History of St. Saviour's,
Nelson, British Columbia
The Kokanee Story

By The Ven. Dirk T. Rinehart Pidcock
(Missioner 1991-2001)

(written September 2000)

The Kokanee Region in the Diocese of Kootenay is rugged, lovely land, which includes two major mountain ranges and three large valley floors graced by extensive lake systems. The mission statement declares: “We, the people of the Kokanee Region of the Diocese of Kootenay, are a scattered family of parishes located in mountain valleys in the midst of God’s natural beauty. As the Body of Christ, we are called to serve God in the world by celebrating individual and corporate ministries.”

My involvement with the Kokanee Region began in 199l when I was selected to serve as the Coordinator of Ministries. It was my mandate to encourage Mutual Ministry and to coordinate various ministries, serving the six small village churches and one larger church in Nelson. The original ministry team I inherited included a semi-retired priest, the Rev. Jim Veitch, responsible for assisting with pastoral care and conducting worship and a dozen or so Lay Readers (now called Lay Ministers of Word and Sacrament). Each of these folk had offered and they continue to offer faithful service in the name of Christ.

Mutual or Total Ministry emerged as a way of envisioning church life and understanding ministry in the 1960s in Alaska, under Bishop Bill Gordon. It soon found its way to the Diocese of Nevada and by 1990 the vision was to take root in Canadian soil.

The bishop’s office (Diocese of Kootenay) suggested that the concept be introduced into the Kokanee Region. Reaction among the congregations was mixed: some felt that the scheme was being imposed from outside as the only option in a desperate situation. Others, after deepening their understanding of what was entailed, became committed to the vision. A generous grant from the Lily Endowment Fund (U.S.A.) made it financially possible to implement the bishop’s initiative.

I was soon to discover that my primary task, besides building relationships of trust, was to promote the vision throughout the region and convince people of its worth. My greatest obstacle was coming to realize that many, many Anglicans are emotionally, psychologically and spiritually wedded to a clergy-centred church.

My own commitment to this new vision of ministry had its beginnings in the mid 1960s. After moving to Canada in 1978 I invited Bishop Wes Frensdorff of Nevada to lead a summer course at Sorrento Centre on Total Ministry. Participants remember his keen mind, passion and outrageous humour.

Frendsdorff drew many of his ideas from the convictions of Roland Allen, a Church of England missionary in China in the early 1900s, who was a severe critic of the missionary methods of his own day. Allen proposed a radical rediscovery of the methods of St. Paul who left behind him empowered communities of faith that were truly indigenous, blessed with leadership for worship and service and able to carry on the work of the gospel. None of these leaders was professionally trained. All were volunteers. All received on-the-job training. Allen sought to reclaim this understanding of the church as the Body of Christ in which the gifts of each member are valued and affirmed. He promoted the need for local volunteer priests so that the sacraments might be consistently available to the faithful. His radical thought was a scandal in its day, but some fifty years later it resurfaced in Alaska, Nevada, Northern Michigan and elsewhere, including the Diocese of Kootenay.

Frensdorff presented Total Ministry as more than tinkering with existing structures, but as a radical reorientation to our very understanding of church. He dreamed of the church as “a ministering community” rather than “a community gathered around a minister”. His assumption was that each baptized person has a vocation and is gifted by the Holy Spirit for ministry. He affirmed that every community of faith has within it the resources it needs for ministry and mission. Congregations become empowered to identify and select leaders from among themselves, including ordained priests and deacons. Professional clergy come to serve primarily as equippers rather than doers of ministry. Mutual ministry is both holistic and radical. It provides a truly alternative model of ministry for the church.

I soon learned that effective ministry development requires significant teaching that involves all members of the parish community and which I claimed as my primary contribution. People need to be captured by the vision of what it means to belong to the laos, the people of God, the Body of Christ, the baptismal community. Much of the initial teaching needs to be based on St. Paul’s powerful insights for the church expressed in 1 Corinthians 12 and Ephesians 4. People also need to know how far the church has drifted! For many generations, Anglicans and other historic churches have lived in systems that are top-down and clergy dominated. “Ministers” in that frame are clergy, period. It is a major shift to help people see that this system is a grave distortion. Most, many at least, were and are happy with this distortion. It helps me to remember that radical change happens gradually and that the recovery process will continue for several generations.

Out of this teaching and learning emerged the Discovery process, assisting the community to clarify ministry needs and opportunities, to identify positions and to nominate people for those positions. The outcome is the formation of a Ministry Support Team to assist all members to become more fully engaged in ministry both within the life of the parish and beyond, into the community and the world. Members of the Ministry Support Team were selected to give support and leadership to the ministry of all the baptized, not to claim these ministries for themselves. In most instances, the selection was clear. In a few cases when it was not, a second round of nominations was required. Feelings were sometimes hurt when individuals were not nominated to a position, or were not nominated to the particular position they desired.

Once nominated teams came into being, they began to meet monthly under my mentorship for study, team building, prayer and orientation. Their education and formation was enhanced by additional workshops and study opportunities, including courses at Sorrento Centre.

As part of the formation process, the region sent five people to the U.S. to be trained as “Stephen Leaders” as part of a rich, ecumenical program in pastoral care. Upon returning home, these five facilitated workshops and training throughout the region, equipping other to be more effective in their caring ministries.

In the fall of 1996, the region hired a second professional clergy, the Rev. Katherine Hough who came to Nelson as associate priest. Two years later Katherine and I each embraced the title “Regional Missioner,” though Katherine’s primary focus was originally limited to Nelson and Willow Point. The region employed Katherine on a half time basis. She found additional employment as a lawyer. At about this time I was named Archdeacon of the Kootenays and Baptismal Ministry Developer for the three eastern regions of the Diocese. This appointment resulted in quarter employment (paid by the Diocese) leaving me three-quarter time with the Kokanee Region.

In 1997 three Ministry Support Teams were ready for commissioning and ordaining. The teams included over 25 persons to be commissioned, as well as four to be ordained priests and two to be ordained deacons. They belonged to the parishes of St. Saviour’s, Nelson, the largest of the Kokanee parishes, St. Matthew’s, South Slocan, the smallest, and St. Mark’s, Kaslo, a village church.

The journey took the people of the Kokanee Region in unexpected directions. A delegation of Kokanee people visited the Seven Rivers Cluster in the Dioceses of Eastern Oregon and Idaho. The work of Total Ministry had been underway in that cluster for several years, and the combination of mentoring and hospitality they extended made all the difference in encouraging the Kokanee delegation to press on. It is essential for those involved in new initiatives to link with others for wisdom and support wherever possible. Today the Diocese of Northern Michigan is widely experienced in Mutual Ministry and presently serves as mentor for many just beginning the journey.

Mutual Ministry seems ideally suited to small village parishes without resident professional clergy, though my experience is limited. All seven parishes in the Kokanee Region have moved significantly toward becoming ministering communities in which all members claim and exercise ministry. The reasons are complex why four have chosen not to embrace an intentional model of Mutual Ministry. All are small congregations with primarily older parishioners. For some there has been a lack of energy and an inability to believe in themselves. They could not imagine that a priest for local ministry could be identified from their midst. One or two of these parishes may yet respond to the challenge and all may not survive.

At the best of times I understand the church to be in a long-term recovery process. The principles of Mutual Ministry are not an arbitrary, passing fad without depth or consequence; they are about reclaiming the soul of the church. The church, as institution, is under great stress in our day. Is it possible that God is humbling us, as Douglas Hall suggests in “The Future of the Church”? Is it possible that much has to die before a new reality can be born? Verna Dozier’s opening words in “The Authority of the Laity” have captured my heart: “A funny thing happened on the way to the Kingdom. The Church, the people of God, became the Church, the institution.” Mutual Ministry is overwhelmingly about “the people of God” agenda.

The year 2000 brought many transitions to the Kokanee Region. The Rev. Jim and Gladys Veitch moved from Nelson to Alberta in order to be closer to family support due to Jim’s declining health and strength. The Rev. Gail Clifton, Pastoral Care Coordinator for the Nelson and Area Health Council, was ordained priest at St. Saviour’s and named as Honorary Assistant. The Rev. Katherine Hough resigned as Missioner so that she could begin graduate studies in Berkeley, California this fall. Finally, I announced my resignation as Missioner to be effective March 2001. In response, the Archbishop initiated the process for securing a new Missioner. In the meantime, plans are emerging to proceed this fall with nomination processes for local priests and deacons in Nelson and Kaslo and possibly elsewhere, which means we are now engaged in a second generation of local ministry development. Never a dull moment it seems!