Welcoming...

We accept all to receive at Jesus' table. 

We practice what is called an 'open table' meaning there are no barriers to full participation in our worship (including receiving communion).  All are welcome to recieve, though none are compelled.

We recognize that Christ is the host and we are all guests - and this table must be a place of grace and welcome rather than exclusion and division.

...and Affirming!

We intentionally welcome and are enriched by the full participation, leadership and inclusion of LGBTQ2IA+ folks in our community.   

We seek to have Jesus-loving 2SLGBTQIA+ and BIPOC folk regularly in our pulpits and serving at our table. 

Clergy from The AbbeyChuch officiate marriages and adult and infant baptisms and trans renaming ceremonies for folks from all sexual orientations and gender identities.   

We believe in working for the full rights and inclusion of all queer, trans and non-gender conforming folk. 

There are NO barriers to leadership and full participation due to gender identity or sexual orientation.

Decolonizing

The AbbeyChurch acknowledges that we worship, take action and pray on the stolen territory of the Songhees and Xwsepsum (Esquimalt) Nations, the Lək̓ʷəŋən  peoples'.

As part of the 'of Canada' churches, we seek to repent, restore, renew and de-colonize our practices and ways of being beloved community - noting this will be a long relational, structural and spirtual journey.

This includes a different relationship with Indigenous and other racialized folk in the church and beyond it.

You'll sometimes hear us say these lands are 'unceded'.  In doing so we recognize that though the flawed Douglas 'Treaties' do exist - but their content was filled in only after blank pages were by the Tribal Chiefs - and consent is uncertain at best.  

We also recognize the reality that the Lək̓ʷəŋən peoples', these various Nations, are in a process of developing new treaties.  Even as we've used the word unceded, we have been challenged that some peoples' rely on older documents to ensure their fishing rights - and thus we recognize the complexity of these realities. 

What we do know is that colonialism was, and still is, a violent force that was genocidal and has had lasting negative impacts on generations of the first peoples' of these lands. 

We humbly admit hat the church was all too often a negative participant in the colonial project.

As a Christian community of faith who is affiliated with the 'of Canada' denominations, we who are settler-occupiers recognize our own complicity in historic and ongoing colonialism; including ongoing euro-centric ways (ie music, liturgy, polity) and our past involvement in the genocidal Indian Residental 'School' (ie prison) system. 

Together, we prayefully seek right-relationship, reparations and justice - and thus commit to action as called for by Indigenous leaders in the Churches and the TRC Calls to Action. 

We support the development of the self-determining Indigenous Church within our denominations (Anglican and United) and seek to be evangelized (shown the 'good news') by the faith of Indigenous Christians.

For one more extended and person land-acknowledgment and history from one of our folks, please click here (land acknowledgment starts around 6:20).

Ecumenical

As a witness to unity and diversity, The AbbeyChurch and The Emmaus Community are a shared ministry of the The Anglican Diocese of British Columbia (aka Diocese of Islands and Inlets) of The Anglican Church of Canada and the Pacific Mountain Region of The United Church of Canada. We are in full communion with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada - through the ACC - and the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) - through the UCC. We also connect / resonate with The NewLeaf Network, The Wild Church Network and The Parish Collective. 

We long for a day where dividing walls are broken and that all are one, as God is One.