Renewal Mission Newsletter just out
February 26, 2011
Dear friends in Christ,
You will enjoy the Renewal Mission Newsletter which shares many encouraging updates locally and around the world.
Renewal Mission Newsletter (click to open up)
In the Power of the Holy Spirit,
Ed Hird+
http://edhird.wordpress.com
Join us on March 6th on Bishop Silas Ng’s 3-month Discipler123 process
February 23, 2011
http://discipler123.blogspot.com/
By Bishop Silas Ng
This is a sample of what will be starting on March 6th. 
Please join us for the 3-month campaign.
Discipler 123 Daily Devotion
DAY 1 – Choose Light, Away from Darkness!
Welcome to my new blog to support those who participate in our Discipler 123 Campaign. This one is DAY 1 and I publish this one on January 23, 2011 as a sample so that you know what this blog will look like. DAY 1 is for your daily devotion on March 6, 2011. I will publish DAY 2 on March 7, 2011. You may choose to follow my first blog which I started in July 2009 and today is DAY 522 and on 1 Samuel 31. The easiest way to go to my first blog is to type me name “Silas Ng” and have a google search. It will be on top of the list and the name of the blog is “Devotion on Fire”.
The site of this blog is: http://bishopsilas.blogspot.com
The pictures attached were taken on January 23, 2011 during the Installation of our new Primate, Archbishop Onesphore Rwaje, with the presence of the President of Rwanda and his wife. Please pray for Archbishop Rwaje, his family and his new ministry.
Today’s Reading: John 1 Please read John 1 and listen to what the Lord Jesus Christ would like to tell you before reading my Spiritual Journal below. If you would like to learn a simple and good way of Daily Devotion method you may click this link directly for the method: Subject Shifting Devotion.pdf.
Please click this link to worship with us – You Are My All in All http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zC617kE1maU&feature=related
Please click the links below to John 1:
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Chinese: http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John 1&version=CUV
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NIV: http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John 1&version=NIV
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ESV: http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John 1&version=ESV
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Message: http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John 1&version=MSG
The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.John 1: 14
Chinese: http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John 1&version=CUV
NIV: http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John 1&version=NIV
ESV: http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John 1&version=ESV
Message: http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John 1&version=MSG
The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.John 1: 14
Welcome to Day 1 of my second blog!
May you feel the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ every time when you read His Word and may you be able to enter into a daily intimate personal relationship with Him!
I have been praying for months to ask Jesus whether I should start this second blog so that those who join our Disciplers 123 Campaign can have a place to start their daily devotion. It would be difficult to ask those who have not started their daily devotion to follow my first blog which has already gone through nearly half of the Bible. It would be easier for me just to write my first blog: http://bishopsilas.blogspot.com , but what I received from the Lord is to start this new one for you so that you can “STAY WITH HIM”!
What I heard from Jesus today is very simple and important: “Choose light, away from darkness!”
Jesus led me to count how many times the word “light” appears in John 1. There are seven usages of “light” and afterwards two of “glory”. After verse 14, I can’t find any usages of “light”. And then Jesus asked me to count how many references to “Jesus” or words similar to Jesus like “the Word”, “that light”, “Christ”, “the One”, “the Only”, “He”, “Him”, “Lamb of God”, “the Lord”, “Son of God”, “Son of Man”, “the King”. I was and actually still am speechless with tears flowing down on my face. I am feeling so strongly the love and presence of Jesus Christ our Lord here in this room with me. He said, “How many?” I typed it right now to answer Him, “67 times, Lord! It was repeated 67 times in just one chapter. I asked: “Why was I never aware of this, Lord?” Jesus replied, “Did I not tell you in the first day(one and a half year’s ago) in which you wrote your first blog that you are blind, my son?! You need the Light so that you can see and can see more and more clearly.”
So many people are in darkness, for they do not want to receive the Light. You can go to church weekly, thinking that you can get out of your darkness, or you can read the Bible as hard as you can be or take many courses to study the Bible, or you can be a leader in your church for many years; but only you know whether you are still in darkness or not. When you receive Jesus into your life as your Savior and Lord of life and when you have a daily intimate personal relationship with Him, then you should be in the true Light and not in darkness. Only Jesus can give you light for He is the Light!
Why did John use the name of Jesus 67 times in his first chapter? Because God told him to do so in order to tell us that Jesus is your only answer! Is Jesus just a historical name to you or is He really your Lord, your Savior, your King and your friend?
Jesus! Jesus! Jesus! Jesus! Jesus! Jesus! Jesus… Come, Lord Jesus!
Dear Lord Jesus, Thank you Lord for such a powerful experience of enjoying your presence and your words. Help me to stay with you and in you daily as much as I can be. In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen.
Please click this link to worship with us – Shout to The Lord http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HzNsEBPB-Z8&feature=related
Prayer items today:
For ACiC/AI
Bishop: Rt. Rev. Silas Ng (Michelle)
Network Leader: Rev. Peter Klenner (Jenny)
Network Leadership Team: Rt. Rev. Silas Ng, Rev. Peter Klenner, Rev. Ed Hird (Janice), Rev. Simon Neill (Jo), Rev. Ken Bell (Sonya)
Bishop’s Chaplain: Rev. Ed Hird (Janice)
Clergy Formation Advisor: Rev. Ken Bell (Sonya)
Administrator: Mrs. Zenia Cheng (Clarence)
Pray for our Rwanda bishops and Anglican Mission bishops:
The Most Rev. Emmanuel Kolini
The Rt. Rev. Chuck Murphy, III (Margaret)
Pray for our ACiC/AI churches:
All Saints Community Church
Rector/Senior Pastor: Rev. Peter Klenner (Jenny)
Welcome! The purpose of this blog is to encourage those who join our Disciplers 123 to have a place to start their daily devotion – a wonderful and intimate time with Jesus.
There are three reasons for you to use this blog as your daily devotion:
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A healthy spiritual diet – One chapter of the Bible daily. We really need at least one chapter of Bible daily so that we are well fed.
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A good example of Spiritual Journaling – What I have committed for 1,189 days(the Bible has 1,189 chapters) to write this daily post is not for teaching purposes but this is my daily spiritual journal – I write down what I hear from Jesus and how I experience His intimate relationship with me each day. I have launched a wide-spectrum research on daily devotion and have found out that there are less than 10% of Christians that are having daily devotion. Out of that 10%, many having daily devotion are doing so because of guilt (they know that they are Christians and need to have daily devotion and feel guilty if they don’t do that), duty (they need to fulfill their duty as a Christian) or study(lots of Christians primarily use their daily devotion as a time to study the Bible). I do pray and hope that you will make up your mind to have a relational daily devotion so that you can have an intimate time with Jesus. I pray that you will write your own spiritual journal as well.
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An online discipler – One of the reasons that so many Christians do not have daily devotion is because they do not have a discipler. A discipler can help them build up this basic element of discipleship when they first become Christians. The best way for you is to have a discipler to walk with you for a certain period of time so that daily devotion become a good habit. Or, you may have a small group of two to three people to encourage and be accountable to each other so that you won’t stop your daily devotion. I offer myself as your online discipler to walk with you daily to enrich your spiritual journey. So, shall we start this journey with Jesus Christ our Lord
A healthy spiritual diet – One chapter of the Bible daily. We really need at least one chapter of Bible daily so that we are well fed.
A good example of Spiritual Journaling – What I have committed for 1,189 days(the Bible has 1,189 chapters) to write this daily post is not for teaching purposes but this is my daily spiritual journal – I write down what I hear from Jesus and how I experience His intimate relationship with me each day. I have launched a wide-spectrum research on daily devotion and have found out that there are less than 10% of Christians that are having daily devotion. Out of that 10%, many having daily devotion are doing so because of guilt (they know that they are Christians and need to have daily devotion and feel guilty if they don’t do that), duty (they need to fulfill their duty as a Christian) or study(lots of Christians primarily use their daily devotion as a time to study the Bible). I do pray and hope that you will make up your mind to have a relational daily devotion so that you can have an intimate time with Jesus. I pray that you will write your own spiritual journal as well.
An online discipler – One of the reasons that so many Christians do not have daily devotion is because they do not have a discipler. A discipler can help them build up this basic element of discipleship when they first become Christians. The best way for you is to have a discipler to walk with you for a certain period of time so that daily devotion become a good habit. Or, you may have a small group of two to three people to encourage and be accountable to each other so that you won’t stop your daily devotion. I offer myself as your online discipler to walk with you daily to enrich your spiritual journey. So, shall we start this journey with Jesus Christ our Lord
Update from Christchurch New Zealand:
(Rosemary Behan in Sydney Australia has family in Christchurch.)
“At the moment of course, people are in rescue mode, but in the streets of Christchurch people are dealing with smelly houses from fridges and freezers that are going off, toilets that you’re not allowed to flush, no water and no electricity.
Damage is widespread, but it’s rarely shown on the television. For instance, my son apart from not being able to live in his house, missing outer wall, says the church is too badly damaged to ever use again. That’s a fairly new building, no glamour ‘rubble shot’ but the people of that area will have nowhere to meet. That is going to be repeated all over the city, Jay wonders how the Anglican church is going to survive this .. indeed how the city will cope with this. He said after only one day, the thought of just walking away seems so tempting.
“Let me talk about children”
Let me talk about children, Jay has three. In the September 4 earthquake, his youngest daughter was trapped in her room by a falling bookcase, when he got in she jumped in his arms and said, “Dad, make it stop.” Great faith in fathers, but the mums and dads feel so helpless, they can’t stop anything. Since that date, there have been 4500 so called aftershocks, each of which is an earthquake in it’s own right. Children have their sleep interrupted, and mums and dads can’t promise that is the last one dear, there won’t be any more. Now an even worse one has hit. Children are thoroughly traumatised and their parents are desperate to be able to comfort them.
I could tell you about the missing young mother who is a member of the church at St. Saviour’s who is missing in one of those buildings you see on the television, but quite honestly, it’s ALL the citizens who need the prayers of Christians(…), that they cope with the next hour, and the next hour. That they find water and food, that they get some sleep free of aftershocks, because you can’t cope with anything when you lack sleep and are full of fear.
When in our freedom, we take a shower and think of those there who are breathing in the dust of rubble and can’t even wash and who are sitting on their buckets in their gardens to go to the loo .. we should remember to pray for them.
http://www.anglican-mainstream.net/2011/02/23/news-from-christchurch-new-zealand-%E2%80%93-damage-is-widespread-but-rarely-shown-on-television/#more-43342
Beautiful pictures of the Sunny North Shore
February 20, 2011
“For better, for worse” “When things go well and when things don’t go well, I am committed to you.” We often ignore the ‘for worse’ part of the marriage vow.
“A Minute With Maxwell” Today’s Word: Marriage
johnmaxwellteam.com (short video clip)
Ed Hird
a vision God gave us for the Greater Vancouver Renewal Mission
a vision God gave us for the Greater Vancouver Renewal Mission
February 15, 2011
A vision for renewal given to West Vancouver Baptist artist Fred Peter
Photos from the 11th Annual Anglican Mission Winter Conference
February 14, 2011
Archbishop Emmanuel Kolini (ret.) at AMiA 2011 Winter Conference
Pastor Assiel Musabylmama of Kigeme Rwandan Diocese
Rev William Beasley of Chicago Greenhouse movement with Bishop FitzSimons Allison (retir. South Carolina)
Jonathan Ellis, Intern at The Table Church Plant in Victoria BC
Bishop Silas Ng & Archbishop Yong Ping Chung at ACiC Network Meeting
Conference Centre for the AMiA Winter Conference
Almost 20,000 visited in January 2011
February 14, 2011
By Rev Ed Hird
While in Greensboro North Carolina this past week, I heard AMiA plenary speaker Dr Leonard Sweet say that if you were born after 1973, you are the TGIF generation (not ‘Thank God it’s Friday, but Twitter, Google, IPhone, Facebook 
). Those of us born before 1973 are immigrants to the TGIF world who face the challenge of learning a new language and a new culture. Are we willing to for the sake of the Good News? My father, who recently joined Facebook, is a shining example to me of someone who is not afraid to keep up technologically and to enter new worlds. When my dad became an electrical engineer in 1950, they were still using test-tubes for radio communication. Over sixty years later, my dad is still growing and learning. And so can you. It is never too late to innovate until they bury you in the ground.
One of the great features of the completely free http://wordpress.com is the finely tuned ‘site statistics’ counter. It measures daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly number of people visiting. You can easily see how many view each particular article. I discovered today that almost 20,000 people (the most yet in the first 1 & 1/2 years) visited http://edhird.wordpress.com in the month of January 2011. It has gradually built up from just 1,000 visiting in the month of August 2009. As well, last week when I was away at the AMiA Greensboro NC Winter Conference, almost 6,000 people visited my blog (the most in any week so far).
One of the reasons why my blog is getting so much traffic is that I have posted 285 articles that were previously written over the past 23 years for the Deep Cove Crier and the North Shore News. With each article, I add ‘tags’ which Google reads to help direct people to my site. I have added around 5,000 tags for the 285 articles, a simple feature with http://wordpress.com where you just add a word or phrase and click.
If you don’t have a http://wordpress.com blog yet, I encourage you to consider starting one today. You don’t need to be a techie. They have made blogging so simple that anyone can do it these days. See you online.
The Reverend Ed Hird, Rector
St. Simon’s Church North Vancouver
Anglican Mission in the Americas (Canada)
http://stsimonschurch.ca
-award-winning author of the book ‘Battle for the Soul of Canada’
-previously published in the Deep Cove Crier
http://www.battleforthesoulofcanada.blogspot.com
p.s. In order to obtain a copy of the book ‘Battle for the Soul of Canada’, please send a $18.50 cheque to ‘Ed Hird’, #1008-555 West 28th Street, North Vancouver, BC V7N 2J7. For mailing the book to the USA, please send $20.00 USD. This can also be done by PAYPAL using the e-mail ed_hird@telus.net . Be sure to list your mailing address. The Battle for the Soul of Canada e-book can be obtained for $9.99CDN/USD.
-Click to download a complimentary PDF copy of the Battle for the Soul study guide : Seeking God’s Solution for a Spirit-Filled Canada
You can also download the complimentary Leader’s Guide PDF: Battle for the Soul Leaders Guide
Valentines articles to prepare your hearts for Feb 14th
February 7, 2011
Note: Thanks to your ‘dialing in’, there was over 900 people today reading these articles, the most ever in one day.
By Rev Ed Hird I will always remember Valentine’s Day, February 14th 1967 back in Grade 7. My best friends celebrated Valentine’s Day by having each of us name the 10 girls we liked best in order (1-10).
By Reverend Ed Hird On New Year’s Eve in 1976, the well-known author Michael Harper was sailing solo on Lake Taupo in New Zealand. Suddenly his boat capsized in a particularly violent squall about a mile offshore.
The famous Vancouver based author Dr. J.I. Packer once commented that “marriage, being the most delicate and demanding of relationships, as well as potentially the most delightful, is a terribly difficult topic on which to write wisely and well.”
edhird.wordpress.com
By Rev Ed Hird Is it okay to suggest in 2011 that we as men and women are equal but often different? Too often equality becomes reduced to a sterile sameness. True equality between the sexes involves a joyous celebrating of our very real differences…
edhird.wordpress.com
edhird.wordpress.com
edhird.wordpress.com
By Reverend Ed Hird My wife Janice and I will soon be celebrating our 34th Wedding Anniversary. Over three decades later, I can say without reservation that I love her more deeply with each passing year.
edhird.wordpress.com
edhird.wordpress.com
edhird.wordpress.com
By Reverend Ed Hird Valentine’s Day rolls around every year without fail. Husbands forget Feb 14th at their peril. Somehow our wives interpret our forgetting Valentine’s Day as a sign that we don’t care, that we may be putting other priorities ahead of them.
How about working on your anger as a Valentine’s Day gift?
edhird.wordpress.com
Dr John Gottman has much to teach us that will help us prepare for Valentine’s Day 2011
edhird.wordpress.com
Note: Thanks to your ‘dialing in’, there was over 900 people today reading these articles, the most ever in one day.
By Rev Ed Hird I will always remember Valentine’s Day, February 14th 1967 back in Grade 7. My best friends celebrated Valentine’s Day by having each of us name the 10 girls we liked best in order (1-10).
By Reverend Ed Hird On New Year’s Eve in 1976, the well-known author Michael Harper was sailing solo on Lake Taupo in New Zealand. Suddenly his boat capsized in a particularly violent squall about a mile offshore.
The famous Vancouver based author Dr. J.I. Packer once commented that “marriage, being the most delicate and demanding of relationships, as well as potentially the most delightful, is a terribly difficult topic on which to write wisely and well.”
edhird.wordpress.com
By Rev Ed Hird Is it okay to suggest in 2011 that we as men and women are equal but often different? Too often equality becomes reduced to a sterile sameness. True equality between the sexes involves a joyous celebrating of our very real differences…
edhird.wordpress.com
edhird.wordpress.com
edhird.wordpress.com
By Reverend Ed Hird My wife Janice and I will soon be celebrating our 34th Wedding Anniversary. Over three decades later, I can say without reservation that I love her more deeply with each passing year.
edhird.wordpress.com
edhird.wordpress.com
edhird.wordpress.com
By Reverend Ed Hird Valentine’s Day rolls around every year without fail. Husbands forget Feb 14th at their peril. Somehow our wives interpret our forgetting Valentine’s Day as a sign that we don’t care, that we may be putting other priorities ahead of them.
How about working on your anger as a Valentine’s Day gift?
edhird.wordpress.com
Dr John Gottman has much to teach us that will help us prepare for Valentine’s Day 2011
edhird.wordpress.com
Twenty-four North Shore Valentines
February 7, 2011
By Reverend Ed Hird
Valentine’s Day rolls around every year without fail. Husbands forget Feb 14th at their peril. Somehow our wives interpret our forgetting Valentine’s Day as a sign that we don’t care, that we may be putting other priorities like work and sports above them. So, husbands, be warned. Flowers are much cheaper than lawyers.
My wife and I moved to the North Shore twenty-four years ago as of Feb 1st 2011. Before that we celebrated four Valentines in Abbotsford, and six in Vancouver. As of May 21st 2011, we are celebrating our thirtieth-fourth wedding anniversary. I can tell you without any hesitation that I love my wife more now than I have ever loved her. To celebrate our 30th Anniversary, we flew to England to visit with our youngest son, serving then as a youth missionary in Newcastle. It is an amazing gift to be married to someone whom you really like to be with. My wife has been that gift to me. She has been so loyal in supporting our ministry at St. Simon’s North Vancouver in the past two+ decades. That is why I dedicated my book ‘Battle for the Soul of Canada’ “with gratitude to my dear wife who has been married to me for almost thirty years, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, till death do us part.” You can imagine that it is not easy to be married to a clergyman, especially with the challenges that orthodox Anglicans have been facing in North America.
My wife serves as our St. Simon’s NV Music Director, co-ordinating several different choirs and contemporary worship bands. Archbishop David Somerville, who first ordained me, once said that if the devil ever gets into the church, he will come in through the choir. Because music is so closely connected to worship, it makes sense why music can easily be contentious. Sometimes people have worship wars over contemporary songs vs. traditional hymns. At St. Simon’s NV, we decided fifteen years ago to honour both expressions by offering both a traditional 9am BCP service and a contemporary 10:30am service. Because my dear wife is musically bilingual, she is able to encourage both expressions with integrity. Unlike many church choir directors who are always quitting and creating havoc, my dear wife has been a source of musical stability for the past two decades. Dynamic music is a key to a vibrant, healthy Church.
My wife and I went to Winston Churchill High School in Vancouver, both graduating thirty-nine years ago in 1972. But we only really noticed each other from a distance. We became friends while taking the bus home from the University of British Columbia. She was in Music naturally, and I was in Social Work, dreaming about becoming an Anglican priest. For around a year, we were only good friends. But eventually the penny dropped and I saw the light. My wife really impressed me with her great listening skills, her good sense of humour, and her hard work.
Finally one day in 1975, I invited her to go bike-riding to Little Mountain in Vancouver. The rest is history. Coming back from our second bike ride, I said to her, “Don’t take me too seriously, but relative to two days, I would like to spend the rest of my life with you.” For some reason, this shocked her. But she got over it, and we quickly moved to become engaged. When I introduced her to my mother, my mom said something that she had never said before: “The woman who marries Ed will need to have quarters for the bus”. What she meant is that while I have strong leadership giftings, I work best when I am complimented by someone with strong administrative giftings, who pays attention to the details.
In my first Valentine’s Day article for the Deep Cove Crier twenty-three years ago, I wrote: “Why do I still enjoy Valentines Day? It’s because all of us have a need to feel loved, even when you’re married. So often romantic love can fade imperceptibly from a marriage. In the busyness of children, work, school and sports, our marriage can easily get lost in the shuffle. Marriage Counselors tell us that romantic love is one of the greatest lacks in modern marriages. The bible reminds each husband to love his wife as his own body, to love his wife as he loves himself, to love his wife just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her (Ephesians 5).
edhird
