Unwritten Books

There are some things I am not likely to notice. Ever. (At least – not without some help).

Stay with me for a moment because this needs to get technical before it gets interesting. I was talking to someone recently about a development project in Calgary (this is what they do for a living) and we were talking about how some of the underground services work (water, sewage, electrical, etc). He was explaining that I can get a fairly good idea of what is going on beneath the surface by looking for a few small ‘clues’ along the sidewalks and at the curb (for example, there are small vales marked blue for water so you can know there is a water line underneath – that kind of thing).

It first made me think of James Bond, again (only because I ‘used’ him a bit in my teaching last Sunday). I now feel fully equipped to know exactly how to slip beneath the surface of a city and make my way through it’s secret passageways should I ever need to foil some little bit of ‘international espionage’.

After that, it made me think about how there are some things I would likely never notice otherwise. A developer can drive through our city and see all kinds of underground infrastructure because they’ve learned to look for a few small things on the surface. They see passageways and pipelines where you and I see nothing at all – at least nothing at all out of the ordinary (just sidewalks and curbs and trash cans).

All of that leads me to something about our fall kick off this Sunday. We’ve been thinking about the gaps in our knowledge – things we are not just missing, but things we are perhaps prone to miss. All of that led us to think about bookstores. They represent the kind of things we either want to know or the kind of things we can be interesting to us relatively quickly. But what about other kinds of knowledge? What about the books that aren’t being written and the stories that aren’t being told about the stuff that can’t be made interesting right away or at the very first step?

It’s made us wonder about a whole other kind of bookstore – and then our Arts department found a way to build one. And that’s about all I want to reveal before hand.

As a staff (like I said at the very beginning) we’re excited to begin a whole new season of efforts designed to make possible a whole other kind of community. We’re excited to open up whole new directions for thought and conversation. In short, we’re excited to get underway. It’s our hope that you can re-imagine (all over again) what might be possible if we decided to find a way to complete each other and step deeper into the story of Christ. At the very least, please… Don’t just ‘go to church’ this fall. Let’s become it.

If you can’t join us on Sunday, then we hope you will tune into the podcast through the week. Don’t forget our special BBQ challenge and something special for the kids.

Have a great weekend,

Chris