new website

we have a new home on the interwebs.
visit www.uprm.ca to find out more about the upper room winnipeg

believe-behave-belong?

this sunday we will be talking about the gospel. believe-behave-belong. i want you to think about your journey of faith. where are you in these three words? is this the order you would put them in? what about jesus...how did he share the good news with people? behave-believe-belong? belong-believe-behave?
when you think about your experience with "the church", what order would you say most churches live by? (realizing that we are all in fact "the church")
a further question...at what point does salvation or conversion occur? believe? belong? behave? when does someone become a christian...when do they truly understand the good news?
join the conversation here online or with us in person on sunday night.
peace to you,
scott

making room

one of the speakers for the congress this fall is christine pohl. i have decided to try and read each of the main speakers books before they come to winnipeg in november. christine's book "making room: recovering hospitality as a christian tradition" has been really challenging.

many of us, especially when we compare ourselves with much of the world's population, live in abundance, not scarcity. but we often act as if resources are scarce; we fear there won't be enough, even before we begin sharing what we have. the problem may have much more to do with our willingness to respond than with our resources. p.135

i think the challenge for us right now is not to determine, 'how much is enough?' but rather 'am i willing to give until it costs me something?'

will we live our lives for ourselves or for others? will we focus inward or outward? will we be known for our love and hospitality, or for our seclusion and indifference?

peace to you,
scott

church planting congress

so looking forward to this time together in november. will be good to gather and continue the discussion of what it means to be about the mission in our consumer society. plan to be part of it...online registration will be available soon.
peace to you,
scott

incredible music for lent

came across this album last week and it has been on repeat on my ipod nearly non-stop. stop in and download it for free...please leave a tip for the artist as I am fairly certain you will not only enjoy, but be enriched by it.
peace to you,
scott
(click here to get the download)

lent

here is a little calendar to help guide you through some suggested activities as you focus your life in this season of lent. (thanks to mars hill for the inspiration)
peace to you,
scott

the tangible kingdom

great book that gives you a glimpse into what we are all about...been doing this about 4 years now and just read a book explaining a journey that looks very similar to ours. worth the read.
peace to you,
scott

a group of people who could change everything

A community of people who begin to wake up to the covert curriculum in which they swim each day would want to band together to share their insights about it. They would help one another not to be sucked in, not be massaged into passivity, not to be malformed by this powerful education process occurring in a multimedia classroom without walls or vacations. They would remind one another of the alternative framing story they had come to believe was good, beautiful, and true, and they would seek, together, to live by this alternative framing story, the radical good news.
They would develop practices of spiritual formation so they and their children for generations to come would be able to learn, live, and grow as a part of the solution, not part of the problem; as agents of healing, not as carriers of the disease; as revolutionaries seeking to dismantle and subvert the suicidal system, not as functionaries and drones seeking to serve and preserve it.
They would understand that at every moment, their identity as revolutionaries remains under assault; the gravity of compromise pulls and drags to hunch their backs, slacken their step, and lower their gaze. They would be on guard for ways they themselves could sabotage themselves--by becoming preoccupied with trivia, or by working from the system's logic and values when trying to fight the system, or by slipping into dual narratives as the Pharisees and religious scholars of Jesus' day did, or by substituting talk for action or activity for fruitfulness.
So through word and deed, song and ritual, holiday and daily practice, they would seek to be the revolution they wished to see in the world, and they would work to spread their vision and extend the invitation to others to join their revolution in every way they could.
A group of people like this, functioning in a difficult environment dominated by a hostile system with a covert curriculum, would make lots of mistakes and need continual renewal. But it would be worth the effort and sacrifice--as long as it understood its sacred and unique role as bearers if the revolutionary good news, the message of hope: another world is possible, available now for all who believe.
This kind of group would be the current expression of Jesus' original band of disciples. It would be the church as Jesus intended. It would be an exciting thing to be a part of: a community that forms disciples who work for the liberation and healing of the world, based on Jesus' good news of the kingdom of God.
Groups like this wouldn't need buildings, pipe organs, rock bands, layers of institutional structure, video projectors, parking lots and so on...although having these things wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing, and could possibly be useful. What they would need would be simple: a passion to understand Jesus and his message and a commitment to live out that understanding in a world in which everything must change.
- an excerpt from Brian D. Mclaren's Everything Must Change

i long to be this kind of christian...this kind of church.

peace to you,
scott

the divine commodity-our genie in a bible

i just finished reading 'the divine commodity' by skye jethani. there are a few moments where god pushed words from this book deep into my heart. one passage that has been haunting me (in a good way) for the past two weeks reads as follows...
we have a certainty about god and his ways that leads us to replace the mystery of faith with manageable spiritual formulas... Regardless of the medium, we utter phrases like 'god always...,' 'god never...,' 'god only...,' and even 'god hates...' with flippant regularity. such absolute pronouncements should rarely be spoken by fallible humans and then only with much trepidation.
the abundance of our definitive words about god shows that we don't view him as a great mystery anymore, but as a sterile calculation without ambiguity or obscurity. and, not surprisingly, this definitive god usually conforms nicely to our personal desires and politics. the resurgence of the prosperity gospel movement is one sign of this. quoted in a time magazine article titled "does god want you to be rich?" television preacher joyce meyers says, 'who would want to get in on something where you're miserable, poor broke and ugly and you just have to muddle through until you get to heaven? i believe god wants to give us nice things.' she has a point. who would want an uncontrollable, mysterious and holy god when you could have a genie in a bible? pg 35
mystery or math?
art or science?
beyond comprehension or completely figured out?
more on this later...
peace to you,
scott

happy easter...he is risen indeed

an excerpt from our easter liturgy this morning...

Yours is the glory, O God, for raising Jesus from the darkness of death.
Yours is the glory, O Christ, for being prepared, through your sacrificial love, to conquer death and give us the gift of eternal life.
And, as if that were not enough, you greet us by name, as you greeted Mary in the garden, and transform our lives forever with your Easter life.
Risen Lord, we worship and adore you .
We pray that the Holy Spirit, your life in us, will so conform us to your image that we radiate your glory here, through our rejoicing and praise, and in all the places where people’s lives are still affected by the powers of sin and death.
Yours is the glory, risen Lord Jesus, and we rejoice that ‘endless is the victory that you over death have won’.
Alleluia! Christ is risen!
Christ is risen indeed! Amen
peace to you,
scott

the upper room l.i.v.e.s.

so we have shifted gears a little at the upper room. we have been meeting at our house and have entered a time of regrouping. in this time of preparing we have been challenging each other to "live" by some simple disciplines. we believe that jesus came to give us life abundant and we believe that life is only experienced as we are discipled by the one who showed us what perfect humanity in touch with perfect divinity looked like. as we follow in the footsteps of jesus we truly live. this is what that looks like from week to week for us:
l - listen to god - for one hour each week we set aside time to quietly listen to the one who created us and speaks life into us.
i - invest in others - we pour ourselves into the lives of at least two people each week. one person that is a part of our community and one that is not.
v - versed in truth - we read one chapter from the gospels (the best way to know jesus is to spend regular time reading his story), one chapter from somewhere else in scripture and one great, inspiring piece of literature.
e - eat with others - this is one of my favorites. we take time to be face to face (not facebook) with people and share food and drink. we do this with at least two people each week. one person that is part of our community and one that is not.
s - sent into the world - each one of us lives as though we are to be the light of the world. we desire to bring peace, love, hope, courage, patience, grace and truth into the places we find ourselves each day. we live as sent people.
l-isten to god - 1 hour
i-nvest in people - 2 people
v-ersed in truth - 3 books
e-at with others - 2 people
s-ent to the world - 1 for all
it is a challenge to follow in the footsteps of jesus, but what a feeling to know that we are his disciples...that is what it means to truly "live".
peace to you,
scott

if you want to destroy my sweater...

tonight we got together for a little christmas fun. ugly sweaters, cotton ball lambs and the single greatest living room re-enactment of the birth of jesus. next week we will get together at our place for readings and carols...lit by candlelight. we will light the fourth and final candle of our advent wreath as we will be less than one week from the birth of our lord and savior...let him be born in us again...
peace to you,
scott

christmas at the upper room

this sunday we will be getting together for christmas at derek and heidi's house. the kids will be dressing up and acting out the christmas story as scott narrates from the scriptures. shepherds and sheep...mary and joseph...a christmas we won't soon forget.
the new year promises some pretty great things...we will be talking and praying about that on sunday night...until then, continue to absorb the goodness of the one who came to bring us life, as you prepare your heart for his advent.
see you sunday...email scott if you need directions.
peace to you,
scott

this sunday brought to you by the letter 'a'

advent
aroma
awe
absorb
we prepare ourselves for the coming messiah. we quiet our hearts with reverence and awe that a child would be born to be the perfect sacrificial lamb...
the sights, the smells, the brutality of levitical worship, brought to an end in a stable manger bed.
what sights, what sounds, what smells accompany this new worship of the perfect sacrifice?
allow your heart to absorb the sweetness of this season...
peace to you,
scott

re:location

as the christmas season tends to lend itself to christmas parties, and the space we currently use at fude is often used for said christmas parties, we have decided for the next two months to meet at scott and brenda's house to keep the confusion of location at a minimum. so come chill in the living room with us at the upper room. email scott for directions.
peace to you,
scott

hurry up and wait

this morning as i was reading lamentations, (i know...not the most encouraging monday morning read) i came across a great line in chapter 3.
"because of the LORD's great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. i say to myself, 'the LORD is my portion; therefore i will wait for him.' the LORD is good to those whose hope is in him, to the one who seeks him; it is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the LORD." lamentations 3:22-26
seeking and waiting. i'm not sure if you find it easy to just sit and wait, but it is probably one of my least favorite things to do. (especially when that waiting is behind someone in traffic who is not moving as quickly as i would hope.) in the midst of our busy lives, it takes discipline to sit and wait. It take discipline to seek god and stop and listen to what he would say to us. it takes discipline...
funny how the word disciple looks a lot like discipline...
seek and wait.
stop and listen.
stop.
listen.
wait.
this week the upper room will be at our house at 4pm. we will be looking at this passage as well as the idea of waiting on god...on listening to what he has to say to us and committing ourselves to one hour of meditative prayer during the week.
peace to you,
scott

what you believe = what you be/live...

if jesus is the way, the truth and the life, how does that impact the way we live monday to sunday? this is what we discussed last night at upper room.
we are asking ourselves two questions at the end of each day this week.
#1. where did i see god working and join in?
#2. where did i see god working and resist?
it is a great exercise to see where our beliefs match up with our lives...and where we show what we truly believe when there is a discrepancy between what we say and how we live.
believe = be/live.
peace to you,
scott

the one and only?

just what was jesus getting at when he said 'i am the way, the truth and the life...no one comes to the father except by me.'?
is he the only way?
is that not a little exclusive?
is it possible that there is more than one way?
inclusivity vs. exclusivity?
we will dig into some scripture passages and look at the popular idea that jesus is in fact just one way to god...but perhaps not the one and only...
come and discover the truth with us next sunday night at fude...
peace to you,
scott

can these bones can live?

tonight we are looking at ezekiel 37:1-14...the valley of the dry bones. perhaps the pivotal point in this passage is the question god poses to ezekiel. as he surveys the valley, walking back and forth, covering every inch, and seeing 'a great many bones on the floor of the valley, bones that were very dry', god asks ezekiel, 'son of man, can these bones live?'
do you know what his answer was?
what would yours be?
tonight we will dig a little deeper (pun intended) into the valley of the dry bones.
see you at 4 at fude,
peace to you,
scott

no upper room this week

the upper room will not be gathering at fude this week. most of us will be up at family fellowship weekend at manhattan beach camp. scott and brenda will be leading in worship out there. we will be back at fude next sunday. have an awesome long weekend...
peace to you,
scott