Today, September 6, marks another anniversary for me; and so, I have crafted this blog entry. Fifteen years ago today, I first stepped into the pulpit at Knox United Church in Didsbury Alberta and began my career as a United Church minister. The posting in Didsbury was a student internship and was only scheduled to last for eight months. But I was also a supply minister, filling in for Rev. Nancy Nourse while she was on parental leave. And so, I preached every Sunday and took all the funerals and baptisms that happened there; and I was hired on for another two months, for May and June 2010, after the internship was complete, which filled the time remaining before Rev. Nancy would return to work following the birth her second child, her daughter Jessa, in 2009.
After this experience of supply ministry at Knox, which ran from Sept 2009 through June 2010, I returned to Toronto, lived in my brother and sister-in-law’s basement suite for 12 months, completed my third and final year of study at Emmanuel College for a Masters of Divinity degree, was ordained as a minister in the United Church of Canada on May 29, 2011, and was settled in Borderlands Pastoral charge in southern Saskatchewan, which began in July 2011.
I loved my ten months in Didsbury, which were the most "successful” of my 13 years in ministry. Although it is a tiny shell of its former status today – it seems to be a branch congregation of the United Church in Olds, which is 20 km north of Didsbury – Knox United was a going concern when I was there. Close to 100 people filled the sanctuary each Sunday. About 20 children took part in Sunday School. There were two youth groups – Junior and Senior – and Board meetings seemed like major events.
I learned I could write sermons each week, attend various committee meetings, walk with grieving families, help with the two youth groups, and sometimes be a presence of the Spirit of Love, which we call God, in this community of about Didsbury, a town of 4,000 people that is just west of the main north/south highway in Alberta between Calgary and Edmonton.
In February of 2010, I took the first of two weeks of vacation from this posting at my sister Catherine’s condo in Edmonton. This was when I created this blog. So, if you navigate through the months on this blog to February 2010, you will find 23 entries, which represent my work there from September 2009 through February 2010.
The sermons basically tell the story of my experience there. I then added to this blog when I wrote and delivered sermons while in Toronto the next year. Finally, I changed the name of the blog when I was settled in Borderlands charge in southern Saskatchewan in spring of 2011. As you can guess from the URL of this blog, I had originally named it “Little Church on the Prairie.” I changed the name to “Sermons and Notes from the Border” after my ordination and added all my sermons and occasional notes about my experience in Borderlands, a posting which lasted 2.5 years.
This blog had remained dormant since December 30, 2013, when I left Borderlands for Mill Woods United in Edmonton. But last month, I added a Reflection I delivered at Wesley United in Rockglen SK at the closing worship service there; and today, I add this entry. I doubt I will add to it very often -- or perhaps ever following today.
Coming to Didsbury presented its own challenges to me. I first had to wrap my mind around a rural, Alberta posting, something which my friend and member of the Education and Students Committee (and whose name I cannot remember!) helped to convince me. [He was a member of Trinity-St. Paul's United at Bloor and Spadina]. Then, I had to give up my wonderful apartment in The Beach at Violet and Leuty St, buy a storage locker in which to put most of my things, take garbage to a stinking depot with my brother Andrew, and put five suitcases of stuff on the plane to Edmonton.
I landed in Edmonton on August 27, 2009, and took a cab to Catherine's condo on 100 Ave at 114 St. She and Kip were there, and they welcomed me in the most wonderful ways. The next day, I took a cab to 137 Ave to pick up the Hyundai Accent, which I had purchased over the phone. The staff there helped me to get Alberta registration and licence plates, and I parked in the empty spot for a car under Catherine's condo. Later that day, I bought a cell phone in the City Central Mall downtown. On Saturday August 29, I drove the Accent to Olds to meet with a teacher at Olds College (fashion?) and in whose home I had rented a room. I went out to dinner with her and her other tenant to Boston Pizza, and then drove the 20 KM south to Didsbury to locate Knox United.
The next morning, August 30, I set out early west along Highway 27 towards Sundre to see if I could spot mountains (I could not) and then headed to Knox United for the last Sunday service to occur before I began my work. I was delighted to meet Rev. Nancy, her husband Brad, their four-year-old son Zack, and their infant Jessa. The service was ably led by Nancy Blain, and I felt immediately at home.
On Monday August 31, I set out west again on Highway 27, and then headed south on "The Cowboy Trail," Highway 22, towards Cochrane. About halfway south, I finally saw The Rockies. I was so excited, I stopped and called my ex-wife Fran on the phone to tell her. Then I soldiered on to Cochrane, along the spectacular Highway 1A towards Banff, and spent some time in this fabulous mountain tourist town.
I chose Highway 1 for the drive back, branched north on the Stony Trail ring road in west Calgary, and found myself in the wilds of suburban Airdrie before wending my way back to Highway 2, where I preceded to Olds. (Stony Trail was not quite complete at the time).
Then, on Tuesday September 1, I went into the church office for the first time to meet the secretary Charlene Cutler. On Thursday September 3, I drove with my . . . from Crossfield United Church to SSUC in Edmonton, where I met, among other people, Jeff Rock, who was one of the about 15 interns spending eight months in Alberta that fall and winter (Jeff at McClure United in Edmonton). I also met Rev. Fran Hare from Gaetz Memorial United Church in Red Deer, my educational supervisor.
[I had hoped this entry would be more comprehensive that it is at present. Some of the things I hope to add later: my first and only "Men's Breakfast" in October 2009, where anti-Quebec racism seemed prevalent to me and where I gave thanks that no federal election happened in 2009-10; the experience of the 2009 Banff Men's Conference; some details about funerals at Knox United, which had so scared me but which were some of the greatest blessings of my time there; "Darwin Night in Didsbury" on November 24, 2009; my trip to San Francisco in April 2010; and perhaps some photos from the wonderful photo book I was gifted at the end of my internship in spring 2010.
But all that will have to wait, I guess. For this reason, I am also not sharing this blog on social media. So, instead of 10 readers, it may only get one or two! Who knows.]
Blessings, Ian
