Christ Church Kelowna is a mission within the Anglican Network in Canada, a diocese within the Anglican Church of North America. We are a small group of Christians who cherish the Catholic and Reformed character of the historic Anglican tradition: biblically faithful, liturgically rich, theologically robust, aesthetically thoughtful, historically rooted, and most of all, resolutely focused on the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ to the praise of the Triune God.
Martin Luther says in his sixty-second thesis that “the true treasure of the church is the most holy Gospel of the glory and grace of God.” This is crucial to understanding who we are as a church and why we are Anglicans. The Anglican Way is compelling because of the way it offers us the Gospel: God’s abundant mercy towards undeserving sinners and his sovereign, saving action towards us in Jesus Christ. As a community we treasure this most holy Gospel, and at Christ Church we believe, along with the late J.I. Packer, that here in the Anglican Way we possess one of the richest heritages in all Christendom.
We are presently in a gathering phase with a small core group, praying towards the establishment of a flourishing, Anglican mission in Kelowna: a Gospel-treasuring church that leads people into the Kingdom of God, in the power of the Holy Spirit, by displaying the glory of Jesus Christ. Every Sunday we feast together on God's gifts of grace to his Church: the Word faithfully taught and the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper rightly administered, through which gifts, God, by his Spirit, gives us the best Gift, the wonderful and saving goodness of his Son. The service culminates each Sunday with the Eucharist, as we remember together that the Cross of Christ is the centre of everything; the Cross alone, as Luther says, is our theology.
As a community, we seek to live the life of Christ-centred faith and Cross-shaped discipleship through the ministry of Word and Sacrament: devoting ourselves to the Apostles' doctrine, to the breaking of bread, to the prayers, and to fellowship with one another. We also identify ourselves with the time-honoured way of spiritual pilgrimage. We are a group of dusty travellers, "pilgrims of the weary foot," as CH Spurgeon put it, who, in contrast to many, hope for different things, believe in different things, love different things. To quote St. Augustine, what we hope for is eternal life, what we believe in is the Gospel, what we love above all things is the Architect of our beautiful world.
The wonderful news of the Gospel is just this, that though we turned away from the Living God and fell far from the health and joy and integrity of his presence, God in his lovingkindness made our rescue and salvation "his care and concern." Although, as St Augustine says, we are capable of "warping and twisting ourselves," we are incapable of healing ourselves. But God can. And this he does through the incomparable work and Person of his Son Jesus Christ, and through the mighty work of his Holy Spirit: forgiving our sins; reconciling us to himself, to ourselves, and to one another; and raising us to new and eternal life. As beneficiaries of his faithfulness, and as followers of the Son, we want nothing more than to "marvel at his beauty and to glory in his ways," working out in gratitude and obedience what God has worked in by his goodness and grace.
If you are interested in learning more about Christ Church Kelowna, please contact the Church office: info@christchurchkelowna.com