Our Hangout

Cultivate

Had the opportunity to Hangout at the the Freeway, in Hamilton for the day yesterday.

Three of us from POG spent the day at Cultivate - a learning party. People came from as far west as Vancouver - good to finally meet and dine with Mike Todd of Waving or Drowing, to as far East as Montreal - who hailed Kim, the man who didn't want to start a church, but God birthed church out of movies and pizza. Today they even have Choir practices. But I'll let him explain what choir practice is. Something I'd like to do at POG!

The day started with Vun and I meeting Gideon, a South-African about to plant a church in Hamilton. It was a neat connection. There's a neat tie that exists between all people born in Africa. It was an immediate relationship. I was only sorry we didn't talk more, although we ended up together on a lot of the same pods.

We talked about such things as Gatherings, Community, Social Justice and Creativity. We really did talk, aside for some impromptu talking heads, most of which took all of 3-5minutes, most of the time, the rest of us just talked in "pods". Discussing issues that might interest us about the overall topic. Also there was the freedom to move around since there was usually more than one group 'pod' talking about something that you might want to be in on.

I got to spend time in discussions such as preaching, sacraments, sustaining & executing creativity, same gender attractiveness and the church (a discussion that spanned two sessions for those of us who just weren't ready to move on yet.) Thanks Wendy to your contributions in the matter. And Wendy you really do need to blog!

We had a great lunch all together and then six of us went out to dinner together, futher deepening the relationships through the glue of Thai. Even if we were all soaking wet. Let's just say Pernell sucks at giving directions. And in the rain, bad directions are really, really bad.

A few things jumped out at me, alhtough someone else posted that they'd heard the word "Post Modern" way too many times throughout the course of the day, I never did. I walked in expecting to hear it all the time. That's just a side note.

I think of great consequence, the most important underlying theme I found was that those faith communities present who seemed to really be making a difference in their context shared one common denominator. Community! They had or were learning to really be in community. One description would be, they were learning to be family, but as one person said, it's a messy thing. They were the kind of places where people were learning to deal with not just their own crap, but the crap that comes when you try to relate in family with a bunch of other people. That and that the process is slow. More like simmering, rather than a fast-burn.

That was my greatest take away. Which just happens to deal with where we find ourselves as a church here at POG. If we're ever going to really be known for following after Christ, and if that following is ever going to impact the community outside of our walls, then we need to rediscover God centered Biblical community. We need to learn what it will mean for us to really "do" life together in a way that draws the "one-anothers" of scripture out of us and into the world in life-changing, even, world changing ways.

A few of us wrapped up the evening by watching "The Winking Circle" and hearing all about the wisdom of the three beans. As a side note, the movie was made by a couple of friends of ours in Uxbridge. That was cool. We should have really have gone home earlier, but Vun wouldn't have it.

All in all, a great day. You can catch some pictures here.

Posted by ed