Traumatic Beginnings
Maury Blair’s historical account as given by himself at Our City Windsor 2025. The retelling of the childhood trauma and the intervention of God’s grace.
Links:
Breakthrough Ministries
Our City Windsor
Shalom vs. Empire (Kevin Rogers)
It’s usually me interviewing someone else or bringing the content of others here to inspire and inform. On this episode, it’s my turn to speak. This was my session recorded at Our City Windsor 2025.
Empire is the human tradition of conquerors and ideologues wanting to build a world in their image. It’s the ninety-foot selfie of Nebuchadnezzar and the pinch of incense in worship of Caesar.
The nation of Israel was not satisfied to be led by a priesthood and wanted to have a king like the other nations surrounding them. Empire is about power and defense. It is the belief that what’s best for us should be enforced on the other nations.
Even churches can fall prey to empire building and miss out on the true intentions of God.
Shalom on the other hand, is the governmental structure of the Kingdom of God. It is the world as God intends it and is established with the love and power of God bringing about peace on earth. Shalom is dependent on the King of Kings and will not be fully realized until he returns. Somehow, we are to live as citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven while giving the Caesar what he is due.
Links:
Mission Canada Bio:
https://paoc.org/canada/about/staff/lists/mc-staff/urban-coordinator
Our City Windsor
God's Mosaic Vision (Charles Hermelink)
Charles Hermelink brought this message at the Our City Windsor 2025 conference. In it he looks at how God is at work with the movement of people around the world and especially the relevance for us in Canada.
Charles serves as the New Worker On-boarding and Development Specialist, and Coordinator for Mission Canada’s Cultural Language Groups. His focus is to mobilize new workers and strategically see them positioned to reach newcomers to Canada, refugees, and those with various cultural backgrounds and worldviews.
Links:
Neighbours and Newcomers Network National
https://paoc.org/canada/workers/nnnetworknational
Mission Canada Cultural Ministries
Maury Blair At Our City Windsor 2025
At 87 years of age, Maury continues to be filled with light and hope. From recounting the horrible child abuse he suffered to the overflowing joy of his journey with Jesus, we leaned forward to soak up the wisdom.
Maury continues to have daily conversations with people in his community to tell them about his hope.
Links:
Breakthrough Ministries
Revisiting Child of Woe
More of the Maury Story
Entrepreneurs In Love (Mike and Lisa Difazio)
Michael Difazio and Lisa Shurrock are two young, successful entrepreneurs in Windsor Ontario. As they fell in love, they did not realize how God would appear in their lives to disrupt business as usual and surprise them with miracles.
Here’s my interview as they share the lessons they’re learning about trusting God with everything.
Links:
Michael Difazio
https://www.michaeldifazio.ca/
Elite Studios
The Nine Lives of Joe Ritchie
Joe Ritchie grew up with a history of trauma and abuse that nearly killed him. At age fifteen he was in a car accident that left him quadriplegic and without hope. After three times of dying and being resuscitated, it would be a vision of Jesus that would change his life trajectory.
Today Joe serves as part of the pastoral team at Windsor’s New Song Church. Listen as he shares transparently about his struggles with addiction and the journey to freedom.
The Heaviness Of Loss (Kim Court and Mike Morency)
(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 on how they can help others, and themselves.
For the past 25 years, Kim Court (M.S.W., R.S.W.) has provided a safe place for individuals and families to reflect and experience personal growth. She values the uniqueness of each individual’s journey, and supports people of all ages as they become empowered to reach their goals.
As a Christian counsellor, Kim is experienced in helping people with struggles related to trauma, separation/divorce, anxiety, depression, attachment, parent-child, and family conflict, all through the lens of evidence-based practice and the Gospel. She is a certified Grief Educator, and is trained in, Brief Solution Focused Therapy, Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, and Collaborative Problem Solving.
Alongside her husband, and on her own, Kim provides engaging workshops and lectures on a wide array of topics.
Mike is Executive Director of Matthew House Refugee Centre which provides temporary shelter and settlement services for Refugee Claimants. He is a team pastor at New Song Church and a frequent speaker at conferences and retreats. Mike is passionate about helping the people of God find ways to “live out” Christ in the world.
He is also Lead Strategist for Synergistic Solution Groups where he assists churches and community charities develop effective strategies to increase their impact.
Additional resources:
Exploring the Companioning Model of Grief Care
https://youtu.be/pOlgifO9TEA?si=WcnesOUS2Q8uH9wS
My Grief
Back To The Shack (Bobby Reaume interview)
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 continuing miracle of Bobby’s journey to recovery.
As an update, Bobby and some interested parties are attempting to start a charity of their own to provide a greater platform of services to Windsor’s homeless and street-affiliated population. The Soup Shack would be enhanced by a building where more than food would be served.
In the meantime, donations to help fund current operations can be sent to Feeding Windsor-Essex. Find out how at admin@feedingwindsoressex.ca
Links:
Feeding Windsor-Essex
https://www.feedingwindsoressex.ca/
From Fentanyl To The Soup Shack (Season Four, Episode 18)
Gospel Transformation In An At Risk Neighbourhood
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 collaboration initially with The Downtown Windsor Community Collaborative and partnership with Windsor Essex Community Housing Corporation, we run a 4 day per week drop in centre, a community garden, the cafeteria contract in the assisted living facility along with a weekly Bible study and prayer meeting for residents with spiritual desire.
In this episode, Kevin Rogers interviews Kevin and Paula Saunders as well as Elizabeth Anderson.
Let Nothing Be Wasted (Ejay Tupe)
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.
Link:
Signs Of Hope (Brian Egert)
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.
Link:
Mission Canada
Red Frogs And Zoe Manor (Nelly Latchman interview)
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 is a Mission Canada worker that serves as part of the national Serve Campus Network with her focus on the University of Windsor. She is also a young adult pastor at Parkwood Gospel Church.
Links:
Nelly Latchman - Mission Canada profile page
https://paoc.org/canada/workers/nellylatchman
Serve Campus Network
Red Frogs Canada
Parkwood Young Adults
https://parkwoodwindsor.com/youngadults
Musicians On Mission (The Extreme Tour)
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 that want to serve.
In mid-September they spent a week in Windsor, Ontario assisting New Song Church and Feeding Windsor-Essex. This is our round table conversation about who they are and the unique work that they are called to.
Links:
The Extreme Tour
https://www.theextremetour.com/
Danyelle Speaks
https://www.danyellespeaks.com/
Idiomz Da Prophesayer
Manny Hubbard (Flamuel)
https://www.youtube.com/@MannyHubbardMusic
Samuel Kislow (Salmon Friends)
From Fentanyl To The Soup Shack (Bobby Reaume interview)
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 into a Christian recovery program.
Today Bobby is working full-time, sober, spirit-filled and serving the homeless population in our city of Windsor with the Soup Shack, a trailer set up to distribute food and basic supplies to people on the street.
Links:
Soup Shack organized by Feeding Windsor-Essex
https://www.feedingwindsoressex.ca/
Launch Pad Recovery Center
African Christians In Canada
Our conversation today is going to focus primarily on Christians that were born in Africa and are now living in Canada. What strikes me demographically is that the African continent has a higher percentage of the population identifying as Christian than we do in Canada.
Prior to 1960, black Africans comprised a very small, scattered and almost unknown group of newcomers to Canada, although Africans of European and Asian ancestry had a clearer presence. According to the 2016 census, 1,067,925 Canadians reported being of African origin.[1]
Rev. Isaac De-Graft Takyi is the pastor of Living Word Assembly of God in Toronto. One of his recent accomplishments was authoring a book entitled, ‘The Story of Ghana Assemblies of God Church In Canada.’ This historical document gives a first-hand account of Ghanian Christians starting Ghanian churches in Canada and some of the controversies and successes they have experienced thus far.
Sammy Molloy works at Matthew House, a refugee resettlement service and residence in Windsor, Ontario. They have about 70 beds in the residence and are serving refugee claimants in the hundreds across our city. He is also a worker with African Inland Mission where he organizes summer camps across Canada for children and youth of African origins.
Kirubel Masresha (Nahum) is a student born in Ethiopia but has lived in Windsor from a young age. He lives with Pastors Wodaje Tekeste and Nardi Abraha, on staff at New Song Church and former pastors of the Emmanuel Ethiopian Church. He works at Serenity Coffee House.
Links:
The Story of Ghana Assemblies of God Church in Canada, by Isaac De-Graft Takyi, https://www.amazon.ca/Story-Ghana-Assemblies-Church-Canada/dp/1988439221/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1LWNTDVPMD4KT&keywords=isaac+de-graft+takyi&qid=1678714386&sprefix=isaac+de-graft+takyi%2Caps%2C146&sr=8-1
Living Word Assembly of God
Matthew House Refugee Welcome Centre – Windsor
https://matthewhousewindsor.org/
Africa Inland Mission
https://aimint.org/ca/2022/05/01/appointment-of-director-strategy-and-operation-for-mac-camps/
Camp Rhino
[1] https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/africans
A Conversation with Toque Evans
Kevin Rogers sits down with his longtime friend, 2fish band mate and co-pastor Kevin Saunders. On October 1st their 2 urban congregations in Windsor Ontario merged together to become more effective through multiple locations of ministry.
Hear their collective experiences and gained wisdom from being in urban ministry for the long haul.
Toque Evans?
Two Kevins’.
Offenders And Their Families (Rielly McLaren interview)
Rielly McLaren is a chaplain at St. Leonard’s House in Windsor, Ontario. This historic halfway house was the first of its kind in Canada for men coming out of federal prison and returning to the community. In the years that Rielly has worked there, he has added to its history by starting a support group for wives and mothers of offenders.
Read MoreRace Talk Windsor-Detroit (Part 2)
I was involved in a local conversation shortly after the death of George Floyd under the knee of officer Derek Chauvin. Christopher Cobbler and I gathered a mixed-race panel of pastors from Windsor and Detroit to talk about the black-white divide.
Because Windsor is a border city to Detroit, we likely have an enhanced perspective on America’s history of oppression against black slaves. Border cities are also part of the Underground Railroad where American slaves escaped. Harriet Tubman called Canada ‘The Promised Land’ and at that time, it was an escape from slavery’s tyranny.
That does not mean that Canada has not had its own struggles with racial tension; that is an unfortunate part of human nature that surfaces in every nation and every generation.
This is part two of that conversation with Chris Cobbler, Nelly Latchman, Kellen Brooks, Josh Bowers and myself. If you have not yet heard part one, why don’t you go back and download that first.
Read MoreWindsor's Little Church With A Big Kitchen
Welcome to the first ever episode of Sidewalk Skyline. I’m your host Kevin Rogers and I have lived most of my life in Canadian cities, well… at least in Ontario cities. In this podcast we are going to feature men and women from across Canada doing some extraordinary work in the places they live.
So where am I from? I live in Windsor, Ontario where the church I planted is celebrating 26 years of loving our neighbours, especially those living on the margins of society.
Today’s pilot episode is an interview with Rodger Fordham, director of Feeding Windsor. If I didn’t have the privilege of working alongside Rodger, I would still think this a great place to start our investigation of what God is up to in Canadian cities.
In 5 years, this outreach has had a meteoric rise to 200,000 meal servings for this upcoming year. You are going to hear how a small church can partner with others to make a large dent in the city through hospitality.
Links:
http://newsongwindsor.blogspot.com/
https://paoc.org/canada/workers/priorityurbancentres
https://paoc.org/canada/about/staff/lists/mc-staff/urban-coordinator