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2018 - A Year in Review

It has been an exciting year for the New Leaf Network. We held events all across the country and continued to grow the Network. Here is a quick look back, as we anticipate more new things for 2019.Check out our top blog posts of 2018.

Top Blog posts episodes from 2018:

Posts about Canadian Events:

Forgive Us Our Trespasses: Colton Boushie and the Gerald Stanley Trial by Tim Bratton

Prayers extending forgiveness will be vital for reconciliation to take place. I believe that to be true whether your sympathies lean more toward Colten Boushie’s family, or more toward Gerald Stanley. Forgiveness doesn’t mean that we condone or tolerate crime and violence (regardless of the perpetrator), but it does mean we choose to stop, rather than perpetuate cycles of hate and violence. Forgiveness will be vital for all of us, regardless of what the outcome of this trial may be

.Learning & Leading Amidst Grief: The Humbolt Bus Crash by Jared Siebert

Friends, the survival of the church has always depended on our willingness to serve and be vulnerable.  Being a servant of all is not optional. Jesus was downwardly mobile. It was how he got things done. It is also what he expects of his followers.  To practice the way of Jesus we need to recover the joy of being least and last. If we will not serve our neighbours we will remain irrelevant to our neighbours.

Reflections on Canadian Culture - Two parts on Decolonization:

Decolonizing Church by Andrew Stephens-Rennie

The air evacuated the room. I began to weep. Uncontrollably. The floodgates opened, the dams broke, a stream of raw emotion overwhelmed my well-reinforced banks. In this moment I came face to face with another human whose story poked holes in my own. I came face to face with a person whose story decentered me, my history, my faith, and my clear account of the way things are.

Turn your face into the wind, listen to your neighbours, and respond as though your feet are planted on this soil. Become familiar with this place, its people, and all of God’s good creation that inhabit these watersheds. Feel the grit between your toes. Get to know the terrain. Begin to understand your watershed and its inhabitants. Tread lightly in this place, for it is through this place and its inhabitants that God seeks to bring you – and many others – life.

Stories from Church Planting:

Welcome to the Cypher Church: The Church for the Outsiders by Rohadi

Launching a church expression to a post-Christian culture as local missionaries is nothing new.We’re not particularly unique in this regard.You can’t create a Cypher copy in your context, but you can do something.The Canadian church lacks a competency in the emerging dominant culture.To address this need we need a multitude of expressions seeking out kingdom in the places the church has no expertise.We need more missionaries doing crazy things.These ideas are considered fringe because they don’t fit in the controlled box of Christendom.

Permaculture Church Planting by Rob Cosby-Shearer

With that, I’m well aware that there may be a point of equilibrium.  I know that those of us who operate in the mainline church have left our planters out to dry, so to speak. If they can’t even feed themselves, can they even take the time to work slowly, listen, cultivate? However, I don’t think that the answer is to seek large-scale forms of support that we as planters are unable to ever reasonably ramp up to – even if what they create is compelling in the short-term.