Update Tuesday 13/09/11

Locke Street Festival Crowd

It was a crazy day to be sure, the Locke Street festival right down the street from our house, the Super Crawl on James St North, and in the midst of it all our first Open House.  What an amazing opportunity to invite so many of our friends, especially those from our sending church in Milton, to come and experience our new neighbourhood.  I spent the day back and forth between greeting friends in our home and touring the festival on Locke Street.  To cap off the night our family, along with our good friend Mike Harvey, jumped on the shuttle to James St. N, where we checked out all the art and took in a few bands including Said the Whale and Broken Social Scene.  It was a pretty cool moment when we first arrived at the Super Crawl, got a program of the featured artists and bands and realized that one of Kim's former employees from the days when she owned a special events company, was a featured artist.  We got to connect briefly with Jason Frieburgur beside his installation in the middle of James Street.

This is the piece that appeared on the corner of James N. and Cannon

All in all it was a pretty amazing day!

I mentioned spending much of the day with Mike.  I think it would be appropriate to take a moment to recognize Mike and to thank him for all his contributions to the Sanctuary Milton over the past seven or so years.  Mike arrived at the Milton Sanctuary before even Jim Danielson or I.  He was a part of the congregation from very early on taking on roles as worship team member as well as Youth leader.  He also lead the worship team many times when I was absent, and has been helping to fill in since my departure in June.  When Mike was laid off from from his place of employment last year, he was blessed to find a new position in a town west of Milton and has relocated to be closer to work.  He has been commuting to church for the last number of months, but having spent the last number of years in community minded church plants with an emphasis on reaching neighbours and serving the community, he is recognizing the need to be part of a church that serves in the community in which he lives.  How can any of us disagree?  He will be missed, however, and we do want to thank him for his many contributions to our church family over the years.  I am just glad that I still have a close connection through a number of different musical endeavours in which we still collaborate.

As I have mentioned before, we have spent the summer trying to get to know the community, the people and the ongoings of our new neighbourhood.  One thing that I have been trying to recognize is some of the public spaces in which there is a sense of community and at which there seems to be a discernible schedule of regular attenders.  Based on those observations from the past few months I have come up with a schedule of times and places that I will try to be at weekly in the hopes of making connections and building relationships.  I would ask that you join me in praying that this will be a fruitful exercise over the coming months. 

Last week I mentioned that I would be visiting the McMaster campus, but that has been postponed until this coming Thursday, so I would appreciate your continued prayers for God's direction.

Thanks again for all the continued support and prayers.