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You might not know this about me but my guilty pleasure is old school Garth Brooks tunes. Specifically late ’80s to mid-’90s Garth. Everything from Thunder Rolls to Ain’t Goin’ Down. My buddies and I have put to memory almost every word of every song from his debut album (1989) ’til, roughly, Sevens (1997). I jumped the Garth train right before he moved into his alter-ego Chris Gaines (though if I’m being completely honest, even that album had a few bangers). 

So last week, 4 of us Grassrooters attended Unite ’24 – a biennial (i.e. happens once every 2 years vs. “biannual” which is twice a year… but I digress) conference put on by Jesus Collective. This year’s theme was: “The Prophetic Church: 4 Ways a Church Renewed by Jesus can Surprise the World” and it was, by all accounts, a great few days of learning and connecting with other Jesus Collective partners.

A few weeks back we started our latest series on revealing who the Jesus actually is that we claim to be at our centre and one of the things I noted was that when we discover who Jesus is, we get the bonus of knowing who God the Father actually is as well. And this is because Jesus is the perfect revelation of God.

So I’m not sure what I’ve gotten myself into here. No matter how you slice it, this latest series is…. ambitious. If you were with us Sunday morning for Message 1 on our series “Revealing the Jesus of the Centre”, you may have sensed the struggle of this endeavour. But, exactly why is it so hard to “pin” him down? Let’s discuss this a bit.

Thanks to everyone who helped make Holy Week so special for our community this year! From Rich Clark for making the chicken-wired cross to Bill Ulrich for such a powerful scripture reading on Good Friday to the musicians for putting together an intentional selection of worship songs, the Roots & Shoots teachers and kiddos for organizing such a glorious rendition of “The Easter Song” (Keith Green couldn’t hold a candle to you guys!), and all the other many hands behind the scenes that allowed for these times together to have such meaning.

If you think about it, it’s a bit weird to intentionally focus on Jesus’ death isn’t it? Imagine if we did this for literally anyone else. Consider someone in your life who passed away, maybe a grandma or other relative. Now consider if, every year on the anniversary of their death, you spent time intentionally thinking about their death – why they died, how they died, the pain and suffering they endured, etc. –

As Lent winds down, it’s time to prepare for the rollercoaster ride that is Holy Week. Holy Week is like binge-watching the ultimate drama series. You’ve got the triumphal entry, a momentous last supper, the betrayal of a close friend, a mock trial, and an innocent man murdered before their eyes. Some times we can be so familiar with the story that the weight of the drama and all that happens in that final week gets lost on us. 

This coming Sunday marks our last in our series on Renewed Rhythms: Cultivating Spiritual Disciplines TOWARD Transformation in 2024. Over the past 11 weeks (1 week was set aside for Teen Challenge), we’ve looked at 10 very different spiritual disciplines – some quite conventional (i.e. prayer, solitude, fasting, etc.) while others not so much (soul friendship, journaling, etc.).

I mentioned a few weeks back that I’ve been doing a Jesus Collective online course called the Online Learning Collective. The theme of the course is “How to Lead and Disciple in a Polarized World” and each week we have been taking a different angle on discerning how to effectively navigate the polarizations of our day through what Jesus Collective calls a 3rd Way approach. So topics like our faith, society, racism, politics, and, this last week has been about family. I’m sure if your family is anything like mine, there’s no shortage of polarizing topics to be had!

I thought I’d spend this week’s corner of the newsletter giving a shout out to our Grassroots Youth Group ministry! We’re meeting every ~3 weeks these days which is partially due to capacity of leadership but almost more so due to capacity of our youth. Not sure if you knew this but KIDS ARE BUSY these days!