Canadian Council of Churches - 75 Years

Community Profile: Drayton Valley, AB

New WPCU Celebrations Start Strong in Dayton Valley, AB

Organizing a WPCU event can be challenging at the best of times, and when it’s a community’s first time celebrating the WPCU (and during a pandemic no less), the task may seem nearly impossible. Against these odds, several of the churches of Drayton Valley, AB, came together in January 2022 to prepare not one, but seven evening services to mark the Week of Prayer.  

Rev. Christopher Cook of All Saints’ Anglican Church in Drayton Valley comments that this extensive collaboration was enabled by the commitment of the Drayton Valley Ministerial Association, which gathers every week for “prayer, mutual support, and camaraderie.” Some of these Ministerial members had experienced the WPCU in other communities in the past, and this familiarity also helped in the planning.

The churches of Drayton Valley decided to organize a “church crawl,” where each church would take a turn hosting a short, evening prayer service inspired by the international WPCU materials. This gave community members an opportunity to discover a new church tradition every night of the Week of Prayer.

After the success of this first series of WPCU celebrations, the Ministerial members already anticipate marking next year’s WPCU. Rev. Leah Holmes (Church of God) notes that “If we are desiring unity, we’ll start to see a difference over time, not overnight.” The Drayton Valley Ministerial Association looks forward to continuing this commitment to ecumenism in the coming months as it prepares a unified service for Good Friday.