“So there was really never any doubt for her. “My wife is an incredibly courageous woman of conviction,” he said. Coates said he revealed many of the difficulties of his journey in hopes readers “will see my weakness and really then give glory to Christ, who’s my strength.”Īnother source of strength for Coates amid this entire ordeal was his wife, Erin. Government: Taking a Biblical Stand When Christ and Compliance Collide,” a newly released book he co-authored with Nathan Busenitz, dean of The Master’s Seminary in Los Angeles. In fact, Coates wrote about much of that in “ God vs. But there are moments of difficulty and challenge and turmoil along the way.” “Well, if you could just be in there along the way, what you see in the pulpit is this Spirit-empowered moment as I preached the Word of God. “A lot of folks just kind of see the courage and they think I’m this incredibly courageous man,” he said. I mean, that just settled it - we were going all the way.”Īlthough the pastor recalled several “difficult moments” over the course of the entire saga, he said he never once second-guessed the decision to defy what he saw as a flagrant attack on his religious freedoms.Ĭoates - who has become something of a household name - eschewed those who characterize him as a “courageous man,” revealing it was the Holy Spirit who equipped him to handle the trials he faced. When I got in prison, our leadership was done talking about whether or not we were gonna keep going. “We continually met and we agreed, ‘We’re gonna stay open, we’re gonna press on, we’re gonna move forward,'” Coates said. While the church fought the onerous restrictions placed upon them, the legal clash ultimately resulted in Coates’ arrest and incarceration for 35 days, beginning in mid-February and ending in late March.īacking up just a little bit, Coates recalled the numerous conversations he had with his fellow GraceLife pastors, noting they often sought God’s guidance and consulted Scripture to ensure their decision to remain open was one rooted in their theological beliefs rather than their political views, though it became increasingly difficult to separate the two, as their convictions certainly carried with them political ramifications in the form of civil disobedience.ĭespite the risk of arrest, Coates said, the pastoral staff deemed it important enough to stand by their decision to keep the doors of their Edmonton church open for worship services. The health official also ordered parishioners to wear masks and remain physically distant from one another. In mid-December of 2020, Alberta Health Services inspector Janine Hanrahan issued an order against the church, mandating pastors restrict attendance to just 15% of the building’s total capacity, a stipulation with which Coates was not willing to comply. GraceLife remained open for a lengthy stretch of time before running into problems with government authorities. Listen to the latest episode of the Faithwire podcast 👇
The pastor recalled a handful of coronavirus infections prompted him to close the doors to the church for a couple of weeks before reopening the sanctuary for Sunday morning services in late July of that year.
It was in June of 2020 when Coates decided to reopen the doors of GraceLife Church in Edmonton, Alberta. Even as we were seeing things progress and even as arrests were kind of on the table, never even thought for a moment that it would have the visibility and the impact that it did.” “There’s no way we could have anticipated that. “I did not expect what happened to have happened,” he told CBN’s Faithwire during a recent extended interview. One year ago, Canadian Pastor James Coates was in jail for leading his congregation in worship amid the COVID-19 pandemic - an outcome he said he never would have imagined, but one that has led more people to come to Christ and even resulted in exponential growth for his church.
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