DanSheffield

churches helping new Canadians settle

Great story about my friend Joseph Seidu and Crestview Park Free Methodist Church in Winnipeg; featured in Winnipeg Free Press.

evangelical growth attributable to immigration

At the recent annual meeting of the Evangelical Missiological Society in Edmonton, Feb 24, 2012, sociology prof, Dr Joel Thiessen from Ambrose University College in Calgary presented a paper entitled: "Christianity in Multicultural Canada." He had a lot of very useful data to share. One little piece he shared was this:

Among Canadian evangelicals, over 17% are foreign-born and nearly 71% of those immigrants came to Canada since 1971 (Bramadat and Seljak 2008: 440). In fact, evangelical numerical growth is not attributable to conversion as much as it is to immigration, particularly among the Chinese community in Toronto and Vancouver (Guenther 2008). This has led to a vibrant subculture of Chinese evangelicals in Chinese-specific congregations and multicultural congregations, as well as theological training aimed at Chinese evangelicals. Taken together, some may suggest that Christianity in Canada is reaping the rewards of its foreign mission movement during the 18^th and 19^th centuries. As Bramadat and Seljak (2008: 5) remind us, “To meet a first- or second-generation Canadian of African descent who is in fact a third-, fourth-, or twenty-fifth-generation Christian, reminds us of the global reach of Christianity.”

 

Cost-effective compassion

CT has a great article -- "Cost-effective compassion: the 10 most popular strategies for helping the poor." The author, Bruce Wydick is a professor of economics at U of San Francisco, and active in a micro-project in Guatemala (you have to read to the end of the article to hear what he is doing). He polled 16 development economists: "I asked them to rate, from 0 to 10, some of the most common poverty interventions to which ordinary people donate their money, in terms of impact and cost-effectiveness per donated dollar."

1. Get clean water to rural villages (8.3)

2. Fund de-worming treatments for children (7.8)

3. Provide mosquito nets (7.3)

4. Sponsor a child (6.9)

5. Give an efficient wood-burning stove (6.0)

6. Give a micro-finance loan (4.2)

7. Fund reparative surgeries (3.9)

8. Donate a farm animal (3.8)

9. Drink fair-trade coffee (1.9)

10. Give A Kid a Laptop (1.8)

For rest of article and commentary read here...

culture and the missional church course/tools

Jared Siebert and I co-teach a 3-day course on Culture and the Missional Church -- examining the place of "culture" in understanding our local churches, as well as the neighbourhoods in which they function. Jared has a video clip hear of Nancy Luross, from Lakeview Church in Saskatoon, who took the course with us a couple weeks ago.

 

Frank Viola on what's central to the church's life and mission

Frank Viola is a thoughtful, reflective practitioner. Here are some recent thots from his blog.

The big sweeping epic of God’s timeless purpose is centered on a bride, a house, a body, and a family. These four elements make up the grand narrative of the Bible. The mission of God—the Missio Dei—is wrapped up with each of them.

God’s mission demands more than a theological head-nod of agreement. It demands practical expression. The Lord wants a people who embody the bride, the house, the body, and the family in every city on this planet.

In this post and the next, we will briefly explore the practical question of what it looks like when a local fellowship of believers fulfills what God is after and His eternal purpose moves from eternity to here.

He goes on to flesh out what he means by connecting

• Communion and the bride
• Corporate display and the house
• Community life and the body
• Commission and the family of God in every city

Read the rest of his post here.