Around Town: Easter hope, David Ley, church librarians, Spartans volleyball ...

Join in The Way of the Cross in the Downtown Eastside on Good Friday.

The Way of the Cross moves through the Downtown Eastside on Good Friday.

One Good Friday celebration which every year draws in community members along with people from a range of churches and ministries is the Way of the Cross in the Downtown Eastside. It will begin on the steps of First United Church at 12:30 pm and proceed “through the DTES to experience themes of hope and faith.”

Last year, Pat Johnson interviewed Rev. Sally McShane for the Vancouver Courier in First United Church bears a message of hope on Good Friday:

“It’s a sign of the presence of God seeking to let people know that God loves them this much, even to death on a cross,” she says. “The Christology around it is that Jesus died on the cross and his walk is toward the cross, rather than to run away. The message is: God is love, God is love, God is love . . . and unconditional love. So the message when we walk with the cross is it’s a sign of that unconditional love, even unto death.” . . .

“I know the word hope is overdone a lot,” says McShane. “But it really is about hope. It’s about believing that you can hope in a God that is that powerful and that loving. For many people, they hold onto that with both hands, grasping it. The message is so important.”

Another positive sign in Vancouver has been the steady growth in the number of churches which take Lent seriously. Tenth Church, for example, marked the season with a Stations of the Cross art show. Eight of their artists created paintings which are on display until March 25:

These images depict eight different moments in Christ’s journey to the cross, as interpreted by artists from the Tenth community. The tradition of the Stations of the Cross began with pilgrims who, as an act of devotion, would journey to Jerusalem and literally walk the path that Christ was believed to have followed on his way to his death. Eventually, Stations of the Cross images were created so that those who were unable to make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem could participate in the act of walking with Christ through his Passion.

By journeying through these stations with Christ we can enter more deeply into the Gospel story. We can get to know Christ better by walking with him and learning from him and his suffering. By entering into his suffering and death we come to a more profound understanding of the cost of our salvation.

David Ley makes news

David Ley has been consulted by the media fairly often about Vancouver’s housing crisis, but we are hearing even more from him now that the role of foreign ownership is becoming widely acknowledged.

Ley, a professor of urban geography at UBC and author of Millionaire Migrants (and member of Regent College’s board), was interviewed by Douglas Todd for The Province March 22:

Canadian politicians, keen to stimulate B.C.’s economy, are responsible for creating the conditions that have led to Metro Vancouver’s housing affordability crisis, according to a new study.

Politicians decided to “reboot a troubled regional economy through an infusion of activity from the growth region of the Asia Pacific,” UBC geographer David Ley says in a peer-reviewed paper published in the International Journal of Housing Policy.

Largely as a result of governments’ efforts to attract wealthy immigrants and investment from East Asia, “house prices have risen rapidly and the detached housing market is now unaffordable to most Vancouver residents,” writes Ley. . . .

Province columnist Gordon Clark followed up the next day with Homebuyers pay price for failed government policies, drawing on Ley’s study and Todd’s article. He concluded:

While Ley focuses on politicians in senior levels of government, municipal politicians are also part of the problem, in my view, by allowing rapid redevelopment and densification of our communities – creating new housing stock to be bought up by foreign dollars.

Ley’s work suggests most of the anger (and not always veiled racism) directed at foreign investors in recent public discussions is misplaced. If we’re looking for someone to blame, we should, as I’ve said, look at who has been encouraging the spending free-for-all in the Lower Mainland housing markets that has been driving up prices – politicians.

Writing in the Vancouver Courier March 22, columnist Allen Garr also referred to Ley and his study.

Ley has spoken to a couple of Christian gatherings recently. Last week, he addressed the topic Make Vancouver Home: But How Do We Afford to Live Here? before a breakfast crowd drawn together by City in Focus at the Vancouver Club. The podcast can be heard here. And in late January he hosted Churches and the Housing Crisis at Regent College.

Church Librarians Building Bridges

Jason Byassee will speak at the Church Librarian conference April 2.

Jason Byassee will speak at the Church Library Association of BC conference April 2.

The Church Library Association of BC (CLABC) will hold its annual conference at West Vancouver United Church April 2; this year the theme is Building Bridges.

Organizers describe it this way:

The conference will be focused on the bridges we build between our libraries and our congregation. Some of these bridges we build with our children and youth, the focus of the afternoon workshop with youth minister Simon LeSieur. The morning workshop “Seeing Past Difference: Seeing Each Other” looks at bridges with people with disabilities. There will be resources on other bridges such as Alzheimer’s and Dementia, seniors and refugees.

Jason Byassee, author and holder of the Butler Chair in Homiletics and Biblical Hermeneutics at Vancouver School of Theology, will address the conference. In an email to me, he suggested the kind of issues he will cover:

Libraries . . . it’s part of a larger project for me, asking about a theology of institutions. And institutions are about God’s economy of salvation, the particular way that God is stitching the universe back together.

I’m struck what a humane and humanizing institution a public library is. It seems unimpressive on its face – little quiet unassuming buildings, stereotypes about librarians. . . . But actually these are remarkable, extraordinary places.

Marilynne Robinson and Wallace Stegner and Eugene Peterson are just a few of my favourite writers to come out of small western towns whose education began in earnest at Carnegie-funded libraries. Folks from outside the West are amazed at our libraries – wait, I can take these books home, for free? Really?!

Libraries are about the transformation of the mind – there’s a reason churches have always been supportive of them. And just by existing they make a statement: God gives us minds, loves our minds, wants us to partner with God in reordering God’s good created order.

Sounds like a great conference. I’m sure the CLABC would love to hear from prospective members or people who would like to see new, or renewed, church libraries. Visit the website or contact registrar Winnie Bradford at [email protected] or 604.929.7398.

Spartans volleyball rules

The TWU men’s volleyball team won the CIS national championship.

Trinity Western University has several strong sports programs, but none stronger than volleyball. The Spartans men’s team won the CIS national championship March 12.

Howard Tsumura described the team’s feat this way in The Province:

They’re best described as Team Turnaround, because the mid-season re-invention of the men’s volleyball team at Langley’s Trinity Western Spartans from tired, ineffective also-rans into national champions was stunning even for its own players to comprehend.

“I’m speechless,” said lone Spartans senior Tyler Koslowsky after his team completed a miracle turnaround from an unranked, .500 team at mid-season to a CIS national champions on Saturday following its 3-1 (19-25, 25-20, 26-24, 25-16) win over No. 1-ranked McMaster, right on the Marauders home court in Hamilton. “It’s literally unbelievable. I don’t know how we came together like we did. It’s just crazy.”

TWU’s women’s volleyball team lost in the CIS national finals the next day (March 13), to the University of Toronto team. Last year the situation was reversed; the women won the CIS national championships, while the men came in second.

Mar 2016

Youth Kosta – March 22, 2016 - March 24, 2016 at All Day
Peacemeal – March 24, 2016 at 7:00 pm - 9:00 pm
Good Friday Blues – March 24, 2016 - March 25, 2016 at 7:30 pm - 9:30 pm
Good Friday Service Featuring Rutter's Requiem – March 25, 2016 at 10:00 am - 11:30 am
Gospel Good Friday with Warren Dean Flandez – March 25, 2016 at 12:00 pm - 1:30 pm
The Way of the Cross – March 25, 2016 at 12:30 pm - 2:00 pm
Peacemeal – March 25, 2016 at 2:00 pm - 4:00 pm
In His Presence: Good Friday Worship and Celebration – March 25, 2016 at 7:00 pm - 10:00 pm
Poetry for Passion Week and Easter – March 25, 2016 at 7:30 pm - 9:30 pm
Vancouver Chamber Choir: The Love That Moves the Universe - Bach, Handel & Schafer – March 25, 2016 at 8:00 pm - 10:00 pm
Building Dynamic Prayer Friendships: 10 Week Intensive Training (Saturdays) – March 26, 2016 at 9:30 am - 11:00 am
Easter Egg Hunt – March 26, 2016 at 11:00 am - 1:00 pm
Easter Sing-Along Messiah with Eric Homminick – March 26, 2016 at 1:30 pm - 5:00 pm
From Darkness to Light: Holy Saturday Easter Vigil with communion – March 26, 2016 at 9:00 pm - 10:30 pm
Kairos Course (Tuesday evenings, two Saturdays) – March 29, 2016 at 7:00 pm - 9:30 pm
Maria Gaudin: Life Among the Deadwood - Opening reception – March 30, 2016 at 4:30 pm - 7:30 pm
Jazz Evensong: Adele Wilding – March 30, 2016 at 8:00 pm - 9:30 pm
EFC Webinar: Worse than we thought: Euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide – March 31, 2016 at 9:00 am - 10:00 am
Festival of Hope: Pastors and Leaders Dinner – March 31, 2016 at 5:00 pm - 7:00 pm
Dr. Dennis Venema: Why I Accept Evolution (And Why You Probably Should As Well) – March 31, 2016 at 7:00 pm - 8:30 pm
Love, Mercy & Forgiveness: Pope Francis & the Future of the Catholic Church – March 31, 2016 at 7:00 pm - 9:00 pm
Tenth Avenue North, with Hawk Nelson – March 31, 2016 at 7:00 pm - 9:30 pm
Festival of Hope Launch – March 31, 2016 at 7:30 pm - 9:30 pm

Apr 2016

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