Many church leaders do cultural studies and wrestle with the sociology of place. On a different track, others try to get their heads around the social imaginaries that make up the personality of our cities (sometimes referred to as a horizon or…
It is heartening to see the public concern over the demolition of a lovely church building near 41st and Cambie March 1 – though it is all too late to actually save the building. This was a March 5 tweet…
In late November, the City of Vancouver released the Housing Vancouver Strategy to replace its Housing and Homelessness Strategy (2012-2021). Despite having exceeded several of the key targets it had established for this midway point in that 10-year plan, city…
As one long-established church in Vancouver’s West End nears the end of a major redevelopment of its property, another is poised to begin. Central Presbyterian The site of Central Presbyterian Church at Thurlow and Pendrell used to be occupied by…
The Light Magazine interviewed Chilliwack Mayor Sharon Gaetz as part of its Snapshots of Faith series. I re-posted the bulk of the feature on Chilliwack last month, but saved this interview to run on its own. How would you describe the…
Last week, for the fourth time since first being elected in 2008, Mayor Gregor Robertson convened a meeting with faith leaders at Vancouver City Hall, to seek their assistance in addressing homelessness and affordable housing. Nearly two dozen senior clergy…
Well, you can’t complain that Vancouver City Councillors are a lazy bunch. While I was finishing off my weekly update, they were still hard at work. It was after 9 pm when they voted 7-1 in favour of rezoning the…
A diverse and motivated group of 15 pastors and leaders gathered last week for a two-hour lunch meeting to prayerfully consider the rapidly changing neighbourhood straddling the Burnaby/Coquitlam boundary with Lougheed Mall at its hub. The focus of this meeting was…
The two churches you can see from the intersection of 41st and Cambie are boarded up and will both soon be gone, each to be replaced by mixed-use six-storey buildings. Another, just a few blocks down Cambie, has begun a…
Pastor Tim Dickau of Grandview Calvary Baptist Church wrote this Foreword for his long-time friend and colleague Barry Morris. Hopeful Realism in Urban Ministry was published by Wipf and Stock in 2016. Urban ministry, especially when it is going ‘well,’…