News and Events - Dec 2006

You may have noticed the recent inspired poster campaign coming out of the UC of Canada. After an extensive survey of the spirituality of the younger generations (esp. ages 30-45) they have launched a new conversational website along with the ez answer squirrel. I'll let them describe the reasoning:

"Why did we open WonderCafe? Because at The United Church of Canada, we love open-minded discussion on issues that matter to you. And because we believe that it’s important to have a place at which you can explore your spirituality and life’s big questions on your own terms."

Today's Hot Topics
If there's no virgin birth, is there a reason for ...
Special Needs Children in Church
Stephane Dion and Dual Citizenship

In a recent article, David Horrox explores the Missional Church model and (among other things) asks us the question, "To what extent is our church a 'sent' community in which each believer is reaching out to his community?" Helping us to understand and reimagine our communities, The Blind Beggar has come of with a fantastic new site called "Friend of Missional". This collection of information is extremely helpful in understanding the emphases of the emerging missional church. A few minutes on Google will bring up a few blogs that have discussed the whole emerging/emergent/missional terminological debate (I'll leave that to you). It is worth noting that the themes themselves have a rich history (for example Elton Trueblood's books from the '60s; as well as Newbiggin later on).

If you find yourself in Illinois this weekend or have plenty of left-over cash due to the adoption of a Buy-Nothing Christmas then check out this Emergent offering.

This February sees Aussie Mike Frost (Forge etc) come to Toronto (oh, so far from BC) for a conference called "Living Missionally in a Post Christian World". Details here - should be good.

Finally, congratulations to this year's winner of the Best Religious blog at the Canadian Blog Awards - the incomparable (e)mergent voyageurs. It is rumoured that Jamie, on receiving the golden trophy, thanked God for being the inspiration behind his achievement ;-)