After seven years as Associate Pastor at Philpott Memorial Church (PMC) in Hamilton, Mike Mileski and his wife Heather had a fruitful, healthy, stable ministry. Yet several factors came together at this time:

• A growing desire to bring the Gospel to bear on the issues faced by the city and its people.

• An abundance of folks whose church experience - whether with liberalism / moral relativism on the one hand, or moralism / traditionalism / fundamentalism on the other - left them with a lot of baggage.

• A renewed commitment to be ambassadors of Jesus, living in simple, subversive ways that bless the city;

• An emerging team of gifted, fun, energetic leaders willing to try something different.

Through most of 2016 this call was refined and confirmed over and over again by mentors and colleagues. In early 2017, with the support of PMC, the AGC (our denomination), and C2C (our church planting network), six families began meeting in the Mileski living room - the nucleus of what would become Benediction Church.

Since those days, we’ve prayed and cried and laughed and dreamed together, working to create a simple, loving, Christ-centred community. If you long for that, there’s room in the family for you.