Friday 3 June 2011

Cornerstone Week 3: last night

WHAT A NIGHT!

Last night at the Cornerstone, we had about 180 people, 
young and old, come to encounter the heart of their Father.

Firstly, IMPACT parish team Assumption was our host and they worked very hard to deliver a quality skit. And it was quality. They used MarioKart to communicate how Jesus is the bridge between us and the Father. 

They did GREAT.

Father Simon was our main speaker. The theme was "To cross the great divide" and to communicate how Jesus is a bridge.

Come join us next week at the Archdiocesan centre for week 4...the Choice. 7:30PM @ 1247 Kilborn Place.

Thursday 2 June 2011

The Ultimate Relationship


Well, it seems that today was a significant in many ways! First of all, the Vancouver Canucks won game 1 of the Stanley Cup Finals against Boston with a goal just 24 seconds before the final buzzer! While being a significant moment for the Canucks, this was also an opportunity that the Impacters seized to draw other young people into their community and build relationships as the men’s household on Holmwood (aka “Animal House”) saw over 30 people in attendance for this spectacle, many of whom were not Impacters themselves. This is the kind of natural relationship building that lays the foundation for a genuine witness of faith and can lead to great opportunities to share the Gospel.

During the time I spent with the Impacters last night, I also heard two stories of evangelization opportunities that were capitalized on. One story was of an Impacter who, after inviting one of the men from his faith study to hang out with him one evening, took the opportunity to share the Ultimate Relationship booklet. Another Impacter was invited to a high school mass and took the opportunity to invite over 1000 high school students to join us tonight for the third week of Cornerstone, our weekly evangelistic outreach event!

Amidst all of this, the staff team took some time earlier this afternoon to prayerful discern how the mission is going and the Lord spoke very powerfully. Among other things, we had a clear sense that the Lord was reminding us to fix our eyes on what God the Father is doing and what He is able to do, so that we will not become discouraged, but press on with confident hope that despite our weaknesses and even through our weaknesses, the Lord will bring about great conversion in the lives of those He is placing in our paths! May we thus lift our eyes to Him and continue to invite others into our encounter of the Father’s heart! 

Wednesday 1 June 2011

Courageous Catholic: Week 3.

You may not know....but every Tuesday IMPACT is running a "Courageous Catholic" course. This course gathers over 60 parish leaders/heads of ministries, from many parishes in our Diocese.
Last night we finished our 3rd week of this 10 week course. The goal of the "Courageous Catholic" course is to stir up our missionary hearts as baptized Catholics.
In doing so, our ministries, & therefore parishes, will become more mission oriented. We can successfully reachout to those Catholics in our midst who are on the fence, or wandering from the Church.

The session last night was "The Message", meaning the basic Gospel message that we are called to proclaim as the Church.
Co-founder of CCO, Andre Regnier shared with us that Jesus' main purpose is to reconcile us to the Father, through His death on the Cross.
Also, it is ultimately up to us, to accept this free gift of salvation and open our hearts to a realtionship with Jesus.
Explained this clearly and simply, it was exciting to see the responses of some of our friends present.
"I have been Catholic all my life, and I have never heard the truth about Jesus explained so clearly. I feel I can finally share with others who Jesus is and what He's done".
 
After this Lee Leonard shared with us his testimony, how the Lord reached out to him (off a skateboard!) and into a personal relationship with Himself, who had been far off. Email him for more info lee.leonard@cco.ca

In the mingling time as we were all leaving, it was clear to me that people wanted to stay and talk...something had been deeply stirred in them!


A missionary spirit was awakened from the clear and simple message of who Jesus is and what He's done for us.....He's inviting us to respond to this relationship, and bring this message to the world!