MissionGTA

I'm involved in a number of city-reaching activities in the Toronto area. Most of these activities are coordinated under the umbrella of MissionGTA (GTA stands for Greater Toronto Area). This week is filled with consulting and brainstorming activities that hopefully will refine our vision and move it forward. It is tiring work but we are making some good progress. Below are some parts of the documents that we are putting together. Definitely a work in progress!

After a number of months of battling to get our website back up we have finally launched a new MissionGTA website - albeit seriously lacking in content.

Our Purpose is ...

To see the kingdom of God impact every sphere of society by facilitating unity in the Body of Christ across the Greater Toronto Area.

Strategies

• Identify the key indicators of a transformed city and establish and monitor benchmarks for each of these indicators.
• Facilitate unity in the Body of Christ by…
a. Connecting various groups who are already causing a transformational impact in the different spheres of society as identified by the key indicators, and where such groups do not exist encourage their formation.
b. Providing representative leaders of the different geographical communities of the GTA with opportunities for interaction, prayer and strategy formation.
c. Providing representative leaders of the different ethnic communities of the GTA with opportunities for interaction, prayer and strategy formation.
d. Mobilizing unified intercession through the efforts of PrayGTA.
e. Providing the Body of Christ with opportunities for regional prayer gatherings (including City Hall Prayer, Prayer Summits and Global Day Of Prayer).
f. Encouraging the creation of a communication hub for all Christian activity in the GTA.

Activities

• City Hall Prayer Meetings
Having spiritual leaders pray in the seat of political power is an important step in transformation. Since 2000 MissionGTA has hosted a bimonthly pastors and leaders prayer meeting at Toronto City Hall’s Council Chambers. Every second month (usually on the 2nd Wednesday, but check our website for the latest info) we gather from 10am till noon to pray for our city and region. We also encourage other local networks to pray in their civic centres.

• GTA Prayer Summits
MissionGTA hosts an annual two-day Prayer Summit, bringing together pastors and leaders to listen to what God is saying to the GTA

• Global Day of Prayer
MissionGTA provides the visionary and administrative foundation for the annual Global Day of Prayer. Visit www.gdoptoronto.com for more info.

• Prayer Assemblies
We email prayer newsletters to hundreds of intercessors a couple of times a month and gather intercessors for strategic prayer several times a year.

• Promoting Christian Activities
Through our regular email updates we attempt to keep leaders informed of significant events in the GTA.

Our Core Values

Relational Unity
• Encouraging the expression of the one church in each geographic locality in the Greater Toronto Area
• Honouring our fellow Christians and celebrating diversity within the context of historic Christian orthodoxy

Servant Leadership
• Respecting and valuing every part of the Body of Christ through a consultative style of leadership
• Serving the local networks, helping them function as a corporate church in their locality
• Maintaining integrity before God and all people by personal and corporate accountability in all humility

Listening Prayer
• Calling the church in the GTA to corporate prayer
• Listening to hear clearly what the Holy Spirit is saying to and through the church in the region.

A Bold and Brave Move

Meeting in rented facilities is not a big deal for most church plants. But I think it's a pretty big deal for a church in the southern USA to sell their building and meet in rented facilities so that they can invest their money to help people. Thanks for showing the church building world that it can be done.

Check out the story of Rolling Hills Baptist Church in Fayetteville, North Carolina who sold their building and now meet in a movie theatre.

Imagine if shrinking congregations would be willing to sell their buildings and help people in need or invest in hiring a number of community outreach workers to develop community run programs. Or imagine if the RC church sold off some of their highly visible assets and did the same thing.

It reminds me of a brainstorming session we had at Yonge Street Mission a few years (15) ago where I suggested that we sell all our property (probably worth about $20 million at the time), invest in more program staff and run our programs in rented facilities. Nobody else thought it was a good idea. Turns out that they moved in the opposite direction and now own twice as much real estate as they did back then. But they have also invested in hiring about twice as many program staff and are running a lot of good programs in downtown Toronto.

Do You Believe?

This is too funny not to post.

This mock ad was originally posted on Michael Liccione's blog Sacramentum Vitae It is a response to an interview in 2006 found in the New York Times with the very liberal and tolerant Presiding Bishop of The Episcopal Church, Katherine Jefferts Schori, where she explains why her church is small and shrinking compared with certain others. The bottom line of the ad offers free birth control products to Catholics and Mormons.

NYT: How many members of the Episcopal Church are there in this country?

"About 2.2 million. It used to be larger percentagewise, but Episcopalians tend to be better-educated and tend to reproduce at lower rates than some other denominations. Roman Catholics and Mormons both have theological reasons for producing lots of children."

NYT: Episcopalians aren’t interested in replenishing their ranks by having children?

"No. It’s probably the opposite. We encourage people to pay attention to the stewardship of the earth and not use more than their portion."


NYT: You’re actually Catholic by birth; your parents joined the Episcopal Church when you were 9. What led them to convert?

"It was before Vatican II had any influence in local parishes, and I think my parents were looking for a place where wrestling with questions was encouraged rather than discouraged. So, you see, it's a sign of their ignorance and heedlessness that Catholics and Mormons wax as Episcopalians wane. It's only to be expected that people who really know and care what life is about will refuse to replace themselves, and that people who neither know nor care will more than replace themselves. It's only natural that, in the end, the barbarians will have the field. And those who will have abandoned it should be proud of why they did."

Hmmm ... Barbarian evangelism through reproduction. These comments by Bishop Schori remind me of what a previous Episcopal Bishop, John Shelby Spong, has said about the church that I happened to quote in my thesis.

“The only churches that grow today [Evangelical, Catholic, etc] are those that do not, in fact, understand the issues and can therefore traffic in certainty … The churches that do attempt to interact with the emerging world [like the Episcopalian, United Church, etc] are … almost by definition, fuzzy, imprecise and relatively unappealing. They might claim to be honest but for the most part they have no real message.”

The certainty that I traffic in is the reality of the living Christ. I guess I do not really understand the issues [which is true enough], and am poorly educated [I continue to realize how little I know] and because I have children who still go to church now even though they are out of high school, I must a barbarian.

Writing - On the Side

Three years ago I was in the process of beginning to write my thesis and kept bumping into obstacles. I came across Scot McKnight's thought provoking ideas about writing found on his blog here. I deeply identiified with them because of my tendency to write when I'm inspired - which too often is at 1:30 in the morning - and those moments are too few and far between. I can't remember who said it but it has stuck with me. "You learn to write by writing. You overcome writer's block by writing. If you don't know where to go next in your thoghts just start writing." It helps with essays. It helps with blogging. It helps with journalling. It helps to write your prayers. I actually love the tactile feel of a fountain pen on paper - the scratching roughness of it and the deep inkiness. Unless out of ink they don't skip. Too bad there is nothing really to compare when typing on a keyboard (especially now as mine is acting up and doubling letters all the time.) Anyways, enjoy the post - I repeated it in its entirety below.

Writing — On the Side
If I’ve been asked this once, I’ve been asked it 500 times:
“How do you do it?” And by that my questioners want to know how I have time to teach, write books, take care of this blog, and speak on occasions. I’ve given all kinds of answers — our kids and grown and gone; I’ve been at it for 30 years; it’s fun. Now that I’ve read James Vanoosting’s essay in And the Flesh Became Words, “And Be a Writer — On the Side,” I’ve got another answer:
I don’t write “on the side.” Many take up careers, most often as professors or sometimes editors or pastors, with the plan to write “on the side.” Most editors I know struggle, once they become editors, to write on the side. Not enough time, and the best hours of the day already consumed. And most pastors don’t have time, nor the practice, to write on the side. What might surprise many of you is that the vast majority of professors also don’t write “on the side.” Why?
My explanation is simple: writing can’t be done on the side because, as James Vanoosting says it, “Writing is not pedagogy but an epistemology” (160).
In other words, writing is a lifestyle, a way of life, a way of being, a modus operandi, a way of breathing and eating and drinking. Better yet, writing is a way of learning, a way of coming to know what someone wants to know, a way of discovering.
Writing is not something to do when everything else is cleared off the desk; no, it is something that makes order of the desk. I don’t get up wondering what I will write about, but I write about what I’m wondering. (That’s almost Chestertonian.) In other words, as Augustine spoke of “faith seeking understanding,” so writing is a pen seeking understanding.
Some write about what they already know; those books show up as textbooks. Others write about what they don’t know; those books show up as suggestions, innovations, explorations, experiments, and — here’s the joy — possibly really interesting. FF Bruce wrote about what he knew; Jimmy Dunn writes about what he doesn’t know. That is why the former’s books are standard and solid, and the latter’s suggestive and provocative.
Now back to the “on the side” bit. If a person wants to write, nearly always it has to be a way of life. Some do manage to write on the side, but the vast majority write every day, all the time, and they begin the day in the mind wondering how best to express a thought.
The biggest mistake I see in young professors is the (almost always) mistaken notion that they will write during the summer break full-time or they’ll wait until the Chrstmas break or over the Spring Break. No analogies work completely, but to me that is about like saying, “I’ll not train all year long, and try running competitively over break.” Like running, writing is something that takes constant practice.
And here’s the second mistake I often see: some think they can begin a writing career by writing a book. Instead, it is easier to begin by writing book reviews, magazine articles, and journal articles. It might be easier even yet to begin with a blog — but only if you can add to it daily, or at least five times a week. (Otherwise, no one will read you.) In other words, begin small — writing small pieces so that a daily habit, or a weekly habit, is built. Over time, it can become a genuine habit.
When you look at writers, it is wise to remember that most of us/them began small, and over time the daily routine of writing became a habit. That habit is what you now see; it didn’t spring up one summer break into a full-blown habit.
In other words, writing isn’t done on the side. It’s in the soul, it’s a way of being, and it’s not for everyone. It’s a scribbler’s itch to get it down.

Writing Again

If I could write about anything what would it be? I have this clear mandate to write but I can’t help thinking that what I write is just ... well pedantic. I struggle to see how what I write relates to people where they are as opposed to the wild and rambling imaginations of my own mind.

I was talking about happiness with a friend of mine. He was saying that he wanted to write about the Happy Church just because it was fun to write about it. So much of what we do relates to our being happy. So is everything we do self-centred? Are all our activities an attempt to stroke our own egos and satisfy our own longings? Is there any altruism in the world? I wonder ...

As he speaks about the Happy Church all kinds of images come to mind. I try to imagine what a happy church really is. I actually have this 1950’s image come to mind of everyone dressed up and smiling as they come out of church. Dad in a suit, Mom in this summer dress with a crinoline and the girls in pretty dresses and the boys in white shirts and ties. Maybe it’s just the strange way images connect in my mind. The phrase “happy church” begs the question “What is church?” That has been bugging me for such a long time and has made me question my role as a pastor and a leader. I’m too much of a questioner to accept the status quo and to keep doing the same thing week after week. Yet I keep doing the same thing week after week and feeling a bit dissatisfied about it all.

What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord! Romans 7:24-25

Four Streams

I was in Birmingham Alabama this past week to participate in a conference jointly hosted by the National City Impact Roundtable and the Mission America Coalition. Here's the brochure.

The City Impact Roundtables (CIR) have developed out of Mission America Coalition meetings. Christian transformational leaders from cities across the world have gathered twice a year for the purpose of building relationships, sharing kingdom-sized vision for holistic evangelism and revival, and praying together for united ministry throughout the Body of Christ. They have met in the roundtable format so that participants might also be contributors to the "city-reaching" process in their area. The CIR is a peer-to-peer meeting of Christian leaders who are prayerfully seeking the unity of the Church for holistic evangelism, the revival and renewal of the Church, leading to a cultural awakening and transformation.


The National City Impact Roundtable (CIR) examined four streams of cityreaching:
► Presence-Based (creating the environment in the city through unity and persevering prayer which welcomes in the presence of the Holy Spirit bringing in revival and transformation) with George Otis, Jr.
► Christian Community Development with John Perkins and the three "R's" (Relocation - moving into the area that needs redevelopment. Reconciliation - bringing harmony and peacemaking to those who are at odds with the system and with one another [particularly along racial lines] and redistribution - returning the power and influence back to those who live in the neighbourhood so that they can say that they have done it themselves),
► Evangelism with Paul Cedar (which focuses on evangelistic activities involving a Prayer/Care/Share approach involving the whole church sharing the whole Gospel with the whole city), and
► Marketplace Ministry (encouraging those who work outside of full time ministry positions to be ministers in their workplace environment and creating ministry through the "church of your workplace") featuring a panel that included Brad Fieldhouse, Steve Capper, Kent Humphrey and Bob Varney.

David Kinnaman wrapped up the event with a presentation of the research he did connected with his book "UnChristian".

The description of the four streams is actually very helpful in understanding different ways of approaching ministry in the city (even though there are more than four - these are just the best developed). Sometimes working in a city as large as Toronto is very overwhelming. All kinds of people have ideas of how to reach the city or transform the city or win the city for Christ. Their ideas are sincere but they often work at cross purposes because they have different approaches. These approaches are not wrong - they just focus on different faces of the mission.

At MissionGTA we tend to focus more on the "presence-based" style of city reaching. As such we invest in prayer for the city and gathering Christian leaders to act together in unity. The main activities are the Toronto City Hall Pastors and Leaders Prayer gatherings, The Global Day of Prayer and occasional prayer summits and targeted prayer events.