The Bethesda Bible College Amendment Act, 2015 updates a 1996 Alberta private Act governing Bethesda Bible College. It renames the statute and the college as Christcity Theological Institute, reflecting Bethesda Church Ltd.’s 2009 change of name to Christcity Church Ltd.
The Act also replaces the original incorporation language, removes a transitional board provision, and updates the church’s name in the college’s winding-up rules. It is a narrow institutional housekeeping measure, but it matters because the college’s legal identity, governance framework and asset-transfer provisions now align with its current operating name.
At a Glance
What It Does
The Act changes the name of the governing statute and the institution from Bethesda Bible College to Christcity Theological Institute. It continues the existing college as the same body corporate, updates a related corporate name, and removes the provision dealing with the first board members.
Who It Affects
The college, its members, board, governing church and any liquidator handling a winding-up are directly affected. Students, faculty and other stakeholders are affected mainly through the institution’s public and legal name rather than through changes to academic or operational rights.
Why It Matters
The Act preserves corporate continuity while correcting the college’s statutory name after the sponsoring church changed its own name. It also removes outdated incorporation and transitional-governance language instead of creating a new institution from scratch.
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What This Bill Actually Does
The Act makes the college’s statutory name match the name it is intended to use going forward. The title of the 1996 Act becomes the Christcity Theological Institute Act, and every operative reference to “Bethesda Bible College” in the definition and continuation provisions is replaced with “Christcity Theological Institute.”
The most important structural change is the replacement of section 2. Rather than listing the original incorporators by name, the revised provision continues Bethesda Bible College as a body corporate under its new name.
Membership will consist of the people elected or appointed under the institution’s by-laws, shifting the statutory description from an original incorporation list to an ongoing membership-based corporate structure.The Act also cleans up provisions tied to the institution’s history. It adds recitals explaining that Bethesda Church Ltd. changed its name to Christcity Church Ltd. and that the college is to operate under a corresponding name.
It repeals the provision identifying the first board members and replaces the church’s former name in the winding-up provision, without changing the broader asset-transfer mechanism described in that provision.
The Five Things You Need to Know
The Act changes the title of the 1996 statute to the Christcity Theological Institute Act.
The college continues as the same body corporate under the name “Christcity Theological Institute”; the Act does not establish a newly incorporated entity.
Membership is defined by reference to people elected or appointed under the institution’s by-laws.
The Act repeals section 8(2), which identified the first board members and described their tenure until a successor board was elected.
The winding-up provision replaces “Bethesda Church Ltd.” with “Christcity Church Ltd.” as the named church recipient, subject to the provision’s existing conditions and reference to successors.
Section-by-Section Breakdown
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Rename the governing statute
Section 1 applies the amending Act to the Bethesda Bible College Act, 1996. Section 2 replaces that Act’s title with the Christcity Theological Institute Act, ensuring that the statute itself no longer carries the institution’s former name.
Update the statutory history and purpose
Section 3 revises the preamble to record that Bethesda Church Ltd. changed its name to Christcity Church Ltd. in 2009 and that the college is to operate under the corresponding name Christcity Theological Institute. These recitals explain the institutional basis for the amendments but do not create independent operating powers.
Replace the defined college name
Section 4 changes the definition of “College” in section 1(c) from Bethesda Bible College to Christcity Theological Institute. This is a technical but consequential amendment: provisions in the 1996 Act that rely on the defined term now refer to the renamed institution.
Continue the existing corporation under its new name
Section 5 repeals the original incorporation clause and replaces it with a continuation provision. The existing college remains a body corporate, but under the new name, and its members are those elected or appointed under the by-laws. This preserves institutional continuity while removing the old list-based incorporation language.
Remove transitional board language and update the church name
Section 6 repeals section 8(2), which dealt specifically with the first board and the transition to a board elected under the by-laws. The remaining Act must therefore be read without that obsolete initial-governance provision.
Section 7 updates section 10(b)(i), a winding-up provision, by substituting Christcity Church Ltd. for Bethesda Church Ltd. The amendment changes the named recipient in the existing asset-transfer arrangement; it does not rewrite the conditions governing when that transfer applies.
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Every bill creates winners and losers. Here's who stands to gain and who bears the cost.
Who Benefits
- Christcity Theological Institute, because its statutory name now matches the name it is intended to use in its institutional and church relationships.
- Christcity Church Ltd., because the governing Act recognizes its current corporate name rather than requiring reliance on a former legal name.
- The college’s board and members, because the continuation provision describes an ongoing corporation governed through by-law-based appointment or election rather than preserving an obsolete list of original incorporators.
- A liquidator or other professional administering a winding-up, because the statutory reference to the church’s current name reduces ambiguity in identifying the relevant recipient under the existing provision.
Who Bears the Cost
- The college’s administrators and corporate counsel, who must update records, governance documents, contracts, notices and other materials that refer to the former statutory name.
- The college’s board and members, who must ensure that by-laws and appointment or election practices work with the revised membership-based continuation language.
- Regulators, registries and counterparties dealing with the institution, who may need to reconcile historical references to Bethesda Bible College with the continued corporation’s new name.
- Any future liquidator or transaction adviser, who must interpret the updated church reference alongside the Act’s existing conditions for transferring remaining property during a winding-up.
Key Issues
The Core Tension
The Act must give the institution a legally usable modern identity without disrupting the corporation, its governance or its property arrangements. Preserving the same body corporate avoids the disruption of a new incorporation, but the absence of detailed transition rules leaves the practical work of proving continuity and aligning records to the college and its advisers.
The Act is designed to preserve continuity, but a name change across a private statute can still create practical reconciliation work. Historical contracts, property records, charitable or educational registrations, financial accounts and institutional credentials may continue to use the former name.
The Act does not spell out an administrative transition process, so the college must manage that continuity through its own records and counterparties.
The governance amendment also has a subtle effect. Replacing the original incorporation clause with a by-law-based membership provision modernizes the statutory structure, while repealing the first-board provision removes language that has served its transitional purpose.
The text does not independently amend the by-laws, prescribe a new board-selection process, or explain how existing members and directors are carried forward. Those questions remain dependent on the institution’s governing documents and the rest of the 1996 Act.
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