A Year in Review

2011 was evidently not a great year for blogging for us. Sorry about that. We have been busy, and we are still learning which makes it hard sometimes to make sense of what we are learning enough to talk about it. So thanks for your patience with us. We are trying to do better in this area.

Highlights of 2011:
We are celebrating almost one whole year of stable locations for our Sunday gatherings. We continue to meet outside in the warmer weather and consider this our "true home" in many ways. It is such a joy to worship in public space and watch how creative God can be in drawing people in. Mission Possible, a local mission group extended hospitality to us last February and using their space has been an extraordinary gift. We are able to accommodate a wide range of groupings and use of their industrial kitchen has added much to our life together. We have even been able to partner on occasion, including this past Christmas Eve (pic. of Christmas Eve band above).

This Easter on a cold rainy afternoon we celebrated our first baptism.

Our summer was dominated by two themes. First, Red Clover Farm where we had our first year, start to finish, of managing the entirety of the farm. The space continues to be a source of joy, connection, sharing and learning. We are considering how to best steward this gift in the coming year, perhaps looking to generate some income from the farm.

Last spring the children put together an interactive production of the Exodus story to top off our series on that book. This year as we began our preparations to tell a story from Daniel the kids said, "let's make it be 4D like our one last year, cause that was really cool." We did enjoy a dollar store stock of plague-like toys that we could throw at the audience at appropriate times. This year's fiery furnace might prove a little more challenging...unless I can get my neighbour who breathes fire to join us!

In a neighbourhood where time is largely punctuated by the rhythms of welfare distribution days it has been fun to have children and adults alike begin to comment, "hey, we did that last year!" as the rythm of the church year begins to permeate our lives.