Centennial Leisure Centre

Southpoint has a new home! Starting Sunday, Jan. 29th 2012, we will be worshiping at the Centennial Leisure Centre in White Rock: 14600 North Bluff Rd.

Services will start promptly @ 10. See you there for our first ALL IN intergenerational worship service in our new space.

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On Sunday, January 1st 2012, we will be meeting at the Centennial Arena in White Rock for our service. This is a trial run of their facilities as a possible new meeting location for Southpoint. Come out for the family public skate from 12:30 to 2:30 ($2.75 per person), and then have some hot chocolate before the service which will start at 3pm! The address is 14600 N. Bluff Road, White Rock. Also, please bring some change for parking at the arena.

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Monday night, Adam confessed, amidst lots of tears, his homesickness for Sterling and the sadness he’d been hiding in his heart.  He had so been hoping to go home for Christmas and was disappointed to learn that we weren’t.

Struck by the intensity of Adam’s desire to connect with a world dear to him, we looked up flights on Tuesday. To our surprise, we found a great deal flying from Seattle to Denver, leaving Thursday night.  Adam and Johanna’s final day of school was Thursday, so we purchased tickets for Craig, Adam, and Johanna to go home for an early Christmas and surprised Adam and Johanna with the news. They were overjoyed! I was overjoyed, too, knowing the delight they would feel, as well as the joy it would bring to my Mom and Dad.

On Thursday, dear Katie stopped me at school and asked why I wasn’t going.  Lenin called and encouraged me to join my family.  Leah stopped by and said she’d look after the dogs. My Dad called and said he’d cash in visa points to help with the cost of the ticket.  I hemmed and hawed, feeling torn between my desire to go back and my desire to be at Jason’s film night, the Christmas party, the leadership team meeting, and all the other fun things I get to do with you wonderful folk at Southpoint.  On Friday, I made my decision and booked a flight to Kansas. I leave Sunday morning, and I’ll return on Saturday.

I’ll miss you all at the Christmas party, and I will look forward to being together again to celebrate the fourth week of Advent, the Week of Love.  However, as we enter into the Third Week of Advent, the Week of Joy, I can’t help thanking God for his tender mercies.  After months of longing and waiting for a time to return, God gave us this opportunity to connect to a world so dear.  I wonder if that is how God the Son felt, waiting for the time to be right for him to come and connect with a world so dear to him.  I wonder about the joy of God the Spirit, releasing the life of the Son into the womb of Mary.  I wonder about the joy of God the Father, watching as the Son “tabernacled” himself, the Creator finally one with the Creation.  I wonder about the joy in the heavenlies as Mary grew great with child. I wonder at the marvel of it all, that we, too, are pregnant with the presence of God.

Rev. Anne Smith

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Stillness

One day, while sitting beside a swimming pool, I watched a small boy alone in a hot tub as he played with the bubbles scuttling across the water. He would reach out his arms and gently draw the bubbles into himself. He calmly sought to embrace these bubbles, over and over again. Finally, after seeing that the bubbles continued to elude him and would not be contained, he altered his movements. He began to lay one hand, ever so gently, right amidst the bubbles. He then moved his hand outwards across the surface of the water, traveling this time with the bubbles, matching their speed and direction, until they disappeared. He repeated this motion, again and again.

The boy was lost for minutes in this process of gentle reverence. Every now and then he would look over the side of the tub. Once, he climbed out of the pool to look around and when his body collided with the cold morning air, steam rose off the surface of his skin. He then sat down and followed the bubbles with his hand, calmly and silently.

I myself have a son. I know his propensity towards movement. I found myself in awe of this boy’s capacity for stillness, his ability to stop moving long enough to pay reverent attention to something beyond himself, and his playful surrender of his movements to the object of his reverence.

This memory bubbled up into my mind yesterday, and I find myself captivated by it. It seems to bear an uncanny resemblance to the invitation “Be still and know Me”, which I believe God is extending to us as a community. When it comes to God, our first instinct is to spread our arms wide and attempt to gather God into us. But what if, for a change, we just stopped moving? What if we became still and watched how the bubbles are moving? What if we placed ourselves within the stream of those bubbles, and let ourselves be moved, rather than trying to move them?

What if we stopped trying so hard to hold onto God? What if we began to notice where God’s presence is bubbling up around us? What if we were to simply lay ourselves in the midst of that presence and move along with God? Where would this take us? Who would we become? Where would we go?

Invitations require a response. In response to God’s invitation to “Be still, be attentive to me, so that you might know me”, we will be pausing as a community to simply attend to God. This will be our focus on Sundays for the month of November. We will take the time to stop and look at the images of God we have within us, and the images of God in scripture that are deep wells of encounter and healing for us.

However, I’d like to deepen our response to this invitation. I would like to carve out some time in our communal life this month to practice the discipline of “Stillness”. I propose we experiment with pushing the pause button. I propose we playfully and collaboratively attempt to stop moving and increase our attentiveness to the movement of God in and around us. Here are two options I’ve come up with, but please let me know if you can think of others:

“Stop and Go” – Since it is almost impossible to get little kids to stop moving of their own accord, this option allows people with small children to “stop” and then “go” together, praying and listening along the way. We will gather at Kingfisher Farm on Thursday mornings @ 10 for the month of November and take a walk to the beach and back, praying as we go.

“Stillpoint” – On Tuesday nights from 8-9, at the Shiloh Shelter on Kingfisher Farm, there will be space for stillness and prayer. We will begin and end the time with a brief liturgy, but the time in between will be yours to do with as you please. We each pray differently. There will be music, images, things to touch and move, scripture, and prayer suggestions available. You may use all or none of them. The space is yours.

I leave you with this invitation from the book of Revelation:

“The Spirit and the bride say, “Come!” And let them who hear say, “Come!” Whoever is thirsty, let them come; and whoever wishes, let them take the free gift of the water of life.” Rev 22:17

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OnFriday, October 28th, Southpoint kids, parents, and kids at heart are going to the  Wave Pool in Rootin Tootin Newton! Join us for an evening of fun in the surf, starting at 6:30pm.

Newton Wave Pool: 7190 137 St

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When Adam and Johanna were small, we lived for four years in a little flat above some friend’s garage out in the countryside around Bristol, England. At that time, we were also a part of a church plant in Bristol that intentionally reached out to folk on the margins. Through this church, I developed deep friendships with folk who would not be considered successful or accomplished by the culture around us. Yet in this church, God was gathering us up, and God was making something beautiful out of our lives.

One autumn, as I walked with Adam and Johanna down that country road, I noticed a damson tree covered in fruit, with even more fruit lying untouched on the ground. As I walked past the fruit, trampled and wasted, I sensed God’s compassion for people whose lives appear to be wasted, broken, and trampled. I saw how God longs to gather them up, claim them as his own, and make something beautiful out of their lives. I saw how the act of gathering up that which is overlooked, abandoned, and labeled “Without Worth”, is a powerful characteristic of the Kingdom.

This past Sunday, we gathered as a church at Brooksdale to make apple cider for Small Ritual. We cut and mashed and squeezed a small mountain of apples. Most of the apples were drop apples, bruised and spotted and wormy, but they made glorious apple cider! All those apples became 50 gallons of apple cider. 25 gallons went to A Rocha, 20 gallons went to Small Ritual, and five gallons I canned so that we can give it away to folk visiting our church family, or folk within our church family who need a bit of TLC.

Thank you for helping create this living parable of the Kingdom of God. Thank you, Paul, for searching out the apples. Thank you to Brent and Denise, Paul and Rick, Zoe and Jared, Johanna and Adam, Stacie and many more A Rocha folk, for picking the apples. Thank you to Katie who planned crafts and games to make it fun for our children. Thank you to Rick who supervised the transformation. And thank you to each of you who came to chop, mash, squeeze, and clean-up the mess. Finally, thank you to Ryde and Valerie who completed the transformation. (I had a cup of the finished product at Small Ritual yesterday! It was wonderful!)

My prayer, however, is that we would not stop with apples. My prayer is that we would have the courage to bring our own beautiful, yet bruised and broken lives to the table every week. My prayer is that we might have the compassion to seek out, gather up, and welcome those whose lives are beautiful, yet bruised and broken, around our table as well. This is what it means to be human, bruised, broken, yet made beautiful by the hidden Christ.

Deep peace and blessings,

Anne

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Sunday, October 16th, is an all-out Sunday, so don’t show up at the church!  We will meet at Brooksdale (19353 16th Ave, Surrey) at 12:00pm for an apple cider making party.  The cider will be donated to Small Ritual Coffee Society, so come out and join in with us to support our coffee shop.

BRING: a bag lunch for yourself, a cutting board/knife, apples.

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Last Spring, Brent and the leadership team decided to try an experiment – moving Sunday worship from Morgan Creek to the Fellowship Baptist Church near Small Ritual. It would ease the workload of those setting up as well as the financial burden on the church. This September, after a survey of all church members and much discussion and prayer, the leadership team decided not to return to Morgan Elementary. The reasons were complex: the fatigue levels of those who had been setting up for years, the demographic mismatch between the members of our church and the Morgan Creek community, the emergence of a church plant that is thriving and successfully reaching out to the Morgan Creek Community, the dip in giving and the resulting decline of financial resources for Southpoint, the great children’s facilities at Fellowship Baptist,and a deep sense that God just might be up to something by placing us right next to Small Ritual for this season. With this decision, came some felt losses. Some members find the afternoon time slot difficult. Some find the space constrictive and the pews not conducive to creating community. However, the decision was made to not go back to Morgan Elementary.

On Tuesday night, a number of people responded to the invitation to gather at the Hardy’s to discuss our venue for worship. During this discussion, we reaffirmed God has a place for us and a vision for us. We believe God will make that known to us as we seek after and follow the Spirit. We are not certain whether or not Fellowship Baptist is that place. Brent has scoured the city for possible venues, but every door he pushed on remains closed. Last night, however, Brent and George were given the mandate to continue the search for more possible venues. In the meantime, we will seek God’s face, we will gather to exalt the Lord Jesus Christ, we will continue to listen for the leading of the Spirit. We will continue to be family, reaching out to one another, making room for the stranger, doing the work of the kingdom in our community.

Before leaving Kansas, a friend gave me a book entitled the Celtic Way of Prayer which I began to read on the first day of our drive to White Rock. The book described how the Celtic monks would see themselves as “hospites mundi”, guests of the world, ready to go wherever the Spirit might take them. Seeing themselves this way, they would leave their homes and set out on “peregrinatio”, a journey or pilgrimage often made in a boat with no oars which they would cast into ocean, radically dependent on God’s mercy. Wherever the current took them, they would land and continue the work of the gospel. They would do all of this “pro amore Christi”, for the love of Christ. These words resonated within me as I found myself leaving one home and setting out for a new one. Today, that phrase, “pro amore Christi”, greets me every time I use my cell phone. It serves to remind me that whatever I am experiencing, whatever I am facing, whatever experiences of loss or dislocation or blessings I am having, it is all for the love of Christ. In this way, the very upheaval of moving becomes a spiritual exercise that has the power to root me more deeply into Christ. This is my prayer for us as God’s people as we live as pilgrim people, as “hospites mundi”, guests of the world.

Thank you to each of you for your openness and flexibility during this time of change. Thank you to Fellowship Baptist for generously welcoming us into their home.

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This coming September, we will be welcoming Rev. Anne Smith as pastor of the Church at Southpoint. Anne’s first Sunday will be September 18th, 2011. Anne comes to us with her husband, Craig, and two children, Adam and Johanna, from Sterling Kansas, where she served as Chaplain at Sterling College. Please pray for the Smiths as they uproot their lives and pursue a new calling and story in South Surrey, British Columbia.

A little more about Anne:

Smith Family

Anne graduated from Wheaton College with a major in the Social Sciences, a minor in history, and a concentration in the Human Need and Global Resources program. To fulfill this degree, she lived and worked for 7 months in a squatter community in Manila and worked for the Institute for the Studies of Asian Church and Culture. Anne graduated with a Masters of Divinity from Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary. While in Philadelphia, Anne completed 3 hospital chaplaincy internships and worked for two churches in the Philadelphia area. Anne left Philadelphia to become the Associate Pastor of the Union Church of Manila, an international, interdenominational congregation in the Philippines.

During her years in Manila, Anne provided pastoral care to the staff of Precious Jewels Ministry, a ministry to children in squatter communities and AIDS wards. She also taught classes in Spiritual Formation at Asian Biblical Seminary, led retreats for mission organizations, and last but not least, met her husband-to-be, Craig Smith, a Professor at ABS. In 1997 Craig and Anne moved to England for Craig to pursue a Ph.D in Biblical Studies. During the next 5 years, Anne took a sabbatical from formal ministry to raise her two children. During these years, she received formal training as a spiritual director. When her children started school, Anne began to teach Spiritual Formation at Trinity College in Bristol. Anne and Craig have led numerous retreats in England, North America, and Asia.

Most recently, Anne served as Chaplain at Sterling College. Her main responsibility was to provide leadership and oversight for the chapel program. Anne loved doing pottery in the art department, finding creative ways of doing things, sharing meals with friends and family, and being outdoors.

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Vancouver Canadians Baseball Game at Nat Bailey Stadium. Saturday, July 16th @ 7:05pm, followed by fireworks! $9 per person (tickets can be purchased at your local Safeway Store). Picnic dinner before the game, meet at the Stadium at 5:30. If we can organize ourselves and car pool, that would be great. Let me (Brent) know if you are coming and need a ride or can take some people with you.

The VSO’s annual FREE concert at Deer Lake Park in Burnaby! Sunday, July 17th @ 7:30pm. Bring your lawn chairs and picnic baskets for what is always a beautiful evening of light classics in the outdoors. Be sure to arrive early, it’s always packed! VSO Assistant Conductor Pierre Simard conducts. Let’s go early for some picnic time and organize some rides so that we can caravan it!

Vancouver Whitecaps soccer match against the L.A Galaxy and David Beckham! Saturday, July 30th @ 4:30pm. WE NEED CONFIRMATIONS!! Please RSVP to Brent (btunrau@gmail.com) – only $27 per ticket. The 20 tickets have been pre-paid for all on the north side of the field ($540 all together). 8 tickets have been spoken for, 12 tickets are remaining. If I don’t get more confirmation from Southpointers in the next week or so, I will have to look outside the church for people who would love to come to the game.

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