Who We Are: Refreshing the Spiritually Thirsty

As I transition out of my Lead Pastor role and we transition to a new phase of our history as a church, I was asked by our Leadership Community to document some of our institutional history and values. This is the first of a series of occasional blog posts I will be writing over the coming weeks, reminding us of where we’ve come from, and who God has called us to be.

Muskoka Community Church was first conceived in the Algonquin Theatre in Huntsville. April, Aidan, and I had been vacationing at my grandparents home in Burk’s Falls in the fall of 2005, and an issue with our flight necessitated staying an extra day. My grandparents invited us to go see a family fiddling and step dancing act (I believe they were called “Everything Fitz”) that evening, and we happily went along. Something unexpected happened to me during that show, and it wasn’t an undiscovered love of fiddle music—though the show was surprisingly enjoyable.

Rather, I had the kind of profound spiritual experience that I’ve only experienced one other time in my life. I had a clear sense of the presence of the Holy Spirit, and it was like he had opened a direct channel to my brain and was filling it with ideas. I could vividly see a church meeting in that very theatre, a church for people who didn’t go to church, one that would use the natural beauty of Muskoka to point people toward their Creator. And my sense was that God was calling me to uproot my family, take a huge risk, and move to Huntsville to start this church. It would take another year and a half for that calling to be confirmed, and the logistics to be worked out, but eventually that “vision” experience resulted in Muskoka Community Church. 

I don’t remember a lot of the details of the vision, and we’ve only met in the Algonquin Theatre once or twice, but one thing stands out as I think back to that day. Mingled with the ideas and pictures of the church was also a sense of the motivation behind it. In a way I can’t explain, it was like God had opened up my heart and allowed me to get a glimpse of how he felt about the people who lived in Huntsville. I could sense the spiritual thirst of the people around me in that theatre, their desperate longing to find something missing in their lives, and God’s longing to meet them and quench their thirst. 

This idea of “thirsting” for God and the life he brings is common in Scripture. Jesus invites anyone and everyone to come to him and drink living water (John 4:13-14, 7:37). Isaiah uses this metaphor often, including in this passage that was important to me as I prepared to move to Muskoka: “The poor and needy search for water, but there is none; their tongues are parched with thirst. But I the Lord will answer them; I, the God of Israel, will not forsake them” (Isaiah 41:17). Psalm 107, another passage that has been significant for us, also describes this dynamic as it celebrates the God who “satisfies the thirsty and fills the hungry with good things” (v. 9).

Since those first days, MCC has gone through many phases and challenges. But we must never forget the reason we exist: because of God’s heart for those who do not know him in the Muskoka region, his desire to quench their spiritual thirst with his grace and love, and to enter into a relationship with them through Christ. As long as there is one person in this town who hungers and thirsts for God, we will still have a mission. Refreshing those who thirst for God has always been the heartbeat of MCC—our raison d’etre, our motivation to keep going when things are hard, and the way we must measure our ultimate success.

The image/verse above is taken from the original “Vision for Huntsville” document I prepared to describe the church plant to potential supporters.