A playful reference to Noah's Ark can introduce us to a fascinating new reality of our time. Again and again Christian faith has shown itself to be rich in two things - memory and hope. At its best, it is always aware of both tradition and possibility. The fascinating new reality that makes the 21st century full of possibility for Christian faith is the extraordinary return into our culture of a view of human life and experience as essentially spiritual. Let's explore this together.

Herbert O’Driscoll is a widely-read author and speaker whose stimulating thought has encouraged many thinking people to give new credibility to faith.

How do you let the community around your church know you're alive, active and up to new things? How do you create enticing thresholds for newcomers to step over and discover church in fresh ways? Members of the Three Saints Team Ministry in Saanich will talk about their experiences of forming a team out of three Anglican parishes, and learning by trial, error and flights of imagination how to connect with the community around them. From Messy Church and primal ooze to Theology Pub and the big questions, come and hear what they've been up to!

Lucy Reid, Scott McLeod, Christopher Parsons and Betty Miller are clergy serving three parishes in central Saanich in a new imaginative team approach.

In this new percolation of the spirit that is often being called nowadays “The Emerging Church,” it is the mystics and contemplatives who will emerge as the prophets and visionaries— because their contemplative practice makes this evolution virtually inescapable.

Cynthia Bourgeault is an Episcopal priest, writer, and internationally known retreat leader. She divides her time between solitude on Eagle Island, Maine, and a demanding schedule traveling globally to teach and spread the recovery of the Christian contemplative path. Cynthia has worked closely with Thomas Keating, Bruno Barnhart, Richard Rohr, as well as many other contemplative teachers and masters within Christianity and other spiritual traditions.

For decades historic “mainline” Protestant Christianity has been in dramatic numeric decline; the tide has been ‘out’ . Wendy will explore the relationship of religious enthusiasm to the phenomenon of decline in the West arguing that despite all numeric indices, the tide is now turning and a new day in religious enthusiasm among the exhausted intellectualism of the West is rising. What will this mean for us living in the aftermath of Christendom?

Wendy Fletcher is Principal and Dean of Vancouver School of Theology. She also holds the rank of professor, teaching in the areas of the spirituality of leadership and social history and has served at VST for 10 years. Prior to coming to UBC, Wendy served as professor of history at the University of Western Ontario, Huron College for 12 years.

As Christians we live with a variety of metaphors or images of what the church has been and will be. There are some metaphors that seem to be gaining in importance in guiding the development of the life of the future church. This will be a time to reflect on some of the metaphors we live by and some that we might find life-giving for a faithful future.

Archbishop John Privett has served in parishes in Alberta and British Columbia, and was ordained Bishop in 2009 as Bishop of Kootenay (south eastern B.C.) and later that year was elected Metropolitan of the Ecclesiastical Province of British Columbia and Yukon. He is passionate about the life of parishes for they are the most common places where the gospel is heard, nourished and lived out. He is particularly interested in Congregational Development, Dialogue, Christian Formation and Spiritual Direction.

What would happen if, as churches, we stopped claiming that we had all the right answers and instead started helping each other ask better questions?

Dr. Christopher Lind is an ethicist and theologian serving as executive director of the Sorrento Centre in British Columbia. His most recent book is Rumors of a Moral Economy published by Fernwood Publishing, Winnipeg, 2010. He is also a senior fellow at Massey College, Toronto.