How participation with Summer Festivals fits the vision of Resurrection Church

The reason we started Resurrection Church was to see the people and neighbourhoods of Ottawa renewed by the gospel. Our neighbours and neighbours undoubtedly need spiritual renewal — the wreckage of sin is clearly present. But our neighbourhoods also need social and cultural renewal. They are places full of fragmentation between rich and poor, between different ethnicities, between old and young. If the gospel is true, it restores us not only to God but also to one another. We are freed by the gospel to begin living out and practicing this restoration in our neighbourhood, even if our neighbourhood never notices or cares.

But why volunteer at and attend summer festivals? Let’s get more specific about how this activity specifically fits with our values. Just in case you needed a reminder, our values are: Gospel, Mission, Discipleship and Neighbour. Let’s unpack each one in light of our summer plans.

Gospel

The gospel does two things to us in the realm of interaction with our neighbourhood. First, it gives us a new attitude towards our community. If we truly have been saved by grace, if it was a gift of God to us, then we are deeply and utterly in debt to God. We have been loved free of charge and as the Scriptures remind us in numerous places, one of the reasons we are loved is to that we may extend that love to others.

2 Corinthians 1:4 — [God] comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.

This remarkable verse tells us that one of the reasons God comforts us is so that we might comfort others in turn. But not just that, we actually use the comfort God has given us to do that work.

Applied to life in a neighbourhood? This means that the gospel which comforts and saves us is both the motivation and the means by which we serve the neighbourhood. We are called by the gospel to comfort our neighbours and neighbourhood in whatever affliction they are in.

Secondly, the gospel doesn’t just give us a new attitude, it also frees us to serve without expectation of return.

As God loved us even when we were his enemies, and freely extends his common grace to all people, so we too freely extend grace and love to all the people of the neighbourhood no matter their response.

Properly understood, the gospel gives us such rich emotional, social and spiritual resources that we do not depend on our neighbours to reciprocate love and generosity towards us.

This means that we do not serve our neighbours so that they begin to love God, we do not serve our neighbours so that our church gets a good name, we serve because this is the way God has served us. If any other good comes from it — great! If nothing else good comes from it besides a chance for us to grow in service and love towards others, that is still the gospel at work in us.

This allows us to volunteer at a festival or give away time and money to a festival with no expectation of having our name on a sign or having someone come to church afterwards.

Mission

The gospel of Jesus compels us to act in loving ways towards those who do not know him with the hope that we can share the gospel of Jesus with them. This takes shape in two different ways. One is that we have a welcoming, open posture towards those seekers, cynics and skeptics that seek us out to ask their questions. Simply by being present in our community, even without the express purpose of sharing our faith, we will have the chance to respond to questions. The tone and openness with which we greet these questions will go a long way into opening future doors.

Second, we don’t just welcome questions, we actively look for ways to make the gospel known in word and deed. We see enthusiastic participation in the festivals of our city as a way to make the gospel known in deed. But more than that, these festivals place us into direct contact with people who don’t know God. This is a major hurdle for lots of church people — to cultivate relationships and friendships with people far from God. Volunteering at a festival, serving the organizers and attenders, is a great way to get out into the world of dialogue, questions and interactions about Jesus.

Discipleship

As Christians we are called to be followers of Jesus, steadily being renovated and reconstructed into people who apply the gospel to every area of life. Sometimes this process becomes overly intellectualized, disconnected from real people and real situations. Volunteering at a festival to do simple tasks or dirty work is an excellent way to grow in humility, patience and love.

But also, as we engage in these festivals together, our hope is that you will work alongside someone from church, having chances to build deeper friendships, relationships and community.

Lastly, being part of these festivals require time and energy, increasingly scarce resources in our world. Giving up some of our time to make someone else’s event work is a gospel-centred act that forces you to grow. We think that the process of scheduling your time around serving other people, you will find yourself growing in maturity.

Neighbour

We meet for Sunday worship in Hintonburg and some of the people who attend are also from the neighbourhood. We think that by locating ourselves this way gives us added momentum for Mission and Discipleship. At the very least, active participation in one neighbourhood gives us the chance to meet people multiple times and begin to establish relationships.

We think that steady investment over time in our neighbourhood will do two things:

1. We become a recommended church. It is our hope that Christians and non-Christians will tell people to go to our church. It might be something like, “if you are going to go to church, you may as well go to that one.” Or “I have heard good things about that church.” We want to be well-known and as far as it depends on us, well-liked in Hintonburg. That is only achieved by a good track record and consistent effort outside the walls of our church.
2. We establish relationships that lead to chances for the gospel to do its work. It is possible that if we held events all over the city, there would be chances to connect with people and share the gospel. But we think that if we get multiple chances with the same people, it will allow greater opportunities for loving them and explaining the gospel to them.

Final Thoughts

Summer is a busy season in Ottawa. Lots of us take vacation, go away to cottages and spend time out of our normal rhythms. But the four months of summer are the main time to connect with our neighbours before everyone disappears back inside for the winter months. It is our experience that it is very difficult to meet new people in the winter months.

Please consider being purposeful with your summer. You don’t need to come to all our events or volunteer at everything, but choose a couple events to be involved with and go on vacation or do things on your own guilt-free on the other days. This is meant to be an opportunity, not a burden.

Finally, please pray for these efforts. Ultimately none of this means anything unless God pours His Spirit and his energy into it. Without him — no one becomes a Christian, no one matures in their faith and we waste our time. So let’s ask him in faith to move this summer.