From the monthly archives:
We interrupt the current series to mention the release of Jam Legend. If you’re into guitar hero or rockband, this is just so corny, it’s almost funny, and actually oddly fun.
You can do head to head battles online, and all you need is to flip your keyboard upside down and jam away!
check out the trailer below.
JamLegend Trailer from JamLegend on Vimeo.
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(Photo by Glendon Tang of Impulse Photography)
Some questions that came up in the planning process for the event
- What would it look like for do something large enough that demands more than just me?
- What would it look like for the church to create an event or experience that was not for itself?
- What if we could provide a unique platform for emerging artists to showcase their God-given gifts?
- What if at the same time, we could pique the latent creativity within every individual that participated?
- How could we create an environment that was both inclusive and diverse musically, artistically, culturally, and even spiritually?
- How might we create a space that might provoke the imaginations from people of all backgrounds?
- Could we have a spectacular night of creativity and community while being involved with a cause worthy of our time?
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I’m going to spend the next while writing a series of posts about The Solar Crash Event from conception, to planning, to the night itself, to post-event thoughts.
Being a part of a dozen weddings every year, I kept thinking of what would it look like to put just as much time, energy, and maybe even money, into celebrating something besides the love of two people, as great as that is.
And when you think about weddings, it seems like just about anybody can pull them off. Weddings aren’t limited to a certain personality type, skill set, or demographic. It’s just a couple with some ideas they want badly enough to make into a reality, and it just happens. Of course, weddings come in all forms, flavors, and sizes, but they’re beautiful celebrations nonetheless.
It then dawned on me after all my years of declaring my disgust for details and things that revolve around organization and planning, maybe I could throw a meaningful celebration of wedding-like magnitude, and maybe it could inspire others to do the same across our city? And so it began…
Below is one of the art pieces that were displayed at the solar crash. This one is by Cindy Kwan and friends who sowed together a dress, and then ripped it up, desecrated it with paint, and then covered it with a clean white veil in response to the theme of the night.
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What a night everyone. I am so very blessed.
All I can say is thank you.
There must have been over fifty people who contributed and helped out behind the scenes to The Solar Crash Event. Thank you for your prayers, thank you for coming out.
More pictures and videos to come…
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Last post before the event this weekend.
If I haven’t mentioned it enough already, it’s at the El Mocambo night club downtown Toronto. Doors opening at 7pm. You can RSVP via contacting me or adding yourself to the facebook event page. We’re capping it at 300 people that night.
We’ve lined up 10 different performers – bands, singers, spoken word, dance, all intereved through the night as well as 10 different visual artists.
There will also be a collaborative project that everyone coming out can participate in.
100% of ticket sales will be going towards helping provide clean water in Uganda.
For more details see the event page. More artist bios are coming up soon as well.
We’ll have a videographer at the event so look forward to a recap compilation coming after the show, as well as plenty of reflections on my end organizing all of this.
peace.
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A snapshot of our world. This is the pulitzer prize winning photo by Kevin Carter of a vulture waiting for a young girl to die in southern Sudan. Carter killed himself soon after.
What does it mean for us to be the church in light of this? What does it mean to worship God? Can we possibly empathize with the pain of the child? Or are we more akin to the vulture that waits to consume?
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Over five years ago I adopted this mission statement for my life – To live by faith, to cultivate love, and to be a voice of hope.
I wrapped up my degree in May and gave myself a blank slate to work from going forward (even though I had planned the next thirty years of my life six years ago). I strongly considered returning to the corporate job I loved and just being a regular dude fumbling through becoming the person God created me to be.
Through plenty of silence, reflection, wise counsel and prayer, I kept returning to this theme of faith, love, and hope. And I kept asking myself, what would it look like for me to truly wrap my life around these elements? What would it look like in my own specific context, to invest my god-given skills and passion to living this life of faith, love, and hope?
Here’s what I’ve come up with…
Spiritual Direction – Helping point people towards their Creator and the person they were created to be. Primarily through one on one mentoring, discipleship, speaking, and innovating upon ancient practices.
Community Development – Creating and redeeming spaces for meaningful relationships and interactions, whether locally, globally, or even virtually. These will be environments inside and outside of the church that value diversity and inclusiveness while accepting life as messy, struggle as a reality, but where hope always prevails.
Mobilizing for Mission – Empowering and guiding individuals and communities towards living out their unique dreams through service, and making the world a little bit more beautiful.
Basically, I see myself as a missionary to the city of Toronto. I really can’t think of anything else I’d rather do with my life right now. How this will work out in the long run financially I have no idea, but I guess that’s part of the adventure.
Practically over the next while, I’ll be providing leadership at Mosaic to becoming more missional and incarnational in practice; Creating spiritually engaging environments such as the Solar Crash event coming up; Prototyping what it means for the church to have an influential presence in Toronto’s rapidly growing condominium communities, starting with my own; And networking with other influencers in how we can seek the good of the city together.
I’m totally stoked!
Let me know if this is something that interests you as well, or if you’ve got any questions.
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I was out from 2am-7am yesterday feeding the homeless. A new good friend and I handed out 150 sandwiches and 200 bottles of water. Was there something better we really could have been doing with our time?
You can read a bit more about homelessness in Toronto in this report from the city itself.
Reports vary in terms of how homelessness is measured, some say 4,000 others say 40,000 homeless individuals. Either way there’s only enough for about 3,000 people in shelters. And imagine those winters.
Even the ‘middle class’ are being driven out of the downtown core with gentrication and skyrocketing living costs.
What’s an individual in a big city like Toronto suppose to do about all of this?
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Exploring the intersections of Leadership, Creativity, Church, and Culture
