Pastoral Notes
We are starting a new group study series called “Spiritual Stories” this Spring. This series aims to cultivate an appreciation and awareness of how our daily lives intersect with one another and with the living God. How is God uniquely at work among and within us in our respective contexts? Our hope is to discern how God is working in each of our lives and engage in ongoing dialogue about how our individual stories are intertwined with God’s overarching Story.
Read MoreWe are starting the new year looking to Jesus and listening to how he is shaping us as a community. We are starting a new sermon series on humility to frame the way we think about ourselves and how we relate to one another as Renewal Church. The great “Christ hymn” in Philippians, the pinnacle of the letter anchors this wonderful revelation: What is God like? And what does it look like to be God’s people? He is humble and He works in us to be like Him.
What if we embraced our life in God together as community, practicing a humble, self-emptying love in a culture of self-exaltation?
Read MoreThis Fall, we look forward to being able to read the letter of Philippians within our Formation Groups. This epistle brings so much life when we read it individually or in community. We will read this letter carefully together, listening to what the living God through the Spirit is saying to us in the text and through the text.
Read MoreWe are embarking on a season of exploring "Sabbath" as a community as we enter into a new season, both in the natural sense (Fall) and in the season of "back-to's" (e.g., back-to-school, back-to-work, etc.). The Fall can seem anything but restful. It is precisely at this time that we need to embrace the rhythms marked out by the living God for us. When we take time to Sabbath, we are "ceasing what is necessary and embracing that which gives life," as Pastor Marc Buchanan puts it. Sabbath "works" for us by reminding and reorienting us to the necessary rhythms that we were made to enjoy God.
Read MoreWe share some notes that might be helpful in accompanying brothers and sisters as they dive more deeply in the text of Exodus 34.
Our friend Pastor Jeff Jantzi preached on Exodus 34:6-7, drawing us to the wonderful, personal and loving God revealed in God’s own self-proclamation. Pastor Jeff invites us to see God’s heart on full display in the text: God is personal, loving and wants to be known. He has a name! Yahweh!
Read MoreWe ponder afresh, in light of Christ’s life, death and resurrection, who we are together as a reflection and bearer of God’s glory and visible presence within creation. As God marveled at the creation of humanity: “He saw that it was very good!”.
Read MoreWe enter into the season of Eastertide, one of the notable milestones of the year (the other being the season of Christmas). The Christian worship calendar (or also called the liturgical calendar) is a way of living together into greater awareness of the reality revealed by Jesus Christ. It organizes our time around the good news of Jesus Christ: the Triune God invites us to know Him, to enter into a divine friendship and to experience the fullness of life we see in Jesus Christ.
Read MoreThe Neighouring Workshop, on Saturday April 29 from 9AM to 3PM, is a time where we as a community will listen to Christ’s call together in loving our neighbour and help us (like the Good Samaritan) see more closely, who is “our neighbour?” .
Read MoreWe enter into the Lenten season, the 40 days before Easter through the Gospel of John. Lent follows the model of Jesus’ journey in the wilderness for 40 days. The priority of Lent is to drawing near to the living God and abiding in his Presence. It is a season to put to death our attachments to worldly desires, through prayer, repentance, generosity and self denial.
Read MoreStarting February, we are inviting our church community to enter into a season of exploring how our relationship with the living God is worked out in our day to day life through the habits of our hearts, mind and hands. We are exploring this together through our Formation Group gatherings using “The Common Rule” by Justin Earley.
Read MoreWe are starting a new sermon series on the letter of James. When we come to a new year, it’s important to have an anchor in their lives: something to which or someone to whom we can keep returning in the midst of uncertainties when everything seems lost. The letter of James, anchors us wisely to Jesus.
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