A Frosty Fest weekend as seen through Instagram

A stroll through the thoughts and sights of Frosty Fest 2012... via Instagram

If you don't love your city, you should either learn to love it or find one you can; because God loves it and sent you into it to show it.
DC

So eat your meals heartily, not worrying about what others say about you—you're eating to God's glory, after all, not to please them. As a matter of fact, do everything that way, heartily and freely to God's glory.
1 Cor 10:31

Nothing worth doing comes without some kind of fight.
Bruce Cockburn

Even now I can't describe why I love skating so much.
Nancy Kerrigan

"Hundreds of people lined up outside Freedom House Church in the Market Square Mall on Monday morning for a pancake breakfast astonishing organizers and bringing people into the downtown for family day.

“We were prepared for this but I can't say that we were expecting it,” Dave Carol, also known as Captain Kindness said. “We sent out 20,000 tickets to elementary school kids in the city for the pancake breakfast but this is the first year we've done this, so we really didn't know what to expect. Clearly, it's a winner with so many people showing up this morning.”
Dave Carrol in the Brantford Expositor article called "Organizers estimate 15,000 took in Frosty Fest"

If you're planning on eating and going on the Berry-go-round... go on the Berry-go-round first. Or else bring a mop.
Captain Kindness

I was asked what my favorite part of Frosty Fest is. My favorite part is THAT it happens.

There were days where I'd sit in church and be bothered that we weren't doing "The Stuff"...
I don't feel that anymore.

"Pray especially for rulers and their governments to rule well so we can be quietly about our business of living simply, in humble contemplation. This is the way our Savior God wants us to live" 1Tim 2:2-3

Dave Carol: "Today felt like seeing the dream of what so many of us have had for years about what Brantford could be. Turns out... it now IS."
Chris Friel: "We are where we wanted to be"

We're stronger together than we are apart


"Today I saw Brantford in a whole new way"
An excited young person


"Seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the LORD for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper." Jer 29:7




"If you build it... they will come"
The Voice




"Horses, like old wooden sailing ships, are breathtaking"
Aaron White

“We really want to let the community know that churches like Freedom House are about the community, We want to be part of the transformation of the downtown.”
Brian Beattie in the Brant News article called "Celebrating Winter at Frosty Fest"

"This weekend is one of the reasons I love my job so much"
A Parks & Recreation worker



After 3 days of full-on work... Frosty Fest was cleaned up by a team of volunteers in ONE HOUR.
Worship and Work.


Brantford can be changed BY good INTO good.



"Not to us, but to your name be the glory"
Chris Tomlin

"Yes, LORD, walking in the way of your laws we wait for you;
Your name and renown are the desire of our hearts."
Isaiah 26:8

I don't normally RIP celebs online but...

I don't normally RIP celebs online... but for some reason I had a "heart" for Whitney Houston and often prayed for her life. First thing Krissy said tonight, "I think she made up with Jesus". I think so too. This was her last semi-big release we played on The Wave a few years ago called "I look to you". I heard it and sensed the anointing that you used to hear in her voice. She's older, a bit worse for wear... but there is something poignant about it. Life isn't about great voices. Life is the story of the redemption of man. There is tragedy in today... but grace is vast. From Cathleen Falsani's "Sin Boldly" on Grace:

"It's somebody throwing their arms around you and saying, 'I love you, but you are an asshole'. 'Yes, but you're my asshole', I envision God saying."

We're likely not all THAT unique (The Boy Inside the Man)

You know why it's so powerful and impacting when people are open and honest about their lives? Because it's inevitable that others will relate. Assuredly there will be someone within earshot that is thinking/feeling/experiencing the same thing, convinced that they are the only one.

I don't think think the human experience is too different for most of us. We'd like to think of ourselves as the sole proprietors of our own lives... but time continually shows us that we're not.

I was driving home from work yesterday and one of my favorite old Tom Cochrane songs came on the radio called "Boy inside the man."(BTW that's why it's so important to play radio roulette; because you never know what's playing on the next station) I love this growing up, coming of age song that always resonated with my teenaged self; hopeful of future exploits. It still does now as a man with that same boy not too deep inside my plumping, greying, aging exterior.

But it wasn't until yesterday that I realized the story told in this song followed my life timeline nearly EXACTLY.

When I turned seventeen
We had passion, we had dreams
Thought the love we were fighting for
Was something holy, something more

I used to make these grand, "principled" stands about the things I was sure that were of eternal significance. My wedding MC spent most of his airtime mocking me for it... rightly as retrospectively many of the issues were quite pedestrian ones. But it felt important... and so it was. Most of the motivations behind the stands I still believe. And then entered a girl...

When I turned twenty-one
We were outside on the run
When I walked out with my girl
We went halfway around the world

Krissy and I finished college and married at 21. It was time to blow this Popsicle-stand like the character in Bruce Springsteen's Born to Run who bursted out of class to get away from these fools. We moved to Africa for 7 months to experience the big blue planet. I hoped we'd never return to the culture I openly loathed and we'd run the globe hand in hand forever. But...

When I turned twenty-five
We were hungry, we had drive
When I turned much older then
When the boy was lost in pride

... we couldn't escape the call of God to return and dig in to our city to be agents of cultural change. We worked, sacrificed, bred, nested, built, pioneered... and were SURE that we'd see revival in our city before my 30th birthday. You couldn't tell me no.

Now I just turned thirty-one
I have lost and I have won
Still I've kept my dreams alive
Cause the boy will never die

I'm now 35. I HAVE lost and I HAVE won. The losses still sting and some I feel like I carry each day in my lunch pail to work . The wins are also marvelous and I revel in them. I'm figuring out how to reconcile the dreamer boy with the responsible adult and feel some equilibrium at night. Both me and my wife better understand that the boy inside the man never dies and if he isn't fed adventure... he gets grumpy :)

I followed this storyline yesterday shocked at the similarities. But maybe I shouldn't have been. We have different plot points, characters and scenes in our individual story-lines. But the ebb and flow of our lives are somehow kindred.

The life of man is very relatable to one another. I'm sure it's why it's so important to spend time with people older than you. They've been there and can tell the tales of war victory and defeat that remind us that we're not alone... but we still need to live ourselves through the season of life we're in. I don't like the phrase, "learning the hard way" because it implies that seasonal-struggles are because we've been dumb enough not avoid hardship and struggle.

We HAVE TO plough through seasonal-struggles. This is the result of Adam and Eve's "fall" where God said to Eve:

“I will sharpen the pain of your pregnancy, and in pain you will give birth."

Adam likely snickered until God turned to him and said:

"By the sweat of your brow will you have food to eat until you return to the ground from which you were made. For you were made from dust, and to dust you will return.”

Burn.

It's not all bad because it's how we grow. To have a child... there has to be labor pain. Women share stories to help assure the babied-one that they are not alone before and after labor. But eventually the moment comes when it's just them and that kid fighting it out on their way to wisdom, experience, that euphoric post-birth peace that falls in the room. Humans have been going through this process since Adam and Eve.

We're not nearly as unique as we think we are. Still make your plans. Still fight your fights. Still work your work and learn what you're supposed to from THIS day. But rest in knowing that God is quietly orchestrating & navigating your life through the minefields. He's done it before and He's doing it right now even as you're reading this. He's doing it so that one day you can lay resting on a bed reflecting on the beautiful story that was the boy inside the man

God often makes confetti out of our big plans for ourselves and uses it to celebrate His better plans for the world

— Bob Goff (@bobgoff) February 8, 2012