Craig Wilson
On March 2, 2023, Bishop John Stephens was pleased to invest Craig Wilson with the Order of the Diocese of New Westminster, 2022.
St Philip's Citation for Craig Wilson to Receive the ODNW
Craig Wilson has shown steadfast commitment to our community during changing times in its life. Craig is a faithful man of thoughtfulness, insight, sensitivity, and humour. From website technology to parish visioning, from family nights to finance, from soundboard management to Warden and Trustee and Capital Campaign co-chair, Craig has been deeply involved. He embodies St Philip’s values, treating others with dignity and grace. Blessed to count Craig as a leader among us, we are made a better people by his love and care.
Craig's Biography
Craig Wilson’s paternal grandparents moved to Vancouver in about 1920 and started to attend St Philip’s. Craig remembers his “Nana” preparing young women for confirmation when he was a little boy. His parents started at St Philip’s after they settled in Vancouver in 1962. Craig attended as a child, and he spent pretty much every Saturday evening with Youth Group in the Fireside Room from 1975 to 1980, until he was 19. Here he got his first taste in running fund raisers and singing in the “Family Choir”, and at Youth Group, he met Catriona, his wife. She’s still singing in the choir, but Craig branched out into other leadership roles.
Craig and Catriona raised their twin boys spending Sunday mornings at St Philip’s. They involved the children in church events, helped run family games nights, served at fund raisers as a family, and wove the fourth generation of his family into the fabric of St Philip’s.
Craig followed in a family tradition as both his parents and paternal Nana constantly volunteered their talents at St. Philip's. Craig increasingly took on leadership roles, some hidden from view but important, nonetheless. Whenever he saw a need, he quietly stepped forward to work towards solutions, from the practical to the cerebral. He adopted our new website’s framework and for years managed the content. He created, produced, managed, analysed, summarised, and reported on parish visioning surveys, identifying themes and directions. When we were without a caretaker for a year, Craig organised the security detail of daily volunteers known as “Locks and Alarms”. He followed byzantine speaker wiring throughout the church to discover where the sound system gremlins lurked. From negotiating lucrative annual rental contracts to running the recording soundboard every Sunday, Craig served faithfully in ways unseen, but from which everyone benefitted.
More publicly, after Rev. John Stephens left St Philip’s, Craig was a key member of the Search Committee. Craig was a Warden from Feb. 2016 to Feb. 2020, and a Trustee for another year to Feb. 2021, serving under four rectors. Throughout 2019, he co-chaired our successful three-year Capital Campaign. He trained teams of pairs of volunteer visitors to visit with every parishioner family in their home, which was a remarkably effective community-building endeavour on top of a capital-raiser. Once the Capital Campaign completed its mission, Craig stayed in leadership as a member of the Finance Committee, keeping his finger on the pulse.
When one looks at St Philip’s, there is hardly a realm that Craig Wilson has not touched, and for the better. For these reasons, and our loving respect for him, we nominate Craig Wilson for the Order of the Diocese of New Westminster.
Photos by Derek Simpkins