Culture – UReach Toronto

Kingdom Without Borders

By Miriam Adeney — Keywords: Christian ministry, culture, ethnic diversity, cultural diversity, multicultural — Chapter 1 Only

16 October

Large Canadian Churches Draw an Estimated 300,000 Worshippers Each Week: Findings from a National Study

By Warren Bird in collaboration with a Canadian research team — Description: For Canadians who attended a Protestant church last weekend, an estimated one in eight attended a church that draws 1,000 or more in weekly attendance. These predominantly evangelical congregations are growing, reaching out, and focused on serving children and youth. Terms like megachurch, church growth, multiple services, and congregations with lots of young families bring to mind countries like the United States (think Joel Osteen and Lakewood, or Rick Warren and Saddleback), Nigeria (with sanctuaries that seat over 50,000), Korea (home to the world’s largest-attendance church) and other parts of the world – but Canada too? Isn’t church attendance on the decline across the 10 provinces and 3 territories? This article discusses the findings of a research project that found that Canadian “megachurches” are increasingly popular amongst Canadians, with 1 in 8 Protestants attending these congregations weekly. This report discusses how large churches appear to be an attractive and likely enduring option for Canadians seeking an experience of engaged and growing congregational life. Leaders of these churches report that they are evangelistically effective, are reaching a diverse ethnic population, and are expanding to multisite venues—all with high-quality ministry

18 October

Unequal Relations

By Augie Fleras: A Critical Introduction to Race, Ethnic, and Aboriginal Dynamics in Canada — Description: Unequal Relations: A Critical Introduction to Race, Ethnic, and Aboriginal Dynamics in Canada is the market-leading, single-voice text for Race and Ethnicity courses in Canada, and it includes comprehensive coverage of racism, multiculturalism and diversity. This mature edition has been updated to remain current, and to include new sub-topics important to the discipline, including explicit discussion of the importance of immigration to Canada and its role in national building; older waves of immigration; and shifting attitudes of normalized immigrant groups. — Keywords: immigrants, immigration, refugees, multiculturalism, Canada, newcomers, settlement, research, racism — External Links: https://www.amazon.ca/Unequal-Relations-Introduction-Aboriginal-Dynamics/dp/0132310600

4 July

CultureLink

— Description: A settlement agency for new Canadians, CultureLink is a not-for-profit community-based organization that facilitates the settlement of newcomers to Toronto, Canada. — Keywords: immigrant services, settlement — External Links: Home

4 July

Statistics Canada Socio-Economic Profiles

— Description: Produced by Statistics Canada, in partnership with the Department of Canadian Heritage, this is a series of 15 socio-economic profiles of Canada’s largest, fastest-growing ethno-cultural communities. The series uses 2001 Census data and includes the Chinese, Vietnamese, African, Arab, Caribbean, East Indian, Filipino, Haitian, Jamaican, Japanese, Korean, Latin American, Lebanese, South Asian, and West Asian communities. To date, profiles of 10 communities have been released; the remaining 5 will be released by the end of August. — Keywords: statistics, ethnic profiles, country profiles, languages, demographics, new Canadians, immigrant, refugee, migrant, migrant worker, temporary worker, international student — External Links: http://www12.statcan.ca/English/census01/products/analytic/companion/etoimm/canada.cfm

4 July

Journey to Justice

Directed by Roger McTair Produced by Karen King-Chigbo — Description: 2000: National Film Board Six episodes show Black Canadians who refuse to accept inequality (in areas such as fair employment practices for railroad porters and fair accommodations practices) by taking racist perpetrators/institutions to court. Brings history to life. 47 min. Available from the National Film Board (www.nfb.ca) or local public libraries. — Keywords: Canadian history, documentary — External Links: http://onf-nfb.gc.ca/eng/collection/film/?id=50416

4 July

Joshua Project

— Description: The mission and passion of Joshua Project is to identify and highlight the people groups of the world that have the least exposure to the Gospel and the least Christian presence in their midst. Joshua Project shares this information to encourage pioneer church-planting movements among every ethnic people group. — Keywords: people groups, culture, Church Planting, church development, languages, research — Links: https://joshuaproject.net

3 July

Study: Projections of the Diversity of the Canadian Population

Statistics Canada’s report on how Canadian diversity will change between 2006 and 2031. — Links: Read a Summary in The Daily Download the Full Report Diversity Profile for Toronto — Keywords: Canadian diversity, people groups, demographics, Research, culture, multiculturalism

3 July

Arrival City: How the Largest Migration in History Is Reshaping Our World

By Doug Sanders — Description: From Publishers Weekly: In a globe-trotting narrative alive with on-the-ground reportage, journalist Saunders offers a cautionary but essentially optimistic perspective on global urbanization. He concentrates on the slums and satellite communities that act as portals from villages to cities and, in turn, revitalize village economies. Policy makers misunderstand at their peril these “arrival cities”—London’s heavily Bangladeshi Tower Hamlets, Brazil’s favelas, China’s Shenzhen. Citing the statistical relationship between urbanization and falling poverty rates, as well as historical precedents like Paris (“the first great arrival city of the modern world”), Saunders insists urban migration means improvement overall, and that the arrival city serves as a springboard for the integration of new populations. While the picture of urbanization veers from gloomier forecasts by analysts like Mike Davis (Planet of Slums), it does so by eschewing direct questioning of the global economic system driving much of this migration. Barely addressed are food, energy, and water shortages, or the fact that healthy city growth requires preservation of surrounding ecosystems on which cities habitually wreak havoc. Saunders’s narrative, however, does plead for rational and humane planning within global capitalism to ensure that arrival cities fulfill their purpose and achieve their potential.

2 July

Multiculturalism

— Description: From Amazon.ca: A new edition of the highly acclaimed book Multiculturalism and “The Politics of Recognition,” this paperback brings together an even wider range of leading philosophers and social scientists to probe the political controversy surrounding multiculturalism. Charles Taylor’s initial inquiry, which considers whether the institutions of liberal democratic government make room–or should make room–for recognizing the worth of distinctive cultural traditions, remains the centerpiece of this discussion. It is now joined by Jürgen Habermas’s extensive essay on the issues of recognition and the democratic constitutional state and by K. Anthony Appiah’s commentary on the tensions between personal and collective identities, such as those shaped by religion, gender, ethnicity, race, and sexuality, and on the dangerous tendency of multicultural politics to gloss over such tensions. These contributions are joined by those of other well-known thinkers, who further relate the demand for recognition to issues of multicultural education, feminism, and cultural separatism. — Keywords: gateway cities, global urbanization, diaspora, diversity, cultural sensitivity — External Links:

2 July