Forming any sort of abiding face to face community is becoming rarer in our culture. Robert Putnam’s classic study Bowling Alone charts the accelerating demise of participation in community groups and associations from the years 1960 – 2000.[1] There are multiple factors…
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,’…
A couple of years ago, The Globe and Mail featured a story called Vancouver churches unlocking their land value, noting: Urban churches are sitting on some of the priciest real estate in the province, and they’re using the situation to their…
Years of planning, prayer, training, cooperation – and some conflict – will bear fruit this weekend as the Greater Vancouver Festival of Hope comes to Rogers Arena from Friday to Sunday (March 3 – 5). One final pre-Festival prayer gathering…
The next couple of weeks will be a serious test for the Church of Vancouver. When Franklin Graham comes to Vancouver as part of the Greater Vancouver Festival of Hope March 3 – 5, some will be thrilled, others will…
City Councillor Andrea Reimer would love to see churches working together for the good of the city. “Many things start in a church basement,” she said recently. “I use that phrase a lot – and here we are in a…
The year-long Vancouver Consultation process will be capped by the City Summit November 24 – 25, at Glad Tidings Church. Participating will be church and ministry leaders from the city of Vancouver, with a handful of observers from surrounding cities.…
Forty years ago I hitchhiked up to a farm west of Lusaka in Zambia. Three months later I left as a born again Christian. The farmers/missionaries introduced me to Christ in their home Bible studies and I made a profession…
As national director for Forge Canada and a seasoned missional leader, Cam Roxburgh knows that “within every movement there is a tendency to want to look for models to copy,” but that “copycatting” is not the answer. Nonetheless, he acknowledges…
Last Thursday (June 30) Grandview Calvary Baptist Church hosted a ground-breaking event for the Co:Here Housing Community project – a four-storey, affordable housing complex with 26 self-contained units. Following several short talks, participants walked one block east along 1st Avenue…