On Neighbourhoods and Community

7) I commit to the members of this community. I will connect one-on-one with every member of the household on a weekly basis. This will also require openness to invitations and inviting. ‘Connecting’ means: Separating a portion of time for each member of the household to have a conversation, growing in knowledge of the other person. I will also pray for every member of the household on a daily basis.
This is the second in a series of 15 posts on our house commitments and the scriptural basis surrounding them. You can read the first post in this series here.

I have fond memories of my neighbourhood as a kid. This has something to do with an aspect of my childhood that I’m not sure kids experience anymore. When my older sister was younger (probably about 3 or 4) she got introduced to another boy in our neighbourhood who we shared a backyard with. They began to play together often. This process happened enough times that by the time I was old enough to play with this group, there were 8 or 9 of us (depending on the time of year) who were a pretty steady group of friends. We became a tight community of friends and would play together almost every single day of the summer.

As we all got older though, things changed a lot. Because I was 4 or 5 years younger than most of our group, we were all in different life stages by the time we were out of elementary school. People moved out, kids moved away, and DINKs (Double income no kids) moved into the houses they left vacant. The community broke up, and they was nothing left to take its place.

This is a story that’s all too common in North America. Increasingly, neighbourhoods are stepping away from being communities, where people are approachable and friendly, and are moving towards being blocks of houses where people don’t interact.

Part of our commitment to each other is a nod toward this idea. We feel that all too often, we don’t interact with others in our communities (geographical or otherwise). We simply exist and any contact we do have with each other is superficial at best. I mean, how many times have you heard the exchange “How are you?” “Good” and the conversation stopped dead right there?

If we’re going to live together, we want to really know each other. We want to understand what’s going on in the lives of our housemates, we want to spend time with them, and we want to grow in understanding of them so that we might come to love them more fully. Our commitment to the members of our community is an expression of this idea.

In Memoriam: Stove Famous

We lost our cool green stove. The front right burner (the big useful one) burnt out. And as it turns out, according to Stanlord, this oven had been in use since 1966. Seriously, they don't make them like that anymore. Plus they stopped making burners and such for this model in 1986 as well. It lived a good life. I imagine it's in Mexico or Europe right now, enjoying oven retirement. That's beautiful.

We're going to miss it's retro dials and olive green coat. Farewell, Stove Famous, Farewell.

Todd's Day in Court!

So, it's all over until April 6th, when the judge will make his final decision on the matter.

Here is some great coverage from our local media about our day in court:

http://www.recorder.ca/PrintArticle.aspx?e=1466766

http://www.ckwstv.com/index.cfm?page=news&id=334

Thanks to everyone for your support and encouragement!

love
Todd and Chelsea

"Objection to Census Could Land Alumnus in Jail"

Todd is headed back to court this coming Thursday (March 5th). This court visit is Todd's trial for his refusal to submit his census. If you've missed out on what's going on with this situation, the Queen's Journal did an interview and write-up with Todd in the latest issue. You can check that out HERE!.

If you're interested in a further explanation of Todd's reasoning for refusing to submit his census you can check out his reasons in a post from last year when he began this whole process.

And if you'd like to know what Todd's thoughts are on reconciling his refusal to submit his census with Romans 13 (you were just about to comment about that weren't you?) you can read Todd's thoughts on that as well here.

Please keep Todd in your prayers as he goes before the courts to represent himself.

Sunday is drop-in day. In February we've been conducting an experiment to see if offering our house up as a drop-in for our homeless friends is helpful in our Fruit Basket (another name for the criss-crossed streets North of Princess) community. We started with lunch after church, for which we had between one and six people show up for about half an hour to eat soup with us. Then one of our guests recommended opening our doors between 5:30pm-8pm when all other downtown drop-ins are closed. Our friends on the street have a much better understanding of what is needed than we will ever know, so we changed our times. This Sunday we had a great time with 6 different people over the full two and half hours allotted to our drop-in. I hope next week is even more fruitful!

Welcome Newbies!

We at the House Famous are very pleased to announce that we will quite soon have two new housemates! Shannon and Andrew will be joining our little experiment of faith and love in the coming weeks. We are very blessed to have them, and are excited to see how God will build them up and into our community! We also anticipate many hijinx and rumbles and crafts and debates to ensue promptly after they move in.

Here is a lovely picture of our friends; if you can guess what holiday they are celebrating in this picture, I will personally send you a prize.
(from Chelsea)

Hmmmm, this might be interesting...

February doldrums got you down? Got the mid-winter blues? Me too. So, how about a little creative exercise to stimulate those mind and heart muscles? Break out the pencils, blank notebooks and bibles. Check it out: a chance to rant, rave, share, challenge, joke, philosophize and perhaps inspire yourself and others. (Oh, and there's money to be won too.)

Let the sermonizing begin!

http://geezmagazine.org/contest