July 21, 2009 marked the official release of a new disc by Alana Levandoski, a singer-songwriter with a significant saint ben’s connection.

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very now and then on a Sunday evening, as we sing the opening contemplative song, I’ll hear this voice grabbing hold of some bit of harmony, and I’ll know that Alana is in town.  Most Sundays find her either in her home town of Kelwood, located a couple of hours west of the city, or out on the road on tour.  Whenever she can be in the city, though, she’s with us… and even when she’s miles away she keeps in touch with these great e-mails marked by delightfully quirky and insightful observations.

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Music, Turntable | No Comments »

This is the fourth in a series of sermons preached by Jamie Howison dealing with the figure of David; with the way in which his life speaks into, and sometimes unsettles, the life of the people of God.

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n the first three sermons in this series, we encountered a figure who sparks the imagination of the church – the boy marked to be king; the one who trusts God rather than the armor of kings as he dares to contend with Goliath; the musician-poet who dares to sing the blues.

But tonight?  Tonight we hit a piece of the narrative that probably caused you to choke a bit.  Did you hear it as we read the passage from 2 Samuel 5?  ‘Whoever wishes to strike down the Jebusites, let him get up the water shaft to attack the lame and the blind, those whom David hates.’  Really?  This is the David said to be a man after God’s own heart, yet he hates the lame and the blind?

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Church, Writing | 3 Comments »

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s your people our treatment of the planet is causing irreparable damage; you gifted us this place that we call home to live on, and have charged us to care for it.  We are not doing a very good job. Our greed has created weather systems that ravage areas of the world.  Tonight we lift to you the 300,000 people who have been displaced by the flooding in China and Vietnam.  Over-farming is creating a threat to wetlands in Brazil, over-fertilization is killing our own Lake Winnipeg.  Help us to pay attention to the delicate balances that hold the ecosystems in place, convict us of our greed and correct our entitlement attitude.
Lord, in your mercy…

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Prayer | No Comments »

Church, music and art

This is the second installment of the Conversation Series audio, recorded in March 2007 (part one was posted here last week). In this final episode, Jamie Howison gives a summary of the opening session, Steve Bell offers a look into his own experience of the music world and Andrew Beaujon delivers a second presentation stemming from his written work.

There are three ways to hear this presentation (runs 38:57):

• click on the arrow below
• use the podcast widget in the left sidebar
• click here to download the episode from iTunes

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Events, Podcast | No Comments »