I was making a list with my kids of the various things that our family had done or been part of over the last year. Our son got his learner’s driving license. One of our daughters started Junior High. There were several other milestones. And then we realized that we’d forgotten to put down that we’d all been part of a new church plant!
The omission wasn’t due to it being insignificant to us; instead, I think it’s reflective of the weirdness of church planting during a pandemic. Time moves strangely: has it only been 11 months since a handful of us started meeting? That feels both too short and too long a time.
We’ve gone through three names to date (Unnamed Chapel, Eastside Christian Experiment, and A Jesus Community [AJC]), and in October, we began looking into the possibility of selecting a new name. Several suggestions were gathered over the course of a few weeks; we are preparing to make a decision about that (hopefully for the last time) soon.
Our gathering got started in mid-February, with meetings in a home. We were very informal — which made sense since we were all related to each other — and the focus of our time together was reading a section from the Sermon on the Mount and discussing it as a group. Kids and adults were all together, and the resulting discussion consisted of authentic and exciting insights into the meaning of the text. Hearing a seven-year old reading the words of Jesus is a moving and inspiring experience. Sometimes someone would say that the passage reminded them of a YouTube video — so we would watch it together.
Where are things at now, here at the end of December 2021? Our little group, which got started with two households has grown to about 5 or 6 households. Depending on the week, we’ve met in-person or online or neither (most often, though, it’s been both online and in-person). These days, we are regularly meeting in-person (with a Zoom option for those who are out of town) at Mount Carmel Bible College at 11am.
Since September, we’ve been following a loose structure for planning what each Sunday looks like. The first week involves having brunch together and then worshipping. Because of COVID restrictions, we haven’t always been able to eat together, but this has allowed us to be more creative in our approach: we’ve encouraged having individual families over to each other’s house and we nearly did a take-home potluck, where people brought food that gets divided at church, but eaten at home. Our worship time is done in a “makerspace” style, which allows for those who wish to sing to sing and those who wish to worship in other ways (e.g., journalling, silence, reading, drawing, etc.) to be able to do so freely.
The second week of each month is what we call “Borrow Sunday,” which involves borrowing from one of the many traditions and practices that have been used by churches around the world and across time. We have tried out a Quaker-style service, an “old-school” Plymouth Brethren Lord’s Supper service, a Testimony Sunday service, and we had a real-live Anglican person come and lead us through an Anglican liturgical service. A goal with these Sundays is to give people the opportunity to ask questions and to talk about what they resonated with and what made them feel uncomfortable.
Our third week is called “Event Sunday.” We are still trying to figure out what this week looks like, but over the past few months, we’ve done a service event to pack lunches for Inner City Pastoral Ministry, we’ve gone to an art gallery, we’ve done ice breaker games, we’ve helped out with Mount Carmel Bible College’s annual Elijah Run fundraiser, we’ve discussed a movie, and we’ve used the time for a church planning session. The initial concept for this Sunday was that it would be something that anyone — churched or unchurched — could feel comfortable being part of.
The fourth week of the month is our “Word Sunday.” On these Sundays, someone will speak on a topic that they’ve explored in more detail combined with open discussion. We’ve covered several topics over the last few months, beginning in September with a talk on the grace that God shows to us. This was followed the next month by the grace that we are to show others, followed by the topic of forgiveness, and then a talk to kick-off the Advent season about hope and the need to belong. We finished the year with a Word Sunday focused on Jesus as the Peace Child.
On fifth Sundays, we typically cancel church for “Sabbatical Sunday,” encouraging people to rest or have someone over for lunch (with appropriate COVID restrictions in place, of course!).
One of the most exciting things from the past year for me has been the loose partnerships that have formed. We have identified Inner City Pastoral Ministry as one of the ministries that we would like to focus on supporting as a congregation. As noted above, this has taken the form to date of a bi-annual lunch packing event, consisting of assembling 200 lunch bags to be passed out to those in need through ICPM’s “ministry of presence” downtown. It was great to be able to do this with one of our sister churches, Millcreek Christian Fellowship. We are looking forward to finding other ways to support this ministry in the New Year.
Another partner we’re thrilled to be connected with is Southview Christian Fellowship. In September, Southview agreed to take AJC on as a ministry and to take on the responsibility of processing our finances. We have been humbled and impressed by the kindness of Southview, and hope that one day we will be able to be in a position to show similar support to other fledgling Jesus communities. It has been great to know that we are not alone (Psalm 133:1).
As we look ahead to 2022, we continue to try to understand what it means to be the church in the greater Edmonton region during this time of COVID. Our hope is to deepen our missional commitment, find more partners locally and globally with whom to live out the missio Dei, and grow closer as a community of people trying to follow Jesus. We’re grateful to God for the opportunity.