I grew up in a family with strong connections to the Christadelphian community. I was baptised in my teens and now many years later still continue to be part of the community. However, since Christadelphians are not evenly dispersed across the world, there are greater numbers in some places over others. For the past 20+ years, my family has lived here in Nova Scotia where the number of those who align with the Christadelphian faith has grown and shrunk and is rather small at the moment. Although faith and a relationship with God is a personal individual thing, the church is also social as it is meant to be a body of people who through interaction with each other develop character and work together to spread God’s love amongst each other and into their neighbourhoods. Small numbers can be a challenge in this regard. Why would our family not just join a larger local Christian church?
The simple answer is that beliefs matter and what we believe the Bible teaches would make it complicated to integrate into another church in the area. This is true for most belief-oriented situations in life. For example, we believe the Bible teaches that there is only one God, the Father, and that Jesus Christ is His Son who began his life at his birth. This is quite different from most Christian churches today who see God as a Trinity composed of three persons: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Does this matter? It does because differences in understanding what the Bible claims and offers can change what we believe is true about ourselves and therefore what we do. We will revisit how different understandings of the Bible affect us in a later post. Something that really helps when small in number is the fact that Christadelphians are a world-wide community. Our ecclesias (although some use the term “church”, it is also common to use the term “ecclesia” which is from a Greek word that means a congregation or gathering of people) are linked by our common understanding of Scripture. We often visit with Christadelphians in New Brunswick, and a little further on in Ontario or British Columbia, and even occasionally in other countries. So it's possible to never really feel alone.
There are somewhere between 50,000 and 60,000 Christadelphians throughout the world. The number in Canada is around 3000. Since Christadelphian ecclesias do not have specific pastors, but instead have a lay ministry (members of the church work together in the teaching and leading), there is quite a bit of interaction between ecclesias. The internet has made this even more possible, linking people across greater distances. Since here in Nova Scotia our numbers are small, we will sometimes listen to our Sunday morning sermon or exhortation using a live or previously recorded talk from other places in Canada or around the world. Once a month we link up live with the ecclesia in Sussex, New Brunswick over Zoom. There are also magazines and blog posts that are produced regularly that help to encourage and connect us, and include words from Christadelphians around the world, such as The Christadelphian Tidings and The High Calling magazine. Once in a while we do get Christadelphians coming through Halifax, who come and meet with us on Sunday mornings, and when we travel, we also try to visit the local ecclesia.
Although many Christadelphian ecclesias have their own building to meet in, here in Nova Scotia we do not. We meet on Sundays at 10:30 in a rented room which needs to be set up with chairs and a table at the front first, or sometimes we meet in each other's homes. Like many Christian churches, we meet to remember the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and so we also set on the table a cup of wine and a piece of bread which are symbols of his death and resurrection. These are shared at the appropriate time during the service each week. Our service takes about 1 to 1-½ hours. We say prayers to thank God for all that He has done for us and to ask for His help where we need it. As a small group of mostly males at the moment, our singing needs a little help. Instead of doing it all by ourselves, we use the hymns prepared by the WCF (https://www.wcfoundation.org/hymns). There are some lovely instrumentals for meditation, and a large and growing collection of words and music from Christadelphian hymnbooks. We read a few chapters from the Bible from a daily reading planner that has been used by Christadelphians for over 150 years - I will come back to that another time. And we have a talk which we usually refer to as an exhortation (which helps to remind us what we are there for and gives us something to think about in the week ahead).
We believe the Bible teaches that God (Yahweh) is the only God and the Creator of everything. He is also the Father of Jesus Christ, who is the beginning of the new spiritual creation. We come together to remember that “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” We remember that Jesus was a human like us and therefore capable of sin and death, two things which help us identify with him, and two things that God cannot intrinsically be capable of. We also remember that with his Father’s help and his commitment to doing only his Father’s will, he was able to overcome sin. After being given over to crucifixion by jealous and hateful men, he was then resurrected to eternal life, also overcoming death. The bread and the wine are symbols of his flesh and blood (his natural life) given to bring life to anyone who will believe in what he did and said, and share in his life of self-sacrifice. His life is meant to be an inspiration for our own lives, helping us to see our own sinfulness, the consequences of sin, and the need for forgiveness, bringing us into a relationship with God. And God has appointed him to sit at His right hand as the mediator of this new covenant, a man who knows the weakness of human flesh and can help us in our own conflict with sin, and help us to trust that the God of the whole universe is merciful and loving. Because of Jesus, we know that God does not count our sins against us when we come to Him in faith, and He will save those who have freely chosen to live subject to His will.
Yes, of course. We would love to meet people who are interested in the Bible and Christianity - you can find out the details of where we meet here on our website or by contacting us. Most of our service can be beneficial to anyone who wishes to worship. However, the bread and wine is shared between those who have been baptised with an understanding and acceptance of the Christadelphian faith. This is not meant to be rude, but because it is a ‘meal’ of fellowship that reminds us of the commitment we each have individually made in baptism to follow Christ and live a life of self-sacrifice as our Lord Jesus did. Many ecclesias around the world also have other opportunities to meet and learn from the Bible such as Sunday School (adults included), a mid-week Bible class, and sometimes a more lecture-type meeting or seminar that is specifically meant to be something friends can be invited to, and often weekend events with a series of classes. Here in Nova Scotia, along with our Sunday morning service, some of us attend a Wednesday evening Bible class online. If you are interested in opportunities to learn about the Bible and meet people who love to discuss it, you can find out if there are Christadelphians near you here: https://christadelphianchurches.com/, and if not, reach out and we can give you other options.
When we moved here quite a while ago, we had young children and since there were a few other young children attending our meetings, we started a Sunday School. We had an adult class where we studied a book of the Bible or a topic together, and we had a couple separate classes geared towards the ages of the children. The Bible has so many stories that can capture the attention of children and teach them about God and His plan and purpose for the world, and how to live in it. An excellent resource for teaching children is here: https://www.magnifyhimtogether.com/cssa-sunday-school/. At the moment we do not have a Sunday School class as my 16 year old is the only young person at our ecclesia. It can be a challenge to try to find ways to engage a young person in the ecclesia when they do not have peers. Many ecclesias have events specifically for young people such as CYC (Christadelphian Youth Circle) which is usually an evening activity with devotional time and time to socialize, and joint weekend events with classes on a theme and sports activities. We have taken our children to Ontario every summer for a week-long youth camp in a rustic camping environment where they have made friends and learned a lot, as well as a family camp in the same place which gave them further time to develop friendships. The children complete a workbook on the camp’s theme before they attend the youth camp and this is a good way of helping them to engage with the Bible. There are similar opportunities to attend Bible “schools” around the world. As well, we have tried to be diligent in finding ways to include spiritual teaching in our home. One of the ways we do this is by having a time that we read the Bible together.
The Bible Companion is a daily Bible reading planner that is a tradition in our community and it is a good one. If you want to claim that your beliefs are Bible-based then you really need to read the Bible, and be familiar with what it contains cover to cover. This may seem daunting as it is a very big book and so the reading plan was put together over 150 years ago to provide three readings, two from the Old Testament and one from the New Testament for each day. You can find this Bible reading planner on the YouVersion App (Robert Roberts), or download a print version here: Bible Reading Planner. When I was growing up we did the three readings as a family most evenings at 7:30, and we have tried to do the same with our family. We would all take turns reading five verses each, or sometimes my dad would be the narrator and each of us would become one of the characters in the stories. The extra reading practice certainly helped us as we were learning to read and there were lots of topics that came up and were discussed during this family time. It is not a requirement but it is a beneficial practice that builds familiarity. As an aside, did you know that you can download crossword puzzles that go along with reading through the Bible? You can check that out here: Crossword Puzzles. A desire to share this love for reading and understanding the Bible was the push behind a seminar that was developed in the early 1990’s to teach anyone who was interested how to read the Bible effectively. Many ecclesias around the world have offered this course in person from time to time including here in Halifax. The content can be accessed here: This is your Bible or you can hop on to an online zoom class that goes through different topics connected to reading the Bible here: Learn to Read the Bible.
Ideally it builds within us a biblical worldview that does not shift with cultural trends or human thinking, and it provides guidance for human interaction and daily life. This doesn’t mean that our ecclesias are little microcosms of perfection because unfortunately they aren't. Instead they are really training grounds for our spiritual life. Anyone who has exercised their physical body knows that training for anything is not a painless or effortless process—it requires persistence when it would be nicer to be doing something else. Jesus said, “By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” The ecclesia is our training ground to develop love which is not an easy ideal since even though we share a commitment to Christ and an understanding of biblical doctrine, we do not necessarily share anything else in common. The way we treat one another, despite our differences or seeming incompatibility however, says a lot about whether we are really growing to be more like Jesus. To love one another as Jesus loved us is asking for more than just getting together once a week for an hour or two, and avoiding anyone we don’t really get on with. Instead, the ideal is that we would try to get to know everyone and be a part of each other's lives regardless of what we might initially think of each other. This means that we do try to get together for social events as well when we can. For example, we have in the past got together for meals, hikes along some local trails, or seasonal activities. These activities can help to build relationships. Of course, our first responsibility is to love our families well, and then to love our fellow disciples, but love should also reach out into the needs of our local communities, and then on out into the world.
Since our ecclesia is very small, it does sometimes feel like we are very limited in what we can do. However, we know that God can work through many or few. So there are at least two different ways that we can try to love people around us: one is by sharing the Gospel, and the other is by sharing our resources (money, skills, goods, etc). In the last couple years we have mainly tried to reach out with the Gospel message through social media (Facebook, Instagram, and our website). Another common way that other ecclesias try to share the Gospel message and the hope it offers is public talks or seminars on Bible topics. There are also podcasts produced by Christadelphians such as Essential Bible Topics, or Bible Feed, and if you enjoy reading instead there are pamphlets about many Bible topics available online. As far as sharing our resources, we have often utilized the WCF initiatives for helping out in our communities such as providing sleeping bags or care packs to local shelters, and donating food to local food banks. And we have tried to reach out across the world to people who need help in other countries through Agape in Action.
If you have a question I haven’t answered, please ask it here .