Jonathan Manafo

I normally have one show on TV I clear my schedule for to watch. For the last few years it was “Alias”. Right now it’s a great show called “brothers & sisters”. So…this Sunday night, Janet and I take a seat on the couch and get ready to watch…and…the ticker on the bottom of the screen says, “new episode of brothers & sisters next week @ 10pm”. That really sucked.

Why I watch this show:

It’s about a family of 5 adult siblings (3 brothers, 2 sisters) and their mom. The show always involves some type of drama that causes friction in the family, i.e. news about their deceased father, a business problem, leaked information, etc. This family can’t keep a secret. Within hourse everyone knows what’s going on. The cool thing is they always seem to end the show with everyone connecting and lovin’ each other.

I know this isn’t really ideal, but it reminds me of my brothers and sisters and mom. There were many times we disagreed or knocked heads or just thought one sibling was acting like an idiot. But we always seemed to work it out. Here are a few reasons I think that was possible: 1) We talk a lot. Seriously, we always lay it on the table. I can talk with my family for hours. 2) Our Dad never shied away from telling us what he thought. He was a strict one, that’s for sure, and we heard his views all the time. We learned how to disagree, while still respecting and loving him. 3) We have a hard time walking away mad. Sure it happened sometimes, but more often than not we worked things out at the moment and didn’t let things linger.

This was not normal for an Italian Family

I’ll make a connection to the church in a few days…stay tuned…

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Last Saturday night at (what we call) Fusion, we embarked on the topic of Heaven and Hell. Actually, we called it, “what’s around the corner?…thoughts of the afterlife”. Our band rocked the house down, we covered “gravity” from John Mayer, “where are you going” from Dave Matthews and “I could only imagine” from Mercy Me, plus some other great tunes.

No matter how much prep I put into the night I felt like I didn’t know enough. I’m not going to get into it too much…But, thought you should know that the word “hell” only comes up 14 times in the NT; on the other hand the word “heaven” comes up 270 times. I used a few sources, some that I liked (ie. NT Wright) and others that I didn’t (ie. Brian McLaren…more on his universalism stance then his thoughts on hell).

On hell, we summed up that the imagery Jesus uses is mainly that…imagery. I’m not saying that hell is not a real place. I still think it us. What happens their is still up for grabs. One thing for sure, no matter what, Jesus is trying to get our attention so we don’t waste our life on things that don’t last and put our trust in him. If our lives and heart are not part of God’s Kingdom, it’s about as wasteful as burning up and gnashing teeth.

On heaven, we summed up that we’re not going up, but God, his Kingdom and his ways are coming down. Heaven is more of a fact then a place. It’s more about who then where. More than half of the references to heaven revolve around kingdom language.

All this to say that we ended with John Mayer…that’s right a stoned guitarist. His tune gravity ends with these words, “keep me where the light is…”. No matter what we think about the afterlife or heaven or hell, if you stay where the light is…Jesus…we’ll be ok.

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I was walking my son to school this week and he began to describe differrent kids in his class to me. I’ve seen a few of them as I watch him play, then get in line each day and eventually walk by those big doors (big to him) that lead to his JK class. So he’s telling me about his new friends and let’s me know (in his 5 year old innocent fashion) that a few of his class mates are brown. Knowing what he meant and loving his discrpition I then asked him what colour he is and he said something that was so profound. He said that the colour of his skin (under his clothes) is beige. And when I asked him what colour I am, he said dark beige. He never once mentioned that anyone in his class is white. Actually he did say someone was white, but he was referring to ‘Iceman’, the superhero.

If we could only describe the people in our world like 5 year olds. In his eyes we’re all shades of brown. Not red and yellow, black and white, but shades of brown. We really are more the same then we think. Maybe if we don’t pollute our younger generation of kids with the crap we learned growing up, then maybe they’ll learn what it means to trully live ‘together’ in one world.

Let’s hope & pray!

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It feels like a while since I’ve written anything. I guess things have been busy. For those who do check up on me here what’s been going on…

I’ve been into the writing of C.S. Lewis lately. I’m taking a class at UofT on his life and work. It’s facinating. I don’t go along with all his thoughts on theology or his view of Scripture, but boy was he a genius. His Fiction work is so creative and his non-fiction is deep and streching. If there’s one thing I can say is that he is a hero for the laity (people who serve the church in a volunteer capacity). He wasn’t a minister or priest, but he served the church and the cause of Christ so well.

Things at church (CLC) are cool. I feel like our church is constantly in transition. The weird thing is that we’re healthy (or getting healthier everyday) but not growing as much as I (or our leader) think we should. I’ve never really written much about this on my blog, but thought that today was a good day to start. I’ll write more about this in a few days, but today only say that our team of leaders is great (starting with Mark, our lead pastor) and it’s only a matter of time for some life change to occur in our church and community. (don’t get me wrong…there’s lot’s of good happening, just not as much as we think should)

Last thing I’ll say is that I had a neat opportunity to worship with a great group of young adults this past weekend. I was with ‘Resonate’, a group from APC, Toronto (www.apchurch.org). I worked with their band (great I might add) for the week-end and had a blast rockin’ the place down. Every session was different. SAT-AM, I lead from guitar and had (Matt) a gimbe playing with me. SAT-PM, I got to lead from Bass (which is always a joy). You have to understand that I’m anxious when I do this because you have to rely on your band a lot more. Well, they totally came through. Dave, Matt, Margaret & Heather rocked the house. SUN-AM, was a mix of both. My good/old friend Rob Vagacs, was the weekend speaker and led us through some relevant issues that pertain to the Christian and the Church.

That’s it for today. Hope to be writing more regularly again.

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