Following God’s Lead

Westmount Christian Reformed Church in Strathroy, Ont., was nearly 60 years old. Though it was a healthy church in many ways, it was also aging, and membership was down. At the same time, the rural community of Strathroy, surrounded by farmland, was growing. New subdivisions, schools, and businesses were popping up as more families moved in.

“But [we recognized] there weren’t really a lot of churches reaching the community . . .” said Pastor Peter Hoytema. “That kind of prompted us to wonder where we were going with our church.”

After prayer and discernment, the church decided to step out in faith by planting a church that would meet in the local public high school. They called it Compass Community Church, after the idea that God was calling them in a new direction.

In September 2019, they launched worship services. After their regular worship service on Sunday morning at Westmount, Hoytema and other members of the congregation would rush over to the high school to help set up and lead worship at Compass Community. 

Things got off to a good start. The church plant began seeing new faces from the neighborhood week after week. Six months later, however, the COVID-19 pandemic shut everything down.

For the next couple of years, Westmount navigated the waves of the pandemic—but they knew God was still calling them to better engage their community, and they wondered what was next.

They were able to lean on Resonate Global Mission for support. Resonate, the mission agency of the Christian Reformed Church in North America, has regional church engagement teams made up of ministry leaders, experienced in mission, who walk alongside established churches as they seek to join God on mission.

Beth Fellinger, Resonate’s regional mission leader for Eastern Canada, joined Hoytema and his council to help discern and strategize their next steps. Through prayer and discernment, Westmount became convicted that God was calling them not to plant a church but to become that church they had planted.

Not everyone in the congregation was comfortable with that idea at first, but the church leaders remained hopeful. With support from Fellinger, they addressed questions step by step and didn’t leave anything on the table. Should they take out the pews? Should they sell the organ and pull together a praise team? What kinds of events should they host for their community?

Today Westmount Christian Reformed Church is known as Compass Community Church. A praise team leads the congregation in worship. They serve coffee and chat with one another before the worship service. They host barbecues and other events for the neighborhood in their parking lot and open their church building to the community, providing space for an Alcoholics Anonymous group, for example.

Throughout all of the changes, a leader explained, they have leaned on the congregation’s strength of being a community of grace and hospitality.

“They agreed to drop some of the things that they were doing for themselves, or for tradition . . . and just imagined what God could do if they followed where God was leading them,” said Anita Plat-Kuiken, a Resonate local mission leader who also worked with the church.

Before long, people from the neighborhood started to show up, as they had done at the church plant in the local high school. There have been new faces every Sunday, and a number of the people have never been part of a church, while others were part of a church but for some reason weren’t attending anymore.

“The Sunday-morning experience is much more accessible,” said Hoytema. “It’s been encouraging to me and a lot of us to see people who were previously churched coming back to church.”

Hoytema added that Fellinger has been a “champion” for their church as they have worked to renew their presence in their community. He has appreciated her and Plat-Kuiken’s support and knowledge of available resources.

“What Compass is doing is awesome. When we stop worrying about ourselves long enough to see our neighbor, something radically shifts in the way we do church,” said Fellinger. “I think that every church is exactly where it was meant to be so that God can live into that community. And sometimes we just see them as buildings. We don’t see them as the place where the community has a chance to hear and see the gospel.”

“It can be scary, but the lesson to me is to just trust God,” added Hoytema. “If you believe God is sending you someplace or wanting you to do something different, just follow that compass and trust God. You’ll be surprised by how God leads and blesses you in ways you never expected.”