Available on iTunes

A couple of years ago I found myself outside on a very cold December night flooding an outdoor rink. I’m not much of a skater and I don’t play hockey, but I have a son who loves hockey and somehow he convinced me that this rink was good idea, so there we were. It was a perfect night – very cold and very still. There was a full moon shining so brightly we could see our shadows in the rink as we flooded it. The constellation “Orion” was shining down at us. Orion is supposed be a hunter holding his bow, but that night he looked like a hockey player hoisting the Stanley Cup. My son and I worked late into the night, along with our neighbours, on that rink. Eventually, we finished flooding and headed back inside, exhausted, cold, and soaking wet. As we removed our coats and boots he gave me a hug and said “Thanks, Dad.”  He just did it.  I didn’t ask him to thank me… it just came right from his heart.

There are moments in life that that you wish you could preserve forever, that you wish you could somehow bottle them and return to them whenever you want to. The best way I know how to do that is to write a song. So I wrote a song about that perfect night I spent out flooding that rink with my son.  I hope you enjoy it.

A couple of years ago I found myself outside on a very cold December night flooding an outdoor rink. I’m not much of a skater and I don’t play hockey, but I have a son who loves hockey and somehow he convinced me that this rink was good idea, so there we were. It was a perfect night – very cold and very still. There was a full moon shining so brightly we could see our shadows in the rink as we flooded it. The constellation “Orion” was shining down at us. Orion is supposed be a hunter holding his bow, but that night he looked like a hockey player hoisting the Stanley Cup. My son and I worked late into the night, along with our neighbors, on that rink. Eventually, we finished flooding and headed back inside, exhausted, cold, and soaking wet. As we removed our coats and boots he gave me a hug and said “Thanks, Dad.”  He just did it.  I didn’t ask him to thank me… it just came right from his heart.

There are moments in life that that you wish you could preserve these memories forever, that you wish you could somehow bottle them and return to them whenever you want to. The best way I know how to do that is to write a song. So I wrote a song about that perfect night I spent out flooding that rink with my son.  I hope you enjoy it.

If you enjoy the song I’d be much obliged if you’d purchase a copy on iTunes.

Oh, I want to go back and live that summer again. I’m off to see U2 tonight here in Winnipeg. I’m hoping I catch a bit of that magic.

• We had an epic journey from Ottawa out to Winnipeg.  We stopped by Niagara Falls – figured we’d better see it while we’re still in Ontario.  Then off to Windsor for a few day with the my family.  Then we headed up through Michigan, the “UP”, to Minnesota, North Dakota and Winnipeg.  Three days of great family time in the Van together.  I think this is the optimum family vacation time for us… the boys are pretty independent, aren’t embarrassed to be seen with their parents, and still eat on the kids menu.  Trifecta!
• We arrived in Winnipeg in the middle of August.  Pearl got us unpacked and settled into the house in record time.  I mean it.  I’m sure it was a world record.  Those of you who know Pearl don’t doubt it.  The moving truck had just pulled away from our house and she already had the kitchen unpacked.  I love that woman!
• The boys love their school.  This is a huge relief to us and an answer to prayer.  The boys have all made friends and are doing really well.
• My eldest son Pierce is a rock star.  He made his praise band debut a couple weeks ago playing bass with the high school worship band.  I am one proud poppa.  He had his first school band concert last night.  He played bass with the grade 7 jazz band (that’s right… jazz band starts in grade 7!  I love this place!!) and percussion with the concert band.
• People here are friendly.  Seriously.
• I reached a major milestone in my adjustment to Manitoba life on September 14 at 8:23 PM.  I made my first joke about Saskatchewan.
• Proudest achievement since moving to Winnipeg:  I repurposed our old Windows XP desktop computer.  I loaded it with linux, installed XBMC and have it connected to our TV as a general purpose media server.  Once a geek… always a geek.
• Oh yeah, I almost forgot… I started a new job.  Life as the Director of Worship Ministries at Grant Memorial Baptist Church is keeping me busy.  There is much to learn, lots to do, but I feel so ALIVE after over a year out of full time ministry.  There’s nowhere I’d rather be and nothing I’d rather be doing.
• I miss my friends.
• I’ve been to Nashville, Louisville and Indianapolis on a tour of churches to get ideas for renovations to the auditorium at Grant.  Unfortunately I was not discovered while in Nashville.
• This is an amazing book that I recommend you read.  God’s laws don’t just protect us as individuals, they actually redeem and preserve every aspect of society – socially, politically, technologically, economically.

Hopefully that satisfies the people who’ve been ragging on me to post something!  And I promise to get back into the habit of posting regularly.  Really.

Pearl and I both sense that this is the right place for us and for our family. As we reflect on the past year, we really sense that God has led us to this place.  Our family will be making the move to Winnipeg this August.

Thank you to all of my friends in Ottawa.  Your love, encouragement and support, especially during this time of transition, have meant everything to me.  Thank you to my boys, Pierce, Gideon and Preston – who have been praying for a new job for me and a church for us to call home.  I would especially like to thank Pearl who has been my biggest encouragement through the years.  She has supported me through a transition from my engineering career into ministry, and now a transition from our home in Ottawa, to a new adventure in Winnipeg.

Thank you in advance for continuing to pray for me and my family as we begin a new chapter in our lives.

Geoff…

Happy reading!

Geoff Dresser - This is Worship


Geoff Dresser - Remember Me

The Desert Fathers of the middle ages believed that liminality was an indispensable component of spiritual formation.  They chose to live in the Egyptian desert (a very liminal place) in order to preserve a state of perpetual liminality.  I say nuts to that!  I crave my comforts and my luxuries.  I’d be more suited to joining an order of Dessert Fathers.  I would sit around with the rest of the Dessert Fathers ordering hot fudge sundaes, telling the waiter to add nuts to that.

Yet I think the Desert Fathers were on to something.  God often calls his children into the liminal spaces.  He called Abraham out of Ur to take a journey into the unknown.  The children of Israel wandered in a desert for 40 years before they entered the promised land.  And Jesus fasted for forty days in the desert at the beginning of his public ministry.  So what is it about experiencing liminality?  I think that when we are in a liminal state we don’t have our regular routines and securities – a steady job,  sound finances, physical health, etc.   We come to the point when our only security is God.  We come to the point where we really need God’s promises to be true, because there’s nothing else for us to fall back on.  But do we ever really have other things to fall back on?  All those other things are illusions.  Liminality dispells illusions.  Perhaps it is only in the liminal spaces that we see how dependent we really are upon God.  Liminality breeds clarity.  It is a gift.  It teaches us that God is our sole source of security.  I’m still learning.

I have a few reactions to the article.  First off, Dan Fenn, the music director who is quoted in the article… I wonder how his parishioners feel about him appearing on CNN’s website slagging his job?  Might they be tempted to liberate him so that he can  pursue a better gig?

Secondly, the example of stress that Dan cites – being asked to play “Beer Barrel Polka” at a funeral, doesn’t seem all that stressful to me.  Whenever stress had me to teetering on the brink of the abyss it wasn’t over silly things like that.

Well, these things just didn’t add up to me, so through magic of the internet I tracked down Dan and asked him about CNN’s piece.  He told me he was quite disappointed when with it.  When he was interviewed the reporter told him it was for a piece about “surprisingly stressful jobs” – nothing about pay.  He also said that none of the things that he loves about his job made it into the article.  And the story about “Beer Barrel Polka” was just a funny story that he told the reporter, rather than an example of the high stress situations he might find himself in. Dan also lamented that the article left out any sense of the calling that motivates him in his ministry.   My experience as a worship pastor has had its share of stress, but I felt called to it, and still do.  And the rewards of living out your calling far outweigh the challenges that we face!

And a final note:  Dan says that he did play “Beer Barrel Polka” at the funeral but disguised the melody in an abstract  French-tocatta organ improvisation.   Yeah.. that’s what I would’ve done too!