Some of you may recall a summer in the early 2000’s when the power went out in large sections of Toronto for several days. I was at work at Gateway when that happened, and once we figured out how to operate the shelter with no electricity, I needed to go home. The problem was, no […]
As you know, this year we have been focusing on one of The Salvation Army’s ten core values each month. TSA’s ethics center, based in Winnipeg, has led the way with these and I have been following their lead with ‘(the) Mission Matters’ newsletters. Since there are only ten core values, yet twelve months of
Salvation is not a reward for the good we have done, so none of us can take any credit for it. – Ephesians 2:9 It’s often the little things that make all the difference. The Gateway outreach team first met ‘Frank’ while he was living in the Don Valley. At that point in time, Frank
Salvation – Part Two Read More »
We are The Salvation Army, so it makes sense that ‘salvation’ is one of our core values. However that word, ‘salvation’, is often misunderstood and unfortunately narrowly defined as only related to one’s ‘soul’. The word ‘salvation’ is far more holistic, as the narrator shares in the above video from our ethics center. The Greek
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“It’s always been a mystery to me how people can respect themselves when they humiliate other humans” – Mahatma Gandhi Aretha Franklin belts it out, as only she in her brilliance can: “R-E-S-P-E-C-T, Find out what it means to me” as she pleads with her partner to treat her with just a little respect (or
As we continue with our monthly focus on our core values (as a reminder, January’s focus was ‘celebrate’, February ‘excellence’, and March ‘holiness’), this month we hone in on the value of compassion. The Greek word for compassion, used 12 times in the New Testament all in relation to Jesus, is splagchnizomai which means ‘inward
He has Risen! This is the chant of Christians all around the globe today. He has Risen! The tomb is empty. Jesus is alive. He has Risen! The biggest, deepest, darkest enemy of all, death, has impossibly been defeated. He has Risen! The Roman authorities and religious elite, no matter how hard they tried, could
Today is the last day of Holy Week and the final day of Lent. Holy Saturday is that uncomfortable day where we don’t quite know what to do with ourselves. On some level I think it’s supposed to be awkward. It’s the day sandwiched between Good Friday and Easter Sunday symbolizing the day when Jesus
“Love and faithfulness meet together; righteousness and peace kiss each other.” Psalm 85:10 Why is Good Friday called ‘good’? After all, it’s the day when the person we Christians view as the Messiah, the Saviour of the world, gets brutally murdered on a cross. How could that be good? Good Friday is good because it is the
Also known as Maundy Thursday, today is a day in the Christian calendar that is rich with layers of symbolism. Holy Thursday happens in conjunction with the Jewish remembrance of Passover, the last supper that Jesus has with his disciples, the evening where the sacrament of sharing in the body and blood of Jesus was
