Before coming to Victoria and starting his incumbency at St. Philip Anglican Church in Oak Bay, Allen Doerksen was the incumbent at St. Matthew’s in Abbottsford.
St. Matthew’s was one of the parishes that left the Diocese of New Westminster in 2002 when then-Bishop Michael Ingham consented to allowing churches to conduct same-sex blessings. After the congregation vacated the church building, Allen was asked by Bishop Michael to restart the parish.
One Sunday, Paul and Melissa, friends of a parishioner, visited St. Matthew’s. They came from an evangelical background and were impressed with how St. Matthew’s was striving to be an inclusive church in a largely conservative town.
Paul and Melissa own Post Meridian Productions and they offered to make some videos about Anglicanism and the church year. Those videos generated a lot of interactions and brought new people into the church.
So, when Allen joined St. Philip in 2023, he decided to see if video could work there too. Following a long rectorship under Christopher Page, the church had several interim priests and began to experience a decline in numbers. Allen thought video could be one way to draw in members of the local community.
Allen is clear that this is an experiment, but says that recent analytics have been encouraging, with one video receiving 500 views and over 60% of views coming from outside the church.
However, he also feels ambiguous about using social media. “I am under no illusion that social media is hugely deleterious. It’s not good in many ways. But then I remember that Paul used the Roman roads. He used the roads of the empire that the empire had built in order to get from town to town. So, at one level we can choose to inhabit it in a different way. Many people inhabit it in ways that are life bringing for others and create connections around the world.”
He also quickly realized that Victoria is not Abbottsford. While the congregation and parish council at St. Matthew’s was largely supportive, that hasn’t been the case at St. Philip. A few parishioners at St. Philip have questioned what the purpose of the videos is and whether the church is just engaging in a marketing exercise.
“Fair questions,” says Allen. “But I think there’s probably 300 people in and around our wider community who, if they knew we existed, would at least come and experience who we are.
“It is like a soft version of marketing, there’s no doubt about it, if you want to use that word. I don’t think that’s the right word to use for church. I think we have great news to share. And there’s these 300 people who, if they knew… I’m just picking that number out of midair, but when we have conversations with people who come, maybe through the invitation of a friend, they say, ‘Oh, we never knew this place existed. We would’ve come here a long time ago if we would’ve known that.’ So, that’s the impetus.”
St. Philip has been working with Post Meridian Productions for about a year and Allen, with parish council support, wants to continue this experiment for at least another year. He feels it takes a while to know if it’s working because the way information spreads online is very organic.
“It’s really dependent on the congregation beginning to share the posts,” says Allen. “And then following other organizations and them sharing posts. There’s this web that starts to get drawn and you’re part of this wider conversation.”
Another challenge is that Paul and Melissa are based in Abbotsford. They come over every few months to film for a whole day. They then edit the video and post it to social media or the church’s website. Allen says it simply wouldn’t happen without Paul and Melissa’s involvement since neither he nor anyone in the congregation has the time or expertise to edit and disseminate the videos.
Allen thinks any church looking to use video should start with a welcome video explaining what their parish is about, which can then be used on the parish website. It could be just the priest, or it could be a compilation of people talking.
“We don’t have all the answers,” says Allen. “We’re trying to learn how to love each other and love the world and love God. So, if a little bit of that comes through and people are encouraged to go to church, even if they never come to our church, or they’re encouraged to realize that there’s people out there who may be envisioning church in a different way, then I think it’s been an experiment worth doing, even if only for a few years.”
To see more of St. Philip’s videos, visit their Facebook page.
