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By Jim Coggins
“It is a dream . . . to grow a church without walls, touching every segment of
society, bringing a living Jesus to a dying world.”
This statement from Relate Church characterizes the view of some innovative
local congregations which are looking at alternative forms of church. But the
need for change is also being recognized by well established churches.
The Anglican Diocese of New Westminster’s Strategic Plan reveals that up to three-quarters of the parishes in the
diocese are unsustainable in their current form – because they lack the people and finances to support a building and full-time
priest.
The plan envisions a time when the diocese will consist of “well resourced centres of vital and sustainable ministry, comprised of a variety
of ministry models . . . congregations of all shapes and sizes working
together.”
The plan’s concrete examples of steps toward achieving the vision include merging
congregations – and “creative options” such as “meeting outside of a building” and “shared ordained leadership,” with one priest serving several small parishes.
Doug Goodwin, executive secretary of the B.C. Conference of the United Church of
Canada, said many congregations in his denomination are also struggling to
maintain a church building and a full-time minister. Therefore, he expects to
see “some experimentation” in both areas – an increasing number of small congregations, emerging congregations that don’t own buildings, some bigger congregations and more part-time ministers.
The consensus of the church leaders BCCN spoke to for this series of articles is that the church of the future is going
to have be much more flexible.
In an increasingly “diverse and splintered society,” said David Horita, regional director of the Fellowship of Evangelical Churches
in B.C., there are going to have to be “a lot of models of church. Every social and ethnic group wants something
different.”
What some churches are talking about, other churches are already doing.
Westside Church began meeting in Fifth Avenue Cinemas on the west side of
Vancouver four years ago. The church now has three Sunday ‘gatherings’ – two at Fifth Avenue, and one in the Revue Theatre on Granville Island – with a total attendance of 600-650.
Lead pastor Norm Funk said the church is open to “all sizes, shapes and ages,” but about 70 percent of attenders are “the just out of college crowd.” There is also a “growing 40-plus group” who have been “praying for the city for a long time.” There is no youth group. The church’s demographics reflect the demographics of the area and of the pastors; all but
Funk are in their 20s and 30s.
Funk noted that the biggest group of attenders are “people coming back to church.” For them, meeting in a theatre removes barriers.
So does downplaying the church’s denominational affiliation. The church does not hide the fact that it is
Mennonite Brethren, but Funk says “denominations are irrelevant to most people” who are looking for a church. Sometimes people strolling past the theatre walk
in just out of curiosity.
While Westside did not deliberately target one demographic, other churches do.
Artisan Church began meeting October 4 in the Vancouver Public Library with the
specific goal of reaching artists – a group often disconnected from church. Church gatherings will include not only
music and preaching but also “silence, poetry, visual art and videos.”
Another growing trend is ‘multi-campus’ churches. This model is different from the mainline practice of having one
minister serve several small congregations which cannot afford their own pastor. Many of these multi-campus churches are quite large.
Relate Church, formerly Victory Christian Centre, attracts a couple of thousand
people each week – to five services, held in Surrey, Abbotsford and Vancouver. The latter ‘satellite’ campuses have a ‘host pastor,’ but founding pastor John Burns commutes back and forth to preach at all three
campuses.
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Burns said the church is deliberately ‘contemporary.’ It uses high-energy music, screens, projectors, video clips, drama, smoke – anything that will grab and hold people’s attention. Burns said that since God is Creator, “if anyone is on the creative edge and making life exciting, it should be the
church.” He freely admitted that Relate’s style won’t appeal to everyone, but the church still attracts a broad demographic.
There are many young adults, but the church also has vibrant children’s, youth, men’s and women’s ministries. There are also a significant number of older adults, who “have the same heart” for reaching young people as Burns, who has six grandchildren.
Southside Community Church, founded by Cam Roxburgh, has five locations – counting one in Albania – which tend to operate more like closely related neighbourhood churches, served
by their own local leaders.
While B.C. has no U.S.-style megachurches, some churches are quite large.
Liberal Anglicans have Christ Church Cathedral, with attendance of about 800;
and conservative Anglicans have St. John’s Shaughnessy with attendance of 1,200-1,500.
The largest and most comprehensive churches are often evangelical. Willingdon
Church in Burnaby is probably the largest. It offers Sunday ministry in at
least nine languages, and has a range of spiritual and social ministries to
match.
A church which combines a couple of these models is Christian Life Assembly. A
Pentecostal church, it has a large multi-purpose complex in Langley with
multiple services and programs serving about 2,500 people.
It also has satellite campuses in Maple Ridge and Coquitlam, serving another
500. The satellite campuses have campus pastors, but Sunday sermons are
delivered via video feed from Langley. Executive pastor Vijay Manuel says the
satellites have the best of both worlds: a small church feel in a barrier-free
setting, backed by all the resources of the big church.
At the other end of the scale are the perhaps dozens of ‘house churches’ scattered throughout the Lower Mainland, gatherings of 15 – 20 people in a private home. Like larger churches, they can have a wide variety
of theological positions. Some are loosely grouped into associations; many are
not. With no buildings or paid staff, they escape many of the logistical
problems of other churches – but can have disadvantages such as lack of resources and visibility.
It’s not the form of church that matters, it’s understanding the current situation, said David Wells, general superintendent
of the Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada.
Due to work schedules, conflicting responsibilities and opportunities and
shifting attitudes, Wells said even church leaders don’t show up for church on Sunday morning.
Therefore any church, whether big or small, whether in its own building or a
rented space, which focuses its attention on Sunday morning will fail. “Changing the visuals and the music won’t be enough.”
On the other hand, Wells said, churches which find multiple ways and multiple
times “to be genuinely relational and touch people spiritually at the core of who they
are” – churches which “make a difference in their community” – will succeed.
This article is the second in a series on ‘The State of the Local Church.’ See stories of other innovative churches on pages 16-17.
October 2009
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