How do you react in the face of tragedy when life doesn’t seem fair?  The folks on Grand Manan Island have had more than their share of tragedy over the past couple of months.  Since June there have been six tragic deaths on the island.  Now I understand that most deaths are tragic for someone,…

20 years ago I added an “n” to my name. It was a whim but I’ve never regretted it.   15 years before that I had removed the same “n” along with a “y” when I went from being Denny to being Den. And for fifteen years I had people correct my name, helpfully changing it…

Well, another survey is out, showing that Christianity is losing ground and that church attendance is down.  But, depending on your perspective, we aren’t losing, we’re winning.  When you stop and think about it, every person who isn’t a Christian hasn’t been lost from Christianity, they just haven’t been won to Christianity yet.  The starting…

You know I have never met a terrorist. Never.  And you would think I would have, considering how many Muslims there are in our community.  Unless, not all Muslims are terrorists.  As a matter of fact all of the Muslims that I've met are pretty decent folks who love Canada and they seem genuinely friendly.…

The phone rang last Monday morning at 1:20!  1:20!  You know that if you get a telephone call at that hour it can't be good news. Nobody calls you at twenty after one in the morning just to say hello or to tell you that you’ve won the lottery. (I can assure you the lottery…

I didn’t know whether to be flattered or offended. Last week I received an e-mail from a preacher asking for my forgiveness.  And I wasn’t sure that he had done anything to me that I could forgive him for. Apparently, he had preached some of my messages and had passed them off as his own,…

It was twenty years ago today. . ., and you might be thinking. . . that ” Sgt. Pepper taught the band to play….. but that’s just showing your age.  It was twenty years ago today that the Guptills arrived back in Canada with the dream of a new church that would impact a community…

It was a beautiful morning and as I walked toward my Smart Car I pushed the magic button that would retract the roof.  Really, what’s the sense of having a convertible roof that you can open with a button if you never open it with the button?  And as the roof began to open a…

I was sitting in my office annex the other day and was listening to folks use Canada's third official language as they ordered double doubles, triple singles and four by fours.  Which begs the question: is a coffee with four creams and four sugars still a coffee or is it liquid candy? But again I…

I was looking for a specific product at a hardware store last week, apparently in vain.  When it became obvious they didn't have what I needed and I would have to look elsewhere, the clerk sympathetically commented," What a sin!"An inconvenience yes, a nuisance maybe, but hardly a sin.It kind of made me think of…