I'm not an ornithologist

Alexander Mills • Pastor
July 1, 2026

3 Minute Read

“Look up!” The two words that are ever ready on the tips of the tongues of all birders. Folks who are scientifically engaged in the study of birds get a fancy name: ornithologist. But for me and my clan (and many of you who are reading), we’re just birders.

Not just birders, though. Birders are people who notice. Noticing, especially in our digital age that lures us constantly into attention deficit, is an act of spiritual practice. I’ve written to you recently about that. Look up, and notice what you see.

April 21, 2026
How to see God

From my stoop here in our temporary home in Jinja, Uganda, I can currently see and hear many birds. It’s been the joy of our time here by the Nile river. The Maribou Stock looms largely overhead. The Eastern Plantain-eater is somewhere in the distance, calling out with vocals that are easily mistaken for a monkey. And just in front of me, a Blue-breasted Kingfisher sits perched on a branch. It’s brilliant blue feathers arrest my attention. Her fire-engine beak is poised for a catch.

Thanks to the Merlin Bird App, we’ve been able to identify many of the new bird species that we are seeing and hearing. I have a “life list” of 165 bird species logged on the app. One species in particular sings his morning song to us daily. Merlin describes his tune as “loud and complex vocalizations, including a mix of rattles, scratches, and piercing whistles.” In my words, I’d describe the song as beautiful—a complicated set of diverse sounds, but each with purpose and none without meaning. When I looked up I expected to see a bird that visually matched the complexity of her song. What I saw was unexpected: a plain black bird.

At first sight, the Rüppell’s Starling appears boring and bland. Black. Singular. But when she soars into the sun, she shines iridescent. Purple and green, blue and maroon. Simply stunning. One caught the attention of our entire family just the other day, shining in the sun as she sat atop the iron fence. We all looked up. As she drew our attention up and towards the sky, we saw a splash of another colour: electric green. There, next to our beloved Starling, was a four-foot-long Battersby Green Snake.

The tale of capturing that snake is another story for another time, because I’ve rambled on about birds for long enough to arrive at the point. Looking up as an act of spiritual practice, the art of noticing, is not just to see the good, the true, and the beautiful. Looking up from our feet as we journey on the path towards home alerts us to dangers and diversions that could cause us to stray.

Our spiritual formation is not a destination, it’s a journey. It’s been called “a pilgrimage of the soul—if we want to keep growing, we have to stay on the journey, we have to stay on the road.” We must resist the despondence of staring at our feet as we trudge along. Instead, with our eyes up, we look for the signposts of the journey towards home. We meet at the Table, and receive our food for the journey. And we walk with our heads held high along the narrow path, for on our pilgrimage, we are being saved.

Grace and peace,
Pastor Alexander

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July 1, 2026 • 3 Minute Read
I'm not an ornithologist
“Look up!” The two words that are ever ready on the tips of the tongues of all birders. Folks who are scientifically engaged in the study of birds get a fancy name: ornithologist. But for me and my clan (and many of you who are reading), we’re just birders. Not just birders, though. Birders are people who notice. Noticing, especially in our digital age that lures us constantly into attention deficit, is an act of spiritual practice. I’ve written to you recently about that. Look up, and notice what you see.How to see God From my stoop here in our temporary home in Jinja, Uganda, I can currently see and hear many birds. It’s been the joy of our time here by the Nile river. The Maribou Stock looms largely overhead. The Eastern Plantain-eater is somewhere in the distance, calling out with vocals that are easily mistaken for a monkey. And just in front of me, a Blue-breasted Kingfisher sits perched on a branch. It’s brilliant blue feathers arrest my attention. Her fire-engine beak is poised for a catch. Thanks to the Merlin Bird App, we’ve been able to identify many of the new bird species that we are seeing and hearing. I have a “life list” of 165 bird species logged on the app. One species in particular sings his morning song to us daily. Merlin describes his tune as “loud and complex vocalizations, including a mix of rattles, scratches, and piercing whistles.” In my words, I’d describe the song as beautiful—a complicated set of diverse sounds, but each with purpose and none without meaning. When I looked up I expected to see a bird that visually matched the complexity of her song. What I saw was unexpected: a plain black bird. At first sight, the Rüppell’s Starling appears boring and bland. Black. Singular. But when she soars into the sun, she shines iridescent. Purple and green, blue and maroon. Simply stunning. One caught the attention of our entire family just the other day, shining in the sun as she sat atop the iron fence. We all looked up. As she drew our attention up and towards the sky, we saw a splash of another colour: electric green. There, next to our beloved Starling, was a four-foot-long Battersby Green Snake. The tale of capturing that snake is another story for another time, because I’ve rambled on about birds for long enough to arrive at the point. Looking up as an act of spiritual practice, the art of noticing, is not just to see the good, the true, and the beautiful. Looking up from our feet as we journey on the path towards home alerts us to dangers and diversions that could cause us to stray. Our spiritual formation is not a destination, it’s a journey. It’s been called “a pilgrimage of the soul—if we want to keep growing, we have to stay on the journey, we have to stay on the road.” We must resist the despondence of staring at our feet as we trudge along. Instead, with our eyes up, we look for the signposts of the journey towards home. We meet at the Table, and receive our food for the journey. And we walk with our heads held high along the narrow path, for on our pilgrimage, we are being saved. Grace and peace, Pastor Alexander

Alexander Mills

Pastor

June 2, 2026 • 4 Minute Read
We made our best effort
We just couldn’t do it. In all of our planning and preparation, there was one thing our list that didn’t get done. It wasn’t for lack of trying—it was a lack of faith. As many of you know, our family of four is headed to Uganda for the summer. You can read all of the updates about our trip here. The items on our to-do list are legion. There are all the things we need to pack and prepare to be in a far-off land for the better part of two months. Quick drying towels. Battery backups. Mosquito repellant. Then there are the things that we need to tie up and tidy before we leave our house and home behind. Empty the freezer. Pause our car insurance. Text dad to cut the grass. One thing in particular that we wanted to do in light of leaving our house this year was to let our garden rest. There’s a generational practice that can be traced back all the way to the people of Israel in the land of Sinai of letting the soil rest every seven years. The Lord spoke to Moses, saying “When you enter the land which I am going to give you, the land will observe a Sabbath to God. Sow your fields, prune your vineyards, and take in your harvests for six years. But the seventh year the land will take a Sabbath of complete and total rest, a Sabbath to God; you will not sow your fields or prune your vineyards. Don’t reap what grows of itself; don’t harvest the grapes of your untended vines. The land gets a year of complete and total rest.” We’ve owned our home for 6 years, and in that time we have thoroughly sown and reaped. Rebecca was in the backyard plotting and plowing our growing space before we even moved a single piece of furniture into the house. Our garden has fed us well, taught us plenty, and been a source of joy and nourishment for many people in our community. We know the law of the Lord, and we see how it echos the natural laws of the land. The ground needs to rest. We know this. Since we are going to be away for the summer, we chose this year to be our soil’s Sabbath. And we couldn’t do it. Our garden isn’t full by any means, but we just had to sneak a few radish and sweet pea seeds into the soil to squeeze in an early harvest before we left. Between the two of us, we just couldn’t find the Christian courage to let it go and leave it to the Lord. It’s easy to call it the plague of our times—the false sense that we can provide everything we need for ourselves, or the belief that no one is going to sustain our lives if we’re not the ones to do it—but it’s truthfully the plague of our kind. We trust our human selves more than we trust our creator to sustain, provide, give life, and assure safety, and as a result we end taking hold of things that were never ours to handle. The real kicker is that God’s instruction to Moses had a provision clause. “But you can eat from what the land volunteers during the Sabbath year—you and your men and women servants, your hired hands, and the foreigners who live in the country, and, of course, also your livestock and the wild animals in the land can eat from it. Whatever the land volunteers of itself can be eaten.” Honouring the Sabbath is an exercise in many things, but in this case it’s a practice of faith. Do I believe that whatever God gives will be enough? We’re still learning to trust God, evidently. And our next chance won’t just be six years from now—I’ll likely have an opportunity to prove where I’ve put my faith six seconds from now. And then six minutes later. Each and every moment is an opportunity to release my grip on the things I want to control and relax into faith in the One who is the giver of all life. Grace and peace, Pastor Alexander

Alexander Mills

Pastor

May 19, 2026 • 3 Minute Read
Not the update I ever expected to write
I’m writing you to tell you about something that I truly thought would never occur. Back in February I told you about the caterpillar that lives on my desk. Well, I used the word “lives” rather generously, because that caterpillar spun himself up into a sandy sarcophagus last summer and has neglected to emerge. Our hope of that caterpillar transforming into a brilliant Easter Swallowtail butterfly has been indefinitely suspended.I might've killed it We’ve been holding our hope, but only because the internet suggested that we could. “Although most caterpillars emerge from their cocoons within four to six weeks, they will sometimes (albeit rare) overwinter without any explanation.” What is happening (or not happening) inside that jar on my desk has been completely beyond my control. My confidence that anything has been happening at all has been slim. Which is why I was startled to the point of literally saying “Oh my God!” out loud last week when I looked up from my computer and saw a butterfly. What I said to you back in the winter is still true. “Whether that caterpillar ever emerges or not, of this I can be sure – God does his best work in the dark. I believe that there is a caterpillar transforming into something entirely new in that cocoon, but even if there isn’t, my hope is in the grace of God that is always leading me into new life.” So many of the outcomes of our daily lives are completely beyond our control. Many of the things we hope for don’t come to fruition. But sometimes, they do. If we’re paying attention, we are sure to be surprised by hope and startled by grace. God is not a silent spectator—a watchman on the sidelines of the game of your life. God is an active agent in the fabric of your being. The animating force of everything we enjoy. He is the wind that blows and the fire that burns. He is the creative imagination that dreamt up butterflies from caterpillars. Want I really want to say to you today is that hope is worth holding onto. God is worth believing in. There is glory and grace and goodness to be held if we would only open our hearts and our hands and believe. That’s easier said than done, which is why we practice believing in community. It’s easy, sensible even, to discard your last grain of hope in the dark when there seem to be no signs of life worth living. That’s when you need someone to believe for you, hold onto faith with you, and walk along in the grace of God alongside you. This letter is about a butterfly, it’s about me, and it’s about you. Grace and peace, Pastor Alexander P.S. here’s a picture of a very proud five-year-old who is full of hope and completely void of cynicism.

Alexander Mills

Pastor

April 21, 2026 • 3 Minute Read
How to see God
My dad takes a conservative approach to giving and using nicknames. For the most part, he’ll call you by your given name. That was my experience as a child with one exception – he affectionately called me Farsight. Born from the imagination of C.S. Lewis into the land of Narnia, Farsight was a talking eagle who served as a messenger to the King. True to his nature and name, his eyesight was spectacular. He saw what others couldn’t. I guess I garnered the name thanks to my ability to notice. The deer on the field edge, the chickadee perched, the missing lego over there. By nature it seems, I’m often able to see what others can’t. Yet here’s the truth – I’m not eagle-eyed. My ability to see is no more than 20/20, in fact without my glasses, it’s much less than that. I’m convinced, however, that seeing—and more importantly, noticing—is a nurtured ability. It’s practiced and perfected. It’s work. The poet says, “to pay attention is our endless and proper work.” The priest agrees: “My only prayer practice is attention.” There’s a sacred discipline to the art of noticing. Paying attention to the budding branch, the singing bird, the forming storm, is no doubt an act of spiritual practice. This act of noticing makes an opportunity to at least acknowledge God, and at best encounter him. Worship him. See him, hear him, smell him, touch him, taste him. Worship him. And yes, this takes practice. It’s not hyperbole to say that there are more voices and visions vying for our attention now more than there ever have been, so this work may be more difficult than ever as well. Hard work is good work, beloved. Begin here with an intentional choice today: go for a walk, get a house plant, look up from your phone. gaze at the gluten structure of a piece of bread, think about your fingerprints, look up from your phone. listen to a bird song, listen to a secular song, look up from your phone. Look up, look around, look above and below. Open your eyes to see that there’s evidence of resurrection everywhere you look. But you have to look. God can be and is revealed in all manner of ordinary things, especially created things. There are reflections of his goodness in just about every corner, crack, and crevasse if you’re looking for him. May we be formed into a people who are always looking, noticing, and behold God wherever he may be found. Grace and peace, Pastor Alexander

Alexander Mills

Pastor

March 24, 2026 • 3 Minute Read
Who you're not required to love
There’s a new law of this land, according to the Lord of Love. One night at supper with his friends, he looked up from the table and said, “I’m giving you a new commandment, and it’s this: love one another! Just as I have loved you, so you must love one another.” And not just one another (that’s easy enough), or your neighbour (that’s doable), but your enemy, too. By this expression of love, the Lord says, will the world know you to be a follower of Jesus. Love your enemy; Your rich enemy, and your poor one too. Your gay enemy, your straight enemy, your conservative enemy, your liberal enemy, your violent enemy, your quiet enemy, your black enemy, your white enemy, your familiar enemy, your foreign enemy. Love every expression of an enemy that you can imagine, for an enemy is likely just someone whose story you haven’t heard yet. With one exception. There is an enemy that we all share, who is diametrically opposed to the aim of all of our lives. This is the only enemy exempt from the law of the Lord. It does not deserve a single sliver of our love. This enemy is death. Death is not simply the natural end to our lives, as secularism might say. Neither is it the glorious passageway to streets of gold as religion confesses. But it is “the final enemy to be destroyed” according to the apostle Paul. Not to be accepted or loved, but to be destroyed. I know I don’t have to convince you of this. There are many of you reading this who have tasted the sting of death very recently, and some of you already this week. It’s a stinging nettle, a bitter water, a gut punch. There is nothing to love about the enemy of our lives, yet on our own, we are powerless to destroy it. Thanks be to God that the Lord of Life himself has defeated death by death and, through his action, given us the gift of life. It is the source of our gladness this Easter. This is the law of love. To reach our gladness, however, we must first walk through the valley of death. On Good Friday, join us at church at 9AM for a quiet and contemplative meeting at the grave. Bring your boots, for after the service we’ll wander through the woods together on a community hike. On Holy Saturday, consider committing to some form of silence. Keep the TV off, put your AirPods in the drawer, give an hour to prayer and meditation. And then on Easter Sunday, we’ll meet again to worship the giver of life. We’ll receive his love, and then we’ll share it with each other as we join in a meal after the service. Grace and peace, Pastor Alexander

Alexander Mills

Pastor

March 10, 2026 • 3 Minute Read
The kinds of videos my mom sends me
Rarely does a day go by without me receiving a video on Instagram or Facebook from my mother. Whether it’s a recipe, an activity to do with the kids, or just something to make me laugh, she’s always sending me something. I don’t think she actually expects me to cook all three of the recipes she sent me yesterday, rather, I think she saw something that reminded her of me, and she wanted to share that joy with her son. I receive her videos as little tokens of affection. She’s not the only one, of course. My dad is notorious for sending me memes that balance on the brink of what is appropriate. My wife sends me parenting videos that make us laugh until we cry (or cry until we laugh). I send plenty of wrestling videos to the group chat with the boys. But on December 8th, my mother-in-law sent me a video with this note attached: “I thought this was such a great idea!” It was a great idea, and yesterday I finally did it. The journey that the Christian wanders over the course of a calendar year is a “vast and dramatic story-ing”. If you conform your life to the rhythm of the Christian calendar, your year will begin at Advent, journey through Lent and Easter, and find fulfillment at Pentecost. Telling time this way makes sure that we take our place in the story of Jesus. Eugene Peterson says that without this dramatic story-ing and sufficient liturgical support and structure, “we are very apt to edit the story down to fit our individual tastes and predispositions.” That’s why our Christmas tree didn’t make it out to the curb this year. It has been weathering the winter outside in the backyard, and yesterday I turned it into a cross. You’re right, Mom (and stranger who made the video on the internet), it was a great idea to save the branches and boughs of Christmastime to turn them into a memorial of God’s impending death. These wooden symbols – an evergreen tree and a bare torture device – and their coinciding dates on the church calendar, affirm what we believe are the most important events in all of time. God was born among us, and God died like us. The cross is the central axis point of our entire worldview, and now there’s one erected in our slumbering springtime garden. It’s dramatic, yes, it’s storytelling, of course, and it’s essential lest my own story become too important. Grace and peace, Pastor Alexander

Alexander Mills

Pastor

February 24, 2026 • 2 Minute Read
I might've killed it
I have a problem that’s completely beyond my control. It taunts me daily from behind the glass, motionless yet powerful. It’s a caterpillar in a cocoon, and I don’t know if it’s ever going to emerge. The reason that’s a problem is because I have an inquisitive almost-five-year-old who regularly asks me about it. Just this week, he asked me pointedly: “Dad, what happens if it doesn’t turn into a butterfly?” It’s beyond my control. I just don’t know. Despite my greatest efforts or most earnest prayers, I can’t make that inch-long caterpillar that we harvested off the dill in the backyard and so tenderly took care of complete its metamorphosis and turn into the brilliant Eastern Swallowtail butterfly that we have so longingly hoped for. It was supposed to emerge about six weeks after it entered its cocoon, the internet says, but the internet also says that sometimes they overwinter without explanation. All of our hope is suspended in that papery brown sarcophagus. 17th-century pastor-theologian Samuel Rutherford famously said that “Grace grows best in winter.” The Scottish winters were certainly dark and long. In Niagara, too, we feel constrained by an arctic grip. We look desperately for signs of spring, wishing the wintry weather away in exchange for green grass and brilliant blooms. We wish our winters away. Whether that caterpillar ever emerges or not, of this I can be sure – God does his best work in the dark. In this Lenten season, whether we enter the wilderness willingly or if it comes upon us, our hope is that God’s grace is always at work, and it seems especially when we perceive it the least. When the ground is covered in a blanket of snow, and the sun hasn’t shone for what feels like an eternity, what’s true is that the earth is still stirring and brimming with life. Beyond our sight, there is all sorts of microbiology that is coordinating to burst forth with new life at the first feel of thaw. Grace is always growing. I believe that there is a caterpillar transforming into something entirely new in that cocoon, but even if there isn’t, my hope is in the grace of God that is always leading me into new life. This grace will lead us home. Grace and peace, Pastor Alexander

Alexander Mills

Pastor

September 12, 2023 • 4 Minute Read
A peach in the mirror
Our little corner of land in Niagara is the northernmost latitude of peach growing on the globe. I knew this to be true conceptually, but it was confirmed to me as a fact while I perused the local newspaper last week. As I read the article entitled “New Varieties Are Bringing An Early Start to Niagara’s Peach Season”, my enthusiasm enlarged. My heart leapt not just at the prospect of enjoying peaches earlier in the year, but for the process of propagation at all. What a skill, what art. What a marvel to curate the creation! If you’ve known me for any length of time, you’ve likely been witness to one of my excitable tangents about flowering potato plants, the anticipation of the winter solstice, or the feeding habits of white-tailed deer. I’m enthralled by the glory of the cosmos - from the biggest bang to the smallest tender fruit (of which my favourite is the peach). While I read, I was increasingly impressed to learn about the creative work happening right here in our region at the Vineland Research & Innovation Centre. Mr. Subramanian spoke so caringly and convincingly about the necessity for new varieties of fruit in our region that my adoration for the peach was bursting through my ceiling until I was so suddenly devastated, depressed, discouraged. The last stanza of the article disappointed me to the point of writing this letter. “‘The next variety of peach Subramanian is working on will be targeted at generation Z and millennials,’ he said. He said that group isn’t fond of biting into a soft, juicy peach and getting messy — so he’s looking to fix that.” To their credit, my discouragement comes at no fault of the author or their subject. Somer and Jayasankar are without blame. I am to blame, and this short stanza revealed that to me by holding up a mirror to show me myself. We live in an age of instant gratification, information, and frankly indulgence. We feed on these things like drinking water from a firehose, attempting to quench our aching inside by the most questionable of means. You know the ache - the one that burns inside all of us, lamenting that the world is not right, things are not as they should be, and there must be a better way. I’m what is affectionately called a “digital native”. I grew up in this digital era, never knowing a home without a computer connected to the internet. Need to lighten my mood? I’ll watch a funny video. Need to answer a question? I’ll ask Google. Need dinner? I’ll order it and have it delivered before I could have ever defrosted anything from the freezer. This unprecedented access with unmerited ease is not without consequence, and it’s not for free. It comes at the cost of exchanging our humility for entitlement. I say this, because I feel this. If I can watch anything, read anything, buy anything, or be anything online in an instant, why can’t I have it all outside of the internet and in my embodied reality, too? So we try. We take diabetes medication to expedite weight loss, we run yellow lights, we work through weekends, and we create new varieties of peaches to appeal to our pride. In our arrogance, we forsake any measure of hidden glory. The best peaches are an embarrassing mess to enjoy, but so is life. The glory of a peach is the golden juice running off your chin and onto your shirt. The beauty and blessing of life is in the cracks, crevasses, and not-so-curated corners that we’re so intent on hiding or refining. It takes humility to truly enjoy a peach and all the glory it has to offer. It takes humility to walk through life faithfully and fruitfully. The Redhaven peaches have likely come and gone by the time you’re reading this, but in the last few weeks of September some Baby Golds can still be had at your local farmer’s market. Soon, all the peaches will have returned to the ground and the earth will rest until it awakens with the spring. It’s a vulnerable thing to be a seed sown into the ground, and humility often feels the same. It’s a relinquishing of control and a surrender to the Creator and the cosmos. Can we, can I, practice this humility until the next harvest? Grace and peace, Pastor Alexander

Alexander Mills

Pastor

August 28, 2023 • 3 Minute Read
A blessing for a new
The leaves are giving us cues, and the school schedules hung on the kitchen fridge agree, we’re turning a page and entering a new season. Green fades to yellow, amber gives way to red, and September comes around again dressed in the colour of a new year (of sorts). This week marks a new school year for the kids in our community, for their parents too, and school workers of all kinds. For many in our church, the new year starts today. It’s a new year according to the secular calendar, of course. The signposts of the secular are school years, fireworks, civic holidays, and summers. But there is a sacred calendar, a Christian Church calendar, that marks time much differently. It’s a way of marking our time throughout the year by telling the story of Jesus Christ. It’s necessary in a practical sense to coordinate our lives by the secular calendar. Our lives must be formed however by the sacred one. We’re drawing to a slow and steady end to our Christian calendar as well with Advent in our sights and Christmas ringing not far off in the distance. By any metric, a sacred or secular one, the seasons are changing. It’s in that seasonal spirit that I leave you with this, a blessing for a new school year. If you’re a student, go forward in grace. If you’re a parent, pursue peace. If you’re a school worker, the work of your hands is the labour of love. And if you’re none of the above, pray this blessing for the rest of them. The year is tilting toward the start of school again, but truth be told, we’re not ready. We’re still hanging on to summer, to the promise it held for long-awaited connections and celebrations, for refreshment for our bodies and souls in water and sky and colour and sunlight, and all those little moments given to us where we could linger just a little longer. Now that it’s almost over, we don’t want to let it go. The beauty. The freedom. All that was life-giving. God, could you help us stretch it, extend it, and maybe even blend it into this coming school year? Parents, students, teachers, all, may your newly-structured days breathe with creativity, your new duties be infused with delight. As you write on those fresh new calendars may you trust that your plans are a lot like magic ink. Much may seem to disappear into obscurity, but whatever is done in love will remain. (Kate Bowler) Grace and peace, Pastor Alexander

Alexander Mills

Pastor

August 21, 2023 • 3 Minute Read
God loves you. So what?
I grew up in a home that had a tune to it. My dad was mostly at the helm of the sounds of our scene, whether it was at home, in the car, or anywhere in between - there was always music playing (and if it wasn’t playing, he was singing or humming his own). Some of his favourites were Rich Mullins and Keith Green, some of mine were Anberlin and TobyMac. So I guess I come by it honestly, having a home of my own now that rarely sits in silence. In the evenings its spinning vinyl that sings, but more often than not it’s something streaming over the interconnected network of networks and through the TV (I don’t think my dad could have imagined that this is how we’d be listening to music nowadays). Some of my favourites this week are Sam McCabe and Jon Batiste. Although most of the music in our home is streamed, some of it is still sung. For the last two years we’ve been singing a handful of songs with Asher at bedtime—the doxology, The Blessing, I Love You Lord—to name a few. One of the first ones he ever sang along to though is one that most of us are likely familiar with. “Jesus loves me, this I know…” For a while in his infancy he’d chime in on the me’s, so’s, and “strong”. It was as if his vocal cords were tethered to our heart strings. We swooned. Now as he’s getting older and his vocabulary is growing in step with his personality, the song has taken a bit of a turn. “Turn on Jesus loves me song!” I hear from the backseat before I can engage the car in drive. I turn it on. He sings, “Jesus loves you this I know…” Jesus loves you. For the last couple weeks he has routinely dropped the “me” and exchanged it for “you”. I’m not naive enough to believe that he is changing the words intentionally to convey some deep theological truth. He’s two, his brain is just barely online, and he has simply jumbled up the song. But this morning as he sang his scrambled song, I thought of you, and I just wanted to remind you that God does love you. I hope it’s not the first time you’re hearing that, and even if it’s not I hope you have the courage today to believe it. Rich Mullins famously said “I grew up hearing everyone tell me ‘God loves you'. I would say ‘big deal, God loves everybody. That don't make me special! That just proves that God ain't got no taste’”. I love Rich and I like his music (thanks, Dad), but that’s a view too cynical for me. God loves everybody, but He also loves you. You’re a chosen, cherished, child of God, and He’s not stuck with you. He has set a place at His table just for you, and He says come. Take your seat. Eat, drink, and be merry. So go ahead into your day empowered by the knowledge that God loves you. Grace and peace, Pastor Alexander

Alexander Mills

Pastor

August 1, 2023 • 3 Minute Read
Our commitment to community
Sometime in early 2019 a headline in the local newspaper tugged our hearts into action. “Niagara Falls in Desperate Need of Respite Care” it read, reporting on the urgent need for foster homes in the city. Respite (or short term) homes were of particular demand to help meet the emergent needs of newborns coming into care due to the increasing crisis of opioid use. That was the thread that towed our heart strings towards opening our home to foster care. Fast forward a few seasons, dozens of hours of training, and hundreds of pieces of paper work to Mary’s parent’s backyard in the late summer. In unconventional fashion and in complete secret, our friends and family threw us a shower. Rebecca and I had only been married for a couple of years, we had no kids of our own yet, and we had just moved into our first home. Our community gleaned that we had a lot of the same needs that expecting parents would, so they surrounded us with a shower as if we were welcoming our own. We received diapers, toys, and clothes, amongst a bounty of other things to prepare us for the journey ahead. What I remember from that day wasn’t the gifts though, it was the commitment that our community made. Much like when we dedicate children in our church, our community stood on the brink of this new season with us and said “we’re here for you too”. I believed them then, and they’re proving it now. Jump forward in time again and Rebecca and I have a toddler of our own, another on the way, and a life that is full to the brim. We’ve harboured countless children in our home since that shower in the summer. This week, the phone rang again. It’s rarely easy to say yes, but the good thing to do is often the difficult one. We said yes to a 9 month old little boy and for a week our house has been stretching at the seams. I’m writing this with that boy sleeping in my arms, and two of those aforementioned friends are currently walking out our front door. “Want us to bring pizza over for dinner tonight?” they asked earlier in the day, inviting themselves over with dinner in hand. We shared a simple and hectic meal - the adults laughed, the babies cried - and from across the table I saw Jordan and Jessica doing exactly what they pledged to do for us all those years ago. It was a promise fulfilled in a pizza. It was love, grace, and community embodied. We had an unspoken need this week and our friends perceived it. You’ll surely have a need that I hope to meet for you. This is the commitment we’ve made to each other in this community, and we are bound by the love of God that is building us up into his body. So if you’re reading this letter, consider this my affirmation of my commitment to you. I hope it also fans the flame of community life and love in your heart as well. Grace and peace, Pastor Alexander

Alexander Mills

Pastor

July 17, 2023 • 3 Minute Read
The portrait of a praying woman
It’s rumoured that she was younger than 8 years old when her parents dedicated her to a Benedictine monastery on the westside of Germany. There she would live and grow in the grace of God, leading her fellow nuns into the Light through music, visions, and connection to the earth. Her name was Hildegard of Bingen, she died in 1179, and her portrait hangs in our kitchen by the back door. I bought her portrait as a gift to Rebecca earlier this year as winter was melting into spring. We hung it by the back door intentionally, because the backdoor leads us to our garden. Saint Hildegard reminds me of Rebecca in all sorts of ways, but especially in the way that she revered the cosmos and everything within it. She was a gardener, a forager, and a medical plant practitioner. She didn't want to simply visit this world but wanted to be fully in it, embracing the wonder and goodness of God's creation. "Glance at the sun,” Hildegard says. “See the moon and the stars. Gaze at the beauty of earth's greenings. Now think. What delight God gives to humankind with all these things. Who gives all these shining gifts, if not God?" That reads like a poem, doesn’t it? A Psalm, even? We’re practicing praying the Psalms as a community, beginning each one of our worship services by praying an entire poem together. The Psalms are the training ground for prayer, and so we’re learning how to pray. One Psalm at a time. Today, pray this Psalm of creation with me. If you’re reading this, you’re surely looking at a screen of some kind. So take a step outside or at the very least move yourself next to a window, behold the cosmos, and let us pray: Hallelujah! Praise God from heaven, praise him from the mountaintops; Praise him, all you his angels, praise him, all you his warriors, Praise him, sun and moon, praise him, you morning stars; Praise him, high heaven, praise him, heavenly rain clouds; Praise, oh let them praise the name of God—he spoke the word, and there they were! He set them in place from all time to eternity; He gave his orders, and that’s it! Praise God from earth, you sea dragons, you fathomless ocean deeps; Fire and hail, snow and ice, hurricanes obeying his orders; Mountains and all hills, apple orchards and cedar forests; Wild beasts and herds of cattle, snakes, and birds in flight; Earth’s kings and all races, leaders and important people, Robust men and women in their prime, and yes, greybeards and little children. Let them praise the name of God—it’s the only Name worth praising. His radiance exceeds anything in earth and sky; he’s built a monument—his very own people! Israel’s children, intimate friends of God. Hallelujah! Psalm 148, The Message Translation Grace and peace, Pastor Alexander

Alexander Mills

Pastor