Closing the Bible a Path to Transformation

How has closing the Bible improved our congregation's engagement with Scipture? Well, the journey began as we started this church when a mentor and friend asked why white people don't believe the Bible. "What??" I asked, certain that I had misunderstood what was being said. "We take the Bible very seriously" I shot back in defense. "But you don't know the stories," my friend replied. "You open the book, read them. Then close the book, and forget them." And a seed was planted in my heart and mind that I have tended now for 7 years.

We have done many things over those years to think about how one gets scripture inside of us in a way that make evident that this story is the story that shapes our every moment and that is available to shape your story in every moment. Some have met with some success. Others have been abysmal failures. This journey has been further guided by the reality that literacy levels in our community are low to begin with and in any gathering there is a very wide range of comfort with print media.

So, as pastor, I have given up preaching in favour of recovering the oral tradition of scripture itself. Well, not totally given it up. I preach in a very dialogical format once a month. The rest of my time I have committed to teaching scripture by hearing and sharing what you have heard.

Currently we use a method of scripture study called, "Simply the Story" and use it as the teaching tool for our House Church gatherings.

It is a method of learning the story of scripture by hearing not seeing and then passing that on to the group as a way of getting the story "in" people's hearts and minds. One of the guiding ideas being that one need not be literate to be a disciple of Jesus and even a teacher of the word. Our culture, however has gotten so print focused that we have unwittingly excluded many who do not learn well in that way.

For those of us with higher levels of literacy it has been a challenge to abandon comfortable and familiar ways of learning and communicating. And we find ourselves engaging scripture anew as we learn these new (but very old) skills.

Our prayer and conviction is that God's Word never returns void.

Unity

The drum beat reverberated off of the ceiling and walls, it echoed through my body. This sound I have come to associate with our church gathered and it directs my attention to God's presence among us. This afternoon though we are in a very atypical space for us and my heart is praying that this familiar sound is putting some at ease in what is otherwise an uneasy space. Usually we gather outside on the grass and the drum echoes off the buildings around. Other times we gather in a small hall and the drum dominates because of the small space no other conversation is possible. Today we are gathered united in worship though diverse in our expressions, our ethnicities, our styles and our communities of faith. Today we are gathered with our neighbours, both friends and strangers to worship together and to look around the room, reminded of what the body of Christ looks like in our neighbourhood, at least somewhat. One friend in the midst of conversation with me exclaims, "oh, I had no idea they were follower of Jesus" as a family from another congregation walks through the door. "We walk to school with them every day. My son will be so encouraged to know that he is not alone in his class." We are gathered in what is now known as Strathcona Church (funny since that is the name we chose for this blog 5 years ago). Up until a year ago it had been a Korean Foursquare Church with a mostly commuter congregation. Then, last spring it was purchased by a private family with a vision of stewarding this space for the use of various churches in a shared way. While conversation is still ongoing about who all will use the space on a regular basis this joint service was the first event held in the space. For almost a year pastors of incarnational churches in the neighbourhood have been gathering to pray and ask God if there are ways we could work together more intentionally. God's House has had a practice of inviting other churches to join us for Good Friday, Easter Sunrise and Christmas services. The Salvation Army had also been spearheading a month of prayer that we would all participate in, but we felt it was also time to gather collaboratively for worship and fellowship. Strathcona Church was a good venue for that and allowed us to all come into the space afresh. The service was organized by Strathcona Vineyard, Mosaic (Alliance), God's House (Baptist) and we invited The Salvation Army 614, friends who live in the neighbourhood but are attending church outside of it. We also invited churches that are newly planted and anticipated or had just launched; Coastal (non-denominational) and Vancouver Foursquare Church. On Good Friday we look forward to accepting the invitation from the Chinese churches in the neighbourhood (Mennonite and Church of Christ China) to expand our fellowship further, gathering again in the Strathcona Church space. Jesus prayed that we would be one. While we all have distinctive contributions it is encouraging to move toward greater unity in these gatherings. In fact it was a goal when we set out at God's House as a metric of health that we would see greater unity in the whole body of Christ. As with any sign of health, this is God's doing as we try and lean in to his heart.

Confronting the Powers in the Way of the Cross

Part 1: He Knows Your Name

It is Good Friday again. Our 5th as a community. Again, we take to the streets following the way of the cross.

Our first stop, Oppenheimer Park, is teaming with people on this beautiful sunny day in March. Oppenheimer is considered the "front yard" for mNy of our neighbours who are homeless or who inhabit rooms that measure 6'x9'. We listen to a Flamenco piece, done on strings, full of passion and tension, an almost palpable push and pull as we imagine Jesus betrayed by one with whom he has shared his life and for whom he walks this road.

Our gathering was noted by those hanging out in the park. Groups who come and go to "see the poverty" of our neighbourhood are common place around here, especially around holidays. And as we leave a woman calls after us in a drunken slur from the bench where she is sitting "I love you guys!!" Without missing a beat a voice from within our crowd yells back, "we love you too Hilda!!"

I am reminded on this way of the cross that Jesus too knew the names of neighbours as he walked this road, and called them by name, calling forth our humanity.


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Being Good Neighbours

One of the issues facing our neighbourhood right now is gentrification, and what it means to be a good neighbour when higher-income people are moving into a low-income neighbourhood, often displacing poorer people.  I (Beth) am currently writing a series of blogs about gentrification, and I invite you to engage with me in the comments section over on my blog. But on this blog, I wanted to post something written by another member of our church on the same topic.

Last year, a man named Mike Comrie wrote a letter to the National Post, describing his life as a middle-income father-of-two in the DTES.  It was fairly scathing, as you may guess from the title: "Raising kids amid the hookers, junkies and drunks of Vancouver's worst neighbourhood."  You can read it here.

Krista-Dawn Kimsey, a God's House of Many Faces member and mother of two, wrote a letter to the editor in response to Mike.  It was never published, to our knowledge.  But I'm very happy to post it here, and to showcase her excellent thinking and writing, and her gracious way of living in this neighbourhood.  I hope it spurs some further thought and reflection.

-Beth

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Dear Mike,


I would like to ask you if you see yourself as the “good neighbor” that you are looking for in the DTES. I am also a resident of the DTES and have lived here with my family of 2 kids of a similar age to you (3 and 7) for a few years. We lived right on Hastings Street for a year and now live a few blocks away from Strathcona Elementary. I can commiserate with you over the outrageous housing prices. I don’t see us ever affording to buy in this city even though both my husband and I are college graduates and come from middle class family support structures. I would also join you in inviting other families to raise their children in this neighborhood; it’s a great place for a family to thrive. But my recommendation to new families would be to please buy elsewhere if they share in your opinions of this community and place their hopes for the ideal lifestyle arriving at their doorstep through gentrification. What this neighborhood needs is better neighbors who seek the welfare of all its residents, not new neighbors waiting for cultural annihilation.

I’ve lived in major urban centers most of my life, in all kinds of neighborhoods and also have always had the choice to stay or go. My experience of the DTES is that it is the most welcoming place I have ever lived. This “disturbing new community” that you describe has been a foundational teacher to me and my kids on subjects like generosity, hospitality, acceptance and most significantly, respect. My kids love walking on Hastings, and we also accept the generous gifts of people who have nothing but want to affirm kids being kids. My kids have been given all kinds of gifts, from money to toys to tricycles by the “dodgy” characters that you refer to. The chorus of “kids on the block” to hide their drugs is a kind and respectful act by people who have not received a fair share of kindness in their life. The streets we walk on are their bedrooms and living rooms, not because they all want to live there, but because the city is refusing to listen to the community’s plea for dignified and affordable housing options. Kids are intuitive, they can instantly know if someone is safe or not safe. What they need are parents to teach them how to engage with people who at first glance to them seem fearful, not parents who affirm that there are people so different than themselves that you need to walk on the other side of the street to avoid them.

Perhaps the bus stops and streets are dirty because neighbors who are not living in crisis have not taken responsibility to care for one another. Do you really think there is a kind of human being that enjoys going to the bathroom on the street? Are there not hundreds of apartments and homes in the DTES filled with people with clean bathrooms? When the city is glacially slow to take on responsibility to provide a decent number of public washrooms, couldn’t we know each other’s names and stories enough to answer the door and see a friend who needs to use a bathroom, or a washing machine. People on the streets know each other’s names, they know what their lives have been like, they know when they go missing after 12 hours. Do you know your neighbors in your condo like that? Who is going to teach your kids that people are more important than stuff? It wouldn’t take too much time when you walk with your kids and see a bunch of needles on ground to pick them up and get the name of person who owns the closest sharps container. They are all over, and I’ve found people to be most grateful. We all want to be safe when we walk down the street, not just you.

You don’t have to look far for excellent neighborhood teachers here. People in the Carnegie Community Center know how to identify the dignity in each person in a second. Families in homes like St. Chiara’s, Servants and 614 can show you how to eat dinner with people suffering on a mental illness journey and oppressed by addiction without feeling afraid. I’ve found the best teachers are the ones who are sitting on the park bench in Oppenheimer, while my kids play. So many people in this community have time to share what they are passionate about, where they have come from, what they wish their neighborhood could be like. You could dream with them, and join them in the fight to have those dreams be taken seriously even though they aren’t going to bring big profits for the city. There are lots of people here who can fan the flame of courage to move you along the journey from initial contact to greater engagement and solidarity.

Where I wouldn’t look for help in creating a caring community is the police department. Our residents association invited them to address some people’s safety concerns. All they did was drill into us that there are “bad guys” who will do anything to get our stuff. How many more news stories to we need to see to know the truth that those who are the most dangerous to our kids are more likely to be in our own extended families, or living in quiet suburban neighborhoods behind closed doors?? When we did get the statistics in writing, it was clear that neighborhoods like Kits have higher rates of all kind of crimes than Strathcona and the DTES.

What the DTES really needs is for the city to listen to what the current residents have identified themselves to help them be better neighbors that have the ability to provide for themselves. The city’s refusal to listen to the community and block destructive condo developments like Sequel 138 are only going to bring greater responsibility to us all currently living here to model what a thriving community looks like. How can our current neighbors thrive when their basic needs of decent housing, healthy food and a good night’s sleep are out of reach for them? When Sequel 138 new neighbors sign their lease they need to sign on for a steep learning curve in how to look for and affirm our common humanity. Not use stereotyped preconceptions that identify “dodgy” people as unsafe and look for something to arrest them for. My neighbors won’t be arrested for their drug use because they do it in their backyard, where the smoke comes through my windows to my kids. But they sure would be arrested if they smoked in the breezeway of the Sequel 138.

I agree with you Mike, drug addiction does horrible, horrible things to a human soul. And all of us have a responsibility to speak, write and engage with each other that affirms our common dignity and our human right to thrive. The city is refusing to put those values into action by honoring their earlier policy of replacing 1 SRO to 1 unit of dignified social housing, so ever more new neighbors will be coming just because it’s a cheaper place to live. If these new neighbors like yourself are only coming in hopes that they will create a new kind of community to displace the one that established themselves here for decades, then the soul of Vancouver will be lost. Instead of waiting for something of value to come to this neighborhood, you could take time to make friends with your neighbors and realize the gems that have learned how to survive despite crushing odds. The people here are complicated, just like you and I. But I’ve seen just as atrocious behavior in residence association meetings from people with comfortable homes and 6 figure incomes as the brawls outside the bars. Violent behavior is everywhere, including ourselves. This community has its share of violence, but more often I’ve experienced it’s ability to listen, accept and have each other’s back. The city should be coming down here for lessons in how to develop a supportive community, and import those ideas it to the other neighborhoods that have created Vancouver’s reputation for being a difficult city to know anyone in.

So Mike let’s do the neighborly thing. Let’s get together over coffee and introduce our kids and hear each other’s stories. We could meet at the new doughnut shop down the street from you, the one that sells them for $4.50 each. I’ll bring a friend of mine on welfare and we can start the conversation by brainstorming how he can pay for his dinner since his $8 allowance to live that day went to a coffee and doughnut.

Sincerely,
Krista-Dawn Kimsey

A Nation Not Our Own

A long day's journey from where I live, there resides a small nation surrounded on all sides by a far larger, far stronger nation. Over time, this small nation has seen its borders trespassed, its children stolen, the sustenance of its land and water despoiled and eroded, its culture and language threatened with extinction, all by that larger nation which surrounds it. The life of this nation has been challenged now for over a hundred years, but remarkably-miraculously, even-its people still hold on to their heritage. Despite relentless efforts to eliminate their identity, they have not forgotten who they are. And now, faced with continuing threats to their self-determination and livelihood, they must hold on to that more than ever...

The above lines could describe countless indigenous nations all around the world. Whether "surrounded by" Canada, the US, Brasil, India, Australia, or numerous other nations, First Peoples everywhere have shared the oppressive experience of colonization. But lest we make a grave error, let us remember that this is not simply a destructive pattern belonging to a regrettable but finished past. We all move in the currents of history, and the channels it has dug are not undone in a day, a year, or even a hundred years. Colonization is a contemporary experience for indigenous peoples. And it is an experience I-a white, male, middle-class descendant of British settlers-profit from.

What does it mean to follow the God who delivers slaves from their oppressors in Egypt, when I am an Egyptian?

It's a question that led me last week to a territory about an hour's southwest of Houston, in central BC, the traditional lands of the Unis'tot'en clan of the Wet'suwet'en First Nation. At the Unis'tot'en camp, one family has built and moved into a cabin directly in the way of a proposed natural gas pipeline, the Pacific Trails Pipeline (PTP). Here in BC, there has been a lot of noise about the Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline, transporting raw bitumen from the tar sands in northern Alberta to the coastal town of Kitimat, where it would be shipped overseas to China. There's a lot of good reasons to oppose it: dangerous potential for spills for tankers navigating to and from Kitimat, the several major watersheds in BC crossed by the pipeline, the fossil fuel dependence it would further entrench in the Canadian economy, devastating impacts of extraction practices on land, forest, water, and rural communities in Alberta... What people don't know is that Northern Gateway is just one piece of a whole Energy Corridor the Harper and Christy governments want to develop, including numerous pipelines crisscrossing BC, a new Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) plant in Kitimat, and the Site C Dam. Northern Gateway is still under review, but PTP was already approved as of April this year. And if it is built, the Northern Gateway pipeline could very readily slip through along the same route, PTP paving the way.

This is what colonization looks like today. Historically, large swaths of land in BC were never legally ceded over by First Nations peoples to the government, meaning much of this industrial development is essentially illegal, imposition on foreign lands. At the Unis'tot'en camp, the Wet'suwet'en First Nations are again taking up their territorial responsibility, asking all visitors - politicians and corporate reps included - to abide by traditional protocol analogous to the United Nations' requirement for Free, Prior, and Informed Consent (FPIC) with indigenous peoples. When I arrived at the camp, I was asked to explain who I was, why I was there, and whether I had been involved in industry harming their traditional territories. It was their decision whether I would be allowed on their lands. Anyone who fails to respect this protocol has been turned away.

In respecting their protocol, however, I experienced a profoundly humbling welcome, one of gracious acceptance rather than arrogant entitlement. I stayed with the family and some of their other allies about four days, long enough to do a little cabin renovation, chop timber and cook on a wood stove, almost freeze in an attempt to sleep outside in the wintery conditions, and to dip my head into the rushing waters of the nearby Morice River, one of the few uncontaminated rivers remaining in the area. I left with a strong desire to return, to continue my own journey out of Egypt by walking alongside an oppressed people in their struggle for freedom and self-determination.

Posted by Jason Wood member of God's House of Many Faces


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Children and Poverty

BC has the highest percentage of child poverty in the nation. This is something that should not be! But it is.

We are not sticking to the rules for the challenge in regard to the child in our household. It is good for him to experience limits in terms of choice. Every morning he asks, "how many more days do we have to have plain oatmeal for breakfast?" And then groans no matter the response. One more day is too many in his mind. But I am not worried about that. I am worried about the parents who have to feed their children on this amount of money and I honestly do not know how they can do it. The amount of bread and peanut butter we could afford this week ran out today, on day 3 and we don't even have to feed him lunch because he gets it at school. There is only enough fruit for one serving every other day and 3 carrots, 3 potatoes and a spaghetti squash are all the veggies we could do and we aren't eating meat or eggs. That again is for 4 people.

More than anything else I am struck by the plight of children and their parents when it comes to having to make do on this amount if money. This must be set right!


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Welfare Food Challenge

Many in our church are on social assistance. Almost all live at or below the poverty line. Personally I (Jodi) felt like taking the challenge this week to live on a food budget if $27/person would not be an especially big deal. We live on close to this amount most weeks. However I am starting to see things very differently. Today is day 3 of the challenge. Here are some of the "rules" that are making this pretty tough.

You cannot use anything you already have on hand. This includes spices or oil for coating a pan, a teaspoon of sugar or coffee unless it comes out of your whole budget. Since I am the only coffee drinker in the house, no coffee.

There are 4 of us in our household. Three adults and one child. We are cheating all over the place for the kid. Otherwise this is nearly impossible to do healthfully. More on that later.


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