Recently as a community we went through the core values we wrote down over 3 years ago. These were to shape what we were setting out to do, and yet were written in a void, based on educated guesses about the needs and dynamics of the community. It was a little scary for me (Jodi) to put these in front of our whole community to examine, evaluate and dream with. Yet at the end of the process I was deeply encouraged by our re-committment as a whole community to essentially the same values we had set out with.
In the next few posts I would like to lay out some of these values and a bit of the work we did to translate those values into the particulars of our context and to dream about the gospel bearing fruit.
Core Value:
The gospel changes everything. The gospel is the "power of God" that changes unbelievers and believers alike. The gospel is wholistic in its nature, changing the spiritual, social, economic, political, cultural, ecological, emotional, physical, moral, judicial, educational, and familial dynamics of individuals and communities. As gospel people we desire to be wholistic in our ways of representing the gospel in our community.
We explored where we have seen these things happening in our community currently, and were encouraged that we could give examples of the gospel working in our community in each of these areas.
Two I want to touch on right briefly, are ecology and education. Our farm, Red Clover Urban Farm, is a hub in our life together as a community. As we care for the land that was otherwise abandoned in our neighbourhood we are also finding ourselves restored, and with something to offer to others. Check out our new website and the update as to what is going on at Red Clover Urban Farm
In the area of education we are gaining deeper insights into the dynamics at play around education in our neighbourhood. Those of us who are new to the neighbourhood are beginning to understand that residential schools have an affect being seen even today. We knew in moving into the neighbourhood that lots of kids were having trouble with school attendance. By grade 3 many kids of the low-income kids were only in school 2-3 days a week on average. Someone explained to me that while most people in the world see education as a road to improving your lot in life, for many aboriginal families education was still a painful part of a healing journey because of the generational impacts of the trauma of residential schools. What does the gospel look like as a piece of that healing journey? One mother in our community who's parents were a product of residential school, and whose partner is a residential school survivor said that she has hope that her son's children might be able to be free of the generational impacts. Her son, however is making great strides. As a 3rd grader he was attending school 3 days a week. Now, in grade 6 he has had perfect attendance for the past 4 months and has only missed 15 days this whole school year. Please pray for kids, and families still struggling in this area.
