Pilgrim Church

"Christianity calcifies when tradition (the living faith of the dead) becomes traditionalism (the dead faith of the living)" -Jaroslav Pelikan Fear and self-preservation are powerful instincts, yet Jesus shows us these instincts and emotions must be checked by love. What traditions and balkanizations do we hold that keep us from being better people? This Sunday in our Peace With God Series, we exp...

Four times a year we slow our Sunday teaching time down for a Q&A conversation. What is on your mind? What are you wrestling with or excited about?

Our returning guest speaker for the first few months of 2021 is April Yamasaki. She will be leading us in the discovery of Real Relationships through Friendship, Singleness & Marriage, and Family. April Yamasaki writes on spiritual growth and Christian living both online and in print publications, including Christian Century, Christianity Today, The Redbud Post, Godspace, Vision: A Journal for...

John 4:1-42 "It is no surprise, in view of his teachings and actions, that Jesus was crucified. What is surprising is that it did not happen sooner." -Ben Witherington III Jesus challenges our ideas of how God should be. Where we want a vague force - Jesus gets VERY personal and particular. Where we want particular favouritism, God zooms out and goes universal. Jesus stands above, through, and in...

What happens when the institutional church gets sucked into the wars and walls of religion and ideologies? This Sunday, we name some evils done in the name of Christ. We also name these evils as fully in opposition to the life and teachings of Jesus. Jesus didn't come to build another version of the Kingdoms of the world.  NOTES: https://www.pilgrimchurch.ca/uploads/1/1/1/2/111299251/2021-01-...

There are a lot of competing ideas out there about God and spirituality, connected by several threads. This Sunday we tackle the word "religion" (both the good use and the negative use) and how Jesus came to end it all, not start a new religion/structure.   NOTES: https://www.pilgrimchurch.ca/uploads/1/1/1/2/111299251/2021-01-03_notesdiscussion.pdf  QUESTIONS: email question@pilgrimchurc...

End of the year. What a ride 2020 has been! This Sunday, we revisit our core at Pilgrim Church, and look ahead at what guides us and keeps us strong in the storm. We are introducing our church-wide focus for 2021. In 2021, we are mobilizing for peace in four directions/four relationships. Join us as we learn what Jesus' way of peace looks like in the face of a world that easily...

Fear. This has been a year marked by fear. Join us as we let the ancient sources tell the story again through readings and singing! Christmas Eve is a time to celebrate and remember God is with us! The refrain that echoes forward to us is "Fear Not!" Fear cannot win in the end. Light comes to dispel the darkness of fear. We are rooted in something unshakeable.  Thursday, December 24, 5:30 PM&...

Matthew 2:2, Luke 2:6-7 For the final honest advent Sunday, we look at one of the several texts in the Bible that speak to the Holy Spirit working and drawing people from all over, all religious pursuits of truth to Jesus. Jesus who makes the scandalous claim to be the embodiment of Truth. #zoroastrianismandJesus  This Advent, we have journeyed through Scott Erickson's book, Honest Advent, wh...

Isaiah 9:6, Hebrews 2:16-18, John 1:1-3 "For that which He has not assumed He has not healed." —Gregory of Nazianzus (4th Century Church Father). Jesus revealed as the Wonderful Counselor assumes the whole of our existence in order to heal the whole of our existence. He became human so we would know He had nothing to hide. He lived in a complicated world so He could relate to the complexity of our...

Revelation 1:8, Luke 1:43You know what they say about ASSUMPTIONS... This Sunday we look at how God breathes and breaks the curse of old assumptions. The Holy Spirit moves and reveals several ways we can break out of what we think will never change. This Advent season we explore moving in and out of nostalgia and familiarity and tending to God's presence in our lives. As part of our Advent journey...

""Have yourself a merry little Christmas," goes the song, evoking the "olden days, happy golden days of yore." Advent is exactly the opposite of all this... Advent refuses to dwell in a past that never was. Advent is about the future. It isn't a season of remembering something that happened a long time ago, it is a season of preparation for the great coming day of the kingdom of God." (F.Rutledge,...

When the Hebrew prophet Joel spoke forth these Spirit-inspired words, he was in a patriarchal world where women did not normally prophesy. When Jesus came, he included women in his circle of disciples, a Rabbi’s disciples were to go out and become Rabbis themselves. When the Holy Spirit is poured out and the Charismatic ministry of Christ becomes the Charismatic ministry of the Church, Peter decla...

Join us Sunday at 10 AM, to hear from recent Regent grad Jesse Chui before he heads back home to America. Jesse will be sharing a teaching on Luke 15. This teaching will ONLY be livestreamed with no public recording after the service. Attend in-person or watch LIVE with us! In-person sign-up RSVP is active every Wednesday for the upcoming Sunday.  ONLINE NOTES (new!): https://www.pilgrimchurc...

Paul's nuanced way of navigating cultural practices opposed to the Gospel allows it to be heard instead of immediately crushed. He adds practices to the non-Christian household codes of the ancient world which undermine key beliefs about women and class. Paul plants a “virus” at the heart of the patriarchal and class-based rules of the Empire. The “virus” is actually the healthy thing—love as defi...

We have come to the end of chapter 3 in our Colossians Series, and this end starts at home. The revelation of God enters into the fallen structures and broken parts of culture to set our feet to a different rhythm. Some changes are fast, others take time. Sometimes the slow way is the fastest! How we treat one another at home, in the family, and in existing social structures is a blessing and deno...

What are you wearing? Clothes communicate a lot of different things. Paul tells us that there are things we take off and other things that we put on. What are you wearing? Jesus gives us a new set of clothes, a new way to engage others around us. We put on clothes as part of our engagement with others. Paul shares a better way, the Jesus-Centred, clothed with Christlikeness way of being in communi...

Join us to hear from Acts 29 Church pastor, Jacob John at Pilgrim Church this Sunday. John grew up in India, spent a season of his adult life in Bahrain in the Middle East, and now resides in Vancouver, Canada. He studied briefly at Regent College and pastored at Immanuel Baptist from 1998 to 2006. Sunday, 10 AM LIVESTREAM right here.  NOTES: https://www.pilgrimchurch.ca/uploads/1/1/1/2/11129...

COLOSSIANS SERIES, The Lists: Vices, 3:5-11 The Bible is full of lists and yet is clear they don't bring us life. What do we do with these lists? We can ignore them, obsess over them, simplify them, or come to understand they are signposts on a journey towards living a love-centred life. This Sunday we get into Colossians 3 and look at a list of vices.   NOTES: https://www.pilgrimchurch.ca/up...

Join us as we hear from one of the larger church networks we are a part of, The North American Baptist BC Conference's Executive Minister, Bob Krahn. In 2005 Bob came to BC to be the Executive Minister after serving in a similar capacity in Saskatchewan and Manitoba for the previous five and a half years. He holds a BA from the University of Alberta with a major in psychology and a Master of Divin...

Adjust Your Settings for Real Living, 3:1-4 Michelle Obama paraphrased the Apostle Paul when she said, “When they go low, we go high”; and CS Lewis wrote, "Christians who did most for the present world were just those who thought most of the next... Aim at Heaven and you will get earth ‘thrown in’: aim at earth and you will get neither." The ability to be more present in the moment is possible whe...

Justice is a key theme throughout the Bible. The ultimate shape and final justice is placed in God's hands. In the meantime, we are called to "do good" but with some crucial differences from the secular crusaders of justice in our world. One author put it this way, "...The Kingdom (of God) activist protests with the hope of seeing both the oppressed and the oppressor set free and she knows that ha...

What happens when the church and state are brought together? What could possibly go wrong? A lot, it turns out from history. We are STILL recovering from the damage of this collusion and co-option in the West. We've already explored Big Idea #1: too much centralization/concentration of power is not good for humanity, and Big Idea #2: the church is to be an alternative politics by its very life. Th...

Matthew 5:13-16 Decentering Power and Civil Religion. Followers of Jesus are called to be first, ambassadors of His way of living and being community in the midst of the states, families, etc. around us. Our nationality, family of origin, etc. are important, but that importance is tempered by a greater love and purpose. This Sunday we dig in again to Biblical challenges to power and identity claim...

At Pilgrim, we know God can handle our questions and that we don't get the full picture until the end. Four times a year we use our teaching/proclaiming time for live questions. This week, Pastor Shel and Andrés enter a conversation with the questions from the larger group. Always enlightening, entertaining, and sometimes life-changing. Send questions anytime, we'll get to as many as we can!