Update Tuesday

Well after seven weeks, we finally said goodbye to our team of summer interns yesterday.  I am hoping that  it was a challenging, stretching, eyeopening and equipping experience for each of them.  I pray that there were things that they learned and principles that they will take with them wherever they go, feeling both challenged and equipped to be on mission.  

So what is next for us here in Hamilton?  Well one of the things we had asked of our interns was to help us find people of peace, in particular students, in the city.  They were able to introduce a number of students to our family of faith.  Prayerfully we will be able to walk with these students to see a new Fellowship begin.  

Similarly, after having a team of interns serving, and a number of mission teams we will need to use the rest of the summer to transition from teams to our own people.  This is actually one of my weaknesses to be frank.  When I have mission teams I find it easy to come up with ideas and initiatives and be intentional about seeing them happen.  What we need to be doing now is taking some similar ideas and initiatives and seeing them being accomplished, in a very intentional way, by our own people here in the city.  In this way the teams over the summer will have been a very important stimulus and push forward that  led to a prolonged engagement in our community.  

I would also ask that you might be in prayer for the Send North America conference going on as I write.  Very soon our Toronto gang will be hosting a Send Toronto break out session sharing about what God is doing in the region and helping others to get involved.  Pray that God would move for the sake of His work here in the area and for the sake of His Kingdom.  

Friday Art-18-22 King St E

There has been a lot of discussion of late about 18-22 King St E in Hamilton.  It was going to be torn down, then it wasn't, then fences went up and machinery moved in and then once again it was stalled.  A lot of discussion then turned to the facade facing Gore Park and how much (or little) could be saved to satisfy the heritage question.  I will leave those discussions for others, but will only say that the back of the building is my favourite part.  Above, is a painting that I did a few years ago.  For some reason it was always the architectural features of the back that caught my eye and captured my imagination.  A slightly different, and more shocking view is scene below.

Photo taken from www.raisethehammer.org

Update Tuesday-writing from West Virginia

Well this is one of the views that I am enjoying this week as we have the privilege of joining Missions Camp hosted by the West Virginian Baptist Association.  We are representing North American missions, sharing about our work in Hamilton.  We will be sharing about the lessons we have been learning as we seek to minister to the diversity-both ethnic and socio-economic, that we see in the city.  I am particularly excited about introducing some of the experiential learning activities that our friend Lance Wright from Scene Change (www.scenechange.ca) helped us developed.  I am excited to help kids make the connection between their faith, their call to missions, the nations and justice.  

In the meantime, back in the city,our faithful   team of interns continue to plug into the city helping us to continue to love our neighbours well.  

Friday Art-Brad Germain of The Dinner Belles

It was inevitable I suppose, although probably a rarity, that a person would make it into one of my paintings.  It is certainly a first.  But when a guitar player shows up in pink plaid while under a giant sea foam green bandshell, who could resist.  Here is a painting of Brad Germain of The Dinner Belles performing as part of the Seven Sundays in Gage at the George R. Robinson Bandshell.

Update Tuesday - Did You See Us In The Paper?

An interesting thing happened while we were meeting at the beer store last week.  A lady from the neighbourhood, just returning her empties (not one of the recycler crowd at all) stopped to ask about what we were doing.  She seemed very intrigued by the idea, and being a bit early for the store opening, decided to hang around with us until the store opened.  After the store opened and she had finished inside, she made a point of coming back to see us before leaving and got some contact info.  As it turns out, she was so taken by what we were doing that she thought others should know about it and took it upon herself to contact the local paper.  Yesterday, we were joined by a reporter who came along for the experience and to write a story about our Monday morning ministry.  We were also joined by our new friend, who was there early again and was intentional about joining us for our prayer time.  

Below is a link to the article that appeared on page 4 of today's Hamilton Spectator.  Although we would never refer to ourselves as "angels," and the numerous (and I mean numerous) references I made to Jesus somehow missed being reported, it was encouraging to think that someone would think enough about what we are doing to want to share it.

The Hamilton Spectator

As I write this post, it is about 7:45am on Tuesday, and I have already received an e-mail from someone who read the article, visited our web site and is asking to check out one of our Fellowships meetings.  I am reminded that there are always two groups that we serve, those we serve directly and those who are watching us serve.  We never know who may respond and how!

Friday Art-A Georgian Bay Sunset

We have a running joke in our family about "another Georgian Bay Sunset"

photo.  We probably have thousands between us.  Why is it that we always feel compelled to take another ?  It may be that they all seem to be unique and thus every sunset is a new work of art and a new experience.  It may be that every experience is like being enveloped in a brilliant work of art being created in that moment by the Master artist Himself and thus we try to capture that moment.  There is also the reality that no photo can ever fully capture the experience, although a few have come close, and thus we continue to seek after that elusive capture.  

I know I have personally taken photos, written songs and painting pictures and still don't feel that I have exhausted the well, nor quite done it justice.  And so, the effort continues.  Here is a recent contribution   from a few weeks back.  It is a sketch done on a cut off board from a construction project next door, painted at the beach on Georgian Bay.  It now hangs in the Edie Gallery just outside Penetanguishene, Ont...ha ha ( inside joke).

Update Tuesday-Meet the Interns

Well, I have been referencing these individuals for a number of weeks now so I thought it would be appropriate to officially introduce them.  Pictured above is our fearless team of summer interns, (from left to right) Blake, Diane and Rachel.  Our team's diverse backgrounds span the globe with Blake joining us from Louisiana, Diane from Malaysia via Virginia and Rachel from Pakistan via Brampton.  This makes them perfectly suited to ministry in our  region.  As Blake says "my partners hail from Malaysia and Pakistan and yet I am the one who hears -You're not from around here are you?"   So true, welcome to Hamilton!

I am really excited about all the exploratory work they have been engaging in throughout the city and on the Mohawk campus, and for the groundbreaking efforts they have been accomplishing on our behalf.  

As I look at the many struggles and obstacles that had to be overcome to see this team assembled here in Hamilton I am thankful for the effort and willingness to be stretched that each has demonstrated.  I also see the hand of God in bringing this team together.  I am very much looking forward to see what God does through them.  

Update Tuesday - Guerrilla Gardening

Our crew from Fairlawn Baptist, WV

We had no agenda, no plan and no intention of organizing an ongoing initiative.  The reality is that I had a mission team in, I had some extra time to fill and I drove by a vacant property in my neighbourhood overrun by weeds.  I asked the team if they would mind helping to clean it up.  As it turns out, it was one of the cheapest things we have ever done and it garnered us some of the most positive attention we have ever received.  The neighbours really responded with gratitude to the simple effort and it lead to some great conversations even with the owner of the property.  That was last summer, and now this summer, each time we have a team I aim to do a bit of Guerrilla Gardening, where we find a piece of property that could use some attention, and clean it up a bit.  We have also begun to try and spruce things up further by planting some plants.  It is nothing earth shattering, and we are just taking small steps but for some reason it really resonates with many in our city. In the end, it is funny the things that surprise you, the things that have the greatest impact and lead to the best conversations.  I would never have thought that weeding a vacant lot would end up being one the the most cost effective and noticeable things we could do in the community, the biggest bang for the buck.  Bang for the buck, however, is not the only reason, nor perhaps the key reason, to do Guerrilla Gardening. 

Ask me why I love being involved in Guerrilla Gardening and my answer goes a bit deeper than low cost, high impact.  The reason I love to do it, is for the picture that it leaves.  For me, our efforts are about creating a visual symbol, or a 3D parabolic image.  Guerrilla Gardening is about finding a spot that is abandoned or has not been cared for and investing a little bit of TLC.  Thus, we are taking something that was once designed with care, purpose and often beauty, that has become overrun, infected and abandoned and reinvesting in order to remove that which has overrun, re-establish some beauty and return it to purpose.  To me, this is a picture of the Gospel.   God, through the death and resurrection of His Son Jesus, provides a means by which the sin that has come to overrun his beloved creation since the Fall, might be dealt with and beauty and purpose might be restored.  This is true both on a personal and individual level for all those who come to faith, as well as for the redemption of all creation that finds its ultimate fulfillment in the new heaven and new earth.  Each time we restore an abandoned planter I am thinking about what God has done for me in Jesus, and  I am thinking about the hope of a future where all things are made new and made right.  Granted, when someone drives by one of the lots that we have worked in, they certainly don't come to an understanding of the gospel out of the blue.   People do, however, seem to respond.  Maybe it is that there is an inherent recognition and hunger that leads us to respond to ideas and images of redemption when we see them.  Whatever the case, people take notice and we have the opportunity to express our hope in the final restoration of all things.   If we are intentional and always ready to share a reason for our hope, maybe we can help to connect the dots for people. 

The AFTER shot