Update Tuesday 29/11/11

The conversation ranged from the story of having to put his dog down, to finding his new best friend, from trying to live on disability payments, to which instant loan places are the best, from specifics of the task at hand, to why the split level shopping carts don't work.  Over a hot cup of coffee, Rick, a local bottle collector, was quite friendly and open to conversation.  It was a stark difference from a few weeks ago.  I shared in a previous update about a group that gathers at the Beer Store that runs the province's alcohol can and bottle recycling program (read it here) and our hope to be able to serve them.    On the first morning I tried, however, I got up early, prepared some coffee, got it all packed up, headed over to the store and there was no one there.  I still don't really know why, although there are a number of practical considerations that may have all lined up on that day.  I truly believe, however, that it was spiritual opposition from the enemy.  (As an aside, this seems to be a pattern we experience in our new ministry thus far, we get an idea, we pray, God seems to confirm it and them something happens and it totally flops the first time around or the people involved have things happen to them).  Regardless of what the enemy throws, however, if we are persistent, we see God move.  This is what happened yesterday as I headed out to the Beer Store one more time.  This time I was greeted by Rick and Barry and we had a good 30 minutes to talk about life.  I learned a lot in those few minutes about what life is like when you live at that end of the economic spectrum.  All in all, I had the opportunity to serve about 6 different guys yesterday.  Interestingly, when the local newspaper showed up on my front porch this morning there was an article on these very guys, the bottle collectors, and Rick is even quoted in the article.  Again it seems that we are on to something, what I don't exactly know, but something.  I have included a link to the article below:

The Spec 

Along similar lines, I am excited to tell you that following from our last experience handing out meals to the homeless downtown we have begun planning for the next outing.  We are collecting blankets that we will be distributing December 18th.   A number individuals, both churched and unchurched, have heard and have gotten involved by hosting blanket drives. 

We would ask for your continued prayers for our outreaches and for God's leading and direction with regards to how He intends to use these opportunities for His sake and the sake of His kingdom.

Lastly, I would ask for you continued prayers as we finalize details on our budget for next year.  We sense that God has some amazing things planned for this first full year in our ministries life.  We are trying our best to prayerfully plan and budget accordingly.   We want to thank those of you who have committed to supporting this ministry financially.  The honest truth is that as we look at the budget, and more importantly, as we look at the opportunities and the needs around us that God has opened our eyes to, we recognize that we are going to need the financial support of friends, family, groups and churches to make it all happen.  If you have ever thought about supporting the ministry, or supporting an initiative that you have read about here we would love you to consider partnering financially.
Cheques can be made out to The Sanctuary Milton with Hamilton in the memo line and sent to:

136 Homewood Ave.
Hamilton, On.
Canada
L8P2M5

If you would like more info or to talk about support then don't hesitate to send me a note at:
jason@jasonmcgibbonproject.com
I would love to hear from you!

Free Art Friday 25/11/11

I decided to venture out of the familiar and begin to experiment with mixing greens.  I spent a few hours just practicing mixing yellow with both blue and black just to start to get a handle on what can happen.  The piece below is not actually what I came up with.  At the end of the session, I took the paper that I had been experimenting on and began to wipe off my brushes.  I then took some of the leftover pigments and just slopped them on the page as well so they wouldn't end up gunking up the kitchen sink.  Part way through the clean up I started to like what was on the page...so that is what you have below.  Cleaning up Green:

I really have to get better at photographing these things.  Who ever thought that learning to paint would mean learning photography and photo editing!

Update Tuesday 22/11/11

It was a cool autumn evening as a small group of us ranging in ages from 6 to 60+, gathered in Gore park in downtown Hamilton.  What started as an initial observation by a young family driving into the city for prenatal appointments was finding expression in an act of obedient compassion.  Some friends of ours from a suburb of the Greater Hamilton Area have been putting proceeds from a home business towards supplies that they use to make meals for the homeless in Hamilton.  So when they contacted us we were honoured to join them in this act of service.  We spent a few hours Sunday evening handing out sandwiches and coffee to the homeless in the downtown core.  We all recognize that next to the towering issues of poverty, addiction, mental health etc. it is one small gesture easily lost within the shadows cast by such huge and complex issues.  On the other hand God has a way of multiplying seemingly small contributions for His sake and the sake of His Kingdom.  And really, speaking as a pastor, as I see individuals and small groups moved enough by the brokenness around them to break the temptations of apathy and inertia, then I can't help but think that God has already done something huge.   What I also loved about the opportunity, was the direct interaction that we had with individuals on the street.  It is one thing to give money to a charity (and I still encourage us to do so - often when we work together in an organized fashion we can do more to affect change) but it is another thing to see and hear from people first hand and to engage with those whom we seek to serve.  I can only imaging the impact this will have on our youngest children as they think about the individuals they handed a sandwich to and with whom they spoke.  There is already talk about the next time, and further ideas about what and how to respond to the need.
Along similar lines The Hamilton Spec (our local paper) released another set of articles in its Code Red Series looking at issues of poverty in the city.  The most recent articles focus on the issue of teen pregnancy and provide some very insightful, albeit challenging statistics.  For those of you who have had some connection with the Sanctuary Network over the years, these articles may be of interest to you as they not only address Hamilton, but also provide statistics from Halton (the neighbouring suburban region) in which many of our churches are found.  The statistic about abortions in Halton was particularly striking.  Interestingly, the articles also tried to provide an insight into the issue from a First Nations perspective and they chose to focus on Big Trout Lake which happens to be a northern community to which the Oakville Sanctuary has been leading mission trips for many years now.  The links are below:

Code Red  

Big Trout Lake

Thanks for your continued interest and support.

Free Art Friday 18/11/11

If you have been following the Free Art Friday portion of the blog you will have seen a number of paintings Inukshuks from a series I have been working on.  As well as being Inukshuks that I have built at my cottage, the paintings have also used the same pallet as I have been experimenting with ultramarine blue and burn umber along with a bit of white an black.  Well, as I have been thinking and experimenting with these colours I also thought I might work it in to some lyrics at some point.  The first line of these lyrics comes out of those thoughts and I went on to finish a short songs worth of lyrics over the following few weeks.  I have been working on putting them to music and have something that I think I am happy with so  maybe I will get a recording up at some point as well.  Until that time, here are the lyrics I cam up with:

There's too much umber in the blue of the sky today,

And it's making the sky a dirty, hazy grey.

The sky kind of matches this feeling in my heart today,

Drizzling rain on the windshield, rhythm of the wiper blades

I'm singing blue, rhythm blue

I'm singing blue, rhythm blue

Colourless washes are bleeding 'cross the canvas today,

I'll just whistle a tune to get me through the pain.

Update Tuesday 15/11/11

I just got home last night from a six day trip that Kim and I took down to Nova Scotia.  We were really blessed by the invitation from a team at our national convention to lead worship for a pastors and wives retreat for Eastern Canada.  It was a great experience as we had the opportunity to lead worship together, meet and spend some time with colleagues in the Atlantic provinces as well as sneak in a few hours of sight seeing!  Peggy's Cove was quite spectacular as heavy rain and wind the day before made for some incredible waves and spray. 
We made it back last night, just in time to meet with some friends from the North American Mission Board at our home here in Hamilton this morning.  Tony Hudson and Matt King (along with others on their team) have been traveling to cities in North America to produce videos that help to highlight some of the church planting work going on, as well as some of the needs for church planting.  We first got a chance to meet Matt and Tony earlier in the year when they came to take some footage of our family for the upcoming Annie Armstrong Initiative for Easter 2012.  It was a great opportunity for our family to see them again and this time they actually got to see the inside of our house in Hamilton!  We so appreciate all that these guys do to help tell our stories, help people see the need to be involved in church planting and to celebrate all that God is doing.
As I mentioned, we left last Wednesday so in terms of an update there hasn't been too much that we have been able to do in our neighbourhood since last Tuesday.  I can report however, that we had a great meeting last week as a number of us from our old small group in Milton gathered to celebrate the two new groups that have started from that initial small group.  You can read more about it in last week's update but I can report that it was a great celebration, a good time for us to be able to gather again and catch up as well as an inspirational night that helped us look in anticipation to the future as we prayerfully continue on in this path of multiplying fellowships that has begun.
I would also like to take a proud parent moment and share one story from last Tuesday that involves my kids.  While the adults were upstairs meeting, my kids were downstairs with their friend from across the street.   I thought that they were playing games or perhaps watching a movie.  Later in the evening my son came asking about bibles and if I had a printed copy of a study tool that we use.  As it turns out, while we were having a meeting upstairs, they were hosting a bible study downstairs.  They began with some bible charades before leading a bible study with their unchurched friend across the street.  They used the same tools that we have been using for our family devotions each morning (which I also use for our fellowship meetings) to begin a study with their friend who has little exposure if any to the gospel.  It was a proud moment to say the least.  We would invite you to pray for Meg as we continue to meet with her and have opportunities to share with her.

Free Art Friday 11/11/11

It is remebrance day today in Canada.  I am on the road leading music at a conference this weekend but thought that I would put the link to the musical setting of the poem In Flanders Fields I did a while ago.

In Flanders Fields

If you are unfamiliar with the history of the poem you can read about it here:

http://www.veterans.gc.ca/eng/history/firstwar/mccrae/flanders

Update Tuesday 8/11/11

And what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, commit to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.

2 Timothy 2:2

It is a short verse consisting of just one sentence but if you look closely, and read slowly, there is a staggering amount in this one passing phrase.  When we look closely we can see a full four generations in this phrase that takes just one full breath to utter-  Paul to Timothy, Timothy to faithful men, faithful men who will teach others.  

Tonight is the night that our new house fellowship usually meets in our home.  We will share dinner again tonight, but then we have the opportunity to do something a little bit different.  Tonight we have invited some friends from Milton who were in our original small group to come for a celebration.  What are we celebrating?  Well, this was the group that I was leading a number of years ago when I began to do some exploring.  I was sensing that there was something missing in my ministry, specifically with regards to discipleship.  I began to search and study and to meet with others to glean ideas.  One of the people was my friend Mike, who was both my elder in the faith but who also had extensive overseas experience.  I began to meet with Mike and he shared a number of ideas, principles, thoughts and experiences with me over a period of months.  I began to take these things I was learning and try to adapt them for the small group context in which I found myself.  It was a bit more of an experiment than an official implementation but it gave me the opportunity to develop and refine a lot of what would eventually become the basis for our new work in Hamilton.   Fast forward to about a month ago, and I got a note from one of the members of that original group in Milton.  He was letting me know that he and his wife had just begun a new small group in their home to which they had invited some of the newest people at church.  They have begun to lead this small group, and have already been able to celebrate two baptisms!  Needless to say I was excited for them, and proud of them as well.  In fact, I was proud of them for going and starting, as well as our original group for once again having raised up leaders and having been willing to let some of their best go.  I got to thinking.  Mike had passed on some principles and discipleship to me, I was able to share it with the group that I was leading and since that time that group has started another generation.  In fact if you count our new work in Hamilton, which really came out of that group as well, then it has started two next generation works while continuing to meet and grow disciples itself.  Really, we have begun to see the above quoted verse become a reality in our midst.  

So tonight we celebrate.  We will remember our beginnings and we will take the time to intentionally recognize what God has been doing through that initial group.  I am also praying that it will give us pause to consider the future.  Who are we currently discipling and are we doing it in such a way that we are equipping people so that they may eventually go and make the next generation of disciple?  Are we  prayerfully, intentionally, reproductively equipping the next generation of disciple?

If I could ask you to pray this week, it would be for all of our leaders and our groups that continue to meet and make disciples.  Please join us in giving thanks for all that God has done already and pray that we might see this continue.  I would also ask that you pray for all of those leading these groups.  Since calling this celebration meeting tonight we have already seen evidence of the enemies handy work as all of us have experienced trying circumstances this past few weeks.  

Thanks for your continued support and prayer. 

Free Art Friday 04/11/11

So last week I just totally forgot to post but I remembered this week.  Here is the third installment of my Inukshuk on Georgian Bay series:

Inukshuk

Update Tuesday 01/11/11

To be perfectly frank, this past week has been the most discouraging week thus far in our new Hamilton adventure.  To list the reasons why would take too long, it was just one of those weeks.  In order to avoid making this post just an "airing or the grievances",  I will simply say that ministry wise and family wise we had some tough blows, and every other little detail of the week seemed to go wrong, have glitches and what would have been mild, almost comical frustrations all compiled to make it a discouraging time.  Last night, however, was our first annual Shine Your Light in the Hammer event.  In contrast to the rest of the week this really was a lot of fun, and we are already excited for next year.  My wife has posted about it over at her blog and so I will let her tell you all about it and share some of the many pics that were taken as our camera floated around (thanks Cheri!).

zoo-ology.blogspot 


Thanks again for all the continued support.