Merrits United Church West Lincoln Ontario (in Two Parts)

I spent Easter the way I love to spend Easter, at my In-laws stately country home amidst the hustle bustle of the good food, fresh air, wine, chocolate and playoff hockey.  Brunch that Sunday was set early a twenty minutes East with even more family, so my wife and I stayed behind and visited her childhood parish, Merritt's United for service before we sped away down the QEW to more playoff hockey and more chocolate.

Merritts is a small church on the intersection of two nondescript country roads, the sort of building you'd never come across unless you were looking for it. Small without being Spartan, it's an immediately comfortable building split into two floors.  The upstairs chapel could sit 150 comfortably and the basement hall/kitchen is exactly as you would imagine it.  A piano, stacked chairs, pictures of generations and lineage and a worn tapestry of the last supper.

Service was delayed on Easter on account of the reverend was held up at the second of the three churches in her charge.  This is a truly unfortunate fact of life for the rural United Church of Canada, there is neither the funds nor the congregational turnout to justify every church having it's own minister.  So our Pastor bursts in with her husband in tow apologizing for being late and jumps right into service.  Not one of the 35 souls in attendance seems the least bit upset.  The sermon was quick and remarkably informal (even with the robes, it was the most informal service I've yet seen).  There was no communion, there was a quick children's service for one child (my daughter) and there was a short and sweet rap up.  This was service as an item on the "to-do" list, it was requisite and to this observer it was about as uninspiring as the story of the resurrection can be.  I counted three times where the minister checked her watch.

That all said, everyone in attendance was quite happy with the entire production.  They were all smiles as they said goodbye and wished each other a Happy Easter.  I was... bored, and only a little upset, having been recently to a swath of energetic and motivated churches, I couldn't understand it how this could be so sedate.  I was putting off writing this post and now I'm glad I did because I was back at my in-laws this Sunday for a visit and found out that this Sunday's service at Merrit's was being forgone entirely for an annual brunch in the church basement.

This brunch was attended in droves, upwards of a hundred souls squeezed into the basement being fed by volunteers and treated to a happy and talkative community of friends and family.  It was excellent.

Now, in saying this, I don't want to put down the breakfast. The pancakes and devilled eggs where second to none, and the coffee wasn't bad either, but truth be told, people weren't stuffing the place to "standing room only" for the grub.  They were enjoying the fellowship, catching up with people they might not have seen in a while and sharing gossip with their immediate neighbours.  I heard a hundred "oh she's getting bigger"s and "what're you up to now?"s and other general niceties.  This was the extended congregation of Merrit's United in full force, coming together to break bread in numbers that just never happen for a regular, or even holiday service.

If someone belonging to that parish asked for help they'd get it, this community is involved, compassionate and integrated, they just don't show up for service.  I'll bet that each and everyone of them is a Christian when you ask them, they just don't by and large feel the draw or see the point in showing up on Sundays.  A regular told me that they'd be lucky to get a dozen people to a regular service.  It's a chicken and egg problem now, but lack of attendance started it all.  So what's the problem?  Is there a problem?

One thing is for certain, for these Protestants, if church feels like a chore, they aren't going to go.  They have enough chores to do at home.

Crossings Community Church in Acton

I was recommended to a small coffee shop/Church in Acton (One town West and in the same municipality as my beloved Georgetown) by two independent sources.  I was told they were doing something amazing, something inspiring.  So, I was expecting a good time, running late on an unseasonably cold April Morning.  I parked a block away and sprinted across highway 7 to the building's modern coffee house facade and was greeted by a smoker shaped like a good offensive guard parked against the side of the door keeping warm. He grunted a hello, I did the same and in went I.



I'm going to start with the building.  When the churches founders bought the property, it was a complete mess.  It was far and away the seediest bar for miles in any direction, and the back rooms were "the place" for drugs, sex and generally the sort of things that separate nice downtowns from crumby ones.  The building was an eyesore for the community and generally nursed a wide spectrum of bad habits into full maturity.  What amounted to the investment of a handful of families became Crossings Community Church in 2007.

In 2011, the building I entered was at once slick and comfortable, a brightly lit coffee shop of the first order that was bustling with activity, and before I had a chance to look around properly I was pointed to the self serve coffee thermos and armed with my choice from a tray of mismatched mugs.  The coffee shop backed out into what looked and felt like a retrofitted barn chapel, painted lovingly and situated with a hundred-plus neatly lined chairs, and flanked at the back and the left by another smaller coffee bar and a huge balcony above.  It was an interesting juxtaposition, I was struck with the feeling of being in an impromptu gathering, the place is mid-renovation and has a cultivated feel of a patchwork project, but with modern trappings like a Widescreen planted on the wall that reads out the hymns to those who's views might be obstructed.   The place was alive and filled with the comings and goings of parishioners, I heard lots and lots of high energy hey-how-are-yas and I saw a hugs aplenty, a dozen hugs if it was one.

By the time I got done shooting the breeze (and a second cup of joe) there was no seats in the regular aisles, so I took a place at a small cafe-style table to the side of the room under the balcony.  I was greeted by everybody in a ten foot radius in voices that were loud enough to be heard by the congregation and absorbed happily into the vibe of the service.  That service was performed by a band (which the gentleman seated next to me informed me had a rotating cast) and the junior half of the pastoral team.  The young preacher, dressed in Jeans and a sweater was a few years my junior (ack!) and delivered a great palm sunday sermon from the Book of Luke 19:28-40 that talked about humility, sacrifice and love.  His delivery was as informal as his dress, and he neither his voice or verbiage differed from his preaching to his conversation.  We had communion and as is Cross Community tradition, I was invited to a potluck lunch afterwards.


The lunch was something else.  Old pots of kraft dinner and hotdogs beside elaborate casseroles and store bought veggie platters.  If a cursory glance around the congregation didn't tell you, the potluck would: The Crossings Community Church congregation is an eclectic mix.  For every clean cut Christian family right out of a sears catalogue, there were torn leather jackets and sports jerseys from the 90's.  The place consciously caters to the community's addicted, to the mentally ill, and to the down and out, and mixes them shamelessly with the rest.  Actually, one gets the impression that the comfortable are there as much for the less so as is the other way around.  They don't just offer counselling and charity, they offer a community.  A place to belong, to be loved and to contribute.  The mix between the relatively well-heeled and the poor, and the equal footing upon which they stand, brought the sermon on the mount crashing home like a meteor.  This isn't an act of gentrification, at least not in the way I've come to understand the word.  This Church is here because they're doing the same things to people's lives as they've done to their building, to their neighbourhood.

I was told that when the church was founded, their parent church, The Alliance of Canada, was lukewarm at best to the idea, (who could blame them, the idea seems half-baked to probably everybody but the people doing it).  Needless to say, they've happily changed their tune.  This the most incredible example of inspiration, vision and the Holy Spirit manifested that I've ever even heard of, and it's a testament of faith and the awesome power of Christ in the modern world that you have to see to believe.

Both of the Church's pastors, along with half a dozen regulars made time to talk to me about All our Sundays and their church with that pitch-perfect mix of pride and humility that's so hard to come by.  They even looked a little embarrassed when I gushed about how neat I thought the place was.  I want so much to live in a world where this kind of church isn't so remarkable.  I've never seen anything like it and you really have to see this place for yourself.

West Park Baptist Church in London

I visited my parents this weekend in the Northeast corner of London ON.  Running my finger along Google Maps I chose for my Sunday service a large modern church in a new arm of London's comfortable ambient sprawl called West Park Baptist Church.

Now, as you've probably garnered already, I'm from the classic Upper Canadian Protestant tradition, that is, organs, fair to middling singers of hymns, calls followed by responses, preachers with sermons, Spartan uncomfortable pews and so on and so on.  That said, I was very much exposed to Baptist churches both as a kid and as a teenager.  I went to a great bible camp in Northern Ontario as a gradeschooler and I tagged along on dozens of comparatively elaborate trips put on by the Baptist youth ministry happening kitty-corner from my own church.

I knew they did things differently.  I knew they were less restrained, I knew they emphasized more urgency than my quiet, contemplative denomination, and I knew that when it comes to both financial and pure numerical resources they were playing with a completely different deck of cards.

And so it was that when my mom and I came to the West Park we were at once set upon with the small problem of figuring out which doors to enter.  There were several options, one not obviously more viable than the next and as it turns out they were all more or less appropriate.  This place was as substantial as you could ever want.

*This was not an entrance

In no particular order they had:

A functional, medium-sized library.
A daycare center the envy of any I've seen in my parenting adventures.
A youth area that combined a small rock music venue stage with a pool table and lounge.
A (no kidding) manned information desk
A beautiful, modern, high tech auditorium that could hold it's own any new high school in a Provincial Cabinet Minister's riding.

And into the auditorium, which might have been called a chapel but wasn't, walked my mother and I.  It was neat.  Comfortable, cushioned seating for hundreds semi-circled around a beautiful stage, flanked by three professional cameras manned by serious-looking teenagers earning defacto apprenticeships while recording the rock n' roll stylings of a seven person church band.  Onstage to the far right they erected one of the cooler crucifixes I've ever seen, with a rough spindly cross piece set against a perfectly straight body, complete with those three horrifying spikes at the hands and feet.  The cross was set on the stage and illuminated at all times with purple light, and set up in front were four untouched microphones of the sort that backup do-wop singers would use.

It was a whole lot to take in.  The band played rock-fused hymns loud and proud (so loud as to render the congregation more-or-less silent, but I'll get to that).  The Reverend Dan introduced the guest preacher, his father Marvin Brubacher, the President of Heritage College and Seminary, who after another hymn and the reading of a psalm got to work on the meat of the sermon, Mary of Bethany's anointment of Jesus at Simon the Leper's house as recounted in Mark 14 (NIV).  The sermon was titled "The Motivated Worshipper" and the President preached friendly and hard about how we can all be better, more complete lovers of God.  The sermon was punctuated by a handful of crescendo shouts, followed by as many "can I have an Amen"'s that did nothing to take away from the levelness and comfort of the service.  A very seasoned and very good orator.

These guys understand the 21st century.  They are loud, engaging, confident, media savvy, and make no bones about tailoring their service to suit the front row of the dozen-plus clean cut teenagers sitting eagerly at attention.  Service at West Park is a modern, sensory experience and their attitudes and stylings have resulted in a congregation with the kind of numbers that the other churches I've visited so far can only dream about.  A flood of children got up to leave for Sunday School and what was left were still twice that of a regular service at my home church.  West Park and their three-year-old building are flourishing.

My mother is of a shy disposition, having transferred her extroverted genes fully onto her children, and while I have no such qualms we both found ourselves before and after service standing quite alone, talking to ourselves and people-watching in a way I haven't yet been afforded.  We struck up conversations and our questions were answered politely, but curtly, by the rank and file of the church.  It wasn't until I spoke with Pastor Dan Brubacher that I got a truly pleasant reception.

It's hard to imagine a faith community so big and so enthusiastic as being insular, but when my mom and I were driving home we both came up with the same word to describe our hosts;

Suspicious.

I enjoyed the service, and I have no doubt that the community is completely supportive and loving to there fellow parishioners and the larger community, but for this guest their environment was as different as their service.  It was the same difference that made it impossible to sing the hymns over the guitars and keyboards, part of the ambience that lit up the stage while leaving the crowd in the relative darkness.  They have figured out a dynamic that works for them, and works well, they are a shining and happy testament to Christ's love and work in the world.   I'm poked and prodded by the holy spirit to remember that as Christians we all have so much to learn and gain from each other.

The Salvation Army Oakville Community Church

The Salvation Army holds a high place in my family's heart.  The men in my mother's family fought for Canada in the Great war, and along with any muted stories that have been passed down to me about bayonets, trenches and mustard gas, I was and am always told that of all the relief and aid agencies, the Sally Anne was the only one that were consistently there for the men.

That was almost 100 years ago, but their actions then have echoed through my family and my blood so that I, like my mother, feel shame every time we pass a Salvation Army Christmas collector without giving, even if we just emptied our pockets to the fellow at the other side of the mall.

As it turns out I even have a Great Grandmother who belonged to them, but for a church that I had always heard of, "shopped" at, and have  always revered, I knew next to nothing about it before this morning.  I stepped into the small, comparatively spartan parish, nestled in a pleasant, affluent neighbourhood in Oakville for the first time about half an hour before service began and was immediately set upon by half a dozen interested greeters all 25+ years my senior.  They showed me around, listened to me talk about "All Our Sundays" and passed me from friendly parishioner to friendly parishioner, so that by the time I took a seat for the service, I'd had a quick conversation with a dozen people.

The church's insides were plain white-painted drywall dressed with simple stained glass windows.  The sanctuary had a collapsable table beside the pulpit that held an opened laptop connected to a projector, and behind that, a drum set (said one of my hosts, "We have a drum set, we're still looking for a drummer") and a simple wooden crucifix centred on the wall.  I sat in a pew ahead of Colleen, who told me with some excitement about the mission work her congregation was involved in, a large shelter called the lighthouse amongst other things, and her zeal for their undertakings was as electric as it was shared with everyone else.  She told me she had been raised in the United Church, my church, and we talked for a while about our familiar stomping ground.

I asked her casually how she had ended up with the Salvation Army, and without missing a beat she replied that they had taken her in.  This well-heeled woman, a banker, had been down and out and had needed a bed to sleep in, and the Army had been there for her.  She said it proudly and it was the closest anybody I met there got to boasting.  These guys do two things better than anybody I've yet to meet, Mission and humility.

The service started with music from a 5-piece brass band I thought was great, and between a tuba and a trumpet about forty souls piled in for service.  This particular Sunday the church was celebrating their various missions, and a contingent from their Lighthouse community centre arrived.  A number of them looked exactly like you would expect people living in an emergency shelter would look like, and you figure out very quickly that this church is busy walking the walk and doing the heavy lifting.

We opened the service with "Onward Christian Soldier, marching as if to war", which I'm familiar with but have never actually sung before, and my hosts made no bones about singing at the top of their lungs.

I was busy carrying on a quiet conversation with another "officer" behind me while the woman performing the announcements introduced me to the congregation, and then reintroduced me, and then re-reintroduced me before I turned around to pay attention (in my defence, the three ladies behind me were pretty chatty).

The main reading was from Acts 2:42 (New International Version), and the sermon was delivered by the female half of a married team of "Majors"(Wendy and Dan).  I've never heard a sermon less draped in craft, or more humble.  She talked at length clearly and simply about how incredible the growth of the early church must have been, about how church is exciting now.  She talked about numbers, about how even though a majority of Canadians identified themselves as Christian, something like 20% attended church regularly.  She called Christians who didn't go to church "orphans", and talked about the necessity of belonging and the value of being a community.

(I have plenty of friends who feel that way, who don't have anything bad to say about Jesus, but feel about church the way other people feel about the dentist.  I get some wonky answers when I ask them what they think goes on.)

The readings and the sermon were all dressed with exclamations from the crowd, and every point a speaker would make would be followed by a rousing "amen" or "Praise god" from all corners of the church.  Those sorts of exclamations are foreign to my Church upbringing, and I'm always taken by their spontaneity, but what was even more unfamiliar was the THREE WHOLE HYMNS sung in a row halfway through the service.  Three loud, sequential hymns I'd never heard before, with no accompanying sheet music.  Three songs in which a shaky tenor voice could be heard missing notes, beats and entire stanzas.  It was in-church equivalent of running a marathon blindfolded and I'm pretty sure the ladies behind me weren't giggling "with" me at all.

The Salvation Army lives up to their reputation, and it is a congregation focused on service to the downtrodden.  Church life here doesn't begin and end with Sunday service by a long shot, and while consequently the services probably aren't for everyone, when they say "welcome everyone" they really mean it, and if you're looking for a place to make a difference, they're drinking right from the well.

St. Anne's Anglican Church in Toronto: A Heavy Jewel

St. Anne's is the sort of beautiful that tells stories that gets under your skin the way a good Shakespeare  passage or an good preacher hitting his or her stride does.

The building, those walls, those impossible ceilings, the idiosyncratic and so very alive artwork spaced in conservative symmetry here and there, it all must have worked in such terrific concert with a Toronto that stepped politely into the roaring twenties shy of a century prior.  Erected by a buzzing Anglican working class beaming it's confidence and quiet dignity.  St. Anne's is a church in the same way that Glenn Gould was a pianist, the same way Johnny Bower was a goalie.  It is bold in scope and subtle in its art, and the wealth of paintings and sculpture worthy of a museum are enough to have fuelled at least one Post-Grad thesis.

It's the only Byzantine-styled church in North America, it's home to a museum's worth of Group of Seven art (housing their sole and exclusive religious-themed efforts) and you do yourself a terrible disservice by not visiting, believer or otherwise.

Today St. Anne's Anglican Church lies smack in a far corner of a Parkdale thrice adopted by different groups of immigrants, Ukrainian, Italian and Brazilian/Portuguese, who all used (or are using) it to spring board to Suburbia and Canadian economic success.  As you might have guessed, theses three ethnicities are not rife with potential Anglican converts, and for a lifetime the membership of the church has been composed of people living separate parishes and "commuting"to Dufferin and Dundas.

I arrived forty minutes early for the advertised Morning prayer study and a custodian lets me poke around the sanctuary for a few minutes unattended.  Then I have a short, pleasant conversation with the leader of the prayer group, who was boning up on the days reading, John 3:1-17 in the stark, minimalist chapel of the large, more pragmatic side building.  We line up a half dozen steel chairs by twos and after a pleasant introduction went into a quick service that was accompanied by a tape player recording of a hymn and was composed mainly of call and response readings, with a quick meditation and an even quicker discussion on the reading and a rush to join the hustle and bustle of preparing for the main service an hour later.

In the big church meanwhile, close to a hundred friendly parishioners wade into the pews that could fit a thousand under the blessings of a good ten member choir.  The crowd had a mix of ethnicities and ages, but fifty years-plus Anglo-Saxons ruled the day by a fair margin and there wasn't more than ten children in all (I did notice a pair of bassinets leaning against a back wall, but I didn't see them employed).

After a quick opening hymn the young people were immediately called to the front for a quick lent-focused lesson delivered by Reverend Lance Dixon, followed by Sunday school elsewhere.  Reverend Dixon is a younger man and has a friendly, distinctly engaging delivery, a good example of  "new school" oratory done a small disservice by a microphone feedback issue.  The mediation proper was delivered by a different priest who did a nice examination of Nicodemus in the passage, the gist of which was that Christians have to embrace the mystery of Christ when he says "I have spoken to you of earthly things and you do not believe; how then will you believe if I speak of heavenly things? (John 2:12)"

The latter preacher was an older gentleman possessed of a composed, quiet, gently self-depreciating humour and I am lead to believe that his performing the meditation and later communion in his colleague's stead was the exception rather than the rule.

Two things struck me as out-of-the-ordinary cool.  One, the floors under the pews were of bare planks, it was a strange juxtaposition to the wild beauty everywhere else and it made me very happy.  Two, A boxer named "Tyson" attended service, and was even involved in the "stand up and greet your neighbor" segment of the service.  I can't remember ever having a dog in a service, let alone in a heritage building, and I was more than a little proud of the knee-jerk happiness he inspired in me.

After service I was involved in a conversation with two heavily involved parishioners, who both said that St. Anne's musical history and contribution is what gave their congregation it's identity, even more so than it's architecture. Of the future, both were cautiously optimistic about their community's prospects, and brought up their work-in-progress plans for the future.

The congregation aspires to grow, and more impressively, genuinely aspires for a new identity and a good solid voice in the larger Christian community.  They are as welcoming a group as I've had the pleasure to meet and they have a plan for growth (a part of which, ironically, is "crossing fingers" and a patient wait for gentrification).  At the moment though, I think it's fair to call the congregation at St. Anne's, though welcoming and thoughtful, custodial rather than organic.  No one seems comfortable with the numbers as they are, and everyone at St. Anne's seems to be waiting for a push.

The fact of the matter is upkeep for this nationally recognized heritage site has run routinely in the neighbourhood of seven figures, and external funding, (vigorously federal and reluctantly provincial) along with "swing-for-the-fences" fund raising is the law of the land, not internal financial infrastructure. In fact day to day expenses are covered largely by rent fees charged to various wonderful community-based Not-For-Profits, a gift of legacy from more affluent days that sustains where the reality of collection plate numbers simply cannot.

It's an uphill battle in a neighbourhood largely Roman Catholic or non-practicing altogether. The act of preserving both the building and the heart of the church is an ongoing concern, but it's a challenge the people at St. Anne's are embracing, and I think it might be an important thing for the wider Christian community to pay close attention to as well.  Places like this are few and far between, a building raised up like a nuanced, clever prayer to heaven.  St. Anne's is a whole chapter in Toronto's long conversation with Jesus Christ.