Cap History

The following information constitutes something of our history – the rises and the falls of a church called “Cap.” The early history is somewhat blurred as we pass 30+ years as an interdenominational church with relationships around the world and with friendships in every Christian denomination.

As we did in the beginning, we continue as a pilgrimaging church following Jesus Christ “all the way to heaven.” Our commitment is to “call, celebrate and change” – this is how we understand what we are doing and measure how we are being effective.

Much of this material was provided by Bert Voth, a long time elder and friend of Capilano Christian Community.

1974-1977: The Founding Church

• 1974 marks the birth of Capilano Christian Community – Cap began with Bob Roxburgh (from Killarney Park Mennonite Brethren) as pastor with 4 elders and 23 members. Ray Stedman’s teaching on “Body Life” served as a model for church life.
• Distinctives of our early church: informality in our services, relational intimacy between people and with God, honest sharing and authentic response to needs.
• The first public worship service was held on March 17, 1974 at Capilano College in North Vancouver. And within a few weeks, the attendance grew to about 100 people, many from Young Life.
• Ken Blue was called as pastor to Cap after Bob Roxburgh left. His passion for Christ and the Kingdom and his challenging, dynamic speaking contributed to the church’s early growth. Ken eventually moved to San Diego CA where he led Foothills Church and served internationally as a speaker and church equipper. Several of Ken’s books remain favourites to many in our church.
• Jeff Kirby was appointed youth pastor in 1979 and led Cap for about 10 years. Jeff went on to found Kansas City Vineyard and now serves as an Alpha coordinator for the Midwest of the US. Both Ken and Jeff were graduates of Regent College on the UBC campus and leaders in the Vineyard movement (along with Paddy Ducklow who was to become our pastor in 1993).
• These early days were exciting and timorous. The Jesus Movement had come to a conclusion and many churches were into a radical kind of discipleship called “shepherding.” It was also unusual in these days for evangelical nondenominational churches to be “planting” churches. We wondered if we could possibly survive while other denominational churches were so large. However, we became a kind of boutique church with a focused market niche: those who don’t fit anywhere else. We discovered that there were many that were looking for an authentic worship place where the leaders empowered the followers to lead!

1978-90: The Growing (and Maturity) Church

• Jeff Kirby was appointed pastor after Ken Blue went to Granville Chapel in Vancouver. Ron Reed was appointed Youth Pastor – dynamic drama inspired youth to radical discipleship that led to Pacific Theatre.
• Gordon Stewart was welcomed as co pastor with Jeff and also served effectively for about 10 years. (Since leaving Capilano, Gordon has served several churches as an intentional transitional pastor.) At this point Cap moved to Lonsdale Recreation Centre where the congregation grew to about 400+ participants.
• Cedarview was Cap’s first church plant. It began with 60 members and 3 Cap elders. At this time Cap changed locations to Boundary School. Cedarview had about a 10 year run; often complicated and sometimes quarrelsome.
• It was at this time that Jeff Kirby, David Parker and Gordon Stewart attended a Vineyard Signs and Wonders Conference in California that greatly affected the style of Sunday worship. Pastors and worship teams lead Sunday services healing prayer and prophetic ministry is encouraged.
• Dave Parker was a Cap intern who went on to pastor churches in the UK and with Kansas City Fellowship and Desert Vineyard in California. He continues to exercise significant leadership in the Vineyard church in the US and internationally.
• For several years after these significant leaders had left, the church floundered. Many important members of the church had left and the church was not growing as it had in the past. There was a feeling of abandonment by some and each week the Sunday services were courageous though smaller. The church was without a pastor for 4 years. However, the Holy Spirit was alive and many testify to the wondrous good news and His real presence! And the loyal “remnant” of 30-50 people did not give up.

1990-2000: Cap Reborn

• Cap moves to International Plaza (“The Dome”) hoping to follow the leading of the Spirit of God. Still without pastoral leadership and in cooperation with “Youth With a Mission” the church re-emerged in the round under an enormous leaking skylight.
• During this time (1993) Paddy Ducklow (psychologist and pastor) was welcomed as the senior pastor after a lengthy search. (Paddy was the team leading pastor of Burnaby Christian Fellowship, a large charismatic church and the founding director of the Counselling Group.) Having left 15 years of fruitful ministry at BCF, he and his family were working part time in San Diego CA (Foothills Church where Ken Blue, a previous pastor with CapChurch, was the senior pastor).
• Paddy also teaches as an occasional professor at Regent College and Carey Theological College (primarily in marriage and family ministry) while being the team leader at Capilano.
• Rob Des Cotes is called as a part-time associate pastor at Cap. Rob is a professional musician and artist. Rob worked as an associate pastor with CapChurch for several years before moving to Vancouver and starting the Vancouver Arts Network in 2002.
• Mike Nichols is called to a co pastor position with Rob and Paddy in 1995. All three are Regent College graduates with Masters Degrees in various disciplines. This was to prove to be a very alive combination of leaders.
• Cap worked with the Harvest Project for many years and shared space with this mission to reach the disadvantaged. Following this, we moved our offices to the Common Good, a street mall next to a computer store and a fitness centre.
• Cap moved to St. Richards Anglican Church for a summer of evening services and then to the Lucas Centre (an adult learning centre in central North Vancouver) in 1996, our present place of worship.
• It was about this time that the leadership faced the reality that 85% of Canadian churches were stagnant or declining numerically, and of the churches that were growing, about 90% of their growth was either biological (church people having babies) or “transfer growth” – people leaving some churches to join others. This meant that less than 10% of the people coming into our churches were coming from among the “unchurched.”
• The leadership team decided to lead CapChurch through a process of incremental change to become more effective at reaching unchurched people. We wanted to become the kind of church we can invite our unchurched friends to.
• We also renamed ourselves – no longer Capilano Christian Community, we became known as CapChurch. Our “mantra” became “Call, Celebrate, Change.”

2000 – Current: The Emerging Church

• Natalie Siewert is welcomed as our minister of children and family and Kenton MacDonald-Lin joins us as our youth minister. Tyler Milley also joins us as an intern and then as our music coordinator. Roger Hardy, a long time CapChurch leader, is our deacon chairperson and works with the pastors and ministers in administration and men’s ministry. This rounds out the primary ministry leadership under the supervision of Paddy Ducklow and Mike Nichols.
• Alpha is an important outreach ministry at CapChurch. We are indebted to many people (especially Barry Soper) for its success in bringing people into a living relationship with Jesus Christ.
• Our mission locally and internationally continues (please see the missions tab on this website). We are currently committed to a small town in Africa (Bufukhula) where we send yearly teams and financially sponsor children and families.
• Our ethos continues to be relational, welcoming, thoughtful, surprising, God-centred and sometimes “irreverent” (especially to those who are of a previous church generation).
• Our Sunday services are greatly strengthened by the CapKids ministry led by Natalie and Kristee Watson. They have caught on to a way of doing Sunday school that kids love and parents and adults can readily do. (Please see the CapKids tab on this website.)
• Our “Leadership Circle” of pastors, elders, deacons and other primary ministers of CapChurch lead the church as we empower younger Christians to lead for the future.
• Only a few of the original elders are current with CapChurch. Jake Penner is one of the founding elders of Capilano Christian Community and remains as our Elder Emeritus. Bert Voth, recently remarried after being widowed, has moved away though remains an important friend to our leadership and church core.
• In January of 2007, Scott Campbell joined the staff as a Pastoral Intern.  Later that winter Natalie Siewert (CapKids and Family Minister) and Celeste Lee (Administrative Assistant to the Pastors) step down from staff and chose to serve in non-remunerated positions within the community.  Sue Carabetta and Paula Schulz joined the staff as the Family and Newcomers Minister and Administrative Assistant to the Pastors respectively.  Alison Nichols was promoted to CapKids Coordinator and Tyler Milley rejoined the staff as our Worship Coordinator.  It was also during this time that Paddy Ducklow began a 3 month sabbatical.
• This is who we are and where we are in the Spring of 2007. We believe and have evidence that the Spirit of God is leading us forward and that our best history has not yet been lived or written. (This story will be continued.)