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Hey everyone, as we shared in our gatherings this Tuesday, we are collecting items for UGM that will be part of what they call “Hope Totes.” We are putting together 15 totes and anything we don’t receive we will buy with whatever money is brought in through the offering during the Easter service.

Hope Totes

Give the gift of hope to someone in need

Many people living on the streets do not have access to the things we consider ‘basic needs.’ Soap, deodorant, a toothbrush… these are luxury items for the homeless.

Being able to physically clean up can help those in need make other positive changes in their lives – such as entering one of our programs. Last year at our Easter Dinner, UGM provided 3,600 Hope Tote packages filled with personal care items for our guests.

We need to fill them with

* toothbrush & toothpaste
* soap
* shaving cream
* shampoo & conditioner
* deodorant
* socks
* brush & comb
* tissues
* shoelaces

(Need to be unopened products)

People can bring their items to either the Easter service or the Easter dinner on Easter Monday at Kristin’s.

thanks so much for your help, i think this is one way our church can be involved in justice for our city.

I really enjoyed this talk by Jim Wallis this afternoon. Jim has appeared on the Daily Show with John Stewart and has had many other influential opportunities.

Jim talked to us about Luke 14 and the concept of the welcome table. He said that we can begin to abolish poverty by inviting it into relationship, inviting to the welcome table.

A few other thoughts from Jim:

The God of the bible is not a God of charity but of justice.

God is about restoring relationships

The bible we have been using is full of holes…we have cut out 2000 verses about the poor.

The facts of poverty won’t change until it gets personal with all of us.

A few thoughts from Shane’s talk/seminar:

If we truly identify with the poor we would be able to name them.

There are so many in our culture who have a sincere heart, but a really murky culture. Great ambitions, but no way to make those ambitions relevant to the needs.

Invite people to take part in this "action" and in the action they will be changed. This has made me consider how we can change the views of people in our community of the church, by how we challenge them to be active in serving others and that the power in why we do it comes through Jesus.

Don’t pray for safety, but pray to be with God.

The gifts of God are too good to keep to ourselves.

Anna took some good notes on some of the practical ways in which we can be involved in the justice of our neighbuorhoods. One cool way was that people on a "community/church" to give 10% of the income away in order to take care of the needs of the neighbourhood, not the church. One example of using the money included hiring a person with that money to do some gardening in the area. This gave someone their soul by providing a job, and it gave life to the neighbourhood by cleaning it up.

The first session was led by Dr. Ron Sider who wrote the book Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger.

He began by laying out 3 problems:

1. He gave the stats of how many people are currently dying everyday as well as how many people live on 1 or 2 dollars a day.
2. There are over 2000 verses on justice for the poor in the Bible.
3. As North American Wealth has gone up, financial giving as gone dramatically down

He shared about how God is not against building wealth, but God is in the business of pulling down the rich who oppress others to get rich, and those who don’t share.

He also shared that although we can know God in many different ways, we can’t fully know God if we don’t understand His love for the poor and His desire for us to share His dream for justice.

The section I really loved was his mention of how sin is both personal and social. For so long we have emphasized the sins in our world as being personal problems, but he pointed out the many different ways sin is built right into society.

Examples of this included how in a market economy you need capital to make it work, but most of the capital is owned by structures/institutions that won’t allow the people who need the capital to have it. Other sins of structure include corrupt companies owning services that we must take part in as members of society, and therefore by default we "sin" because we support that structure. I hope that make sense.

This was followed by a question section…more to come.

Anna and I on a whim, took a trip to Ontario (Oakville to be precise) to take in The Evolving Church conference hosted by the meeting house.

All day today we are in the conference, and depending on the wifi, I will try and post updates.

Why do I return to my leafs after they continually disappoint me with their horrible play?

Up 4-1 in the 3rd period…they lose 5-4 to buffalo.

As a dog returns to its vomit,
so a fool repeats his folly. (Proverbs 26:11)

the story of my relationship to the leafs.

Tonight at the open house we are going through Luke 19:28-48: Palm Sunday.

In my reading for this topic I came across another great quote about Jesus from NT Wright.

He [Jesus] couldn’t stop announcing the kingdom, but that announcement could only come true if he now embodied in himself the things he’d been talking about.

I am in that place now…what does it mean to truly embody what I teach and believe in this urban centre called Vancouver?

ha ha, maybe not, but the open house was featured in Relevant Magazine this month. Go to the top right corner of the relevant home page and click the “look inside” link. When you get to the magazine go to the section on Vancouver…

warning: it is really small type, so buy the magazine so you can read all about us!

link