A Tribal Alternative

In just over a month our Justice Discipleship Training School (JDTS) begins here in the inner city of Winnipeg.  We have continued to develop this program to be a community-based, holistic missional and spiritual formation experience with an emphasis on the justice component to the Gospel.  Our students live in intentional community with us in our neighbourhood, sharing life and mission in real ways.  They will also take this passion abroad to Thailand to engage in cross-cultural context, a critical experience necessary for being missional in our world today.  Here is a link to the school info:

Justice DTS 2009 - Winnipeg/Thailand/Vancouver

We need your help.  The school is almost full, but we need a few more students.  Specifically, we need at least one more male student so that there is at least two guys.  This is more critical than you know, so we would really, REALLY appreciate any and all help in this.  Here is how you can help:

• Promote this in your circles. If you blog, twitter, have a church group, etc.  consider sharing the info.
• Recommend someone. If you know someone who would be ideal for the program, send them our way.
• Pray, Pray, Pray! We need your prayers in this one.

Please let me know if you have any other questions.  Thank you so much for your help!

It’s been quite a while since I posted here, with not many more posts at my other blog (www.missional.ca), so I thought it was time to bring you up to speed.  Enjoy!

It has been nearly two months since our friend and brother, Andrew, took his life in a very public suicide (see here for details), and life is beginning to return to a “new normal”.  Watching him die was tragic beyond words, but I was deeply touched to perform his funeral and walk with the family & our community through the grief.  Several are still in counseling as a result, so keep us in prayer.

We also announced recently that The Dusty Cover will be closing in mid-August.  While this is sad in many ways, we are also excited because it isn’t completely closing the door on the vision, just putting it in storage until it can find new expression.  Check out the details here.

Little Flowers Community has been doing really well.  While we are experiencing the challenges of our first summer as a congregation, the commitment and vision has grown.  So much good has been birthed out of Andrew’s death, I am humbled by God’s ability to redeem.

A couple of blog posts I would like to highlight: “Preach The Gospel At All Times”, a response to Mark Galli’s take on St. Francis & proclamation.  I also penned “The Community Longing To Be The Church”, a follow up to my “The Community Coming To Be Known As Missional” in which I reflect on the realities of church planting against the vision we set forth.

I should be posting here more often, so drop me a line!