[Peace Arch News] 12 Jul 2008--The little, white church on Beecher Street has become a good new home for Rev. Peter Klenner.
“I like small churches,” the reverend says, his Australian accent still strong although he’s lived the past 15 years in Canada.
The father of three sits in the front pew of his new All Saints Community Church, housed in the Holy Cross building in Crescent Beach.
Klenner was ordained in 2000 and began work at St. Mark’s Anglican Church in South Surrey. He then spent three years at a Delta church before he went back to St. Mark’s.
But just last year, when the Anglican Church of Canada ruled to accept same-sex marriage blessings, Klenner stopped short.
He said the decision threw out a tradition of a 500-year-old church, which he had wholeheartedly embraced when he was ordained.
“We’re trying to rewrite the Bible to fit into the culture,” he said.
If Anglican leaders have begun to re-examine and throw out Christian doctrine, said Klenner, then where are they going to stop?
He knew he had to resign from the ACC.
“I’m preaching a message my parent organization no longer believes. It was just the right thing for me to do.”
He said it isn’t that he’s anti-gay, he just believes that “if the Church isn’t going to teach the Bible, then what will it teach?”
And it’s not that he wanted to split off.
“I didn’t set out to do an alternative church. I’ve stayed an Anglican minister,” he said.
But last summer, word got around that a local minister had gone against the ACC.
People began to gather in Klenner’s living room for Sunday suppers – some who hadn’t attended church service in a long time.
When the number reached more than 35, he knew he had to find a church.
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