NEWS RELEASE: Weston again supports Gospel Mission

Vancouver church, showers project is again “President’s Choice”

(Vancouver, Dec. 8, 2010) -- For the second year in a row, Gospel Mission and The Lord’s Rain are receiving a timely infusion of support from a major Canadian philanthropic organization. The W. Garfield Weston Foundation has made a donation of $3,000.00 to help the Mission. This grant, presented to the Mission by Trustee Mark W. Mitchell, follows a $15,000.00 donation received in 2009 as part of a one-time, special initiative to assist charities in surviving the global economic downturn, when support from “usual sources” might be expected to decline.

Founded in 1929, Gospel Mission is a combined church and street outreach. Since the 1940s, it has been housed in an 1888 brick building that was originally a saloon. In 2007, the Mission took over a ground-floor space in the same building to construct The Lord’s Rain, which provides showers for people in the area who need them. A letter from Trustee Wendy Rebanks, who put forward this 2010 grant, notes that since The Lord’s Rain opened in April 2008, it has become “a community gathering place, where people can escape from the street and find friendly conversation”.


“To say we’re grateful is an understatement,” says Assistant Pastor Drew Snider. “Gospel Mission and The Lord’s Rain have been built over the years by a variety of people bringing a variety of ‘offerings to the storehouse’ – what they can, as they can. Contributions like these from The W. Garfield Weston Foundation, combined with those from individuals and churches, let our friends here know that a lot of people from a lot of different walks of life are right behind them in their struggle.”


The W. Garfield Weston Foundation is a private Canadian family foundation, established in the 1950’s by Willard Garfield Weston and his wife Reta. In 1924 Garfield inherited his father’s company and during his life established bakeries and other successful enterprises throughout Canada and in many parts of the world. Today, these businesses include the George Weston Limited and Loblaw Companies Limited, companies in food retailing, processing and distribution. The founders believed that as the funds are generated through the hard work and success of these Canadian companies, grants should be given in Canada for the benefit of Canadians. For three generations, The W. Garfield Weston Foundation has maintained a family tradition of supporting charitable organizations across Canada. Today the Foundation directs the majority of its funds to projects in the fields of land conservation, education, and science in Canada’s North.


Gospel Mission is an all-volunteer organization covered by the Apostolic Church of Pentecost of Canada. It is cross-denominational in its approach: a church for those uncomfortable going to church. The Lord’s Rain offers what senior pastor Barry Babcook calls “Jesus with the skin on”. Gospel Mission services are Sunday afternoons and Monday, Tuesday, Friday and Saturday evenings with meals served after each. Wednesday is Bible study and Thursday night is movie night. Services are also shown via closed-circuit TV in The Lord’s Rain, to accommodate people with disabilities.


The Lord’s Rain is currently open early Tuesday and Saturday mornings, Monday and Friday in the early afternoon, with a goal of opening six days a week in the early morning to give people a place to go when the shelters turn them out: this depends on volunteers stepping forward. Anyone interested in volunteering may contact the Mission via the website or by phone (604-684-3097).

Contact Drew Snider 604-803-3199

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What's in a name?

What a great day.

We received the cheque today from The W. Garfield Weston Foundation -- $15,000, which for Gospel Mission / The Lord's Rain, will go a very long way in doing what we're called to do on the Downtown East Side.

Mark Mitchell, a third-generation Weston and director of the Foundation, came to the Mission along with Carlo Fierro, manager of the Superstore at Rupert and Grandview Highway, where we do a lot of our shopping (Barry buys a lot at the Real Canadian Wholesale Club, too, which is also owned by the Weston Family). Sherry Chen and her shooter, Dennis, came from BCIT to cover the presentation, as did Teddy Huang from CTV.

Teresa and her crew had done a wonderful job of repainting inside the chapel upstairs; as I mentioned before, Barry and some others had done more work on the drywalling at the back. Aside from some newly donated clothes which hadn't been put away, the place looked great.

Chet Lalonde seized the moment to shave and put on a tie.

We showed Mark around The Lord's Rain and up into Gospel Mission upstairs.
Amelia took great pride in showing off the kitchen -- a tribute to the people who work back there while the service is going on -- the Mission is truly a team operation. In his remarks for the cameras, Mark paid us some nice compliments while I took the opportunity to say that I hoped the special fund set up by the Westons to help organizations that help feed and clothe the needy make it through the economic downturn would inspire other such foundations to step up their giving at this time.

L-R Mark Mitchell, self & Carlo Fierro

But there was one little "off" note that got me thinking. When CTV aired the story on the 5:00 news, they referred to us as Union Gospel Mission.

Oops.

I called the assignment desk and the young man there apologized profusely. I didn't catch the latter part of the newscast, so I couldn't see if they made the correction there; the story didn't air on the 6:00 package.

I have to admit, I'd had high hopes for a good story on CTV. It was Peter Grainger's story on CTV back in February 2008, which mentioned the theft of some tools from the jobsite, that led to one of God's "grandstand plays", to show that He was ordaining and providing for this "Next Level" ministry on the Downtown East Side. Janet Dirks, who's now the Alberta bureau chief, has been a big supporter from Day One. So it was a little off-putting to hear that they had gotten us mixed up.

I do go out of my way to let people know that we're two different organizations, largely out of courtesy to UGM; it's an important distinction on both sides, because, while we have similar names, so do Michael and Larry Jordan and, well, those two brothers are JUST a bit different*.

Gospel Mission was founded in 1929, more than a decade before UGM came along. I know there were "discussions" about the name similarities over the years, but those, I understand, are pretty much lost to memory.

So what is in a name?

Why wouldn't we change our name to something like "Carrall Street Church", which is the "secondary" name on our legal documents, to avoid confusion and possibly a lot of lost donations as people think they're giving to one organization but are really giving to another?

It's simple: "Gospel Mission" is the name God gave the Work He ordained through the Apostolic Church of Pentecost back in 1929. To change the name would be to second-guess God. To change the name would be to change the assignment He gave us when we have no right to do so.

To use a tired advertising cliche, The Name Says It All. It's a Mission. It spreads the Gospel.

Would we change the name to avoid confusion and not miss out on contributions? That would be a purely fleshly consideration. If people don't know the difference between the two ministries, whose problem is that? God's? Or ours?







Now, at this point, I was about to fall into the sar-chasm** about media coverage, except that the Lord is right now checking me about being ungrateful towards the media. After all, He's reminding me, it was the media -- like Peter on CTV (not to mention Pamela Martin's ad lib that it would be nice if someone stepped forward to help us), Cheryl Rossi at the Courier, my friends at CityTV, Clint Nickerson and Jen Palma at Global, Rick Cluff at CBC, Robert Groulx on Radio-Canada, Al Siebring at the Cowichan Valley Times and George Orr at BCIT -- who gave us vital ink and airtime when we were getting started.







What matters, He says, is that He knows the difference and He blesses us both in different ways. What matters is that Gospel Mission has succeeded because we're true to the assignment reflected in the name. What matters is that God has tapped people on the shoulder -- from The W. Garfield Weston Foundation, hectoring on other Foundations to keep giving even in tough times, to the anonymous donor who handed me a horse-choking wad of cash when he saw Peter's story, to the young boy who gave us $46 he'd collected through bottles and odd jobs because he couldn't bear to think of the people on the street with no food -- to let them know we have a need and they can fill it. And most importantly, the people on the street know who we are.







And that's what's in the name.


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*According to Answers.com, MJ idolized his older brother to the extent that he chose #23 as his jersey number with the Bulls because Larry wore #45 and he wanted to be half the man his brother was. I saw Larry play for the Chicago Express in the late-unlamented World Basketball League (I was PA announcer for the Vancouver Nighthawks): wonderful player - but at 5'8", well, you do the math.

**That's a neomorphologism meaning to utter one cynical remark, which leads to another ... and another ... until you're out of control and into a festival of negativity. That's an original. You're welcome to it.