Around Town: Running for mayor, Grounding Peace, Christmas music . . .

Amanda Burrows would like to replace Ken Sim as mayor of Vancouver.

The executive director of First United Church announced earlier this week that she would like to run against Ken Sim for mayor of Vancouver during the civic elections next fall.

Amanda Burrows is seeking to be nominated as OneCity Vancouver’s candidate. Party members will decide next February between her and fellow OneCity member William Azaroff, CEO of Brightside Community Homes. 

First United, which is celebrating its 140th anniversary in the Downtown Eastside this year, announced Burrows decision December 1, adding:

Amanda will continue to lead FIRST UNITED in her capacity as Executive Director, including organizational leadership and public engagements until her previously planned sabbatical . . . July to October 2026, regardless of any candidacy outcome. . . .

Amanda was hired by the Board of Directors to lead First’s ongoing operations and the completion of our transformational $92 million redevelopment project and to create and implement a new and inspiring strategic plan.

During her tenure with FIRST UNITED, she has been frequently invited to consider public office; with these major milestones accomplished well ahead of her planned sabbatical, Amanda views this as the right moment to accept those invitations as a natural transition.

The major First United redevelopment is nearing completion. Photo taken in October.

I have written about Burrows and the First United redevelopment process several times.

Burrows’ campaign page does not highlight her church connections, stating:

I’m a renter, a community-builder, a nonprofit leader and with your help, OneCity’s candidate for Mayor of Vancouver.

The Vancouver I love is full of people with heart. They are renters, workers, families, artists, seniors, students, all working hard to build a life here.

She does describe herself as a “faith leader” in a video on the same page. 

A Business in Vancouver article posted December 1 covered OneCity:

An 11-year-old civic party will do something next year it has never done in its time in Vancouver municipal politics – run a mayoral candidate. . . .

OneCity is the first party on what could be described as the left or progressive side of the political spectrum to field potential mayoral candidates for the October 2026 civic election. OneCity elected Lucy Maloney in the [April] byelection. . . .

Christine Boyle was a city councillor with OneCity

OneCity plans to run candidates not only for mayor, but council, school board and park board. Besides Maloney, school trustee Jennifer Reddy is the party’s other elected official.

Christine Boyle [herself an ordained United Church minister] raised the profile of the party in her two terms as a city councillor and is now the provincial government’s minister responsible for housing and municipal affairs.

Asked about her top three priorities, she said making Vancouver more affordable for families and students is number one. Second is “investing in care and not criminalization.” Third would be investments in arts, culture, community centres and pools.

First United expects to open its new building early next year.

Grounding Peace . . .

A unique peace-making evening will be held at Canadian Memorial United Church next Tuesday (December 9).

Dr. Jennifer Roosma, one of the organizers, wrote:

When the subject of the Middle East is raised these days, even with a fragile ceasefire holding, many from all sides feel cynicism and despair. Another voice, more rarely heard, speaks of hope – not just hope, but hope in action towards peace.

‘Grounding Peace in Justice and Liberation’ is the title of an evening with Amal Elsana Alh’jooj. It is co-sponsored by the Women Wage Peace Canada support group, Canadian Memorial United Church and Centre for Peace and PLEDJ (Promoting Leadership for Empowerment, Development and Justice).

Amal Elsana Alh’jooj has written a book, Hope is a Woman’s Name: My Journey as a Bedouin Palestinian in Israel. ( Amal means ‘hope’). She worked for years as a social worker in the Negev Desert, promoting the rights of the underprivileged, including women and minority groups. She will be visiting from Montreal, where she teaches at McGill University

For over 10 years she worked together with Vivian Silver, an Israeli Jew (born in Winnipeg). In recognition of their outstanding joint work, they received the Victor J. Goldberg Prize for Peace in the Middle East from the Institute of International Education in 2011.

Vivian Silver went on to become a co- founder of Women Wage Peace in 2014 after the start of the first Gaza war. She was tragically killed in her Kibbutz Be’eri home during the October 7th massacre by Hamas.

Roosma belongs to the local and national chapters of Women Wage Peace. (The WWP is made up of Israeli Jews and Druze, Bedouin and Palestinian Arabs – both Muslim and Christian – in Israel.) She has been actively involved with Israeli / Palestinian peace and reconciliation work for many years, and was actually in Israel when the October 7 attack took place.

(I posted a valuable article by Roosma in 2015 after she had attended two local “conferences bearing on complex and contentious issues related to Israel and Palestine.” One quote was from Botrus Mansour, who has just become secretary general of the World Evangelical Alliance.)

Worship Road: Christmas music

Worship Road Radio, based in Langley, will stream ad-free Christmas music until Christmas day:

This December, Worship Road Radio, Canada’s national Christian radio station and one of North America’s fastest-growing Christian broadcasters, is celebrating the Christmas season with 25 days of uninterrupted Christmas music, running from December 1 through Christmas Day.

Blending Christ-centred worship with timeless family-friendly classics, Worship Road Radio offers a unique, ad-free listening experience that keeps the true spirit of Christmas front and centre.

“Christmas is so much more than a holiday, it’s the celebration of the greatest gift we’ve ever received in Christ,” says Scott Fehrenbacher, CEO of Worship Road Radio.

“With so much noise and commercialization competing for our attention, we want to offer a space where people can slow down, refocus and hear the heart of Christmas clearly. Our goal is to help listeners experience the season the way it was meant to be – full of worship, peace and the joy of Christ’s birth.”

Go here to listen to Christmas music or to subscribe to the monthly e-magazine Breakout, published by Worship Road Media.

Events & Jobs

Events are listed below, but there is also an Events page (featuring dozens of good Christmas events) and a Jobs page on the Church for Vancouver site.