Paul Vieira

Hey everybody,
I haven’t blogged in such a long time. I’m sorry about that. I’m lost in Babylon this summer. I’m really busy, but life is good. Please be patient with me. Things will slow down in September and I’ll be back online.

peace
Paul

I started a new category of podcasts that you may be interested in. Please click the “podcast” tab above to learn how to subscribe. I’m posting teachings that seek to find Jesus in the writings of the Hebrew Bible. So far, I’ve posted a four part series that introduces the Scriptures to those who are interested in studying it more deeply. You can also listen to a 45 minute podcast episode that gives a solid orientation to the first five books of the Bible, also called the Books of Moses.

In other news, I’ve become the new guitarist in a band called WHY. The lead singer (Brian Cook) and I are writing songs together. We have about 11 songs on the go and I’m very excited by what is coming out. We hope to record these new tunes over the next year and get them out to you. In the mean time, please go to www.myspace.com/whyy to check out the music of WHY.

I just uploaded the second part of my new podcast series. This first lesson is where I introduce the scriptures. Check it out!

I managed to find some time today to put together and upload the first episode in a new category of podcasts called “Jesus in the Old Testament.”

One of the first things that Jesus did after He had risen from the dead, was teach two of his disciples along the road to Emmaus (Luke 24:13-35). “And beginning at Moses and all the Prophets, He expounded to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself”. (v.27)

Imagine that you had to teach someone about Jesus, but all you had was the ancient Hebrew Scriptures. This is what Jesus and the early church used. In this study we will uncover the depth of what Jesus said in Matt. 22:45, “Moses wrote of me.”

This line of study is mentioned in chapter 11 of my book, where I describe the process of having a strong foundation in Jesus. The apostolic pattern in training new believers was to teach them Christ out of the Old Testament. Please feel free to subscribe to this podcast as the latest instalment in my Jesus Has Left the Building Podcast. Just click the podcast tab above to lead you to the page that explains how you can subscribe.

Peace.

It’s been so long since I’ve posted. As you can tell, I’m just not finding the time to keep up with the blog. All my time is being consumed with just living life. There used to be a time when my life in cyberspace was more interesting than my real every day life. This is not true anymore. I’m living here and now in time and space. I love it. I teach English to wonderful newcomers from all over the world. That is my day job. I’m a husband to an amazing woman and father to four incredible kids. I want to give them all that I have. That leaves me just enough time in my week to write music and be a part of a rock band. I really enjoy that. So, it seems that my internet presense is diminishing. I’m alright with that.

The other day, someone emailed me to ask if I was going to be uploading any more podcasts of chapters of my book. To be honest, I don’t think I have the time to finish that project. So far, there are ten chapters available through the podcasts. That is only about half the book though. I suppose if you really want to know how it ends, I would encourage you to get the book and finish reading it. The book has a bit of a twist ending, so I don’t think you’ll be dissappointed.

I have to let you know that we’re experiencing some trouble with the comments feature on this website. We’re getting too much spam and until we can fix it, the comments feature will be disengaged. If you want to get in touch with me, please use the contact page.

It’s been hard blogging these days simply because I’m so busy living, I don’t have as much time for a cyber-life. I’ll try to blog in small bits. This would be more manageable. In addition to working and raising my kids (which includes home educating them), I’ve joined a band. This band needed an electric guitar player and the lead singer really felt that I was the guy. I tried to convince him that I would be stronger at rhythm guitar and piano, but he really challenged me to give the electric guitar a shot. So, I rented a guitar and I’ve been making up for lost time all these years that I stuck to acoustic. Surprisingly, I’m loving the electric guitar and it’s coming along well. The lead singer is very happy with my playing and we’ve also been writing songs together. The collaboration has been really inspiring for me. I’ve written songs on my own since I was 15 years old. Collaborating with someone else was never really an interest of mine. However, I must say that the songs that we are writing together seem to be bigger and better than what has been typical as a solo song writer. I’m very curious as to where all this is going.

Sometimes I get discouraged that I’ve gotten into music so late in my life. I put it off to pursue formal church ministry for so many years. The other day I actually broke down and cried about it. I felt heart broken that I hadn’t followed the path of music that I was on when I was a teenager. I guess we’ll see what God has planned for me in this area.

I have this idea that came to me the other night as I lied in bed. Over the past several months many people, after reading my book, have contacted me with questions and very encouraging comments. It seems many believers out there can identify with the theme of my book and feel that it has helped to put words to what they were experiencing. Quite often, people will say something like, “if you are ever in our area, please let us know. We would love to have you come visit and share with us and our friends.” Well, throughout the past few years I have made friends in many places in my travels, speaking in churches and conferences. However, lately I have intentionally backed away from these environments, and as a result, my travelling has decreased significantly. I was prepared to not travel at all and live a peaceful life with my family in my home city of Winnipeg. But people keep wondering about the possibilities of having me come visit them. Before, churches would pay my expense to travel and speak to their congregations. Since I have “left the building” this is no longer the situation.

I’ve asked God to show me if He wanted me to continue travelling to encourage believers who are living in exile. The need is there, but how would this kind of thing be financed?

This brings me to my idea. In addition to travelling, it seems that God wants me to continue to encourage exiles through this blog, email correspondence, writing another book and putting out podcasts. All this takes time and I need to be able to feed my family. So, if there are people out there who believe in the message of my book and feel that it would be worth supporting, this is what can be done:

If a small group of believers from a particular town or city together contribute $150 per month, I would be able to come and visit them once a year. This would cover all the costs of travel and provide an honorarium for the work that I do. This would amount to 6 people each donating only $25 per month. $300 per month would release me to visit that group twice a year.

We have a registered charity in Canada and the U.S., so we can give tax donation receipts to each donor at the end of the year.

Anyway, please let me know what you think about this and if you would be interested. Just contact me through the contact page of this site.
I feel this may be a real organic way to help finance a work that helps believers who are living outside the walls. I have a day job that I really enjoy. So I’m not looking at trying to do this full time. I only want to be available to serve God in any way that He wants. If this is not really a need, nothing will happen. That’s okay with me. I feel I can only travel about once per month, so if this is something you feel good about connecting to, please let me know.