Two weeks ago you were just a writhing bump in my wife’s belly. Now you’re a squirming, crying, farting and cooing ball of life that wakes me up at night, makes me laugh out loud, and tugs at my heart with every seemingly random expression that crosses your face.
Two weeks ago your mother and I were an upwardly mobile young couple, masters of our own destiny and authors of our own story. Now it’s your destiny that concerns us most, and we have a new role as characters in your story.
Two weeks ago I was Jon: husband, geek and student. Now I’m a dad. And for at least the next 15-18 years or so, I’ll be expected to teach you all the things I’m only just starting to understand.
Rest assured that I’m going to make mistakes. That there will be times when I won’t know what you need — whether it’s at 2:00 in the morning and you won’t stop crying, or 10 years from now when you come home from school in tears. That there will be times when I’ll correct you when you didn’t deserve it, and times that you’ll make a mistake and I won’t be there to pick you up. That there will be times when you are hurt, and I’m not there to help you, and times when you’ll be happy and I’ll forget to cheer for you.
But those things will happen because I’m human — not because I don’t love you with all my heart.
I read books before you were born. Books that accurately described how weird it was to have a pregnant wife, but failed miserably at describing how incredible it would feel to meet you. Books that warned that as the dad, I might not be able to bond with you until you were a bit older; that I might have confused feelings about how your arrival changes the dynamic of my marriage; that I might have difficulty learning the things your mother already instinctively knows about caring for you.
Those books were wrong.
I loved you the moment I laid eyes on you.
Your mother and I were totally prepared to have you in our family, and we couldn’t be happier that you’re here.
And you fit so perfectly in my arms that it wasn’t difficult at all to learn how to calm you down when you’re scared, wipe your little butt when you fill your diapers (how can so much poop come out of such a little man?!) and talk to you when you’re bright eyed and taking in your world.
It is incredible to me that you are my son. That you are a part of me and a part of the woman I love.
It is even more incredible to me that I am your dad. That God would trust me with such a huge responsibility, knowing as He must, that no matter how much I love you, I’m gonna make mistakes. I’m praying that I can do enough things right to balance those out. You deserve a better dad, but you’re gonna have to deal with me. I hope that when I fail, you’ll turn to your Father in heaven to take care of the things I can’t.
Love,
Daddy

I didn’t coin the phrase, our pastor did, but I did get to be a part of making it happen…
Have you ever worked on something so hard and so furiously, that you don’t even get time to look up to see how it was working out? That’s what the new church campus has been like for me — and I suspect some others. It wasn’t until a brief window of about 10 minutes this past Sunday that I was able to grasp the scope of what had happened…
To be honest, I get tired just thinking about the new campus. Earlier this year our church assumed we were heading in a more traditional direction. They’d bought property, they’d discussed building plans. Most everyone we talked to in the congregation assumed it was only a matter of time until Northway moved from our cramped little mall space into a comfortable big church building. It was probably only about 4 months ago that we realised that God had a much more exciting plan in mind for us. Multi-campus churches aren’t a new idea, and there are lots of incredible ones throughout the States that we could learn from, but it was still a completely new project for those of us working to pull it off — and by the time the location was decided on, there wasn’t much more than a couple months to get it done.
The challenge wasn’t just to do church at two locations, it was to do Northway in two locations. And Northway doesn’t do anything small or understated… or very far in advance. Our main campus is a former gym that, every 4 weeks or so, gets transformed into a different environment and theme via stage sets, elaborate lighting, and pervasive and thematic video. When you walk into Northway you never know what to expect, cause over the week, someone might decide to build a brand new stage, or paste the Last Supper on the wall, or re-wire the entire video system… and it’ll get it done, cause God has blessed the church with so many of His willing servants. The idea of duplicating that effort in another, bigger location, the construction of which will be underway until the last moment, is just a terrifying one…
But the challenge was set in front of the church. God led, and the people got to work. And man did we work. Christmas Eve was sort of a trial run. We only had a temporary Certificate of Occupancy, and had sort of the bare minimum up and running. But we did 4 services there, all of which were close to full up. And then we had two weeks — over the holidays — to finish the job, and bring the rest of Northway to a new gym: nurseries and kids rooms, volunteer facilities, check-in stations, high def video equipment… the list goes on. My part was a small one, and I was able to plan ahead a bit further — I avoided construction constraints and all-nighters by using our kitchen at home as a staging area — but it was crazy. I think I, like pretty much everyone, just put my head down, worked my butt off, and trusted that God would pull everything together and make it happen.
And He did. This weekend was our first multi-campus Northway experience, and no logical sum of individual efforts could add up to the result we got. We had 3 full services at our home campus, and one packed-to-over-flowing service at our new campus. I’m not sure the numbers, but I’d say we easily approached 2000 attendees across two days and two locations in two cities. As volunteers met the night before to figure out how things would work, and then especially as staff pulled together at the home campus to head down to the new one, the excitement and anticipation was palpable. Who knew if this would work? Who knew if our volunteers could do this? Who knew if people would show up? Who even knew if our video boards would stay alive through the service? We certainly couldn’t have known, but God did.
I was doing last minute set-up tasks at the new campus on Saturday, and assigned to the home campus for Sunday, but I had to hop in my car and sneak into the new one, just to check it out. I got there about halfway into the sermon, and couldn’t find a single free parking spot. I walked into the lobby and was confused to find it full of people — until I snuck into the sanctuary and realised there were no empty seats…
It turns out that people are excited to hear the word of God — if you can present it in a way that is relevant to the world we live in today. And if you’re willing to go to them: to pick up your comfortable church experience and bring it to where they are, they’ll show up. And it’s deeper than “If you build it, they will come,” but I’m only just starting to understand it. I guess one of the cool things for me was the not knowing. I mean as a church attendee, not knowing if it’s gonna happen is one thing, as a volunteer maybe it’s another… But as a member of the staff, the realisation that this whole thing, from the beginning until the moment the countdown started for the first service, was a step of faith, is astounding… The fact is, we didn’t know if this could be done, but we knew God was asking us to do it, so we did it. None of us as staff, and none of the volunteers, as amazing as they are, could know if this would work…
Hebrews 11:8 says “He went out, not knowing where he was going…” And my devotional last week challenged me on that. Am I willing to follow God without knowing where He’s leading me? That idea is still a little scary for me, but I guess that’s what God’s been teaching me. A second church campus is certainly not a direction I could have anticipated, but walking in there on Sunday and seeing how God had transformed another gym into His house, and then filled it to the brim with seekers and servants, it’s starting to sink in…

This week I’m getting a MacBook Pro and a Nintendo Wii. I’m not paying for them, and I did nothing to earn them. Neither are mine to keep, but they both fulfill a want I have.
In my youth, if I wanted one of those things, I would have gone out and bought them. I would have spent a pay cheque, and dealt with the consequences later. Or worse, I would have swiped a credit card and accumulated the consequences at 18% interest. And I’ve had a decent job most of my adult life, so I wouldn’t worry about the cost.
Over the last couple years though, God’s taught me (mostly through my wife) some difficult lessons about obedience. About tithing, about being responsible with my money, and even about the value of work.
I still wouldn’t say that I’m the most frugal of people, or the most fiscally brilliant. I know I’m still growing in this area, but I have gotten a lot better. I’m learning to live within a modest but honest budget. I’ve learned to resist the urge to buy the things I want. And I’ve learned that working for a reward in heaven is at least as satisfying as working for a pay cheque on earth.
So I write this post, not to brag, but to record for myself the fact that God honors obedience. That it might take some humility to congratulate a friend on his new 42″ plasma TV when we’ve barely had a working CRT all year. But that it’s worth it, cause God takes care of his children.
Any time I think that working 75 hours a week, 35 of them unpaid, is unfair, this post is to remind me that I have never wanted for anything — not even a MacBook Pro.
And that God is good.

I know blogging about a TV show is pretty inane, but this is just a warm-up. It seems like it’s been awhile since I’ve done any worthwhile blogging (picture posts of my kid are obviously cute, but they don’t count as they have no literary value), and I need to get back in the groove, so I’ll start with blogging about TV and see what happens when/if the creative juices get flowing again.
Since we’ve had copious amounts of time locked inside hospital rooms and our apartment, we’ve managed to plow through seasons 1 and 2 of Lost. It’s one of those shows I’ve been meaning to get around to watching, but another show where there’s no point in trying to watch it live (or even PVRed) cause if you miss a single episode you’re… lost. So we worked through Season 1 during the couple weeks leading up to Benjamin’s arrival, and watched all of Season 2 in the week following it — when the little guy either eats or poops every hour, there’s not much else you can do but sit around and wait for him to demand your attention.
So at first we weren’t so into the show. It didn’t really get that interesting until they discovered the hatch, and they spend a LOT of time going into the back story of the characters — the reasons for those apparent rabbit trails are only now starting to become clear. In fact, most of Season 1 was pretty slow, and if it weren’t for being trapped in a hospital room, we probably wouldn’t have made it to Season 2. I’m glad we did though, because the show got a lot more interesting in it’s second year. I understand now why so many people are addicted to it.
One attribute of our method of watching the show, episode after episode off a DVD, is that we probably kill the suspense that most people feel waiting for next week’s episode. Now that we’re into season 3, which isn’t available on DVD yet, we’re starting to feel that a little bit, as we only buy episodes on iTunes when the PVR fails to offer up anything interesting. The scope of the story background is what’s most impressive about the series. At the surface it’s the story of some people who crash land on an island and begin to discover it’s mysteries. But as the watcher, discovering with them, you can’t help but be sucked in by what is apparently over two-decades of history that you need to understand to really know what they’re up against.
Watching Lost is a bit like feeling lost yourself, which can be frustrating. There are many moments when Nic and I just look at each other like “WTF?” (the F stands for “frig” cause we’re good church goin folks, y’know) but when you figure something out, the “ah-ha!” moments make it worth it. I know some of you out there are long time watchers, and I know the Internets are full of forums of people speculating and surmising; I have my theories, but it’s more fun to just let the story unfold. If you’ve never seen Lost, and find yourself out sick for a week or so, I’d highly recommend you rent the series on DVD…