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A Shared Feast: Nourishing Hope for a Flourishing Future Church in Canada

October 12 - 13, 2023
WATERLOO, ONTARIO & ONLINE

 
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The table is such an ordinary place...

…yet set with food, drink and friends it can become a life-changing place where we can meet Jesus. There’s hidden goodness in these when we slow down and gather at the table from all the nooks and crannies, cities, and towns from coast-to-coast here in Canada. That’s why this Fall we’re hosting our second annual feast and setting the Table for you. Come restless, come weary, come joyful, come energized. What you need, someone will pass to you over this shared feast, and what you bring someone else will need. Find kinship in this beloved community longing to see the restoration and renewal of all things here in Canada. 

You’ll connect with other theological practitioners from across Canada to find inspiration and leave empowered.  We’re providing a smorgasbord of keynotes, workshops, and storytelling. There will  be dedicated time for conversation and collaboration around current hopeful opportunities and challenges. Our commitment at New Leaf is to find ways to surface the genius in the room, creating  spaces for all of us to share best practices, collective wisdom, and nourish connection. It wouldn’t be a New Leaf event without networking, coffee and a little fun as well! 

Engage with like-minded peers, diverse perspectives, visionary leaders, and passionate changemakers as we explore a path to a more vibrant and healthy church in Canada. Together, we will discover the transformative power of curiosity, connection, and embodied practices to fuel  boundless hope for our collective journey. Join us at The Table, and let’s feast on hope as we seek to contribute to the blessing and flourishing of all.

 
 

 Who is the Table for?

The Table is being set for Pastors, Priests, Church Planters, Ministry Leaders, Academics, Artists, Poets, Neighbourhood Catalysts, Creatives, and Jesus-followers from any tradition who are longing for an oasis and a shared feast of hope here in Canada.

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What to expect

  • Solidarity with others on the journey and kinship with other like-minded Jesus-followers from all across Canada. 

  • Personal and communal practices that will center us on Jesus, giving hope and sustenance to our weary souls and bodies. 

  • Explorative conversations to help frame a vision for ministry in the present, with an eye towards a hopeful and healthy future for the church in Canada. 

  • Theological reflections void of platitudes or a five-step plan

  • Conversations about soul care, spiritual awakening, and creative renewal.

  • Opportunities to process the pain and the possibilities of our current moment as the church in Canada.

  • One heck of a good party, because it's a whole year, and there is much we can celebrate together!

 

Speakers

Keynote Speakers
 

Joash Thomas

Joash is International Justice Mission Canada’s National Director of Mobilization & Advocacy. Born and raised in India, Joash has served with IJM teams in 3 countries over the past 8 years. Prior to joining IJM, Joash ran a political consulting and lobbying firm in the United States.

Joash has a master’s degree in Political Management from The George Washington University and is currently pursuing a dual master’s degree in Christian Leadership & Systematic Theology from Dallas Theological Seminary. A sought-after speaker, Joash is frequently invited to teach about justice at churches across Canada. Based in the Greater Toronto Area, Joash leads a dynamic team that is building the Canadian movement to rescue millions and protect half a billion people from slavery & violence by 2030.

Hillary McBride, PhD.

Hillary McBride, PhD, is a Registered Psychologist, researcher, podcastor, and author, but underneath all of that she is a human, who loves asking questions about what it means to be human, how we heal and grow, and what it means to be a body. She publishes written works for community and academic audiences about embodiment, trauma, eating disorders, mental health and spirituality; her bestselling book The Wisdom Of Your Body was released in 2021, and her next book, Practices for Embodied Living will be released in 2024. Her award winning CBC podcast Other People's Problems was mentioned in the Wall Street Journal and New York Times as essential listening, and she is the co-developer of Katalyst Mental Health Ketamine Assisted Therapy program. What makes her feel alive is her daughter's laugh, her love for her partner and close friends, asking unanswerable questions, and spending time in or near the ocean.

Nikayla Reize

Nikayla is the lead pastor of a small parish church in Calgary, Alberta called Awaken. She has been a sessional instructor at Ambrose University teaching Old Testament and Biblical Theology since 2015. She has a BA in Theology, an MA in Biblical Studies (Old Testament) and she is currently working on her PhD (New Testament) through Aberdeen University. Her research is on Sabbath and Jubilee in Luke-Acts. She is especially focused on how Sabbath and Jubilee are religious as well as socio-economic and at the heart of Jesus and the early church's mission. As a parish pastor she loves dreaming of ways the local church can embody Jubilee through trauma-informed neighborliness, radical inclusion, and wealth redistribution. She teaches workshops and speaks at churches and conferences across Canada. She and her family live in Bowness and feel a strong connection to the living land, the wild life, and the beautiful Bownesian community. Nikayla often has many projects on the go between being home with young kids, school work, course prep, and serving her beloved Awakeners but she somehow always brings her passion and joy to everything she does.

 
 
Storytellers

Andrea Perrett

Andrea Perrett is an Associate in New Witnessing Communities with the Centre for Missional Leadership at St Andrew’s Hall in Vancouver, BC. She is the leader of Cultivate: Missional Church Planting Collective, which gathers and equips leaders to help them navigate the challenges of planting sustainable new witnessing communities.

As a multivocational leader, Andrea also works as a dietitian at a mental health care facility and is a church planter with Transform, an outdoor-based witnessing community. She has previously been the Director of Cyclical Vancouver, the leader of a dinner church, St. Andy’s Community Table, and served at West Point Grey Presbyterian Church in Vancouver.

Andrea is passionate about supporting leaders who are experimenting with new ways of gathering Christian communities. She also loves exploring the connection between physical health and spiritual health and currently leads an online bread baking circle, where the group of amateur bakers share about life and faith while mixing and kneading their dough. Andrea has a MDiv from Vancouver School of Theology, where she is working on a ThM in Missional Theology.

Andrea and her husband, Jordan are originally from the prairies, but have called the West Coast home for over a decade. They live on the North Shore where they enjoy exploring the mountains with their goofy black lab and toddler. 

PAYGE LUCAS

Payge is the New Leaf administrative assistant and the Director of the Roxy Centre. Payge lives in Dundas, ON with her husband Paul and their three kids. Payge has worked in a variety of ministries and is currently pursuing her Masters of Theological Studies with a focus in Spiritual Care and Counselling at McMaster Divinity College. She loves plants, spending time with family, and building aquariums in her spare time.

Featured paper presenters

tony snow

Tony Snow is a member of the Stoney Nakoda First Nation and grew up on Treaty No. 7 land at Morley, Alberta, where his father Dr. Rev. Chief John Snow Sr. attended the Morley Indian Residential School. Tony is a Day School Survivor who now works as the Indigenous Minister of the United Church of Canada’s Chinook Winds Region, and is part of the ministry team at Hillhurst United in Calgary. As a Traditional Knowledge Keeper, minister and consultant, Tony has worked for decades in public engagement and government relations, bringing awareness and healing to communities of faith and Indigenous peoples, as a continuation of his father’s work and his grandfather’s work.

Heather Morgan

Heather Morgan is a first-year PhD student at Emmanuel College at the University of Toronto and is part of the pastoral team at Vox Community Church in Barrie. Her academic work focuses on the way lived disabled experiences can “crip” (or unsettle) areas of theology we had previously assumed were fixed and known. She brings to this work a lifetime of personal, pastoral and professional experience with disability and neurodivergence. Her hope is that, in learning to listen more deeply to disabled bodies and minds, the church might come to more fully reflect what it means to be the Body of Christ.

Alexander S. Lee

Rev. Dr. Tim Tang memorial presentation

Alexander S. Lee is a PhD student in Intercultural Studies at Fuller Theological Seminary who is researching a comparative theology of ritual in Anglican Christian and Sunni Muslim communities in the Greater Toronto Area and York Region. He and his wife, Vanessa, along with their two children, lived and pastored a small house church in Turkey for a decade prior to moving back to Canada in 2022. Alex also began collaborating with the Tyndale Intercultural Ministries Centre on a couple of projects in 2023.

Paper presenters
Artists & Musicians
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Event Details & Schedule

Location

In-person location: 22 Willow Street, Waterloo ON - Elevation Church
This is an accessible building - please feel free to reach out if you have any questions about that!

Online: an interactive and engaging synchronous livestream experience over Zoom.



Are you in Saskatchewan? Check out the Saskatoon Hub option:




 
 
Schedule

Morning: Thursday, October 12, 8:30 am - 12 pm

Table session 1

9:00 - 9:30 am - Doors open and online login

9:30 am - Welcome, introduction, song and spoken word - Alanna & Mike Johnson, Dan Grace, Melissa Burke & Jon Corbin

10:00 am - Keynote speaker Joash Thomas with Q&R and community conversation

10:45 am - Coffee Break - New Leaf Book Table and Sponsor booths open

Table session 2

11:00 am - Prayers of the people - Drew Brown

11:10 am - Stories of Hope - Angela Bick, Peter Schurmann & Payge Lucas

11:30 am - Featured Academic Paper Presentation with Q&R - Shared Feast, Shared Trauma: Spirit Wounds and Cultural Healing - Rev Tony Snow, Indigenous Minister

12:00 - 1:45 pm Lunch - off site lunch options

Afternoon: Thursday, October 12, 1:45 - 5:00 pm

Table session 3

1:45 - 3:45 pm - World Café part 1 - Surfacing the wisdom in the room, we’ll embark on a co-creative journey tackling questions together about the future of the Church in Canada. Includes time for network and connection with others attending the conference.

3:45 - 4:00 pm - Coffee Break - New Leaf bookstore and sponsor booths open.

4:00 - 5:00 pm - Workshops showcasing highlighted research and artistic reflection on the theme of A Shared Feast: Nourishing Hope for a Flourishing Future Church in Canada

Workshop One:

Matte Downey: The Gift of Diversity

Jon Coutts: Hope for Dialogue - Faith Statements

Workshop Two:

Jodi Spargur: Fixing vs. Repairing: Recovering a Spirituality of Repair

Monique Ransom: An Eco-Influenced Theology for Canadian Churches

Workshop Three:

Sid Sudiacal: When Heaven Meets Earth like a Poisonous Kiss: Disgust, Exclusion, and the Church’s Treatment of the LGBTQIA+ Community

Laurie Warkentin: Doing Good Better

5:00 - 7:00 pm Dinner - off site lunch options

Evening: Thursday, October 12, 7:00 - 8:30 pm

Table session 4

7 pm - Welcome, introduction, song, stories of hope - Alicia Wilson, Jonathan Manafo, UpperLvl

7:30 pm - Tim Tang Memorial and Featured Academic Paper Presentation - Decolonizing Hospitality by Anticipating the Spirit - Xenia Chan with presentation from Alex Lee

7:45 pm - Keynote speaker Nikayla Reize with Q&R and community conversation

Bonus Evening Social Event!

8:45 - 10 pm

The event happening on-site at 22 Willow

Beer, Hymns and lots of fun!
> tickets sold separately for the social event

 

Morning: Friday October 13, 8:30 am - 12 pm

Table session 5

8:30 - 9:00 am - Doors open and online login

9:00 - 9:10 am - Welcome back, liturgy, stories of hope: Alicia Wilson, Andrea Perett

9:10 - 9:40 am - Featured Academic Paper Presentation with Q&R - The Place Where We Become Human to Each Other: Christ’s Universally Designed Table - Heather Morgan, PhD Student

9:40 - 9:45 am - Quick coffee break

9:45 - 10:45 am - Workshops showcasing highlighted research and artistic reflection on the theme of A Shared Feast: Nourishing Hope for a Flourishing Future Church in Canada

Workshop One (Sanctuary):

Steven Latta: Rediscovering the Church’s Relational Center

Natasha Crozier: Embracing Children in the Liturgy - A journey to inclusion and mutuality

Workshop Two (Parlour):

Chris Pullenayegem: Back to the future:

Pablo Kim Sun: Three Forms of Hospitality

Workshop Three (Chapel):

Jay Mowchenko: Embracing Decline in Hope in-person 

James Robertson: How Drake’s Mansion and the CN Tower Shape our Vision of Secularization in Canada

10:45 - 11:00 am - Coffee Break - New Leaf bookstore and sponsor booths open  

11:00 - 12:30 pm - World Café part 2 - Surfacing the wisdom in the room, we’ll embark on a co-creative journey tackling questions together about the future of the Church in Canada. Includes time for network and connection with others attending the conference.

12:30 - 2:00 pm Lunch - off site lunch options

Afternoon: Friday October 13, 2 - 5 pm

Table session 6

2:00 pm - Welcome back, liturgy and song - Randell Neudorf

2:30 - 3:30 pm - Keynote speaker Dr Hillary McBride with Q&R and community conversation

3:30 - 3:45 pm - Coffee Break - New Leaf bookstore and sponsor booths open

3:45 - 5:00 pm - Closing & communion - Alanna & Mike Johnson, Dan Grace, Melissa Burke, Jordan Elgie

Bonus Evening Social Event!

You’re invited to stay a little longer in Kitchener- Waterloo to check out a special performance of the one-man show My Little Plastic Jesus.
> tickets sold separately

Workshops

Thursday October 12th, 4 - 5 pm

Workshop One

  • Matt Downey: The Gift of Diversity

  • Jon Coutts: Hope for Dialogue - Faith Statements

Workshop Two

  • Jodi Spargur: Fixing vs. Repairing: Recovering a Spirituality of Repair

  • Monique Ransom: An Eco-Influenced Theology for Canadian Churches

Workshop Three

  • Sid Sudiacal: When Heaven Meets Earth like a Poisonous Kiss: Disgust, Exclusion, and the Church’s Treatment of the LGBTQIA+ Community

  • Laurie Warkentin: Doing Good Better

Friday October 13th, 9:45 - 10:45 am

Workshop One (Sanctuary)

  • Steven Latta: Rediscovering the Church’s Relational Center

  • Natasha Crozier: Embracing Children in the Liturgy - A journey to inclusion and mutuality

Workshop Two (Parlour)

  • Chris Pullenayegem: Back to the future

  • Pablo Kim Sun: Three Forms of Hospitality

Workshop Three (Chapel)

  • Jay Mowchenko: Embracing Decline in Hope in-person 

  • James Robertson: How Drake’s Mansion and the CN Tower Shape our Vision of Secularization in Canada

 
 
 

Registration

 
 

Hey did you know that we’re looking for volunteers to help host the Table? And that our volunteers get a discount on their registrations? Sign up for 4-hour shift and you'll receive a $25 refund. Sign up to volunteer the whole conference and you'll receive a 50% refund of your registration fee! We are looking for help with:

  1. coffee & hospitality service

  2. the book table

  3. tech support

 
 
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