David Robert POWELL | POWELL, David Robert | LifeNews.ca

David Robert POWELL POWELL, David Robert LifeNews.ca


A light burning brightly. Shine on, my son, shine on....

Mission Canada. What are we about...

Let’s talk about what we are about. Mission Canada is about doing missions in Canada, realizing there are unreached peoples right in our own front yard. This is our Jerusalem and Judea ( Acts 1:8). We are prayerfully developing strategies to reach the unreached people in our own country: people who would otherwise live beyond the reach of the traditional model of doing church. In otherwords, people who for whatever reason would rarely if ever darken the door of an organizational church.


In my world, this involves the campuses of our nation. It is clear to me that what we are doing in CMC anticipates the need for creative models of building Kingdom communities among the unreached. These redemptive communities do not replace the church. They augment it. Better yet, they are arms and hands of the church reaching into the darkness. They may not be the complete Body, but they are connected to it. They are part of it. For that reason, we do not see what we are doing as “para-church”. The term I coined years ago is “apo-church” which means out from the church. Organically connected to it.

It has been rewarding to share with people who not only on the same team but who do their parts with passion and excellence. Further, they do it with humility. We all realize that we are up against Goliath – a giant that mocks and intimidates. Goliath has a way of breaking any sense of self reliance. Goliath has a way of forcing us into God. Goliath is the entrance point for the revelation of God’s glory.

I sat down with a dear brother and a new friend , Norm Bishop, who is the men’s ministry director for the District I am a part of: The Western Ontario District. He was very encouraging. Actually, he simply could not believe he had not heard about what we are doing on campus and was passionate about getting our story out. When he had a chance to hear our story and what we are about, he was determined to help us find ways to get our story out to the churches and to help us connect with those people who would be thrilled to hear what we are actually up to.

Emerging Gen discussion

As part of the conference, when we were not in the plenary sessions, we met in various groups. On the first day, the groups were mixed. This means that the various focus groups did not meet together but were jumbled up into various groups that responded to hard, searching questions regarding what we do and why we do it. On the second day, I was part of an emerging generation discussion where we talked about ensuring that discipleship does not happen in isolation amongst the various age and stage ministries ( e.g. Children’s, Junior High, Youth, Campus ). While we did not arrive at any conclusions or action points, it opened up a long needed discussion.

When we met as a Campus Guiding Group, it was all synergy. We have such gifted people and it was amazing to see how they had incorporated the overall vision of our national leader, David Wells, and incorporated it into our values and goals. The outcome of that meeting will be another blog....

Mission Canada Summit 2011 Montreal

Arrived in Montreal. Again, the streets of Montreal teeming with people, many of whom are students. 




With Kelly Johnson ( U of Calgary) in Old Montreal


Mission Canada hoisted the Summit: a gathering of  the core of PAOC leaders and influencers from across Canada. These are Ministry leaders that reflect the core emphases of Mission Canada. Namely: Aboriginal, New Immigrants, Urban, Emerging Generation and francophone Canada. These emphases were identified as priorities because they are gaps that are not being reached at present by the local church.

MC Core Team: Gary Connors, George Werner, Natalie Rogge, Jaz Ghag







We stayed in a cool former convent, known as The Grey Nuns.

Grey Nuns - my 4th Floor window view....

It is presently owned by Concordia University and it is a student residence during the school year. I love the high ceilings and wide hallways and even the lack of air conditioning.



Concordia again. Buildings in foreground and background



View from the Molson School of Business of the busy city below

Speaking of Concordia, I make no secret of the fact that this school intrigues me. Its urban campus is integrated into the downtown core. Its buildings look just like any other office building, but what a difference! Having been in hundreds of campus buildings in the course of my job, it is my humble opinion that the architect of the building we met in ( The John Molson School of Business ) deserves an award. It just makes sense. As one of my team put it, it makes him want to go back to school. It is functional. It is hip. It’s big. It’s beautiful. It makes great use of natural light and creates multitudes of spaces for students to work and study individually and in groups. Further, it has state of the art classrooms and ampitheatres. All of this in the heart of a bustling downtown core.

School was going on all around us....

In this building, we saw at least four ( probably all five) of our missional priorities represented. Campus ministry, of course. Also, Quebec/Francophone Canada, New Immigrants and Urban. We could not immediately tell how the first nations were represented in the school, but we have no doubt they are. It was simply a powerful visual symbol of our missional priorities. We could not have picked a better spot to make our point.



Concordia Buildings from street level





LaSalle College



Maritime Campus Ministry Convergence

The idea behind my trip to Nova Scotia was providing a context where our people in the Maritimes interested in campus ministry could learn about what God has been doing across the country through our movement and offering them an opportunity to think and pray about where they might fit into the unfolding story. Because there is an unfolding story. Since many in our movement work in relative isolation, it was encouraging for them to hear the stories and see how our C5 approach evolved along with how we implement it. It was encouraging for them to hear about how we contextualize what we do and find ways to make our efforts fit each situation.

Flying to Halifax, I decided to use a plane flight as a metaphor. It occurred to me to start ‘ take off’ by telling a bit about my own story and involvement with campus ministry for the past thirty years. That brought us up to cruising altitude where we had an opportunity to look at the breadth of campus ministry in Canada from the thirty thousand foot level and talk about the distillation of the C5 approach across the county.

Then we 'landed' in the Maritimes. Rev David Martin, our creative young Acadian pastor in Dieppe,NB talked about his ministry to the francophone University of Moncton. Haute Zone ( it rhymes with Ozone, and I butchered the pronunciation when I introduced him) is a great example of contextualized ministry that responds well to the unique needs and challenges presented by the specific institution.


We had a solid time of discussion regarding challenges in the communities represented and some of the campuses we would like to approach first. The Maritimes have a number of first class universities and colleges , many with churches nearby. The questions arose: How can we get the churches to engage the campus missionally? Would there be any willingness on their part to do it, if they have not done it already? Is it a matter of finding the right person or is it a matter of finding the right church? All I can say is that it depends. I am really happy that campus ministry is on the District’s radar and hope and pray that it can lead to constructive action.

Finally, I appreciated the opportunity to hang out with David Sawler - Church Planter and ministry leader who is putting Cape Breton Island ( the northern arm of Nova Scota) on the proverbial map. The author of "The Goodbye Generation" , Dave not only sees the need for campus ministry but for cooperative models of ministry development that transcend traditional denominational boundaries.

I also had breakfast with Jim Molloy, the ministry director for the District who introduced me to a gifted youth leader who is considering whether to engage a nearby campus in a full-time capacity over breakfast. That was an encouraging time.

Anyway, time will see.

Dalhousie University

After landing in the Robert Stanfield International Airport, in Halifax N.S. , I set my trusty GPS for Dalhousie University. It brought me to the edge of campus where I was able to find free parking and walked towards University Avenue, and the centre of campus. Soon it brought me to the Chaplaincy Centre ,which is a house on the campus. Fortuitously, the only people there happened to be the very people I had hoped to find. The Christian Reformed Chaplain, Brad Close happened to be there with his intern, Desiree MacNeil. It had every evidence of being a God appointment. They had just come back into the centre for some random reason and were in the act of leaving when I showed up. They were friendly enough to ask me if they could help me and introduced themselves. Bingo….

Chaplain Brad Close and Desiree

Anyway, we had a great time of talking shop and comparing notes when it comes to campus ministry. Also, we knew a number of people in common. The fact is: we are on the same Team. Different tribes in the same nation working towards the same cosmic goal: bringing all things under one Head that is Christ: Eph 1:10. They are wrestling with the same issues we are and working for the same Boss. In a few hours, we left as old friends. I  look forward to connecting with them again when I am back in Halifax.



Grad @ Dal



A couple of days later, I dropped back at Dal because I wanted to do another brief walk through. There is something about that campus I find to be compelling. It is , as Macleans magazine puts it: Canada’s smallest big university. It is both small and big. It has a medical and dental school, a world class reputation and faculty and a very liveable and human campus. In  a previous blog, I referred to a ministry of a friend of our Fellowship, Mike Miller, called Shiloh University Church. It is an exciting expression of charismatic Christianity meeting on this campus. There are other notable ministries operating on campus. However, it is clear to me that all of them combined only scratch the surface of what God is up to on this campus. We need to think and pray about what our role might be.

Add caption

It is surrounded by residential/commercial neighborhoods that range from quaint to funky.

quaint

 As I dropped into the neighborhood Starbucks to use their wi-fi, I was surrounded by a group of people who evidently knew each other. The lady nearest to me called a man over to chat and he sat a few feet from me. I looked over and blinked. I asked him if he had ever lived in Vancouver. He immediately asked me if I was Robb Powell and introduced himself to me as Mark. My recognition was complete.

Mark

Mark Carvery was a member of Point Grey Community Church back in the day and a mutual friend of a former intern, David Langille. He let everyone know I was his former pastor. Before he had to leave  for work, a really sweet couple of moments of catching up with each other’s life. He is a videographer doing an ambitious project on the history of Africville in N.S.   I confess that I never knew about it before. I took our 'random' encounter as another serendipitous sign of God at work. In fact, the lady ( a social catalyst named Lana) who had called him over to talk, told me that she had just called him over on a whim. Further, she was a former member of Southside Community Church in BC, where she attended for three years. She too saw God in this encounter.

Coming Home