Rural Faith Communities Honour Past and Live Out Gospel by Doing Good

From the flowers picked and arranged that morning, to the tables wiped down with water transported from home to the generous offering of $500, to the home-baked goodies served after the service, good deeds were shared abundantly by an ecumenical congregation coming together for worship on Sunday, September 8.

Anglican and United church members from neighbouring communities gathered for a service in the tiny All Saints’ church. Once located in the center of the village of Lougheed, the former Anglican church is now part of the Iron Creek Museum, a historic collection of one-room schoolhouses, a log community hall, a doctor’s office and a blacksmith’s shop connected by a boardwalk. 

The Rev. Colleen Sanderson, an Anglican priest and spiritual care chaplain for Canterbury Foundation in Edmonton leads worship in the church about once a year instead of the service she leads at St. John’s Anglican Church in Sedgewick once a month.

In her sermon, Sanderson spoke of our call as Christians to hear and preach the Gospel and do good works as an extension of Jesus’ ministry.

The Apostle James (2:14) asks: “What good is it, my brothers and sisters if you say you have faith but do not have works? Can faith save you?” 

“The imperative of the Gospel is to engage,” says Sanderson. “The idea is that those who hear the Gospel and understand its message will be moved to take up the work of Jesus and continue that work in their community. We are called to take the message of the Good News into the places where people are unable to hear it for whatever reason; to places where the poor and powerless of our world go unheard.”

Coming together for spiritual nourishment has enabled and will continue to enable generations of faithful people in east central Alberta to do the good work of God.