Grandview Calvary Baptist Church was founded in 1908 in a neighborhood of Vancouver, British Columbia. For decades the life of the congregation and the life of the neighborhood were mostly the same thing, but 20th-century "progress" began to detach the life of this church's place from the life of its people. The connection was almost completely severed. But in 1989, 26-year-old Tim Dickau came to pastor the then dying congregation with a vision for renewal and an instinct to start with the neighborhood. Now, 25 years later, that instinct is paying off. Leadership Journal associate editor Paul J. Pastor spoke with Dickau to catch the story behind the story.

As a young pastor, you originally came to Grandview to "study the neighborhood." Tell me more.

Grandview is an old urban church. The church's members used to live in the neighborhood, but the congregation had disconnected from the neighborhood. My role, initially, was to study the neighborhood and help the 60 or so (mostly senior) people ...