Ending Well: How Hope Christian Reformed Church Disbanded

Hope Christian Reformed Church of Stony Plain, Alta., ceased to exist at the end of 2024. It served as a Reformed congregation in Parkland County of Alberta for about 120 years. It began as a German Reformed Church and ended its life as a Christian Reformed Church. During all those years the congregation was part of the community, with the Old White Church and the “New Church,” on the corner of Highway 16 and Highway 779, serving as beacons and assets in the service of the congregation’s ministry. This story is an account of the ending or disbanding of the congregation.

Hope Church’s decline began about 10 years ago. We saw the writing on the wall as a number of challenges—including an aging membership, younger members leaving, and no new growth—left a small, committed group of mostly older members to fulfill the calling of being a faithful congregation. Hope Church faced the challenge bravely. It appointed a transition team to help the church council and congregation discern how it could best move forward. After a time of prayer, self-reflection, and reorientation, we called a pastor and committed ourselves to do ministry as we believed God called us to do it. But it was a big challenge for the new pastor and for all of us as aging members.

In June 2018 the church was presented with two options: the first one a grandiose vision of expansion, and the second one closing its doors. The options hit the congregation very hard. It did not have the financial means to support a grand vision. It did not even have enough income to support a pastor on a full-time basis. Our financial picture was such that we could not carry on much longer. Many worried about losing their church family, the only church family they had ever known, which had baptized and confirmed them and with whom they had worshiped their whole lives. We listened to each other as we were guided by a facilitator to share our feelings, thoughts, and hopes.

As the weeks went by, a third option became clear—namely, to be a viable congregation with the resources we still had at our disposal. It also became clear to the church council that creative thought needed to be given to that option. In view of our financial situation, the council advised our pastor to find work in another congregation and again appointed a transition team to help the council and the congregation think about its future. We are thankful to God that our pastor, Jacob Boer, soon received a call to serve another congregation. The transition team began its work.

By the end of February 2019, the congregation agreed that for the time being it could be a viable congregation and worship, teach, fellowship, and care for one another without the services of a pastor. We agreed to take time to think through and pray about how we could best be the small church we were. We did not rush into a specific course of action but decided we would mutually discern where God was leading us in the coming months. We asked Natasha Specht to serve part-time as a ministry coordinator and administrator, with the task of doing much of the day-to-day office work to help the church function, keep tabs on pastoral care needs, and plan and lead occasional special worship services. She was a seminary student at that time and is now a CRC pastor.

By the end of April 2019, the congregation agreed it would not disband at that time nor pretend there was no cloud in the sky, but to carry on and to realistically face the future as it came. It envisioned carrying on by doing what we were doing, that all of us use our gifts to the fullest, that we hire people to do maintenance work when we could no longer find volunteers, that we sell the property when the burden of ownership was too much and distribute the funds to denominational and local charitable agencies, that when we sense the time has come to disband, we do so in accordance with the procedures outlined in the CRC Church Order, and that we make sure we care for one another and that no one falls through the cracks.

A year later we revisited our decisions and noted that we did have to hire outside help to do maintenance work. We agreed it would be best to sell our church property. We learned that a vibrant, non-denominational church-planting ministry in Parkland County was looking for space. After conversing with the leaders and being impressed with their Christian commitment and drive, we agreed to sell the property, excluding the old white church property and building, to the church plant, called Saints Church. The deal was to sell for half the market value, with a lease-to-own arrangement for four years with 0% interest, during which we would have free access to the church building for our ministry needs. During that time they would make annual mortgage payments to Hope Church. The old white church and property was “sold,” or given to the Old Hope Society as a historical building.

Specht did a fine job serving us. Toward the end of 2021 she accepted a full-time pastoral position at Maranatha CRC of Edmonton. We agreed that with her departure, the time had come for us to move toward disbanding. We saw it as a journey with tasks to be completed along the way. Those tasks included caring for one another, disbursing the additional funds we would receive from Saints Church, and helping one another transition to other churches in due time. We informed Classis Alberta North of the decision and held our last official worship service as a congregation on the last Sunday of 2021. But we agreed to carry on as a Christian Reformed congregation until the contract with Saints Church came to an end. Members were encouraged to worship on Sundays with other congregations as a way to find another church home and, meanwhile, we would continue to meet on the last Sunday of each month for fellowship, sharing, and prayer until the end of 2024. We have fulfilled those tasks.

Saints Church was able to do what we wish we could have done, namely, draw young families, hear the sounds of children in church, and fill the building with hundreds of worshipers. But our calling became helping a new congregation acquire a building in which the work of ministry in Christ’s name could carry on, without incurring a heavy debt load. Our calling also became financially giving more to classical and denominational ministry shares and giving support to local charitable organizations by way of the annual mortgage payments we received from Saints Church. We thank God for their ministry.

We blessed them and they blessed us, and together Saints, the vibrant congregation, and Hope, the disbanding congregation, brought life to Parkland County, Stony Plain, and Spruce Grove. In the last years of Hope Church, we often prayed that God would bless the ministry of Saints Church and strengthen us to let go of our identity as members of Hope Church, and to grow in us our identity as members of the Body of Christ. God answered our prayers. We praise God.