ChristianWeek

Church steps up to host pro-life conference A small band of protesters showed up to picket the 2005 national pro-life conference in Montreal. (Photo by Tony Gosgnach) MONTREAL, QC—Less than 24 hours before the start of the first fully bilingual, national pro-life conference since the 1980s, St. Joseph’s Oratory informed organizers that the site was no longer available for the event. “Life and Family: Source of Hope,” hosted by Campagne Quebec Vie (CQV) and sponsored by LifeCanada and Campaign Life Coalition, was set to run November 17-19, featuring topics including abortion, euthanasia, palliative care and stem-cell research (among others). But organizers were left scrambling when Oratory officials made the decision to pull out the night before the conference was to begin. read the full story>

Arson ignites vision for addiction recovery centre
MONCTON, NB—A fire that caused extensive damage to a Moncton men’s shelter in early November is being hailed as a blessing in disguise.

Early the morning of November 2, Harvest House Ministries director Cal Maskery received a phone call that Harvest’s men’s residence was in flames. He rushed to the scene to find a back shed and the second floor ablaze. read more>

Experience key for emerging church
RICHMOND, BC—One Tuesday evening in November, nine people met at a local pub and spent two hours in a lively conversation about social tolerance. Guiding the discussion was Phil Harbridge, the leader of Breathe, a new “emergent church” community in Richmond.

Previously, Harbridge ministered for about 12 years to youth and young adults at First Baptist Church in Vancouver. That ended in late 2004 and his family decided they needed a deeper and more spontaneous worship experience than the traditional Church was able to offer. read more>

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Church planters gather for inspiration, information

TORONTO, ON—Planting new churches is all about taking the Church into culture to advance God’s Kingdom—and not about creating new kingdoms for Christians.

This was the message heard by more than 750 people attending the November 16-18 Mosaic 2005 Church Planting Congress in Toronto. A biennial event organized by Church Planting Canada, Mosaic is the largest Canadian event of its kind.

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Quiz meets erase denominational barriers

A competitive Scripture memorization program is crossing denominational borders.

When Tom and Judy Vincent began directing the Christian and Missionary Alliance’s (C&MA) Canadian Midwest District Bible quizzing program in 1981, there were five churches involved. Twenty-five quizzers—children up to Grade 12—memorized selected Scriptures and put their knowledge to the test at competitions.

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Ralph Reed encourages grassroots activism

TORONTO, ON—The Institute for Canadian Values (ICV) wants to mobilize people of faith to become politically engaged in this country and brought in an American heavyweight to help them do it.

At a November 30 ICV fundraising dinner, Ralph Reed—former executive director of the Christian Coalition and the man credited with uniting millions of American evangelicals to the cause of the Republican party—told a crowd of about 500 to “get on your work boots and tennis shoes” and work on the election campaign “like it all depends on you and pray like it all depends on God.”

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