A Visit from NC

This morning I had the pleasure of having a visit from Boe and Jimmy, both seminary students who are helping to produce a training video (in their plethora of spare time!) with a focus on Toronto Church Planting.  Although I don't like having to listen to my own voice for that long, and certainly don't like to have to watch myself on video, there is something about these opportunities that I love and that is really good for me.  When I have to speak about church planting and what is going on here in Hamilton, I  always come away refreshed and re-energized about all that God has done, all that God is doing and about the purpose for what we are doing.   It was an invigorating morning for me once again.  One of the things that they asked me to speak about in particular was about family and  church planting.  This gave me the chance to really think about my family as well as the type of community that we are trying to create here at the Hamilton Fellowships.
When we moved here just over a year ago, we were leaving home, leaving friends and family - both blood and church.  It could have easily felt like I was dragging my children away from all that they knew and loved as I set out on this adventure that God had called me to.  Instead, however, they have really taken the opportunity to ask what their role is in this new church plant.  With a lot of beautiful and gentle guidance from my wife, they have really been able to see their part, their role and how God can work in and through them to impact the kingdom.  I think about how God has worked through our very outgoing T.J. to meet so many of our neighbours, some of whom are now members of our fellowship.  I think of the relationships that Liam and Daniel have been able to forge with kids in the community and how they have been able to invite them to participate in our fellowship, and help to make it a safe and enjoyable community.  Caroline does a great job of serving younger kids in our community both within and without of our group and is doing a huge part in developing our reputation in the neighbourhood.  I even watched my kids intentionally go, introduce themselves and invite a young community girl to hang out with them this past week, a girl who up until this point I have never seen interact with anyone else on the street. There is also,  of course, the numerous ways in which my wife not only supports what I do, but guides my kids and still has time to minister to, check in on and walk with many of the women in our growing fellowship.
This sense of family, however, goes beyond just our nuclear family.  Building community is central to what we do and so this sense of extended family is really important.  I am recognizing how many people around us long for a sense of community and family.  They may not express it that way, they may suggest that they don't and they may even struggle with what it really means or looks like, but they long for it.  Whether it is a widow or lonely senior, an immigrant or refugee who has left home and family, an international student who is thousands of miles away or even a Canadian student  who is away at University or College for the first time or perhaps someone who has grown up in the foster care system, we all need community and relationship.  Did Jesus not recognize this when He chose a group of followers and put them in relationship and then commanded them to love one another towards the end of His life?  Is this not what we see in the first chapters of Acts?  I am again recognizing how valuable my family has been to my ministry.  I may lead, but we all participate and minister together in our own ways.  We have a family, but more than just that, more than just a nuclear family, we have a basis of community into which we might invite those around us.  Not only does it provide a place and an environment into which to invite others but it also provides an opportunity for us to model healthy relationships within a Kingdom context.  Followers of Jesus are not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but there are so many life lessons that can be gleaned as we see and experience families living out kingdom principles as they interact with one another; husbands and wives, parents and children, friend and friend.   There is so much discipleship that can happen in community, both theoretical and practical, both taught and caught.
So today I find myself thankful for family, both my immediate family and my church family.  The community we are building has so many possibilities for the sake of the Kingdom and I am excited to be living it and to see what God will do in it and through it.