Serving Our Neighbourhoods Together

This Sunday churches all across the city are banding together to serve their neighbourhoods in some practical way. It struck me a couple of weeks ago, after listening to Mayor Nenshi on the news encouraging all of us to donate a few hours to cleaning up the trash around our communities, that this would be an easy thing to do. It doesn't require a lot of organization, and is a practical way to demonstrate that we love our neighbourhoods.

So this Sunday we will gather at the Schultz residence at 10:30am. We'll a time of worship and prayer, a short Bible reading on serving, and then go do it, weather permitting. If you would like to join us in serving our community of Bowness, you are welcome. You never know what surprises God will have in store for us! You are then welcome to come back to our house for lunch. Bring enough food for yourself and to share around.

An early hurrah to Joel and Amy who will be celebrating their wedding anniversary next weekend. Way to go guys.

If it is rainy, we'll go with plan B.

Love,

Tim and Esther

Finding God in the Midst of the Collisions of Work, Play, Kids, and Community

One of the given conundrums of life in the Western World is that everyone is busy. We all have noble or good intentions to get together with people we have a natural affinity for, to spend more time connecting with God in prayer and reading the Bible, to be more active and get in shape, to spend quality time with our kids, and the list could go on and on. If we are honest, we all feel overwhelmed and live in survival mode hoping to make it to the weekend. Then on the weekends there are a whole other set of options of what we could be doing with our time. There are kids sporting or relational activities, chores to catch up on, and even church. Unless we all become hermits, or go live in isolated communes in the country, or in monasteries, which even then doesn't negate all work or activity, we will wrestle with the centrifugal pull of being busy. Living a full life of significance, service, and fulfilling relationships is a good thing. Living a stressed, reactive, scattered, and anxious life is not God's intention for us.

So the three questions I want to leave with you to ponder are Why are we busy?; What are the right things to be busy with?; and How do we make the choices of what we are to be busy with? Jesus was busy doing the right things. He didn't sit around twiddling His thumbs, or sit in the lotus position meditating all day. Yes, He did take time to be alone with the Father to be fueled for the full life He lived. Take some time to ponder John 5: 16-23; 36-40, and reflect on how Jesus made decisions about what to be busy with. He didn't let other people's agendas determine what He did and didn't do. He didn't let the values of what the world considers to be most important drive His decision making (status, money, bigger and better possessions, pleasing people).

When it comes to church, we are to be the scattered church in who we are and how we live at work, with our families, and with our neighbors. This is where we spend most of our time in a week. We also want to practice the regular rhythms of being the church gathered. These are times to come together to be encouraged, to be trained how to live the Jesus Way when we are out there, to carry each other's burdens, and to worship Jesus. We don't want the running of and or amount of 'church meetings' to compound our busyness, yet as Hebrews 10:23-25 says, we don't want to give up meeting together, but spur one another on to love and good deeds.

So this Sunday we will be meeting at the Schultz digs at 10:30am. You are all welcome. If you want to stay for lunch bring something to share. Please RSVP by Sat. if you can make it.

Have a great weekend seeing what the Father is doing and joining Him in that.

Tim and Esther

Soccer and Serving in the Hood

Esther and I have been fumbling and bumbling along for the last 10 years trying to learn what it means to have authentic relationships with our neighbors in Bowness, and how to serve our neighborhood with no strings attached. The door that we have tripped into is through a passion and skill we have for coaching soccer that is so natural and easy. Through doing what we love, we have had the opportunity to find some cool friends who are 'not yet Jesus followers' and other Jesus followers who also have a value for loving our hood.

Every spring from April to June for over 10 years we have had the honor of coaching soccer in Bowness. It has become a natural rhythm in our yearly cycle. Through soccer and even hockey in the winter we have connected with some of the families from Bowness. This has spilled over to having barbies together, going camping together, being in each others homes, and us receiving as much from our neighbors as we give to them. My dream is to go on a 'soccer missions trip' in a few years with my present team and some parents where we get to serve and connect with other kids that love soccer in a developing country.

To do this we have had to learn to say 'no' to other good invitations and activities that would consume our time and energy, and that could keep us from having time to 'be present' with people in our hood. This has also led us to the choice of keeping church 'simple'.  One of the main distractions we have found to building relationships with our neighbors is the reality and trap of busyness.  In our past lives, we found ourselves so busy with church or 'Christian meetings' that we had no time for more relationships. This is true for many Christians. With work, kids activities/school, and then getting involved with running church or church meetings/relationships, people have no time for being with their neighbors.

Real relationships take time to build, especially with the trust necessary for folks to let you in to their lives, and for us to have the credibility or equity to even talk about Jesus. We now can say that we have some friendships with folks where the relationship is not conditional on whether they choose to follow Jesus or not. We like them and they like us. They serve us as much as we get to serve them. In the course of natural conversation we have been able to talk about what Jesus has done for us.

So we want to encourage all of you to let Jesus show you how to connect with your neighbors, and how to serve your neighborhood.  It can be alot of fun and natural as we just simply serve or get involved through our areas of interest or expertise or through opportunities to love our neighborhoods. We long to see communities of Jesus followers and yet to be Jesus followers loving and serving each other in their hood!

Thanks Beth and Emily for diving in and serving with Steph. at the Bowness party put on by the Boys and Girls Club last Friday night. You guys rock! Real community is shaped around having a common mission or task that you do together! When we work together on a common task we bond, and get to closer to one another.

This Sunday we will meet at Beth's place at 10:30am. Her address is 4301A-70 st. NW. If you want to stay after to eat together bring a lunch along. We will be going through and discussing another of the teachings from the Engage series as we learn how to live a missional lifestyle together.

An encouragement for all of us is that Jesus is already at work in our neighborhoods drawing people to Himself. We just need to have our eyes open and obey when He gives us the nudge to partner with Him.
Our neighborhoods are our parish where we get to be pastors- caring for people, and missionaries- bringing the Good News of Jesus and His Kingdom to folks!

Love,

Tim and Esther

Spring in Calgary!

Hello All,

As I'm writing this, the snow is trying to melt after the fresh dump we received last night! With the arrival of spring, we who have lived in Calgary for awhile know that we can expect at least one or maybe two significant snow deposits before we finally get into spring. Makes it interesting for those of us planning soccer practices, or for planting gardens. Oh well, we know the farmers are happy as they needed the precipitation for their fields!

Hope you all had a great Easter/Spring break with family!

We plan to meet this Sunday at the Schultz residence at 10:30am. Come prepared to share something for worship such as a song, a story of God working in your life, a scripture, and such! We will then listen to another of the teachings from the Engage series by Carl Medearis and Jay Pathak leading into some discussion and application to our lives. If there are any prayer needs we want to support each other in prayer. Then of course any of you are welcome to bring your lunch and and hang out afterwards.

See all of you who can make it on Sunday!

Tim and Esther

Close2Home Schedule for Sunday and Spring Break

Hey Everyone,

Spring break is under way, and some of our community have already hit the road. Doug and his kids are off to New Zealand for three weeks, and Jonathan is in Spain and France on a school trip with some of his friends and classmates...so if they come to mind pray for safety in travels.

This Sunday we will be meeting at our place at 11:00am. It will be a potluck so bring some food to share. Last week we talked about inviting some friends to join us. So depending on who is coming, we will adapt our time together. We are going through the Engage series by Carl Medearis and Jay Pathak, a Vineyard pastor in Denver. This week's topic will be Two Paradigms for Sharing Your Faith.

Congratulations to Joel and Amy on the purchase of their home in Ranchlands. We're thrilled for you guys. We also look forward to the Kingdom Adventures God has in store for you there as you become friends with your neighbours.

FYI, I'm in the midst of the beginning stages of planning a ministry trip to India for the latter part of October. We will be visiting some Vineyard communities that I coach in the foothills of Himalayas. If you are interested in going let me know.

Due to spring break and Easter, we will not be meeting for a couple of weeks after Sunday's gathering.

Peace on you all,

Tim and Esther

Happy St. Patty's Weekend

Yes, for all those of you who are of Irish decent, or for all of us wannabees, this Saturday is St. Patrick's Day...so get out and have your green beer and dance to an Irish jig. Perhaps we should try this out on Sunday as a form of worship:---)...anyone want to lead us.

This Sunday we'll be meeting @ 10:30am at Beth's place at 4301A - 70st NW in Bowness. We'll be sharing God stories from the week, praying for one another, and continuing on in our Engage series. This week's subject is called Know Nothing.

There was a cool story that happened right after we prayed for some Bownessian youth last Sunday...but I won't steal Emily's thunder...so we'll keep you curious till Sunday, where you'll just have to come and hear for yourself.

Bring some food to share and hang out after if you like. If you would also rsvp us by phone, text, or e-mail if you are coming that would be great.

Well that's all for now,

Tim and Esther

Serving In The Hood

Would love to hear the responses and take aways for those of you who were able to make it to Simply Jesus this last weekend. Will spend a little time doing that this Sunday.

We as a family really connected naturally with Carl and loved the way he presented who Jesus is, and how Jesus is at work all around us drawing people to Himself. We are not here to peddle the religion of Christianity, but to be and speak of the Good News of Jesus. The truth of the matter is that we don't have to try and convince or convert anyone. That's God's business! We simply need to be prepared to tell our story of what Jesus means to us, and what He has done in our lives. It helps to know the parables Jesus told and weave them into our conversations as stories that illustrate what Jesus and His Kingdom are all about. So here's a challenge to read through the Gospels and become so familiar with the parables that you can re-tell them in your own words to someone else!

This Sunday we will be meeting at our place at 10:30am and beginning the Engage series done by Carl and Jay, a Vineyard pastor in Denver, when they spent 9 weeks in a trendy bar in Denver doing Q & A about Jesus. This is a tool that will help us connect to what Jesus is already doing in the lives of those we live around, work with, recreate with, or go to school with. It is also a tool for helping us learn how to converse about Jesus with those who are turned off to Christianity, but open to Jesus.

We also want to talk about how we can serve in our neighborhoods together. Something is percolating with youth in Bowness bubbling up out of the Boys and Girls Club. Stephanie now works there, and Emily has been blessed to start something. Not sure exactly what God is up to, but we want to partner with Him.

Bring some food to share and hang out after if you'd like.

Mike's hockey team the Sabres are in the playoffs this weekend. If you want to see a different side of Esther you should see how fanatical and competitive she gets when cheering for her son's hockey team:---)...so shoot up some prayers for the eardrums of our fellow fans. I think I've gone partially deaf from sitting beside her at some of these games. On a more serious note, we would appreciate your prayers as we continue to build friendships with our 'hockey community' and very shortly 'soccer community'. Over the years we have built a trust with some of these folk who live in Bowness, and we know that God is at work. We simply want to care for them, and see community form around them where they experience Jesus for themselves.

Peace on you all,

Tim and Esther