St. Michael’s Multicultural Anglican Church located on East Broadway in East Vancouver is a growing community of Christians dedicated to following the Ministry Plan developed in 2007.
One of the challenges that they wanted to address back in 2007 was to “find a COMPATIBLE church with whom to share a priest, in an equal, shared ministry.”Well that didn’t work out exactly as planned but most would agree that the current results have met the goals of the 2007 Ministry Plan developers as St. Michael’s now has a Priest-in-Charge, the Reverend Wilmer Toyoken. Wilmer, who arrived in Canada in 2007 to be with his wife Rose has definitely found a place to share his ministry and the St. Michael’s community is delighted to have dedicated ordained leadership.
Since it’s centennial, March 11th, 1989, the St. Michael’s community has been part of an evolutionary 23 year journey to full Multi-Cultural Ministry and the continuation and development of their primary compassionate service, the Mission and Food Bank Program. But in recent years much of the parish’s missional focus and energy has been to achieve a level of sustainability and viability so that they could offer a ministry position to a priest. With that goal substantially met (Wilmer is at the moment ¾ time) it is time to shift the imminent missional focus of the community to building strength within the community: leadership training and spiritual formation.
With this goal in mind, St. Michael’s will embark on a Strategic Planning Workshop at Pender Island, March 9-11. Every committee of the church has at least one representative on the Strategic Planning Group. Wilmer says that the Strategic Planning Group and the 2012 Parish Council are pretty much one and the same, which is an impressive degree of commitment from a church with a developing congregation.
The St. Michael’s Strategic Planning Group is following the outline and recommended priorities of the Diocesan Plan 2018. They are eager to discover what their parish can do to meet the Priorities for the Diocese’s next decade, to: Nurture Spiritual Journeys, Support Christian Education, Deepen Anglican Understanding, Renew Anglican Worship, Nurture the Parish Community, Build a Community of Parishes, Care for God’s Earth, Participate in Local Communities, Cultivate Interfaith Understanding and Address Issues of Poverty. They will need to look at the priorities and discern which of the 10 are the most relevant to the mission and ministry goals of St. Michael’s.
We hope that representatives of St. Michael’s Strategic Planning Group will share their results from the weekend and perhaps give some guidance to other parishes that may be looking at a similar course of action. Regardless, St. Michael’s leadership by their actions are living into the Diocese of New Westminster’s Vision Statement, Growing communities of faith in Jesus Christ to serve God’s mission in the world.
The May, 2012 issue of TOPIC, the D of NW’s monthly publication will contain a feature story about Rev. Wilmer Toyoken and the St. Michael’s community. Stay tuned.
Images: Top, the 2012 Parish Council of St. Michael's. Middle left and middle right, The Peace, February 26th, Lent I. Below, Reverend Wilmer in his robes and in the Church garden.