For real

Some of my favourite times at the Dale are the community prayer times during our service on Sunday afternoons. Here are some excerpts from an especially poignant prayer from a couple of weeks ago: “Thank you Jesus for dying for us, and living for us, and praying for us, now!… Thank you for this community…

Happy September!

So, I took a break from blogging in August, and was also able take bits of the month off, away from my regular routine. I am very grateful for the rest and the adventures, and also happy to be back at The Dale! Erinn and I marveled this week that we are nearing our 2…

Welcoming the stranger

Today a group of junior youth from Stouffville visited Parkdale. Together, we did some cleaning in one of the spaces that we use throughout the week, bought some more plants for our garden plot, and talked about what The Dale is/does/stands for. And then we split into groups and walked around the neighbourhood. As we…

We’re back!

We’re back from camp! Thanks so much to everyone who donated, prayed, and came along for the trip! The three nights and four days that we spent up at Camp Koinonia were doused with blessing. We were also doused with rain for most of Tuesday and part of Wednesday, but people didn’t let that stop…

Turning the other Cheek

We, The Dale’s Tuesday night Bible study, are currently reading through the Sermon on the Mount. This week we grappled with the passage where Jesus tells us not to repay evil for evil, but to turn the other cheek. In this same passage Jesus tells us to give more than is asked when someone sues…

Stumbling along The Way

Erinn wrote a great post this morning about a question that we sometimes hear… “What difference does The Dale make?” I really couldn’t have answered that question any better, so here is her response: http://erinnoxford.wordpress.com/2014/06/18/whats-the-diff/ One of the lines reads: “The journey is not a straight-line: it is marked with fumbles and missteps and requires…

The Great Outdoors

Being outside is just good for the soul. I spent part of this afternoon weeding our plot in the community garden, and it was great. Sure, I grumbled a bit about the very luxurious dandelions that had taken root, but being outside, tending a plot of earth is one of the loveliest, and most satisfying…

Beautiful moments III

Every few months I take some time to look over my journals from the previous few months. I just spent some time doing this, and came across some beautiful moments I wanted to share with you. – a faithful member of The Dale’s worshiping community prayed one Sunday in January “Lord, thank you that your…

Polarity Management

These past several weeks have felt very full! We participated in the “Spring into Parkdale” street festival, hosted a couple of different youth groups, went to a Street Level (www.streetlevel.ca) conference in St. Catharines, and held an open mic night, along with all the usual Dale programming. Erinn was also away for one of those…

Lord have mercy

The idea of mercy has been cropping up all over the place this past week. I’m not totally sure what to make of it all, so once again this blog is acting as a means of processing some of my thoughts. I’m reading a novel by Madeleine L’Engle, called A Live Coal in the Sea.…