Looking back on 2011 Blogging
December 28, 2011
By Rev Ed Hird
When Chip MacGregor encouraged me to set up my own blog in June 2009, I had no idea that 306,000 people would find their way to this blog. Thank you for coming to visit. My blog was officially started in August 2009, with 14,439 people visiting by the end of December 2009. In the second year of 2010, 73,876 people came to visit the blog. As of the third year of 2011, as December is wrapping up, 217,622 people have paid a visit.
Most of my 372 blog articles are reposted from articles that I originally wrote over the past 24 years for the Deep Cove Crier and the North Shore News. My peak month so far has been November 2011 when 25,856 people came for a visit. Many of these visitors appear to be students researching for school assignments. God is so creative in the ways that he is reaching the emerging generation, who may have never been to church. Please pray with me that God will continue to use this blog to reach young people who may know little or nothing about the good news of Jesus Christ.
My hunch is that over half a million people cumulatively will have visited this blog by sometime in 2012. May God touch these half a million people with abundant lasting life, in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Kings of Hearts now available
December 23, 2011
by Rev Ed Hird
My good friend, The Rev Dr Rod Ellis, has been actively involved in ministry for over 35 years. We had the privilege of leading a Renewal Mission at his congregation a few years ago.
He is Rector of Church of Our Lord in Victoria, British Columbia where he has served for the past 14 years. Rod is married to Lynne and they have three adult children, a son-in-law and daughter-inlaw, and a grandchild. His new book ‘King of Hearts’ was just published by Elation Press, Victoria, British Columbia
King of Hearts: David: Man of Devotion, Living with Passion, Power and Purpose of two
kings, one who was a shepherd boy who became
- a story of two kings of Israel, one the King of Israel, the other, King of Kings, born in a lowly manger as our Saviour and how their lives are inextricably linked. Drawing from the wisdom and experience of nearly four decades of ministry, this work examines the life of King David and his unique relationship with God. As a man, David has his failings, but he is most noted for his triumphs. Dr. Rod Ellis looks at how we can have a relationship with God like the enigmatic King David. Wholly human, yet larger-than-life, David is complex and competent, yet completely full of imperfections. This in-depth study of David takes the reader on a journey where Dr. Rod Ellis shares his own personal accounts of struggles and successes.
Uplifting and challenging oneself with thought-provoking questions at the end of each chapter, King of Hearts is a quest to unlock the love and greatness that God has gifted us with.
To order the book, please contact Rev Rod Ellis at rector@churchofourlord.org
Legacy Storytelling
December 19, 2011
What a great concept. You are encouraged to check out the Legacy Storytelling concept whereby one is able to record one’s heritage and legacy on video for future generations.
Legacy Storytelling (click to find out more)
Breaking the 300,000 visitor barrier
December 16, 2011
Thanks for all your support in 2011 through visiting my blog. As of today, 300,000 of you have dropped in to read some of the 385 online articles. Five days ago, almost 1200 people paid the blog a visit, the most in the past two+ years that the blog has existed.
I encourage you to tell your friends about this blog.
Blessings, Ed Hird+
http://edhird.wordpress.com
Doing a New Thing in the New Year 2012
December 12, 2011
By Rev Ed Hird
Everyone believes in change, as long as it involves someone else. Each New Year in January, many of us make New Year’s Resolutions about how we are going to change.
During the recent Christmas season, we have often tended to overeat and underexercise. When January 1st comes around, our gyms are temporarily flooded with new recruits, often lasting until Feb 1st when our muscles begin to ache. So many New Year’s Resolutions die on the altar of good intentions. We mean to lose weight, to become healthy, to eat heart-smart. But life seems to take over and swallow up our best efforts.
What would it look like to genuinely do a new thing in the New Year 2012? What does lasting change really look like? Much change in our culture is merely reactive and temporary. When our society becomes anxious and regressive, we embrace quick fixes, either centralizing or decentralizing our businesses, our schools, our community societies, our political institutions. Quick-fix changes usually make things worse, and rarely last. Lasting change needs to be thoughtful, intentional, and prayerful.
Part of lasting change for me was the result of being ‘reared ended’ by a taxi twelve years ago. I started going for various treatments to loosen up my neck and shoulders, but nothing seemed to really last. The neck spasms and headaches had a nasty habit of sapping a lot of my energy needed for work and family. Finally my chiropractor Dr. Paul Wiggins, while adjusting my aching back, said to me: ‘You need a personal trainer’. My immediate reaction was to try to graciously change the subject. Paul however is very persistent in a kindly way, and the next thing I knew, I was meeting with a personal trainer for six sessions, paid for by our auto insurance company. The personal trainer helped me push through my ignorance, fear and procrastination.
Going to the gym two to three times a week for the past twelve years is part of my ‘walking the walk’ in personal fitness. I often felt like giving up. I have been involved in many sports and exercise programs over the years. Sooner or later I usually would push it too far and too fast, and injure myself. Once injured and ‘humbled’, I often thought twice before ‘getting back in the ring’. Thanks to those sessions with my personal trainer, I have finally learned how to pace myself. As a result, I rarely injure myself since getting serious about going to the gym. I have learnt that the secret to virtually all the gym equipment is going ‘one step at a time’. Patience, while not my strongest characteristic, is definitely a virtue in the weight room!
There are so many wonderful gyms through the North Vancouver Recreation Commission. Most often, my favorite time to work out is at 8am in the morning right after I drop my wife off at work. Because the weight room is right next door to where she works, I don’t have to force myself to drive to the gym. I am already right there. My wife is such a gift to me in keeping healthy. She really cares for me and loves me deeply. She is the one who originally encouraged me to start going to the gym, to eat healthy food, and to start taking vitamins. Thank God for health-conscious wives. As a result of regularly going to the gym, I feel healthier and younger now than a decade ago, having lost thirty pounds in the process, going from 180 to 150 pounds.
The Good Book says “See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.” (Isaiah 43:19). Thanks to Dr Paul Wiggins, the personal trainer and my wife, God has done a new thing in my personal fitness. How would you like God to do a new thing in your life in this New Year 2012? My prayer for each of us reading this article is that each of us will have a breakthrough in 2012. May God do a new thing this year in each of us physically, emotionally and spiritually.
Doing a New Thing (click to listen to Isaiah 43)
Reverend Ed Hird
Rector, St. Simon’s Church North Vancouver
Anglican Mission in the Americas (Canada)
http://stsimonschurch.ca
-an article for the January 2012 Deep Cove Crier
-award-winning author of the book ‘Battle for the Soul of Canada’
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 $9.99 CDN/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
My top 10 online articles in the past two years
December 8, 2011
Dear friends in Christ, 
Thank you for your regular viewing of this blog over the past two+ years. Just click on the links to view any of the following top 10 articles. I would welcome your feedback as to why these ten articles have been the most viewed of my 380+ online articles.
Wondering, Ed+
‘As The Sparks Fly Upwards’ a new book by Richard Stamp
December 5, 2011
‘As The Sparks Fly Upwards’ a new book by Richard Stamp.
Published by Sid Harta Publishers, Melbourne.
Available [or may be ordered] through bookshops and on line via amazon.com Also as a Kindle Ebook.
The noted Australian novelist John Marsden says in his foreword to the book,
“Those who read As The Sparks Fly Upwards are placing themselves in the hands of a master Storyteller.”
Hugh Mackay- Social Researcher and author says:-
edhird
