Many of you have seen and enjoyed the renovated room upstairs in the church opposite the sound booth. Designed by the classis 1Life team, it’s a room intentionally designed for prayer and for learning. It’s a room with a good story that I’d like to tell you a little more about.
Several years ago, a group of classis leaders -including yours truly- started meeting together to wonder about how we could work more helpfully together. This group included leaders from Safe Church, and Faith Formation and Diaconal Ministries and the Leadership Development Network and Refugee Support and Resonate Global Mission.
Each of us facilitating those ministries were pretty passionate about what we had to offer the 41 CRC churches in BC. But also, we were each pretty stretched trying to figure out how to get our individual message out. BC is a big place! And 41 churches is a lot of churches. On the other side of things, local CRC churches -like Fleetwood CRC- were describing being kind of overwhelmed at all the things they could participate in. How to know what to do, and when….and why???
The sign outside the 1Life Room upstairs
Following the model of other denominations, we as classis leaders began dreaming about taking the “smorgasbord” of learning events and turning it into a hopefully healthier “menu” for spiritual formation and discipleship. (Everyone knows what happens at a smorgasbord, right? SO easy to eat too much, or too much of one thing!) As we worked, we realized we wanted to create not only a menu for “take-out” but also a sit-down “restaurant.” Which is where this room at FCRC comes in….
It was an amazing, Spirit-filled time of conversation and dreaming and discerning with our newly formed 1Life team. And in the end, we wrote a vision and mission statement that “1Life exists to help our BC CRCs become more and more vibrant, wholehearted communities of Christian worship, discipleship and mission by providing events & resources curated around the five callings of the church: faith formation, worship, servant leadership, global mission, justice & mercy."
That’s a mouthful for sure, but the Christian life is big, isn’t it? And deep. And we wanted to take seriously our responsibility to help churches embody the whole beautiful story of following Christ. Our name, 1Life, is our attempt to say that although there are many facets to our life in Christ, in the end there is one Lord, one faith, one table of God to which all are welcome. 1Life. You can read more about all of this on our website: crc1life.ca.
So yes, about the room upstairs:
Because FCRC had been offering its facilities for the classis Leadership Development Network monthly meetings for 15 years already, it was natural to wonder if some of the underused space upstairs in the building could be re-purposed for classis use more permanently. Consulting with exec from council, the 1Life team entered into an agreement with FCRC to rent the room.
Resonate, our denominational mission agency, provided funds for us to renovate the room. From the beginning, the 1Life team wanted to create a space that was calm and beautiful, where everything in it contributed to what we were trying to do: grow our love for God who creates beauty out of chaos all the time.
It’s been such a pleasure for me to work with the 1Life team in designing the room, especially being able to work with so many of our FCRC members: Jim Tolsma and Case Noort did the initial work of making one new room out of two small rooms; Florence Rietkerk designed the trinitarian weavings in the room; Kelvin VanEyk took care of all the heating and lighting needs. If you haven’t peeked in the room yet, come just to see the fruit of their labours.
One side of the 1Life Room
Of course due to Covid, a lot of our 1Life offerings are on-line -but we’ve installed the technology to support that, which has been a great gift to all, especially far-flung churches. We haven’t as yet had as many in-person gatherings in the room as we hope to in the future. But in the meantime, the room has become a beautiful gathering place for many of our FCRC meetings as well, especially small group meetings.
It’s a beautiful partnership between a local church -our very own FCRC -and the denominational connections we have to the other 40 CRC churches in BC.
I hope this little story has made you all the more curious to participate in what’s happening under your very own roof. A great way to do that is to sign up for our 1Life monthly newsletter (go to the website crc1life.ca. Under “contact” you can sign up.) At a time when the world and even the church can be polarized in so many ways, 1Life wants to help equip the local churches to another, more life-giving way. A 1Life in Christ way.
The 1Life Room, upstairs at Fleetwood CRC
As the local church with whom 1Life is in closest partnership, we hope you will be a big part of the growing trust that 1Life needs in order to do its work. As a pastor working both at the local and classical level, I find so many places to connect-the-dots. It’s exciting work. (Several 1Life events have arisen directly from FCRC leadership: Gus & Wynanda’s session on their Amtrak trip; Brian Woudstra’s upcoming session on refugee support etc.)
Truly we do better together, don’t we. 1Life is nothing more and nothing less than an attempt to make that a more concrete reality.
On behalf of the 1Life team,
Pastor Wilma, Curator, Servant Leadership calling