U of A 3 Epic Gathering.

Epic meets in Dewey’s Café, which is a nice setup in the old powerplant building. It has sandblasted brick walls, twenty foot high, natural wood ceilings, six foot windows twelve feet off the ground, earth tone ceramic tiles, complete with black tables and chairs. The old place had been redone back when I went to the Uof A, and it provides a comfortable, accessible place to meet.

It was one of those days, where the guest speaker and a number of students were sick, but it all worked out just fine. Aaron Au, a UofA alumnus who is involved with Epic, did double duty by both being interviewed by Matt ( in place of the aforementioned guest speaker ) and then later sharing what God has been doing in his life in the recent past. Aaron was a former 1st violinist for the ESO as well as a visiting assistant professor at the U of A.  Along with his MDiv studies at Taylor Seminary, he keeps himself involved in music by producing quality events. see http://www.music.ualberta.ca/aau.cfm .

With the sickness/ absence of their worship leader, they plugged in the trusty ipod for ambience. They began and ended the service with the EPIC creed, and had a opportunity for the breaking of bread together at the tables, where people could talk and share prayer concerns with each other. Although it had structure and intentionality, the service seemed relaxed and casual. One student summed up what a number of them had told me.. “ This is a place where you feel that you can invite pretty well anybody… "   To quote a commercial of a local beer company, here in Ontario.. “ Those who like it.. Like it a lot!”

The sermonette, as it was called touched on the desperate times surrounding the well known scripture in Jeremiah 29 where God assures his people that he has good plans for them ( see v.11). However, it was going to get worse before it got better. Matt opened it up for questions and comments, and there was some good give and take around the issues he raised from the scriptures. There were a number of levels to the message, but I walked away with trusting the goodness of God when things are anything but good.

Take a look at the Epic website. http://www.epicstudentchurch.com/ There are some cool ideas imbedded on the site. For example, the Epic Conversationals. I don't  have the time and space to unpack them, here, so dial up the site and have a look.