Welcome to Our Home
We are blessed and honored that you have stopped by to greet us here in our home “on the Web,” and hope you can stay awhile. My name is Father Joe Scheeler and I am the Vicar (Episcopalian language for clergy leader) here at All Saints, Vancouver. Since you are here, I suspect you are a member of All Saints looking for “what’s happening!” Or an Episcopalian new to the area loo
king for a new church home. But, possibly you are one of the many “spiritually curious” that search for…something deeper…something more connecting…something even spiritually transformative to jump start or accelerate your own “Spirit Journey.” I respectfully ask you to read on and see if perhaps we might be worth a second look. People ask me a lot, “Father Joe, what is it like at All Saints?” Well, there are a lot of ways to answer that question. I love food, as you will readily see when we meet, and I like to use a sort of restaurant analogy. We have so many choices: fast food, to simply fuel up and keep going; a buffet, with something for everybody; or something just a little different, something more intimate, personal perhaps our favorite neighborhood café. If we are old friends, asks about our family and checks in to see how we are. As we are seated we recognize and greet our friends and neighbors. If it is our first time, the staff take particular care that we are comfortable and feel at ease. The service is excellent and the menu is full of our favorites, but there is always an interesting “special” to keep us intrigued and challenged for change. At the tables are a wonderful and diverse mix of people; different races; different cultures; genders; languages; relational orientations; elders; children; busy working families and retirees all joined together around the commonality of the “need to be fed.” And in that joyful blending of customers, the differences create a diverse, flavorful and sometimes spicy “Soup of the Day.” And then we understand the commonality of Spirit held together by the need to be fed and the food that feeds us. And so All Saints is like that, fulfilling our spiritual appetite and hunger for connection. Connection to our Creator, to Jesus, to the Sacred Spirit and also to each other…to connect to something more than just ourselves. You will find us joyfully contemplative, deeply spiritual, kind and welcoming; gloriously diverse; smart; funny; incessantly questioning; sometimes respectfully heretical; always looking answers that work and sometimes even finding them. Yet always we are accepting and respectful of your personal Spirit Journey. We are here to Gather, Transform and Send. We are Gathered, the Creator sends “those who need us, and those whom we need.” We are Transformed to be the Creator’s voice, breath, hands and feet in the World. And we are Sent into family life, work life, school life, volunteering and retirement to be an example and live the learning of the Spirit Journey. As we have been fed, we are sent to feed. Blessings and hoping to see you soon,
Father Joe
