Wanted: A minister for a growing church...

A great friend & mentor sent this to me recently after it was quoted in one of their sermons. If you can relate please share it with others who may be struggling with the overwhelming burden God has given them to be Jesus' ambassador to the world:

Wanted: A minister for a growing church - a real challenge for the right man. Opportunity to become better acquainted with people. Applicant must offer experience as shop worker, office manager, educator (all levels, including college), artist, salesman, diplomat, writer, theologian, politician, Boy Scout leader, children's worker, minor league athlete, psychologist, vocational counselor, psychiatrist, funeral director, wedding consultant, master of ceremonies, circus clown, missionary, and social worker. Must know all about the problems of birth, marriage, and death; must also be conversant with latest theories and practices in areas like pediatrics, economics, and nuclear science. Right man will hold firm views on every topic, but is careful not to upset people who disagree. Must be forthright but flexible. Returns criticism and backbiting with Christian love and forgiveness. Should have outgoing, friendly disposition at all times. Should be a captivating speaker and intent listener. Directly responsible for views and conduct to all church members and visitors; not confined to direction or support from any one person. Salary not commensurate with experience or need. No overtime pay. All replies kept confidential. Anyone applying will undergo full investigation to determine his sanity.

10 years of ShawnCuthill.com! Happy Anniversary everyone!

It's a historic day for the athensBLOG!! 10 years ago today I fired up this online journal to keep track of the Cuthills adventures as we started in full-time ministry, specifically taking a team to the Olympics in Athens. This explains the name athensBLOG and along the way someone showed me how to register a domain name and www.shawncuthill.com was also used as an easy to remember URL for those who prayed & supported us along the way.


It was a great way to fire off a blog post once a day or so, in the pre-facebook era, and have friends and family updated on everything that was going on.

After a while the athensBLOG got quite a following and comments on my posts piled up along with regular readers. After one contentious debate that went on and on and on, I asked the great people at Quist consulting (ie: Russ) about using server space to host an online forum as an outlet for these discussions. And so after about a year SimpleGathering.com was born. Many of you participated in the early discussions debates and diatribes as the pre-facebook internet lurched toward more social interaction.

The SimpleGathering discussion forum was fascinating and drew many from brethren churches around the world to discuss a myriad of topics. From this collaboration of brethren voices came BrethrenPedia.com, a wiki to help record the history of brethren assemblies. These sites still continue today although I was not able to spend as much time on them as transitioned from Bridlegrove to start our own ministry in Thorncliffe Park.

Our new ministry: www.jesusnetwork.ca

Other sites sprang up like YouTube, then eventually facebook and twitter and challenged blogs for relevance on the web. Posting on social media became the norm and while I bid farewell to regular daily blogging in 2008, I've continued to post on here every couple months. Hopefully some time in the near future all the different online pieces mentioned above can be woven together into one big ShawnCuthill.com experience.



But till then take a look at some of the features on this blog over the years:

The Sayings of Lukas - here        The Sayings of Sylas - here         The Sayings of Olivia - here
Mondays hot topics                     Wednedsay prayer requests        My Jesus years | Only the Injil
My new favorite song                  Greece trips                                Israel trip

So after 1500 odd posts and hundreds of thousands of visitors today I'm taking time to look back on that first blog post on July 21st, 2004 and thank each of you who have been with us along the way! Here's to another 10 years!

http://www.shawncuthill.com/2004/07/2-weeks-and-counting.html

Hello everyone, my name is Shawn and I created this blog for myself and my team who are going to the Olympics in Athens from August 4th to September 2nd. I figured a blog would be the best way to tell everyone what we are doing, and keep everyone updated whilie we are overseas. Be sure to check in OFTEN to get up-to-the-minute prayer requests.

A decision that changed his life - Orlando Franklin in the Superbowl

As my faithful athensBLOG readers will remember, we used to work at Bridlegrove Bible Chapel in Scarborough. We were responsible for youth and community outreach in the Finch/Pharmacy area and made many great connections in the community. We ran a Friday night basketball drop in at the church and hosted various events and retreats. That was 10 years ago. One of the connections we made was with a troubled youth named Orlando Franklin. He was referred to us by the folks at Guelph Bible Camp and had recently got into some trouble with the law. At that camp and one of our youth retreats he gave his life to Jesus and decided to turn his life around. The picture below is from 10 years ago when Orlando was at our place for our youth Superbowl party:

Orlando, center, with other youth from Bridlegrove Bible Chapel

As the New York Post article recalls, Orlando, after getting out of jail made a promise to his mom to turn his life around, and dedicate himself to football. Those who have been following his career know he did just that. Soon after he was involved with our youth, he moved with his mom to Florida, then played for the University of Miami Hurricanes and finally was drafted by the Denver Broncos! He's been a starting offensive lineman for the past 3 years. Today's Superbowl will be the culmination of his promise 10 years ago.

We're very proud of Orlando and what God has done in his life. We continue to track with many of the youth like him that we have known for over 10 years now. It's a good reminder that with any goal you set, it takes time. With discipleship, it takes time. If you want to reach out to others and invest your life in something it will take time. We can't expect that our church/ministry/life will be an overnight success. Don't believe that lie. Instead commit yourself, like Orlando did to getting your hands dirty loving what you do, loving people, making a goal that may take a long long time. 

God is waiting for you to hit rock bottom and make a decision that will change your life. Have the courage to call out to God and ask him to change you. You never know where you might end up.

ps. LET'S GO BRONCOS!!

Toronto: Amazing interactive map from 1998 to 2012

http://www.cbc.ca/news/interactives/before-after/toronto-condos/iframed.html

10 years ago today

This is a bit of a historic day for me! 10 years ago today I quit my job and went into full-time inner-city ministry!! Can you believe it!! For 10 years God has been faithfully providing for our family!

Here's a picture of what our family looked like way back then. Lukas was only 1.5 years old and Hayley was 5 months pregnant with Sylas. haha! We couldn't have imagined all the amazing ways God would lead us and the paths He would take us down, but we're very thankful for how it's all turned out.

Thank God with us for all the things he's done in the past 10 years! What are some things he's done in YOUR life that you couldn't have imagined if someone had told you? Take a minute to think about that and leave a comment with your biggest surprise.

Here's a current picture of our family to compare. I've covered my gray hairs!!

I figured this 10 year milestone would be a great time to reboot this blog and start posting again. We're past the baby stage so I've got a bit more free time. I also want to stay ahead of my kids who are rapidly passing me when it comes to technology! I'll be making a bunch of changes and upgrades to www.shawncuthill.com over the next few months but seeing as today is special I wanted to blog about it and say thank you to God and each of you who have supported us, prayed for us and donated to help us reach out in the city! Let's keep going together for another 10 years!

Keep an eye out for at www.shawncuthill.com for updates and if you've never been on here before cruise through the archives.

Happy 10th anniversary!
Shawn

Amazing Race Good news/bad news

The good news is the teams have been picked for Amazing Race Canada!!! The bad news is that we are not one of them.   

As you can imagine we're dissapointed but we'd like to take this opportunity to sincerely thank each and every one of you who liked, shared, tweeted, viewed our video and cheered us on this journey! It's been very encouraging to see all the support we have and the best way to console ourselves is to think of each of you and what you mean to us.

While we all wish it could have turned out differently, like the Leafs always say around this time of year - there's always next season! Seeing all the responses (70,000 applicants) CTV may have a season 2 in the near future.

As for our page, twitter & youtube channels, someone suggested we turn "The Pastor & The Policeman" into it's own show!  That probably won't happen but stay tuned for future development from this dynamic duo! Also stay tuned to CTV as The Amazing Race Canada kicks off on July 15th!

Thank you once again - The Pastor (Shawn) and The Policeman (Jesse)

Amazing Race Canada!

I'm applying to get on the Amazing Race Canada! Here's the audition video:



And here's a few easy steps to help get us on the race:
1. Like us at www.facebook.com/pastorpolice
2. Follow us on twitter at: www.twitter.com/pastorpolice and retweet us
3. Post our youtube videos on your facebook or twitter: http://www.youtube.com/user/PastorPolice
4. Visit the Amazing Race facebook page here: Amazing Race Canada and leave a comment saying you want the Pastor & the Policeman on the race:
5. Visit the CTV facebook page here: CTV Television and leave a comment saying you want the Pastor & the Policeman
6. Say a prayer :)

Thanks everyone!
Shawn

Lukas graduation speech at Thorncliffe Park

Lukas graduated from Grade 5 today. He was also asked to give a speech about life in a Thorncliffe portable:

The Sayings of Sylas - his first short story

Well we all know Sylas is the creative genius in the Cuthill family. While I usually post interesting sayings of his or one-liners, yesterday he discovered that typing out a story on the computer is much faster than writing by hand. He wrote out his very first short story that I'd like to share with all of you. Ejoy:

once there were 3 mice that lived in a shoe. one day a cat came to the shoe. 3 more came, the mice have backup. 8 more came, cats were outnumbered. 4 more cats came 11 for the mice and 7 for the cats. cats still were outnumbered by 4 so 4 more came 11 to 11. cats werent winning the mice werent winning either. no one knew who was going to win. then an ape came, the fight stopped.
the end.

Thorncliffe Public School Council notice to parents

As my faithful athensBLOG readers know (if there are any of you still left!), we love our neighbourhood - Thorncliffe Park. It's a fascinating neighbourhood that is full of people from so many backgrounds. 35 apartment buildings, 30,000 people, the largest elementary school in North America. There is never a dull moment.

As you may also know, according to Monday's National Post "Toronto (is) the city with the highest concentration of Muslims in North America". And Thorncliffe has the highest concentration of Muslims in Toronto - making Thorncliffe quite an Islamic zone.

Yesterday our kids came home from Thorncliffe Park Public School with a notice about a parenting seminar put on by the school council. This is a great step as many have challenges adjusting to the parenting styles of Canada. You may have seen Russell Peter's youtube video about this :)

What was unfortunate about this parenting seminar is that there was a component titled "Islamic Perspective of Parenting in a Muslim family". Now this is where I start to wonder. I didn't think they were allowed to promote a religious view in a public school?

Below you will see the poster that was handed out to every child in the school:

Thorncliffe Park is a public school. As such I'd like to outline my problems with this seminar. I'd be interested to hear from others in the public school system to see if I'm off base:

1. For me this is a school issue. Not a Muslim or Christian issue. We could be discussing the Baha'i faith or Druze.

2. The school board has to chose to have a "no religions" or "all religions" stance

3. My understanding is that their current stance is "no religions" as they cannot even mention "Christmas" or Easter. There are some variations of this when it comes to holidays like Ramadan.

4. The issue then with this particular incident is that the flyer was sent home *by the school* inviting *all* parents to something that favours one religion.

5. The issue is not even the school hosting the event, but for me sanctioning it and promoting an event which favours and promotes one religion.

This, to me, is unacceptable.

I'd be quite open for comments and will attend this seminar and report back on what it was all about

Blogging from my blackberry!

Well well athensBLOG readers. I have been away for quite some time but not even a new blackberry and twitter account can suppress my need for blogging!

I'm not sure how this will work but wanted to ask the community for tips about blogging from your phones? Or are the days of blogging over? Is there an app I can download? How do YOU blog from your phone?
___________________
ShawnCuthill.com

*Sent from my BlackBerry

The sayings of Olivia v5 - Michael Jackson

At breakfast this morning we were talking about Lions. Out of the blue Olivia looked at me and said:

'When Michael Jackson comes back to life he can teach us how to train Lions? Can we go to his house mommy?'

I think its time for a little talk with that girl

The Sayings of Olivia v4 - boys

Olivia was looking pensive after prayer time. She looked at mom and wondered:

"If God made me, does that mean Satan made the boys???"

I'm sure many sisters have wondered that about their brothers Olivia

The sayings of Sylas v28 - midgets

Sylas came to me the other day with a revelation!

Dad! I know how people became midgets! They drank too much coffee when they were kids!

The sayings of Sylas v27 - Meat shop

The other day we were walking past the local butcher shop and Sylas let me in on a secret:

Sylas: Dad! I know how the meat stores kill the animals!
Dad: How?
Sylas: They have pet alligators in the store!

YouTube comment of the day - volume 1

Well I guess you can teach an old dog new tricks! The dear old athensBLOG has been idling here on the web for the past few years. I haven't spent much time on her but today I came across something I have to post. The old blog now has a new feature "YouTube comment of the day"!

For the past 5 years I've had a YouTube channel www.youtube.com/shawncuthilldotcom. Most videos I post are of my kids or trips I've taken. None of the videos has gained much traction except one. The video below has over 500,000 views and is quite a touching story (originally emailed to me by Uncle Russ). The story is about an autistic basketball player who sinks 6 three pointers at the end of a game. There are hundreds of comments on this video but recently someone posted this beauty:



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zENySdFr7M4

I spent quite some time going thru the comments to see if anybody else noticed what I noticed. 6 three-point shots IS NOT 20 points. 6 times 3 is 21. Basic multiplication. So I wonder, how does a video have over 500,000 views and nobody notices this? at least i didnt see any other comments correcting this math. This is a special video, and the ignorant ones make it less enjoyable.

CLASSIC! To read the comment yourself check out the video on my YouTube channel here

The sayings of Lukas v47 - hovercraft

Last night we were dragging the kids inside after they had fallen asleep in the car. Parents, you know the drill. For us with 3 kids it means usually Lukas has to walk since he's the oldest/biggest.

Last night he was quite upset about this and said in his whiniest voice:

"Why hasn't anyone invented a hovercraft chair yet!"

Thorncliffe library to finally re-open

The ground breaking for this project was back in 2005! I wonder if the process would have gone any faster in other neighbourhoods where people know how to hound politicians. We have the largest population of children in Toronto and the largest school in North America and the most people who need ESL and our library is closed for 2.5 years!? I'm thankful it's back open, but to me it is obvious that the project was not high on any of our local politicians priority list

"After nearly two and a half years, the Thorncliffe Park community is finally getting its library branch back...The library closed in December 2007"

http://www.insidetoronto.com/news/local/article/660755

The sayings of Olivia v 3 - laughing cows!

Sitting at the table this morning for breakfast when Olivia had a revelation...

Olivia: When cows laugh, milk comes out their nose!!

Blackberry or iphone?? That is the question

It's a sad day in Cuthill land. I've finally decided to move into the 21st century and ditch my palm treo. :( I just can't handle the incessant reboots, amateur graphics and limited web browsing.

Loyalty is one of my highest values however I cannot be loyal anymore to the treo nation. Ever since I worked at BMO i have been using palm pilots but with the advent of the Palm Pre it seems that my beloved Palm OS has breathed it's last and i just have to move on.

So my question for all my friends out there in cell-phone land:

Blackberry or iphone??