regularly... I need to be accountable. There's this great little catch-phrase in the Christian subculture, that every man needs a "Paul, a Silas, and a Timothy"...

Paul - someone older and wiser in the faith - to build into me.
Silas - a comrade. Someone at about the same place in the journey.
Timothy - a younger brother in faith - someone to pour into.

Yeah... I'm 0 for 3 on this one right now.

So I'm really beating myself up for a comeback, eh? Funny thing - I'm not feeling particularly down. Just being honest. I think about this stuff regularly.

If I had that Paul and that Silas to walk with me, I'd have someone to stay accountible to. Someone to ask me how I'm doing - that knows my struggles. I've tried to find that person. I actually think I know who that "Paul" should be. We started, but really had a tough time making our schedules jive. I guess it's time to call him again and start over. Okay - someone out there in the blog world - keep me accountible on that one. You can be anonymous. Just ask me in a week if I've called my "Paul".

I think that would help me get started on (no wait - the problem isn't starting - it's sticking with) working at those personal disciplines.

Wow - nice comeback, eh?

Hmmm - maybe it's time to stop this post and do a couple others about things that are actually going on.