Date/Time
Date(s) - January 26, 2021
5:00 pm - 6:30 pm
Categories No Categories
Date: Tuesday January 26
Time: two time slots available. 5-6:30pm PST OR 7-8:30pm PST
Presenters: Cam Roxburgh, Ken Nettleton, Tim Dickau, and Shannon Youell
Cost: FREE sponsored by Canadian Baptists of Western Canada CBWC)
What if God is using Covid-19 to wake the church up to its mission? Rather than viewing Covid as a negative disruptor to the mission of God’s church, what if Covid has actually only exposed and accelerated what was already going to happen?
The reality is that Covid has given the Church an incredible opportunity to rethink, reimagine and reorient herself towards the mission of God here and now in our communities, neighbourhoods, towns and cities.
Join Shannon Youell and presenters Tim Dickau, Ken Nettleton and Cam Roxburgh in an interactive workshop for Pastors and their Leadership Teams to be guided through a process of visioning to discern and discover the opportunities the Church has because of Covid to join God at work in His normal.
Together we will journey through the theological, missiological and ecclesiological issues we face in considering practices to help us discern where God is at work in our post-modern, post-Christendom, post Covid world.
Tim Dickau was the pastor of Grandview church in Vancouver for 30 years. During that time, the church had gone from being ready to dissolve to becoming re-established as a force for good in its neighbourhood. In the last three decades, the church has found creative ways to bear witness to the good news of God’s reconciling and restoring love through community living, welcome of the poor and the stranger, economic development through social enterprises, a 26 unit community housing project, proliferation of the arts, prophetic witness and deepening practices of confession and repentance. One way of describing this transition is to say they have moved from “going to church to being the church…in and for the neighbourhood.” Tim is the author of Plunging into the Kingdom Way and Forming Christian Community in a Secular Age: Recovering Humility and Hope (due out in January of 2020). Tim has recently embarked on a new venture as the leader of the certificate in missional leadership with the Center for Missional Leadership at St. Andrews Hall on the UBC campus. He has also taken on the role of director of Citygate Leadership Forum where his task will be to lead the organization in mentoring pastors and churches towards a parish, kingdom vision. The organization has a goal to help churches and communities to collaborate with each other to pursue systemic change through creation of housing, food security, and other responses.
Ken Nettleton and his wife Kimberley have pastored CBWC churches for 30 years in large cities (Vancouver, Calgary) and mid-size communities (Kamloops, Duncan). Since 2014 they have led the congregation of New Life in declaring Jesus to the Cowichan Valley and beyond. In there somewhere Ken worked for two years as the CBWC Missional Church Director, helping congregations understand and practice healthy missional living in their neighbourhoods. For over a decade Ken has also served as a Cdn Forces padre with infantry regiments in Calgary and on Vancouver Island. Their children live in Calgary and Nova Scotia.
With the onset of COVID, Ken led New Life to restructure using a House Church, Village Church, Cathedral Church model (www.newlifechurch.ca). Small “House Churches” gather weekly and combine with other HCs (bi-weekly) to form “Village Churches” who do mission together. Systematic Bible teaching now happens online each day (Monday-Friday) in ten-minute chunks, and virtual weekend gatherings (Cathedral Church) summarize the week’s teaching, tell stories of God’s grace, and provide music, prayer and updates that tie the 35 House Churches and Village Churches together. This restructuring is designed to cleanse our consumeristic tendencies by requiring participation in small communities that demand commitment to Christ and one another. The hope is that discipleship will no longer be considered optional but necessary to be a part of the New Life congregation.
Cam Roxburgh is a missionary who loves the church in Canada. He is the Senior Pastor at Southside Community Church, the VP for Missional Initiatives for the North American Baptists, International Director for Forge Missional Training, but best of all a Husband and Father. Having Planted a Neighbourhood Church in Vancouver BC, he continues to Pastor as well as lead Forge Global Missional Training Network – an organization which equips the church to become missional and move towards multiplication.
Shannon Youell – Facilitator