I have 4 or something that I fail to update on a consistent basis.

Just because I’m bad at that doesn’t mean we’re not here though.

DEC 18TH 2010 – 7PM at Springvale. Our first Christmas SNA ever!
Bring a food item for the food bank to get in.

The bible is full of imagery giving us small windows into the vast and unfathomable glory of God. It’s actually pretty mind-blowing when you start to think about it. Fire, thunder, wind, smoke. Humanity cowered in his presence. This is a God who parted the seas, calmed storms, opened the earth, dropped fire from the sky, changed the very nature of things. God. is. Glorious

This month we want to focus on the glorious nature of God. We want to ascribe him the praise and worth that he deserves. We want to declare God’s glory in our lives. We pray that we may see a glimpse of this crazy, unmatchable, enormous, radiant, earth shattering, life changing, drop-to-your-knees glory that is God’s holy presence.

And it just excites me to even consider what that could inspire.

We’ve got some great things planned for you.

There’s gonna be a BBQ before hand so make sure you come out and hang with us before the show.

And then afterwards, there’s gonna be a special treat that I know you don’t want to miss.

So prepare for a full evening because this May 29th is going to be just a lot of stinkin’ fun.

And keep praying that God would do just extraordinary things in our lives, our communities, and our churches.

Thanks,

Ben and the rest of the Alive Team

But this is an opportunity for the church to be the church and offer support in whatever way they can. YOU are the church. Please take some time to consider donating to the relief effort. Give money, encourage others to give, get your congregations to give, and find other ways to help.

There are several ways to give:
www.yele.org is an organization founded by Wyclef Jean (Haitian hip hop artist).
www.compassion.com is a Christian organization that we love and support.
www.redcross.ca helps global disasters like this by sending in aid of all sorts.

CNN has also put together a list of other organizations helping with this relief.

Please pray and help in whatever way you can. Pray especially that the world would rise up and join forces in assisting with this crisis.

He initially described it as going out and doing service projects on the Saturday mornings of the concerts and I think both of us knew the logistics of that would be pretty difficult to actually make happen. So the idea was shelved for a while longer. But we both knew it was good at its heart and eventually we stopped ignoring it and started considering what it would be.

And that remained the question, what is the Alive Movement?

It would be “a group of people” or “a bunch of students” or “whoever” who “got together” and “did good things” or “service projects” or “whatever”. Yup, from the very beginning we’ve had an identity crisis and we have still not figured it out.

What is the Alive Movement? How do you get people on board with something that you still haven’t figured out yet?

All we really knew was that we wanted to be about change, positive change, and as we dug deeper into that one piece of self awareness our Movement began to take on flesh.

People. People were the key to this. People who shared our desire for change. People who see life the way we do, as an opportunity for love. People who are tired of living life dead and want to start living life alive. So that’s what we are right now. We’re people who are gathering together and trying to find some ways to make our community a better place.

Stay tuned as we learn more about who we are…

“Your kingdom come, your will be done, on Earth as it is in Heaven.”

If you have anything to contribute or want to help us get the word out on this project, let us know.
alivemovement@gmail.com

Thanks.

Usually I get bogged down feeling guilty because I spend too much money or don’t give enough away or just don’t have enough of it to do anything useful at all.
Or sometimes I go on a ‘Jesus-kick’ and go all crazy over how Christmas has become a commercial, all-inclusive, generic holiday rather than focusing on the birth of Christ (which is what it’s all about right?)

But this year I’ve opted for craziness in a different way. There’s really nothing crazier than real love. I got to thinking about this whole ‘Christmas spirit’ thing and ’tis the season’ and all that ‘good tidings’ and ‘holiday cheer’ junk that everyone goes on about. Everybody talks about being nice during Christmas. Instead, I want to live love. Real, practical, down-in-the-mud dirty love. It’s sacrificial, it’s selfless, it’s reaching out to those who need help, it’s giving of yourself when it’s not convenient or fun, and it’s life changing. Holiday cheer is more about feeling good about yourself but real love is about reaching out to others in need when you don’t have to or don’t want to. This is my challenge and I want to extend it to you as well.

It can be as simple as a kind gesture while you’re out in the middle of all this crazy shopping madness and it can be as powerful as finding someone who really needs help and getting right into their lives and helping them. Food banks, clothing drives, shoveling driveways, helping your mom with dinner, buying someone’s groceries, inviting someone over for a meal, making a meaningful phone call, buying a stranger a coffee, being polite to people in the mall, listening to someone who needs it, showing kindness to the outcast, letting love be your priority during this crazy and stressful season; this is the kind of life changing stuff that the kingdom of heaven is made of. Love, kindness, generosity, selflessness.

What is the alive movement? It’s love transforming lives and bringing about positive change. It’s real “your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” kind of stuff. Let’s bring this Christmas to life.

So far it’s been a pretty crazy weekend and the band has been rocking the Muskoka Woods hanger for every session.

We’re working on a documentary of the weekend. Me, the band, my Sony handicam, and 2 days of madness.
Look forward to it.

Other than that, welcome to the site. We’ll get this place rolling soon.