Sidewalk Skyline Podcast

Years ago I read Maury Blair’s autobiography ‘Child Of Woe’. I was shocked at the severity of the child abuse he suffered from his step-father. How could a man be so filled with contempt for an innocent child and more miraculously, how could a child of violence grow up to be so compassionate and well-balanced? In this episode I visited Maury at his kitchen table in Cambridge, Ontario as we revisit...

(Recorded at Our City Windsor 2024) No one is exempt from the impacts of grief and loss. When serving others in community it is imperative that we learn to recognize when and how their grief is showing up. However, it is just as important to learn how our own grief impacts our ability to serve others. Kim Court and her husband Mike Morency help participants better understand grief and provide tips...

Bobby Reaume is the lead operator with Feeding Windsor-Essex’s Soup Shack. Every night from 7-9 pm he ensures that up to 140 people are served with food, snacks, clothing and personal care items. The food is prepared in the kitchens of Feeding Windsor-Essex, a charitable department of New Song Church. This interview at the Our City Windsor 2024 Conference is filled with stories of hope and the con...

Connie Jakab is planting a church at a new housing initiative in the Ogden neighbourhood of Calgary. As a long time community energizer, Connie has built an enduring presence in Calgary through her work within the arts community, mental health and business sector. Now her attention has turned to the neighbourhood she lives and grew up in. Ogden Church meets in the common room of a housing developm...

John Longhurst's journalistic reflections provoke thought and questions about faith, inviting readers to think beyond their own religions, theologies, and denominations. Why do people believe what they do? What might we learn from each other's acts of faith? John Longhurst is the recipient of the 2021 Lieutenant-Governor's Award for the Advancement of Inter-religious Understanding in Manitoba. He...

Karen Stiller is the senior editor for Faith Today magazine and has written for Reader’s Digest, Ekstasis, The Walrus and Christianity Today. She is the author of The Minister’s Wife and co-author on other books. She also lives in downtown Ottawa where life has shaped the writing of her most recent book entitled ‘ Holiness Here: Searching For God in the Ordinary Events of Everyday Life’.

For 10 years, New Song Church has been alongside one of Windsor’s more challenging neighbourhoods of social housing. What we affectionately call the Glengarry neighbourhood is a series of four high rise apartments, several rows of townhouses and an assisted living facility. It experiences the most tragic of life experiences as well as a quieter majority that are just trying to survive. Through col...

One of our podcast regulars, Ejay Tupe brought this message ‘Let Nothing Be Wasted’ at the Our City Windsor - Signs Of Hope conference. His years of experience in urban ministry are informed by his reading of the Scriptures. Ejay is an urban worker in downtown Toronto.

Brian Egert brought this opening message at the Our City Windsor ‘Signs Of Hope’ conference in March 2024. One hundred people gathered at New Song Church in Windsor Ontario to reflect on the hope that Canadian churches can bring to their cities. Brian is the Director of Mission Canada, an agency committed to raising up workers with a heart of hope for the nation of Canada.

With almost 30 years of ministry experience, Cal and Chrissy Krahn have often been drawn to those outside of the church walls. As urban workers with Mission Canada, based in Montreal, Quebec, they care for those around them who are lonely, hurting, or in need of a friend. This can be through involvement at the local food bank, sharing a meal or a coffee with someone, connecting newcomers to Canada...

Years ago, I worked as a federal chaplain at a halfway house. I learned so much about the value of faith-based community friendships for men and women returning to the community. Alan Campbell has devoted his adult life to Jesus-inspired care for people being released from jail. He is humble and virtuous in his approach and remains focused on the mission. l am grateful to know ‘Refuge Ministries C...

Today I’m talking with my friend Jessica Disabatino. Jess and her husband Dave co-lead Journey Church in Calgary. Our connection goes back to the early 2000’s when they were pastoring Lakeshore Church in Toronto. We began dreaming together with Braeside Camp to launch Camp Inner Change, a week of summer camp for inner city children and youth. Eventually Dave and Jess moved to Calgary to lead Journ...

In 1955, a Dutch Christian named Andrew van der Bijl began smuggling Bibles into Communist Poland. Through successive years he would enter Communist countries at every occasion to secretly bring God’s Word to places where Christianity was illegal. Brother Andrew began an organization named ‘Open Doors’, a ministry that tells the story of persecuted Christians around the world. The Canadian directo...

The Living Room Church is a family of Jesus followers serving the neighbourhoods. One of their co-pastors is Bernard Tam. Bernard resides in Midtown Toronto with his wife Susan and their two fun-loving and silly boys, Jeddie and Joshua. Learning to live in the urban center has been quite the journey for the Tams, but they are learning daily to see the beauty of the urban jungle. Bernard is passion...

Braden Brodeur is a youth worker at Marketplace Chapel at the West Edmonton Mall. The chapel is staffed by Christians and provides spiritual and religious care to shoppers, employees, and wanderers. He is in process to become a Mission Canada urban worker. The West Edmonton Mall is the 2nd largest mall in North America at 5.3 million square feet. West Edmonton Mall has over 800 stores and services...

On any given night in Toronto, there are about 9000 men, women and children that have no place to stay. Brad Sider spoke at the Our City Scarborough conference on the topic of homelessness his city. As a veteran shelter and street population worker, Brad is currently a director with the Maxwell Meighen Centre, one of several Salvation Army shelters. Previously he worked with the Mennonite Central...

David Wells is the General Superintendent of the Pentecostal Assemblies Of Canada and an avid devotee to urban ministry in Canada. This is one of his plenary sessions at the Our City Scarborough Conference held at Global Kingdom Ministries in November 2023. In this session he speaks on ‘The New Humanity - In The City’. This is a call to reveal God’s character and light by exhibiting His peace (Sha...

Julie Hunter is the executive director for Windsor Life Centre, a residential, faith-based treatment centre for women recovering from drug and alcohol addictions. The Centre began 10 years ago on the property of Windsor Christian Fellowship under the vision and leadership of Cathy Ciaramitaro. Windsor Life Centre aims to provide healing to the whole person, giving them tools to live out lasting re...

At sixteen years of age, Nelly Latchman was on a youth group mission trip to New Song Church. The days in Windsor were an opportunity to experience God at work in an urban context outside of her own neighbourhood. That initial experience would eventually culminate in moving to Windsor after graduating from Tyndale Seminary. Today, Nelly serves as part of the national Serve Campus Network with her...

Our guests on this episode are Ejay Tupe, director of Toronto Urban Mission Hub in downtown Toronto and Mike Morency, executive director of Matthew House – Windsor. We will be talking about a story that began unfolding this past summer when over 200 refugee claimants from African nations found themselves sleeping on the streets. Many were outside a homeless support centre at 129 Peter St. in downt...

Today on the podcast we are taking a virtual walk on the sidewalks of Vancouver’s Downtown East Side and having a conversation with Aaron White. Aaron is a pastor, justice worker and prayer instigator in the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver for the past 20 years, where he lives with his wife and four children in a community home. He’s part of the team at Jacob’s Well, an ecumenical Christian centre...

For thirty years, The Extreme Tour have partnered with community groups and clubs, civic organizations, churches, schools, government agencies and municipalities that are working charitably to meet the needs of the disenfranchised. Collectively they have been in hundreds of communities scattered throughout 20 countries bringing music, art, spoken word, etc. They are musicians on mission and people...

Three years ago, Bobby Reaume walked into my office and said, “Hey remember me?” It took me awhile before I would remember that he and his wife Grace attended the church briefly a few years prior. When Bobby walked in, he had been released from prison, returned to addiction, and was living in tent city. He came to see me with John Button the founder of Launch Pad Recovery Centre as he was entering...

In the fall of 2022, three Leamington entrepreneurs came together to establish the Leamington Community Hope Centre at the old Knox Presbyterian Church located in the downtown core. Their goal was to secure a community space where necessary resources would be available to people in need to help ensure their physical, mental, social, and spiritual health was prioritized. The Centre is taking shape...

When it comes to medical conditions and healing, Christians hold a range of views from the intervention of doctors and medicine, alternative practices and healing that comes from God. I am not a doctor, so I would never give medical advice but would always encourage people to take a threefold approach to getting help. First, we ask God for help in all things. Secondly, we investigate and utilize g...