June 29th - Replay

Due to car problems, our guest speaker John was not able to come and had to reschedule. So instead, we sat down with some coffee and spoke about how we understand God to be at work in the world, and evaluated the value of words like "intervention", "interaction", and "process". The idea that if God was indisputably evident, it would sabotage the work of faith, also came up. We then evaluated Charles Williams' phrases of co-inherence: that in all things "This also is Thou" and "Neither is this Thou".
Finally, we had another guest drop in named Christina Chaput. She is a PAOC missionary to the Slovak town of Nitra, and was only in Edmonton for one day but dropped in to visit Sol, and ended up sharing about a project that she is working on: A coffee shop in Nitra where people can come and find out about Jesus. You can find more out about Christina here.

Sunday, June 29

This Sunday, Sol Cafe will be gathering at Cafe Dabar (10816 Whyte Ave) at 4:00ish to hear from a special guest speaker John Pattison. He's coming to speak about his overseas work, and to share generally on a Christian's response to helping the poor in developing countries, linking the human element (Christ's call to love and help the poor) with the environmental element (stewardship issues). It's also called "peoplekeeping" and "earthkeeping", which John has been doing in Uganda.

Please keep in mind that we have changed our regular meeting time from 5:00pm to 4:00pm in order to better accomodate for families.

Hope to see you there!

Play by play: June 22nd

We met together around 5ish at Sol Cafe to discuss, pray, reflect, and learn.

In the first round, there was a recap on our family meeting two weeks ago. It was brought up that maybe we could open ourselves up to teaching/preaching during the year by advertising with seminaries and colleges around the city. We also spoke about our visibility within the Edmonton community, and discussed different ways to let people know we exist.

During the second round of the bout, Sol decided that due to the summer solstice passing, we have to readjust our church clock and start meeting an hour earlier at 4 o'clock. If this logic makes no sense to you, you should come and find out who we are, and it suddenly will all come together.

In the third round, Shirley shared about her journey this past week, and spoke movingly about the need for vulnerability and honesty within community. Communion was then shared, after reading the classic passage from 1 Corinthians 11.

In the fourth round, Bethany took us back in time to the Council of Nicea and the great theologian Athanasius. We found out about the huge implications one letter can have if the words you are looking at are "homoousia" and "homoiousia", and saw how one man's faith and perseverance have shaped the Christian faith forever.

In the fifth and final round, Shirley pulled out her guitar and played for us, while we discovered that one of our regulars won't be around for the rest of the summer. We'll miss you Ravenne!

Sunday, June 22

This week, Sol Cafe will be meeting around 5ish at Cafe Dabar (10816 Whyte Ave). We will be celebrating communion, doing a re-cap on our family meeting, hearing from Shirley, and learning a little about one of our predecessors in the faith, Athanasius.

We will also discuss if we should move our meeting time to earlier in the day, as was brought up at our family meeting.

The RCL readings for this week are:

Genesis 21:8-21
Psalm 86:1-10
Romans 6:1b-11
Matthew 10:24-39

Hope to see you there!

Service Sunday - June 15th

This Sunday the Sol Cafe will be gathering at the Ronald McDonald (7726-107 Street) house to do some cooking, cleaning, and baking. The home houses families with sick children, so that they can stay in the city at minimal cost while their children receive medical treatment. We will be changing from our normal meeting time to 4:30 for this week, so that we can get supper on the table by the house's normal dinner time.

The plan is to cook supper for all the families that are staying there, and bake some treats to leave behind. Also, we'll help out with any cleaning or other routine duties that the staff need help with.

Service is an integral part of what we do at Sol Cafe. It is a way for us to look beyond ourselves, and bring tangible help to those who surround us.

We hope to see you at 4:30 at the Ronald McDonald house!

Family Meeting

This week, the Sol Cafe will be getting together around 5ish at Cafe Dabar (10816 Whyte Ave) to have a family meeting, led by Winston, one of our regulars. We will be discussing ideas for the future and addressing some of the changes that are in the air.

The verses for this week from the Revised Common Lectionary are:

Genesis 12:1-9
Psalm 33:1-12
Romans 4:13-25
Matthew 9:9-13, 18-26

These may or may not be included in the discussion, but do take a look at them before you come!

We hope to see you there!