• Attendance: about 95 people were present
  
• Atmosphere: Crowded and intimate simultaneously (both good things).
• Food: lot's and lot's. (If you'd like some leftovers, I think we still have some left)
  
• Baptism: our FIRST! (Samuel... in a portable baptistry)
  
• Music: phenomenally done by Jacob and Zac
• Message: "The story of two sons" -Luke 15:11-31 (Influenced by Tim Keller)

Here are a few photos:

Above: the cool table. About half of our youth group

Above: the next generation. Enough energy in these three brothers to power a small city.

Above: Hard to get a total view of the entire event. Around the corner to the right (just after the doorway),  is the main hall where we hold Sunday morning service.

Above: that's me (Rob) way in the back on the far right.

Thank you for praying! 

Wednesday (tomorrow) at "Le Lounge" (a local college outreach) we will be discussing the following topic:

Sex: Is God for or against our sexual pleasure?

Already it seems, many new students have been invited to this discussion. I'll present for a few minutes, then we'll discuss the topic in today's Quebecker culture.

Here's the response: God loves us. He wants the highest and best pleasure for us, this includes sexual pleasure... but goes much beyond. He desires us to experience His presence for eternity, that is why He sent His Son to die for us, to save us from eternal torment away from Him to eternal communion with Him.

We'll walk through what the Bible has to say about sex, then pleasure, then Christ.

Please pray for us. 

Recently, Chuck Colson (founder of Prison Fellowship Ministries and BreakPoint), a man who has been greatly used by God and that I greatly respect and admire, published this article concerning Quebec. To begin, I greatly appreciate Chuck Colson and his tremendous influence, testimony, and resources.

A friend e-mailed the link to this article, and no, this is not news to me, this article reflects my daily life.  Factually, most of what is stated in the article reflects our daily experience here in Quebec.

However, I think this article is also unintentionally propogating a potential misconception of Quebec. In the article we get the impression that Quebec is a society that rejected God, thus... the consquences of said rejection.

Here is the problem: Quebec is a society that never knew God in the first place. What Quebec rejected was a nearly all-powerful and abusive Catholic church... not God Himself. (We must, as well, not make a direct correlation between the Catholic church in the U.S. and the Catholic church in Quebec. These are two very different expressions in two very different contexts. Don't make the mistake of looking at a local Catholic church in Oregon and say "It doesn't seem to me that the Catholic church was abusive". Many, many Americans have responded thus, but they have never experienced the pre-1960's Quebecker expression of the Catholic church).

Yes, Quebec, prior to the 1960's was close to one of the most religious societies on the planet with over 90% of the population being practicing Catholic.  However, during that same epoch evangelical missionaries were thrown in prison, their cars burned, their church windows broken, priests proclaimed that "if you read the Bible you will go crazy" (that's a translated quote from my mother-in-law), priests witholding communion from couples who wanted to stop at 6 children, etc. (Continued below...)

Here is how I see it: I think of the story of the prodigal son (Luke 15:11-31).  In that story we have two sons... one that lets his irreligion separate him from his father, the second (older) lets his religion separate him from his father. The younger, it's obvious, squandered his life with outright sin and rebellion. The older did all the right stuff... but not as a result of his communion with his father, but because he too wanted his father's stuff (I thank Tim Keller for pointing this out).

 I see Quebec pre-1960's as a societal equivalent to the older son: very religious, and simultaneously very separated from the father. Then, as a result of the Quiet Revolution, Quebec has become the younger son, equally cut off from communion from it's father by outright rebellion.

 The danger I see is this desire to "go back to the good old days" when Quebec was more moral, etc. However, in the "good old days", I would highly doubt that a higher percentage of Quebeckers passed from this life into communion with our Heavenly Father than in today's outright rebellion.

We desire the beginning of a new period of Quebecker history, one that has never before existed.

Anyway, that's my two cents for a Monday.

-Rob

Today (Palm Sunday) the room felt empty as we began, then, in typical baptist fashion, a mad rush of people began filling the back rows and then working their way toward the front. (Wish I had some photos to show you... maybe of our Easter service next week). We ended up with at least 84 people (maybe more... we didn't officially count during the service, but we are certain that at least this many attended).

Afterward Jacob led a teenage lunch. 12 (TWELVE!) teenagers stayed after to grow together. Jacob's push is toward their becoming spiritual mentors to impact their community... not just playing games. They'll be lunching it together every other Sunday.

As they left the morning service, people took 150 copies of the below invitation to our Easter celebration. We will also have our first baptism next week! Please pray for us!

Here's a Translation:

Easter Celebration, March 23, 9am-12pm, breakfast-message-music

Message: The story of two sons (Luke 15:11-31) 

The PyroManiacs devote some space each weekend to highlights from The Spurgeon Archive. The following excerpt is from "Unto You, Young Men," a sermon on 1 John 2:14, preached Wednesday evening, May 13th, 1868, at Westminster Chapel, London.

For the moment it seems that the evangelical blogosphere is awash with news, studies, and articles on sex, pornography, and STD's. The percentage of teenage sexual activity in Quebec is much higher than in the U.S. or western Canada, but as of right now I don't have any similar Quebecker studies to rely on. I imagine that we could easily add 10-20% to any one of these statistics in Quebec (the Quebecker school system is much more liberal concerning sexuality than it's American counterpart and the rate of abortions in Quebec is the highest in North America 42.6% rate per live birth).

Here are a few studies, statistics, and articles concerning the U.S. that are making waves:

• 25% of American teenage girls (ages 14-19) have an STD. source
  
• 50% of American teenage girls (ages 14-19) are sexually active. source
  
• 70% of American men ages 18-34 view pornography at least once a month. source
• 17% of American women struggle with a pornagraphy addiction. source
  
• 11-years-old: Average age of first internet exposure to pornography. source
• 1-in-3 visitors to pornographic websites are women. source
• Sexual addiction in America (an article in Christianity Today)
• Porn's Stranglehold (an article in Christianity Today)
  

In Quebec, it's an even bigger deal. I pass two sex shops on my way to our building every Sunday morning... and half a dozen more as I simply cross town for a Bible study.

This is not simply a guy problem... this a humanity problem.

As part of our discipleship process here in Quebec, we walk through common landmines in the lives of Christians. Two weeks ago we dealt with bitterness and forgiveness. This week we dealt with Sexual Temptation. We separated into groups (guys and girls separated) and here is what we did as guys:

• We read Proverbs 7:21-27... the story of a young man reeled in by a local adultress. Today this could be a magazine, a billboard, and, most likely, the internet.
  
• We watched the first 5 minutes of "Lord of the Rings", "Return of the King". The utter degradation of Gollum, because he would not give up a destructive pleasure (in his case, the ring), is a powerful visual as to what happens to our souls when we hold tightly onto things like pornography (or bitterness). Yes, it gives pleasure, but Proverbs 7:27 says this:

Her house is the road to the grave. Her bedroom is the den of death.

• Matthew 5:29... what does it mean? It seems that we should have a lot more one-eyed Christians walking around. Okay, we're ready to get serious... not only for us and our families, but also to be used by God to announce the Gospel in St. Jérôme! 
• But instead of focusing on "don't look at pornography". We did something different. One guy proposed that we each call each other every day for the next week to ask how our communion with God is.

Accountability? Yes. Throw away computers? If need be. But we've got to change our diet. We, as an entire Christian community, have got to feast on God's Word, as a community... that our desires be changed and formed by the Creator of our souls.
 

For the three of you who care, this is blog post #100 on our World Venture blog (I ate a cookie in celebration).

Two feet of snow in one night...I always dreamed of winters like this growing up in snow-poor western Oregon. We are now officially about a foot and a half away from breaking the all-time record of 383cm that fell the winter of 1970-71.

Every church service (including ours) on the north end that we know of was cancelled (since we received even more snow than downtown). Snowplows did not visit our street until close to 10am Sunday morning, making it impossible to drive.

I found a few videos on YouTube about winter in Quebec. (WARNING, if you are from the Pacific Northwest, these images may be emotionally troubling (unless you love to ski).

"I believe in a god but not in miracles" she said.

"So" I responded, "a god could be out there somewhere helping to direct this huge thing called the universe, but it isn't possible that it could ever intervene and do a little miracle?"

"You're right" she thought, "it isn't very logical is it?" 

There were about eight students, sitting around a table in the massive entry-way of the Cégep. I walked up, sat down right in the middle and asked "Do you guys like to watch movies?"

"Yes"

"Do you like movies with Denzel Washington?"

"Yes"

"In a few minutes we're going to watch the movie "Man on Fire" and discuss the themes found in it, and how they relate to Jesus Christ. Who do you say Jesus Christ is?"

And so the discussion began...

Three new students came to watch the movie. Two guys stayed for a while and we plowed through the gospel. We talked about offensive themes like "we are all totally depraved" and "Jesus really died and really rose again" and if you put your faith in Him as your Savior you will be born again... and perhaps live a very difficult life as His disciple... that is worth it for eternity. But if you continue on in your relaxed life in rejection, you will be eternally separated from God in torment."

One turned out to be a Christian... but none of his friends knew it. He was so excited that his friend heard the gospel.  But now his secret is out. He is a disciple of Christ and all his friends now know it.

The other... we exchanged e-mails. He wants to come back. He wants to know... did Jesus really, really, really, rise from the dead? If so, then that changes everything.

Eight people watched the film, only four (that I can tell) know Christ already. Thank you for praying.
 

HT: Justin Taylor