Twenty years ago, in October 2004, The Church at Southpoint (now Southpoint Church) was registered as a non-profit society in British Columbia, Canada.

Our theme for Sunday morning was “Stories and Stones”. We remembered and gave thanks for the many different groups of people who have sustained us over the years using stories, images, and songs. Laura Koch came to sing with us, and the musicians of Southpoint came together, offering up different songs. I felt such joy in the room during those songs. We made a stone pillar of remembrance, and thanked God for being with us and for us throughout these years. If you weren’t able to be there, I imagine you belong in one of these groupings of people. Thank you!

We honour our dreamers, planters, and founders who brought Southpoint into being and gave it a solid foundation.

We honour our pillars, those who have served, led and supported Southpoint with a generous heart.

We honour our storytellers, musicians, artists, and writers who have nourished us with depth and beauty. 

We honour those who suffered with us and those who suffered for us, drawing us more deeply into God’s heart.

We honour God for being so tenderly with us and for us, and for the ways we see God’s heart in one another.

We honour our newcomers who have witnessed our commitment to inclusion and came to stand with us and now are one of us.

This is Southpoint: We are not a building. We are not a gathering. We are people committed to each other and to following the Good Way of Jesus together. I, as pastor of Southpoint, am unbelievably proud and grateful for you. I look forward to all God has in store for us. 

Gratitude begins with an  awareness that everything we have is a gift. Gratitude is more than a response —it is a constant awareness of God's presence, kindness and provision in our lives.

What comes to mind when you think of home? We all have a need or longing for home. Wherever we are, we can receive the love the land has for us, and we can love the land in return.

We end this year's Season of Creation with this good news—as we hope and act with Creation, we are coming home.  

How do we know when the peaceable kindom has arrived?

For the Creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. Romans 8:19. This calling does not require us to be heroes, but it does ask us to show up, sometimes in mundane ways and sometimes in heroic ways, and be present to what is happening around us. We are called to listen to the groaning of Creation, including our own. We wrestle with the complexities and search out what might be a just and generous response. And then, we act. We extend ourselves in ways that support the mutual thriving of life on Earth. In doing so, we are collaborating with God and Creation, participating in God’s ongoing renewal of the Earth.

“Hope is the virtue that asks us to take responsibility for the future, to act joyfully and with perseverance, despite the obstacles.” (Lyanda Lynn Haupt, Rooted: Life at the Crossroads of Science, Nature, and Spirit) 

This Sunday marks the beginning of the Season of Creation, a global Christian commitment to care for creation, our common home. The theme this year is “To Hope and Act with Creation.” In the image for the season, many hands are lifted up in hope, action and courage. In the centre, this is a dove, representing the Spirit, holding a sprig of green, representing Creation. We are coming together as Christians, with Creation, and with the Spirit, and there is power in our togetherness. In hope, we are invited into a profound collaboration with the life-affirming, life-giving power of the Spirit and the Creation. 

Hope asks us to participate with God in the renewal of the Earth, however that will manifest. Hope asks us to lean into becoming what we long to be—the very children of God that Creation longs for in Romans 8:19.

Carolyn's tender story of an unexpected friendship across generations weaves into this blessing from our liturgy this summer: May the God who befriends us and tenderly invites us to join in a divine dance of friendship, bless each and every one of us. May we daily grow in friendship with God and all that God has created as we journey through our days. May we trust that “Divine Presence” is at work in us and all around us, and entrust ourselves and this world to the faithful, sustaining Love of God. We go out from here, grounded in Divine Love, living from this grace given to us all. Amen

We often make friends with those who are similar to us. So often, cultural, historical, racial, and economic differences divide us, but sometimes, the richest gifts are found in friendships with those who are different from us.
 
On Sunday, Janice Young shared an unusual and personal story of unexpected friendships with the Nuxalk First Nation in Bella Coola.
 
Her story began 140 years ago when her Norwegian great-grandfather came to BC to collect cultural treasure for the Ethnological Museum in Berlin. The story she heard as a child about an adventurous and courageous explorer and collector began to shift when as an adult she realized that her ancestor had contributed to the harm and loss of culture experienced by First Nations people in Canada after European contact.  
 
Seeking to find a way to create a better relationship with the Nuxalk Nation, Janice, with the help of the Rev. Donna Dinsmore and the United Church congregations in Bella Coola, made a visit in 2017 to Bella Coola with ten members of the Peninsula United Church congregation to listen, learn and speak the truth about her ancestors. That visit opened a path to grace-filled opportunities, more friendships, and witnessing and celebrating the repatriation of a Totem Pole from the Royal BC Museum to the Nuxalk Nation. 
 
Janice is now working with her Norwegian cousin to find a way to help bring the Nuxalk cultural treasures home from Berlin to Bella Coola, hopefully in their lifetimes. Janice has been on a journey to bridge the gap between these treasures and the people they were taken from as part of her own work of restoration. In the process, she has found lost family members and experienced new, unexpected friendships. Her story is a reminder of how God weaves us into healing friendships across lines of difference, bringing restoration.

Having a summer series on friendship was Madison's brainchild, and what a beautiful theme it has proven to be. He suggested one subtheme be the emotional scripts of "white, self-sufficient masculinity" that get in the way of deep friendship. One of those scripts is: “Don’t be vulnerable. Be self-sufficient and independent.” Markku Kostamo was our chosen storyteller for this theme, and he shared this past Sunday. Weaving together imagery of Jonah in the belly of the whale and the voyage of St. Brendan, Markku talked about how his own journey of descent, uncomfortable as it is, was also necessary for his healing. In the deep, he faced challenges, found companionship, experience moments of divine consolation, and found himself renewed. The descent into darkness is not something we have to do alone. Companioned in our vulnerability by the friendship of God, creation, people who meet us there, and people who love us there, the deep becomes the necessary path to spiritual rebirth and authenticity.

In today's meditation Brent Unrau encourages us to think about all the things we value about friendship. What if we get to develop a relationship with the Bible's narrative passages—especially the gospel stories—that's a kind of a friendship? Is there a way to make peace and find friendship with those stories and find yourself included? What if we get to explore the heart of God through these stories? Using imagination and prayer is a way of heightening our sense of awareness and emotional identification in our prayer experience. It has been a normal part of Christian spirituality through the centuries, but it was brought into prominence by St. Ignatius of Loyola in his famous book of spiritual guidance The Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius and through his follower St. Francis de Sales’ book Introduction to the Devout Life.Praying with our imagination suits the character of the scriptural stories. Stories are not abstract, conceptual discussions. Any good storyteller will draw the listeners into identifying with the story through the use of contextual detail and dialogue. And the Bible just happens to be full of stories!