Melinda Gates will be one of the key speakers at the Global Leadership Summit this year.
Bill Hybels has been a major influence in the North American church for decades, but Kevin Cavanaugh thinks Hybels and his Global Leadership Summits are having more influence than ever these days. That is why he offers his church – Cedar Grove in Surrey – for the summer Summit (August 11 – 12).
The Global Leadership telecasts – which are aimed at “people committed to getting better as leaders” – are expected to reach 450,000 people this year, in August and again in the fall.
Speakers at the upcoming event include Bill Hybels, senior pastor of Willow Creek Community Church; Melinda Gates, co-chair of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation; Alan Mulally, president and chief executive officer of the Ford Motor Company (2006-2014); Horst Schulze, CEO of Capella Hotel Group and founding president of the Ritz-Carlton Group; and Danielle Strickland, Salvation Army officer and social justice advocate and author.
Kevin Cavanaugh (here with his wife Cynthia) and Cedar Grove Church in Surrey will host the Global Leadership Summit August 11 – 12.
Large ministries such as Union Gospel Mission, Power to Change and the Mennonite Central Committee regularly take advantage of the training, Cavanaugh says, but he also expects to see many pastors and church members among the 275 – 300 he expects to attend.
“Send your business people,” he says to fellow pastors, “and have them bring their non-Christian friends,” noting that while a Christian perspective undergirds the whole event, not all Summit speakers are coming from that point of view.
Go here for information about the Global Leadership Summit.
Fountain Chapel is now, unfortunately, a private home.
I’m sorry I missed the African Descent Festival last weekend (July 22 – 23), but I did catch up on some fascinating Vancouver history when I checked out its website. I have heard about Hogan’s Alley over the years, and the fact that Jimi Hendrix’s family lived there at one time – but I had never heard about the black community’s church.
From the early 1900s to the late 1960s, the East Side neighbourhood of Strathcona was home to Vancouver’s first and only black community. Hogan’s Alley was the local, unofficial name for Park Lane, an alley that ran through the southwestern corner of Strathcona during the first six decades of the 20th century. It ran between Union and Prior Streets from approximately Main Street to Jackson Avenue.
Jimi Hendrix’s grandmother Nora, a stalwart of Fountain Chapel, was featured on this stamp.
An important part of the community was Fountain Chapel.
Fountain Chapel [was] located at 823 Jackson Avenue from 1918 to 1985. Co-founded by Nora Hendrix, a former vaudeville dancer and grandmother to legendary guitarist Jimi Hendrix, Fountain Chapel was a local chapter of the politically active African Methodist Episcopal Church.
Considered the spiritual home of Vancouver’s black community, it was also where the community gathered to organize around issues such as the trial of Fred Deal, a railroad porter charged with murdering a Vancouver police constable, and the police beating and subsequent death of Clarence Clemons, a black longshoreman.
The black community that had geographically coalesced around the Fountain Chapel in the city’s East End was displaced during the city’s slum clearance programs of the 1950s and 1960s. In 1985, not long after Nora Hendrix’s death, the AME sold the building, which housed the Basel Hakka Lutheran Church from then until 2008, when the building was officially decommissioned as a church and became a private residence.
On January 30, 2014, Canada Post issued a stamp commemorating Hogan’s Alley and the Official First Day Cover depicts an illustration of the Fountain Chapel.
For a fuller description of Hogan’s Alley and its community go here. Also, I wrote about this church as one of Vancouver’s lost churches last year, without knowing its full history.
Keith Jacobson was well known as a community activist, especially in Killarney.
I had also never heard of Keith Jacobson, nor of his impressive community service in Killarney (the southeast area of Vancouver), until Joseph Jones – who belongs to a community group which keeps an eye on developments in the neighbouring Norquay community – told me about him.
Lorna Gibbs, long time seniors advocate and close friend of Keith Jacobson, says the community activist was the heart and soul of the Killarney Community Centre and the driving force behind a movement to have a seniors centre built in Southeast Vancouver.
Jacobson died Friday, June 24, after a lengthy battle with cancer. Jacobson was no stranger to battles – in the years this reporter knew him, he fought tirelessly for his community of Killarney as well as for the rights of community centres across the city – and of course the seniors centre. . . .
Jacobson was an outspoken critic of the plan to rewrite the joint operating agreement between the city and park board and the city’s community centre associations, an issue still unresolved after more than a decade. Jacobson also fought through multiple mayors and councils in his quest to have the long-awaited seniors centre built adjacent to the Killarney Community Centre, a plan recently approved and supported by three levels of government.
The memorial service for Jacobson filled a large gym at Killarney Community Centre July 3. In a message based on Galatians 2:20, Rev. Mark Chiang of Killarney Community Lutheran Church described Keith Jacobson as an “old-school Christian” who gave a great deal to his local community.
Bruce Cockburn has been performing for 50 years – and he is still a fan favourite at the Folk Fest.
On Sunday night, July 17, I had a ringside seat at the Vancouver Folk Music Festival as Bruce Cockburn sang a dozen of his best songs (Lovers in a Dangerous Time, Tokyo, If a Tree Falls, If I Had a Rocket Launcher . . .).
Bruce Cockburn performed one new song – with a gospel message.
He had referred to that song – and to the fact that he has only recently again been involved in worship and describing himself as a Christian following a long hiatus – in a couple of interviews I quoted in an article before the Folk Fest.
The whole weekend was excellent, as usual. One disappointment was that the unofficial ‘gospel workshop’ (sometimes described as ‘church in the park’) usually featured at Stage Two at 10 am on Sunday morning was discontinued this year. I hope it will be back next year; it’s always a big hit.
* Vancouver Bach Festival: Johann Sebastian Bach is often described as the Fifth Evangelist because of his great devotion to scripture and his desire to glorify God. Ten concerts at Christ Church Cathedral August 2 – 12 will feature his music.
* PRAISE Fest 2016 will feature a day’s worth of music August 7 at the Stetson Bowl (Cloverdale Fairgrounds). Featured musicians include Switchfoot, For King & Country, Matt Maher, Andy Mineo, Hawk Nelson and Starfield.
* OM Vancouver Challenge: OM Canada offers a week-long opportunity (August 14 – 21) to respond to the massive influx of immigrants, particularly Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs, by “training believers to share their faith clearly, confidently and cross-culturally.” OM Surrey Challenge runs August 22 – 29.
* Ravi Zacharias Ministry Conference: Westside Church will host a couple of reasonably priced evenings September 6 – 7 featuring internationally renowned author/thinker/apologist Ravi Zacharias, along with Mary Jo Sharpe and Andy Bannister. They will explore the relevance and application of the ancient Christian beliefs in light of postmodern thinking, and discuss its uniqueness in light of other major religions.