My wife's dog passed away yesterday morning, she was 10 years old; in dog years that would make her 70 years old. Her passing brought about a lot of sad emotions. She will be greatly missed.

Nobody likes death, in fact I'm pretty sure everyone hates it. Death is probably the worst thing to experience here on earth. To lose someone and to not have that person around anymore is the worst feeling.

However, death is the destiny of everyone. No one will escape death, no matter what we try to do. We can exercise, eat healthy, have surgeries or lock ourselves in a room- each one of us will taste death.

But besides the obvious, why does death hurt us so much? Is it because we yearn to live forever? I think everyone, no matter what they believe, yearns for a place where there is no disease, no sickness, no death, no wars, no sadness, no tears- a place that is completely perfect. A place where we can see our dead loved ones again.

The Bible calls this place heaven. For Christians, this is the hope that we have. Death is not the end but a beginning. I'm aware that some people would call this "wishful thinking"; that a place like this does not even exist.

But I would wager everything, that all people despite their convictions or beliefs, long for a place like this. Even if they don't believe in a God or in a heaven, I'm sure deep down they would hope its true. Who wouldn't want to be reunited with their dead mother, father, brothers, sisters, cousins, friends and pets??

This is one of the reasons why I believe Jesus and Christianity is worth considering.

I was driving in my bus (yeah I drive school buses part time..lol..) and I was talking to God and I noticed something different in my prayers. Slowly but surely my prayers have become small, trivial and realistic. This bothered me for the whole bus ride. I used to love praying BIG prayers, asking God to do impossible things. But lately, it been prayers about merely surviving and getting by in life. I would pray for Church, but it would be small prayers like praying that we make rent and hopefully reach a few people.

This time in the bus reminded me that I had forgotten about the dream. It reminded me that my faith has become small. I can picture Jesus saying to me "Oh you of little faith", and he was right. The painful part about it was that I never even noticed how small my faith had become. I had let problems, struggles, and the stresses of life shrink my faith.

My time in the bus reminded me that I serve a BIG God! A God that does the impossible! It should always be an expectation not a hope, that God will do crazy-amazing things! When we started this Church, we had such big dreams and hopes. But lately it seems that many of us have forgotten the dream. We have settled for mediocrity.

Let us not forget the dream! Let us continue to dream BIG and have faith that God will do the impossible! Let us continue to pray and expect God to do things that only God can do. Never stop working, never stop praying and never forget who we follow!

These past few weeks have been pretty rough, maybe a better word for it is overwhelming. There were so many times where I felt so anxious and so worried that it was taking over my life. The only way I could respond to it was to turn to God. I needed help. I needed to talk to Him and seek his presence.

These past few days I have been better. I've been more at peace and I feel more secure as I trust Him. It gave me a new sense of how much I need God; that I can't go through life without Him especially when problems become so overwhelming.

As I was going through this, I was wondering to myself how it would be like to not have God in your life . It's hard for me to imagine life without God. It would just be so hard. It would even be more stressful and challenging. I would have a hard time surviving. Like what do you do when you know you can't do it? What do you do when you fail? Who do you turn to when you need help and your friends and family can't? If we rely solely on ourselves, failures become even bigger because we have no one to blame but ourselves.

I wonder that perhaps we were not meant to rely just on ourselves- it would just be too hard. That maybe we are limited. Maybe there is a reason for that, maybe God likes it when we rely on Him, when we depend on Him, when we trust Him. I know some people would call God a "crutch". But I don't see it that way. I see it more as a loving Father and friend who has tremendous compassion to our circumstances that He is eager to give a helping hand.

A lot of Christian experience is based all on emotions. Based on how we feel. It is not necessarily a bad thing, but I wonder if we have neglected the mind? If you ask many Christians today to tell people "what" they believe I'm sure many Christians are able to do so.

But if you ask them, "why" it's true, I'm willing to bet my house that many Christians have no clue. I really believe that is the problem with today's Christianity. Can we answer questions like "Is the Bible reliable?"; "Why is Sex before marriage wrong for you?"; "Why is drunkeness is bad?"

Can we answer these questions without using the cliche "Because the Bible says so...?"

If you use that, then I have a question for you-"why does the Bible say that?" Is it just for fun or because God had nothing better to do?

Here is a good article that I found at the Christian Post. I agree with the article whole heartedly.

On Tuesday, I was watching one my new favorite shows of the year- Glee!! It was the episode where Quinn's parents found out that she was pregnant. Now if you don't know anything about the show, Quinn is supposed to be the President of the Celibacy Club and her parents are "Christians". It's always funny to see how media portrays Christians and usually it's always in a bad light. But I can't really blame them because there are a lot of Christians who are in fact jerks and really mean. But then again, there are a lot of Christians who are kind and loving.

What interested me the most about this episode was the reaction of Quinn's parents at the revelation that she was pregnant. As I was watching, I was really hoping that Quinn's parents were going to react in a graceful and forgiving manner. But instead her parents got mad and kicked her out of the house. It was so sad. Quinn was obviously remorseful and she even admitted that she made a mistake. With tears she apologized and cried for help.

Unfortunately, there would be no help, no grace and no forgiveness. All we got was Parents that were so embarrassed and so ashamed, that the only solution they can think of was to kick her out. Wow! And there supposed to be Christians too. How sad.

Contrast this with Fin's mother, a single mother, most likely not a Christian and she also finds out in this episode that Fin is going to be a father. And her reaction was more Christlike than the so called Christians. She was so supportive and she held her child as he cried in her arms. Assuring him that everything will be ok. She even took Quinn and gave her a home- gave her a place to stay.

It is so ironic that the ones that claim to follow Jesus are the least like Him, yet the one that does not claim to follow Jesus, looks more like Him. Ugh! How pitiful! If we are to call ourselves Christians then we better paint an accurate picture of Christ. The fruits of the Holy Spirit are: kindness, gentleness, faithfulness, love, peace, patience, goodness, and self-control. How many Christians look like the "fruits" above?

I am not saying to ignore the sin or to excuse it, but if someone is sorry for it and remorseful shouldn't we forgive?? No matter how horrible the sin? Wouldn't Jesus do that to us when we seek forgiveness? Never in the Gospels do we ever see Jesus struggling to forgive someone. It's funny how we talk about grace- yet we are so horribly slow to show it.

I'm getting sick of our reputation in the World- it does not paint an accurate picture of Christ. It actually paints a distorted one. I'm going to see the "Blind Side" with Sandra Bullock on Friday. Here's hoping the Christians in this one paint a better, a more accurate picture of Jesus.

So last night before I went to bed I was thinking about what it would look like to have a "Missio Dei Mentality"- in other words what does it mean to have a "Mission of God" mentality?

This what I came up with. A person with a "Missio Dei Mentality" looks like this:

1) First and foremost is always dependent on the Holy Spirit. Jesus left the Holy Spirit to us and sometimes I feel He is the forgotten God. Francis Chan's new book is actually about this. But we need to be confident in the Holy Spirit's power! To the point that we expect the Holy Spirit to work. It also means that we have complete trust in the Holy Spirit even when we cannot see tangibly what He is doing. I heard it once said: 100% man and 100% God. We do what we can and we let God do what He does best!

2) Relationships!! We are out there to form genuine relationships with people. So we don't see them evangelistic targets, but we actually want to be their friends and out of that we tell them about Jesus and we invite them to Church. So the ideal is to hang out with them during the week and get into their lives. Caring for them holistically meaning caring for their past, present and future needs. This becomes our mentality- that we think about others and find a way to bless them through relationships.

3) Bless the Community- seeks to help those in unfortunate circumstances. We seek to work outside of Church walls, blessing the community with good works and finances.

4) The Church is who we are and not so much the building- wherever you go Church is happening because you are there. The Church is not just a Sunday thing; it's a everyday thing! We don't have Sunday Friends, there is no such thing as that. Community and belonging happens throughout the week.

5) Missionaries to the Culture. We engage the culture not run away from it. We do not back down from a challenge or run away from questions. Instead we take advantage of opportunities to engage the culture with knowledge, wisdom and character. Sharing the truth and reasons why we believe in a clear and concise manner that is understandable. This is done with kindness and respect.

Did anyone catch Gossip Girl on Monday? Like many Mondays, Gossip Girl is on at the Cay household and in this episode low and behold, the "Christians" make an appearance. But unfortunately, they made us look really lame and I mean so lame that you would laugh and shake your head in embarrassment and disgust . For me personally it was quite hilarious but it was also quite sad that many people view Christians in this manner.

The scene in Gossip Girl showed a group of Christians (invited by Blair Waldorf) crashing Georgina's party..lol..and they were all wearing Yellow Christian t-shirts and singing hymns in unity while mingling with people at the party. They were handing out literature, talking in Christianese and they were holding crosses in a weird way as if to shun away Vampires.

It was amusing yet sad. As a Christian, I am nothing like these "Christians" on Gossip Girl. But I would say in shame that some are exactly like that. It sucks that TV or media in General would focus primarily on the minority of Christians that are loud, obnoxious, and plain weird. But I guess it would make a better show and a better story. I wish they would also show that Christians are regular people who just love Jesus and do have certain values. But most often were portrayed as really weird or judgmental.

What if the only "Christians" people ever meet are those that are on TV? That would be tragic! Though this sucks, I also welcome the opportunity to break people's stereotypes of Christians. I welcome the challenge and so should you. So lets show people who Jesus really is by loving people and truly acting like Him.

To the "Christians in Gossip Girl"- what would Jesus do? Definitely not that!

XoXo Gossip Girl

It was a pretty sad week with Pastor Jesse passing. I had the privilege of speaking at the viewing and it was nice to know that I had nothing but awesome memories of Pastor Jesse. He is someone that I really want to be like. As a pastor, you want to be something like Pastor Jesse in his humbleness and his care and love for others. There is nothing quite like friendships and relationships. They are the backbone of what we do and love. To love someone and to care for them is one of the most powerful things we can give to someone.

The best times are usually spending time with friends over dinner or over coffee. Relationships are priceless! We can buy all these material things, but they will never come close to having the same power that a relationship or a friendship has. Spending time with people we love is where it is at. Memories are made when we are with friends.

People want relationships- they want to be loved and cared for. It's great to share Jesus with people, but it's more powerful when we do that and they know we actually care and love them too. I believe they would be more receptive to having a relationship with Christ when we show (not much say) that Jesus loves you.

It is amazing to me that the God of the Universe wants to have a relationship with you. Jesus wants to be a part of your life. He is interested in your fears and what you care about. He wants to walk with you through the good times and the bad times- promising to never leave you nor forsake you. He has dreams for us too! Dreams that no eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has even conceived or imagined what God has planned for those that love Him.

Relationships must be one of the most important aspects of Grace Generation. It has to be a church that genuinely cares and loves people. A Church that is willing to invest in the messiness of people's lives and guiding them to the best relationship that they can have- Jesus Christ!

So I appeal to everyone to look at the interest of others and not just our own. For relationships have power to change lives and make life worth living.

So for days and days, i've been contemplating about what I should blog about on this website. And for days and days, nothing. And I think to myself, why is it so easy to blog about my own life? About what I did, what I watched, what I ate. Yet when it comes to blogging about matters of the heart, i can't seem to come up with anything?

So I thought about it... and it's really very simple. I don't need to try to think up a "special story" to blog about. The truth is, God is a big part of my life every single day. It's funny how we really take God for granted. My relationship with God has got to be one of the most important things to me, yet I always seem to forget about it. God has blessed me with so much. I feel guilty for never taking the time to just thank Him for everything He's done for me.

So this is what I have to say. God, thank you so much for being there for me. For being the shoulder I can cry on when I need You. When the times are dark in my life, You never leave me there. You always lead me out of the fog, You're always the one true thing that I can hold on too. You know anything and everything in my heart, my hopes, my dreams, and my desires. You're my Father, and i'm your little girl. Thank you for always holding me close and giving me the warmth of Your love.

Wow! How time flies..lol..our first official service is this Sunday (Aug. 2)! That was a quick 7 months! Now we are here and to be honest I don't really know what to expect. I have my ideas, I have my dreams but I'm not quite sure what will happen. In some cases I don't want to know, I want to be surprised- I want to be kept in suspense!

Whenever God did something in the Bible it was always something amazing- something impossible! It was never anything small, it was always something great! Something BIG! I have learned along the way to always expect something big and majestic from God. To not settle for anything less. To not doubt but have faith in the great things our God can do. My mentality has changed to the extent that God really does want to show his power. He really does what to do great things!

BUT our lack of faith, our doubts and the fact we like to put God in a box has made it harder for us to experience all that God has for us. We have chosen to settle for mediocrity- expecting less than what God wants to give!

What if we had faith like a mustard seed- faith that can move mountains? What if we expected only great and powerful things from God and not settle for less?

Ask God to show up! Ask Him to reveal His power! Ask till your blue in the face- ask to the point that you won't accept mediocre results! Believe that God is capable of doing the impossible! If the Bible is any indication to what God can do- then my friends we are in for a treat!

Are you excited? Are you nervous? Maybe it's both.

It has only begun- greater things are yet to come.

A few nights ago, I was at work (I work the night shift) with the very few people that I basically see everyday at work, *Amy, *Brad, and *Joe. Just to give a little bit of perspective, Amy is a believer, just as I am. I really appreciate having her as my partner at work, as it seems that the amount of Christians in my workplace are spread really thin. Brad on the other hand, he is basically an agnostic. An agnostic is the definition of a person who generally just has no solid opinion about God/religion/spirituality that they are willing to commit to. Brad is very open to all religions and loves to hear about them and learn about them, yet that's all he does. He does not believe that there are any right or wrong things, because he simply does not know that we can ever know that. As for Joe, well I'm not really sure what Joe believes (and honestly, I've never had the courage to ask him). However, I don't believe that Joe is a Christian, because usually when the 4 of us have our "religious" debates, Joe tends to side with Brad.

Despite all of our differences in our values, I just want to say now that I absolutely LOVE working with these people. They are all an amazing crew of hard workers, and they are very kind, caring, and funny people. I usually have a blast on my night shifts because of these people! Anyways, so now that you know a little bit about everyone, here's what happened.

We were having one of our nightly debates about "religion" again (as the 4 of us sometimes do once in a while). Usually, it will be triggered by a witty remark from Brad telling Amy (jokingly), "Well, what would Jesus do?", when she is unable to make a decision about something. This will usually get a few laughs at first, but then the conversation can sometimes go a little bit deeper, which in this case, it did.

I don't remember exactly how it started (because I was listening to music in one earphone, so I was kinda tuned out), but once I tuned in to the conversation that was going on between Amy, Brad, and Joe, all of my attention turned to them. I listened helplessly as Brad and Joe were constantly shooting question after question after question at Amy, questions about her faith that she was trying to answer the best she could, yet every answer she had would lead to another question, becoming more difficult each time. Usually, our little conversations aren't this intense. Yet this time for some reason, it was.

Most of the questions they were asking her, were basically about proof. They wanted solid proof about why she believed in what she believed. Wanting proof about God, Jesus, the Bible, everything. Amy was just being hounded with questions. I don't think they asked me initially, because I was listening to music on earphones at the time. I can tell she was really trying her best to answer their questions, but the amount and type of questions they were asking was just too much.

And where was I in this conversation you ask? That's just the thing, I DON'T KNOW!!! I could see Amy looking at me with her eyes pleading for help in this discussion, but I was completely frozen! Usually, I join into these conversations quite easily. But this time, I was absolutely stumped. At that moment in time, I truly had NO IDEA how to answer these people. And i was SO FRUSTRATED with myself. I sat there for several minutes in silence, just THINKING THINKING THINKING. Trying to think of an answer, trying to defend my faith. Trying to think of WHY I believed in what I believed too. And NOTHING. I don't know if it was just fear of being rejected, or fear of not knowing enough to "battle" them in this debate, but I was seriously stumped. I couldn't even bring myself to attempt to say something.

And just as quickly as it begun, it was over. And me just sitting there, I had said NOTHING. And the last remark I got from both Brad and Joe was, "Hey, how come you didn't say anything? Isn't your husband a Pastor? You usually say something!". And that hit me really hard. Because the truth is, I didn't know how to defend my faith. And, i SHOULD BE ABLE TOO. I should be able to do it with ease, and be passionate about it. I should be able to explain why I believe what I believe, without any fear and with confidence.

I have made a promise to myself that I never want this kind of thing to happen ever again. I will study, I will learn, I will read, I will talk to people, I will seek, I will gain knowledge, I will do whatever it takes. I will do whatever it takes so that next time, I will be fully prepared to defend my faith.

(*names have been changed)

It was sad that this was the first time that I did something like this. Why haven't I done this before? Perhaps there was no opportunity to do something like this? Or perhaps I was too busy feeling comfortable? I feel both are true. Helping the poor in my opinion is bottom of the list for most Churches. It looks like most churches are too consumed with ministering inside the church than it is outside of the Church. Just look at some Church's Budget and you will see what they prioritize and what they value.

From this experience, I cannot help but be frustrated at how many Churches ignore the poor. Jesus was all about healing people. Whenever someone was in need like the blind man or the man with leprosy, Jesus would immediately heal them. He didn't tell them that He would do it later. He never ever said no. He never said wait for heaven. And He never said that if you accept me first then I will help you. Jesus was not only concerned about people's spiritual and eternal destinies, He was also concerned about their present needs. He was also concerned about their life in the here and now.

Sometimes Churches focus way too much on the future. Yes, it is very important that we preach that Jesus is the Savior of the world. Yes, we should tell people about the Gospel. Yes, we should be concerned about people's eternal destinies. But it should not give us an excuse to ignore and and not care about what people are going through in their present lives. If we look at Jesus, He looked at the person holistically. This means that Jesus was interested in the whole person. He was concerned about forgiving their past, abundant life in the present, and heaven in the future.

I got to meet and talk with a lot of homeless people. It was interesting to know that many of them do work, but they just don't make enough. It was also interesting to meet a man named Chris, who had a college diploma from SAIT. He had diploma in networking- yet He couldn't find a job. It was also heartbreaking to meet people who are addicted to drugs and alcohol. I met one person who spent $1000 of his welfare cheque on booze.

It's true that some of them have made pretty bad choices but not all of them have. We as a society love to put stereotypes on people- thinking that everyone fits into them. The funny thing is, many people who have stereotypes have never talked to or spent time with the people that they are judging. But it is humbling to have your stereotypes broken and destroyed when you meet someone that doesn't meet fit that criteria.

I truly believe in helping others for the sake of just helping them. There should not be a hidden agenda or a hidden criteria. So what if they are addicted to alcohol, does that mean we don't help them? I wonder, what if it was your friend or relative that was addicted to alcohol- do you just sit there and criticize them? Or do we do something about it?

When Jesus said love your neighbor- it didn't just mean your friends and relatives. It meant everyone! Your neighbor is the poor person in Downtown Calgary or the person you do not like. We sometimes forget that the homeless in Calgary are people too. They are loved by God and made in God's image. But for some reason some of us have these feelings of superiority about ourselves. And we may never say it, perhaps we even think it- that we are better than these people. But honestly we are not.

I would encourage you to read Matthew 25: 31-46 and answer this question:

What have you done for the least of these?

"For what you do for the least of these- you do it to me" Matthew 25: 40