The days of the neighbourhood dropping in for Church just because it’s Christmas are over. Here’s how your church can move into the neighbourhood instead.

For centuries, the Advent/Christmas seasons have been a time for folks to automatically come into Church, perhaps forthe only time in a year. However, in this post-Christendom, and some would argue post-Christian age, all bets are off. The days of expectation that people will naturally come into events in our churches simply because it is Christmas, are rapidly dwindling. This is not an urban, suburban, or rural issue. This is not a church size or denominational issue. This is the new normal of every local church in our increasingly secularized age.

It is not a time for despair. In fact, it is . . .

Bishop George Bruce
Bishop George Bruce of the Diocese of Ontario tells about a surprising visit to a unique expression of church in the Diocese of  South Western Brazil.
click here to view video.

Years ago, my best friend Janet and I travelled from Halifax to Vancouver and back again on a student Via-Rail pass. For 21 days we sat, slept and snickered in coach seats, eating peanut butter sandwiches and once an entire cream pie. We giggled through northern Ontario and cackled through the prairies, until, to our [...]

Behold! Something stirs in the English countryside…
“Tanworth-in-Arden is a small rural parishbetween Birmingham and Redditch. Paul Cudby, vicar of St Mary Magdalene church, explains what they are doing to reach those who don’t ‘do’ church.” read more

Imagine yourself a cloned child created from the DNA of a wealthy person who wants to have your organs available for transplant, when he later needs them. The only life you know as a child is as one of a large number of other clones who are kept in the setting of an isolated English [...]

Thomas Brauer

Ministry at the edges of Church and culture is a challenge, to say the least.  It is often hard to discern which particular edges should attract our limited mission attention (and budgets).  With challenges in finding both people and money for long-term mission projects, it is often helpful to find “one off” mission opportunities which [...]

If you were to hang out at a Christian bookstore at the edge of many Canadian cities, you might be surprised to see who is there.  Ditto if you drive past a packed church parking lot any day of the week, or a bustle of people leaving a newly planted church in an industrial area, [...]

Wednesday’s last plenary was a mixture of these three speakers, each answering the question, “What does it take to transform a community?”
Brenda Salter McNeil is a well known speaker who focused on racial reconciliation using Acts 1:8.  She described reconciliation in “Samaria”, when people are so different they say “God ought to do something about [...]