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FALL 2024
Community Arboretum: Growing Together through Planting New Churches
By Andrea Perrett, Centre for Missional Leadership, St. Andrew’s Hall
What do a Cantonese-speaking, radically inclusive, Anglican church startup and a DJ’d night- club Presbyterian church startup have in common? The leaders of both new churches are part of a Community Arboretum with the Cultivate Collective. While the two congregations might gather in different ways, the Community Arboretum is a place where they can learn from and support one another while they navigate the challenges and joys of starting a new church.
The Centre for Missional Lead- ership (CML) at St. Andrew’s Hall in Vancouver, B.C., has sup- ported leaders of new witnessing communities through a variety of programs over the last six years. In 2023, the Cultivate: Missional Church Planting Collective was created by the CML to further
equip and educate church plant- ers. The Cultivate Collective is an ecumenical network that strives to complement the services of other church planting networks, such as Cyclical PCC. The Cul- tivate Collective hosts retreats, organizes conferences and runs the Community Arboretum to help equip church planters.
Starting in January 2024, the Community Arboretum, or “Ar- bors” for short, was one of the first programs started by the Cultivate Collective. The Arbors was grown out of the idea of a botanical ar- boretum, which is a garden with a collection of trees and shrubs cultivated for scientific or educa- tional purposes. The Community Arboretum therefore desires to gather a collection of ecumenical, innovative church planters from across British Columbia to learn from one another through the pro- cess of starting a new church.
The Community Arboretum is grouped into small learning pods,
where the church planters meet several times over the course of a year for competency-based teaching and group-directed learning. The whole Arboretum also comes together for a multi- day retreat for further learning and to build relationships.
Our first two learning pods started meeting online in January 2024, with participants coming from across the Lower Mainland and Vancouver Island, represent- ing five denominations. Each learning pod is led by a team member from the CML and cov- ers topics related to Missional Practice, Stewardship and Lead- ership. Andrea Perrett, Associate in New Witnessing Communities with the CML, is leading a learn- ing pod with leaders who are in the first few years of their church plant. Albert Chu, Director of the CML, is leading the other learning pod, which includes participants who are leading church plants that are over five years old.
With the challenges of declining church attendance across Canada, and reduced denominational and congregational support for church planters, it can seem like the soil is very rocky when it comes to plant- ing new churches. However, lead- ers, such as those who are part of theArbors,arerespondingtoGod’s call to star t new witnessing com- munities. They are faithfully joining in with God’s work in the world and are creating new communities that witness to the reconciling love of Jesus Christ and provide places of belonging for others to come to build a relationship with the Triune God. While the context each leader is planting in might look different, the Community Arboretum is pro- viding a space for them to connect with, learn from and support one another as they each experiment.
During a gathering in June, one leader from Vancouver Island re- flected that they were so relieved and encouraged to have a group of leaders who understood what they were going through. The Ar- bors create a space where church planters gain new friends and col- leagues who are asking the same questions as them, struggling with the similar challenges as them and can understand the difficult work and joys involved with star ting something new.
The program has been designed to equip church planters with the skills needed to navigate starting a church in our current landscape. There will be new Arbors starting in January 2025. If you are interested, or would like more information, contact us at [email protected] or equippingformission.ca.
Dinnertime at our first Alpha session.
family members. Thanks to Pastor Morgan for conducting the altar call with three new converts.
Another big surprise was five children joined in one session and they had a fun experience with Alpha. We had a few testimonies about God’s miraculous healing, connecting and meeting friends, and finding jobs in a miraculous way. The success of Alpha Minis- try is attributed to the 400+ peo- ple praying along with us. Many thanks to the Rev. Robin Ross for making this partnership in prayer across Canada possible. Alpha Ministry at CPC could be a model for other Presbyterian churches to invest in the lives of people in their respective neighbourhoods with the gospel of Christ!
We pray that the light of Christ continues to shine upon us with creativity and innovation to con- nect the old and the new in the history of Christian doctrine with relevance to content and context as we lead people into commun- ion with God in worship.
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Alpha Ministry in Vancouver
The CPC Alpha Team, Vancouver Chinese Presbyterian Church in Vancouver, B.C.
Spreading the gospel by congre- gations is the way forward.
In April 2024, Vancouver Chi- nese Presbyterian Church in Van- couver, B.C., star ted a 12-week trilingual Alpha program, which teaches the fundamentals of Chris- tianity. Each of the 12 sessions has been full of surprises as an adven- ture of facing challenges of deci- sion making in life, understanding the Christian faith, encountering Jesus Christ and receiving the gift
of the Holy Spirit as a gift of grace. We had new registrants in almost each session, conducted in Eng- lish, Mandarin and Cantonese. The average attendance was 35 and the total number of Alpha guests amounted to 72. The special Holy Spirit weekend attracted 76 peo- ple. Amazingly, we had three new conver ts among the young people.
Helen Chi, Alpha Advisor with Chinese Context of Alpha Ministry Canada, trained the volunteers. Many volunteers of the Mandarin group come from different church- es and the volunteers are pastor John Cai, Venus Ng, Michelle Lyu,
Bruce Li—most of them have been attending the weekly Mandarin Bi- ble Study group online every Friday. The Cantonese group consists of pastor Morgan Wong, Grace Wong, Ada So, Frances Ng, Cecilia Chan, Ivy Cai and Lily Yew, our admin- istrator of the whole CPC Alpha Program. The Oakridge Christian Ministry group or English group volunteers are Dr. Garland Chow, Alex Wong, Jimmy Yee, Philip Mark, Dr. Timothy Tam, Dr. Remy Fu and Andrew Wong, our tech manager. Many thanks to Ying Wai Yeong, our official photographer.
The most remarkable experi-
ence was seeing many church people work together in reaching out to our community with the love of Christ. This experience was invaluable and demonstrates how a church should be as a gathered community of hope, faith and love.
The goal of Alpha ministry is to offer the gift of God’s grace: for Jesus Christ to dwell in everyone who believes in Him and to be- come His followers. The church, or people of God, are not the building but a community of like-minded people connected and committed to exalting the name of Jesus for His glory and our good! We need to encounter and see the face of the one who makes all things new.
A highlight of our Alpha Minis- try was having several scholars from China coming from different distinguished Chinese universities doing their doctorate program at Regent College’s Chinese Study Program, led by Dr. Grace Liang.
During our Holy Spirit weekend at the church, we saw commit- ments of life to Jesus for the first time, which is so encouraging, witnessed by members of the church. Prayers were offered for healing of sickness and reconcilia- tion of broken relationships among
Alpha guests, volunteers and church members gathered in the church sanctuary for a group photo on Alpha weekend.