“Our humble acts of service have the potential to speaking volumes to our unsaved neighbours.”

Craig Macartney
Spur Ottawa Writer

Volunteers from Ottawa PointMen Ministry teamed up with members of Community Life Church to send two local neighbourhoods a message. The ministries coordinated a “soft entry” into what they hope will be an ongoing outreach into the community around the church and also increase the degree of collaboration between the ministries.

“The idea was to connect with the neighbours beside Community Life, on Beaverbrook Lane and Varley Drive,” explains Sean Davis, one of the founders of PointMen. “Our heart was to offer them some of our time to help out. We offered to take a Saturday and come by with trailers and manpower. If they had anything they wanted to dispose of, we wanted to pick it up and take care of it.”

Initially the groups wanted to start with something bigger, but they decided to engage first with a neighbourhood board and try to build bridges. After getting a greenlight from the neighbourhood board, the group distributed fliers saying they would haul away unwanted items on the agreed Saturday, in November.

“We didn’t want to wait too long, because we didn’t know what the snow would be like. Part of the heart behind this is, if God wants this and the community is open to it, we will come back in the spring and help people with spring cleaning and raking. We didn’t do any door-to-door with this one because we wanted it to be a soft entry.”

“What I really enjoyed was the unity of seeing two different men’s ministries come together and to just go with a simple cause.”

About a dozen volunteers participated between Community Life members and PointMen, which has two men’s groups that meet at the church. Davis says they completed the work much faster than expected.

“What I really enjoyed was the unity of seeing two different men’s ministries come together and to just go with a simple cause. Some of us knew each other prior, but the majority of us just met that day.”

The group brought reusable items to The Furniture Bank, a Kanata warehouse that collects items for refugees. The group piled all other items on trailers and hauled them away to the dump.

The two ministries are waiting for feedback from the neighbourhood board, but they hope to bring together their collective manpower four or five times per year, to help those living around Community Life Church.

“Pastor Mike (from Community Life) really wants to let them know that the Church loves them and that God loves them,” Davis states.

“I think that our humble acts of service along these lines have the potential for speaking volumes to our unsaved neighbours,” says Ken Tucker, one of the volunteers from PointMen. “Serving them shows them the love of Christ. That sacrificial love can be a powerful springboard into the Kingdom of God.”