The Stump and the Sapling

Welcome to the blog of “Community Life Church”.  We are located right in the middle of Grand Manan Island, way out in the Bay of Fundy.

You may wonder about the picture in this blog: a sapling growing out of an old stump. That’s the picture we have for our church: out of the stump of “Grand Harbour Baptist Church”, we are growing the sapling of “Community Life Church”. 

Grand Harbour Baptist Church was established in 1864 and has a rich heritage in our community. Many of our forefathers and mothers grew up, were married, attended, raised families and were buried in Grand Harbour Baptist Church.  This venerable church served them well in their time. But for the last twenty years a growing number of people in the church have had the uneasy feeling that this could be a dying church.

Added to that concern was the realization that for more and more people, the church in general had become, for them, irrelevant.  A little tinkering with programs, worship styles and service times wasn’t going to make much of a difference.  We had basically lost a generation, and it didn’t look like it was going to get any better. Looking squarely into the face of time we could see that we were less than a generation away from extinction.

About two years ago, Grand Harbour Baptist Church decided to focus on “children, youth and young families”, our “next generations”.  It didn’t take too long to realize that you cannot make your “next generations” into your “past generations”; it won’t work.  It would take a new church with a new way to serve to make a difference with the next generations.

But there was so much to be thankful for in our old church, even if it has been dying. After pondering what to do, we decided “Let’s grow a new church out of the old one, just like a fresh new sapling can grow out of an old stump”.

And that, with God’s help, is what we are seeking to do.