HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 2019-05-02, Page 9THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, MAY 2, 2019. PAGE 9.
Clinton native working to open new London church
Clinton-native Tyler Fromm
recently moved across Canada,
leaving Calgary, Alberta, to start a
new church in London, Ontario.
Fromm, alongside his wife Lee, is
an estimated five months away from
launching Collective Church in
London, a non-denominational place
of Christian worship. He also plans
to be the church’s pastor.
It was no small feat for Fromm to
pack up his family, including Lee
and their two young children, Ava
and Parker, and return to London.
However, he is excited about the
challenge and opportunity of
creating a new church with a goal of
serving that community.
“Any time you’re risking
something, there better be a
compelling reason to do so,” he said.
“This whole adventure is incredibly
compelling to my family, so much so
that we moved our two kids and
whole family across the country.”
That risk, however, was something
that Fromm wanted to mitigate, so
he and Lee have partnered with
ARC, a church start-up organization,
to help make their dream a reality.
“ARC’s model is launching large
and well-funded churches,” he said.
“Most churches in Canada hover
around the 80-person mark, and a lot
of church start-ups struggle to get
past the 100-person mark.”
ARC has launched approximately
800 churches in the United States
and 19 in Canada with a 93 per cent
success rate.
“My wife Lee and I knew that, if
we were going to do this, we wanted
the best chance to be successful.
That’s why we’re working with an
organization like ARC. We want to
do this well. We moved across the
country and made significant
sacrifices because we believe in this
and we believe in London.”
The aim is to have a larger church,
Fromm said, because small churches
can struggle to grow, and under
ARC’s plan, the first service needs to
have a large number of people there
to build momentum and reach
“critical mass”.
“That way, when you’re into
month six, year one or year two, you
are sustainable, and you can make it
work,” he said.
To build up to that, since moving
back to London, several months ago,
the Fromms have been building their
launch team, hosting monthly
interest parties and engaging with
people who may join the church.
“We want to have a degree of
momentum going forward to make
this work,” he said.
Fromm said they want a group of
50 people before the public launch
of the church on Sept. 22.
“Depending on your launch team,
a church launch service will see an
average of four people per team
member,” he said. “With numbers
like that, you have a couple hundred
people to the first service and you
can grow from there.”
He said that the church is working
on crossing that threshold through
engaging with the community and
building relationships.
Fromm also hopes that he and the
Continued from page 3
assistants (EAs), janitors, secretaries
and everyone else in the education
field, are at risk.
He said that some of those people
are the most valuable in the system
in his understanding of it, because
teachers couldn’t do their jobs
without them.
An elementary teacher from the
Huron-Perth Catholic District
School Board said that, while
elementary teachers support their
secondary school peers, changes to
the elementary system can’t be
overlooked. She said that support is
going to disappear from the system,
resulting in a more stressful working
environment, which in itself could
manifest as mental health issues for
staff.
She also said that the annual
Education Quality and
Accountability Office (EQAO)
testing needed to be done away with
because it is a flawed test that only
provides a “snapshot” of a student’s
life.
Stiles pointed to the fact that the
test, which was called flawed by
other speakers, was strengthened by
the new government which took a
reported part-time position that paid
approximately $2,000 a year and
turned it into a full-time job for a
failed PC candidate for more than
$100,000.
The NDP, according to Stiles, does
plan to do away with the test, but
said it made sense that Ford wanted
to keep it. She said that, by
controlling the test, the government
can control what is taught, helping
the government to control facts and
figures it presents. She said getting
rid of the EQAO would prevent “bad
governments” from using it to
justify changes.
A special education teacher from
Stratford spoke next, saying that, in
a world where safety concerns are
already increasing, these cuts would
inevitably lead to more.
Dave Armour, a teacher at
Goderich District Collegiate
Institute, gave a brief history lesson
on changes to the education system,
tying negative changes to former
conservative governments, including
reducing high school to a four-year
program through the OAC program,
changing required courses for
graduation and having schools
viewed as businesses.
“Students are not a product,” he
said. “‘Teach’ isn’t something I can
give to someone. I can help them
learn.
“The changes that come in with
conservative governments have one
intent – make education cheaper,” he
said. “It’s always about that and
that’s not the answer.”
Stiles said that was an important
lesson to learn from modernity, and
that the changes, in her mind, had a
particular goal: undercut public
education so that private education
becomes a lucrative business
opportunity.
Willi Laurie, a former educator,
said she was concerned about Junior
Kindergarten programming, saying
that going back to part-time
programming wasn’t feasible. She
also said that rumours that teachers
may be taken out of Kindergarten
classes and replaced with two Early
Childhood Educators (currently, the
model often has one ECE with a
teacher) was concerning.
“We still need teachers,” she said.
“However, this is all about making
sure that education is cheap and
private education looks better.”
Aside from aiming to make private
schooling more lucrative, Laurie
said, she felt Ford was trying to
create part-time teaching as the
norm to save on benefits.
She said these changes will not
create the resiliency that Thompson
touts, but will instead increase
dropouts, especially among students
who “learn at a different pace”.
Several other speakers addressed
issues similar to those discussed
above before Stiles encouraged
everyone to continue to tell their
stories.
“We need stories from teachers,
students, parents, grandparents and
neighbours,” she said. “The
stories will help me to get the
answers we need and get the
message out.”
She went on to say that teachers,
boards, unions and their supporters
need to continue to be visible in their
protests because it’s the only way to
send their message to Thompson and
Ford.
“We need to keep pushing or else
these issues will come back.
She encouraged people to use
petitions to share a unified stance
and said that school boards should
continue to send letters to Thompson
and the government so their
concerns are heard.
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WOW!
Teachers concerned with education cuts
By Denny Scott
The Citizen
Taking a chance
Tyler Fromm, who grew up in Clinton, recently moved his family to London from Calgary to
open Collective Church, a new kind of worship group. From left: Parker, Lee, Tyler and Ava.
(Denny Scott photo)
Continued on page 12