About
Doug has just recently accepted the position of Lead Pastor of the Fort McMurray Alliance Church in the bustling Oil Sands region of Wood Buffalo in northern Alberta. Fort Mac Alliance is a church with a passion to tangibly make Jesus visible to our municipality and world, serving as a grace filled community that is welcoming and sensitive to people whatever their faith background and wherever they may or may not be at in their faith journey. It’s an adventurous community that is willing to think outside the norm while prayerfully wrestling with what it means to be involved in ministry both within and beyond the walls of the church facility. This results in a passion to see individual lives and the city as a whole touched and transformed by the love of Christ. Being in a city with global influence, Fort McMurray Alliance is seeking to be a unique global influence for Christ in partnership with it’s denominational family, the Christian & Missionary Alliance.
Doug is also involved with Briercrest College and Seminary in Caronport, Saskatchewan, where he teaches two courses a year as an Assistant Professor of Pastoral Theology. From his home base in Fort McMurray, Doug serves as the Program Coordinator for Briercrest’s MDiv (Master of Divinity) program, with an urgency to see the next generation of ministry leaders raised up up to serve effectively within our ever evolving Canadian culture, as well as our vastly changing world.
Previously Doug served for 20 years as the Lead Pastor of Redwood Park Church, a multi-site missional community that is committed to seeing the message and life of Jesus impact Thunder Bay, Barrie and beyond. LIFE, PASSION and ADVENTURE are three words that both Doug and Redwood uses to describe the nature of Christian spirituality.
Doug is married to Jane, who possesses an amazing gift of hospitality and the ability to cook for hundreds! They have three young-adult children. Meagan is a pediatric resident at the Alberta Children’s Hospital in Calgary. Susan who is married to Chris Groenheide, among other things supply teaches at Dennis Franklin Cromarty First Nations High School and promotes “eating local” through a variety of greens and specialty vegetables from her market garden. Graeme who has been involved in an eclectic mix of insurance and financial planning, working for a highway line painting company, and ushering at Thunder Bay’s Community Auditorium is heading off with a generous scholarship to the Vancouver Film School. Each of them in their distinct way has a yearning to be difference makers in this world.
Meal times at the Doyle household tend to be a bit of a party, but you might want to ask what it is you’re eating – as sometimes Doug enjoys a hike with a good friend and a gun in the beauty of our rugged Canadian outdoors, or maybe a paddle on a remote lake with rod in hand. He’s thinking that with the move for Fort McMurray, he might have to break down and add an ATV to his toys.




Hi Doug. Just checking out the blog. Super stuff! Very exciting time to be part of how God is working through folks at Redwood. ~Stacey
Hi Doug,
Found your blog interesting–defining the aspiration that many of us harbour deep down.
In my opinion, until we redefine spirituality, in a way that no longer requires people to show up for all the programs that keep them so busy (and church leaders so busy creating those programs) and live more like Jesus lived, moving away from “doing church” to “being church” the hunger will continue to linger in our hearts. I’d like to see some of our missional Canadians try to buck the prevailing spectator culture as defined by concerts and professional sports events which our gatherings seem to increasingly emulate creating the “spectator religion” that characterizes many of our gatherings and move more in the direction of believers becoming disciples growing faith daily in the cruciable of community.
Could it be worth the ponderings required to invite new currents of divine energy among us that will turn the tide in our nation?
Wally
Hey Doug
Great to see you everywhere on the net!
You are really out there! You must be one of the few guys who gets marketing and technology in the ministry.
See you are looking for a pastor. Is the position still open? Always running into pastors now that we are in a market place ministry with Celebrating Life Ministries/Kettle Creek Weddings.
Great blog.
We are working on a new website and blog site. Word Press is a little challenging. See though you have it mastered.
Talk soon,
Anne