Place of Meeting

A time of new beginnings

Toronto United Mennonite Church April 2016

On Easter Sunday, many of us gathered by the lakeshore at sunrise to mark the Resurrection,and the renewed life that is ours in Christ. March was a time of many new beginnings, includingthe completion and furnishing of Aurora House and the arrival of our latest refugee family. Moreinside.

Place of Meetingis the meaning of the Huron word

“toronton,” from which our city gets itsname. Fittingly, it can also mean

“plenty” or “abundance.”

Place of Meeting is also the monthlynewsletter of Toronto United Mennon-ite Church. May you find plenty here toenjoy and ponder. Opinions expressedare those of the writers and notnecessarily of the congregation as a

whole.

Contributions of all kinds are enthusiastically received, through the

mail folder in the lobby or atdmartens@pathcom.com

Next deadline:April 26

Have you discovered the all-colour on-line version of Place of Meeting, com-

plete with live weblinks? Check thismonth’s issue out here:

issuu.com/pomeditor/docs/pom_april_2016l

NOTE: New address for submissions:

dmartens4@cogeco.ca

Editor: Doreen Martens

Scene around TUMC

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Top: Little hands help with furnishing Aurora House (photo byShelley Lepp). Centre: worship can be exhausting! Above: Diemand Liam share a common (cozy) fashion sense.

Upcoming Worship Events

April 3 - Taize service, 7-8 p.m. April 17 - Guest speaker Stuart Murray,author of "The Naked Anabaptist"May 1 - Taize service, 7-8 p.m.May 15 - PentecostJune 5 - Taize service, 7-8 p.m.June 10-12 - TUMC retreat at Silver Lakecamp - no service at TUMCJune 19 - Start of the summer schedule

The middle phase of the building project continues to be busyas the committee works on various aspects of the project.

Change OrdersAlthough the plans on which the design and pricing were basedare quite detailed, various issues arise when the foundations areexcavated, walls are taken down, or ducts moved. The committeeis reviewing about a dozen small changes, from window sizes tothe nature of the Lark Street sidewalk ramp and whether the citywill permit bike rings on 6 Lark St. Our most significant changeorder, enhanced foundation support for the second story addition,has been completed. The city has agreed that neither a sprinklersystem in the new addition nor a two-hour fire separation betweenthe old building and the addition is needed. The details and costof the required replacement, an enhanced smoke and heat detec-tion system, are still pending. Overall completion is still sched-uled for mid-July.

Lark StreetThe 6 Lark house has been completed. Perhaps you had the op-portunity see the renovations during the open house on March 20.Some minor work, such as adding air conditioning, remains to bedone in the spring.

Work with the Property CommitteeThe addition and renovation of the building has enlarged the rolesof all of the groups involved in the building. The New Life Centreand New Life Church have been very helpful in accommodatingthe construction disruption and offering temporary office spaceduring relocations of staff. Christian Education has also given upclassroom space for temporary office use. The role of the JointManagement Committee and the Property Committee in dealingwith building issues outside of the work directly involved in therenovation has been significant. Examples include the sound sys-tem, door intercoms, sump pump, and roof repair. Donny Cheung,representing the TUMC Board, has attended Building Committeemeetings to make sure the connection between property mainte-nance and new construction is smooth.

Design Features By the time you read this the construction of the steel superstruc-ture should have begun. The outlines of the remodeled first andsecond floor are now clearly visible. We are also planningchanges to the front of the sanctuary based on strong support forthese renovations when we started the project. We will cover theright alcove (right when facing the front) while enlarging and let-ting more light into the centre alcove.

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Beyond the plywood:A report from the Building Committee

Finances

Expected Income (as of June 2015)Funds raised before pledge campaign $ 16,878Pledges 1,040,691Mortgage – spending plan 262,000Mortgage – 6 Lark rent net income 197,000Total $1,516,569

Forecast Expenses (March 2016)6 Lark $ 433,0231774 Queen 1,129,321Total $1,562,344

The forecast total above reflects a relatively small shortfall of about $46,000. We expect to cover part of this short-fall by having lower costs on some of the change orders. The estimated cost of the smoke and fire alarm systemcosts is still preliminary; we are forecasting a relatively large cost and hope it will be less. We also plan to use lessexpensive materials in some areas, such as folding doors in the first floor meeting room. It appears as well that theoperating costs for 6 Lark will be lower than first forecast, resulting in larger net income that could support a slightlylarger mortgage. Also, some of you have donated more money to the building project than you had pledged, whichcould be used to increase our initially estimated income.

SummaryMany persons are involved in implementing this complex project. Besides the committee, our architect MelanaJanzen, the finance committee, the design committee, our staff and the staff of our building partners, as well as vol-unteers on Property Committee and JMC are all involved. Your prayers and financial support continue to be essen-tial. Thank you for your support in all these ways.

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The window bay and theexpanded cross niche willbe filled with coloured reflected natural light.

The future expanded lobby/meeting room area.

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Aurora House: Revealed!

As HGTV-style “big reveals” go, maybe itwasn’t so much –– after all, many TUMC-ers have had a hand in designing, clean-ing, painting, furnishing and otherwiseworking to make Aurora House a reality.But the open house on Palm Sunday wasstill a great chance to see the completedhouse in its entirety, and imagine it serv-ing soon as a cozy and safe home for vic-tims of human trafficking.

If you haven’t checked out TUMC’s new websiteyet, you’re in for a pleasant surprise. The newlook, based on a Wordpress platform, is cleaner,

brighter, easy on the eyes and more modern looking.It’s also “responsive”, meaning that that images, textand various widgets and menus on the page will auto-matically shift around to accommodate different for-mats. It looks equally great on a laptop, desktop widescreen, a tablet or cellphone held horizontally –– orvertically. (Try it out for yourself!)

Our old website, which came online in the fall of2009, was based on a Joomla platform that was nolonger supported after Jan. 1, which hastened plans toreplace it with something more up to today’s stan-dards. Big thanks are due to Donny Cheung, whoworked with outside web designer Dave Chodos tocome up with a new design and to do the consider-able work involved in transferring all the old materi-als, such as about eight years’ worth of sermons, tothe new site. You should find be able to find justabout anything you need on the new site, especiallythanks to –– ta da! –– the new built-in search engine,which pops up on every page.

Another feature that’s really nice is the calendar,which is much more readable than the old one. Up-coming events are listed on the right side of the homepage (or at the bottom if you’re looking at it on asmall screen). If you want to see the whole month ata glance, just click on the title Upcoming Events oron the Events tab at the top, and a colour-coded gridwill pop up. (Unfortunately, the grid doesn’t work ontablet or mobile, but you will still see daily listings.)Click on any event to get more details about it.

The new website accommodates embedded video(check out the Our Beliefs page for an example), al-lows us to use photos in a splendid way, and is gener-ally much easier and more intuitive to operate,meaning that anyone authorized to do so can easilycontribute to or manage certain pages –– for instance,committee chairs.

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tumc.ca: Not your grandpa’s website

Information of a more confidential nature,such as minutes, or that contains personal in-formation, such as the church directory, re-mains in the login-only section of the websiteso it’s not available to the general public.

(A reminder that TUMC’s privacy policy al-lows people who do not wish their names orphotos to appear on the website and/or in aprinted directory to make that request via anopt-out form available through the church of-fice. Except for staff, people in photos ap-pearing on the public website are neveridentified by name, for privacy and safetyreasons.)

Every regular attender at TUMC should haveaccess to the full site, so you can pull upthings like duty rosters, up-to-date email ad-dresses and budget reports. If you were regis-tered before, or never did get around to it, it’seasy to register for the new site. All it takes isto visit tumc.ca, click “log-in” under theTUMC Community tab, then Join Us. Fill inthe registration information, choosing yourown password. Click the box to verify you’renot a robot, then click Register, and you’redone. As soon as Mike DeHaan, our officeadministrator, verifies that you’re an author-ized user, you’ll be able to see everything onthe site.

Over the next few months, we will continueto update old content on the site. Our newtechnical webmaster is Mark Andrews. (Talkto Mark about getting authorized/trained tocontribute to the website.) Mike and DoreenMartens will continue as content administra-tors –– Mike with more day-to-day things,such as announcements, schedules and min-utes, and Doreen with more permanent con-tent. If you have comments or suggestions,please let one of us know.

Good church websites are continually re-freshed, and we’re doing our best to make itworth your while to visit tumc.ca –– and tomake it a welcoming portal for people seek-ing a church home. Tell your friends!

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tumc.ca: Not your grandpa’s website

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Hosanna, blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!

Children played a big role in this year’s PalmSunday service, from the traditional proces-sion to a performance by the kids’ choir. Later,they were invited to recall Jesus washing thefeet of his disciples by “washing” the hands ofothers with sanitizer.

Reflecting on the Crucifixion

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Journeying around the church building, familieswho attended Good Friday’s morning service ex-perienced the story of the Crucifixion in an expe-riential way, from hand-washing and symbolicLord’s Supper in the Upper Room to reflectivelywalking a labyrinth in the basement.

Reflecting on the Crucifixion

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Participants were invited to help make a muralthat would be revealed as a sunrise scene of thecross on Easter Sunday; and, as Pastor Micheletold the story of the burial, to be anointed withsweet smelling oil.

In the bilingual evening service, below, quiet song and a dramatic tellingof the Passion story were accompanied by a service of Communion.

Hallelujah! He is risen!

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For those who braved a chilly but bril-liant dawn on Easter morning, the sun-rise service was a beautiful way toremember the Resurrection and the feastof fish and bread (salmon and bannock)that the risen Jesus prepared for his dis-ciples.

Singing, prayer, passing the peace and asteaming early morning picnic.

Hallelujah! He is risen!

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Glorious music featuring brassand strings, as well as theEaster choir, made for a memo-rable Easter worship service,with the fellowship time high-lighted by the traditional paskaEaster breads and other sym-bols of the season.

Scenes from a GERMy retreat

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TUMC’s Junior Youth group, affectionally known as theGERMS, spent the last weekend of February togetherwith Pastor Michele and sponsors in a cozy house atCrieff Hills, enjoying the best of winter with the tradi-tional boxball free-for-all, learning, and building com-munity. Photos by Michele Rizoli.

Scenes from a retreat

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Scenes from a retreat

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