On Sunday I had the privilege of talking about The Freeway being geographically “planted” in the Beasley Neighbourhood. As part of the evening I wanted to have a slide show of local  photos to help us think about the area that surrounds the coffee house.

I sent out a general call to The Freeway community to send me their neighbourhood photos and I got an email from  Maja Hipkin (who also contributes to this blog) with a link to her Flickr page. I am always excited to discover that somebody has a creative gift, and I would just like to thank Maja for sharing her beautiful and artistic photographs with us.

If you would like to check out more of Maja’s amazing photographic tour of Hamilton click here.

All photographs (c) Maja Hipkin

Our current teaching series is entitled: “Our Life”. We want to take four week’s to develop a sense of who we are at The Freeway, and what we are going to be about as a community this year. Here’s how each week will shake out:

Week 1: “Our Life: Unearthed” – A reflection on where we’ve been as a community. Who are we? What are the narratives that have shaped us over the years, especially the past year or so?

Week 2: “Our Life: Planted” – An exploration of our address (postal code / context / neighbourhood). Why are we here in this neighbourhood? What are we trying to do? Why does / will it matter?

Week 3: “Our Life: Cultivated” – An exploration of our intention to form our lives together as a community: spiritually, relationally, missionally. What will we commit (covenant) to together?

Week 4: “Our Life: Rooted” – A proposal of what sustainable missionality may look for us. How do we take who we’ve been and who we are and follow Jesus into the future as a community this year?

On Sunday night we had a great worship gathering as part of our current Advent series. This was week 3 of Advent and we engaged the topic of “celebration.” Good times.

You can see photos here.

Here’s the video we showed on Sunday night at the worship gathering:

Sundays at 6 pm.

August’s teaching series is called “Your Own Personal Jesus.”

We all have various images of Jesus. Some are right and some are wrong. For the month of August we will look at four common misconcepted images people have of Jesus and try to compare these with the Jesus we actually read about in the Scriptures:

• “Spooky Jesus” who sort of hovers above us all and is more divine than human, and doesn’t understand the human struggle.
• “Sunday School Jesus” who doesn’t really answer questions of hardship or suffering but seems basic, individualized, plastic (or flannel) and neat.
• “Middle-Class Jesus” who answers all our prayers for safety, comfort and success, and helps us to “do well” in life.
• “Buddy Jesus” who doesn’t talk about your sin and has no scars, instead he gives you a wink and a thumbs up.

The title for our current teaching series for the month of July, “Renovation of the Heart,” is based on the title (but not content) of a book written by Dallas Willard. This series will allow us to examine spiritual formation… and by spiritual formation, we mean the stuff that converges on the inside that makes you – you.

Four different aspects of spiritual formation will be examined: the heart (or gut) as guide, character building (or eliminating pollution), prayer as dialogue (us talking) & the need for story (God talking).

For the month of June in our worship gatherings our theme is “this beautiful mess”. We will explore what it means to be part of this church community, in this neighbourhood, in this city, at this time.

This will be a very cool series as pretty much all of the people doing the speaking/teaching are pretty new to it. For most, this will be their first or second attempt at speaking in this way. We’re excited about what they will have to say… and about the way that the other elements (inter-actives, music, creative segments, etc.) of the gatherings tie in to the weekly theme and help create meaningful experiences.

June 7th: We all matter – Jeanette Eby
June 14th: We all pursue the Kingdom – ???
June 21st: We all connect and belong – Matt Thompson
June 28th: We all serve – Susan Neudorf

You won’t want to miss one week.

Our current teaching series / worship gathering theme at The Freeway is called: “microcosm.” Influenced by our understanding of mission as found in Luke 10:1-12, we will examine seven traits of The Freeway’s mission over the course of seven weeks as follows:

• Cultured: We immerse ourselves in the current culture without becoming a product of it. We want to create, influence, and subvert culture.
• Neighboured: We are committed to the local. We try our best to love our neighbours [and our neighbourhood], especially those who are marginalized, disenfranchised, and disregarded.
• Partnered: We are in this together [proximity, deep relationships, networked].
• Storied: We want to listen more and talk less. Listening to other people’s story and connecting their story with God’s amazing story, changes us.
• Shared: Everything we own is God’s and we need to share our lives with others [generosity & hospitality].
• Normalized: The church community is simply a catalyst for transforming everyday actions and priorities [“go” instead of “attract”]. We believe that the Spirit of God is at work in the lives of everyday people in everyday environments.
• Kingdomized: We want to be an active part of living out and naming the Kingdom that Jesus established here on earth [shalom].