Before COVID-19
I grew up in a United Church. In my last year of high school, I sacrificed being yearbook editor to serve on a committee at the church that was given the task of hiring the minister for the congregation. That minister, who I will call Pastor B, is still serving at my childhood church and I have much respect for him. Soon after his hire, I had a meeting with him where I expressed that my job was done and I was leaving the church to follow a path God put me on. To the outside world, it may have looked like I was chasing a boy (my now husband), in truth, I was chasing a deeper relationship with my Creator. Pastor B recently led my grandfather’s funeral. In conversation after the service, I felt the same support for my faith journey now as I did then.
Chris is my high school sweetheart. The boy I was chasing parallel to my chasing after God as a teen. We’ve been in ministry together since high school, so over 20 years. During this time Chris has been a lay pastor, usually without remuneration. We are grateful for a season of 5 years where working for the church also helped pay the bills and I was able to teach part-time and stay home to help raise our three daughters.
During our ministry, we have spent a lot of time in transition: helping churches during the season of a pastor leaving or our own shift to a new path. We are leaving our latest transition period behind. After “retiring” from youth ministry on a high point in the summer of 2019, Chris took a stepping stone to our next season of service. He joined a local mission organization whose commission was to serve Northern and local churches with carnival supplies (aka bouncy castle missions). This step was always temporary, but we felt it was the right one, as we weren’t ready to share what was further along the path with everyone.
Enter COVID-19
God foresaw Chris’ pulmonary embolism that fall as well as the COVID-19 pandemic. Both of these events caused the shift in plans of Chris being staff with the mission organization to serving on the board of trustees. He is currently helping the organization through a transition of its own.
COVID-19 had us be a part of three different church congregations where we healed, learned, refined a vision, and prepared for the next season of ministry. We are thankful to each of these community spaces who helped shaped the way forward for us.
During autumn 2020, we purchased a cottage at Braeside Camp believing this to be a part of what was next to come. At Braeside, we have watched our children’s health and faith turn around positively (and our sanity) after a difficult period of isolation that most of us suffered together apart during the pandemic. The campground has been a place of reflection and restoration in the 5 years we have been enjoying it. We hope for it to be a place of joy for family and friends in the years to come.
Teaching from home and vagrant churching saw me in desire of friendship without my regular in-person interactions. The second and third stages of the pandemic lockdown in Ontario left me void. Cue Alberta stirring our lives. Chris has been mentored by a national PAOC pastor from Alberta during the pandemic. The favourable contributions of someone 3000 km away floored me. Another mentor I have grown a respect for.
By what could only be God, I reconnected virtually with a friend from high school who also lives in Alberta. Weekly at 9:30 pm my time and 7:30 pm her time we defied logic, time, and space and in my mind, I began faithfully attending “church” again in the form of video and phone calls. If God can positively impact our lives beyond comprehension from Alberta, how much more can He do in our local communities? If a pastor’s wife can be void and broken, how many more out there are feeling the same thing?
Now
We don’t want to do the same thing we’ve always done in church. Listen, we love and respect the church as is, but we are all members of the same body with different roles…we are embracing our role. People are not projects that require saving. People need love without strings attached. Our lives are richer because faith is at the center and we want to share that journey with people, old and new. We want to share their journey whether we believe the same thing or not.
As Pastor B said to me at the end of my grandfather’s funeral: We can’t limit God to church. He can be found in nature or unconventional places. My grandfather wasn’t religious (I don’t call myself religious either but that is another blog altogether) but I believe He embraced God on our weekly phone calls and many visits. His faith journey was his own to travel and I was but a sojourner.
The way is often unconventional. The way often lacks walls. The way to the Father is through Jesus. But, this isn’t about making converts to Christianity. This is about being sojourners in a community of people, those who call Christianity their faith and those who don’t. I am dependent on God for my continued existence. We hope to see old and new faces as sojourners on our journey of a new (and yet old) way of doing church.
Adding God or church to our lives is not enough. Let’s meet Him where we are and watch Him multiply the love in our lives. As an old song in my childhood church says, “The church is not a building, the church is not a steeple, the church is not a resting place…the church is the people.”
Are we more concerned with our families attending church programs each week, or are we more concerned about them meeting with God each day? (Paraphrased from Barb Raveling’s Freedom from Emotional Eating, p.124, 2008)
Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me…Whoever has my commands and keeps them is the one who loves me. The one who loves me will be loved by the Father, and I too will love them and show myself to them.”
-John14:6, 21
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Stay tuned for more information about Way Groups: the way we will be doing church starting September 2021.
