the drum|rob fairbanks

2013 Family Christmas Video

Just for fun...check it out.

Christmas thingie from Rob Fairbanks on Vimeo.

 Rob

Thankful

You might think I’m late at this, but I thought that after the turkey has settled and the games are over, I’d list some of the things I’m thankful for this last year. Here ya go!

I am thankful for…

• Robi and her enduring commitment and love toward me. I honestly marvel at how tenacious she is at loving.
• Trey and his life and energy. Also, that we snuggled while watching TV two nights last week. As an almost teen, I cherish those moments more than you can imagine. I know that the window is small.
• For the honor and privilege of pastoring a church again. I wasn’t sure I was going to get to occupy that role again. It might be the thing I am most thankful for in the last 12 months. A new community (no pun intended) to live this life stuff out with. So thankful.
• For Rita Warren and her friendship while I led Christian Associates.
• For Life Center church and the grace of God extended toward me/us in planting Immanuel through them- particularly Joe and Bill.
• For the lucidity to think process and learn. I believe all of life is an opportunity to learn. I am grateful.
• A mobile body (even though it is sometimes is quite painful).
• A future. God has instilled in me dreams. While I want to live in the present, part of God’s calling in me is on the horizon.
• Terry Roberts and Arnie Teppo - life friends.
• The manifold wonder of the Gospel - what Jesus did for the world and for me. I will never get over it.
• Dudley Callison and his partnership while leading Christian Associates. He was a constant companion and support.
• Dave Wilkinson, Justin Bryean, et al – their pastoral care during my dark times the last couple of years. I honestly don't think I would have made it without you guys.
• The privilege of teaching at Whitworth University. I love the school, the topic and the students. It is like a drug…only good for me.
• For the Arg/Janzen dinners down through the years. They were like a balm for my soul. I experienced care, encouragement, laughter and companionship while we ate and drank together.
• Zac, Karli and Caleb – through hardship and joy - sometimes hard to watch, but knowing that all that they face is a part of God’s hope for them. I love them more than life.
• A good book, a well brewed coffee, a meandering conversation, a lovely red wine and a pipe smoked under my massive birch tree in my front yard.
• Innumerable others who have helped, invested, loved and lived life with Robi and I.
• Living in Spokane – much of my life I've looked past her, when in reality she is a masterpiece.

 

I know who you are

My mom has had cancer for almost five years.  She prays that she will live to see her three daughters get married.  Last summer, the first one of us daughters had her wedding in our front yard.  My mom wept: It was like God was giving back, gift-wrapped, her deepest desire that she had surrendered fully to Him.

 

One of our friends who had been battling brain cancer died last week, leaving her two sons without a parent.  One of her sons has Asperger’s syndrome and will need to live with and be cared for by her other son.  She told me once her prayer to see her first grandbaby…God didn’t grant her request.

I don’t know why God hasn’t healed my mom from cancer, and I certainly don’t understand why He would take this mother away from her young sons, never realizing her dream of seeing a grandbaby

Yet “sometimes the only way to understand is fall on your knees and say you don’t…Because God knows sometimes there is suffering beyond our knowing.

When we want to know answers, God simply wants us to know Him.

The answer to our suffering is so incomprehensible that it has to be incarnated — the Word must come to us as flesh…He came – because in all our pain, we don’t want some answers like we want a Someone”

                ~Ann Voscamp.

J.J. Heller echoes this belief in her song lyrics: “I don’t know what you’re doing, but I know who you are.”

Yet again, we hear the reverberations of this faith in the powerful words of Oswald Chambers: "Faith is deliberate confidence in the character of God whose ways you may not understand at the time.”

This I know with all my heart: The character of God is trustworthy and steadfast.

                And I know He knows our pain: He loved enough to lose a child so we could live.

“Since the children have flesh and blood,
[I] too shared in their humanity –

so that by [my] death, [I] might break the power of him who holds the power of death—
that is, the devil—

and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.”

~Hebrews 2:14-15 

“There is no pit so deep, that God’s love is not deeper still.” ~ Corrie Ten Boom

Jessica

Church Planting

From Rob...

As I as reading the Bible today I came across this statement by Moses to God.

‎"If your presence will not go with us, do not send us up from here." Ex 33:15

It is a sending (missio) passage, but Moses is literally begging God to suspend the mission if He will not accompany him along the way.  Moses makes his case even stronger in the next verse by saying, “How will anyone know that you are pleased with me and your people unless you go with us.  What else will distinguish me and your people from all the other people on the face of the earth?”  (v. 16)

I am embarking on a new church planting effort, but have a seriousness and tentativeness (unusual for me) about it that reflects Moses’ position.  I am 54.  I have done a lot of things (some even good).  I do not want to plant “A church.”  I do, however, crave God and his love movement toward the world.  My prayer is found couched within Moses’ request…please don’t send me unless Your Presence will go with and before me/us.

Would you be willing to pray with Robi and I?  Pray for passion and clarity and teaming and overwhelming compassion for our city…and most of all, for God to accompany the effort with His grand life.

Amen

r

My Daughter's band makes Paste Magazines 12 Washington Bands You Should Listen To Now

My daughter and son-in-law's band, Cathedral Pearls makes the PASTE list. Check em out.

The link: PASTE Magazine

Here's a link to a free EP: EP

Karli and Caleb are on the left. They are pretty cool. To show how hipster they are, they even have antlers hanging on the wall in their house.  ;)