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Church plant underway on UBC campus

By Frank Stirk
VANCOUVER, BC—Craig O’Brien is hopeful that “perhaps now it’s a harvest time” for the gospel within the University of British Columbia’s sprawling campus community. 

“There’s several ministries on the campus who have shared with me that they are on the verge of that harvest,” he said. “They felt like they’ve done lots of planting and now they’re seeing some people come to Christ and who are even asking, ‘So what do I do for church?’ That’s a good problem to have.”

After 16 years as pastor of Cityview Baptist Church, O’Brien had resigned in June so he could work full-time on planting Origin Church at UBC.

Yet it is not entirely a new calling for him. When he and his wife, Ellen, first came to Vancouver, they had a dual assignment—to shepherd both Gladstone (now Cityview) Baptist Church and the remnants of a church plant on the city’s Westside, which includes UBC. But they soon realized that they needed to focus exclusively
on Gladstone.

It was not until last year, when Cityview began studying its options for a new church plant, that UBC once more came to mind. And almost as soon as O’Brien began doing some initial exploratory work, he knew that this was where God was leading them.

In January, Cityview allowed O’Brien to spend two days a week to go on campus and, in his words, “investigate, explore, pray, poke around, talk to people and find out what’s the opportunity, what is God doing, what is God saying.” And again, it quickly became clear that He was calling him personally to head up this church plant.

“We had done other church plants where we scratched the ground and passed it on to someone else,” O’Brien said. “But on this occasion, I didn’t sense God would let me pass this on, that this is now something I needed to get myself into.”

“This was out of the blue,” CNBC Student Ministry Strategist Kelly Manire recalled. “When we first learned of it, which would’ve been Christmas last year, I told Craig this is the best Christmas present we could’ve possibly been given.”

Rich Carruthers, the director of the Born For More club, part of the UBC Baptist Student Ministries Network, is also excited at having a church on campus come alongside them. “I see it as a very healthy and wonderful relationship that will only get better as time goes on,” he said.

O’Brien estimates it will be about another year before Origin is in a position to begin regular worship services. For now, he is focused on organizing a launch team, building prayer and financial support among churches and individuals, securing partners who will commit to supplying personnel to fill specific needs, and getting to know students.

“It’s been incredible, the kinds of conversations I’ve had,” he said. “Now they may not be ready to hear the gospel, but some are open even to discussing the possibility of God. Some are willing to ask, ’Does this God have something to say to me? What has this God done to show His love to me?’”

To BSM international student minister Suzanne Perry, this type of response reflects what she senses is “a change in the spiritual climate” on campus.

“This is my fifth year at UBC, and I can definitely see God working in more obvious ways than we have in the past,” she said. “People have been praying and serving, giving their lives here, and it seems that in recent months, some things are beginning to stir.”

Born for More has also experienced a better-than-usual response among undergrads. “It looks good,” said Carruthers. “We’ve had kind of a stronger turnout this September and some more leadership, obviously, with Craig being around.”

Manire is praying that this emerging partnership between Origin Church and Born for More at UBC will be repeated on university and college campuses across Canada.

“We want to see—this is our vision, our dream—20 strong, growing, multiplying churches and-or campus ministries by the year 2020,” he said. “And so what I want to see happen at UBC is a church that grows to 100 or more in worship every week and a campus ministry that’s reaching 100 or more students every single week.”

“I wouldn’t prescribe a church for every campus, but I’d say it’s worthy of exploration, just because of the scale of lostness and what happens when you actually engage a campus community with authentic Christian witness,” O’Brien said.

“And once you see people coming to Christ, there will be a congregational need where people say, ‘We need a church.’ And if they’re not connecting in one, then what do they need to do together with the Spirit of God to actually become the church?”