Heritage Green, which sits in a suburban area southeast of Hamilton, Ont., began as a church plant and never quite got off the ground. It was founded more than a quarter-century ago under the leadership of a high-energy minister named Rev. Peter Walter. Jim Carroll and his family began attending when it was still a small congregation meeting in a nearby school, and served as chair of the building committee when the current church was under construction. Then, just before the new building was complete, Rev. Walter died suddenly.
It was like the congregation went into shock, said Jim Carroll, one of the church’s elders.
Presbytery stepped in to help but the church never quite recovered. Over the decades they had some years with a minister in the pulpit and many years without one. The long vacancies took their toll. The congregation wasn’t growing, members were getting older and money was getting tighter.
“For years I’ve said to my wife, what’s the formula?” said Carroll. “What’s that magic formula that will make something successful here? And we wracked our brains and we couldn’t come up with anything.”
So the congregation decided to do what many struggling congregations do—they agreed to call a part-time minister and keep holding on as long as they could.
But while the congregation faced dwindling resources and discouragement, Rev. Alex Douglas saw pure potential. The unimposing, single-story church sits across the street from a profusion of new suburban houses—a mission field just beyond the doorstep.
“When this church was planted here it was not planted here for other Christians,” Douglas said. “It was planted here to reach the families who would be moving here as the houses were being built. We’re still here and they’re not building any more churches and so the mission is ours.”
It was Douglas who felt a call from God during a personal retreat and began to put together a plan for an unapologetically family-focused church—a “replant”—at Heritage Green.
He ran his ideas past Rev. David Moody because he knew his friend was better with logistical details. The two had become friends at seminary and they met regularly to pray together and talk shop. At that time Douglas was serving at a church about a 10-minute drive from Heritage Green. Moody was about an hour’s drive east at a church in Chippawa, near Niagara Falls.
“The idea of two staff was kind of a foundational piece,” Douglas said, noting that planting a church required a wide range of gifts and lots of collegial support. It would also be a lot of work—way too much for a part-time minister, and probably enough to burn out a lone full-time minister.
In addition to two ministers, the plan called for a number of “seed families” borrowed from other churches, and a quarter of a million dollar budget—most of it from grants that would be gradually reduced over six years as the congregation worked to become self-supporting.
The current congregation would serve as the “soil.” They would be the place in which something new would grow. But this vision was for a completely family-focused church, and most of the members had adult children. That meant this would not be a church “for them.” It would require almost everything to change.
When they made their presentation to the congregation, “we were asking them to do something new that had no funding yet,” said Douglas. “Crazily they said yes.”
The plan had three phases, all couched in the language of planting and growing. It began with the current congregation and a transparent, gradual process of preparation and change.
First there was the “tilling” phase. The plan needed to be approved and it needed to be funded. Douglas and Moody had already done a lot of work with the Futures Task Force, a committee born from concern about struggling, unsustainable congregations in the Presbytery of Hamilton.
Within a few months, the plan had the approval of presbytery and a chunk of the required funds. Presbytery kicked in $30,000 (to be reduced by $5,000 each year for a total of $105,000 spread over six years), Canadian Ministries provided $70,000 (to be reduced by $5,000 to $10,000 each year for a total of $275,000), and Knox, Watertown, chipped in $10,000. Individuals also contributed through a website called Friends of Heritage Green.
The next phase was “seeding.” Douglas and Moody began helping the congregation prepare for the changes ahead. They met the elders over a series of meals at their homes and at the church. They also started a Bible study for the session. Worship services gradually changed to a new family-focused format. They held a “clean sweep” day where members cleaned out the building to create a blank slate. (Among other things, they got rid of 10 boxes of books from book sales gone by and a seemingly endless supply of fake plants.) There were constant updates on what was happening and what the next steps were. The congregation was encouraged to pray for the church and to meet together in small groups.
The church also needed more families with children if it was going to succeed. New families with kids need to be able to meet other families with kids. So they sought “seed families” who would commit to attend and participate in the life of Heritage Green for a period of time.
It meant sacrifices by other churches and by the families who would be leaving their faith communities for a while. To help, Heritage Green hosted some “come and see” events on Saturdays. Potential seed families were able to experience Heritage Green without having to miss Sunday services at their own churches.
Originally, Douglas and Moody also thought they’d need to get some space back from a daycare that rents a large section of the church building. But they realized the daycare provides a great point of connection to kids and parents—people who visit the church multiple times a week but would never think of coming for a service on a Sunday. Instead of fighting them, why not invite them?
They began building relationships with the daycare staff. Douglas started leading story time a few times a week. Near Christmas they held an evening event with lots of activities for kids. It brought in about 150 people—most of them from the daycare.
The final phase was “spreading.” Once the current congregation—the soil—and the seed families were ready, promotion began. People continue to invite people. The congregation reaches out intentionally to the community.
The ministry launched faster than anyone had anticipated. It was less than a year from the time the idea was floated at presbytery to the day Douglas and Moody were appointed to the church as missionaries. In the Presbyterian system, that’s practically light speed.
“I think as Presbyterians we’re used to try solving problems using business models and planning things out,” said Tom Billard, convener of the presbytery’s Futures Task Force. “The really interesting thing about Heritage Green is that it didn’t start that way. It started as a vision a young minister had. He felt very strongly that this is what the Spirit was calling him to do and at the same time our Futures Trask Force was investigating similar kinds of work in the church. And the two things just kind of lined up perfectly. And we discerned that his call was truly from the Spirit and that we were being called to support it.”
“If you know David and Alex like I do, how can you not be positive about people like that?” said elder Jim Carroll. “They’re good, quality people, they have faith coming out their wazoo and they really want to be successful.”
Bob Williston, another elder who began attending Heritage Green in its early days, said when Canadian Ministries came in to help fund the ministry, he began to see it as “a pilot project for the Presbyterian Church right across the country.”
“If we can make this work, it’s going to be something that can be done over and over again,” he said.
The Family Church of Heritage Green is still an experiment. It’s still a young thing with an uncertain future. But the excitement for the project is palpable.
“We’re kind of in the middle right now,” said Carroll. “You don’t know where you’re going, and some people don’t like that. But I like that: the challenge of the unknown. And you just simply embrace it. Here’s where we might be going; let’s see where we go.”
