CARTS first BBQ in the courtyard

"What if salvation has everything to do with how we respond to poverty, homelessness, racism, and systemic injustice? What if your 'personal relationship to Jesus' is informed not just by how much you pray or whether you have the proper view of the trinity, but by how you treat the people Jesus had a nasty habit of hanging out with — you know, the folks on the fringes … the ones on food stamps, the ones who get fired for being gay, the ones whose children languish in jail cells on non-violent drug possession charges?"

Derek Penwell

Jesus mused " God is love ", those who do not love, do not know God. If anything could be a CARTS statement of faith, that would be it. Simply, but yet profoundly difficult at times...it is love.

You could say our BBQ's are a love fest. It is the wild scandalous stories of love in the gospels coming to life. It's the the King sending his servant out to the inner city streets, the gutters, the back allies, store fronts, campsites in parks. The servant bringing the broken, the poor, the marginalized, the mentally ill, the addicts. He brings this parade of broken profound beauty, every child of God in need of love...just so his table is full.

It's the prodigal son and daughter, knowing in the realm of Jesus' unending love and radical and scandalous forgiveness. That they are more than just welcomed, " they belong." They arrive, and the tables have been set, food prepared. It truly is a feast in their honour.

The pictures are from our first BBQ in the courtyard of the Downtown Community Centre. It's said a picture is worth a thousand words. It's CARTS hope that they all say the same thing.
Love.

Jesus mused, " God is Love." If we love, we profoundly know God. And if we love, we make God present and known.

CARTS is simply about LOVE. It's simply serving LOVE...not because they deserve it. But because they are children of God, and they belong as much as you and I.

Love is so much concerned with why, it just does.