We’ve been gone in Toronto all week and I haven’t connected to the internet for a decent amount of time since Sunday, so I’m getting my fix now, telling you all about what went down in that town.
I guess the first significant event was dinner with John Franklin. John is a friend of Pierre’s who is a professor of theology at Tinsdale University. I’m not sure if that name is right, but who cares. What an awesome dude. He sat us down in his study/library (the guy must have around 5,000 books) to get to know a little about us before dinner. We’ve all gotten pretty good at explaining ourselves in one or two sentences, so it didn’t take long. I spent most of the time reading the book bindings.
John’s wife is exceptional. We barely saw her because she gave up her spot around the table so we could all fit, but we got to know her based on her actions, which is usually a clearer picture anyway. She made us so much food. It was like Thanksgiving or Christmas or something. There was ham, two kinds of potatoes, slices of peppers and squash, apple sauce, and chocolate cake like I have never eaten in my life. It was as close to perfect as you can get on earth.
Conversation at dinner was intense. It felt like I had stepped back into PHILS 106 with Bob Doede. Except Bob had gained a lot of weight and looked more like Santa Claus. We spoke together about art and theology and philosophy; all things holy and good. John helps lead something called “Imago;” an organization that helps believing artists – whether musicians or painters or dancers or whathaveyou – get their stuff out there. On Wednesday we went to an art exhibition they put on and it was incredible. Fones, you would have died. Anyway, about our conversation, a couple things he said really stuck with me. He said art is about truth. Amen to that, eh?! We had a whole conversation about that; just a taste of the blessings poured out on us that night like syrup. We went to sleep on Monday with full stomachs and sticky smiles.
Tuesday morning was spent with 614, a Salvation Army ministry in Regent Park, Toronto’s biggest ghetto. They first sat us down and told us a little about the history of the neighbourhood. They built it after WWII. It was the first housing development of its kind in Canada and is still the biggest. And they made so many mistakes, the worst being that they made no thru-roads, making it an island in the middle of the city. They’re trying to fix it right now, but there’s a lot of due skepticism about it. Mostly, they’re just pushing the poor out, which doesn’t really solve anything and just pisses people off. From there we went out for lunch at “The Real Jerk,” a Jamaican restaurant near the their building, with the “Ignite” kids. “Ignite” is the Salvation Army’s DTS basically. We looked around Regent Park afterward with them and Zooey, their leader, talked all about it. It sounds like their doing some awesome work. They’re being respectful and relational. We had to leave them for Missisauga, which ended up being a mistake. Pierre got his days mixed up and we ended up missing what was planned for the afternoon. Annoying, but it’s in the past.
Wednesday. I already talked about the art exhibit. It was called “Till We Have Faces,” and was obviously then a series of portraits from an array of artists. Some pretty cool shat. I especially liked one artist’s work, Paul Roorda. He used things that had to do with the image to make it, like crushed monkey bone for “Adam” and “Eve” and snake skin for “Serpent.” I know it sounds weird, but it looked really good.
Afterward, we walked down Yonge Street, Toronto’s main drag. Very rue St. Catherine (Montreal reference, sorry) but more English and littered with ads and screens. We stopped at Dundas square to decide on a cafe, and there, by the street was a three-by-four square metre white box. Naturally, I went over to check it out. On the side of it was a caption that explained. Without going into too much detail, it said that inside was a crowd of talented people willing, for one day, to answer anyone’s question in 20 minutes. Essentially, they were thinking “inside the box” (get it?). ‘What a cool idea,’ I thought, so I told everyone else to go read it, too. Some people in charge noticed our interest and started filming and photographing us. A guy came by to further explain and get us to sign away our faces so they could use the footage for their documentary. We came up with a question (how do we use art to reconcile the rich and the poor and the cultures of the world?), which was heralded as the best question so far of the day, and they went at it. We waited inside the Hard Rock Cafe across the square until they called us back.
Pierre, Thomas and I entered and they presented their answer, a grassroots movement with the slogan “Everyone Speaks Art.” It started with a UN installed, international Art Day, set aside for cultures all around the world to show off their skills. Pretty rad idea. Then they moved on to other ideas for the movement, art exhibitions in low income areas, art publicly displayed in parks and city squares, and an art auction with pieces from famous and homeless people, with the identity of the artist only being revealed after sale. These guys were on fire. They gave me a hint of their smarts after I first asked our jumbled question and the one guy with the “Fargo” hat broke it down into six words, “reconciling class and culture through art.” They definitely inspired me.
Thursday morning we went back downtown to “Sanctuary,” a church community of mostly homeless people. They’re supported by other churches like a charity, but aren’t really run like one. When I mention some of the stuff they do, they might sound like one, but their emphasis on relationship and community transcends them to something more than just a soup kitchen with a health clinic. Allan, The guy who spoke with us and showed us around, explained it really well. He broke down how people think of the homeless, from disgust to compassion, and said that none of these things were quite what these people need. He said what they need is love and trust. His call is hard. I don’t know if I could do it. It’s hard to care for people more than they care about themselves. But the people who work at Sanctuary do it every day. Props to them.
In the afternoon, we visited “New Direction,” a group of people who minister to the gay community in the Toronto area. Another tough calling. They said they spent most of their time repairing the church’s ideas about gay people and how to reach them. Most churchgoers would rather not reach them at all. They get a lot of hate-mail, either from angry Christians, or angry homosexuals who think they’re fundamentalist Christian conservatives, blah blah blah. The reason for all the flak from the Christian community is that New Direction doesn’t try to stretch gays straight. They realize that more often than not that doesn’t work. Instead, they try to help gay people live with it, and encourage celibacy. It’s difficult, but they’ve got a pretty clear picture of the situation. I think they’re doing a great job.
So with all of that as a platform, we spent all of yesterday at “Call2All,” an evangelism conference in rural Ontario. First of all, it was one of the most boring days of my life. By 2:00 PM I was sick to the stomach with boredom. We got there at 8:30 to help set up, put tables out at 11:00, and I manned a camera from 7:00 PM to 8:30. Other than some listening and participating, that’s all we did all day. No internet. No soccer balls or cards. We did nothing. Some people had internet, but it wasn’t working on my computer. We ended up watching some Michael Jackson videos on YouTube for a bit. But the boredom wasn’t the worst of it.
I don’t know if I’ll be able to properly explain the feel of the place, but it was unsettling. Eerily evangelestic. Does that make sense? The church was called “The Embassy of the Kingdom of God.” I think that best describes it. If you’ve seen “There Will Be Blood,” you get the picture. We didn’t actually spend that much time in the conference listening, because frankly, when we did it just bored us even more. They kept saying the same things we’ve heard for the past twenty years. Reach the unreached, like the indigenous peoples of Africa or the mountain dwellers of Northern India. They had a giant map out separating China and India based on the amount of “unreached” people in the region. I didn’t find that so bad, but with everything surrounding it, it just added to the effect. They emphasized more on the mission than the people. Everything was so strategized and calculated. There was one good speaker named Markus, who shows short films to people to encourage conversation. But what came after him just made me angry.
At this point I was at the camera, so I couldn’t fully concentrate on what this guy was saying, but the gist was that the best way to impact young people was to entertain them. He used a story of a lecture he gave to some pastors as an example. He asked them if any of them remembered their last sermon or the points of it. Of course, he got a pretty dismal response. Then he asked them if any of them remembered the movie “Titanic” and a bunch of them could sing the theme song. I think he missed the point of his own story. He thought the reason the preachers remembered Titanic was because it entertained them, but I’m pretty sure it was because it was a story. That’s why people also remember Jesus’ parables. All I have to say is “mustard seeds” or “the talents” and most of you know what I’m talking about (if you don’t, see Matthew 13:31 or 25:14). Then he went on to show how big mega events are a great way to evangetain the kids. He talked about “World Impact Tour,” this Billy Graham endorsed show that went all over, specifically Scotland, to save the youth of the world. He gave us a bunch of statistics and numbers of kids declaring faith at these things(failing, of course, to show us how many of those kids are actually still faithful). Then he showed us a video of people wielding fire, skateboarders screaming out that Jesus loves you while tossing their helmets aside and muscle men breaking bricks and making their fingers into crosses. And he was introducing this as a new tool of evangelism. But this is how the evangelical community has been “reaching” youth for the last ten years. And it doesn’t work. I’ve gone to these things. One happened every Friday while I was growing up. It was called “Revolution.” I’ve watched a classmate close his eyes and raise his hands and then go smoke pot behind the church. Even though I was a Christian before I went to any of these things, I’ve gotten caught up in all of it. I’ve been convinced that I need to “come to the front and give my life to Jesus,” even though I was already living for Him. I don’t think it’s right, getting kids’ adrenaline going so that in the heat of everything they’ll answer to your alter call. It’s manipulation. You’re manipulating young people when you do that.
And then a little puke came up the back of my throat. They asked everyone in the room to estimate how many people they could reach in the next ten years (most people in the room were leaders of missions organizations). They actually asked people to give them numbers. I wanted to walk up to Pierre and tell him to put down the number 1, just to see what they would say.
Anyway, I’ve ranted enough I think. You get the picture. I didn’t enjoy myself. I had a hard time sleeping despite the fact we got billeted out and I got to sleep in a nice, warm, soft bed. Plus they gave me some really good rue barb and custard pie. Yum. Nevertheless, couldn’t sleep. But we left all that behind this morning. Drove straight back to Montreal with only one stop to play Monopoly at Mcdonald’s. Anybody got Tennessee Avenue?
