The weekend that changed the world

Well not quite the weekend that changed the world, but still...there was so much happening!

On Friday night and all day Saturday I was at the TrueCity annual conference here in Hamilton. TrueCity is a group of churches in Hamilton working together throughout the year to bless the city. This weekend there was worship, workshops, teaching and discussions. On the Saturday afternoon I went to an amazing discussion group about church planting. It was great to talk to people who had lots of years experience in mission and church planting work.

Saturday evening I went straight to a leaving party for the pastor of Grindstone and his family. He's moving on to another church after 8 years of amazing work at Grindstone.

On Sunday it was the usual church stuff in the morning, then in the evening it was SCRUM. This is a church meeting which happens a couple of times a year to discuss happenings in the church. It was pretty intense as there had been lots of changes here at Grindstone (which I may post about at some point). And I had the pleasure of leading a couple of songs at the beginning to calm down any congregants with hot heads coming into the meeting!

I admire pastor Dave and the elders. They were getting grilled by some people and yet still held it together to give solid, calm answers. It will be quite a few years till I could hold myself in a situation like that.

On a slightly different note. HOW GOOD IS THIS PICTURE!

Live music is so intense

Live music is so intense.

I've just got back from the freeway cafe. Me and a friend went tonight to see what was going down. There was this one band playing called 'To Tell' who were great performers and musically very talented. They sounded very much like Ben Folds, so if that's your thing check out www.myspace.com/totell


They come from London as well! Well, London Ontario. Fail.

Let's talk strategy

Well it's fantastic weather at the moment here in Hamilton, Canada. It's raining and about +5 degrees. It really does make me feel like i'm back at home in the UK! It's funny how poorly Canadians deal with rain...but maybe slightly better than how we deal with snow in the UK!

Last week here in Canada it was -25 degrees and blue skies. Beautiful weather but just a bit chilly! It's meant to stay warm for a while before getting colder again in the next couple of weeks.

I've been back at work for over a week now after my trip home to the UK. Having some time back at home allowed me to think about the things I should be doing in my final few months. I want to be more strategic and assertive with my time as if I'm not I'll easily fill my days with things which aren't worthwhile doing. There's still plenty of things to be doing here so i'm excited about this final leg of my Canadian journey.

I'll keep you updated.


(I took this picture last week. No jokes. It was that cold!)

Snow Flake 2009...

What an awesome weekend. On Saturday I was down at Niagara falls for the second time. This time it was for a conference called 'Snow Flake' and not for the 'maid in the mist'! Snow Flake is an annual weekend youth retreat with teaching, worship and lots of other fun stuff. Several people from Grindstone were involved in planning and leading the weekend so it was great to head down for the day and see how it was all going.

The weekend was titled 'Snow Flake 2009-SHIFT' with the theme of the weekend being shifts and changes in life. Great idea for a theme, however, having a big red t-shirt with SHIFT on it can be easily mis-read! When I got offered one for free though I wasn't gonna turn it down!

The location was obviously amazing. From the conference centre you could see both Niagara falls and the Canadian falls. Everyone there took no notice, of course, as if it was the local corner shop or something like that. Oh Canadians!

(That's the Canadian falls in the background)

Fresh Expressions

I've just been checking out a great website called Fresh Expressions. "Fresh Expressions is an initiative of the Church of England and the Methodist Church. It has been going since September 2004. It aims to help Christians of any denomination think about ways of starting and growing fresh expressions of church in their area."

Yes I did just copy and paste that from the website...well I'd just ramble trying to explain it.

It's really fantastic to see some of the stuff going on. I'd highly recommend you checking out the website (http://www.freshexpressions.org.uk/). You know what. Go to www.freshexpressions.org.uk/mixedeconomy RIGHT NOW and download their magazine (free of charge) and read about all the amazing things going down.

'Mission is finding out what God is doing and joining in'...oh yes.

Time to head back to Canada...

Well it's been a great trip back home to the UK. I came back about a week ago and was meant to fly out today but we (me and a friend of mine from Canada) missed our flight because of the aweful weather conditions. Luckily we've been able to book a flight out for tomorrow night though.

We spent this past weekend at carotty and had a great time as you can see below..well I did anyway!