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Advent Message

Hello friends! If you missed reading Dixon’s Advent letter to New Vision family and friends on Sunday, here is his message in video form! (For those wishing to download a PDF version, please click here ). We wish you a Christmas full of love, hope, health and joy!

“It feels like a hard way to start Advent”

New Vision Notes Sat June 17 2023

Sat June 17 2023

  1. The Indigenous Day of Prayer is this Sunday, the Sunday before National Indigenous Peoples Day on June 21. We will take the opportunity tomorrow to celebrate and honour in prayer First Nations, Inuit, and Métis peoples. It is also the Sunday closest to our inaugural day as a congregation June 20, 2014, and Father’s Day. We will be celebrating communion.
  2. Helping the Music Hall get off the ground – consider purchasing tickets and coming to an intimate afternoon performance on Sunday, June 25 at 4 pm  in the Southwest Lounge (in the MacNab addition) given by award winning Indie Folk singer/songwriter Emma Cook. Tickets are a very reasonable $12 or anything more you can afford. For tickets, follow this link. For more about Emma, follow this one. WardIV café and bar is providing bar service. This is a developmental show where the Music Hall figures some things out. You can help the process by helping the Music Hall avoid cancelling the show due to insufficient audience size. We are aiming for 30 tickets.  Hope to see you there!
  3. This evening: Tottering Bi-Ped Theatre presents “Hearing ‘Portraits at an Exhibition’” in our Lower Hall as part of Hamilton Arts Week. FREE at 8 pm. From Tottering Bi-Ped:  “Mimi Han and Trevor Copp have a challenge: you may listen to Classical music, but do you actually hear it? How many minutes at the Symphony pass before you are thinking about your to-do list at home, or wondering about dinner? We know this is incredible music, but what can we do to actually keep our heads into the sound? Drawing from their opposing experiences with Music, Mimi and Trevor conduct a series of experiments to provoke new ways of hearing. Working with Mussorgsky’s ‘Portraits at an Exhibition,’ we will move, smell, see, and feel our way through the music to see if we can find a deeper experience of listening to music.”
  4. A letter Pippa sent to the Spec celebrating A la Mode’s delightful “In the Key of RRR!” concert in the Music Hall at the beginning of June was published this past week.
  5. New Vision Virtual Worship is experiential, participatory, image-rich and collective, just like worship in person at New Vision! Join us on Sunday mornings 10:30 am week to week during the Covid-19 emergency by clicking here. If you want to put the link someplace easy to find each week, here it is: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/782292511. Please share it with others and invite them to a “different” kind of time on Zoom from the usual.
  6. June is also Wesley Urban Ministries’ Case for Kids month. Wesley has created a video to help promote Case for Kids, which raises funds for Wesley’s children youth and family programs.  This is the link to the video!.
  7. We continue our current in-person gathering approach: i) we will form the circle again in the lower hall, distancing the seats by a metre for the time being. ii) people may join the circle if they are willing to wear a mask.
  8. The reason for the masks is that we will allow ourselves to sing, and masking reduces the distance air we expel travels with the increased effort singing.
  9. You can also call in to the gathering on the telephone. Call 1 647 374 4685, then, when prompted, input the Meeting ID 782 292 511 followed by the # sign. Ignore the prompts for Participant ID and Password. You are in when the recorded voice says, “You are in the meeting.” If you can only connect by video on your computer with no audio, you can use the phone connection for audio and the computer connection for visual.

I look forward to seeing you Sunday again, or for the first time –

Rev Ian

New Vision Notes Fri Apr 22 2022

Fri Apr 22 2022

  1. Christ is risen!
  2. Alleluia!
  3. Thank you to everyone who made our Holy Week and Easter celebrations at once moving and so memorable.
  4. With a provincial election nearing the horizon there are a couple of opportunities to become informed on issues through a social justice lens to be had soon.
  5. The Basic Income Now campaign is holding a Zoom meet-up across Ontario to dive into actions to take this election to push Basic Income in each riding. Tuesday Apr 26, 7-8 pm. For more info and to register, click here.
  6. All United Church of Canada Ontarians are invited to a pre-election roundtable Sunday May 1st, 2022 held on zoom from 7 to 9 pm (Eastern) on guaranteed livable income, harm reduction, housing, and long term care reform. For more info and for the zoom link click here.
  7. Public Health still recommends that the best step towards protecting each other is to wear a well-fitted mask, maintain physical distance when possible, staying home if you feel unwell, and ensuring you are fully vaccinated.
  8. Here our current in-person gathering approach: i) we will form the circle again in the lower hall, distancing the seats by a metre for the time being. ii) people may join the circle if they are willing to wear a mask.
  9. The reason for the masks is that we will allow ourselves to sing, and masking reduces the distance air we expel travels with the increased effort singing.
  10. People who are uncomfortable masking will be invited to join the worship gathering by Zoom in the lounge at the south-west corner of the addition on MacNab. There is a flat screen television there that we will hook up to a laptop.
  11. New Vision Worship is experiential, participatory, image-rich and collective, now virtual and in person at New Vision! Join us on Sunday mornings 10:30 am week to week during the Covid-19 emergency by clicking here. If you want to put the link someplace easy to find each week, here it is: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/782292511.
  12. You can also call in to the gathering on the telephone. Call 1 647 374 4685, then, when prompted, input the Meeting ID 782 292 511 followed by the # sign. Ignore the prompts for Participant ID and Password. You are in when the recorded voice says, “You are in the meeting.” If you can only connect by video on your computer with no audio, you can use the phone connection for audio and the computer connection for visual.

Hope to see you Sunday again, or for the first time –

Rev Ian

New Vision Notes Thur Mar 17 2022

Thur Mar 17 2022
1. On St. Patrick’s Day, some notes full of the blarney on why there are no snakes in Ireland:
2. There were never any snakes in Ireland to begin with.
3. There are no signs of snakes in Ireland’s fossil record. In fact, it’s likely that for millennia there weren’t any snakes in either Ireland or Britain, though Britain eventually gained three species of snakes: the Grass Snake, the Adder Snake, and the Smooth Snake.
4. So, how did that happen?
5. During the Ice Age, Ireland and England were too frigid to be suitable habitats for cold-blooded reptiles such as snakes. But then, 10,000 years ago, when the glaciers shifted and land emerges connecting Europe, England, and Ireland, allowing for migration. Animals that did make it to Ireland during this time period included brown bears, lynx, and wild boars.
6. As Popular Science noted, when the glaciers began melting, the land between Ireland and England was covered over 8,500 years ago, but the land between Britain and Europe went underwater 6,500 years ago, allowing more time for snakes to slither over.
7. Of course, we all know that St. Patrick banished snakes from the Emerald Isle in the 5th Century.
8. Don’t we?
9. And here’s the blarney stone.
10. Pandemic capacity limits have been lifted in Ontario. Please come join in on Sunday mornings at 24 Main W!
11. Each organization in the Province must have a safety plan. New Vision will continue to require masks and screening on entrance to our in-person worship gatherings, and those present will maintain 2 metre distance between each person/household to permit in-person singing among those present. This means our capacity limit for the time being continues to be 25 persons.
12. New Vision Virtual Worship is experiential, participatory, image-rich and collective, just like worship in person at New Vision! Join us on Sunday mornings 10:30 am week to week during the Covid-19 emergency by clicking here. If you want to put the link someplace easy to find each week, here it is: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/782292511. Please share it with others and invite them to a “different” kind of time on Zoom from the usual.
13. You can also call in to the gathering on the telephone. Call 1 647 374 4685, then, when prompted, input the Meeting ID 782 292 511 followed by the # sign. Ignore the prompts for Participant ID and Password. You are in when the recorded voice says, “You are in the meeting.” If you can only connect by video on your computer with no audio, you can use the phone connection for audio and the computer connection for visual.
14. Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

Hope to see you Sunday again, or for the first time –
Rev Ian
 

New Vision Notes Thur Nov 25 2021

Thur Nov 25 2021

  1. Advent! And then Christmas! This Sunday is our first of four Advent Sundays: the beginning of a new Christian year.
  2. This Sunday we will ready ourselves for the International Day for People with Disabilities. The annual International Day for People with Disabilities occurs on December 3.
  3. Church Calendars for 2022 are now available as a fundraiser for New Vision.  Please order yours from Arlene Whatmough at 905-527-0383, and she will make arrangements for delivery.  $10. Each and a nice gift to give.
  4. Some tremendous volunteers have taken up the flooring in the former Centenary sanctuary – the Music Hall – as the next step in our social enterprise project. We are planning another work bee for Sunday afternoon, December 5. Come for worship, bring a bag lunch, then we’ll be clearing out furnishings and contents excess to our needs throughout 24 Main W and disposing of them by dumpster, sale or donation. We will also be finishing up removal of the flooring in the Music Hall and making the remaining subfloor good to be walked on.
  5. We are worshipping in a hybrid way — both in-person on our MacNab campus (24 Main W) and virtually on Zoom each Sunday morning live at 10:30 am. Under Step 3 rules we can have up to 25 people in-person at our worship gatherings. There is room for more of us if you’d like to come! If you feel ready to venture out to join in, we will be following all the prescribed protocols for Step 3, including hand-sanitizing, face-masks, 2 metre physical distancing, no congregational singing, and screening questions on arrival. You may be asked if you are double vaccinated but will not be asked for a vaccination passport. If you wish not to answer the question or indicate you have not been vaccinated, you will be invited to accept the use of an N95 mask since it will provide more safety for you and for others attending in person. Entrance will be through the entrance in the middle of the MacNab Street addition. If you have any symptoms of illness, please plan not to attend in person on Sunday morning: come virtually!
  6. New Vision Virtual Worship is experiential, participatory, image-rich and collective, just like worship in person at New Vision! Join us on Sunday mornings 10:30 am week to week during the Covid-19 emergency by clicking here. If you want to put the link someplace easy to find each week, here it is: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/782292511. Please share it with others and invite them to a “different” kind of time on Zoom from the usual.
  7. You can also call in to the gathering on the telephone toll free. Call 1 647 374 4685, then, when prompted, input the Meeting ID 782 292 511 followed by the # sign. Ignore the prompts for Participant ID and Password. You are in when the recorded voice says, “You are in the meeting.” If you can only connect by video on your computer with no audio, you can use the phone connection for audio and the computer connection for visual.

Hope to see you Sunday ~ again, or for the first time ~

Rev Ian

New Vision Notes Sat Nov 13 2021

Sat Nov 13 2021

  1. Tomorrow, Sunday Nov 14 we are recognizing Trans Day of Remembrance during our service with a special presentation. Trans Day of Remembrance occurs Nov 20 each year.
  2. Church Calendars for 2022 are now available as a Fundraiser for New Vision.  Please order yours from Arlene Whatmough at 905-527-0383, and she will make arrangements for delivery.  $10. Each and a nice gift to give.
  3. We’ll be holding our Threshold Partner Commitment Renewal worship gathering on Sunday Nov 21.
  4. Here’s our description of Threshold Partnership.
  5. Our Threshold Partnership practice calls us to renew our Threshold Partner affirmations and commitments once a year. We missed last year because of the pandemic.
  6. This past week we have sent out email notices to those who are Threshold Partners inviting them to renew their commitment for the upcoming year and to attend our worship gathering on November 21 to participate in our annual renewal of the Partnership.
  7. We’ll try to connect in the days ahead directly with newcomers who have not yet been introduced in a personal way to our Threshold Partnership practice with an invitation to join. If we don’t get to you before Nov 21 we will be in touch. People can become Threshold Partners at any time during the year. As well, those who might have decided not to continue as a Threshold Partner in prior years can commit to being one again for the year ahead.
  8. We are worshipping in a hybrid way — both in-person on our MacNab campus (24 Main W) and virtually on Zoom each Sunday morning live at 10:30 am. Under Step 3 rules we can have up to 25 people in-person at our worship gatherings. There is room for more of us if you’d like to come! If you feel ready to venture out to join in, we will be following all the prescribed protocols for Step 3, including hand-sanitizing, face-masks, 2 metre physical distancing, no congregational singing, and screening questions on arrival. You may be asked if you are double vaccinated but will not be asked for a vaccination passport. If you wish not to answer the question or indicate you have not been vaccinated, you will be invited to accept the use of an N95 mask since it will provide more safety for you and for others attending in person. Entrance will be through the Youth Centre entrance on MacNab Street. If you have any symptoms of illness, please plan not to attend in person on Sunday morning: come virtually!
  9. With the new vaccine certificate protocol anyone with a green health card can print and have their vaccine certificate laminated for free at any branch of the Hamilton Public Library. For more info: https://www.hpl.ca/VaccineCertificates
  10. New Vision Virtual Worship is experiential, participatory, image-rich and collective, just like worship in person at New Vision! Join us on Sunday mornings 10:30 am week to week during the Covid-19 emergency by clicking here. If you want to put the link someplace easy to find each week, here it is: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/782292511. Please share it with others and invite them to a “different” kind of time on Zoom from the usual.
  11. You can also call in to the gathering on the telephone toll free. Call 1 647 374 4685, then, when prompted, input the Meeting ID 782 292 511 followed by the # sign. Ignore the prompts for Participant ID and Password. You are in when the recorded voice says, “You are in the meeting.” If you can only connect by video on your computer with no audio, you can use the phone connection for audio and the computer connection for visual.

Hope to see you Sunday ~ again, or for the first time ~

Rev Ian

New Vision Notes Thur Oct 28 2021

Thur Oct 28 2021

  1. We’ll be holding our Threshold Partner Commitment Renewal worship gathering on Sunday Nov 21.
  2. The pandemic blew us off course in our development of this unique way of naming and being a part of and growing together as the New Vision faith community.
  3. We have been focused in the last 18 months on reaching out to people and sustaining connections against the stresses of social distancing and lock downs.  As we all know we experienced ups and downs in this.
  4. Our Threshold Partnership practice calls us to renew our Threshold Partner affirmations and commitments once a year. We missed last year.
  5. Ideally we keep track and ensure that everyone who is currently a Threshold Partner wants to continue as one for the upcoming year.
  6. For those new to our New Vision community, we strive to invite you to become a Threshold Partner after you have attending 3 or 4 of our worship gatherings. Belonging is the most important component of our Threshold Partnership. If you have come three or four Sundays, we want you to know we affirm you.
  7. So what is a Threshold Partner? Find out some more here.
  8. This year we will be sending out email notices to those who are Threshold Partners inviting them to renew their commitment for the upcoming year and to attend our worship gathering on November 21 to participate in our annual renewal of the Partnership.
  9. We’ll try to connect in the days ahead directly with newcomers who have not yet been introduced in a personal way to our Threshold Partnership practice.
  10. You are invited to New Vision’s Charity Craft Collective on Monday, November 1, 2021 from 7-9 pm in the craft room at New Vision. Come and learn knitting or crochet, or practice and level up your skills, with all projects going to charity. All ages welcome. What project and what charity? You decide! Questions should be directed to Liz at: lizmclean.artist@gmail.com
  11. 15 Days of Action…Stop the Sprawl is offering ideas to participate in the final days of the campaign through to November 9th when City Council debates the Urban Boundary Expansion Proposals at their website here.
  12. If you’d like to dance…Open Hearts Theatre https://www.openheartartstheatre.com  is holding a dance class in the lower hall on Wednesdays at 1:30 pm. This is for everyone. Entrance through the east alley door into the lower hall.
  13. We are worshipping in a hybrid way — both in-person on our MacNab campus (24 Main W) and virtually on Zoom each Sunday morning live at 10:30 am. Under Step 3 rules we can have up to 25 people in-person at our worship gatherings. There is room for more of us if you’d like to come! If you feel ready to venture out to join in, we will be following all the prescribed protocols for Step 3, including hand-sanitizing, face-masks, 2 metre physical distancing, no congregational singing, and screening questions on arrival. You may be asked if you are double vaccinated but will not be asked for a vaccination passport. If you wish not to answer the question or indicate you have not been vaccinated, you will be invited to accept the use of an N95 mask since it will provide more safety for you and for others attending in person. Entrance will be through the Youth Centre entrance on MacNab Street. If you have any symptoms of illness, please plan not to attend in person on Sunday morning: come virtually!
  14. With the new vaccine certificate protocol anyone with a green health card can print and have their vaccine certificate laminated for free at any branch of the Hamilton Public Library. For more info: https://www.hpl.ca/VaccineCertificates
  15. New Vision Virtual Worship is experiential, participatory, image-rich and collective, just like worship in person at New Vision! Join us on Sunday mornings 10:30 am week to week during the Covid-19 emergency by clicking here. If you want to put the link someplace easy to find each week, here it is: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/782292511. Please share it with others and invite them to a “different” kind of time on Zoom from the usual.
  16. You can also call in to the gathering on the telephone toll free. Call 1 647 374 4685, then, when prompted, input the Meeting ID 782 292 511 followed by the # sign. Ignore the prompts for Participant ID and Password. You are in when the recorded voice says, “You are in the meeting.” If you can only connect by video on your computer with no audio, you can use the phone connection for audio and the computer connection for visual.

Hope to see you Sunday ~ again, or for the first time ~

Rev Ian

New Vision Notes Wed May 12 2021

Wed May 12 2021

  1. Happy Easter!
  2. Christ is risen.
  3. Indeed. We have two more Sundays of the Easter season ahead of us.
  4. Christ is risen indeed.
  5. I offer my sympathy to each of you as we grieve the death of Bob Marentette. Bob kept our eyes on the vision as we left St. Giles and Centenary. Through his many gifts Bob helped develop what we hoped would develop at New Vision. Bob died last Thursday evening after a period of declining wellness over the last 4 months. We will celebrate his life and bear witness to the resurrection on Saturday, May 15th at 11 am at the worship gathering at this link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86556258281
  6. We will also be live streaming the worship gathering on the New Vision YouTube channel. If you can’t make the gathering, or if the gathering exceeds 100 participant accounts and you can’t be admitted into the gathering, you can get to the live stream by going to our website’s homepage newvisionunited.org. The link to the live stream will be posted there on Saturday morning. Please share the information about how to get to the live stream as widely as you can.
  7. We are celebrating Asian Heritage Month for the whole month of May. This Sunday is our ‘feature presentation’ Sunday of Asian Heritage Month. Our Breaking Open the Word will be led by the Asian Heritage Month planning group.
  8. Saturday Night at the Movies this month will take place on Saturday May 15 at 6 pm. The movie has been chosen by a group of our Asian heritage folks. It is Minari — the story of a  Korean family that started a farm in 1980s Arkansas. It was nominated in this year’s Academy Awards for 6 Oscars including best picture, and won the Oscar for best supporting actress. Not sure how we will watch this together but join at this link https://zoom.us/j/92720992834?pwd=MWNOcVVxWUFGOERPT0d4b0pzc0ZHdz09 and we’ll go from there.
  9. Sunday, May 23 worship will be led by the Worship Committee. Rev. Roni Beharry has accepted our invitation to Break Open the Word. She will be remembered by many New Visioners for giving leadership in our “Starting with Why” and “Ninety Percent of Life” workshops that began our intercultural journey as a faith community. Roni’s theme will be “An  Indo-Caribbean Woman’s Faith.”
  10. All of Ontario, including Hamilton, continues in pandemic lock-down. I am sad to say this means that New Vision folks without access to Zoom will have to wait for a while more to participate in person at 24 Main W in our Zoom worship gathering on Sundays. I know those gathering on Zoom keenly miss those who have been gathering in person. I am looking forward to the day we can meet again in person, and I am sad that this is the second Easter we will not be able to gather in person as a Christian faith community.
  11. New Vision Virtual Worship is experiential, participatory, image-rich and collective, just like worship in person at New Vision! Join us on Sunday mornings 10:30 am week to week during the Covid-19 emergency by clicking here. If you want to put the link someplace easy to find each week, here it is: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/782292511. Please share it with others and invite them to a “different” kind of time on Zoom from the usual.
  12. You can also call in to the gathering on the telephone toll free. Call 1 855 703 8985, then, when prompted, input the Meeting ID 782 292 511 followed by the # sign. Ignore the prompts for Participant ID and Password. You are in when the recorded voice says, “You are in the meeting.” If you can only connect by video on your computer with no audio, you can use the phone connection for audio and the computer connection for visual.

Hope to see you Sunday ~ again, or for the first time ~

Rev Ian