Walking the Road Together: Fall 2025 Updates from The Good Table

Written By Elle Pyke

Greetings friends, 

We’re giving thanks for this season and for each of you who are part of this unfolding story. As always, your names, churches, and communities are carried in our prayers. The slow and beautiful work of the Spirit has been weaving us together into something we couldn’t have imagined even a few years ago. It’s a privilege and honour to walk this road together. 

We’re showing up in your inbox to offer a few updates. To honour your time and attention, these update emails will be succinct. Each section has a link to the Good Table website where you can read the sections that are of most interest to you, or the entire long-winded update ;)

Upcoming gathering in Mississauga, November 3rd., 2025 - Join us!

We’re creating an opportunity for anyone curious about The Good Table to experience it firsthand - pastors, leaders, chaplains, individuals, churches, and communities exploring what belonging might look like, or simply curious about what the Spirit is doing in our midst. We’ll share updates from the Board and current Working Groups, reflect on our journey since March 2023, listen in on the collective discernment that is shaping our future, and share a meal together.

When: Tuesday, November 4, 2025
Time: 9:30am – 3:30pm
Where: Clarkson Community Church, 1880 Lakeshore Rd W, Mississauga
*Cost: $25 (includes lunch) 

*We never want finances to be a barrier to participation, so please reach out and we will ensure your participation

A continued rhythm of gathering: 

In June, we hosted a Good Table Meet-Up in Victoria, BC, and were deeply encouraged by the turnout. Something beautiful and sacred happens when we gather in person and break bread together. Laughter, stories, hope, and a sense that we’re not alone. That gathering reminded us of the deep hunger for connection and the Spirit’s presence when we come together across traditions and places.

Victoria Good Table Meet-Up in Victoria, BC at The Emmaus Community

We continue to see this as a rhythm we want to nurture - gathering locally and nationally, again and again, to share life, stories, and the Jesus Way together. We want our belonging to be radically place-based while freely offering local wisdom and nourishment to the broader national community. We see this as weaving together webs of mutual relationships, belonging, shared resources, prayer, collective action and contextual discernment. This is the good way we want to continue to follow.

There is energy for future meet ups in cities like Vancouver, Calgary, Winnipeg. We’re looking for people who would be willing to host regular conversations and friendship-building opportunities in their cities. If you’d like to help create a Good Table hub where you live, or if you sense your city is ready for a meet-up, reply to this email and let us know.

Adding your church to the website

While the wider collective, through the Governance Working Group, is co-creating the beginning criteria and imagination for formal affiliation, we want to continue to offer a public list of pre-affiliated churches. This serves as a helpful way for us to find one another and for others who are looking for a church that aligns with The Good Table’s values. We’re celebrating new communities saying “yes”, including our very first in Alberta! Every “yes” feels like another candle lit, another sign that we are not alone on this Jesus path. It also serves as an exciting sign that something is happening!

Would you consider giving to the work of The Good Table?

We’re so grateful that individuals and churches across the Country have given so generously to the Good Table. Your gifts make it possible for The Good Table to continue this work. We can offer you receipts for your charitable donations! Right now our immediate needs are day-to-day operating costs for the website, email, CRM, bookkeeping, insurance and one day of admin work

We have three options for givings:

  • Direct Giving: Use our website to donate directly to us by credit card. Eligible donors will receive a single, consolidated tax receipt at the end of the year.

  • Interac E-Transfer (preferred): You can donate directly via e-transfer at giving@thegoodtable.ca. If you would like a tax receipt at year-end, please include your name and address in the e-transfer message.

  • Through Canada Helps: If you’d prefer to receive a tax receipt sooner, you can give via Canada Helps. Receipts will be issued immediately by Canada Helps.

Continued Conversations

We’ve continued meeting with pastors, ministry leaders, chaplains, seminary professors, etc., from Newfoundland to British Columbia, bearing witness to their disaffiliation stories and listening to their hopes and dreams. While there is grief and difficulty for those in the middle of a living process, there is also synergy and hope in continuing to take steps towards affiliating together across tradition and province. Elle regularly speaks to interested individuals, pastors, church boards, and churches. If this would be of value to you reach out to: elle@thegoodtable.ca

How can we help? 

Know that our prayers are with you. You're more than just a name to us; we often reflect on your stories, communities, and ministries with gratitude. It’s an honour to be on this journey with you. Is there some way that the collective group that is gathering around this table can be of help to you? Is there something that we are not doing or a need that we're not addressing that would be helpful? We want to hold this new association openhanded as we collectively discern our next steps, so please don't hesitate to reach out if there is something you sense we could be doing together.

Thank you for tracking us and continuing to support this team working to lift this off the ground.

If you have any questions or would like to connect with someone, please don’t hesitate to let us know!

With love, grace and peace,

Elle and the Board of The Good Table

Elle Pyke
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Charitable Status and More News Updates