Author Archives: missiono
May Announcements
Spring PrayerWalk – Easter to Pentecost
They’re off! Some of our keenest prayerwalkers have already started praying through the streets of Ottawa. They didn’t even wait for Palm Sunday!
This Spring we are hoping to double or triple the number of prayer routes covered in our city.
Get all the details here.
Download the bulletin insert for your church.
Glad We’re Neighbours
Our Mission O team is committed to mobilizing believers to be good neighbours. That’s why we encourage congregations to prayer-walk the streets of their neighbourhood. Rick and Linda Reed from the Metropolitan Bible Church share below what happens when people start reaching out to their neighbours …
Glad We’re Neighbours
He determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live.” Acts 17:26
Living on a street can bring Life. It has on our street; and on other streets as well.
Lori Nash lived to influence others. Her life impacted politicians, municipal governments and all who loved her. But her life was most influenced by a neighbour.
While walking their dogs, Lori met Erica.* After some friendly chats, Erica invited Lori to a women’s Bible study. Though Lori thought she knew all the answers, she realized she needed to invite Jesus to live personally in her life. She wondered, “How could I have missed this all my life!” At Lori’s recent memorial service, her faith was shared with a room full of important people. All because of a neighbour.
On our street, we watched as God also changed the lives of two of our neighbours. Ludwig and Eliza came to Canada from Poland after the horrors of World War II. One day, over our garbage cans at the curb, Eliza said, “We’re ready to go with you.” With some quick and major adjustments to join God in what He was doing, we were at Alpha five hours later. Ludwig often told our neighbours and his friends, “I have been born again!” Both Ludwig and Eliza have gone to Glory in the past month.
What if we didn’t live on these streets? Where would these friends be now?
Dear friend, God chose you to represent Him on your street. Rise, like Daniel, and pray at your windows for your neighbours. You’ll never know how much God wants to bring new Life to your neighbourhood.
*Erica is the wife of Brian Wilkie, a warm-hearted pastor in Rockland, Ontario.
Rick and Linda Reed
Metropolitan Bible Church
Check out our Prayer Walk Ottawa page for updates on how prayerwalking is changing our city.
2011 Year End Summary from our Chair – Ken Roth
Dec. 21, 2011
Dear Mission O co-workers,
As we come to the close of another year and celebrate the first coming of the Prince of Peace and look forward to His world transforming return, I would like to share with you some of the things that Mission O has been working on. Since Mission O functions like a voluntary cooperative that seeks to help pastors, Christian leaders and churches work together to transform our city, we wanted to share with you the progress that we see we have been able to make together.
Please follow this link to read the rest of this Letter from Ken Roth
Alan Hirsch Videos
We had a wonderful day with Alan Hirsch on Nov. 22nd, 2011. If you missed it you can still watch a number of short videos that will allow you to capture some of the essence of his message for the 21st Century Church.
Dreaming of a Prayer-saturated City
We gathered 20 prayer leaders at the beginning of 2011 to share their dreams about how we could see Ottawa saturated with prayer. Here’s a list of 75 ideas that we came up with …
Dreams we have for a prayer-saturated city
A Prayer Leadership Team that would catalyze and support many other specific teams that would take on some of these projects.
An Ottawa House of Prayer (for the city)
A Missions Prayer Base
Prayer Walking of every street in Ottawa
Prayer Adoption of every street in Ottawa
Measurable results in areas like crime reduction.
A City Hall Prayer Team
Connectedness through a well-developed Communications System which would include every congregation in the City.
A Research group
A Creative Arts Community that prays
Situational Prayer using “Art Stations”
Prayer Booths at every celebratory event throughout the year. Eg. Canada Day, Jazz Fest, Winterlude
Prayer Help phone line
Website offering prayer
Prophetic “Listening and Seeing” team
SWAT teams (Strategic Warfare for special sites)
Prayer Assemblies
-Days of Prayer
- Week of Prayer
Prayer Walls,
24-7 weeks or weekends.
The Burn in Ottawa
Global Day of Prayer with huge buy-in from the Church
- Large Venue gatherings (like City-Wide)
- Regional Gatherings
-“Ushering In the Presence of the Lord” kind of prayer resulting in an anointing for HEALING throughout the city
Healing Rooms around the city
Greater and Greater Annual Civic Prayer Breakfasts
Introducing the New Servant Leadership Team
On Thursday, Sept.16 (which happened to be Rosh Hashanah, the beginning of the Jewish New Year), a new Servant Leadership Team was commissioned by a gathering of about 60 people, which included several who had served on the team in the past. The 12 members of the new team each shared why they felt God was calling them to help give leadership in the National Capital Region. The team represents a cross-section of pastors, marketplace leaders, ages, denominations, genders, ethnicities, regions and experiences.
The team: Kerry Kronberg, Cornelius Babalola, Linda Reed, Darren Milley, Dave Harder, Daniel Avitan, Mike Miedema, Barry Boucher, Richard Long, Lynn Fraser, Wayne Webster, Ken Roth. Please click here for their contact information.
The first meeting was held this past week. They will also be meeting with Tom White, who is a city-reaching consultant on Oct. 20th. We are taking a fresh look at where we believe the Lord is leading us in this city. We will be taking a serious look at the ideas that were generated at the two Open Forums held in the spring and are looking for people who are willing to help put legs under them. We very much value your continued prayers for we know that our battle is not against flesh and blood. If you have input to give us, know of others who should be added to our mailing list, or would like to get involved in the hands-on work, please let one of us know. For the present, Ken Roth will continue as interim chair.
Open Forums Feedback
A big thanks to all who attended our Open Forums meetings held in April and May. The enthusiasm was tangible and very encouraging.
At the first meeting we identified nine big ideas that surfaced in response to the question: How can a city-wide effort in Ottawa do a better job of reaching the city? In the second one we drilled down into those ideas by breaking up into groups that wanted to focus on any one of those particular ideas. There were some very exciting plans of action that were suggested. It was interesting to note that the first Open Forum focused more on authentic relationships and transformational prayer, and the second one on intentional mission.
The other purpose of the Open Forums was to help us identify who are the people that God is raising up with a heart for leading the city church movement forward. Not only with authentic relationships and transformational prayer, but also towards more intentional mission. Several names were submitted and several others volunteered to help in various ways. The present Servant Leadership Team is now drafting up a proposed new leadership team that will have at least two of the former members continuing on, along with ten other names. We are seeking to develop a team that will have a wide cross-section of people representing various regions, cultures, genders, ages, ministries and abilities. We will be approaching them to talk about serving on such a team. Then, we will send out the list in August for feedback from anyone wishing to make comments in regards to that list. On Thursday, September 9th, at 7:00 pm, in the Bromley Baptist gym, we will hold a general meeting of interested people to affirm this new leadership team and pray God’s anointing upon them as they seek the Lord’s direction for implementing some of the ideas we discussed.
Please pray to the Lord of the Harvest that He will choose and send out those who He has given the heart, ability, character and time to devote to helping the church in the National Capital Region advance God’s kingdom-come-purposes for our city.
Ken Roth
Mission O Servant Leadership Chair
Five Most Important Questions You Will Ever Ask About Your Ministry
This is an area most ministers are reluctant to engage in. We are willing to wax eloquent about the spiritual realities of our ministries but unable to be concrete with the practical aspects. It is here we learn to be honest with ourselves and to share our successes and failures with other ministers with whom we have a trust relationship, allowing them to ask us the questions others are too timid to ask.
God is challenging us to build our ministries within a culture of honour as Jesus did with His disciples. He loved them just the way they were, but loved them enough not to leave them the way they were. Jesus often asked questions of His disciples and He does the same with us today.
Here are the five most important questions to ask or be asked regarding what we do as ministers. We must clearly understand the question being asked of us and be frank with our answer.
EXERCISE
Think of a fellow minister, sitting at your kitchen table, having a coffee and asking the following questions of you. How would you answer?
1. What is YOUR mission?
2. Who are YOU interested in reaching?
3. What do the people YOU are trying to reach want?
4. What are YOUR results to date?
5. What is YOUR plan?
