Thank You
What an amazing privilege it is to have Uncle Perry & Aunty Catherine speak to the Lifespring family. A couple who truly loves God and loves others. They have been at Lifespring from the very start – they have seen the brightest moments of our family history and have lived through the darkest moments of our past as well. Perry spoke specifically on 3 major areas he felt the Lord wanted Lifespring to hear: Affirm God’s Call & People Encourage…
Cocktail of Shame vs. Bottomless Kindness
Have you ever felt like you’re not quite good enough? Like, just about anyone on this big old planet is better qualified or confident or whatever-it-may-be, than you? Earlier this week I was feeling especially discouraged. I felt out of sorts and not like myself at all. There were moments when the problem wasn’t even that I “wasn’t myself” …it was more like I didn’t even know who “myself” was; like something was missing. And it was! Somewhere along the…
That Day Changed My Life
I remember the first time I ever heard the voice of God. It was a Friday night and Overflow (youth group) met in the church basement to do something called intercession. Ryan was singing and we simply sat asking the Lord what to pray for or sang along in worship. I had no idea how or what to pray for – but I enjoyed worship, I enjoyed His presence, and I enjoyed the friends around me. In the midst of…
What is your Gospel?
The Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ 1. A New Covenant – Hebrews 8:6,13 – an upside-down value system.2. A New Love of Grace and Truth – Ephesians 2:8-10; John 1:14,173. A New Life with Eternity in Sight – John 14:1-7 Taken from the book Irresistible by Andy Stanley (page 229) “Full of grace and truth. John shared a meal with and listened to the teaching of a man described as full of grace and truth. Not the balance between grace and…
Getting Unstuck and Moving Forward
For I am the Lord your God who takes hold of your right hand and says to you, Do not fear; I will help you. isaiah 41:13 Over the past few weeks, I’ve been thinking about Pastor Alvin’s message about moving forward in challenging times. One line that Pastor Alvin shared in his devotion especially stuck out to me. He said, “God’s word is always instructing us to move forward and not stay stuck and worse still, look back.” I…
August @ KidzHarbour
We ‘ve all seen how difficult it can be to try and cope without strong connections… and I don’t mean just the internet kinds. We need our relationships and friendships to keep developing in order for us to feel more grounded and children are no different! Although we are taking a break from our weekly Zoom children’s programming, if you would like to sign up for a one-on-one Zoom call with Pastor Laura that is an option! If you’re needing…
Your Greatest Tool
After reading the book Holy Sexuality and The Gospel by Christopher Yuan as a pastoral team, one of the takeaways I got from the book was that empathy is our greatest tool to bring the gospel of Jesus Christ to the World. No matter your race, gender, sexuality, or anything you place your identity in, Jesus wants to take that place. But having any conversation about such things without the holy spirit can be rather futile. I believe that empathy…
Make Every Effort to Know Who You are In Christ
Yesterday, we had the privilege of hearing our Elder, Jonathan Koh, speak about the challenges of being in the world, but not of the world. There is truly a struggle in the world today figuring out “who am I”? As Jon transparently shared yesterday, one of his greatest struggles was figuring out if he identified as Singaporean or Canadian. Since he spent part of his life in Singapore and part of his life in Canada, he felt like he didn’t fit it…
Updates Required
A number of year ago the Lord used my cell phone to give me a valuable object lesson. Nothing seemed to be working properly and there were bizarre glitches taking place that I couldn’t seem to clear? (Does one clear a glitch…?) Anyway, after trying to delete pictures and old text messages, I realized that my phone needed to go through a series of updates. I had seen – and ignored – the notifications. Reminders were a nuisance until there…
Vaccinate or Not?
Dear LifeSpring Family, Ever since the vaccine for Covid-19 became available, there has been much said, written, and posted about whether one should vaccinate or not. In the past several weeks up to today, I have had several discussions about the merits of one or the other. Today I had lunch with a colleague of mine from FamilyLife Canada, who has decided not to be vaccinated. And around dinnertime, I made a call to our dear friends in Kelowna out…
Moving Forward in Challenging Times
We are living in unprecedented times. Many of us have never experienced a pandemic before that lasted so long, and affecting every country in the world. My grandmother who is turning 102 have said she has never lived through a time like this. We are also experiencing multiple challenges like climate change resulting in horrible forest fires, devastating flooding, and the challenges that are very unfamiliar to us. Political instability in many parts of the world. Tragic human suffering is…
Having Compassion
“Jesus traveled among all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, announcing the good news of the kingdom, and healing every disease and every sickness. Now when Jesus saw the crowds, he had compassion for them because they were troubled and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, “The size of the harvest is bigger than you can imagine, but there are few workers. Therefore, plead with the Lord of the harvest to send…