The Letter that started the problems. Kevin Phillips as the elder chairman would not deal with the issues and gave it back to Jim Wallace to deal with. The Pendergasts thought this was a conflict of interest because concerns were expressed in the email about Jim Wallace and Barton Wallace his wife.

From: Barry Pendergast <barrypendergast@shaw.ca>
Date: Fri Aug 22, 2003 10:53:40 AM Canada/Mountain
To: Kevin Phillips <kpaj.phillips@shaw.ca>
Cc: Pastor Marg Cumberlin <marg@southcalgary.org>, Wes Bowler2 <wjbowler@shaw.ca>, Jim and Barton Wallace <jimbarton@shaw.ca>, Dan Taubensee <dan@southcalgary.org>
Subject: The Marriage Course

Kevin
Over the last 48 hours the Blackmurs and Pendergasts have gone through a roller coaster of emotions ranging from exuberance, excitement , joy, to hurt, pain and bewilderment.
We will not be a party to anything that will cause divisions with individuals, groups or the church body. So therefore we are suggesting that the Pendergasts and Blackmurs will step down from leading the Marriage Course this September and re address our involvement next Spring. While disagreements are natural we believe only through cooperation and love we can achieve our mission statement when all the body are of one mind.

Let me try to explain as briefly as i can the background to our situation:

I think you know we have successfully completed two sessions of the course at our house the first last December and the second in March of this year. We have enjoyed the most incredible support and encouragement from Pastor Marg. She has also been very hands on with us in making sure those couples with known difficulties received extra attention. Overall course comments sheets show a high level of satisfaction with how the course was held. We have been so encouraged by visible changes in couples including ourselves. We spent nearly two months preparing for the first course and followed closely what the London UK church recommends (same church that evolved Alpha) - a communal dinner and segregated but friendly atmosphere for the attendees. No public sharing is required. Important also that the participating couples come from a wide background of ages and experience. The Marriage Course format has been tried, tested and refined over at least 8 years. With Pastor Marg's support we proceeded to plan to expand the course to allow for both church and community couples. We felt it important to hold the sessions in a local community facility as a partial outreach event- Cedarbrae Community Centre is available on only Sundays and is booked.

One of the couples in the last course were also part of the young married group. They apparently spoke highly of the course to such an extent we started very preliminary discussions with the Wes & Kathy Bowler and Barton Wallace around April of this year. We did try to follow up so we could coordinate our planned move to a larger community location but only met last Sunday evening with Bowlers, Walkers and Wiens. We had just heard prior to the meeting that the Young Married Groups had decided to run their own Marriage Course as a kind of bible study and only a desert in order to cut costs. There was no reference to our experience or Pastor Marg's views. On the Sunday we tried to explain our vision of a community held course in the Cedarbrae Community Centre that would deal with our church needs and the local community. At that time we had anticipated the young married being involved in a diverse group of couples. We felt those present agreed with our suggestions and agreed to recommend them to the Young Married. Through limitations of availability the only night free at Cedarbrae was Sunday night. We have had great success with Sunday nights because couples did not have to rush home from work then rush over to us.

We met with Pastor Marg on Wednesday to review how we would progress our plans for a community focus - she cautioned us that the young married were being 'required' to attend the E3 service and therefore would be precluded from involvement in the main Marriage Course. Never the less we felt that it would be wise for the young married leaders to join us for our course in September and then make a decision after that. The question of cost was seen as a deterrent although our opinion is that when couples pay a fair price they will attend all sessions and take the material seriously. In discussions yesterday with Barton we were told our views/suggestions would be overruled and the Young Married Groups would proceed with their own program on two weeknights starting September. They would also treat it as a form of outreach event. The E3 service could not release them even for the 8 weeks and indeed we were told that nothing must 'compete' with the E3 service since it was struggling with attendance and most of the Young Married were needed to run the evening service. We were told the instructions to follow this course of action had come from 'up high' which we have assumed included the Elders. Dan was also trying to piggy back a community Alpha with us to share food resources. While we wanted fair degree of separation from Alpha attendees we felt it was workable at the community centre. What a wonderful combination of outreach activities to fulfill our mission statement! When we spoke to Dan last night he was not aware of the concern of competing with E3 - apparently only discussed at a staff level.

Its seems sad to us that a major reason for marriage breakdown is poor communication - seems we are experiencing the same problem in coordinating and communicating ministry events at SCCC. We had just overcome a previous disappointment over the lack of mention of what we were doing at the Marriage Retreat. When we mentioned to Jim's prof friend and his wife about the course they looked blankly at us. Also during the proceedings no mention was made of what was being achieved by running a well balanced and tested course at our church. Made us feel very very sad that our senior pastor either forgot, couldn't justify, value or endorse what we collectively were already achieving. Especially sad as the prof noted over 20 couples in the group had serious to severe marital problems.

Frankly our opinion offered humbly is that if we are ever going to make inroads into marriage problems in our church and the community we need a coordinated approach under one leader with an established vision that we all strive to adhere to. We are against any decision to fragment the approach, have competing groups and make it possible for any group to do the course as a bible study. We believe the leaders should spend time doing the course ahead of time in preparation. We have already turned a group away and asked them to support the main course. We will be away until early September but would welcome an open and frank discussion with the Elders and all involved in recent discussions at the earliest opportunity. We also suggest we are at a time where a bringing together of all ministry leaders (staff and volunteers) on a regular basis is essential for good communication and making best use of our resources and seeing how the various ministeries fulfill and celibrate our vision. Attendees at the recent Leadership Summit would attest to that and many other suggestions for moving our church from a good one to a great one. We want to be part of the process for a long time!

Sorry to dump on you and Pastor Marg as we leave but we want to get back our focus and enthusiasm for people in need. We trust you will pray for us and the others involved in this challenge during this coming week - that we may all deal with these issues openly, with care for each other and the wisdom that only Jesus can provide.

Barry, Jennifer, Steve and Sue

PS Would appreciate you forwarding to the other elders.