It’s so easy to fall off track that every once and a while it’s nice to receive that extra push or reminder as to why one is doing something.
This is part of the underlying messages behind visiting speaker Sunder Krishnan’s series of presentations this week at the Prince Albert Alliance Church.
The Toronto-based speaker was invited to help pull churchgoers aside to re-evaluate and think about things, senior pastor Mark Bergen said.
“We pause from the pressures of life, and we say – ‘you know what? For these few days, let’s just pull back,’” he said. “You say, ‘I’m going to set some time in the midst of my life to focus on this area of my life.’”
This focus is on re-calibrating one’s internal gyroscope, Krishnan explained -- a metaphor that references the “inertial guidance systems that keep our rockets on target, and when they veer off course they bring them back again.”
Krishnan’s series of presentations, titled “Living as Called People in a Driven World,” began on Sunday and will wrap up with a final call to action on Wednesday night.
“We live in a world that is continually knocking us off balance, pulling us in so many directions -- whether it’s the latest book, whether it’s the latest guru on television or the latest expert in a newspaper article or coffee table conversation with the neighbours,” he said before Tuesday’s presentation. “There’s no lack of ideas, opinions or philosophies.”
Krishnan hopes to inspire people to slow down and re-evaluate things to make sure they’re on the path they should be on.
“We’re going so fast that our souls are being left behind our bodies,” he said. “We need to practice slowing down and listening to God … listen to what he wants done and (to) join him.”
We’re going so fast that our souls are being left behind our bodies. We need to practice slowing down and listening to God … listen to what he wants done and (to) join him. - Rev. Sunder Krishnan
In order to do this, one has to read the Bible not necessarily for information but for transformation.
“It is him speaking to us so we can be in a living dialogue with him -- a dialogue that transforms us,” Krishnan explained.
For example, a baby doesn’t recognize their name until they’ve heard it thousands of times, and doesn’t learn to speak until several more thousand words are spoken.
One has to let the words of the Bible wash over one’s self, he said.
“You’re not really so much studying any one thing as much as getting used to syntax, language and grammar -- it’s forming inside you without even knowing it.”
The underlying messages of the Bible and of Christianity are what are important -- not the countless specifics, he noted.
More Christians need to think about these things, and how faith in Christ should integrate everything that one does, he said.
“God is the initiator,” he summarized. “This is his work -- his business. We accomplish our mission in dependence of him.”
Calling Krishnan an inspiration, Bergen said that local churchgoers’ time spent with him has been worthwhile.
“He’s down to earth and humble -- refreshing.”
Anyone interested is welcome to stop by the church on Wednesday night for the final of Krishnan’s presentations, which is set to begin at 7 p.m. The Prince Albert Alliance Church is located at 2777 Sixth Ave. W.
For those who missed the first few presentations by Krishnan, audio recordings are available on the church’s website, www.princealbertalliance.com .
