one world to another

I started my day off giving a brief announcement about first@night at the 2 morning services of First Baptist Church. At the 9:00 service the pastor who was supossed to introduce me, forgot. So while the choir was singing I sidled over to our senior pastor to ask him what I should do. He said to go up right after the choir. So I did - the response was tepid to say the least. I got one guy to sign up to volunteer, but he has 2 kids and lives in Port Moody, so I'm pretty sure I'll never see him again.


By the 11:00 service, the pastor that forgotm, remembered so I made the announcement without looking like I was a party crasher. The response was amazing - they clapped!!! Wow - that felt good. And then 12 people said they were interested in helping us out as we transition into Bar None next week. So that's pretty cool.

Came home and spent some time with the family. We had a guest speaker at first@night but because of our drama from yesterday I chose to stay with Felicia. I coordinated someone to handle everything - and I am trusting everything went ok.

We went out for chinese food and an IMAX movie - Mystic India - it was ok - not great. I think I like the nature IMAX flicks better.

We had split the baby sitter with Spencer and Renee. They ended up picking us up from the movie which was nice since it was pouring outside. They came up and hung out for a bit.

Then.... at about 10:00 I headed over to the Georgia plaza hotel for the volunteer party for the film festival. And.... I stepped into another world. I have never really been to anything like this before. There was about 500 people who completely took over the conference level of this posh hotel. There was a lot of security everywhere.

There was free drinks and tons of free food: sushi, tim-bits and pizza which seemed to arrive fresh and hot every 10 minutes. I knew a couple people and one other driver and my supervisor are coming to church next week! - How cool is that!!! They were impressed that we were meeting at Bar None. I am totally looking forward to next Sunday, but am starting to feel a little bit of pressure.

This party was pretty wild and miles away from First Baptist Church! But, I think this is the place that God has called me to - to straddle 2 worlds - to be a conduit between two diamatreically different worlds.

By the way - one thing I learned by working at the film festival - there is A LOT of free stuff in the world. Everyday I worked we would get free stuff - Pocky, mineral water, t-shirts.

Tonight I was just sittiing there and this guy came by and said, "You want a bag?" and he threw this really nice MAVI denim bag into my lap. And then as I was leaving some lady said, "You can't leave without this!" and she handed me like 3 packs of Red Bull - so if you want Red Bull, i got lots.


This is an excerpt of what I shared this morning:

my initial vision was to plant a vibrant, dynamic church in the heart of Yaletown. and then god expanded my vision to see several churches birthed in the downtown core. now my vision is beyond that – it is to see an exciting movement of the gospel spread throughout the downtown core of Vancouver. a movement of new life, a movement of love, a movement where whole new ministries are birthed and a movement where we love people into the kingdom of god one at a time.