It has been a very special month in the Neudorf household. On April 18th my daughter Zoe got married to Luis. It was a beautiful wedding. I had the honour of officiating the ceremony. I don’t have any photos yet (I was trying to stay in the moment and just let the professional photographer do the documenting). Hopefully I’ll have some photos for you in the next newsletter.
There are also a number of non wedding related things coming up that I wanted to let you know about.
GOHOP Pancake Supper Fundraiser:
Learn about GOHOP and celebrate with us at this fun event. It includes a free family-friendly meal, a lively auction (I’m the auctioneer), stories, prayer and worship. Thursday, May 7 at Bethany Chapel (155 Gage Ave N) from 5:30pmuntil 8:30. You can find out all the details and sign up on our Eventbrite Page.
Reflecting on the last year:
It is annual report time at GOHOP. Each staff member does a little write up about their role at GOHOP. Here is what I wrote:
Randell describes his job as being a “Punk Monk.” His gifts reside in the worlds of creativity, networking, teaching, and leadership support. In the prayer room he leads GOHOP’s Prayer for Pastors & Leaders, Barnabas Listening Prayer, Asah: Creativity & Prayer Studio, Hymn Sing, and maintains our new art wall with rotating installations. Each year he is a guest teacher at a number of churches, student groups, workshops and conferences, helping people feel free to play with prayer. As an active member of The Meeting Place Church community he leads weekly worship, prayer activities and outreach at the 541 Eatery & Exchange on Barton Street East. Randell stirs up meaningful conversations in the wider community through his one man show called “Looking for Kindness Amidst Anxiety,” as well as exhibiting his Kindness Cartoons at a number of art shows, markets and the James Street North Art Crawl.
As I was writing this, I looked back through my agenda to remind myself of some of the extra activities I’d been up to. It is surprising what you forget. I was able to show my art and perform my music 14 times over the last year. That is more than once a month! I found that really encouraging. It also stood out to me that I was able to lead prayer workshops at 2 national church conferences (one for Mennonites, and the other for Presbyterians). Here are some things you can be praying for:
I am feeling like it is really important for me to build up teams in all the ongoing prayer ministries that I am a part of.Some things like Barnabas have really strong teams, other places it is mostly just me. Pray that I would recognize who God is sending to be part of leading these ministries.
Pray for the Looking for Kindness Amidst Anxiety show. Pray that I would have opportunities to continue to perform. I’m doing a shortened version of this as a workshop for a Youth Conference. Pray that these stories open up good conversations for the youth. Also pray for me as I decide what things to include and what things need to be cut out for time.
Upcoming Art Shows:
I have a couple Hamilton art markets coming up in May.
James Street North for Art Crawlon Friday, May 8th from 6pm until 9pm. I try to set up near the BMO near Barton & James.
I’ll be at Crownpoint Community Church’s Makers Market on Saturday, May 9th from 11am – 8pm. I’ll be located at 92 Ottawa St. N. This is happening at the same time as the Sew Hungry Food Truck Festival on Ottawa St, so it is a very yummy event.
Here are some ways you can be praying:
Pray for Crownpoint Community Church. Supporting the arts is one of the ways this church connects to their neighbourhood.
Pray for the conversations I have at these events. Pray that God would use me to be a good ambassador.
Pray that my art would whisper the Fruit of the Spirit to people through my Kindness Cartoons.
Donations:
Thank you so much for being part of this partnership team, and empowering me to do this ministry work!
If you would like to make a donation or sign up for a monthly giving plan, there are 3 ways you can do that:
2. Donate by E-transfer: Send your e-transfer to donate@gohop.ca You must write “Donation for Randell Neudorf” in the message section. Please also include your mailing address to get a tax receipt next year.
It has been almost 3 months since my last update, so I thought I would give you some photo highlights with some short stories (one one longer one) about what I’ve been up to in my ministry with GOHOP.
Sold Out Show!
I had the privilege of performing my Looking for Kindness Amidst Anxiety show to a sold out room at Eucharist Church in January. Nina, the pastor of Eucharist really wanted this to be an intergenerational event. I’m happy to say that a number of people brought their kids (something we were praying for at GOHOP). I met one little guy who was very excited to show me that he bought my book. His mom shared that a number of people in their home deal with anxiety so my story really resonated with them.
Ash Wednesday Funeral Songs:
Every year on Ash Wednesday I host a very strange open mic called Funeral Songs. There is a real mix of people who attend. It is pretty evenly split between church people, people who have left the church, and folks with no Christian connection. There was one lady who came up to me at the end and said “That was way less churchy then I thought it would be, and I mean that as a compliment!” Turns out she is Muslim, and was having a rough day and just stopped in for some company and the pizza we were sharing. There aren’t a lot of places where you get this mix of people being open and honest with each other. I’m so thankful that God continues to place me in these in between spaces.
The Beauty of Being Part of a Team!
As I was getting ready for this year’s TrueCity Conference and Prayer Room (TrueCity is a network of Hamilton Churches) I was also preparing for a very hard task. I had been asked by a single mom to do the funeral for her 13 year old son who passed away from a very aggressive form of Juvenile Huntington’s Disease. The boy was a classmate of my youngest, so of course I said yes but I didn’t feel equipped to pull together a funeral for someone so young. I quickly messaged all the pastors from the TrueCity network for advice. Within hours, 4 people offered some amazing help. Dena (an Anglican priest) dropped off some books of prayers for me. She even took the time to bookmark all the pages she thought would be helpful. Nina (a Baptist pastor) emailed me a funeral resource her church uses that had specific prayers for child funerals.This resource also had important advice on how to speak to the other kids in the room. Dave (on staff with TrueCity) let me know that Michael (a Christian Reformed Pastor) was actually telling a story at the upcoming conference about a hard funeral he did for a teen. Michael phoned me and really helped me to internalize what I needed to do to be a good support for the grieving mom and school community.
The teamwork kept going. During the conference, I had so many GOHOP friends and TrueCity pastors come up to me, give me a big hug and tell me they were praying for me. The conference ended with everyone lining up for communion. I was at the front of the line, and after I took communion, I decided to leave early so I could keep preparing for the funeral that was the very next day. As I was walking down the aisle, I had so many pastors and prayer friends quietly pat me on the back, knowing why I was leaving early. I could literally feel that they had my back.
The Funeral took place during the first shift I was booked as a host for the prayer room. Ian (the Director of GOHOP) said he would take care of finding people to cover me. Again, I experienced the beauty of being part of a team.
I won’t go into all the details of the funeral, but I decided that I really wanted to focus on prayer & stories. It wasn’t a church funeral, so I wanted to give everyone (especially the kids) a way into the prayers. At the beginning of the service I name dropped that I’m a Mennonite Pastor and that prayer is something that is important to me, but that we often make it too complicated.
I invited everyone to hold their hands open with their palms face up. I said that they could do this as a way of being open to a prayer I might be saying, or a story that someone shares. It is sort of a “Yes Please,” or an “Amen!” I then had everyone turn their palms face down. I invited people to do this whenever they heard something that felt too heavy or too hard to hold. They could imagine that heavy thing falling to the ground or being dropped into the hands of their neighbour, parents, or even the hands of God. The beauty of this prayer practice is that you then reset your hands to be open again for the next thing. Each time I was praying, I would model this posture from the front with my hands, and I could see others around the room doing the same.
Afterwards a few parents told me that they didn’t know what to expect but that the service was exactly what their family needed. I also had two different people come up to me and say that their dad or grandfather had been a mennonite pastor. Both individuals said they were no longer practicing but that they liked being reminded of the pastor in their family. Seemed like God was up to something.
50th Birthday!
I turned 50 years old on Sunday. I was celebrated by friends & family, and had a very good birthday weekend. That being said, 50 is a strange number. It seems like a time where it is important to do some self reflection. I booked some spiritual direction appointments to talk through some of these things. If you are looking for a spiritual director, there are some great ones connected to GOHOP. Many of them will meet over Zoom, so you don’t need to be in the Hamilton area to use this service. You can find out more here: gohop.ca/spiritual-direction
541 Art Show:
The 541 Eatery & Exchange currently has my Kindness Cartoons hanging on the walls. The show runs to about the end of May. I do prayer and outreach in the cafe on Thursdays, and I’m hoping that some good conversations are sparked by my art being up in the room.
if you would like to check out the show, 541 is open Tue-Sat from 8am until 2pm.
Fundraising Update:
I’m happy to report that Mennonite Church Eastern Canada has renewed the 541 prayer & outreach funding for another year. This allows me to continue to be at the cafe on Thursday mornings!
The GOHOP staff team is continuing to lean into our fundraising training with the Sweet Life of Missionary Partnership Podcast. As we use and implement what we are learning, we are also looking ahead to how we could onboard and empower future staff members as well.
Thank you so much for being part of this partnership team, and empowering me to do this ministry work. There are 3 ways you can sign up for a monthly giving planor make a donation:
2. Donate by E-transfer: Send your e-transfer to donate@gohop.ca You must write “Donation for Randell Neudorf” in the message section. Please also include your mailing address to get a tax receipt next year.
The picture above is from one of the TrueCity Prayer Stations I created this year. People were invited to trace their hand and a wooden cross as they reflected on Jesus’ words in Matthew 16:24, “If any wish to come after me, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.”
As the hands and crosses overlapped and filled up the small canvas, people were reminded that Jesus had help carrying his own cross, in the form of Simon (Mark 15:12).
Praying for each other is one of the ways we help each other carry our crosses.
Here are some ways you can be praying for me:
Pray for my health. I have been sick or injured a number of times already this year. This is one of the things that has helped me to really focus on the importance of ministering as a team. Pray that I would be able to build up more collaboration and teamwork in the work that I do.
We would like to expand the staff team at GOHOP. Pray that the right people would be called into this ministry.
Pray for my family. We are thankful that Susan got an extension on her current library position doing kids programming (she is always applying for permanent positions to do the same thing long term. My daughter Zoe is getting married to Luis in less than a month (I’m officiating the wedding). Ethan is working hard at building his business, Buddy Boy Dog Training (he also does dog walking and pet sitting). Troy will be starting highschool in the fall (most of his friends will be going to a different school, so pray that he meets some nice kids).
Pray for the Mom who is grieving the loss of her son. Pray that she would be open to meeting with friends and neighbours who are trying to be supportive.
I’m leading some prayer and art workshops in May and June. Pray that I have a clear idea of what God would like me to share.
GOHOP’s annual Prayer Truck is happening a month earlier this year in June. This is a street level prayer room behind an at-risk youth centre in downtown Hamilton. Pray that we would have a strong volunteer team and that we would do a good job of connecting to youth and other people passing by on the street.
Pray for my fundraising activities. Pray that I would be consistent with my time. Pray that I would have opportunities to meet with people about becoming monthly donors.
How could I be praying for you? This partnership team goes both ways!
Thanks for taking the time to get all the way to the bottom of my newsletter!
I hope you had some meaningful times of rest and reflection over the Christmas Holidays. I had a couple weeks off. It was very nice and delightfully uneventful.
The new year is going to be very busy for me but in a good way. If you live near Hamilton I have a show I would like to invite you to.
One Man Show Returns to Hamilton:
It was a little over a year ago that I debuted my Looking for Kindness Amidst Anxiety show at the 541 Eatery & Exchange in Hamilton. I’m very excited to let you know that this unique show is coming back to Hamilton on Friday, January 30th. It is being hosted by Salt Cellar Arts, a ministry of Eucharist Church.
You can find out all the details on the Eventbrite Page. Please consider passing this on to anyone you think might enjoy an evening of kind stories, songs and drawings. If you would like to see the show or bring a friend, there are some Early Bird Tickets on sale right now for only $10 each!
Pray for my health. There are so many different bugs going around.
Pray that God would gather the right group of people to come hear my story.
As I have been planning this show with Salt Cellar Arts, we decided to encourage families to attend with discounted tickets for teens & kids. Pray that this would really be a meaningful intergenerational experience for people.
Pray that I would reflect the Creator well with my creativity.
Sowing Seeds of Kindness:
During Advent I had the opportunity to show my Kindness Cartoons at a couple Christmas Markets. Afterwards I ran into a mom whose daughter had bought one of my pieces. The mom told me I had made a big impression on her daughter and thanked me for spending so much time with her. It was just another reminder that being part of these arts spaces is an important part of my ministry. Thank you for empowering me to be in these less traditional ministry spaces.
Just recently I was at a party and was asked the dreaded question, “What do you do for a living?” After I gave a pretty vague answer about working for a prayer ministry, they started asking lots of follow up questions about the specific things I am a part of each month. When I got to the part about listening prayer, this stranger got really pulled in. I shouldn’t be surprised, listening prayer is contagious. It is pretty amazing to find out that the God of the Universe loves to communicate with us!
I’m coordinating two leadership teams at GOHOP, and both are all about the weird & wonderful world of listening prayer.
Prayer for Pastors & Leaders meets on Friday mornings. Each week we pray with a different person working for a church or ministry. We start with some silence and a time of listening prayer. We ask the Lord to bring to mind a word of encouragement – prayers, scriptures, feelings, thoughts, or images. These promptings are then shared in an open posture of humility. We leave it to the person being prayed for to discern if the words resonate as something from God. Week after week I see God using this time to really encourage leaders who are continually giving of themselves to others (but often not having the same done for them). Most years I have to do a lot of outreach to fill our weekly schedule. This year we have had so many people reaching out to be prayed for that we are often booking about 2 months ahead. God is really up to something.
Barnabas Listening Prayer is a monthly learning lab that helps people grow in the practice of listening prayer. Often people think that you need to have a special gift to “hear” God, but we have found that listening is more of a muscle that needs to be exercised. There are tips & tricks that help stretch our own unique ability to listen in prayer. Just last week we had 3 new people attend and it was very encouraging.
HOW YOU CAN PRAY:
Please pray for both teams as we have had a number of new additions to their leadership. It is exciting to see these new people jump right in with great ideas and energy. Pray that we would continue to gel as a team.
Prayer for Pastors and Leaders has been running for almost 25 years now (It is GOHOP’s oldest prayer ministry). I am looking to add an additional 1 or 2 people to this team. Pray that we would find the right volunteers who are passionate about supporting leaders.
Pray for Pastors & Leaders in your community. Our ministers, boards, executive directors and charity workers are doing really hard and important work.
Fundraising Is Hard but Partnership is Sweet!
The GOHOP staff team has been going through a YWAM podcast about personal fundraising called “The Sweet Life of Missionary Partnership.” The tag line they say over and over again is “Fundraising in hard… but partnership is sweet!!!” I’m only a couple episodes in but this language has been really encouraging. I thank God for you as a partner in this ministry. Thank you for partnering with your donations. Thank you for partnering with your kind messages. Most of all, thank you for partnering with your prayers!
If you would like to find out more about starting a Monthly Giving Plan you can do that HERE (even better, let’s meet for coffee).I’m a big believer in being upfront about money, so if you would like to see my budget and fundraising goals it is all posted HERE.
Lastly, thank you to the person who made the anonymous donation in December. It was a very nice surprise. I don’t know who you are, but I have a sneaky suspicion that you are someone who is part of this partnership team.
I snuck into ministry through the back door. My university degree is in Visual Arts, so I definitely didn’t have a conventional career path that led me to working for the Greater Ontario House Of Prayer (GOHOP). I try to live holistically, viewing my life as a Punk Monk, Musician, and Artist, as one job.
This year I’m part of a couple Christmas Markets in Hamilton that are raising funds for very good causes. The first one is this weekend!
Eucharist Church Christmas Market: Raising Funds for Sponsored Refugee Family. 130 Victoria St. N. Sat Nov 29th (11am-4pm) Sun Nov 30th (Noon-3pm)
541 Holiday Market: (buy your tickets here) A fundraiser for 541 Eatery & Exchange. 286 Sanford Ave N. (At the WestingHouse HQ near 541) Sat Dec 13th (11am-5pm)
Meeting Place Update:
Through a partnership between GOHOP and The Meeting Place (my church), I have been doing weekly times of prayer and outreach at 541 Eatery & Exchange for over a year now. Many of the people that I connect with from the church and the eatery are very transient. Sometimes people just disappear for long periods of time due to high levels of homelessness, poverty, addiction and mental health struggles. That is why it is so important to be consistent. Church is always on Sunday at 4pm. I’m always available for prayer or a conversation on Thursday mornings around the big table at 541. This week that consistency paid off. We had multiple people drop by to reconnect. Some had been away for months, others years, but they all knew where to find community.
My prayer & outreach hours at 541 are funded through a grant from Mennonite Church Easter Canada. We have applied for this funding to be renewed in 2026. Please pray that this funding request would be approved.
Pray for people to access housing and medical care. Thankfully one of our regulars will be moving into a very good apartment in December, but there are so many others that need housing. There are also so many addiction and medical issues that people are dealing with. Just last Sunday, we had to call an ambulance for a man who was lying on the floor during our service. He didn’t have the energy to get up but thankfully he agreed to go to the hospital. That same night we were supporting a man who was also in obvious distress from a fentanyl addiction but he wouldn’t agree to go to the hospital.
The Meeting Place (and 541) don’t exist without a healthy mix of people being involved. Pray that more stable folks would join the church, people with the time and energy to help. Yes there are hard things about being a church that makes room for people on the margins but there are also real blessings in this kind of church. It feels like the type of church Jesus would hang out at.
Thank You for Sending Me!
I recently was listening to a podcast about ministry fundraising that emphasised that it is our supporters who are the ones that are sending us. This made me think of you. If you are reading this, you are a part of “Team Punk Monk,” You are the community that is sending me out into the world to do ministry. Thank you for sending me! Thank you for believing in me. Thank you for empowering me to:
lead weekly prayer workshops
connect with people on the margins
host drop in prayer room hours
develop prayer resources
support pastors & leaders
use my creative gifts
If you would like to make a year end gift to support my work with GOHOP you can do that here:
Randell Neudorf 