MissionGTA

I did my city wide activities today. I participated in a MissionGTA meeting and in our local ministerial in Thornhill. MissionGTA is a region wide (GTA is the Greater Toronto Area) organization that attempts to gather Christian leaders for united prayer geared toward seeing positive transformation of all the spheres of life in our city. I pulled the following off the newly revamped (not fully complete) website to give you a bit more info.

This is our strategy ...

* Connecting various groups who are already causing a transformational impact in the different spheres of society as identified by the key indicators, and where such groups do not exist encourage their formation.
* Providing representative leaders of the different geographical communities of the GTA with opportunities for interaction, prayer and strategy formation.
* Providing representative leaders of the different ethnic communities of the GTA with opportunities for interaction, prayer and strategy formation.
* Mobilizing unified intercession through the efforts of PrayGTA.
* Providing the Body of Christ with opportunities for regional prayer gatherings (including City Hall Prayer, Prayer Summits and Global Day Of Prayer).
* Encouraging the creation of a communication hub for all Christian activity in the GTA.

The Thornhill Ministerial on the other hand is our local gathering. It involves seven churches in my immediate area where the pastoral staff of these congregations meet once a month. It involves Lutheran, Anglican, Baptist, Presbyterian, United, Roman Catholic and Pentecostal churches. It really is quite collegial and quite enjoyable but not particularly spiritual or prayerful. Our major event is an annual Lenten series of meetings where we swap pulpits for the six Sunday evenings of Lent. It is nice to be able to participate in the various traditions but the concern continues to be that younger families and youth don't attend. (After hearing the particularly somber music at one of these Lenten services my son (12 years old at the time) quipped: "Don't they want people to attend these meetings?" I force my family to come at least once during Lent - the Sunday I'm speaking.

My other "ministerial" involvement is with my area denominational meetings. They happen infrequently - only three or four times a year.

However, if I went to every event, meeting, conference, prayer breakfast, or seminar designed to assist, inform, unify or equip the local clergy, I could be busy 532 days per year. The power to choose must be exercised to be healthy!