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By Steve Weatherbe
JACK Krayenhoff’s second career was well known to Island Insight readers. For several years, up till 2008, he wrote appropriately insightful
profiles of Christians in the Victoria area. Before that, he spent more than 40
years a medical doctor in general practice.
While he may be technically ‘retired’ – twice – from working for a livelihood, he is not slowing down anytime soon.
Jack is using his home congregation – Church Of Our Lord, on the southern edge of Victoria’s downtown – to reach out, with the perhaps unbeatable combination of food, fellowship and
music.
He is focusing this ministry on the extensive seniors population in James Bay,
the city’s oldest residential neighbourhood, which lies south of the downtown, between it
and the sea.
Jack was raised by parents with no interest in religion. He now believes his own
early interest in music, and especially J.S. Bach’s, was a reaching out for the spiritual – and especially, he said, a yearning for the joy faith can bring. “After I did become a Christian, I recognized the feeling.”
Graduating from medical school in his native Holland, he chose B.C. to practice
in – over other possibilities such as the U.S. and other British dominions – because a brother had immigrated earlier, and recommended it. He came in 1953.
He interned in Victoria, where he met his wife-to-be, Joan. He married her in
Prince George, where he first practiced.
In Prince George, while living in a hotel room above a tavern, he began reading
the Bible given him by Joan.
“I started with the Gospel of Luke,” he recalled. “I met the personal Jesus. I thought, ‘This is the way to go. He is authentic.’ I became one of his disciples.”
He joined his first congregation, whose barebones approach was not engaging on
an intellectual level. Since he was reading the works of C.S. Lewis, the
popular Anglo-Irish academic and Christian apologist, he wrote him a letter
asking for advice.
Lewis, to his surprise, answered, suggesting Jack form a circle of friends to
study the Bible together.
The couple moved to Pasadena so that Jack could study at Fuller Theological
Seminary, then a quiet enclave with 300 students.
“I didn’t want a degree,” he said. “I was a doctor.” But he did want to understand his faith more.
Back in Victoria, where Joan’s family lived, they joined Emmanuel Baptist, and raised their family. They were
more than just touched by the Holy Spirit moving in the Charismatic movement of
the early 1960s.
With some churches and some pastors hostile to the movement, the Krayenhoffs
changed churches a few times - and also followed Lewis’ advice by holding meetings in their own home. “Sometimes we had 80 Charismatics come to praise the Lord in our living room,” recalled Jack.
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While Victoria had its share of Pentecostal churches, there was tension between
the new and old forms of Spirit-moved churches. Not until the Church of the Way
was founded did Jack and his wife move to a church they could feel entirely at
home in.
“We have a rather extreme reputation for church-hopping,” he admitted wryly.
Eventually the couple felt called to the Church Of Our Lord – or COOL – to lead Alpha courses.
Now they are reaching out to seniors with the Cridge Club. Their model, said
Jack, is the Irish Christian church, which spread the faith to England and
northern Europe, after the Roman Empire collapsed.
“They started by setting up a community and then inviting people to join,” said Jack. The gospel was not so much preached as lived.
The Cridge Club is, therefore, mainly a social club – based on a weekly lunch, which is followed by a sing-song and a speaker. The
songs are mostly secular pop songs; and three out of four speakers are, too.
But there are also occasional hymn sings, where people are invited to request
their favourite hymn and to tell a story about it. Though most of the 70 – 100 who come regularly are ‘unchurched,’ most attended in their childhood and enjoy the hymns.
Jack is emphatic about there being no evangelizing. There is, however, a growing
sense of community among those attending.
“Everyone knows we are Christian. So we’ll just wait to see what happens. It’s an experiment.”
November 2009
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