This is a post I originally began about a month ago, then under the working title "rennies", referring to
Ericka and
Andrew pictured above, respectively. Rennie-Hunter History 101: I first met Andrew at an awkward Hallowe'en "dance" at Tyndale (imagine a grade eight dance in a grade school gym...then take out the prepubescent kids and replace them with seminary students) and we e-corresponded while he traveled to India and I to Korea. He later met and wed the lovely Ericka who has become not only my downtown fortnightly lunch date but an excellent source of godly wisdom, smart-ass commentary and easy girly-camaraderie. I didn't have much to say about them after I ranted about how cool they were, but now I do.
You see, the Rennies have given birth to their second. Event, that is. They two are founding members of an uber-relevant project called
Empire Remixed. Click on the link to hear what they're about in their own words (much more concise than I am apt to write), which include:
One might claim that we need to tear the walls down. Another might claim that we have no business acting on such a grand scale. And yet, in the midst of this all, in the midst of our culture, we hear a new song. A new sound.The group was behind another tremendous event, this one self-titled, that I was privileged to attend last year where
N.T. Wright (or "The Bish" as he was referred to all evening) spoke to a packed out club (one-time Baptist church, named, of all things,
Revival) in Little Italy. The subject matter, or "conversation" as you'll hear it commonly called, was, and still is, Christian relevancy and integrity in a world system overwrought with capitalism, consumerism and individualism. I was hooked.
Last night, the Empire struck again with a brilliant event called "Ghost Stories :: Local Pain, Local Hope" hosted in the heart of Parkdale in a
pretty presby church auditorium. Among the throng were Phyllis Novak (founder and director of
Sketch!), musician Sam Sunder Singh and author of
The Irresistible Revolution, Shane Claiborne of
The Simple Way community in Philadelphia.
I'm left with images and words that I can not shake from the corners of my mind... What am I doing to help the poor in my community? Am I being Jesus where I can? How comfortable have I become in my 9-to-5 job, my cosy apartment, my familiar church family? Am I still dancing upon
injustice?
“Seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you,” Jeremiah relates, “for in its welfare, you will have your welfare.”
(Jer 29.7)
Happy June 21st.
