Two years ago, I had a rousing two-hour conversation with the then interim principal of St. Mark’s College on the UBC campus, Michael Higgins. He is the leading biographer of such figures as Henri Nouwen and Thomas Merton and has…
Creating Conversation is a weekly editorial, curated by the Centre for Missional Leadership (CML), and gives opportunity for people to speak about issues they believe are vital for the church in Vancouver. One of the goals of this weekly article is…
Tim Dickau: Forming Christian Communities in a Secular Age: Recovering Humility and Hope (Tyndale Academic Press, 2021) Tim Dickau has written an important, wide-ranging book about what it means to be God’s people in this time of unraveling and ferment. The…
Living in Vancouver for the past 33 years, I have witnessed a steady shift towards secularism and fragmented approaches to life[i]. While church attendance has decreased during those three decades[ii], the conditions of belief have also changed, as Charles Taylor…
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…
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…
Belief in the importance of place has been growing over the past years. I have heard it referenced in an increasing number of conversations on both sides of the Atlantic. I have witnessed it at a book table at a recent conference.…