Tag: gracelife

Categories
Evangelical Stuff Featured In-person Church Righteous Defiance

Could They go Back to Jail? Alberta Pastors James Coates and Tim Stephens Face Renewed Persecution as they Defy Gov’t

With the news that the province of Alberta has reintroduced new restrictions on public gatherings, ones that previously had been lifted back in late July, Pastor James Coates of GraceLife Church and Pastor Tim Stephens of Fairview Baptist Church are likely to face renewed persecution from Alberta Health Services for their continued refusal to follow those terms, including disregarding the rules for their September 19th service.

Both pastors were arrested and jailed for their refusal to bend the knee and deny in word and in deed that Christ is head of the church, and He decides what worship will look like, not the government. When restrictions were lifted several months ago it was hoped that this would be the last of the persecution, but presently does not appear to be so.

Along with creating a two-tiered system in the province (fully vaccinated Albertans are limited to socializing indoors with one other household, whereas unvaccinated people are not allowed to attend any indoor social gatherings at all), the province has mandated three restrictions on churches, despite initially exempting them in early September.

Chuches are not allowed to gather indoors at more than 30% of their fire code capacity.

Masks are mandatory to be worn in church.

Mandatory physical distancing between households for both indoor and outdoor services.

Failing to adhere to these will result in fines and could even result in more jail time. During the Sunday service, GraceLife Church did not abide by any of the new restrictions, having a service of nearly 700 people, mostly unmasked and without social distancing.

The Church has grown by leaps and bounds since they refused to shut down during the lockdown, nearly doubling their size and having dozens upon dozens of people going through with completing membership classes. On account of their size, they are moving to a second service, particularly as the weather turns cold and winter sets in, and their overflow tents become unfeasible, with temperatures frequently dropping to -22 Fahrenheit (-30 Celsius) and colder.

Before the service began, several neighbors passersby stopped and took pictures of the gathered body, with the likely intention to report them to the authorities – an act that will certainly prompt a visit by AHS at their next service.

Pastor Coates elaborated on a bit of this uncertainty during the service, explaining:

Good morning everyone. I want to welcome you to GraceLife Church and invite you to come in and find a seat as we prepare to worship our Lord and Savior together. What a blessing it is to gather, to sing the praises of our great God and King.

As you know, we opted to remain with a single service this week. And we did that primarily for two reasons. One, with the uncertainty of what to expect this Sunday, we thought it might be just nice to keep things predictable for all of you and make it a little more comfortable as it were to be here today.

And also, we’ve got a number of ministries that just aren’t quite yet ready to do double duty as it relates to two services and so we wanted to give them a little more time to work that out. Now, by this point, you know, the drill that we’re going to be taking things one week at a time. And so you have to just bear with us as we give thought and consideration to how to navigate the future.

But you need to know that we are committed to moving to two services, we really think that is necessary and beneficial for the health of our body and even to just improve what happens on a Sunday and the fellowship that takes place, and maybe even facilitating more fellowship because we’re gonna be able to stagger the number of folks that are here at one time, so we’re still committed to that. But obviously, whether or not it comes to fruition, is in the Lord’s hands and we’ll keep you abreast of that as things grow and develop.

As for Fairview, they are in a very similar boat, having also grown so much so that they have outgrown their church building and are meeting at another church in order to accommodate all the people, which they also did unmasked and without social distancing.

Pray for these pastors, and others like them who have the courage to stand.

Categories
In-person Church Righteous Defiance

GraceLife Church to Get Building Back Next Week, Says Authorities

The underground church of GraceLife in Parkland County, Alberta, whose building was tyrannically and grotesquely shut down and fenced in by law enforcement and government agents on April 7th, 2021, whose pastor James Coates spent 35 days in jail, and who has been meeting in secret at undisclosed locations since the closure, will be allowed to re-enter their building by July 1st, according to authorities.

With the news that 70 percent of Albertans aged 12 and over have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, Premier Kenny made the announcement last week that the province would be reopening and more or less going back to normal, with a few restrictions still in place for wearing face masks, but no more capacity limits on churches.

No more bans on indoor social gatherings. No more limits for gyms, sports and fitness activities. No more capacity limits at restaurants, in retail, or for places of worship. No more advisories against non-essential travel.

At the time of the fencing in, Alberta Health Services said it would only take the fence down if the church would comply with the lockdown orders. The Church never did, and the fence will come down anyway.

With it no longer being illegal to gather at more than 15 percent capacity as of July 1, 2021, by all indications this coming week will be the last that the GraceLife congregation will meet in secret, and then be back in their own building the week after.

[Editor’s note: This is still not over. There is a rumour (from Pastor Coates himself) that authorities will likely bill the cost of erecting, maintaining, and dismantling the fencing to GraceLife Church. Pray for these faithful brethren.]

Categories
Featured In-person Church Righteous Defiance

GraceLife Church and James Coates Sue AHS to Get Their Building Back

Supporters gather outside GraceLife Church near Edmonton, Alta., on Sunday, April 11, 2021. The church has been fenced off by police and Alberta Health Services in violation of COVID-19 rules. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jason Franson

GraceLife Church has gone on the offensive and is suing Alberta Heath Services (AHS) to get their church back, making an application to the Court of Queen’s Bench demanding immediate access to their chruch and and property, according to a press release from the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms.

The move comes two months after AHS joined forces with law enforcement to create a barricade around GraceLife Church and prohibit anyone from entering, causing large protests and creating a stark symbol of the tyranny and hostility of the Canadian government toward churches.

The church has been without its building since April 7th, becoming one of the first churches in Canada to meet in secret and form the underground church, borne out of necessity in order to avoid further arrest, fines, and jail time. According to the release:

The GraceLife Applicants contend the public health restrictions on worship violate their rights to freedom of religion, freedom of expression, freedom of peaceful assembly, freedom of association, liberty, and security of the person as protected by sections 2 and 7 of the Charter.

In addition to asking the Court to strike down the public health restrictions, the GraceLife Applicants are seeking the immediate return of their building and an order from the court prohibiting law enforcement and government agents from attempting to break up or disrupt worship services.

Three congregants of GraceLife Church, Dr. Donna Klay, Achnes Smith, and Allan Neil, have joined the Church and Pastor Coates in asking the Court to uphold their constitutional rights by reversing the government’s seizure of their church building.

In addition to that, they’ve also launched an appeal against the June 7 decision that said James Coates charter rights were not violated,

Expert reports have been filed in support of this court challenge from medical professionals and scientists including:  esteemed virologist and immunologist, Dr. Byram Bridle; an expert pathologist; in addition to a medical microbiologist and infectious disease specialist. These extensive expert reports include scientific evidence that asymptomatic transmission is negligible, that masks are ineffective and irrational, and that capacity limits of church gatherings are also irrational and have no basis in science.

The Justice Centre will also be appealing the June 7 decision of Alberta Provincial Court Judge Robert Shaigec, who ruled that the arrest, prosecution and imprisonment of Pastor Coates did not violate his Charter rights and freedoms, and that ticketing Pastor Coates for leading a regular worship service did not violate freedoms of religion, expression, assembly, and association.

The next court date for Coates is on June 30, where they will “challenge the constitutionality and legality of Dr. Deena Hinshaw’s lockdown restrictions.”

Categories
Featured In-person Church Onward to Glory Righteous Defiance Shutdown

After $40,000,000 in fines, Police To Lock Doors and Take Over Canadian Church

“…you joyfully accepted the plundering or your property, since you knew that you yourselves had a better possession and an abiding one.” (Hebrews 10:34)

A judge has ordered a Canadian church to cease worshipping together in their church building, granting the province of Ontario the authority to bar the doors and prevent any congregants from entering. This is the end result after months of fines and threats of fines have proved unsuccessful in coercing the church to cease gathering together as one, an act that is in contravention to provincial lockdown orders that limit church gatherings to 10 people for both indoor and outdoor services regardless of size or capacity limits.

In many ways, Trinity Bible Chapel (TBC) in Waterloo, Ontario has faced the most opposition and steepest price out of any church in North America for being open. GraceLife Church in Alberta had their pastor arrested and spend over a month in jail, and their church is likewise now taken away, but TBC has endured absolutely brutal, punishing, unending fines for being open.

They’re facing 40 million dollars in potential fines right now. 40 million. And while the large multi-million dollar fines might possibly be appealed if granted – some of their large fines like the $83,000 given for a single service cannot be waived, removed, or appealed. These crushing tickets are not just to the Church entity, but parishioner after parishioner is being handed crushing fines for daring to attend. These are crippling numbers, but they have not bent the will of the church.

So now they are having the church building taken away from them.

The judge in the case, Justice John Krawchenko, noted in his decision that the church must be locked up because if it remained open, “the risk of irreparable harm would be too great to ignore.”

In a public statement that everyone should read in full titled We lost the building but kept the church, Pastor Jacob Reaume recounts how they prayed for their own building for years and finally moved into it in the middle of the pandemic, sharing how “It was a time of great joy, and we looked forward to serving our community and worshipping our Saviour in this facility.” But now:

We have around 600,000 people who live in this region.  There are 588 active cases of COVID in the region, with 32 people in the ICU with COVID.  That’s enough to deem the public worship of Jesus Christ dangerous and enough for the Province of Ontario to kick us off our land and bar our doors shut…Our experience (with COVID) doesn’t line up with the hysteria whipped up by government and media, nor do the numbers warrant turning control of the Bride of Christ over to the Premier of Ontario.

Pastor Reaume explains that while the motivations of the government are clear, they underestimate the body’s commitment to the public gathering and worship of Jesus, even as the judge in the case told them that they can do “virtual services” as an alternative.

The purpose of this seizure is to prevent us from meeting as a church.  They believe that we will continue meeting in our facility, no matter the fines or the public shame heaped on us.  We are willing to pay any price necessary to worship our Saviour because He is worth it.  He died for us, and we want Him to receive a reward for His suffering.  Churches used to sing songs like Charles Wesley’s “O For A Thousand Tongues to Sing” and mean it.  We still do. 

He continues, offering a master class in how believers ought to think about these things:

But it’s now cost us our facility.  That’s after policemen sat outside our lot in cruisers on Sunday to chase our people down and ticket them after the service for gathering to worship.  That’s after each elder received a ticket this past week for opening the church.  That’s after the church itself received a ticket this week.  That’s after we were convicted of our second count of contempt of court today. That’s after we’ve now received so many dozens of charges I’ve actually lost track.  Combined we are facing over $40 million in fines with jail time.  That’s not enough, so they’ve taken our building.

They took our building because they think that will stop us from worshipping.  For twenty years our church has worshipped together each Lord’s Day, and we’ve only met in our own building for eleven months.  So the best part of our history we have not owned a building.  We managed just fine to gather together without our own building, and now we don’t have our own building again.  The early church met in the catacombs under Rome.  The Covenanters met in fields.  John Bunyan led his services in forests.  Churches find ways to worship together, as surely as water flows downhill.

He concludes:

During that season we could have complied with all the nonsense protocols.  But if we had done that, we would have already conceded the facility to the Province.  The Province would have essentially owned not only our building, but also our fellowship and also our worship.  We did not let them own our building.  We did not let them own our worship.  We did not let them own our fellowship.  So they stole our building, at least temporarily.  We’ll keep our worship.  And we’ll keep our fellowship. 

Many churches around these parts think they still own their buildings, but they already voluntarily handed their buildings and their people and their worship over to Caesar months ago.  We just forced Caesar to come and take the building, but we’ve kept the church. 

Caesar can have the brick and mortar.  We’ve kept the church for Jesus.  He who seeks to preserve his church will lose it, but he who loses the church for Christ’s sake will keep it.

Categories
Church Drive-In Church Featured In-person Church Righteous Defiance

GraceLife Church Packed as Pastor James Coates Returns after Month in Jail

The parking lot at Gracelife Church was filled to the brim and the congregants were ebullient and raucous in their praise to see their pastor take the pulpit for the first time in nearly 6 weeks, forcing him to occasionally pause while the congregation cheered and clapped for him as he said a few words before the service.

I’m so thankful for all the love and support you’ve shown me and my family. I’m so thankful for our leadership, for the courage they’ve shown, Pastor Jake, and the courage he’s shown. For Pastor Mike, and all he’s been doing. I’m immensely humbled by the men in this country who stood with us, stood with me, supported me, preached sermons that were supportive and expressed love and affection.

I’m so thankful for you the congregation who have written to me, your letters were incredibly encouraging to me, and strengthened me, and served me so immensely well. I’m grateful for the Master’s Seminary, Grace Community Church, John MacArthur, and the way they supported me and stood by me and upheld me, all of the men that I could have ever asked to be by my side are…and it’s just such a blessing.

He went on to thank a few more people, along with his wife Erin, and his boys and marveled:

This is all to the Lord. It is amazing to me how one act of obedience in a little wee RCMP office, in little wee Spruce Grove could have the impact that it did. I couldn’t sign that condition, and the rest is history. And so anyway, it is a blessing to be back, you can just know that I’m incredibly overwhelmed. I don’t think I understand the fullness of what’s happened. I’m still trying to wrap my head around things, I’m trying to bear back under the responsibility of the pastoral ministry and all that demands of me, and so you can just know I’m overwhelmed, but I’m immensely grateful and immensely thankful to the Lord. I love you and have missed you dearly.

As we stated last week, James did not preach the sermon, but rather that honor fell to Pastor Jacob Spenst.

Police showed up at the service but did not enter, ultimately leaving only one cruiser parked nearby for the entirety of the service. Alberta Health Services had members of the public health team on site, but they did not enter the church.