2000s at Calvary - Part One

No decade at Calvary could better be labelled “Hello and Goodbye” than the 2000s. For as many different reasons as there were personnel, the decade saw Calvary welcome four ministers, Reverend John Lougheed, Reverend Elaine Beatty, Reverend Terry Dunseith and Reverend Yun-Hee Noh-Perry, and other clergy on a supply or interim basis. Each brought his or her own gifts to the congregation and by the end of the decade all had left, but our church was richer for the contributions of each one.

In 1997 Reverend John Lougheed was doing a residency program in pastoral care at the Vancouver General Hospital. It was Calvary’s good fortune that his program was nearing completion just as Calvary was searching for a minister following Karl’s retirement. What a surprise to discover that Southampton, known in Calvary circles as “Calvary North”, had been John’s family’s summer home for five generations. When this  was announced to the congregation someone at the back of the church said, loud enough to be heard, “Does he thinks he can get away from us on his holidays!” For his part, John jokingly wondered what could be better than a congregation whose Official Board met around a ping-pong table in the church’s quilting room!

Reverend Judy Astley and Sandra McCarl, a candidate for ministry from Calvary studying at U. of T, were both very familiar with Calvary, and shared responsibility for ministering to Calvary from January until John’s arrival on June 1,1998.

For Calvary, the end of one ministry and the beginning of another seemed like a good time to re-examine the needs of the Calvary community, which was considered by then to include our Cherry Park neighbourhood and beyond. It was also a good time to assess the resources we had to meet these needs. This led to a one-day planning retreat with Reverend Fred Monteith and the creation of a Needs Assessment Committee to explore every aspect of church life to determine not only the needs, but whether Calvary had the personnel, the facilities and the necessary materials and equipment to meet these needs.

Many conclusions were taken away from this study, but the most evident need was for additional hours of ministerial time, primarily devoted to nurturing children and supporting young families, a change that would also lighten the workload of the full-time minister.

With that recommendation approved by Presbytery, in August 2001 Reverend Elaine Beatty was appointed to a 20-hour-a week position as Minister to Young People and their Families.

She was filled with many new ideas and provided excellent support to the Sunday School coordinator and teachers while sharing leadership with John in other avenues of church life.

With an aging building and many programs, there was never a question about whether more money was needed to fulfill all the commitments Calvary had. Money was certainly needed – always. Fund-raising became a way of life. There had been a tendency to set up individual funds for specific purposes, some big like the Organ Fund, and some much smaller like the Pew Cushion Fund. How does that one sound? Eventually the wisdom of combining some of these smaller funds into a single larger fund was realized and they were merged into one wherever possible.

The first major campaign in the 1980s had been the Accessibility Fund, to finance the installation of the elevator and the re-designing of the Gruhn Street side of the building. This was followed by the Facilities Development Fund in 1985 which continued the work of making our building safe and accessible, and finally by the Vision Fund, the most comprehensive fundraising program of all, launched in February 2004. Its motto was “Turn Faith into Action” and its logo was an arrow pointing forward. The goal was to raise $400,000 over a five year period to be used for three areas of ministry.                                                                                                                                                                           

The first category of the Vision Fund was programming, paying for activities that happened inside our walls. Having seen the need to add an additional part-time minister to lead programs for younger members of the congregation, Calvary now needed to finance the new position.

Another third of the fund was designated to maintain Calvary’s commitment to reach outside its walls. This money was to go to continuing support for the Mission and Service Fund of the United Church of Canada, and to local projects like Habitat for Humanity, Out of the Cold, and Community Ministry, the partnership with St. Mark’s Lutheran which was quickly growing under the leadership of Marilyn Shaw who was the Community Ministry Coordinator as well as a candidate for Diaconal ministry from Calvary. Looking ahead a bit, in 2008 Community Ministry became a recognized ministry and settlement site within the United Church of Canada which meant that following her commissioning in May, Marilyn was able to be a minister of the United Church of Canada serving as the coordinator of Community Ministry with the blessing of the Lutheran church as well.

Finally, one third of the money raised was to help pay for maintaining our property which was constantly in need of repair. The dream of enhancing our sanctuary to make it more versatile and accessible, especially for the choir, was among the most costly property items, but by no means the only one. The sanctuary roof and the bricks at the side of the church needed replacement and both were very expensive items on the Trustees’ list of must-dos.

The project that seemed to truly capture the imagination of the congregation was transforming the former manse into a welcoming accommodation for folks who had to come from a distance, perhaps as far away as Tobermory, to receive out-patient treatment at the Regional Cancer Centre. It even could be someone who required a place to stay between appointments for several days or even weeks at a time. A partnership was negotiated between the hospital and the church. Calvary would continue to own the house and maintain the property while Grand River Hospital would invite guests, take care of managing the keys, do the laundry, and handle the rent. How grateful those folks must have felt to have a homey place to stay for a little over $20.00 a night!

This arrangement pleased the church’s trustees who had never enjoyed playing the role of landlord when Calvary was renting the manse. The idea of partnering with another neighbour seemed like a perfect outreach project. Thanks and more thanks were due to the skilled volunteers who worked at renovating a building that, after more than a decade of being a rental property, now needed a lot of work to be ready to receive guests. Tasks like painting bedrooms, varnishing handrails, making curtains and brightening the basement were taken on by other volunteers of all ages and in an amazing four months the manse was ready to provide comfortable accommodation to grateful folks and, at last, to generate income rather than a deficit for the church.

With faith the congregation embraced the challenging Vision campaign. It raised almost half its target amount in the first year and received pledges which kept donations coming for the next four years. Calvary was expressing its faith through action.

In the 2001 Annual Report, John Lougheed and Elaine Beattie provided an assessment of how well the nine goals from the 1997 Planning Workshop with Reverend Fred Monteith had been achieved. It is a remarkable two-page list of activities and accomplishments. Those of you who were here at the beginning of the millennium will find lots of memories on those two pages.

In July 2001 Helen Cleghorn who had held the position of Secretary and then Church Coordinator for eleven years retired, and Laurie Forster became a part of the Calvary family.

When Laurie Rowbotham retired as the director of Musical Praise in 2002 Ron Klinck was welcomed as the next to assume that role and, like Laurie, to be part of the music team along with Barb and Kirby Julian, Erin Black, and Barbara Kellerman. Ron’s skill on the organ paired with the music of the other talented musicians on piano and strings often left us feeling like we had been to a Sunday morning concert as well as a worship service.

In September of 2001 John Lougheed and Elaine Beattie proposed to the Official Board that the hours of their two positions be changed to three quarter time each which allowed John to accept a one-day-a-week position at St. Mary’s hospital. The change was reviewed after a year and extended to June 2003. However, things changed quickly again when John accepted a position as chaplain at the new Regional Cancer Centre beginning in January 2003. Sad as Calvary was to see John’s caring ministry with us end, we were grateful that he was remaining in our community and able to touch even more lives with his wisdom and compassion.

Reverend William Perry joined Elaine in ministry in January and surprised everyone on his first Sunday when he announced that he would be leaving in April to accept a call to a pastoral charge in eastern Ontario. Elaine’s time became full time from then until she resigned in June, 2003. For May and June Rev. Bev Williams provided pastoral care.

After so many comings and goings it was felt that it would be good to hire a small “i” interim minister for a year to allow time for both a Needs Assessment Committee and eventually a search committee to be formed to do the work of calling a new minister. Calvary was fortunate that Reverend Lee Haughton was available to fill the role until September 2004 when Reverend Yun-Hee Noh Perry, a newly ordained minister was appointed to a half-time position and Reverend Terry Dunseith, with considerably more experience, joined her in a team ministry.

That’s a lot of change! If you have kept track of how many times we greeted a new staff member or bid a friend “farewell” from 2000 to 2004, you have been very attentive indeed. There was, no doubt, a lot of coming and going but Calvary remained an active faith community, being led by a vision for the future.