Holy Week Schedule

Hello one and all! Wanted to issue an invitation to join us for Holy Week activities. They are as follows:

Sunday March 28th Palm Sunday Worship Celebration 11am at 389 Main Street

• Friday April 2nd Good Friday Neighbourhood Walk starting at 3 at Union and Gore (green space by the viaduct) and ending with soup at 4:30 at 239 Main Street.

• Saturday April 3rd Holy Saturday 7pm at Crab Park Candlelite Vigil remembering those we have lost in this past year.

• Sunday April 4th 2pm Easter Egg Hunt for the kids and Easter
Celebration at Crab Park.

Look forward to seeing you there!

Go Fast to Fare Well

Rarely does a whole neighborhood have a monthly rhythm to it the way the DTES does. For most residents of the DTES, their entire month is structured around today, welfare Wednesday, or as most residents call it, “cheque day.” If it’s not cheque day, they’re living in the two weeks after it, spending the money, or in the two weeks before it, longing for it to arrive. This is the ebb and flow of the neighborhood.

Many of my friends will stand in line for a cheque today. If they are housed in one of the SROs (the bottom rung of housing in Vancouver), they will receive the little that is left after their rent is deducted. This amounts to about $6-7 a day for a single adult. This doesn’t sound like much, and it isn’t. It’s even less when you’re in a cycle of addiction, and every cheque day presents another irresistible opportunity to spend all of your money feeding those cravings and numbing the pain (or paying back the debts you owe to the people who have funded your addiction since last cheque day).

Yes, the welfare system helps many people survive. But it also keeps many people poor, poor in every way. The only social role of someone on welfare is that of a passive recipient. In fact, even if they want to use their skills and gifts to help their communities, unless they are on disability, they cannot earn a dollar without that dollar being removed from their welfare cheque – in other words, a tax of 100% on earned income. BC is the only province in Canada that does not allow welfare recipients to keep some of the money they earn.

So my DTES friends are disempowered from reciprocally contributing to the well-being of the community and the city. They are denied the dignity of offering something. Their gifts and abilities are wasted, and they lose hope. Many of them develop a “taking” mentality, a sense of entitlement that can poison their worldview. And on the other side of the city, working taxpayers develop either a smug satisfaction in “helping the needy” through the welfare system, or a deep resentment toward the “lazy” people who are using their tax dollars to feed their addictions. None of this brings the rich and the poor any closer into relationship with each other, which I believe is the only way both the rich and the poor will feel loved enough and have enough hope to break out of addiction patterns, and to live more whole lives.

The system isn’t working. So today, I’m fasting.

I’m fasting to participate, in a backwards sort of way, in the monthly rhythm of a neighborhood I love, to acknowledge the hard realities and pray about how they are playing out the lives of my friends.

I’m fasting to stand in solidarity and experience a bit of the hunger many of my friends on the DTES have felt and continue to feel, hunger not only for good food, but for love, healing, freedom and belonging – hungers we all share as flesh-and-blood humans.

I’m fasting to remind myself of what it feels like to crave something, to get just a small taste of the cravings of my addicted friends, who face so much temptation today.

I’m fasting to remind myself that I’m only a community and a life-crisis away from being on welfare myself, that I’m only one pain-numbing attempt away from becoming an addict.

I’m fasting to remember that throwing money at people is not the same thing as being in relationship with people and supporting people face-to-face, life-on-life. We are all impoverished when we remain separate from one another.

I’m fasting to ask myself how I can become weak, how I can lay down my power, so that those who are now weak and oppressed can be empowered to take leadership and dream big dreams for their neighborhood.

I’m fasting because the welfare system is not helping anyone “fare” well, and it is a symbol of the ongoing class division and deep injustice in our cities.

I’m fasting to name the systems that keep my friends in bondage, and to pray for their freedom. In sum, I’m fasting to “loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke” (Isaiah 58:6).

If you long for justice, as I do, if you long to see the Kingdom of God break through, both in Kits and the DTES, I invite you to join me in fasting and praying for justice on Welfare Wednesdays. Here are the rest of the dates for 2010:

April 21

May 19

June 23

July 21

August 25

September 22

October 27

November 24

December 22

Let me know if you want to join me in this – it would be good to know we’re in it together, and maybe we can even get together and pray on one of those days.

What to do when God and Jonah are grounded?

Through the fall the children in our congregation have been writing songs, building set pieces, making puppets and scripting a puppet show on the story of Jonah. All was coming together for a Saturday practice and Sunday performance, but then God and Jonah got grounded! Or at least the kids playing those two (rather central) characters did. This happens to us around here a fair bit. In fact, because the kids love Sunday School and Kids Night their parents feel like not allowing them to attend is a punishment that will make a point. So, I guess there is an upside?

Anyway, we moved the performance back a week and a great time was had by all. The following Tuesday we were scheduled to perform in the building where the kids live. Again, God and Jonah...grounded. But this time Xavier, an 8 year old who is new to the building exuberantly volunteered. He was so excited by having seen the show the week before that even though he had not been a part of anything so far, he couldn't wait to be able to tell the story too. So Xavier was Jonah, our narrator played God and we played in the story again. It was not a performance that was going to win any Tony nominations, but the biblical story once again became a place where someone was able to find a place of belonging.

God's House of Many Faces

We have arrived at a name. We shall be known as God's House of Many Faces! What makes me smile about this name is that God's house is not contained in a building in our experience. God's house is as broad as creation and the boundaries lie in many faces, not in walls or roofs.

Here are some photos of this house of many faces.


Celebrating together with Kits Church.

A few pictures!

An apology - neither Jodi nor I have had a lot of time to write many blog entries in this season of the church's life, but I do want to post some recent pictures, as a peace offering for those of you who continue (in vain) to check the blog! Enjoy.

The newly-formed church drumming group does a call to worship and thanksgiving prayer at Jodi's house.

Some of the kids celebrate a birthday on Kids' Night.

The twins are getting bigger!

What's In A Name?

For four months a group of us have been "officially" dreaming of church in Strathcona. We have gathered together, we have prayed, worshiped, cared for each other, listened for God and to one another, played and blown bubbles together. We would consider ourselves to be church. You know, the body of Christ, the community of sinners and of saints, the family of God. I don't think that any of us actually doubt that we are a church. The trouble has been that we have not yet settled on a name. So, when we meet people in the neighbourhood and invite them to join us they say, "What's the name of your church?" We usually just refer to it as "Church in the Park". Then we have to explain which park, and since our park has no name, that gets kind of tricky unless you are someone who hunkers under the Georgia Viaduct to get some shelter from the rain or to turn a trick or shoot up lots of people have never really noticed our park. And when we say we have no official name and that we do not meet in a building right now, but under some trees as long as no one is sleeping under the tree we are accustomed to meeting under... well, then we start to get some funny looks and people back away slowly speaking in a soothing voice as though we were a dangerous bear whose irratic religious delusions should be avoided at all costs.

So, we have begun the search for a name in the hopes of lending some outward credibility to what we are experiencing as a beautiful, crazy, unpredictable adventure with the Spirit of the Living God.

Some of us were sent from a church (Kitsilano Christian Community), which has taken it's name from it's neighbourhood. It is a church that seeks to be located in particular geography and is committed to that place and to seeking the peace and welfare of that neighbourhood, not just the well-being of those who participate in the gathered life of that community. They are committed also to the idea of being a community, a fellowship, a people who belong to one another. And their imagination for doing and being these things is rooted in the tradition of Jesus, therefore they call themselves Christian (followers of Christ, a Greek title for Jesus).

But this is tricky for us in this new community because there are lots of different names that tell the story of this neighbourhood. In our 10 blocks by 4 blocks the names Strathcona, the Downtown Eastside, Chinatown, Japantown, The reserve off the reserve, Main and Hastings, or Hogan's Alley all describe aspects of our neighbourhood. What kind of name would speak of this place in ways that welcomes people who would identify with any of those descriptors of our neighbourhood? What name for our gathering communicates our commitment to this geographical space and to our neighbours who live within it? What name says that we are a people who are learning to love God and love our neighbour and that is what we believe it is to be church as opposed to church being the name of the building in which we meet (or not)? What is in a name after all? Footprints of colonization or memories of a history that only remains in place names since the people have moved on?

What is in a name? Stay tuned...

Kids in the middle

A photo from Kids' Night

When Jodi pitched me the idea about spending a lot of time with kids this summer as part of my role in this new church, I was hesitant, to say the least. Having spent many summers working at a camp in SK, I felt burned out just thinking about doing more kids programming. Surely this was a stage in my life that had ended, and I was ready for more "adult" things.

So it came as a surprise to me when I looked back and realized that some of the most life-giving moments of this summer were spent with children. Some were at the Ray-Cam Community Centre, where, mercifully, the "programming" was done for me, and my only job was to hang out and get to know the kids. I also had some great moments during our weekly Kids' nights at Solheim, as kids of various ages poked their heads out their windows, saw us playing in the courtyard, then came and joined the fun. But most of these great kid moments happened during our Sunday gatherings in the park.

As a church sent to welcome and serve families, we have spent the summer experimenting with "intergenerational" services. I had paid lip service to the idea of intergenerational services for quite a while, but until this summer, I hadn't rightly estimated the cost, or the reward, of doing this.

It is costly. It requires more creativity to think about how kids can best participate in the worship and teaching, a greater investment of energy during the service, and willingness to be flexible when kids are cranky or distracted or when our plans just aren't working.

But the rewards are huge. Adult-oriented worship and teaching times can be inspiring and thought-provoking at the time, but to be honest, I rarely remember them in years to come. But I'm pretty sure I'll never forget the Pentecost service when the kids ran around us with shimmering pieces of red fabric, recreating the wind and the flames of fire that descended on the apostles. Or our refreshing water balloon fight on a hot summer Sunday following our reflection on Jesus as Living Water. Or the kids' entertaining reflections on differences between a "heart of flesh" and a "heart of stone." Also, because the kids join me on bells, maracas, drums and shaky eggs, I'm never the only instrumentalist during worship.

Unforgettable montage of Ezekiel's vision of the four-faced angel (Ezek. 1)

Our series on Ezekiel has been full of "aha" moments as kids pull items out of the "story bag," act out Ezekiel's dreams, and later ask "wondering questions" with the adults. Kids think of questions that adults wouldn't even dream of, and the lessons are so much more memorable when they come through the mouths of children.

Another Vancouver church plant doing intergenerational services posted this quote by John Witvliet on their website recently: "How ironic that children, of all people, should be treated as second-class citizens in the church. Jesus not only welcomed children, but told us that children are our teachers. Children model what true faith is like. When children are cut off or set apart from the worshipping community, both children and adults lose the opportunity to learn from each other."

Calum's drawing of the dry bones being given flesh (Ezek. 37)

It has been a privilege to learn from the kids in our church this summer. We're still experimenting with our liturgy, feeling out what "fits" us as a community, but whatever shape our worship and teaching take in months and years to come, I hope the kids will stay central.