Southpoint News – Week of March 17th, 2019
Lent 2019: Vision
Week 1
Sometimes faith looks like pressing into fear and walking away from the wilderness towards a new home. Sometimes faith looks like pressing into discomfort and remaining within the wilderness, far from home. Both actions – staying put or leaving – can be a response to God, or a reaction to threat and danger.
How we see matters. As you consider your own wilderness and the action it is calling you to take, be aware of your own fear: name your discomfort, get to know it. Be suspicious of the voice of fear, and pay attention to the doom and gloom scenarios the voice of fear paints for you. What action is the voice of fear telling you to take. What action is the voice of faith inviting you to take. If you don’t know one voice from another, wait a little longer until your vision clears. Choose the path that doesn’t break faith with goodness.
“We grow to see and sustain a way of seeing by refusing to break faith with goodness glimpsed. We practice, my do we need practice! We nurture such vision tenderly, playfully, and fiercely in the world. With growing trust in what we’ve seen – and what we haven’t yet beheld.” – Scott Dewey
TABLE: Community @ Southpoint
(excerpts from AGM)
We hold the vision of Southpoint as a table where all are welcomed and included into a warm intergenerational community of folk who love Jesus. This can be hard to do in a community that also places a value on being “low-program”. How can we be intentional about coming together and building relationships, while not burden one another with yet one more commitment to cram into a week?
Sunday Mornings: One way of building community is to maximize our time together on Sundays. How can we make Sunday mornings a time for intentional community and connection? All-In, Pot-lucks, and All-outs are a few solutions we have found:
Gathering Groups: We continue to have six groups that meet together in small, family style, intergenerational gatherings during our ALL OUT Sundays. While these smaller groups don’t meet all the desire for community individuals carry, they do provide a place to be neighborly with one another, grow in awareness and responsiveness to one another’s needs and life challenges, and draw new people into our community. At last count, there were 137 people, including children, placed in a gathering group! Amazing!
Intergenerational Activities: The other way we have chosen to build a welcoming, intergenerational community is through a rhythm of intergenerational activities such as Good seed Sunday planting, Ice-skating, and summer/winter camps. . Our goal is to host an intergenerational event 4 times a year.
Interested? Angela and Anne are looking for a few folk who are natural “gatherers”, people who love to plan fun activities, draw people together, dream of some new intergenerational activities, and help bring them to pass. We welcome your thoughts and ideas about how we can play together as a community. Anne is also in need of a few other gathering group facilitators so we can create some new groups.
ALL-IN & Potluck
The next ALL-IN service will be Sunday, March 24th. Following the service we will be gathering for a POTLUCK!
Please bring lots of food to share so that we can gather as a community with full hearts and full tummy’s 🙂
Community Connections:
LIFEAPP
Craig and I have really enjoyed going to the LIFEAPP events. The next one is Friday, March 15th @ 7:30-9:00 at the Chief Sepass Theatre in Langley. We’d love to gather a mix of youth and adults to meet at the theatre for this event. Are you interested? The topic is “Shame on You”.
March Calendar
Lent 2019 – “VISION”
/?viZH?n/
noun
*the faculty or state of being able to see.
*the ability to think about or plan the future with imagination or wisdom.
“Behold, I am doing a new thing, now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?”
Is. 43: 9
Week 2 – Sunday, March 17th, “The Long View” – Anne preaching
“It helps, now and then, to step back and take the long view”
– Prayer of Oscar Romero
Gen 15:1-21
Psalm 27
Week 3: Sunday, March 24, “Seeing slowly” – ALL IN + POT LUCK
“Life is a process of dying and rising, of pruning to make space for new growth. It is how the earth is renewed. Without this part of life’s movement, we would not grow or experience newness. Slowing down, listening, reflecting, acknowledging what must change is not easy work – but it is a necessary beginning for us all.” – Scott Jenkins
Is 55:1-9,
Ps 63:1-8
Week 4: Sunday, March 31st – “Spotting Transformation” – Anne preaching
“Some people have wide eyes for abundance intuitively; others of us come resisting, struggling, squinting. We exercise our faith by practicing gratitude.” – Scott Dewey
Joshua 5:9-12
Ps 32
Luke 15:1-3,11b-32
Week 5: Sunday, April 7 – “The Sight for Sore Eyes”– Anne preaching
“With abundance-liberated vision, we can risk. We can risk rest, in the face of pressing need. We can risk and audacious plan, with our credibility at stake, amid fears it might be our only shot. We can risk great sorrow, trusting we’ll be held. We can risk your delight, trusting its own worthiness, and the worthiness of the world to share in it. W can risk a painful path of healing from whatever has us in its grip. We can risk a hard conversation, or a joke that might work if the timing’s right. We can risk a song.” – Scott Dewey
Isaiah 43:16-21
Ps 126
Philippians 3:4b-14
Week 6: Palm Sunday, April 14th – “Appearances Can Be Deceiving” – Anne preaching
“Prompted by holy curiosity, we’re sure to discover there’s always more to the story.” – Ryan Taylor
Luke 19:28-40
April 15th – April 20: HOLY WEEK (Stay tuned for Holy Week schedule)
If our vision had cleared a bit in lent, it is about to be scattered, distorted, and lost in Holy Week. But this takes us way back to the beginning of what we learned in the wilderness: “Things aren’t always what they seem”.
April 21, Easter Sunday: “Beyond Our Wildest Imagination” – Anne preaching
“May the resurrection be experienced here today, as enemies are moved toward reconciliation, exclusion becomes embrace, and as voices of criticism and hate are transformed into encouragement.” – from the Liturgy of Sacred Sight
Have an Announcement?
If you have an addition you would like included in this newsletter, please send a prepared announcement as you would like it to appear to: office@southpoint.ca by Tuesday and we will get back to you.
Prayer
If you have a need for prayer that you would like to pass on to the prayer chain, please contact John Hardy.
johnandwendyhardy@gmail.com
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