Let us pray: O God of blessing and of challenge, may these words I speak be a blessing where they need to be a blessing and a challenge where challenge is required, and may I be open to both blessing and challenge as I speak them. Amen.

    When Steve and I first got together to begin work on this shared service of worship, I must admit that I was a bit daunted by the prospect of putting together something with my new friend and colleague. We are both new to this particular place and to the north in general. What could I contribute to this joint experience that would be appropriate? We met two weeks ago and started to bat around a few ideas, but it was clear that we weren’t quite ready to come up with something just yet. It was going to take a couple of further get-togethers. The first meeting ended up being a productive conversation about our various experiences and observations after having lived here for the grand total of a month. I guess it takes a certain amount of Chutzpah on our part to think that we could expound on something so new to each of us after so little a bit of time here in this place. However, it is part of our training and experience, as well as, at least for me, and I can only assume it is true for Steve, a part of who I am as a person called to work in ministry, a part of my makeup, to engage in analysis of the things that are happening, the way that community is formed and the way that society in any given place is constructed. It is both a gift and a hindrance to be so new in a place. It is a gift because I come here with new eyes - eyes that are ready to experience the newness of this place for myself, to have the experience of a newcomer in a place where I have chosen to live on a permanent basis. I won’t be able to have this experience again in Yellowknife, so I had better use it wisely. Perspective is both a blessing and a challenge in itself. There are some of you who will be thinking - “who do these two people think they are, coming here to tell us about ourselves” and you are right. We do need to spend a bit of time in a place to really understand it, but I would also suggest that we are able to see this place in a way that many of you have experienced in the past, but can’t do now, unless you, like us, have been here for only a few weeks. Context is extremely important, but so is the freshness of being a new person in a new place. And so, given the example of the scripture passages that we heard this morning, here are some of the blessings and challenges we have gleaned in our short time here. Paul invited the Thessalonian Christians to encourage one another, and so we hope that the blessings we name will be words of encouragement to you, two congregations, but part of one body in this place. We also hope that the challenges we describe will be seen as blessings as well. Jesus challenged the disciples with his parable of the talents, giving them something new to think about, and new insights about how they could reorganise their lives of faith. So, in the spirit of encouragement and new challenge, we offer these reflections as two neophyte northerners, graced by God to be analysts of the places where we are, but also to be recipients of the collected wisdom and insights that come with every new place we live.

Blessing Sharing space in this innovative and busy place - a place where community gathers and where community is formed from all the various groups that come here. A place where the spirit is present in the various activities, educational experiences and workshops, regular gatherings of children, youth and adults that take place here. A spiritual presence in the midst of everyday work lives. I’m glad that there are signs on the door indicating that this is a worship home for two congregations. It is not an overt spiritual dimension, but it is a spiritual dimension. It is also a blessing that two different but compatible congregations gather here for worship on Sunday morning.

    From my vast experience of being a Yellowknifer for all of forty-four days, I can say that the north brings with it its own blessings. It is both different to live here but also the same. We’ve already started defending the north in our conversations with southern friends. Hardly an event goes by where someone doesn’t mention “the north”, in other words, we know where we are because we keep being reminded of it, but it is also like a best-kept secret - that life goes on rather normally here - just like it does in many other communities in our country.

    There is an adventurous spirit here - I’ve experienced it most in the sense that there seems to be a willingness to learn from past mistakes made and given that there is still a lot developing in the north, to put forward best practices, and also not be afraid to make things begin the way we could only hope to have them in southern communities. There is an opportunity here to start things right in the first place. That to me sounds a bit like the promise of building a new Jerusalem, or the opportunity to establish the kingdom of God on earth from scratch. I know that adventurous spirit has been cultivated by the true adventurers who came here from somewhere else, but its not confined to that kind of people. There were also people living here all along - and that’s an adventure of another kind - the ability to make a life here in what can be a harsh land, but tied to the land because it is home. Many people have made it home, but it was also home to many before the others came.