Capital News Thursday, April 19, 2012
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ENTERTAINMENT ▼ VOLUNTEER CENTRE
Volunteers have a code to live by thanks to Volunteer Canada Dawn Wilkinson CONTRIBUTOR
The updated Canadian Code for Volunteer Involvement was released by Volunteer Canada as part of National Volunteer Week Celebrations. Why a code? The purpose is to give nonprofit organizations some nationally held values, principles and standards that support volunteer engagement from the board to
frontline delivery of services. Volunteer Canada also has a volunteer management audit tool to use with the code. This tool helps nonprofits assess their current use of vol-
Canada’s best sellers Michael Neill’s list of best selling books are compiled from sales at independent bookstores across Canada. HARDCOVER FICTION 1 Why Men Lie L MacIntyre $32 2 The Limpopo Academy of Private Detection Alexander McCall Smith $29.95 3 A Dance with Dragons G.R.R. Martin $38 4 Sacre Bleu: A Comedy D’art C Moore $29.99 5 The Cat’s Table M Ondaatje $32 6 Death Comes to Pemberley P.D. James $32 7 The House I Loved T De Rosnay $29.99 8 Believing the Lie E George $31 9 Lone Wolf J Picoult $32 10 419 Will Ferguson $32 11 I’ve Got Your Number Sophie Kinsella $31 12 Betrayal Danielle Steel $34 13 The Night Circus E Morgenstern $32 14 The Wolf Gift Anne Rice $29 15 The Virgin Cure Ami McKay $32
HARDCOVER NON-FICTION 1 Go the F**K to Sleep Adam Mansbach & Ricardo Cortes $16.95 2 Eating Dirt: Deep Forests, Big Timber, and Life with the TreePlanting Tribe Charlotte Gill $29.95 3 Dying to Be Me: My Journey from Cancer, to Near Death, to True Healing
FLYING OFF THE SHELF
Michael Neill Anita Moorjani $24.95 4 Bringing Up Bebe: One American Mother Discovers the Wisdom of French Parenting Pamela Druckerman $27.50 5 RMS Titanic: Gilded Lives on a Fatal Voyage Hugh Brewster $29.99
NEW RELEASES 1 The Calling K Armstrong $19.99 2 Alone in the Classroom Elizabeth Hay $22 3 The Extraordinary Education of Nicholas Benedict TL Stewart $19.99 4 The Chimps of Fauna Sanctuary: Canadian Story of Resilience and Recovery A Westoll $17.99 5 A Thousand Farewells: From Refugee Camp to the Arav Spring Nahlah Ayed $32 6 Calico Joe J Grisham $28.95 7 The Drowning C Lackberg $19.99 8 Beastly Things: A Commissario Guido Brunetti Mystery Donna Leon $28.95 9 Thieves of Bay Street Bruce Livesey $32 10 French Kids Eat Everything (And Yours Can Too) K Le Billon $22.99 11 Sixkill Robert B. Parker $10.99
unteers. Kelowna Community Resources applies both the code and the audit tool in their training materials for managers of volunteers called overview of volunteer management.
Overview of volunteer management is a four-day course taught each spring and fall. You can find out more and register at kcr. ca, training and workshops. Boards of all nonprofit organizations and registered charities are made up of volunteers. Volunteer Canada is challenging each and every board to adopt the Canadian Code for Volunteer Involvement with
a motion that reads: “That the Canadian Code for Volunteer Involvement be adopted by this organization as an integral part of operational practice, to be made known to every employee and volunteer, and to be made readily available to every staff member and volunteer for consistent reference and consultation.” Why not rise to this challenge? Let the public know by adding it to
your website. Tell Volunteer Canada that you have adopted the code so that your organization can be added to its website. The Canadian Code for Volunteer Involvement was originally developed for the 2001 International Year of Volunteers and then updated in 2004 in consultation with the Canadian Administrators of Volunteer Resources. Non-profit organizations in the Central Oka-
nagan can recruit volunteers through the online database offered by Kelowna Community Resources. Go to www.kcr. ca, click on volunteer opportunities search. Click on New Volunteer Opportunity? Let us Know. Dawn Wilkinson is the coordinator for the Community Information and Volunteer Centre. 250-763-8008, ext 24 informkelowna@kcr.ca
FAITH AND DOUBT!
It is amazing to me that God continues to open His word in new ways. I have dealt with the account of doubting Thomas for several years in a row now and only this year did I notice that this account of a disciple who would not believe, who would not proclaim the resurrection until he had touched Christ’s wounds was positioned in our rotation of Scripture readings for worship in such away that it comes directly after making the most outrageous claims about our Savior. One week after Easter we are met face on with an account of doubt. We go from proclaiming a risen savior, to doubting that he was able to do what he says he did. God gives us the story of Doubting Thomas so that we may be strengthened in the message that we are blessed because we believe without seeing. We read the story of Thomas and we see the doubt we might have even in the midst of the joy of Easter and through God’s word we are called back to faith and trust! Last week we celebrated Easter. We joyfully proclaimed the resurrection of our Savior. We laid claim to the fact that he returned from the dead and we understood that his victory over death is also our victory over death. Easter is a highpoint in the church year. The weeks between Christmas and Easter are a retelling of Jesus’ life. It is the story of our savior and each year we hear that story stretched out over weeks as it builds to the crescendo that is Easter morning, until the day we can proclaim, “He is risen!” But, many of us have friends or family that don’t believe, who look at Easter and only see the Easter Bunny or the eggs, or the chocolate. I have friends from the states that wish me a happy spring equinox and wonder at the marvel of mother earth and who mix other religious traditions in with a loose understanding of what happened at Easter, who see it as a great metaphor for reawakening and reinvigorating their belief in who they are and what they can be under their own power. These are people in my life who are educated, smart, funny, confident, beautiful, good friends. They are people who are book smart and world smart, they get along with others, they do good works for those
less fortunate, they excel in their leisure activities and in their work. They are people that I look up to and ask advice from and yet, when we get to the highpoint of my year. When we come to the pinnacle of the church year and the meaning of Jesus’ life here on earth, when I look at my friends and say, “He is risen…” They look at me and say, “That’s nice Karen.”
Each time this happens it becomes harder to share with that person, easier to avoid certain topics, or change the way we speak about things in order to keep things comfortable and happy. We have mainline churches all over the world that are doing just that. They proclaimed God’s word to the people, they talked about God’s law and judgment of Sin. The showed the world the message of the cross and with Joy shouted from the mountain tops “Christ is risen…” And the response was silence. It is anger and doubt and unbelief. It was a quiet smile and a small shake of the head that says, “oh silly Christians.” And so the church tried again only this time they changed some of God’s laws. But still it wasn’t good enough and so they tried again but this time they reduced how radical their claims were and they became more tolerant of outside views and of picking only certain parts of Scripture. They welcomed other voices from other traditions and schools of thought and they chose the world over their savior. They chose doubt over belief, they let the influence of their family and friends tell them that they must have heard wrongly, Jesus must not have been dead, but only asleep. Or that Jesus had some good things to say but He wasn’t the Son of God. And pretty soon the church was no longer the church but a social club full of those who proclaimed whatever others wanted instead of what God commanded. This is what has happened to so many people, so many churches and although we don’t agree with it and we don’t condone it I think we can understand it. It is hard to come up against people again and again especially those whom we love. The doubt can start to creep in, the questions grow louder and because we are sinful and broken we begin to
wonder and be open to the devil’s whispers that tell us half-truths and demand signs and wonders to secure our faith. But God is amazing, the same God who brought Jesus back from the Dead knows our sinful hearts and desires to bring us back into right relationship with him. And God in His infinite wisdom gave us His word in a certain order so that we might be reminded that He is the Lord of all and so that we may be strengthened in our belief. We each find ourselves in the position of Thomas, wanting to see and touch Christ. It is not easy to live today as a Christian. Jesus knew that it would not be easy for us and so He speaks to us through the account of Thomas. “Blessed are you who have believed but not seen.” And he sends to us the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Truth to continually build up our faith. The juxtaposition of the high point of Easter with the following week being all about Doubts is not random. God knows our hearts and although in Easter we may shout with all our heart, “He is risen!” He also knows that when we encounter the world we may have doubt creep in before too long and need help! Today, be strengthened and led by our Savior Jesus Christ, stand firmly on the word of God and pray that you will continue to be a strong witness to those whom you love so that one day they too will know the joy of the risen Lord as they are held… In His Grip, Pastor Karen Seifert If you would like to know more about this amazing Savior, Jesus, please join us for worship at 9am (contemporary) or 10:30am (Traditional).
GRACE LUTHERAN CHURCH 1162 Hudson Rd, West Kelowna V1Z 1J3
250-769-5685 www.gracelutherankelowna.com