Looking back on 2025

When I look back over the past year, I’d say the glass is more than half full – at least as far as the Christian community in Metro Vancouver is concerned. There are so many signs of good will, hope and cooperation that I am encouraged.

Here are links to some of the issues, people and trends I covered in the past year. Each one features the headline, with a brief description:

The focus here is mainly local, but I did post quite a number of national and international articles as well.

Serving the community

• Churches offer prayer, vigils – and hope – in the wake of Lapu-Lapu Day tragedy: St. Mary the Virgin Anglican Church, St. Andrew’s Catholic Church, Christ City Church – and others – offered invaluable support this spring.
• City Care Dental offers a vital service: Partnering with City Dream Centre, Ron and Wendy Gaudet and their team have provided well over $600,000 worth of free dental work in Surrey / White Rock since 2017.
  
  

  Ron Gaudet with a patient and dental hygienist in the City Care Dental clinic.

• UGM Women’s Shelter: Union Gospel Mission (UGM) has dramatically increased its work with women over the past few years. Speaking with Stephen Quinn on CBC Radio’s Early Edition in January, a UGM spokesperson described their temporary new overnight Women’s Emergency Shelter.
• A rare form of resistance, served daily in Richmond: Every Monday morning, Kim and a group of three to five other talented volunteers congregate in St. Alban’s kitchen to cook and package 80 takeout meals . . . it’s the quiet and steady work that has lasting impact.
• Join with effective networks to serve public schools: One of the best kept secrets is the impactful work of three charitable organizations that are partnering effectively with at least 60 schools, and churches, to care for the growing number of children whose families are facing income and food insecurity.

Reaching beyond

• Religious communities continue to lead the way in welcoming refugees: World Refugee Day 2025 (June 20) is a good time to remember the leading role that Christians, churches and their networks have taken in welcoming refugees – both now and in the past.
• Wagner Hills’ Oakhouse: BC Housing and the Jim Pattison group helped Wagner Hills Farm reach its $14 million budget to complete Oakhouse, a residential addiction recovery centre in Langley. Open house was September 5.
• Mennonite Disaster Service, Fraser Lands & others help Lytton rebuild: The process of rebuilding homes and community is frustratingly slow in Lytton, but one Christian ministry is actually building houses, while Fraser Lands Church and others have been supporting Lytton residents in various ways over the years.
• A national movement – reimagining church, land and community: The church in Canada is one of the largest landholders in the country. One estimate is that church properties and buildings in Canada are valued at over 26 billion dollars. CityGate and others are addressing the question of how churches utilize and develop this land.
• A Rocha BC Centre a strong partner in growing international network: The A Rocha BC Centre “is one of the jewels in the crown of A Rocha.” Ed Walker, Executive Director of A Rocha International, had heard a lot about the south Surrey property, and read books about it by local authors – but it wasn’t until he drove up the driveway on a rainy day in March that understood why people find it such a special place.

Controversial matters

• Colonialism will not be revisited by Regent College : Nigel Biggar knows something about being critically received, but he was probably surprised when he learned that his alma mater had cancelled his lecture planned for March 6. Biggar had been scheduled to deliver a talk on ‘Colonialism Revisited: Did the British Empire Promote Human Welfare?’ (Also here and here.)
• ARPA Canada: under attack in the BC Legislature: It became clear that ARPA Canada’s perceived growing influence was not welcome, when Burnaby East NDP MLA Rohini Arora attacked the group. Her fellow NDP MLAs, along with the Greens and independent Elenore Sturko voted October 6, the day MLAs returned to the Legislature, to condemn ARPA’s “intolerant views.”
• Pastor’s killer not guilty: A Richmond family is very unhappy with a recent court decision not to convict the man who was responsible for the fatal collision May 2, 2019 which killed Pastor Tom Cheung, who had been lead pastor at Pacific Grace MB Church in Port Moody.
• Bearcats win: The Abbotsford-based Columbia Bible College Bearcats women’s basketball team will be able to tell their grandkids about just such a season – one which even attracted international attention. The Daily Mail in England, for example, ran a March 16 article: ‘College basketball team sanctioned over trans athlete abuse wins Canadian national championship.’
• Junos still feature Christian artists: Vancouver hosted the Juno Awards March 30 – and Christian music was still in the mix, despite a short-lived cancellation last year.
• Why she helps people take drugs: In her book, Why I Help People Take Drugs: Reflections of a Christian Addiction Medicine Physician, Dr. Meera Bai Grover reveals that she has, like many of us, grappled with the controversy surrounding supervised injection sites.

Youth, good news

• The Quiet Revival in England and Wales – and possibly beyond? : The Quiet Revival, a survey commissioned by the Bible Society in the UK, offers some surprising revelations: “Church decline in England and Wales has not only stopped, but the Church is growing, as Gen Z leads an exciting turnaround in church attendance.” Paul Williams, now CEO of the Bible Society, taught at Regent College for several years.
• The Current: Gen Z faith: The Current: “Christian churches across Canada say more young people are turning to faith – reversing a decades long trend.” The main congregation featured was local – Avant Life Church in North Vancouver.
• Gen Alpha resources now available from Alpha Canada: Alpha hosted a webinar introducing their study on Gen Alpha (“the spiritually curious generation”) and not long before that presented a study on Gen Z (“the open generation”).
• Sanctuary launches Christian youth mental health resource: Vancouver-based Sanctuary Mental Health Ministries launched The Sanctuary Youth Series, a free, groundbreaking resource designed to support the wellbeing of Christian youth. It is aimed at students aged 11 to 15 and designed for use in small groups, youth ministries and school settings.

Colleges & seminaries

• Regent College: Jeffrey Greenman, Paul Spilsbury: Dr. Jeffrey Greenman was interviewed just before he retired from his role as Regent College’s fifth President at the end of June. Dr. Paul Spilsbury began as President in July.
• Trinity Western University’s new president: Trinity Western University announced Dr. Todd Martin as its sixth president February 18. Since the departure of Dr. Mark Husbands, who completed his five-year term as president in June 2024, Dr. Martin carried the responsibility of interim president and provost.
• Major American seminary to join Trinity Western; represents ‘seismic change’: Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (TEDS), based in Chicago, has developed an impressive reputation over its 128-year history. Trinity Western (TWU) is Canada’s largest private Christian university, with about 6,000 students.

Church / ministry building

• First Baptist going home: The congregation of First Baptist Church finally met in their own church building again May 4, having moved out five years ago.
• The Neighbourhood Church: from ‘small vision’ to ‘Imagine Edmonds’ project: “If everything goes according to plan, we will be building a 50-storey tower with 480 units of housing for families, a 300-seat theatre for neighbourhood use, and a 50,000-square-foot ministry centre which will house not only the church’s ministry, but several other local organizations.”
• St. Paul’s: Catholic mission: The new leader of the Roman Catholic Church in Vancouver, Archbishop Richard Smith, made a clear statement about the significance of St. Paul’s Hospital as a Catholic institution.
• High profile building projects dot the city landscape: As you drive around Vancouver these days, you’ll see lots of buildings going up. And a number of those sites – whether simply slated for redevelopment, reduced to holes in the ground or featuring cranes in the sky – are on church or ministry land.
• St. Vincent’s Heather Long Term Care development begins in summer: The new residence will continue that centuries-old tradition of Catholic health care, Paul Brown, chair of the Providence Health Care Society, said, “to uphold the dignity of the human person by addressing unmet needs and creating communities of care and healing for all.”
• Seventh-day Adventist open house: The Seventh-day Adventist Church in BC and the Yukon has a newly redeveloped home in Abbotsford, and they welcomed everyone to come and visit.

Arts

• Leo Award: Natalie Farrow won Best Supporting Performance in a Motion Picture at the Leo Awards July 13 for her role in a locally produced movie.
• Pacific Theatre forced to move: “We write to you today at a crossroads in our company’s history. After more than 30 years in our beloved alley-style theatre, located in the historic Chalmers Heritage Building, Pacific Theatre has made the difficult decision to leave our long-time home and to pause programming at the end of December 2025.”

Indigenous

• Land as relative: the Gospel through Indigenous eyes: Brian Stiller and Ray Aldred have known each other for some time, and both long ago committed to be agents of reconciliation. Their conversation “explores the intersection of Indigenous identity and Christian faith.”
• Cowichan Tribes decision is unsettling, confusing . . . and good news: For BC politicians, the ruling is hard to acknowledge because it reveals the illegitimacy of colonial systems, an inconvenient truth that all previous governments, based on settler numbers alone, thought they could evade forever.

Business

• Owners of JJ Bean and The Dirty Apron provided one highlight at BAM 2025: They didn’t hesitate to discuss their triumphs – John Neate is now operating 23 JJ Bean cafés and David Robertson and his wife Sara have created a cooking school, catering service and delicatessen. But both men also offered plenty of sobering advice. Each said the early years, particularly, were tough.

Looking back

• Pentecostal Preacher Woman: Bernice Gerard (1923 – 2008) was one of a kind – a Pentecostal preacher, a feminist, a talk show host, a politician and an ecumenist. Vancouver Sun religion (and more) columnist Douglas Todd put her right at the top of his list of BC’s most influential spiritual leaders of the 20th century.
• Vancouver’s ‘Apostle to the Poor’ one of many featured in book of sermons: Andrew Roddan is not a name most Vancouverites could immediately identify. But it should be – and a new book allows us to see how he and other United Church preachers contributed so much to the fabric of Canadian society.
• Take a fascinating pictorial tour of Old Heritage Churches: Dave Stewart-Candy has taken a keen interest in church buildings and their history, both locally and beyond. And the results of that interest can be found on his Old Heritage Churches site,
• Sceptre and Sakura: Architect and historian Elisabeth Kwan (PhD 2024, Oxford), reconsidered the history of Downtown Eastside church: The Sceptre and the Sakura: The Rise of St. James’ Anglican Church in Vancouver’s Nihonmachi (‘Japantown’).
• The church isn’t a building, but First Baptist has valued its home bases: First Baptist’s church building is now at the corner of Burrard and Nelson in the downtown core – but that wasn’t always the case. The congregation has made its home in several shelters over the years, and longtime member Kurtis Findlay gave a presentation on the various incarnations.
• Remembering the dynamic Jesus Movement; might we see another?: In 1972, hundreds of Jesus People in the Resurrection Coalition reached out to drugged-up youth at the Easter Be-in held at Vancouver’s Stanley Park, offering free food, music bands, evangelism and beach baptisms.
• Missionary nurse left a valuable, and still appreciated, legacy in Taiwan: Susan Martens Kehler is warmly remembered by Taiwanese nurses and professors she trained many decades ago, during her many years at Mennonite Christian Hospital Nursing School in Taiwan. Local scholar Sonya Grypma has led the way in bringing attention to the amazing work of the many missionary nurses who worked selflessly, and often with very little notice, in China.

Local books

I have covered 49 local books this year, in five columns, which can be linked to here.