Don Morrison “The Second Journey”
Wednesday, April 10 at 7:00pm in the Allan Beattie Room
(Free – No registration required)
Ever wonder if there’s anything “more” to the Christian life than this? Attend church (occasionally), pray (optional, of course), then live out your life no differently than anyone else? Don Morrison was COO of Research in Motion when it developed the BlackBerry and is one of Canada’s leading business and entrepreneurial voices. He has learned contemplation from such sources as Christian monks and the Dalai Lama. The first journey: you pursue and achieve success. The second? You pursue, and meet, God.
Art show featuring Komi Olaf and John Arndt
Thursday, April 18 at 7:00pm in the Wilder Atrium
(Free – Register here | Note: Registration closes on April 16)
A wine and cheese reception welcoming our own Komi Olaf’s painting to our foyer—his “Three Wise Men—Go Home Another Way” is on loan to us and will grace our entryway. The artist will give a talk about his work.
We will also welcome grammy-winning musician John Arndt as TEMC’s musician-in-residence with responsibility for our 9:15 contemporary service for the next three months. John will play our newly-acquired atrium piano.
The Doorway to Imagination: Kirstin Jeffrey Johnson on George MacDonald
Wednesday, April 24 at 7:00pm at Wycliffe College
(Free – No registration required)
Dr. Kirstin Jeffrey Johnson is a theologian and farmer in the Ottawa Valley of Ontario. Her academic work is on George MacDonald, the writer who inspired C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien, among many others. MacDonald was born 200 years ago this year, so Kirstin has been traveling and lecturing all over the world about his legacy. Lewis said MacDonald “baptized” his imagination—if you want to hear how, come hear this remarkable Ontarian praise his legacy.
Blessing of the Bikes
Wednesday, May 1 at 4:30pm at the Dunvegan Entrance
(Free – Register here for bike check | Note: Bike checks are first come, first served)
We have a number of folks who cycle to church, disproportionately members of our chancel choir do so, and one of our pastors. While there are increasing numbers of bike lanes in Toronto (to many drivers’ consternation!) it is still a dangerous city in which to commute on a bicycle. So we will bless our bicycles, our bike riders, and our whole city’s angst-ridden transportation system. We will offer seasonal bike checks from a local bike shop (on the church’s nickel—you’re welcome). And we’ll take a short ride around the neighbourhood together on our newly blessed bikes.
"No Cause for Despair: Finding Holy Joy and Vocation in the Midst of Secularization" with Dr. Stefan Paas
May 7: 9:00am-4:00pm in the Allan Beattie Room
$75/person (in-person) | $25/person (online only) – Register here)
We hear often of secular Europe, with empty cathedrals and vanishing numbers of those who claim to be Christian. We hear less often of burgeoning movements for church planting and growth. Dr. Stefan Paas is an expert on the latter from his academic post at the Free University in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. His books Church Planting in the Secular West and Pilgrims and Priests show a hopeful future for the church after Christendom’s collapse, and lessons for what Canadian cathedral-style churches can learn from Europe’s advanced experience with secularism.
Mission in Post-Christian Context
May 9 at 7:00pm in the Allan Beattie Room
(Free – No registration required)
Stefan Paas is an expert on mission in post-Christian context, not only in his native country, the Netherlands, but internationally. We will hear him in conversation with local practitioners of Christian mission in the changed landscape of the GTA. What creative nudges might we find for our church’s life together here at TEMC?