Lent
This past Wednesday was Ash Wednesday which is known as the beginning of the season of Lent in the Christian calendar. This is the period of time leading up to the passion week and ending with Easter. I came across a rather neat description of Lent from a visual liturgy resource website I use known as The Work of the People and thought I would share it below:

“Our Orthodox brothers refer to this season as a time of “Bright Sadness”. During Lent we face our humanity: we learn that sin still dwells in us, that we still carry darkness. We learn that we would likely have fallen asleep as Jesus prayed for deliverance in the garden, and we would likely have denied knowing him as he silently accepted his death sentence. So, it’s a dark season indeed, but it is also a season of tremendous hope, a looking forward to the celebration of the resurrection. In identifying with Christ’s suffering during the Lenten season, we ready ourselves for the sorrow of the Passion Week and as a result more fully embrace the joys of the resurrection.”

Before our bible study time I’ll be showing a short video relating to Lent to help our community enter into this season together. I will also be giving out a great handout of daily readings in the Psalms in anticipation of Easter for those who are interested. The handouts were made possible by Mars Hill Church , thanks Mars Hill!  I was made aware of this resource because our sister church, The Open House in East Vancouver, is also using them during Lent.

Mars Hill – Acts 17
It’s actually funny that I should thank a church named Mars Hill this week as this Sunday we will be reading the well-known passage in Acts 17 where the name Mars Hill, located in Athens, Greece, is taken from. There are actually two famous Mars Hill churches in the U.S.A., one in Michigan led by Rob Bell (the one that we got these Lent readings from above) and the other in Seattle led by Mark Driscoll. Both got their names from Acts 17, and if you want to know why, then you’ll have to come on Sunday…

ok…

I’ll tell you now…

Its because the when Paul shares the message of Jesus with the very intellectual, religious and non-Jewish Athenians he seems to do so with great sensitivity and understanding of their culture. In other words he seems to use the culture to reach the culture with the message of the Kingdom of God. Both the two churches mentioned above seem to try to make this one of their guiding principles in building their churches. I don’t even want to try to begin to compare ourselves to these two very large churches but the same holds true for The Joshua House. 

I hope you can all make it!

Terra Nova Group
Date: Sunday, February 10th
Place: Terra Nova Co-op Common Room
Time: 5:30-7:15pm
Topic: Acts 17 – Mars Hill

Community in Prayer
Please call or e-mail us with any prayer requests you would like to have the church community praying for!

Upcoming Events
The Richmond Winter Festival
The second annual Richmond Winter Festival will feature two nights of fireworks, live music and celebration of winter. From playground to podium, easel to stage, the weekend activities and family fun will be held:
Date(s): Friday, February 8th, 2008 Saturday, February 9th, 2008
Location: Richmond City Hall, Granville Avenue, Brighouse Park
Admission: FREE
Website 

Trinity Western University & The Centre for Entrepreneurial Leaders Presents
The Virtues of Business – Good Qualities Business has to offer and Good Qualities Business needs to flourish

Featuring Dr. Richard Higginson

Date: Wednesday, February 13th, 2008
Time: 12pm - 1:30pm
Location: Vancouver Club
Cost: $25/person (includes lunch buffet)

Date: Saturday, February 16th, 2008
Time: 8:30am - 10:00am
Location: TWU – Reimer Student Centre Dining Room First Floor
Cost: $25/person (includes continental breakfast)

To register or for more info go here 

Higginson’s work, dealing with the interplay between entrepreneurship and Christianity, has been an inspiration and encouragement to many Christians in business—proving that conversations about seeing business as a calling are engaging businessmen and academics all over the world. “Virtues and vices are being inverted. Greed is good and sin to win: the gauntlet has well and truly been thrown down. How can Christianity meet this challenge?”