Why Missional Canadian?
So what led to this blog in the first place??? Well, after much encouragement, or should I say pressure from the Redwood staff team, I took the plunge into the world of blogging!! The team thinks I should blog my occasional rants and not just inflict them on staff and board meetings. So yeah, that’s what got this going … As I moved from 20 years of service at Redwood Park Church in Thunder Bay, to the role of Lead Pastor at Fort McMurray Alliance Church in the Oil Sands region of northern Alberta, as well as becoming the MDiv Lead/Coordinator as well as Assistant Professor for Pastoral Theology at Briercrest College & Seminary, I dicovered that these little occasional rants were being read across the country and to an extent around the world.
The title “Missional Canadian,” reflects my passion to see the church in Canada increasingly act and love like Jesus, so people across our nation and the world over are powerfully transformed through an intimate relationship with Jesus. That folk all across our country and beyond would connect in unprecedented numbers with the Creator of this world and not only experience personal re-creation but become agents of his re-creating work wherever we live and throughout this planet. That we would be people who are avid to see more and more of God’s kingdom and more and more of God’s will done on earth as it is in heaven. That we would be people who simply bless our neighbours and enhance the reputation of our God here and around the world.
The sub-title, “Experiencing the Spirit of LIFE, PASSION and ADVENTURE!” is all about the nature of vibrant Christian spirituality. Knowing and chasing after God and his ways is anything but boring! It truly is an experience of LIFE, PASSION and ADVENTURE made possible by God’s Spirit. “Life” refers to the richness and vitality of experience that comes only through connection to Christ and reaches beyond this earthly life into eternity. “Passion” refers to the empowering work of the Holy Spirit that comes as we surrender our lives fully and wholly to our gracious loving God. “Adventure,” is the result of following our God and allowing him to make us fully alive, empowering us with his Spirit and leading us into the mission of bringing and being Jesus to our country and world. Every day as we journey with Christ is full of adventure. It cannot be otherwise as you serve God who chooses to powerfully even supernaturally love the world through his followers, as we seek to make Jesus and his love tangible and visible in our world.
So these are the ponderings of a “missional Canadian,” committed to bringing the message and life of Jesus to his city and beyond. These are the thoughts of a local church leader who is jazzed every day by his experience of LIFE, PASSION and ADVENTURE, that comes as a gracious gift from his loving heavenly Father. And these are the thoughts of a Christ follower who is blest to live in loving community of fellow Christ followers called Redwood Park, who together are stumbling forward in this God led missional journey. My prayer is that the words that follow will inspire, agitate, generate dialogue and most of all create action that makes Jesus real and visible here and around the world.
Because I am so loved by the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
Doug Doyle
Fort McMurray Alliance Church/
Briercrest College & Seminary
March 2, 2009
Updated April 2, 2012
Downtown Fort Mac looking north up the Athabasca River
Briercrest College & Seminary
Caronport, Saskatchewan
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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.
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Dear Doug,
I loved your panorama vision encased in the simple but powerful meanings given aboe of Life! Passion! Adventure! Thank you for gracing this Alliance Family with such ongoing and growing leadership! I enjoy your blog.
As the day is coming when those over 55+ will outweigh the number of children in Canada (a stat Canada I read) there is room in our missional passion to reach,inspire, and utilize this needy and highly potential group of Canadians. Keep fanning the flame of your calling! — Louella Gould