With open arms

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This article was published 24/08/2019 (2513 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

As United Church ministers go, John Pentland is unusual on two counts.

First off, he’s pastor of a large and growing United Church — Hillhurst in Calgary. These days, that’s something to be celebrated.

Second, he’s a former opiate addict, something he wrote about in a first-person essay in the Globe and Mail in March.

I got to know Pentland, 59, two years ago, when I interviewed him about his church for a column.

When he arrived in 2005, the congregation was down to about 50 people and talking about closing.

Today, about 500 people attend two services each Sunday, with about a third from the United Church, a third from other denominations and a third claiming no church background at all.

Back then, he attributed the turnaround to “leadership that casts a vision” and a congregation that wasn’t afraid to let go of the past so it could change.

He also credited the church’s willingness to pay attention to the culture. People, he said, “are starved” for spiritual meaning, trying yoga, meditation and other things to find it.

He believed people would be open to the faith if they could find churches that are loving, compassionate and non-judgmental, places where they would feel accepted.

The success of Hillhurst indicates he was right.

So when I was in Calgary in spring, I arranged to meet Pentland. I wanted to hear if the church was still doing well, and also about his recent experience with addiction.

His drug problem began in 2017, when he discovered he needed hip surgery.

“I couldn’t function. I was a mess,” he wrote about the pain in his hip, back and legs.

To ease the pain during the 11 months he waited for the operation, he was prescribed a powerful opioid: oxycodone.

It was, he said, a godsend. But after the operation, he needed to wean himself off the drug. That proved to be very hard. It was a “two-month nightmare,” he said.

He did it with the help of “angels” — his family and people who sent messages of hope, soup, cards, cookies, books and bottles of wine. By February, he was back in the pulpit after his medical leave.

When we met, I asked how the experience had affected him.

“I have a new compassion for people who struggle with drugs or live with chronic pain,” he told me, adding he is more patient and attentive to those dealing with challenges, and also tries to “truly listen” when people say how they are doing.

It has also helped him realize how hard it is to get over an addiction, whether to drugs or alcohol.

“I had lots of support (to get off the drug), but it was still hard,” he said. “It’s easy to see why some might give up.”

As for his church, it’s still thriving. The Sunday I attended, the sanctuary was almost full.

While pleased with Hillhurst’s success, Pentland, who authored a book about the church titled Fishing Tips: How Curiosity Transformed a Community of Faith, is now thinking about how he can help other mainline congregations renew themselves.

“The old-style church doesn’t work anymore,” he said. “We need a new style. We need to reformat, re-engage.”

For him, this isn’t about “smoke, screens and bands,” but about being an “authentic worshipping community” that engages people.

The goal isn’t to fill the pews, he added, but to “do the right thing” for people who are “starved for spiritual nourishment” — a need he’s still convinced is large and growing.

The problem, he said, is that many people today don’t see the church as a way to feed their spiritual hunger.

This is due mainly to the news about the church coming from the U.S., where many Christians are seen to be mean, judgmental, anti-immigrant and anti-gay.

But that’s not the whole story for Pentland. For him, there’s another side to Christianity that is “open, compassionate and loving.” If more people knew about this form of church, he believes, it could change this negative perception.

“My dream is to reclaim religion,” he said. “We can provide a progressive church option. We can show a Christianity that is loving and just.”

If that happens, maybe there will be more mainline churches like Hillhurst across Canada.

faith@freepress.mb.ca

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