O Canada!!

This place is so beautiful!!! Sorry it's been so long since I've posted. By the time I get the time too I'm soo tired I fall asleep writing! We have had so many wonderful experiences here in Canada. The people are wonderful and so inviting.

A few days ago we rode a ski lift up to Mt. Whistler and then took the gondolas over to another peak. It was so beautiful! God spoke to us through creation. If he can make something that majestic it just makes me think of how much more beautiful he is than our minds can imagine.

Yesterday morning we were at Eastside Vineyard church in Vancouver. It was a smaller sanctuary but it was filled with people. We barely had room to fit us all in there!!! Afterwards we had a ministry time and then went and had a picnic with the church members.

Last night we were at a ministry called More Than 12. This is one of the coolest ministries I've seen. They mix worship music with hip hop and write verses that they rap during praise and worship. They have dj's and dancers and the works. They don't have a stationary building that is their own but they meet in a building that is a bar every other night of the week. But on Sundays they turn it into a place of worship! How cool is that? They also have a street ministry team that goes out every Sunday a few hours before their worship service and invites people to come. They do a meal at 5 and feed people in the community and then do a worship service.

This inspired me. I know that there are other ministries in other places that do that sort of thing as well. That is what spreading the Gospel is about. Going into the communities where the people are broken and bringing the Gospel to them where they are at. Yes, do invite them to church, but have you ever thought about taking church to them? Church isn't a building. Church is gathering in the name of Jesus. Doing life together, taking care of the broken people around us and pointing them to Jesus. That's church. We do church every day on this mission trip. We are together 24 hours a day. We fellowship and have community together. We share the Gospel. We eat. We pray. We read Scripture. We reach out to the broken and needy. That's what Jesus did.

Matthew 9:10-12

 ¹⁰ While Jesus was having dinner at Matthew’s house, many tax collectors and sinners came and ate with him and his disciples. ¹¹ When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?”
 ¹² On hearing this, Jesus said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. ¹³ But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’^[a] For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”


We want to be about what Jesus was about. We want to reach out to the sick. We are all broken and in need of Jesus.


Jesus is calling us to step out of our comfort zones. For the leaders at More Than 12 that meant to have church in a bar. For us it means being on a bus together for 14 days and sharing our stories with one another and those we don't know. What is He calling you to? What are you sacrificing for the Gospel to be spread? God is awakening us to something new. Something fresh and something different. It will be uncomfortable. Are you ready to go there with Him?