Perhaps now more than ever, in our culture of immediacy, waiting can feel like wasted time. We’re driven to accomplish, to complete ... so we multi-task. It’s a way of redeeming the time ... Unless it erodes our focus on what’s worth waiting for.

Few things make us as uncomfortable as silence. We wait, fidgeting as the seconds stretch out. The mind races, searching for the way to end the silence, end the anxious thoughts that begin to bloom. What if by failing to say something, to do something, we miss out? What if we’ve been forgotten? But what to say to fill the silence? To end the silence?

Waiting ... It’s part of the fabric of our lives. Traffic ... Career goals ... Test results ... The waiting time can be irritating or anxious or even excruciating. And nothing we do can make the time go faster, the thing we’re waiting for come sooner — to fall into place or make sense. How do we not waste the waiting?

Long before the Baby was laid in the manger, His song was being sung. It didn’t resolve ... It didn’t play out as expected, and the ending hadn’t yet been heard ... The wait wasn’t over yet. But hope kept the song alive, kept it singing through the ages, through generations of waiting. In a way, we still wait.

We sure don’t need to leave our city to encounter devastating need. The good news is that while the need is great, there are ways we can step in … Ways we can bring help and the hope of Jesus in tangible, powerful ways. Where can you step in?

It’s always been the core of who we are to mobilize people and resources to impact people around the world with the hope of Jesus Christ. We kick off this weekend Friday with an International Street Festival on campus … Come sample food, culture, and ministry experiences from around the world. FAC International is a whole weekend to better understand God’s heart for the world — and what our part is.

Even in our changing culture, it’s easy to take for granted the freedoms we enjoy … To forget that our freedom came at great cost to many. We meet freely, we worship freely because many gave their lives. Many fought. Many stood. This weekend we reflect on the many lives given for ours … and the one life worth standing for. (NOTE: services will begin promptly with a moment of silence in honour of Remembrance Day).

There are those in our family who’ve been part of FAC since it began. Reflecting back, they’d tell you it looked a lot different then … But at the heart of it, it was all about the same thing: building lives, making an impact, extending Jesus — wherever He led. It’s who we’ve always been. It’s who we’ll always be — going where there’s an impact to be made. We’re still in.

For 80 years, FAC has been gathering, giving, teaching, serving … saying yes to the call to make an impact on our city and around the world. This weekend we’ll reflect on the kind of year we’ve had — what God’s been saying and doing in and through all of us! And we’ll look ahead, too — at what He’s calling us to say yes to. Are you in?

Just a piece of bread — or a cracker or a wafer … Just a goblet of wine — or a little cup of juice … Such simple, tangible elements that have come to hold such significance, even mysticism for the gathered Church over the centuries. We pause, we reflect, we eat, we drink … How does this simple, tangible act make us different?