We’re excited for the Upstairs Gathering to begin again on October 4.  After our community consultations last June we’ve been thinking, praying and planning.  A small team was invited by the pastoral staff to help bring leadership to the Upstairs Gathering – this was a need that was articulated clearly in June.  The leadership team is:

Andy Wood, Sean Hogan & Natasha Boone, Derek & Ashley Bergen, Michelle Santschi and Sara & Jonathan Epp.

Together we’re excited for what God has in store for this expression of WCV!  We are also excited to see everyone who regularly finds themselves upstairs, to participate in meaningful ways.  The goal is to facilitate a culture of “everyone get’s to play” and one in which we’re not afraid to “do the stuff”.

There are some defining elements of the Upstairs Gathering that we want to encourage.  Some of these are:

• the spontaneity & flexibility,
• the space for quite, reflective contemplation,
• a sense of togetherness, rawness and vulnerability,
• the ability to practice Kingdom stuff / hands-on discipleship
• a growing sense of expectation for God to show up

These are not necessarily unique to the Upstairs Gathering, but they are what we particularly love and want to continue to develop Upstairs.  We will still worship together, celebrate communion weekly and teach, but it will all be done in the unique flavour we’ve come to love.

For the Fall, we are going to explore WCV’s mission statement:

“We exist to build a safe community that invites all peoples to worship Jesus as they embrace a kingdom lifestyle that extends God’s justice on the earth.”

In particular, we are going to explore what this looks like among our 15 Core Practices (these are simply what following Jesus looks like to us in WCV’s context).  If you find yourself regularly coming to the Upstairs Gathering, don’t be surprised if your asked or invited to contribute in some way – in fact, don’t wait to be asked – if you have something you’d like to do, talk to one of us.  We want this gathering to be one of equipping & practice.  Because it’s smaller, it’s more conducive to this and we want to take advantage of this.

On October 4, we are going to be laying out some of the ways we can all take ownership of this beautiful little gathering.  See you then!