Toronto is the most ethnically and culturally diverse urban area on planet earth. Half of its citizens are visible minorities.
You can find glimpses of the entire world in one city. Over a 140 languages and dialects are spoken.
Toronto is formed and shaped by the people of the globe – half of the population is foreign born.
Toronto is a model mosaic city. Ethnic enclaves are everywhere. Every city on the planet has a china-town, Toronto has at least six and counting.
Approaching 6 million people in the Greater Toronto Area it is the fifth largest metropolitan area in North America.
Toronto is geographically a hub to America. Within a 100-mile radius of Toronto a quarter of Canada’s population resides here, as well as 125 million Americans or roughly 40% of the U.S. population.
Richard Florida who wrote “Rise of the Creative Class” describes Toronto as being one of the most creative cities and is on set to be “a world leader in innovation and prosperity”
Toronto’s leading sectors include finance, business services, telecommunications, aerospace, transportation, media, arts, film, television production, publishing, software production, medical research, education, sports, sustainability, and tourism industries.
Toronto is undergoing massive renewal and gentrification – creating a city in flux with new needs and opportunities
Toronto is a city of the future. The world is increasingly becoming more diverse and more urban as Toronto already is. If you can make something work in Toronto you have the potential for modeling and leading it for the rest of the world.
Your thoughts? I’d love to hear why your city matters to you.
A couple weeks ago I preached a message working through Van Gogh’s art and the inbreaking of the Kingdom of God. It was a really fun one, partly inspired by this book.
My favorite bit was on Van Gogh’s famous Starry Night painting. Van Gogh was really intentional with his colors using blue for mystery and the infinite, and yellow for divine sacred love.
You can see how he had a real sense of earth being a reflection of heaven. The yellow holy light is laced across the fields and echoed in every little home, except one… the church.
It’s as if to say that hints of the divine are everywhere you look in all creation, but ironically Van Gogh didn’t feel that it was in the church (He was a pastor/missionary before seriously painting).
What do you think? Do you see truth in it today? How might the church regain it’s glow?
Peter Rollins has been the latest provoking button pusher for me. He looks and talks like a complete drunk on redbull, but he’s got some profound thoughts. I don’t know if this list of resources will grow as large as my Rob Bell listing, but here we go.
Here’s his wikipedia bio
Peter Rollins (born Belfast, 31st March 1973) is the founder and co-ordinator of the experimental collective Ikon. Ikon describes itself as iconic, apocalyptic, heretical, emerging and failing and engages in what it calls theodrama and ‘transformance art’.
Rollins is also a freelance philosophy lecturer, public speaker and writer who specialises in various aspects of continental philosophy, phenomenology and emerging churchtheology. He is currently a research associate with Trinity College Dublin.
What is God doing on the fringes of Canadian culture? Flying under the radar of pop-Christianity, experimental churches are quietly establishing genuine Kingdom outposts in settings both feared and forgotten. ‘One Size Fits All?’ uncovers the obscure story of these Canadian missional communities and its leaders.
It’s very different from the Hip 2B Holy documentary that was on Global TV recently, and while that had it’s place, One Size Fits All, is so much more representative to me of the direction God has been taking the church.
There’s nothing else like this that I’m aware of from a Canadian perspective.
People and communities that are featured in this include:
Rob Abbott, theGig – Kitchener, ON David Brazzeal, Curieux – Montreal, QC Nick Brotherwood, Emerge – Montreal, QC Gary Castle, neXt Church – Kingston, ON Kristen Cato, The Open House – Vancouver, BC Kate Dewhurst, The Agora – Halifax, NS Al Doseger, Rustle – Kingston, ON Cyril Guerette, Freedomize – Toronto, ON Pernell Goodyear, FRWY – Hamilton, ON Jamie Howison, St. Benedict’s Table – Winnipeg, MB David Manafo, The Gathering Café, Montreal, QC Kyle Martin, The Open House – Vancouver, BC Paul Moores, Living Room Church – Vancouver, BC Joseph Moreau, Ecclesiax – Ottawa, ON Greg Paul, Sanctuary – Toronto, ON Helen Ramfield, St. Benedict’s Table – Winnipeg, MB Kim Reid, The Open Door – Montreal, QC Domenic Ruso, The Embassy – Waterloo, ON David Sawler, Lighthouse – Glace Bay, NS Brad Sommers, Pax North – Halifax, NS Scott Williams, Club 365 – Mission, BC
And there are so many other stories that weren’t captured and have yet to be told.
Check out the trailer below, and buy your copy here. My hope is that denominational leaders who are holding vacant buildings and the purse-strings to the future will see this… and maybe, just maybe, they’ll creatively invest in carving out a new path for being the church in Canada.
The Divine Commodity by Skye Jethani has been one of the most intriguing books I’ve read this year. His thoughts on consumer Christianity are well crafted, and I love the way he weaves in van Gogh’s life and artwork (I can’t wait to act like a complete art snob in front friends now with my recent ‘education’).
Jethani hits hard at how consumerism is the dominant worldview in North America and how it’s infiltrated the church. Religious merchandise is a $7 billion dollar annual industry and he goes as far as saying “shopping occupies a role in society that once belonged only to religion – the power to give meaning and construct identity.”
I was a bit surprised that he named names as he critiqued church growth / branding / marketing, but he also humbly includes his own struggle and journey with a consumer mindset. The heart of it being the outsourcing of our imagination, “Image saturated culture means that the imagination isn’t required the way it once was… we ingest ready-made images like junk food”.
The most affirming and convicting idea Jethani suggests is the abandoning of bigger-is-better strategies and outcomes. This is affirming because I know it’s true, I see it in the life of Jesus, and I know that it was “the Lord that added to their numbers” in the early church. This is convicting because I’m guilty of having a consumer mindset all the time. Something in me still wants the spectacular and the jaw-dropping turnouts, but maybe when it overshadows the simple seeds of silence, prayer, love, friendship, fasting, and hospitality, we’ve veered off the wrong way.
Where do you see consumerism shaping your life and the church?
This was a thought provoking discussion, worth your time listening in. Peter Rollins will also be sharing at the Poets, Prophets, Preachers gathering I’m stoked to be at. (btw, I know the emergent term has been pulled through the gutter lately, but I’m also influenced by hardcore reformed fundies like Mark Driscoll and Tim Keller… does that absolve me?)
Continuing my last couple posts on “God’s bias for the city” and “why cities matter” some thoughts on why the City of Toronto matters.
