Walking Into the Unknown, Together (6)

This past Sunday, Jake Turner, former youth pastor at Grandview, spoke and shared a whimsical story of finding a strange purple vegetable in his CSA box. Puzzled over what this oddity might be, he did a little research and was surprised and delighted to discover its true nature. It belonged with the family of potatoes! And soon it joined the wider community of vegetables in his soup. He linked this story to Peter’s surprise and delight in learning that the Gentiles were God’s people too, and used both stories to underscore how grace-sustained inclusion rather than legalistic exclusion lies at the heart of Jesus’ vision for humanity.

Last Friday I met with Larry Schram to inform him of our communally-arrived-at-decision to leave the CBWC so we could be free to preach and live out this good news, without constraint, and so that we could be the safest space possible for LGBTQ+ people who have borne the weight and wounding of so much exclusion.

On Saturday, I spent the day with spacious, inclusive pastors and lay people from both the mainland and the island, exploring how we can support one another. Afterwards, I had a three-hour convo over dinner with Elle Pyke, co-founder of the Good Table. Despite a whopping parking ticket (I underestimated how much we would have to share:), I left feeling nourished and warmed, as if Jesus had been right there at our table. 

As a church, we are walking in liminal space, leaving the parental home that gave us life and embarking on a journey into a new future. This weekend reminded me that we are not walking alone. We are accompanied by an ever-widening community of people walking this road, together. I find comfort and strength in this companionship the Spirit is providing us all.

Since we also, as a church, have navigated our way to this juncture in time together, I think it’s important that you have the opportunity to read the letter that the Leadership Team has written to the Board of the CBWC. In it, we tried to honour the many voices who spoke during our meetings, and I hope you feel represented here. It will be delivered this week.

I also would like to make available to you a document that summarizes the communal feedback from our branding survey. The journey to figure out who we are, and how to best to clearly articulate this self-awareness with the world, is the real work behind the word “branding”. If you are curious to see who we understand ourselves to be as a community, and how we describe ourselves, please follow this link. It’s a long read, but I think it is a beautiful collective summary of our community. (I am grateful for the skills of our community! Markku taught me how to use “AI” to collate and summarize your responses. I have made notations in the document so you know when the wording is predominantly “AI” generated. It is interesting to observe how it took the information we provided and created this rendition of us.) 

Finally, I would like to invite each of you to our final Branding Workshop on Monday May 20th, from 7:00-8:30 pm. You can read below for more information, but it is an important step in the process of articulating who we are and communicating that clearly with the wider world. We will be making important decisions at this meeting. If you are unable to attend and have a strong preference for name or tagline, please send them to me in writing. 

Deep peace and blessing,
Anne

Rev. Anne Baxter Smith
Pastor, Church at Southpoint

Worship Calendar

Location & Zoom. We meet on Sundays at 15639 24 Avenue, Surrey. Zoom is offered if you cannot attend in person. Zoom link. Meeting ID: 831 1690 9977 password: 753319

Listen to Sermons
Follow “Meditations from the Church at Southpoint” on Spotify, Apple and Google

Blogs
Catch up on Anne’s recent blogs under “News” on our website, southpoint.ca

Sun May 12   Mother’s Day
Acts 1:15-17, 21-26

Sun May 19 Pentecost
Acts 2:1-21

Sun May 26 
No service at the Sunnyside building
Brunches Together!

Sun Jun 2
Rev Rusty Edwards (CABF)
2 Cor 4:5-12

Sun Jun 9
2 Cor 4:13-5:1

Sun Jun 16
2 Cor 5:6-11, 14-17

Sun Jun 23
Baptisms, at A Rocha’s Brooksdale Environmental Centre No service at the Sunnyside building

Sun Jun 30 
Fifth Sunday Brunches Together No service at the Sunnyside building

New to Southpoint?

At Southpoint, it all begins with God’s love. Just as a plant grows, it receives sunshine, so we grow as we receive God’s love. At Southpoint, we are growing in our capacity to love God, ourselves, one another, and creation.

We seek to be a community of grace that is intentional yet organic, spacious yet authentic, grace-filled yet accountable. * We are fully welcoming. *

We encourage relationships rather than run programs, yet we recognize the importance of intentionality and structure as we nurture life together.

As a community, we seek to put our love in action. We value helping out on Sunday mornings, sharing food, and showing up in hard times. We keep our church life simple so folk have time to build relationships with family, friends, and neighbours. We encourage folk to serve in tangible ways within the wider community. We rent space rather than own a building, allowing us to do more with less, supporting missions at home and abroad.

Curious to know more?

These six slides express what motivates our ministry (best viewed on a monitor). Here’s the bio of our Pastor, Rev. Anne Baxter Smith.

If you’d like to really peek inside, sign up for our weekly Southpoint News (scroll to brown footer at bottom of page). The Southpoint News is a MailChimp distributed email—you can unsubscribe anytime and will not be added to our contacts list. Email us at office@southpoint.ca. Website: southpoint.ca.