I’d like to share with all of you a new venture a few of us from the Canadian side of southern baptists (soon to be national baptists) are up to.

It is called Incarnation Instant Breakfast and it is a blog set up for conversation amongst church planters in Canada who are practicing missional church planting (we like to use the word incarnation) specific to the CCSB. It is a place for us to converse, share articles, links, and many other resources.

For me it is the journey of us bringing church to friends, instead of friends to church.

We have been dreaming about this endeavor for a while and now it is becoming a reality. So feel free to join in on the conversation, share ideas you have for posts and let us know how we can work together in our church planting and any other creative community adventures.

I think we all can say that Luc did a great job sharing at the toh gathering at Libby’s Tuesday night. I was so surprised and stoked about the recent progress of the Catholic church and I was really glad that Luc gave us the push as Protestants to quit protesting and begin making an effort to take part in the solution of exemplifying unity in Christ, especially with Catholics.

Sure we don’t alway agree on everything, but think about it, even my closest friends and I don’t agree on a lot of things. But we find ways to move forward and bless each other and the world.

With that said I know a lot of you wanted the articles that Lucas wrote (i think there are 4 in this attachment…and he wanted to go through all of them during our gathering, such high expectations), so they can be found in the PDF file link below.

Articles on Catholicism by Lucas Aube

Tonight Andrea and Christine ran a prayer night out of our house in order to get our church praying more for our church and the community. I was hanging out with my buddy Alan at his church plant in Richmond prior to it, so i arrived home for the last hour of the prayer time and man was it refreshing.

It ended up only being the 3 of us, but it was great. They were listening to music and praying out loud and so at first I wondered if I should dive right in or avoid it. To be honest I am not one for extended prayer times, due to my ADD (not clinical, self diagnosed) but sitting with them, in the sounds of prayer and contemplative music was exhilarating. It wasn’t 5 minutes before I was in the moment, listening to God, praying out loud and really believing God was there with us listening and responding. I prayed for people I hadn’t prayed for in a while, and I was given a peace that I haven’t had in a really long time.

It is amazing how distracted I have become in my life. I have felt connected to God and close but tonight I felt like I tapped into something deeper, and all because I desired to try it, to sit in the silence and just be.

I think we have our idea of discipline mixed up. We think that if want to get closer to God we have build these disciplines into our life…prayer, reading the bible, serving our community, journaling etc. but I think it’s when we have become closer with God in a more organic way that we long for some disciplined intentional time in these areas. It is then that we can build these into our lives and in a sense “succeed.” It was as if I was ready for this, and it wasn’t forced time.

The three of us had a great chat after about how we need to keep praying together and believe that God wants to use this time and people will join us as they feel freed up to connect with God in this way. For someone like myself who avoids the “program” like the plague, I grew an appreciation for the “program” but perhaps in a new and fresh way. Programs (organized discipline) can be good, if it is outflow of what God has done in your life and manifests itself as a response to God.

I need to remember this night and I hope that I can continue to flesh out these ideas around discipline and not equate them with some church growth strategy or a way to make everyone more “mature” in Christ, but as a way to respond to what God has already been doing in my life and as a way to go deeper in that relationship because I was ready for it.

lucas the server

Originally uploaded by The Open House.

Today we had another public gathering for the open house at Wise Hall, and we explored Luke 10:25-37, classically known as the “Good Samaritan.”

Here Lucas is being a neighbour to Julie and Rachele as one of our servers.

Today the open house is getting together at Wise Hall for our monthly public gathering.

It’s starts at 4:30pm and there will be music, dialogue, space for kids and food.

Hope you can make it out.

God is raising a cadre of young Christian leaders throughout Canada who are being prepared to lead amidst the complexities, challenges and opportunities of the 21st century. Who are these dynamic men and women? What can we learn from their stories? How can we encourage their dreams, invest in their leadership and extend their influence?

Vote for someone here

My good friend Christy Penner did a case study on urban church planting using the open house for her masters degree and here is the paper for your reading pleasure.

I loved being part of the project and feel this is a very well documented critique and encouragement to what we are attempting to do in Vancouver.

Here is an excerpt:

Planting churches in Canada today involves an awareness that as of the year 2000, ninety percent of Canada is being considered urban, or operating under an urban agenda. Relevant is also the increasingly pluralistic context that Canada finds itself in, with growing levels of diversity in religious affiliations, decreases in church affiliation and overall growth of the population claiming to possess ‘no religion.’ Into this environment, the open house, a house church planting expression is developing in the city of Vancouver, British Columbia. This paper will address the key issue of how the postmodern worldview is informing Canadian urban church planting by using the open house as a case study.

Enjoy (PDF)

BBQ after Moby workout

Originally uploaded by urbanplanter.

We have been blessed once again in Vancouver with a great team of students from Calgary who are out here serving us and our local community.

Here is a pic from last years BBQ we had for them.

Let’s go buffalo…

love it…

Thanks WGR 550

via