Thanks for your ongoing interest.

If you have been subscribed to this blog you will need to re-subscribe to the RSS feed at the new website.

It’s been a long time under construction but the new Together Canada website is here!  We have been working hard along with the great technical help of our webmaster – Iain Wilson from Igalik Media to create a full-service site.

The big idea was to create a website that could feature the daily blog on the homepage but also have many other resources that visitors could find quickly.  We expect to add further resources on a weekly basis.

There is a challenge for those of you who had subscribed to this daily blog.  I don’t think it will automatically change you over to the new website.  You will need to re-subscribe to the new feed at the new Together Canada website if you want to get the daily blogs in your inbox each day.

Please check out the new website and take a spin around.  Bookmark it today!

Church of the Messiah - Ottawa

The church that we attend in dowtown Ottawa has been forced out of it’s historic location after 144 years.  We now meet just down the street in the Ottawa Little Theatre.  I have to say I really like the new location!  If you have to make a change it is not so bad to have a modern, air-conditioned auditorium with theatre-style seats.

You can read the whole story of why we had to move and why the church is now called Church of the Messiah rather than St. Albans.  (I like the new name too!)  The day of the big move was covered in the National Post and the Ottawa Citizen just a couple of weeks ago.

Why did we decide to worship at an ANIC (Anglican Network in Canada) congregation?

Well we checked it out because our daughter found that a number of her classmates from university were attending there.  We stayed because we felt the Lord was calling us on a journey into a more liturgical expression during this season of our lives.  We love the biblical preaching by Rev. George Sinclair and the way he always challenges our thinking about our faith.  The fact that the church is solidly evangelical and also evangelistic is crucial, since it is on the doorstep of the University of Ottawa and the downtown area.  Also it helped that the location was near the National House of Prayer where we worked for 5 years and thus could encourage our staff and interns to walk to a healthy neighbourhood church.

We’ve stayed for the last couple of years because we sensed that these transitional years were very important and our prayers and encouragement would be a way that we could reciprocate the blessings we were receiving.

This Fall we are excited that our good friend (and former intern) Jeremiah Smith is returning to the Church of the Messiah to be our worship leader and to work with the College ministry.

Check out the new website for Church of the Messiah here.

Check out George Sinclair’s weekly blog here.

“Trouble drives us to God who delighteth to help those who are forsaken of their hopes.  In prosperity, either we pray not at all or but faintly.  But in stress our prayers, like strong streams in narrow straits, run mightily upon God.

From Trapp’s Commentary on the Old and New Testament, 1654

Now they have launched a digital version.  This initial edition is free.  Check the link below.

Faith Today is a distinctly Canadian, award-winning magazine. It connects, equips and informs evangelical Christians. This summer everyone, including non-subscribers, can enjoy free access to a special 54-page issue.

Visit www.faithtoday.ca/digitalsample to read about

• International adoption

• Using Facebook and other social media for social good

• Updates on key social issues from The Evangelical Fellowship of Canada

• For women, a column by Michelle Arthur of Women Alive

• For men, a column by Kirk Giles of Promise Keepers Canada

Share your Faith Today by telling
others about it! (There’s a “share” button on every page that
makes it easy.)

Take advantage of this limited-time offer now
at www.faithtoday.ca/digitalsample.

The Editors at Faith Today

(Gail Reid, Bill Fledderus, Karen Stiller)

If …

If I love to be loved more than to love, to be served more than to serve, then I know nothing of Calvary love.

If a sudden jar can cause me to speak an impatient unloving word, then I know
nothing of Calvary love.

If souls can suffer alongside, and I hardly know it, because the spirit of
discernment is not in me, then I know nothing of Calvary love.

If I belittle those whom I am called to serve, talk of their weak points in
contrast perhaps with what I think of as my strong points; if I adopt a
superior attitude, forgetting, “Who made thee to differ? And what hast thou
that thou has not received?” then I know nothing of Calvary love.

If I can easily discuss the shortcomings of any; if I can speak in a casual way of
a child’s misdoings, then I know nothing of Calvary love.

If I rebuke without a pang, then I know nothing of Calvary love.

If I cast up a confessed, repented and forsaken sin against another, and allow my
remembrance of that sin to colour my thinking and feed my suspicions, then I
know nothing of Calvary love.

If I can hurt another by speaking faithfully without much preparation of spirit,
and without hurting myself far more than I hurt the other, then I know nothing
of Calvary love.

If I forget that it was He who granted the ray of light to His most unworthy
servant, then I know nothing of Calvary love.

If I covet any place on earth but the dust at the foot of the Cross, then I know
nothing of Calvary love.

That which I know not, teach Thou me, O Lord, my God.

Read the whole book here, including more than 60 “Ifs”.

Wikipedia bio of AmyCarmichael

Movement Day 2011

THE STORY

In the United States the largest 40 metropolitan regions represent 170 million people, more than 50% of the total census of the year 2000. In Metro New York City alone
21.5 million people represent 1 out of every 300 people on the planet.

In our large cities we face daunting spiritual and social challenges. These include vast unreached populations, profound poverty, and an emerging youth population struggling to
surpass the 50% graduation rate.

We believe it takes a movement of God’s Spirit and God’s People to transform a city. It takes collaborative leadership to initiate a Gospel Movement.

There Are Signs of Hope

In September 2009 research done in New York City indicated that the Christian population in center-city Manhattan had tripled in 20 years from 1% to 3%. Nearly 40% of all Christian churches have been started since 2001. This has been achieved through
a “movement” of church planting by multiple denominations. If this trend continues for the next 10-20 years it will have global consequences.

In the 2008-2009 school years, nearly 200 churches in New York City indicated a desire to begin a movement of adopting public schools for prayer and service. There is
potential to have churches adopt 50% of the 1,400 public schools in the next
five years.

Meanwhile, thousands of Christians in the business domain are awakening to their God-given role within their workplace, impacting their company environment and the
society around them for the sake of the kingdom of God on earth.

The objective of Movement Day is to:

• Convene leaders from across Greater New York and other large cities to hear the trends related to cities, urban ministry, and urban leadership from the best Christian thinkers; to
• Study the best models of urban gospel movements; and to
• Collaborate in new ways to reach and renew our metropolitan communities.

Movement Day is an invitation-only opportunity to be a part of an historic gathering of leaders learning from one another across our largest cities in North America.

Get all the details about “Movement Day” at the official website.

It is impossible for a saint, no matter what his experience, to keep right with God if he will not take the trouble to spend time with God.  Just as a poet or an artist must keep his soul brooding on the right lines, so a Christian must keep the sense of God’s call always awake.  Spend plenty of time with God; let other things go, but don’t neglect Him.  We are not here to do work for God; we are here to be workers with him, those through whom he can do his work.

– Oswald Chambers from My Utmost for His Highest.

More about Oswald Chambers here

Check out the other cities in this series - Montreal, Huntsville, Sault Ste. Marie at the 24-7 Prayer Canada website.