Canada

If you spend enough time with those dedicated to addressing the urgent issues of our time, you will eventually hear that we need to get people to ‘pay attention’.  Whether you and your friends are urging your city council to curb urban sprawl, encouraging your church to dedicate funds to alleviate global hunger, or organizing your school to take action against racial injustice, it’s easy to lament that nobody is noticing what’s going on.  Nobody is seeing what’s going on!  We need to get people to look and see what’s happening!  How can we get people to pay attention? 

Lead, kindly Light, amid the gloom of evening.
Lord, lead me on! Lord, lead me on!
On through the night! On to your radiance!
Lead, kindly Light! 

- John Henry Newman

Another summer of extreme heat, wildfires, drought, and flooding events around the world may have you and your church more concerned than ever about climate change. The CRCNA’s Climate Witness Project offers resources, events, and projects to help churches explore our role as people called by God to help heal a suffering earth. If your church is ready to go deeper, you might join Christians around the world this fall in observing the Season of Creation. 

On a warm Sunday evening in downtown Thorold, a young couple and their two girls walked down the street.  Suddenly, the smell of dinner caught their nose. They peeked inside the school door only to be welcomed and invited to stay for a meal. They met new people and ate their fill. To their surprise, this gathering had been organized by a Christian group called a “missional community.” That’s what our church plant, The Table, calls ourselves: a missional community.

On August 21, 2022 the CRC celebrates its annual opportunity to reflect on justice and what it means for our lives. Designated by Synod 2017, this date will mark a fifth annual, denomination-wide, Day of Justice and encourages church members to experience unity as a denomination as we consider the meaning of Biblical justice, lament injustices in our world, and commit to the transforming work of standing alongside people whom society oppresses and pushes to the margins.

In 1995, Jonathan Maracle, a Mohawk from Tyendinaga Territory in Ontario, Canada, decided not to sing Amazing Grace at the Sacred Assembly in Ottawa, as he had been asked. What he didn’t know was that listening to the Spirit in that moment would inspire a band and ministry that would shape the rest of his life [and the church.]

Pope Francis’ penitential pilgrimage to Turtle Island to speak words of apology to Indigenous communities regarding residential schools has been historic and important.  There are a wide range of critical and positive reactions among Survivors of residential schools and Indigenous leaders to the Pope’s statements while in Canada.  As a Settler, it’s certainly not my place to evaluate these perspectives so, in this piece dear reader, please allow me to offer a few reflections on the implications of the Pope’s visit for the broader church in Canada – including the CRC.

We welcome Dr. Kenny Wallace to the show.  Kenny is an African American Choctaw Pawnee from the United States living in Canada. He teaches nationally and internationally about multi-ethnic worship with his organization Kingdom Reflections Multi-Ethnic Worship Ministries and today he unpacks with us how multi-ethnic worship can shape our spiritual imaginations.  

"Creator Sets Free (Jesus) lifted up his voice and said to them, "I am the light shining on this dark world.  The ones who walk with me will not stumble in the darkness but will have the light that gives them life."  - John 8:12 (FNV)