Becoming Living Stones

Second annual National Engagement Conference

MARKHAM, Ont. – A small but enthusiastic and faithful group of Christ followers met May 9-10, 2025 at Chapel Place Church for the second annual National Engagement Conference of Living Stones: A Movement of Reformed Churches in Canada.

This year we began Friday evening, where we enjoyed a wonderful Egyptian meal followed by worship and an engaging dialogue between the apostle Paul (played by Joel Coppieters) and his protégé Timothy (played by Doug Cameron).  Around the dinner table, the noise in the room rose to great pitch filled with chatter and occasional bursts of laughter.  It is a good sign when mealtimes are full of joyful noise, as people enjoy the company of old and new friends. Six attendees were there for the first time.

Upon arrival all those registered received a wonderful swag bag filled with a great collection of books organized and chosen by Joel. We especially enjoyed the beautiful book of Psalms which had the Psalm on one side of the page and a blank page opposite to write notes in. The cover was embossed to say “Living Stones NEC 2025” – a real keepsake. Joel arranged for an anonymous benefactor to cover the cost of this great book collection.

Kyoungsoo Hwang began our Saturday morning with reflections on spiritual disciplines and how they can benefit us in our walk with Christ.

Dr. James Watson was guest speaker at the NEC gathering

Dr. James Watson shared the keynote address about what it means to be a missional church. James is a graduate of McMaster Divinity College (MDiv) and Fuller Theological Seminary (PhD). He has been a pastor, congregational revitalization consultant, and church planting coach for two decades interdenominationally, including 15 years at the Territorial Headquarters for The Salvation Army Canada and Bermuda. He has been involved in research on evangelism, Canadian church responses to immigration, tentmakers (covocational/multivocational ministers), and most recently a 2024 research fellow studying church planting in Canada at University of Toronto (Wycliffe College’s Canadian Institute for Empirical Church Research). Currently he is an instructor in the Doctor of Ministry program at Tyndale University and on the national team for Church Planting Canada.

After a coffee break the group divided up to attend two workshops. James spoke about tent making in today’s church and how churches make that approach to ministry work. Kyoungwoo offered an introduction to spiritual direction which helped people get a taste for what that entails.

Food is always a great bonus at our conferences. Shawarma bowls at lunch, baklava and cookies for coffee breaks, Chinese for Saturday dinner all brought us joy! Thanks so much to Nancy Farag on the planning team who kept us all fed and with liquids. Meal times gave us wonderful opportunities to connect and get to know others whom we might not know. Besides those from Ontario and Quebec, we had someone fly in from Edmonton as well as myself from Nazko BC.  Living Stones is truly national even while we are still a small, intimate group.

Our afternoon gave us more opportunities for learning as Kyoungsoo offered her workshop a second time while Jeff Smyth from Youth Unlimited spoke about reaching out to youth in our churches.

Shannon Bell, right, speaking with Nancy Farag, a member of the Living Stones planning team and a member of Chapel Place Presbyterian Church

Our afternoon was blessed with more great worship from the worship team at Chapel Place. We were privileged to have them sing the first song for us in Arabic. Our time finished with a very efficient AGM at which we appointed the upcoming Steering Council for 2025/26:  Sam Strauss, Adel Shenouda, Nagi Said, Derek Krunys, Glynis Faith, Joel Coppieters and Shannon Bell with John Park, Derek Krunys and Doug Cameron as directors of the Society of Living Stones.

The NEC finished with a wonderful time of reflection and prayer in small groups as we shared with one another and prayed for and with one another.  The sense of fellowship and connection through our day and a half together was rich and encouraging. Chapel Place Church folks were wonderful hosts and we are so grateful to them for their hospitality. While the numbers were not as large as we had originally planned for, those whom God called were there and we were truly blessed.

We look forward to next year where there will be more churches officially in partnership with Living Stones and we can rejoice with them in the steps that they have accomplished.  We hope that many more who are friends of Living Stones will also be able to join us.