To be honest I was pretty nervous again this year speaking on this topic in the LIFE series in the main service. This year I had to also setup for Pastor Jer at the end of the service to launch the Rwanda Clean Water Project in the church.

I started by talking about how it has been grassroots movements of people that have provoked change throughout history. From those that fought for independence to the civil rights movement. Then how there are still many social injustices in the world today: poverty, war, genocide, water, sex trafficking etc. I listed some current statistics from worldmeters.info

• Current population of the world is 6.65 billion people
• 18.45 million births this year
• 7.5 million deaths this year
• 1,333 deaths in 15 minutes on Saturday
• 2000 absolute population growth (births minus deaths)
• 28,000 people died of hunger on Thursday
• 887.24 million malnourished people in the world right now
• 718,000 deaths due to water this year
• 1.324 billion people with no access to clean drinking water
• 2.4 million deaths by communicable diseases this year
• over 30 million HIV infected people in the world
• 6.6 million deaths of HIV people
• 898,000 deaths by cancer
• 143,000 deaths by malaria
• 449,000 deaths by smoking
• 2,000 deaths by pesticides

I then listed some information from the book, "Faith Works" by Jim Wallis. Every though the statistics are older data, they served the purpose.

• The income of the top 1% has increased by more the 150% in the late 90’s
• 30 years ago, CEOs made 30 times more then the avg worker, by the end of the 90’s it has grown to over 530:1
• Those that live on less then $1 dollar a day globally is growing into the billions.
• The 3 richest people in the world have assets that exceed the combined gross domestic products of the world’s poorest 48 countries
• The world consumed more then $24 trillion in goods and services in 1997, six times the figure of 1995.
• Basic education for all people without would cost $6 billon a year – while $8 billion is spent annually on cosmetics in the US alone.
• Installation of water and basic sanitation for all would cost $9 billion – $11 billion is spent annually for ice cream in Europe.
• Basic health care and nutrition would cost $13 billion - $17 billion a year is spent on pet food in Europe and the United States.
• $35 billion is spent on business entertainment in Japan, $50 billion on cigarettes in Europe
• $105 billion on alcoholic drinks in Europe
• $400 billion on narcotic drugs around the world
• 1997 the UN Development Program Report claimed that poverty could have conquered in a decade and it would only have costed $80 billion a year until 2007.
• Is a CEO worth $97,000 an hour, which is what Disney was paying Michael Eisner and his workers in Haiti were being paid 28 cents an hour.

I listed those stats and information because I believe that there are many people that are looking for ways to translate their faith into a way of life that makes a positive difference in the world, a world with sobering stats such as those.

I then went to talk about the least of these

Matthew 25- 35 For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 36 I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’37 "Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38 When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? 39 When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’ 40 "The King will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.’

I talk about how it was time to focus on the message of the kingdom of God, not just salvation but also personal, social and global transformation. Which then led me to talk about how the world has become flat, the global world and the local world have come together, becoming glocal.

In our church we have over 20 nations or cultures. Had people give a nice shout to represent theirs as I listed them. We have a great glocal church.

We have welcomed all these nations and cultures into our church, we are blessed by being together as one. We are blessed as a church so we can help those that have come into our church, and we are also blessed to help those in our local communities and global communities.

Being in a glocal world, it is about impact and credibility. People care about where they are hurting and if we can help them.

Connecting with the global communities exists to serve our local community’s involvement in the brokenness of our world. It’s glocal, because the scope of Jesus’ vision is for all creation. And it’s outreach, because he meant his followers to be his hands and feet, moving in love beyond ourselves toward the most forgotten and neglected.

It is Community Home Groups being mobilized.

At the end to bridge into Jeremy coming back to intro the new project, we showed this video.

Yesterday when I was done speaking in the Sunday morning session, Pastor Jer came up and launched the new initiative to the church. The Rwanda Clean Water Project.  We are looking to build some wells in the nation of Rwanda. 

Tonight on CBC Newsworld, the documentary on the Rwanda genocide was shown.  It is based on the book by Romeo Dallaire, "Shake Hands with the Devil". Near the end of the film the scene where Dallaire enters into a memorial, was extremely moving (see picture below - that is just a portion of what was on the tables) .

I will post a summary of my speaking notes tomorrow hopefully. Tomorrow night is Small Group Leadership training again, so I might opt for a smaller post or just post on Wednesday.

As mentioned in the previous post, we wrapped up the Small Group Leadership Weekend for 2008 this past weekend. Saturday morning I spoke on a topic I titled "glocal." The premise was to set the table for the two sessions that followed. I have not spoke in a continuim of sessions before, especially setting the table. It was a little different, but I think the flow of the three sessions went very well.

I connected the parable of the Good Samaritan with glocalization. Defined what being a neighbor was, and how it is not enough to have compassionate thoughts about the "least of these" but there needs to be action that comes out of the compassion.

Then I defined what glocalization is from a Kingdom of God standpoint, "is the culmination of God’s plan to connect all of humanity to redeem this world. It is not the result of technology and economics, but God’s plan all along of connecting people to see this world radically transformed by the power of Jesus Christ." (Dr Bob Roberts, Glocalization, Fermi Shorts)

I went from there to discuss how Christians engage this glocal world. It is about impact and credibility. In being missionial in this glocal world it is not about "religion" but the question becomes do we care that they are hurting and can we help them where they hurt?

We need to put ourselves in positions to help or we can be waiting a long time to serve.

After my session, one of our group leaders got up and shared about their groups project to help a Rwandan family. This just blows me away. They took it upon themselves to help a lady in their group that had to flee the country because the military was chasing her, to unite her with her three kids that had fled to Uganda. The kids had to flee once this lady did, because the military went after them after she arrived in Canada. So the leader of this group started a process through World Vision to sponsor the children to come to Canada ($20,000). She decided she would not get a new car, and the money would go towards their sponsorship. Then a whole pile of things just started happening that are nothing short of "God things". The lady is getting landed immigrant status, and this moves things in the sponsorship to new levels and opens doors incredibly. During this time, the children were going to be sent back to Rwanda because of an agreement between the governments of Rwanda and Uganda. However, because this group started this process of sponsorship, these three children were granted a special paper to stay in Uganda. Then because she might receive the landed immigrant status, the $20,000 might not have to paid by the group. Simply amazing, a blog post doesn’t do it justice, mind blowing.Â

Our third session was a announcement of a special project that our Small Groups are launching in 2008. We are going to be raising money to build some clean water wells in the country of Rwanda.

2008 looks to be a interesting year within our small groups.

Tags: Rwanda, Small_Groups, Leadership, glocalization, missional, clean_water

One of the new races this year on the schedule for Ottawa BMX is an event called, "Race for Life".  We have partnered with the CHEO Foundation in Ottawa (Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario) to raise the funds for.  This event is one that falls into my responsibility as I am the VP of Racing for the Ottawa BMX Assoc this year. I plan on making this not just a fundraiser but a top notch event to remember for our club, racers, CHEO, and the community.  Big task, but it is going to be a blast. 

We are working on some of the design elements with the ABA right now….but stayed tuned over the next few months, as I will update as more information becomes finalized.

Over the past week or so, the following things have happened in our new community of Rockland:

1. A lady down the street has been making knitted slippers for the kids and some of our other family members. She is not charging us for some of it.  She said it is for the kids for Christmas.

2. My wife was shoveling the driveway (she likes to do it in the morning) (honest), and the neighbor Cliff (71) came over with his grandson and he helped clear the rest of it.

3. My wife was shoveling again yesterday morning (honest she wanted to do it), and this was a heavy snow fall, and neighbor across the street came over with the snow blower and finished it off.  He said that he likes to do this for everyone on the street when the heavy snow comes down. We did get a lot yesterday.

4. Yesterday afternoon, I ran outside for 5 minutes to move my basketball net that was at the end of the driveway. The snowplow driver said that he was going to run it over the next time if it wasn’t moved (I am sure he was hoping it was still there) as it was blocking the snowbanks from being pushed back far enough.  As I was tipping it over and going to wheel it up the driveway, Cliff appears running over to help give it a push up the laneway to the corner of the house.  He also said, when he goes ice fishing, he will bring some fish over to us to eat.

5. A couple of weekends ago, the neighbor across the street, move my gas when we were at church, and picked up some leaves as it was the last day to bring items to the local compost drop off.  He also took the bags in the garage in his trailer.  He said, he just wanted to do it for us, as he used to for the older lady that lived here before.

This is very different then the neighborhood we used to live in.  I am very happy in this new neighborhood, not that people are helping us out, but the element of community that the people here have, it really is great to be a part of.

I wasn’t sure what I was going to post about tonight, I haven’t been posting much lately. A few weekends ago we raised some money for the Rwanda Clean Water program at Home Hardware. The next step that we are going to be taking, is running a letter campaign. We will write up a letter and pass out to the local business community in Rockland.  We will ask the local business to partner with us, with a donation of $10-100.

This weekend, I should have the letter complete, and then we will deliver it to the local business community.

Next Wednesday morning I should be attending a local business breakfast. This is held in a local restaurant each Wednesday morning. I should be able to pass some letters out there.

I found out that there is a Business Breakfast every Wednesday morning, at a local restaurant in Rockland. I have sent an email to the person in charge, and I am waiting a reply to find out what is involved in getting into this breakfast. I would be attending for Radiant Village. The restaurant is Friendly’s, and serves a great pizza…but this being breakfast I will have to see how good the breakfast food is. This will be a good opportunity for us to get people exposed what we are trying to accomplish with launching Radiant Village. Will have to check it out and get a feel for how it operates etc. It will also allows us to get meet more people in the community.

Last Saturday when we started the campaign for Rwanda Clean Water, we raised a pretty good sum for being at a Home Hardware entrance. We were able to meet some really nice people throughout the day. We met one of the Town Councilors, a few people were interested in checking out the Radiant Village website, and also a couple that was very interested in what we were doing. The husband came over first and then went and got his wife from the car, she was part of a medical team that went over to Africa. Something similar to Doctors without Borders, can’t remember the exact name of the org she was with. She mentioned that they had bought some goats for a village last year and this year were going to be buying a donkey.

They offered to met with my wife and I and go over some pictures and things in regards to Africa, and talk about what we are doing and about what they are planning to do. It was a really interesting talk we had, my son was there and was really interested in hearing what she had to say about what she saw and experienced.

I have registered the following domain name radiantvillage.ca. The site is up, and is a work in progress.  I will be adding some content to the site over time.  I have also added a blog on the site, and  is being hosted over on Wordpress. The blog portion of the site will not be a daily blog, but will be more of a event related blog for the time being, and also to track and update on the progress of this initiative.

Right now I am looking into the first community project that Radiant Village can lead in our community.  We need to start with something that we can handle with the resources we have.  This means my family will be getting into the community to lead our community in raising money to provide clean water in Africa.

We have been discussing it somewhat today with what will be required. Now we got to put some plans together on how we can manage this. 

Looks like this coming weekend, Catalyst will be taking a short road trip Sunday morning. We will be leaving at 10am and returning at 11:45.  We are going to go to Mer Bleu Forest.  This will kick off the series, "God is Green". We will go through the trails, and at the end I will speak to intro this portion of the series.

Tags: Catalyst, God_is_Green, Mer_Bleue_Forest, Radiant_Village, Rwanda, clean_water, Africa

This past weekend we completed the move to our new home in Rockland, Ontario.  Everything with the move went good, and we are really glad to be in the new house.

The street that we are on, is really quiet compared to the old house. I never noticed the neighborhood noise around the old place, until I paused outside of the new home.

On Saturday morning, I had to meet the carpet installer to get the new carpet in the basement put in, since the painter completed his work on Friday. The power was off for 2 hours in the morning for a scheduled outage, which I didn’t know.  As I drove into the driveway of my new home, my new neighbor came out and let me know. She knew we were moving in and wanted to let us know that we would be without power for a couple of hours. We also met the neighbor across the street when we were in a local store buying some items. 

There is noticeable difference with the people in the town, much more friendly and open to people then in the larger city, and suburb that we were living in before.

The kids are really liking being in the town, as they no longer have to drive back and forth to and fro school. My son, mentioned that I must like that as well.  Which I do.

I had to make the switch from DSL Highspeed Internet over to Cable Internet, as the DSL service was less then 1M per second. I also got rid of the WiMAX service as well, it was not picking up a signal in Rockland, and was not that reliable anyway, dropping the connection a lot in buildings.  Saves on the pocketbook anyway.  I also switched to the cable telephony as well, so far so good.  Cheaper too.

I got the Internet connection here yesterday, 4 days with no Internet access was actually quite nice.  I survived in one piece with no ill affects to my knowledge.

We walked down to the highschool tonight to vote in the provincial election. I was not entirely sure who I was voting for, for most of the election period.  I was leaning one way, and then did some more research, and I am 100% comfortable that my vote was cast where it should be.  It would likely not be where some people would have thought I would have voted for in the past, and then some others would say, yeah I saw that coming as well.  I voted for the Green Party of Ontario.

Now that we are living in the town, we need to get back to establishing Radiant Village. Sometimes I have to catch myself not reverting back to some of the old ways of thinking, and continue to push forward and Chase the Lion that is before me. 

This past weekend, Ottawa BMX held the ABA Ontario Provincial Championship Series Final. This was the closing weekend for the local club. The BMX  year took a turn for the better in August when we made the switch from the OCA Organization to the ABA Organization.

The level of organization, support, professionalism, that the ABA offers each and every local club is just tremendous. We had multiple meetings with the Canadian New Track Development Director - John David this weekend after each race. The material, information and coaching that John David gave to the executive team has been just what the local club needed.  2008’s prospects look to be very exciting for the riders through the ABA program.

The picture in this post is one of the many volunteers that helped out with the local club in various aspects this year. My wife and I are amongst everyone, I am in the front row with the brown hat, she has the black shirt and brown skirt on in the back row.

One of the things that you find when you participate in a club such as BMX is the community that forms with those that volunteer to make a sport like BMX successful.  Even though ABA is a massive organization, it is still for the grassroots of BMX, the local club, the local track, and all the riders from 4 years old to 44+ years old.  As we participated on the Executive this year, we have come to know others on the Executive more, then if we were just a spectator sitting in our camping chairs.

There has been many different things that we have seen, as community develops, and we have come to know more of our friends. Example, one of the single dads at the track has a 4 year old that comes out that has had 4 heart surgeries already.

We have had some times of personal connection while we were having meetings, and sharing a bite to eat over some pizza.  Getting to know each other other then just hauling the generator around the track.  My wife and I were able to share about our faith to some others, and answer a few questions here and there.  I got ask others a bit of their history, where they have lived etc, not just executive team members, but other riders etc.

All in all 2007 has been a great year and I am glad I decided to be involved more then I was last year when we were new to the club. 2008 will set new goals and challenges, as we grow the club and the sport in Ottawa.

I think if you are a small group leader, with all the teaching I have done in the past and you are reading this, you can see the relations to those sessions.

Tags: bmx, bmx_racing, ABA, community, Ottawa, volunteers

As we are in the midst of a series in Catalyst, "At the Movies" which we reviewed the film, "An Inconvenient Truth", and we move into the "God is Green" speaking series, one of the changes that our family is making is buying our produce from local growers, as much as possible.

As we progress through the series,  I am going to highlight some of the changes we have been making in our lifestyle. As you can tell the first one is trying to buy from growers within a 100-mile radius of Ottawa.

The market that we have been going to, over the last month, is the Byward Market in downtown Ottawa, plus a small stand around the corner from our house.  There is a slight problem to buying local produce that I am not sure how we will get around (I would prefer not to have to buy grocery chain produce) and that is the market closes at the end of September.

To tell you the truth we have enjoyed going to these markets and picking the potatoes, berries, carrots, cauliflower, cucumbers, tomatoes, onions etc rather then the trucked in ones in the big chain store. My wife noticed that they are quite proud of the fact that this is local produce and most of the stands in the Byward market were displaying "no pesticides" used.  Even better.

We have made some great Greek salads with what we have got from the market and it tastes great, very fresh.

Next Saturday, we plan on checking out the Cumberland Village Farmer’s Market, which is half-way between Rockland and Ottawa.

Tags: farmers_market, byward_market, produce, god_is_green, Catalyst

This week I have started to look into getting something started in the community, might start a campaign with 1000 Wells Project, Habitat for Humanity, or Make Poverty History. This would be with the new venture we are starting from scratch, and going to let it grow organically.

Not sure how I am going to get this all kick-started, but working through some planning stages now.

Technorati Tags: our_community, Radiant Village

Over the past couple of months, the Ottawa Senators captured the hearts of many in the city of Ottawa. People that normally do not follow the team or the sport, were cheering for the Senators and their run to the finals of the Stanley Cup.  The Senators lost in Game 5 of the finals to the Anaheim Ducks, but along the way there were things that I think we can learn from this run for small groups.

First of all, the Senators had a clear mission, win the Stanley Cup.  People joined them on their mission, they understood what the mission was, and were captured up and it became their mission.  When you have a clear mission that people can connect with, they support the mission, the mission becomes their mission, they own the mission. 

As part of this mission, the enthusiasm for the mission spread throughout the city. It was not only in the Scotiabank Place building that people were gathering and cheering and rooting for the team. There were gatherings put together throughout the city, Festival Plaza in front of City Hall had 20,000-30,000 fans. Elgin Street created the Sens Mile, and thousands of fans swarmed the streets after each game.  Byward Market had big screens, Place D’Orleans had a couple thousand people in the parking lot
in the East End watching on the big screen. The Red Zone outside the Scotiabank Place was another popular place for gathering to watch the game

When we went to the Red Zone the day the Senators eliminated the Buffalo Sabres to reach the finals, hundreds of people between periods gathered around their cars/trucks/vans and had a tailgate party. 

This past Wednesday night we headed down to Place D’Orleans mall for the first period. There was face painting, free give aways and a couple thousand people watching the game.  It was quite impressive to see.

Through all this, I noticed that a tremendous amount of community was developing with the people of Ottawa, because the city identified with the team’s mission. The Stanley Cup.  People gathered together, and came together in community and built stronger community due to this mission. People were talking to each other about the mission, they gathered together in common areas to be with each other to get behind the mission. People were wearing the colors of the team to support the mission.
Community was an easy by-product of the mission.  People that normally do not talk with each other began to ask if the team had a chance to win the game that night, or do you think we can take the cup. Community formed.

How does this relate to small groups.  Well, it is common for groups to say that before they can develop their vision, or get behind and support the vision of the church, they need to work on the community of the group.  That once they have this strong sense of community, then they can get behind the mission of the church. I believe that if we can get behind a vision, a mission, which needs to be ultimately the mission of Jesus Christ, a natural by-product with be community.  When we are living
out our lives missionally, community is naturally built. We should not focus on community, but on the mission. 

One of the things that I have heard a few times from small groups, is the busyiness of people, what I noticed in this run to the cup, is that when there is a clear mission, and people are living the mission, it is no longer how busy we are. Things that once made us busy, take a back seat to support the mission. Our lives become uncluttered with things, because living missionally is more important. It didn’t matter what people would normally do on a Wednesday night, the game was on, they were getting out
to watch the game some where. It was the mission.

Another, thing I noticed, is that many times small groups do not know how to get together with other people from outside their immediate circle of people. This run to the cup, made so many opportunies to join in community with other people. To get together with others that may not want to join a small group meeting. It would have been a great opportunity for a small group to host a tailgate at one of these events and invite some neighbors and friends to get together with their group.  It would not have been
a formal meeting, but a great way to get out and meet people, and build relationships.  It is a matter of looking for community events and participating.

This past Small Group leadership meeting Jer and I spoke on vision and the importance of the vision of the groups. I talked about how we need to focus on the mission of Jesus Christ within the vision of the group, and the many values and principles that entails. I got some different reactions to some of the statements I made, but it needed to be said.

Just some random thoughts after a run that ended, not the way we expected in the finals….but what a run and a learning experience.

Technorati Tags: community, our_community, Small Groups

Today, for those non-Canadians was Victoria Day, named after Queen Victoria, who officially declared Ottawa was Canada’s capital.  Which was disputed between four cities (Toronto, Montreal, and Kingston). It was a nice laid back holiday, slept in, went for drive in the country with my wife, sitting on the front porch reading and drinking tea. Then
tonight we went down to the Tulip Festival for a walk this evening in all the tulips by Dow’s Lake in Commissioner’s Park.

Then tonight, I read in Mark Scandrette’s ”Soul Graffiti” the following

Our pace of life affects our capacity to appreciate the goodness of God. We may simply be too busy or distracted to notice and receive the bounty that surrounds us. The demands of a hurried life and the dominance of technology cloud our awareness. Slowing down and learning to pay attention to the moment may be a path to affirming God’s essential goodness and presence.

Technorati Tags: Family, Mark_scandrette, our_community, soul_graffiti, tulip_festival

Tonight we had to go to one of our son’s class’ school production.  His class did Rumpelstiltskin.  They did a pretty good job to open the production, you understood the whole thing.  Then later on in the night I got totally lost, some of the performances didn’t make sense. Not that the children doing them didn’t do a good job with the play, but it was just confusing.  These performances from the other classes were original plays, whoever put them together tried to be original, to be creative, which is good.  However, you just got lost in what was supposed to be going on, the storyline was just not there.  So I found myself later on tonight thinking to myself, how many times someone must come to our small groups\churches and feel the same way.  Here they are sitting, listening, watching, observing what is going on, yet they are not following. I think we need to be creative in our small groups and churches, as church should be one of the most creative places there is, but we still need to have the story of Jesus to be understood by those that are there.  Some times, I think we speak or do things because we are so used to doing them, it makes sense to us, but does not translate well to our “audience”.  When you read Paul’s story in the scriptures, Mars Hill being one of those, he was amazing at being able to get his audience to understand the message he wanted to tell them about.  We need to be more like Paul on Mars Hill.

Technorati Tags: community, creative, arts

Tonight, being the 5th Sunday this month, we had no church service at Calvary Church. The purpose of having no service is to connect with someone in the community for a meal or something.  Small groups were encouraged to have a get together to invite people over to a social event etc. We thought our group was going to have a BBQ, but that did not materialize. So we decided that since we are very actively looking at a purchasing a home in Rockland, to head out and have dinner in Rockland, and take a walk through the neighborhood.  We thought that we would go into the neighborhood where the homes are being built and meet someone with the same model of home on the same street.  We went to Friendly’s Restaurant for pizza, and then for the walk. On the way back, everyone seemed to be gone with that model of home we are looking at, however, we met a lady from the neighborhood that has been living a street over for 51 years. And also, I talked with a man that just bought another model on the street about the homes, and builder etc.  So for a initial journey into the 20,000 + town it was successful.  Now to just sell our house, and get one of these models.  Please pray that we move this house soon, so we can continue to connect with the community of Rockland.  My initial thoughts are to establish a small group in Rockland, and go from there (more on that as we go).

Technorati Tags: community, Radiant Village, Small Groups, rockland

I read this post from Jay Hardwick and asked him if I could repost here in it’s entirety….

Technorati Tags: Faith, Family, Radiant Village, Small Groups

I have been reading the book by Eugene Peterson, “Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places” for sometime now…recently I have been in the chapter on Christ Plays in Community.  When reading this, I have been assessing my surroundings, with everything that is happening on a day to day basis, I am going to make some generalized statements.  I am not sure that according to some of these definitions and explanations on how Christ Plays in Community, that we truly in our community and culture are living in community
the way we should be. 

I just see so much more potential in the local church, then what we are currently experiencing, but we need to engage where Christ is already “playing”; Creation, History and Community.  Sometimes, I think that we like to say that we have community, but I think the community that Peterson writes about here, is more then what we are experiencing. 

That being said, it is part of my mission, goal, drive, calling, desire, passion, divine discontent whatever you want to call it, to engage with Christ in everyplace that He is “playing”.

Part of the core values of Radiant Village and the new group that we are wanting to launch here in Orleans, will be to become engaged with Christ in places where Christ is already “playing”.

Today as I posted last night, was a day for a start….I have been thinking, talking, posting, and praying about a need to chase a lion.  Well today, some steps were taken to do so.  I meant with Trevor at Starbucks, and after catching up with each other, the conversation led into me telling him a little of what I was wanting to get started out here in Orleans in the East End of Ottawa.  It is going to start, and it will grow organically into what God is wanting to do.  I believe this
was a day of the start….a start of something that is going to be great!  I am going to start to give it a name to refer to it, Radiant Village.  These are initial steps, but until the first one if taken, no further ones can be….so the first step is taken.

Also, today we meant a few new families at the parade of lights, Jer’s two girls were with us, he is down in DC at a conference with his wife.  We all went to a pizza party at a vet clinic…..different that is for sure, opening a pizza box up in a sanitized op room, at least I hope it was.  The kids had a great time playing tag throughout the building, and then at the parade. 

/continuing the journey…reg

Technorati Tags: Family, Our Community, Radiant Village, Small Groups

Tomorrow night is the Parade of Lights through Orleans; out here in the east end of Orleans.  We have been invited by a family that our kids are friends with their kids from school (that was a mouth full) to go to a pizza party before the parade.  A few families are getting together at the work place of one of the families to eat some za.  This family runs a vet clinic.  Should be a good time, we will be able to get to know these families a little better.

Tomorrow morning I am getting together at Starbucks with a friend Trevor, it will be good to be able to connect with Trevor again, and have a nice bold Christmas blend.

Getting going with some ideas that I have been thinking about recently, have posted some of them interlaced throughout various posts. Entails the east end here of Orleans, downtown, small groups, and my holy discontent (here, here, & here).  Like I have said before time to chase some lions that are before
me.  Once things start to take shape, I will post more details, way to early to get into things here. Like I told Jer, Associate Pastor, I am not sure where it will eventually end up, but I have to start at it.

/continuing the journey…reg

Technorati Tags: Faith, Family, Our Community, Radiant Village, Small Groups

Tonight we took the stroll down to the municipal voting center.  We had three positions to vote for: mayor, city councilor , and School Board Trustee.  I did my research on who to vote for.  Went to the poll, looked at the card, and what to my surprise, I have a different set of choices for School Board Trustee.  So I contacted the city representative that was there for the election, and asked why this was.  I had just checked the school board website last week.  Seems all the signs
around the neighborhood are not supposed to be there.  The choices are said to be correct, so I had to vote for the ones on the ballot. 

I just checked the school board website again, and the school my kids have to go to (because we have wanted to change this in the past), is in a different zone then what I get to vote for….strange.  The school we wanted them to go is in in the zone we vote for…strange yes.  So, I am going to call the school board and find this out…my kids should be going to the school in the zone that we vote in, makes sense to me. 

/continuing the journey…reg

I was reading this week in the local free paper that gets delivered to every home in the East end of Ottawa, “The Journal”.  It stated that the expected population growth of Orleans according to City studies show more then 100,000 people will eventually live in the urban east end area. 

Right around our house there has been a major retail development, with the Great Canadian Superstore, Wal-Mart, Shoppers Drug Mart, a future Future Shop, Boston Pizza, Montana’s, Starbucks, 4 major banks and many many more…..but we have no church located in the East end.

/continuing the journey…reg

Came across this on the City of Ottawa website.

Adopt-a-Park/Adopt-a-Roadway is a city-wide program that encourages community involvement in the care and maintenance of our parks and roadways. It is a partnership between volunteers and the City. The program is open to community groups and individuals who want to take an active role in enhancing the quality of life in our community. Volunteers conduct a clean up of the park or roadway a minimum of twice a year - once in the spring and once in the fall. The City asks individuals and groups to make
a commitment of a minimum of two years to provide some continuity to the program. To acknowledge these important efforts, each park or roadway is furnished with a sign displaying the names of the adopting individual or group. The Adopt a Park program is in its tenth year. The total number of adopted parks in the new City of Ottawa now exceeds 80. Additionally, there have been 30 roadways adopted to date.

http://www.ottawa.ca/city_services/environment/community/adopt_en.html

Interesting program that is an opportunity to get involved in the local community.  We have approx 12-13 groups going right now, that would be an equal number of parks or roads that the Community Home Groups could have an active role in.

/continuing the journey…reg