My history with the Anglican Church of Canada goes back more than thirty years to the early 1980's when I began to attend St. James, the only High Anglican parish in this diocese. It was with mixed feelings that I began to attend. I had little or no intention of actually joining the Anglican Communion. I did feel drawn to St. James and on the strong recommendation of a friend (who always seemed to know that he knew better than I what I needed spiritually) I began attending.
My own background in the Christian faith was to the least rather unusual. I started as a teenage Jesus Freak converted at the age of fourteen under the tutelage of several young men recently converted themselves to the Christian faith. I spent most of the first year worshipping with the Jesus' People Army, a band of zealous fanatics full of the Holy Spirit and an incredible zeal to serve God in all things and in all ways. This movement soon broke apart, the greater part of it becoming absorbed into a pernicious and very angry cult called the Children of God. I defected quickly and began attending a charismatic church in East Vancouver, then known as St. Margaret's Reformed Episcopal Church. I was there off and on for six years, left for a while, then at twenty-two began attending a splinter church in Burnaby while immersing myself into another very zealous intentional Christian community where I lived and with other young men and women strove to serve God in the most faithful way I could. I became an ongoing presence in our drop-in centre in the West End where I practiced hospitality on a near daily basis to the most amazingly diverse strangers, some of whom became dear friends.
In 1979 I did a bit of a one-eighty and went to a radical Mennonite house church for a year. We were a small group of artists and intellectuals, several of whom lived together in the house where we worshipped. We were quiet peaceful radicals exploring issues of gender identity and equality, gay rights and peace and peace-making. Intellectually it was very stimulating but spiritually a bit empty and I left after a year and attended an evangelical community church. They were theologically conservative but friendly and quite loving and welcoming and there was a strong encouragement that we befriend one another and form community. Twice a week I volunteered at their Christian bookstore in Kitsilano. I left after a year because I found their homophobia profound and offensive, especially as I was being called into the gay community in a capacity of ministry of presence, empathy and holiness.
In 1980-81 I was in attendance at a Foursquare Pentecostal church. The pastor was a man of incredible compassion, holiness of life and intelligence, such a rare combination in the church. There were many people in the church who had come from difficult and broken and life-breaking experiences. The sense of community and inclusion was incredible and we did share friendship and homes. The pastor and his wife were called by their denomination to start a new church in another city far away. The church lost its momentum, a very self-righteous presence began to set in and I left.
So I entered St. James, not even remotely interested in Anglicanism and really this didn't matter. Where I really needed to grow and develop was in the whole area of contemplation and silent prayer and a daily attendance of the Eucharist. It worked in this capacity: the solemn mass became for me an incredible forum and context for meeting God in worship. The people and clergy were something different. The rector was an absolute dinosaur and forced me to get confirmed if I wanted to receive the sacraments. His assistant was shy and remote and a closeted homosexual. His other assistant was an older man, very warm and kind and very clear on his Christian faith. I particularly liked him.
I found that the best way to get to know people there was by showing up for breakfast every morning following early mass. I really had nothing in common with any of these people but the older ones turned out to be kind and friendly, in their remote upper middle class way, though some of the younger ones were absolute snooty douchebags. For me it was still difficult. I had been used to forming strong and ready friendships in previous churches and here I had to go through years of hoops just to have a quiet cup of coffee with someone. My background in charismatic and evangelical Christianity also made some parishioners suspicious.
I was in my mid-twenties and completely unschooled in this kind of social context. I often felt lost, like a complete outsider. I was also troubled by a lot of the covert homosexuality, given that in those days I tended to have a slightly more conservative perspective on sexuality, and especially was uncomfortable about the hidden promiscuity that was silently condoned.
When I was twenty-nine in 1985 I began working at St. James Social Services Society, caring for individuals living in local SRO's and social housing complexes. This somehow helped further integrate me at St. James though there still remained a certain glass wall that prevented me from experiencing the kind of real open community that I was needing.
I did what I could to accept trade-offs and at times I think I even had a fairly good time there. Until 1988 when my paradigm really began to shift.
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