Previous Post – A Day with 100 Huntley Street

This year marks an interesting milestone for, in which I have spent more than half my life serving as a missionary, the last 10 years of which have been spent here in Winnipeg’s inner city West End.  While all were good and formational, it has been the last three years of pastoring Little Flowers Community that have been most impacting in my life, both in its many joys, but also its painful realities.  We dreamed of an alternative community that would share life and mission within the context of our neighbourhood.  We stumbled through following Jesus in our brokenness and have been humbled, both by His grace for our weakness and the miracles He has worked among us.  Never in my life have I been more sure of my vocation.

However, there is another truth that is abundantly clear: following this way of life is unusual, even in the church, creating many challenges and tensions that seem to threaten the sustainability of what we are doing.  Please understand that I am not suggesting we are somehow special, better or more “Jesusy” than other Christians.  Rather, the obedience to which we are called into is experimental, making our community more anomalous than expected.  This has resulted in a somewhat challenging dynamic.  On the one hand, we have so much support and encouragement from other communities and leaders, while on the other, our uniqueness makes it difficult for people to provide on-the-ground support/leadership, advice and adequate resourcing.

This has left me in a difficult place of late, made more pronounced by the (welcomed & amazing) demands of being a new dad.  Again, I know that this is my calling, that it is the truest community I have ever participated in and that we are discovering beautiful, though demanding ways to live Christ together.  I’m also in the unique position of being bi-vocational in such a way that I can still do full-time ministry.  However, as it is, I am not sure how sustainable it is.  Our community needs diversity in age and life experience, as the imbalance in our commonality is becoming a limitation.  Further, rather than one full-time (though unpaid) pastor, we need 2 or 3 people working less hours, but together with a diversity of giftings.  Typically, such a challenge could be resolved through funding, but such an option is not currently available to us.

Over the past 10 years, I have seen many amazing missional communities- ones that I still aspire to emulate in many ways- that did not last more than 3 or 4 years.  Some can point to clear causes for the dissolution, while others wonder if some kind of intervention from the larger Body of Christ might have been necessary.  As the same questions, challenges and limitation are now facing Little Flowers Community, I cannot help but become concerned.  And so, as this internet community has always been incredibly supportive and creative, I am coming to you:

What do you say to our challenges?  What might be some solutions?

Feel free to ask any question and be free to be frank with your comments.  I look forward to hearing what you think.