They Have a Vision - Yay!

Tuesday night I went to something in Regina held by the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada through an organization called 'Community Link' - the event was called 'Vision Regina'. Apparently, unbeknownest to me, there is a group of 43 Evangelical churches and a few non-profit businesses that are trying to work together for the betterment of Regina's inner-city. Needless to say, I was quite happy about it.

At the start of the event we set up booths - and my brother and I represented First Nations Alliance Church - and the Action Group (my brain-child). That lasted for about 30 minutes and I handed out a few things about FNAC and the Action Group. Then there was a hour long service-type meeting (without the worship) which highlighted some of the endeavors and people in these areas. I knew some of the people in the ministries and actually the last person was a former Pastor of mine - how cool is that. David Macfarlane also spoke - apparently he has some tv show on the Miracle channel that I never watch. The day also ended with visting the booths again - I liked the event.

I was taken in by the rhetoric to be perfectly honest - when you have people qouting James 1:27 to you about 'true religion is helping the orphans and widows' then you have my attention. Also the talk seem to be about unity of the churches in Regina and helping the inner-city area with all of our resources - which I adamantly support 100%. I heard about a possbile mentorship program for the men of North Central - apparently there is 40 men that are willing to do this (awesome). My former pastor mentioned ideas about adopting blocks in the inner city to try and help make a difference - I was like 'hell yeah!'. In essence, they hold dear to two standards I also do: unity and helping the poor. If church was like this week after week - my heart might leap out my chest - I almost felt like saying 'right on and true' out loud about 15 times in that hour. I was quite encouraged by the groups that attended and the idea of making a difference.

They have a vision for Regina and I am all for it. At times I felt myself 'pull-back' from some of the talk but in the end I felt 'this is God's heart'. I think they still lack the funds for a lot of the ideas they are doing and they need to work on that - there is no way these groups should be under-funded. Also they lack the incorporating of the vision as a united whole - and I think I can speak into some of that. They need to start developing program after program for the inner-city and it is now becoming a possibility - with this unity of the churches. It's a beginning and I want to see where this can lead to.

**Ken, JB, Cinder, and other Regina peeps - something good is going down.