This past weekend my wife and I attended http://www.imadon.org/

I joined hundreds of people who walked by and watched art in progress as various artist in various categories competed with each other. People from all walks of life took time out of their weekend to go to Wortley village and join in the experience. I meet dozens of people, young families, artist, bikers and such. The entire mosaic that is London was out in full force.

But the greatest part of the experience for me was the involvement of the Anglican Church. The previous years exhibition had always been held downtown, right by the JLC http://www.johnlabattcentre.com/ This year though St James Westminster http://www.saintjameswestminster.ca/main.php hosted the event in their parking lot.

What an incredible and simple way to reach out to hundreds of people, to let them know where the local church is and who we are. A truly unique, impressive and simple action of hospitality managed to also be an incredible act of outreach and evangelism.

Could it have been better? Perhaps…a bbq selling hotdogs and hamburgers, free water and music all day long would have helped. Opening the church proper to allow access to washrooms could have been a good gesture. But regardless of what could have been, it was still rather impressive and a joy to witness.

Was anyone converted that day? Probably not, but hundreds of people will remember where St James is and how they hosted a civic event.

A seed planted.