Around Town: Laing Lectures, 1700 years of faith, John Neate: BAM 2025

I’m sure all Regent College students enjoy a return visit to the campus after a few years away. But Janet Martin Soskice will no doubt receive a particularly warm welcome when she returns to deliver the annual Laing Lectures next week. 

Following in the footsteps of such luminary scholars and authors as Stanley Hauerwas, John Milbank, Margaret Visser, Neil Postman, Walter Brueggemann, Charles Taylor and Peter Berger, she will speak on God and Creation: An Urgent Teaching for Today, February 4 – 6 at University Chapel.

• February 4, 7:30 pm: Have We Forgotten God, the Creator?
• February 5, 7:30 pm: Creation and the God Who Speaks
• February 6, 7:30 pm: Christ and Creation: What is it to Be Creatures Today?

Janet Soskice has had an impressive career:

She was born in Vancouver and brought up in the West Kootenays. After a BA at Cornell University, she studied at Regent in 1973–74, before doing an MA in Biblical Studies at the University of Sheffield followed by a doctorate in philosophy of religion at Oxford University.

After teaching at an Anglican Theological College at Oxford for four years, she was appointed to a lectureship at Cambridge University where she taught for over 30 years and was Professor of Philosophical Theology. On retiring from Cambridge, she accepted a Research Professorship at Duke University Divinity School, where she now teaches.

Her works include Metaphor and Religious Language (Oxford, 1985), The Kindness of God (Oxford, 2008), and Naming God: Addressing the Divine in Philosophy, Theology and Scripture (Cambridge, 2023).

She has also written Sisters of Sinai (Knopf, NY, 2009), the true story of Agnes and Margaret Smith, valiant Presbyterian twin sisters who made many trips to the Sinai desert in the 19th century in quest of ancient manuscripts of the Bible.

Janet is really interested in God.

(Our book club read Sisters of Sinai recently and we all loved it.)

Regent College began the Laing Lectures in 1999 in cooperation with Roger and Carol Laing and in honour of their father, William John Laing:

The purpose of the lectures is to encourage persons recognized for scholarship, wisdom and creativity to undertake serious thought and original writing on an issue of significance for the Christian church and to promote the sharing of such thoughts through a series of public lectures.

Go here for more information about the Laing Lectures. Note that the lectures will be at University Chapel rather than Regent College Chapel this year, probably because of parking:

Following its 2024 sale to Polygon Homes, the former parking lot site at Regent College has now been fenced off pending construction. While underground parking will be a feature of the new tower, that construction is expected to take 30 months to complete.

There will, however, be a lunchtime Interview and Q&A with Soskice at Regent College (Room 100) February 6, 12 pm.

1700 years of faith

Writing for The B.C. Catholic, Nicholas Elbers described one of several local gatherings celebrating the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. This one took place January 22, and I was fortunate enough to be able to attend: 

Marking 1,700 years after the Council of Nicaea codified the Nicene Creed, the authoritative expression of faith in Western and Eastern churches, Christians of varied denominations gathered at the John Paul II Pastoral Centre to recite the creed and pray for the healing of divisions during the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity.

“Christians around the world are celebrating the 1,700th anniversary of the First Ecumenical Council held at Nicaea in modern-day Turkey,” Archbishop J. Michael Miller told the gathering of John Paul II pastoral staff and members of various Christian denominations.

The council resonates even today because it sought to preserve Church unity, nearly 300 years after the death of Christ, he said.

“Despite the troubled events of its preparation and, above all, the subsequent long period of reception, the First Ecumenical Council was an event of reconciliation for the Church, reaffirming her unity around the profession of her faith,” he said.

Quoting Pope Francis, the Archbishop expressed his hope that the event “will inspire all believers in Christ the Lord to testify together to their faith and their desire for greater communion.”

Providentially, the significant anniversary in the history of the Church falls on a year when Christian churches will celebrate Easter on the same day – April 20, which hasn’t happened since 2014.

“To this day, different approaches to determining Easter’s date prevent celebrating the fundamental event of our faith on the same day,” he said. Many Christians hope that 2025 will be the year their leaders take a “decisive step towards unity by fixing a common date for the celebration of Easter.”

Go here for the full article.

John Neate: BAM 2025

Business as Mission (BAM) Vancouver will welcome JJ Bean founder and CEO John Neate as one of its keynote speakers during its annual Business as Mission Regional Conference, March 7:

John’s coffee career started in 1979 when he joined his father in the family business – Neates Coffee, a coffee wholesaler started by his grandfather in 1945.

Neates Coffee was sold to Nestle in 1990 but his passion for providing a great coffee experience to the masses inspired him to start JJ Bean Coffee Roasters in 1996, as both a retailer and wholesaler.

From its humble beginning of a 200 square-foot retail outlet on Granville Island, it has grown to 24 prime Vancouver area locations and a considerable national wholesale business.

JJ Bean has been voted by the Georgia Straight reader poll as one of the best coffee chains every year in Vancouver since 2008.

Mike Davies, who leads Business as Mission (BAM) Vancouver and has been involved with Youth with a Mission (YWAM) in this area for many years, wrote in a recent email:

Everyone who applies to work at JJ Bean is asked to answer this question in their cover letter: “What does honouring people mean to you?”

Here’s how founder and CEO, John Neate, Jr., answers his own question.

Under John’s leadership, JJ Bean has:

• • Grown from 1 location on Granville Island to 24 locations in the Vancouver area and a national wholesale business;
  • Built houses for those in need in Nicaragua, Guatemala and Bolivia;
  • Sponsored tuition and living expenses for the education of girls in Kenya and Tanzania;
  • Built preschools in Ethiopia and Peru;
  • Partnered with other local coffee roasters to purchase a drilling rig to dig 45 new wells every year in Ethiopia;
  • Raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for these and other initiatives that honour people locally and around the world.

The list goes on.

We need stories like these: At BAM Conference 2025, John Neate, along with other industry leaders and Business As Mission practitioners, will inspire you with true stories of what is possible. You really can honour God and make the world a better place through your business!

Also speaking at BAM Conference 2025 will be:

• Dr. Jenny Nuccio: As founder and CEO of Imani Collective, she has leveraged social enterprise to combat generational poverty in Kenya, redefining sustainable development in the region.
• Mike Baer: A recognized leader in the global Business as Mission movement – an international initiative using business to expand the kingdom, effect positive social change, address poverty and eliminate human trafficking.
• Chef David Robertson: In 2009, together with his wife Sara, David realized his dream of opening a recreational, state-of-the-art cooking school in the form of The Dirty Apron, which since has evolved into The Dirty Apron Cooking School, Catering and Delicatessen.

BAM Conference 2025 will be held at the Westin Wall Centre, Vancouver Airport. Early bird tickets are still available – until January 31.