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…
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…
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…
The Colour Collective is a group of artists overcoming disabilities through their artwork. In The View from Here, at Lookout Gallery, the artists “use landscape paintings to define and understand their world.” Painting instructor for the Colour Collective Deidre Blackmore…
A couple of years ago, neighbours reacted vigorously against the city’s Grandview-Woodland Community Plan which, in their view, involved too little consultation and proposed too much density and too many high buildings, especially near the Commercial-Broadway SkyTrain Station. After extensive…
“This is the next critical step towards reaching our goal of one million Canadians experiencing Alpha.” Shaila Visser, national director of Alpha Canada, introduced the new Alpha Film Series last Thursday evening (April 14) before a full house at Performance…
There was a buzz in Regent College Chapel as people came together for Regent Exchange: Churches and the Housing Crisis January 27. Members of Christian communities across the Lower Mainland gathered alongside urban planners, social workers, architects, city officials, students, journalists…
A recently retired theologian in Vancouver, British Columbia, tells a story about a conversation he once had while getting his hair cut. The stylist asked what he did, and he replied, “I teach theology.” “Really? You believe in God?” “I…
Regent College will launch a new initiative, Regent Exchange, January 27, 7 pm, with a conversation on how churches are addressing the housing crisis in Vancouver. Veronika Klaptocz sat down with Ceri Rees, director of communications and public engagement at…
In 1989, at 26 years of age, Tim Dickau became pastor of Grandview Calvary Baptist Church, just off Commercial Drive, on 1st Avenue in east Vancouver. The church, which had been founded in 1908, was dying. Leadership Journal associate editor Paul J. Pastor spoke with Tim Dickau to find…