Love Abbotsford – is it happening?

There are two answers to that question, and both are important.

The first answer is “mostly likely, no”. We, as the existing Love Abbotsford planning team, will not be organizing the June event this year as in previous years. Whether it will happen again will depend on the discernment of the Christian city leaders. More explanation is below for those who would like it.

The second answer is “yes!”, we believe there are lots of “Love Abbotsford” types of things going on with hopefully more to come. Initiatives like the Cyrus Centre for street youth, various street ministries, the growing momentum of the City Of Refuge idea, and countless other things going on, many of which have multiple church contribution – these are the things that Love Abbotsford may or may not have had a part in spurring on, but are definitely part of the larger vision that Love Abbotsford always had.

But the yearly event itself – this has seen a decrease in momentum over the last few years. So we’ve taken encouragement from a previous event like March For Jesus which seemed to have a “shelf life”, and have decided after much prayer and discussion to wind it down.

We should also tell you of a tough circumstance that led to last year’s event barely happening. I had coordinated the annual event from the beginning (2000) along with others from other churches, and felt I needed to take a sabbatical from my worship pastor job, as well as from planning the Love Abbotsford event. Because the numbers had waned in previous years more for the gathering worship times than for the actual kindness events, it was decided to coordinate the serving projects, but not try to pull together the large worship celebration. Rita Lihaven, who had served on the ACLN exec and with Love Abbotsford in previous years, consented to coordinate the event in my absence.

Well you may know that Rita had quite miraculously overcome cancer a few years previous and seemed in good health in early spring ‘08. But then only weeks before the June event Rita was back in the hospital and died on June 6, just one week before the event. We were quite shaken by this, but were able to celebrate her amazing life and walk with Jesus. We love and miss Rita!

While we know Rita’s health was a factor in last year’s event, it was also clear that there were even fewer churches participating. And while we feel it may be God’s leading to allow the event to come to an end, it has still been hard to do since there are several churches who have expressed interest in continuing the event. We are definitely not saying that churches can’t do it. In fact we’ve already heard of a church who heard that we may not be planning the big event this year, but they have already decided to do their event as a church regardless.

So yes, continue to love our city in practical ways! Do it with other churches in your area in ways that challenge your own people to show the love of Jesus to those outside your churches!

As a planning team, we also want to express our appreciation to the many pastors, point people and other various volunteers who helped make Love Abbotsford a success over the years!

If you have questions, feel free to direct them to the ACLN executive and/or myself.

On behalf of the Love Abbotsford planning team,

Kevin Boese
Abbotsford Vineyard Church