A Good Laugh

Found this on a friends blog.  Thanks for posting it Gareth!

Cancer Treatment Round Two

Some people have been asking me to carry on with the story of my cancer treatment so here we go.

After finishing the first round of treatment and being told my cancer had gone into remission they actually let me out of the hospital for a couple of days before I had to begin my next round of treatment.  They call these consolidation treatments.  Because the cancer is so aggressive they like to do these consolidation treatments to make sure the get all the cancer cells in your body.  Because I did so well on my first round they decided to give me a higher dose of chemo this time and instead of being connected for 24/7 they could only do this treatment every second day.  To be honest with you again I really had no problem going through this round.  I can honestly say that it was one of those times when I could feel God and the people praying for me, it was incredible.  I even got a day pass to go out and watch a movie and go to lunch with some friends, and the again they let me out in the evening to go to dinner with my mom.  I did get a little sick but it was nothing really serious.  After the three doses of treatment I was doing so well that they sent me home even though my counts were low they were pleased with how well I was doing.

I remember being at home just relaxing and then I did something I should not have done.  I went out into a public place with no immune system and sure enough I got something.  You really don’t realize how important your immune system is until you don’t have one.  I ended up spiking a fever and had to go back to the hospital again.  This time is was pretty simple though.  Started antibiotics and within two days my fever was gone and I was being released.  All in all it didn’t sound very exciting but there was such an incredible peace over us during this round that everyone who came for a visit thought they were coming to cheer us up, but they were the ones leaving encouraged.

 

I did have two incredible moments that will stay with me forever though.  It is awesome the way God uses situations.  I will share on those happenings next

The Greatest Game

It is that time of year again.  Football is back!  I have had the opportunity the last 4 years to play Semi Pro Football with the Ottawa Deacon Demons.  I love football.  There is nothing like it, the speed, contact, strategy and team work make it the greatest game going.  The league we play in is based out of NY and is called the Empire Football League.  We play teams from Vermont to Scranton.  The leagued is geared for those who are finished with college and did not move on to the next level but still have the passion and ability to play at a high level.  I love the opportunity I have to connect with guys who for most part would never dawn the doors of a church. I have had some incredible opportunities to pray with teammates, connect with them outside of football to help them through relational problems.  It has been an incredible experience.  I got the nickname the REV from the team because of what I do for a living.  One of the funniest things  that happened was at the end of a game we played in Vermont.  Both teams will gather to pray at centre field after the game.  Someone usually leads the players in the Lord’s prayer.  Now that there was a Rev on the team they asked me to pray.  I said sure but was going to pray a different prayer.  I lead them in a basic prayer asking God to heal any injuries, for protection as they travel, just a very short simple prayer.  After the prayer as we were heading back to the locker room one of the guys from the other team walked with me and asked me how long it took for me to prepare that speech.  I chuckled and told him I really just prayed what was on my heart.  This is how the rest of the conversation went;

Him: You just made that up on the spot.

Me: Yeah

Him: Really, just like that?

Me: Sure did.

Him: That’s @#$%^ Awesome!

It was a great momement to see that even though this guy was rough arounfd the edges that he was excited to see that somebody took the time to pray a prayer from the heart.  It is now one of my favorite arts of the game when I get to pray.  I make it a point to get the names of any players that were injured during the game so we can all pray for them.  It has opened some great doors for me to share further with some of the guys.

 

I am looking forward to a great year! 

Brain Rules

Very Interesting.  I will be picking up the book.

 

Design Work

Because I am not preaching this week it as allowed me a little more time to do some design work for the church.  I am no expert that is for sure but there is just something I love about creating design elements that will help us fulfill our vision of growing people with Jesus and others at the church.  I am learning tons and should be finishing our t-shirt design for our student ministry.  I appreciate people who know how to create incredible design pieces that communicate, whether it be a sign, poster, graphic, t-shirt.

 

I will post the t-shirt design when I am finished with it.

613 Rhythm Series

 

 

Thought I would post my notes from our last week of our rhythm series.

So far we have had an incredible series, and it’s almost sad to think that tonight it all comes to an end for this series on rhythm.

Does anybody have a praise report they would like to share?

So far we have looked at,

Week One- The song and how everything needs to work together to have rhythm

Week Two- We looked at the importance of having “WONDER” when it comes to Christ

Last Week- We looked at the importance of being in rhythm with yourself.  If you can’t love yourself how can we love others.

Tonight we will conclude the series by looking at the importance of being in rhythm with others.

What does that mean you ask Pastor Rob?

Tonight we are going to look at the relationships you have with those around you.

Are they helping bring rhythm to your life or are they getting you out of tune.

Pray

I am excited for tonight because I believe that many of you tonight the lights are going to go on.

 

I am a firm believer that we need to make sure we are surrounding ourself with right relationships but so often young people get involved in wrong relationships that end up hurting them and getting them out of rhythm with God.

 

 

From the very beginning we see that God created us to be in relationships.  Not just boy/girl, but healthy, life giving relationships

 

And the LORD God said, “It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him a helper comparable to him.”

Think about it for a second. The importance of your relationship with your parents.

 

When you were born into this world you could do nothing except, poop, pea, and cry.

 

You were depended upon a relationship to help you through those early years.

 

Here is the deal though.  God did not create us to be in just any relationship.

 

His plan is not for you to be in a place where it does nothing but bring you down, cause you to compromise.  His desire is that we have rhythm in our relationships.

 

 When our relationships are out of whack, our rhythm with those people is messed up and that spills over into our relationship with God. 

 

Check it out.  How can you say that your relationship with God is going great when you have some people in your life that you just down right despise, loathe, don’t want to be around.

 

Some people have tough relationships with people that are hear tonight, but claim that there walk with God is in perfect rhythm, when they have malice in their hearts

 

God is revealing our hearts tonight so we can get right what is wrong in our relationships with others wether it be with people here, at school, at work, or even at home.

 

Having rhythm with others sounds pretty easy doesn’t it? In reality is is a very tough thing to live out.

 

Why?

 

Because we have all been at that place where something has been said, done, made about us from a friend and it hurt.

 

It’s hard to work through that stuff and really love those who hurt us, and it is usually those closest to us that hurt us the most isn’t it.

 

Tonight we are going to look at an incredible portion of the Bible that when read gives us a pretty clear indication how how difficult and how important it is to have rhythm in our relationships with others.

 

Many of us know that we should love our enemies, but there’s just something about actually living that out that gets lost in the process.

 

It’s hard to live it out when there is someone in your life who has targeted you. So we find all kinds of “nice” ways to handle it. We find “acceptable” levels of disdain. We avoid that person, talk about him or her when they’re not around or vent to our close friends about how much we secretly really do “hate” them. After all, it’s not like we’re killing anyone, right? Murder is bad, but hate is okay sometimes, right?

Mat 5:21

“You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder,^[a^] and whoever murders will be in danger of the judgment.

Jesus reached back into the laws God had given Moses and begins to set the people up.  “You remember this one don’t you guys”  Now check out how Jesus gives a new interpitation of what it really means to live that out, what it really means to be in rhythm with God.

 

But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, ‘You fool!‘ will be liable to the hell of fire.

Do you see what is happening here.  Jesus begins to expound and reveal that murder it’s bad, but there are other ways that you can commit murder.

 

If you really don’t like that person it’s as if you just killed them. If you have treated that person wrong, if there is friction between you and someone else, then you have a big problem. 

 

Here is the truth guys tonight, you are not responsible for how others treat you, you are responsible for how you treat others.

 

Doesn’t matter if we have been hurt, wronged, talked about we only have the choice in how we will respond, react, say, do about what is happening.

 

Maybe you are here tonight and you have been hurt and you have the right to be mad how do you handle connecting with God tonight then.

 

This is powerful and something we don’t see to often because it’s humbling.

 

“So if you are presenting a sacrifice^[a^] at the altar in the Temple and you suddenly remember that someone has something against you, leave your sacrifice there at the altar. Go and be reconciled to that person. Then come and offer your sacrifice to God.

What does that mean Pastor Rob

This means that for you and me to come in here and worship God when we don’t like that girl/guy, and we are mad at those people, or we have belittled this person or we refuse grace to a parent back home–we might as well not even lift our hands and sing our songs.

 

God basically says, “I will not hear you until you make that right.” 

 

Here is a wake up call for you tonight, the indicator of our spiritual lives is not how often we pray; the indicator is the health of our relationships with one another. 

 

Does that scare anyone or just me. 

 

If you are here and you can’t seem to get along with others, and you have enemies or others are at odds with you, you don’t need to ask why you don’t like anyone. You need to begin to ask why you don’t really like yourself. You aren’t at peace with others because you aren’t at peace with yourself. In reality, the more you make war with others, the more you are making war within yourself.

 

So when it comes down to it what Jesus is asking of us is simple, be weak and real with each other.

Admit when we are wrong and take the steps to make things right.

 

Some of you tonight have made others in this room feel small and pointless and the only way to make things right is to go to that person and make things right.

 

 

I have seen so many youth ministries destroyed because of relationships that are out of rhythm.

 

Maybe you are here tonight and you have been the one on the receiving end of being belittled and broken by some one else.

 

Those words and actions that have nothing to do with who you are .  You are an amazing, dynamic person and you need to know that tonight.

 

Some of you tonight need to go to some people hear tonight and plead for mercy and some of you need to grant mercy tonight.

 

Loving others is an act of loving God. Somehow we can be at peace with God when we are at peace with one another. At the same time, loving others is an act of loving ourselves. Somehow by making peace with one another it is a way of making peace with ourselves. 

 

To be in rhythm with God, we have to be in rhythm with one another. This is how it is supposed to be. Relationships are supposed to work this way. When they don’t, we lose rhythm with God and everything else is messed up. God wants to be in rhythm with you; getting in rhythm with one another is a step towards Him. 

 

Let’s be willing to be real and honest tonight and take the steps to see rhythm restored where it needs to be in the relationships in our lives.

 

Pray 

Great Night

Yesterday had the opportunity to help out good friends of mine from Unite Productions.  They put together a cross Canada tour with Startfield, and Shane and Shane.  It was a great day.  I had the opportunity to help serve by being the chafuer for the guys.  I love doing stuff like that because you get to know the guys for so much more then who they are on the stage.  I was so impressed with Shane and Shane.  These were incredible guys that just loved using their gifts to serve God.  They were real, genuine, humble. and a whole lot of fun to hang out with.  The Starfield guys were great as always.  We have a good friend who is playing bass for them again on this tour(and is also an incredible photographer) so it was awesome to be able to connect with him again.  In total there were about 1000 people at the venue.  I must be getting old because there was no part of me that wanted to be on the inside.  It was way to hot, and dare I say it, but a little loud(LOL).  I just stayed out in the lobby connected with people and hung out in the green room just hearing and telling stories with the guys from the tour.  All in all it was just a great night.  I made some new friends and had the opportunity to serve my friends Paul and Mel from Unite Productions.

 

You can check out some of Dave’s photography here 

Some Entries From The Guest Book

As I promised here are some of the entries that were in our guest book.  These are life giving even today.

 

“As weird as all this may seem, it is giving God an amazing stage to draw his people back to him.  I love you with all my heart”.

Don Lachance, September 22, 2000

Keeper of The Miracles

Miracle #1- No private beds available but Rob has his own private room.

Miracle #2- Bone Marrow biopsy done in Toronto.  Doctor in Ottawa was to perform another one but found out it had already been done and was very excited about the results.

Miracle #3- Don Lachance called up Eric to clear the air between them.

More to come. 

Jason Courteau, September 22, 2000

This one means a lot to me because my mom is no longer around, she actually passed away of lung cancer almost three years ago.

 

“Just a reminder, I love you”.  

Mom, September 23, 2000

 

More Miracles

Miracle #4- Doctor ordered Rob to have private room so he doesn’t have to pay for it.

Miracle #5- Rob’s dad came to visit him.  Hasn’t seen him in 8yrs.  Blessed Rob with $300, called later to wish Rob a good night.

Miracle #6- Tracy Stimpson is fasting beer to see Rob get healed.  Tracey is not a christian but has seen Rob fast for things before.

Jason Courteau, September 25, 2000

 

Miss you lots.  Remember what you taught me.  There is no giant big enough when it comes to God.

Danielle Maclean, September 25, 2000

 

I will post some more over the next couple of days along with some pictures.

 

The Guest Book

One of the greatest things we did during my cancer treatment was set up a guest book for people to sign as they would come and visit.  The support was overwhelming.  The first day alone I had over 30 visitors to the hospital.  The nurses were blown away by the support.  At the time the book was just a chance for people to write something in nothing more.  Looking back at it now I see how powerful it was.  Just the other night I began to read through it and was brought to tears.  To see the way God brought us through that time with the support of our friends was incredible.  Before I carry on with my story and bring you through my second and third rounds of chemo therapy I am going to share with you some of the amazing entries into our guest book.

Looking forward to sharing more with you.