Re-membering. Baptists love to remember the stories of our journey to be the distinct people of God joining God at work in his mission to the world he so loves. We also love to tell stories of where God is at work right now in our churches across Western Canada. Both stories of the past, and stories of the present, inspire and us and give us imagination on how we can join God in the work he has always been doing and is doing in where we live, work, play and pray. For this reason, we’re taking a break from our series on Healthy Leadership to bring you some stories that we think need telling.
For the next several weeks, we are so excited to share stories on this blog that we hope will help us re-member the stories that we don’t find often told. Rev. Jodi Spargur is launching a six-part podcast about early Indigenous Christian contact in Canada. In the podcast, we will explore tales of bold action, creative strategies and wise Indigenous leadership that interacted with what would become our Baptist denomination.
Join us next week to find out more about this person who is described as one who speaks in a way that “all hearts respond, sinners melt, and saints rejoice.”
“The Bible is an account of people trying to understand the many forms of human violence against a background of hope…
Theology seeks to articulate a resource of hope that is more realistic. Hope speaks of possibility, not perfectibility. Hope urges one to action, amid the darkness that often seems to overpower our lives and our world.”
-Dr. Fáinche Ryan, Director of the Loyola Institute, Trinity College Dublin
What does a “more realistic hope” look like in our tumultuous time as God’s people called to follow his son Jesus on his mission in our world? I deeply appreciate Dr. Ryan’s words: that in all the turmoil of our fragmented and polarized society, we must always keep this background of hope in view. All is not lost. We labour within God’s Church and God will always have a Church.
I have been engaged in research regarding the history of the concept of sin. What I have been surprised by is how many Old Testament scholars/theologians drill down that within original sin is a form of doubt and, specifically, doubt in God’s goodness.
It is evident that when we doubt God’s goodness, hopelessness and despair can’t help but seep in. It’s an open door to discouragement, despair, depression, desperation and division. When our focus increasingly is drawn to the sinful activities of humanity, the depravities suffered upon countless faces; the violence, greed, self-centeredness of so many; the abuse of power dynamics that reinforce that those in power have value and those with no power do not; it is no wonder that the goodness of God can become over-shadowed.
To be fair, and honest, a lot happens in our world and lives that overwhelms us. We can doubt that God, with his goodness, is present with us. What I hear Dr. Ryan saying is that when our theology of hope is misunderstood as a hope that can only be known in a far-off future status, then our hope is unrealistic.
God’s story of hope has always heldwithin it a present hope even amid humanity’s propensity to depravity, violence, greed, gluttony, selfishness, and power dynamics that force marginalization, disenfranchisement, an us-against-them who-is-in who-is-out way of looking at our fellow humans. The only way to recognize that hope is to realize fully that God’s goodness is here, still, in the land of the living, amid our own brokenness and sin—and God’s goodness is not partisan. He makes it rain upon the righteous and the wicked; for God so loves the world. All the world.
It is that hope that gives us resilience. Resilience like Joseph leaned into when his whole world came crashing down around him. While his presence in the story of Jesus is fleeting, it is crucial to the unfolding of the presence of God’s kingdom on earth as it is in heaven.
Anton Mengs, 18th century
Joseph’s “engagement” to Mary, in the culture of his day, meant that even while they still lived apart until such time as consummation would occur, they were already considered married. When she showed up pregnant, it was considered adultery. She had betrayed her vows to Joseph. She was guilty and the righteous penalty was stoning.
Thus Joseph’s intention to “divorce her quietly.” Then she would only be guilty of fornication where there was no law requiring the shedding of blood as a penalty.
But Joseph experienced God in his present. God-with-him in the circumstances and turmoil he was currently in. And this gave Joseph the strength, the resiliency to press into this present hope. At this point, he has likely not grasped the future hope that this child would also bring into the realm of humanity, but his deep rooted faith in God gave him the hope, the strength, the resiliency, to forge through not only the humiliation he might face, but through being hunted down and forced to leave behind everything he has known that was stable and familiar to become refugees in another land.
Ruth Haley Barton refers to this present presence of God as “the third coming of Christ.”
“Advent is a season for waking up to all the ways Christ comes to us. Yes, the themes of Advent help us celebrate and commemorate his first coming in the Incarnation. They encourage us to anticipate his second coming in glory—of course! But there is also such a thing as the third coming of Christ: that is, all the ways in which Jesus comes to us now, bringing light for our darkness, peace for our turmoil, hope for our despair.” Ruth Haley Barton
Hope of this “third coming,” this now-presence, enabled Joseph to be able to be resilient, to face the challenges head on, and to rebound from adversity.
And hope has a name.
Hope’s name is Jesus.
May we all lean into the presence of Hope, Peace, Joy and Love both now and into our days to come as we retell and live out Jesus in our world around us.
How can I encourage and disciple my church to engage in joining God in His mission? What does evangelism look like in a post-covid, post-modern, divided, and polarized world – both in and outside the church? Can we actually get to know our neighbourhood and our neighbours? People haven’t come back to church – why? Where do we even begin to engage, understand, respond and be the salt and light in the world Jesus calls us to be?
There is so much uncertainty in our world today, yet so much opportunity. Churches and ministry teams are thinking hard about how-now do we engage both the people in our churches, and the Nones*, Dones*, and Ummmms*, in our very changed world. If you are uncertain or discouraged, or feeling like the giants in the land are too big to tackle and you know not what to do, then let us encourage you to take a look at these great Learning Cohort Opportunities to Re-orient around the Mission of God from Forge Canada, The Missional Network and The Centre for Missional Leadership. Both Cam from Forge Canada and Tim from the Centre for Missional Leadership were presenters at our CBWC initiative last year: Re-orient: The Church after Covid.
The Neighbourhood Project
“There is no more business-as-usual for our churches. The Spirit of God is calling us to join Jesus in our neighbourhoods.”
The Neighbourhood Project is the place for you as a leader to be equipped in forming a community of faith that is discerning God’s presence and joining Jesus in the neighbourhood.
Three of our CBWC churches participated in The Neighbourhood Project last year along with churches from several traditions.
The Leadership Project will help you step into a different way of leading through learning new practices that connect you with what the Spirit is already doing among your people.
Two CBWC churches were part of the first cohort. Here is the feedback of one of 8 participating leaders at Strathcona Baptist:
“My imagination got deeper and wider for possibilities for our own church. The diversity of EXCELLENT speakers was a huge gift to the time! How encouraging to hear from such a diverse group of people on these different topics. I was quite blown away each time at the quality and thoughtfulness of the speakers. The homework assignments and prompts to talk to my neighbours were impactful. It was so good to hear perspectives on our church from people outside the church!”
Planting the Gospel helps give us definition in ways followers of Jesus are all called to participate with God in His mission to the world. Rather than opting out because we already belong to and/or minister in an existing congregation, take time to listen to the Spirit for ways your particular community can join God at work in seeding and harvesting new places and spaces for faith to be discovered and grow.
At CBWC Church Planting we are always engaging with creative ways your local church community can join in the Planting the Gospel from intentional, relational discipleship within your own community to engaging with the people in your neighbourhood and joining them in fulfilling the values and dreams of a healthy and flourishing greater community.
For inspiration of a few of the ways you can start participating with us and for some of the ways We Are Better Together, by watching this entertaining video by our own Cailey, which premiered at NMO recently.
Connect with us on how we can start you or help facilitate your journey towards developing fresh expressions and intentional implementation of the Gospel right where you live, work, play and pray.
June 6-8 found CBWC’s Executive Staff back in Calgary to meet, fellowship with, and finally get to know 26 Ministers and 2 Administrative staff who are new(ish) to CBWC, since our last NMO was way back in 2019. It was so wonderful to be able to get to know one another and to share with these dedicated men and women, several who became staff in our CBWC church family during COVID.
Each of the Executive Staff walked through ways that We Are Better Together and the plethora of resources, relationships, partnerships and encouragement that CBWC Staff bring to our local Churches and Ministry people.
Monday afternoon and evening was a time for an overview of our CBWC Community, Identity, and Values, dinner together, some great fun games to get to know one another better and then a time of worship and prayer led by our Executive Staff Worship Team.
Tuesday I opened with a reflection of What Matters Most both to remind us of always being rooted in what Matters Most to Jesus and as a foundation to form resiliency in ministry on.
Presentations, talks, questions and interaction throughout the day found each of Executive Staff walking through our CBWC Ministry Priorities and all the ways we Cultivate Leadership, Invest in Relationships and Engage in Mission, including video introductions to other staff who are partners with CBM, The Justice and Mercy Network, CBWC Foundation and Carey.
Church Planting is one of the ways we Engage in Mission with you. Setting the tone for my presentation, I quoted both Alan Hirsch, who says that we are not called to plant churches, but the Gospel, and J.D. Payne who plainly writes, “The Bible doesn’t tell us to plant churches…it commands us to make disciples.” If you are a follower of this blog you probably have a fairly good idea of where that goes!
We can get stuck in our particular ways of “doing” church, or “doing” discipleship and not consider or perhaps even realize that throughout history the missionary people of God shaped and reshaped how they did these things to effectively engage with the people to whom God has sent us.
If your church sent a new minister to NMO this year, ask them what the Circuit Riders who roamed the Canadian countryside and Tesla tell us about “Planting the Gospel” in our land.
Our group of New Ministers are inspiring, curious, engaged and love God and the world God so loves. They are also, like most of the rest of us, feeling the strains of ministering in our times. Take good care of them as they desire nothing more than to take good care of you!
Faithful, You are; Faithful, forever You will be; Faithful, You are; All God’s promises are yes and amen (Yes and Amen)
We sang this declaration of the faithfulness of God on opening night of Assembly 2022 setting the tone for what we have gathered to celebrate. For many of us, the reminder in the midst of times of darkness, that God is still and always at his work in the world around us, even though it may seem elusive or distant to us.
As Anna Braun reminded us in our Bible Study Friday morning, sometimes we are in the dark and our job is to remember to have hope; the light comes through the cracks.
Faithful, You are
After such an extended period of gathering restrictions, we are grateful and joyful as we meet with many of you face-to-face at CBWC’s Assembly in Calgary.
While we see diversity in biblical interpretation and praxis across our family, we all agree on Jesus’ plain call to us to love one another as a sign to the world that we belong to Him. We have seen this love expressed first-hand this week in the joyful hugs and conversations, and the unity that we find in worshipping our King together.
Faithful, forever You will be
One of our favourite moments in Assembly is when we have the opportunity to present our new churches to enter into affiliation.
This year, we celebrate Heritage Mountain Community Church joining our family. HMCC gathers in Port Moody BC, recently celebrating its 20th anniversary since formation. Like many congregations in this uncertain era, Heritage Mountain is undergoing a season of change, so we are glad to be able to offer some support and stability—and prayer! Please join us in lifting up this church to the Lord.
Calgary Chinese Baptist Church, comprising both English and Cantonese congregations, has been faithfully ministering for 40 years in their neighbourhood. Sensing that God has blessed them to be a blessing, they focus on caring for one another, discipleship in word and deed, and blessing the Whitehorn area of Calgary in Jesus’ name. Welcome Pastor Evan, Pastor Tony and the CCBC congregation. We look forward with anticipation to leaning how we are better together!
We are also excited to welcome Emmanuel Baptist Church of Calgary into affiliation with CBWC. EBCC began as a Spanish ministry of First Baptist Calgary in the 1980s, and has developed into a bilingual congregation that now gathers in the Bonavista Baptist Church facility. EBCC aims to address the spiritual needs of both the first and second generation of Latino immigrants in the south neighborhoods of Calgary. Congratulations to Pastor Jay and the whole team!
If you ever go to Longview Alberta (aptly named for its long and beautiful view), make sure you drop in at Longview Fellowship and ask for Gil and Andrea Kidd. This delightful couple pastor, lead and care for this little church and the town surrounding them along with their congregation. At our online Assembly in 2020 we officially welcomed them into our CBWC Assembly. What a thrill to finally welcome them in person at this year’s assembly!
Please continue to pray for each of these new communities of brothers and sisters, followers of Jesus our Lord and Savior, as they engage intentionally in the implementation of the gospel in their neighbourhoods.
Faithful, You Are; All God’s promises are yes and amen!
“God authorized and commanded me to commission you: Go out and train everyone you meet, far and near, in this way of life, marking them by baptism in the threefold name: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Then instruct them in the practice of all I have commanded you. I’ll be with you as you do this, day after day after day, right up to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:18-20, The Message).
In this series (read part 1 here and 2 here), we’ve been examining the crisis of non-discipleship that the Church is finding itself in.
The emphasis on “making disciples” from Matthew 28 is not to make good church people – those who attend and serve within a church including participation in its internal programs. While there is much good that is within this part of our life as a community of followers of Jesus, it has developed us into churchgoers but not so much as disciples.
Disciples Are Salty and Shiny
Disciples, or those who believe and follow Jesus, are, to paraphrase Jesus’ words in his Big Sermon, salty and shiny.
Jesus said when we are salty, we are light (Matthew 5:13-16). Being salty means that we are living and leaning into increasingly being Christ-like in our thoughts, our opinions, our responses, our reactions. The less salty we are, the less we tend to shine. We become just another dim (or hidden) light in a world of dim-light options. I have read theologians and commentarians who say that Jesus is saying “You are ALL the light of the world.” Those who live a Jesus-centered life are the light of the world because we reflect Jesus who is THE light of the world.
So the question is, how salty are we? How salty we are is a direct reflection of how shiny we will be. Which drops us right back into the conversation on discipleship.
Eugene Peterson’s interpretation of Matthew 28:18-20 as quoted above poses at least three points here that are relevant and to which we should be asking questions of our own disciplemaking habits:
“Train everyone you meet…in this way of life…instruct them in the practice…”
Train Everyone
In this way of life
(and) instruct them in the practice
Last blog left us with two things to think on. One was that discipleship doesn’t occur through osmosis. You may read that and roll your eyes and say, “well, duhh!” But the reality is osmosis is the most common way we tend to convey discipleship. We preach good sermons and hold good Bible studies and hope something rubs off. While learning by osmosis has its value, it also has limitations.
Intentional, Relational Discipleship
Discipling one another in the way of Jesus and His kingdom point of view doesn’t happen only because we follow Him from mountain to mountain to hear sermons. He was intentional in relationally discipling those that followed Him more closely, including those beyond the twelve whom He chose to train so as to train more disciples, or more specifically to train everyone they meet as they go through life – being salty and shiny!
The other thought from our previous article was about unlearning what we already assume and think we know: being humbly prepared to let Jesus change our point of view about our religion, our practices of it and even the purpose(s) of it.
How does our point of view about the world, religion, and even our own faith start to be transformed? Jesus infers it starts as we train one another (that’s the everyone) in this way of life. He takes His hearers back to what is most important for discipleship and the task or purpose of those who follow Him – His church.
From my decades of scouring the Scriptures to understand this, I’ve found that our purpose as Christ’s witnesses (those who witness us see us as shiny; or not) is reflected in Jesus’ statements in the Great Commission (Matt. 28:18-20), The Greatest Commandment (Matt. 22:37/Luke 10:27), and the intent (which Jesus demonstrated frequently in his words and deeds) of the Great Requirement (Micah 6:8).
You may think this is simplistic, but if we intentionally and relationally disciple one another, as lifelong learners, in the ways and intent of these, our worldview will be influenced. If, that is, we are humbly willing to lay down our assumptions and preconceptions from our own point of view to Jesus’ point of view (POV). As we increasingly adopt the view of God’s kingdom, already working right here, right now; if we practice justice-making, peace-making, mercy, hope, meaning, joy, grace and love towards our ‘neighbours’, we, who are also our neighbour, will increasingly “…grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge- (so) that (we) may be filled to the measure of the fullness of God.” (Eph. 3:18-19).
As we live our everyday-as we are going-along the way lives, seeing people and circumstances through a Jesus POV, we cannot help but then practice it. As children of God walking alongside one another in every aspect of life, pointing one another to Jesus’s point of view, we will experience transformation of our hearts, minds, soul and strength and increasingly find ourselves grace-filled with compassion, practicing the fruit of the Spirit towards brokenness of our human experiences both in one another and in ourselves.
We will develop saltiness in ourselves and our saltiness will be Christ’s witness to the world of God who so loved the world he died to redeem, reconcile and restore all our relationships: with God himself, with one another and with self. On the matter of salt, Jesus asks the question: “Salt is good, but if it loses its saltiness, how can you make it salty again? His answer: “Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with each other.” Salty and shiny.
Our shiny-ness is our evangelism. Like discipleship, it is a lifelong way of life, not a program.
One final note for pondering. Our age of Enlightenment participated in transforming discipleship from apprenticeship relationships to knowledge-based programs. We became less salty thus less shiny, which affects how people see Christ in us (our shiny bits). So we created programs to help increase our evangelism.
But neither discipleship nor evangelism, as posited from the beginning of this series, are programs. When we are salty, we are shiny. Evangelism is not the purpose of the church. Discipleship is, and evangelism happens because we are discipling one another to learn, teach, live and practice the beautiful way of Jesus.
For about twenty-five years I have been exploring, reading, writing and talking about the non-discipleship crisis. Most everyone recognizes the crisis when we talk about it. Often, someone will offer a great new discipleship program that is sweeping through various locales around the globe, sending me the links to the person/groups that developed it. Good, thoughtful, laborious work has gone into most of them. There is much to glean and I am so appreciative that others are tackling the crisis we find ourselves in.
I’ve made my own attempt at producing a discipleship manual for leaders to use with their congregations. I think it was pretty good. However, a course or program on its own is not discipleship. Jesus didn’t run the 12, the 72, the 144 through a 20-week discipleship course complete with graphics, worksheets and activities, and we didn’t see the early Church do so either.
There is value in those things of course, but the danger comes when we narrow the scope of discipleship to just a program to work our way through successfully. It’s dangerous because we can trick ourselves into thinking that completing a discipleship course means we now understand the Christian faith, while in reality we still have hearts and minds conformed to the world’s patterns, thinking and understanding rather than being shaped by the Holy Spirit’s transforming nature and Jesus’ Kingdom-of-God point of view.
In other words, the church is “Christian” but we are not necessarily followers of Christ living out the Greatest Commandment, the Great Requirement andthe Great Commission by becoming disciples who make disciples who make disciples.
Refreshing materials and programs, courses and conferences will not change that, no matter how helpful these tools are. We need to ask ourselves the bold-faced questions about how our methodologies are transforming us, if they are transforming us, and to what we are being transformed into?
The illiterate of the 21st Century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn. ~Alvin Toffler
I have this quote on a sticky note on the wall in my office – I really should get it framed so it stops losing its stickiness and falling off the wall (I think there’s an apt metaphor in there somewhere). It’s there because Jesus said something similar when a curious pharisee came to him in the cover of night, acknowledging that Jesus was a teacher who had “come from God” (John 3).
I imagine Nicodemus was gobsmacked by Jesus’ response to the acknowledgment: Jesus challenged him! Even though Nicodemus he was a learned member of the Jewish council, Jesus told him he wouldn’t be able to recognize God’s in-breaking kingdom unless he was “born again.” And what did He mean by born again? Here’s my paraphrase: “Nicodemus, you need to recognize that I am the Messiah to see what God is doing in the world.”
Henry Ossawa Tanner – Nicodemus coming to Christ
Along the way, born again has become synonymous with a person confessing Jesus as Lord and Saviour. But remember that in Part 1 of this series, we recognized there is a difference between making church-goers and making disciples. Understanding Jesus’ remark as only an evangelistic impulse misses the fullness of what his challenge to Nicodemus was.
Jesus was challenging Nicodemus on what he understood about God, God’s kingdom and the Messiah. Nicodemus needed to unlearn and relearn by allowing the Spirit to be birthed and active within him. Jesus used a common euphemism of the day when he said “born again.” It implied you need to unlearn what you think you already know and learn again.
We’ve made born again about evangelism when it is really about discipleship–the transformation of hearts, minds, soul and strength to increasingly view the world through Jesus’ kingdom lens and live into that.
And, if I can be so bold (and I will), the very evident lack of evangelistic impulse in our church culture is a direct result of the lack of a discipleship culture in our churches. You may find this hair-splitting, but as we move to Part 3 of this series, the distinction will become obvious. For now let me close Part 2 by saying two things to start the unlearning process:
Being “born again,” absent of unlearning whatever patterns and world views we’ve inherited from our world and people around us throughout our lives, may lead us to declare Jesus as Savior, but has left lots of permission for His Lordship in our lives to be an optional add-on.
Discipleship doesn’t happen by osmosis. If the Church is serious about facing our current crisis of non-discipleship, we will need to rethink and reimagine our theology of discipleship.
We will need to put aside our egos and not allow offense to be our barrier to unlearning what we think we already know about it all. We hope you will join us as we take a deep breath and attempt to humbly come to terms with this continuous learning-unlearning-relearning process of discipleship.
…To “go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them…and teaching them to obey everything [he had taught and] commanded.” This was the Risen King revealing God’s mission to the world, through the gathered disciples. In many Bible translations we’ve aptly titled it the Great Commission, because of the clarity of vocation for the church, those gathered together under Christ.
On this blog we’ve often written about discipleship in connection with church planting, defining church planting as the fruit of disciples who make disciples who can also make disciples. Disciple-making is the call of the Great Commission. In other words, the mission of the church isn’t evangelism, it’s discipleship.
In an interpretive misunderstanding of the “go” in Jesus’ Commission, we’ve made the “going” the mission. The more literal translation in the Greek is not an imperative “go,” but rather a descriptor of how we make disciples: as the disciples are going (back home from the mount in Galilee), and as followers of Christ we each go about our lives (our witness), we make disciples of all the people we encounter, baptizing them when they recognize they have a need to travel a different road (repentance and salvation). Then, they begin the lifelong journey of intentional and accountable discipling of one another.
Before we go further, I do want to say that I am thoroughly convinced that all humans are always being discipled by others, and therefore are witnesses of that discipleship. My Grandmother discipled me to view the mentally challenged adults she worked among with respect and honor. My Great Grandparents discipled me to care for the frail and elderly when I served tea and talked with those in their old age care home. Culture and societal values have certainly discipled me to a variety of worldviews and ideas, many of which I still find myself needing to submit to Christ. Everyone is being discipled, and by the way we speak, form opinions, act or don’t act (our witness), everyone is discipling others whether they realize it or not.
With that in mind, every person we encounter and are in some form of relationship with, are being discipled by us before we even mention Jesus/church/God/salvation. What we are discipling them to, is another matter.
Here, we are talking about the kind of discipleship that shapes us towards being image bearers of God’s character, by living lives increasingly reflective of Christ’s kingdom point of view. That’s a lifelong, relational journey, putting all our heart, mind, soul and strength increasingly under the Lordship of Christ. When we are on that kind of journey, evangelism is what naturally happens “as we go” as demonstrative witnesses of Christ where we live, work, play and pray.
Somewhere along the way, discipling one another in intentional, relational communities has become something many leaders yearn for, but are wary to lead into, knowing many church-goers like going to church, but are not particularly interested in being in accountable discipleship relationships with the group of people they worship with on Sunday. We compartmentalize different aspects of our lives and justify and rationalize that because Jesus has saved the world and we’ve accepted that gift through baptism, God’s main requirement of us is that we “go” to church and possibly serve in the church’s programs and activities.
Evangelism, then, has morphed into being a task/program of helping people make a decision for Christ by telling them a particular aspect of the gospel and encouraging them to come to church. Disciple making – on the level Jesus made disciples – became something optional as long as we could keep people attending our worship services. Thus the creation of what is popularly known in the West as “consumer Christianity,” and our current non-discipleship crisis.
As Dallas Willard is famously known for saying, “non-discipleship is the elephant in the church.”
We’ve long known the elephant was there. We thought that we could solve our current declines in church attendance with more evangelism, more “witnessing” while our own witness to the world in word and deed, both as individuals and as corporate entities, looked not a lot different from those who did not profess to be followers of Christ and tragically, worse. Conferences, books, lectures and missional and church planting networks rose up to help us with increasing our evangelistic impulses, whilst ignoring the elephant taking up the majority space in the room with the solution written across its body: discipleship.
To be clear, if we do not refocus our time, our budgets, our energy, and our mission, toward making disciples who make disciples and so on, there will be little evangelism (witness). Evangelism happens because we are making disciples who are then making disciples who also make disciples.
Matthew commentarian Rodney Reeves says it like this: “When these disciples make disciples of all peoples, then the reign of Christ is present. And when those disciples make other disciples, then the unstoppable kingdom of heaven will continue to extend all the way to the ends of the earth.”1
You might think this is just hair splitting, but just looking around us, we can see that making people into church-goers has not been as effective as we would hope in changing the lens through which they see the world. We all have multiple, and often opposing, ideas on politics, culture, social issues, entertainment, the poor, the marginalized, the homeless. That’s normal, of course, we aren’t talking about uniformity where we all think, act, vote or even necessarily interpret scripture the same way. But we are talking about sanctification, where our worldview, with the guidance of the Spirit and one another, begins to be reshaped so that we look, speak, behave, and love more and more like Jesus, living life by the examples he taught and by obeying his commandments of loving God, self and neighbour with all we are and all we have as we participate in God’s kingdom of peace, joy, righteousness and love towards all humanity.
In the following posts that look at the crisis of non-discipleship the church faces, we will examine some things we need to rethink and some things we need to lay down next time. In the meantime, ask for God to help us be open for all our hearts, minds, soul and strength to be shaped like Christ “as we are going”…
Reeves, Rodney, Matthew: The Story of God Bible Commentary
“Stay in the Story” —I heard this phrase a while ago from a guest on a podcast. He was referring to our need as Christ’s ambassadors who join God in his work, to continually put ourselves back into the larger Story. We must not lose sight of the Big Story of God in the midst of life’s challenges and joys inherent in being humans together.
It is no coincidence that a story reminding us of the goodness of God in the land of the living can shift our focus from discouragement and weariness back to our raison d’être. When we tell one another stories, placing them back into the Big Story of God and humans, we see evidence of God at work all along. Join us as we “Stay in the Story” in this update of God’s work in a few of our newer communities.
Makarios Evangelical Church – New Westminster, BC
This gathering continues to grow deeper and wider. In the final months of 2021, Makarios welcomed new arrivals from Hong Kong who are relocating to Canada. This is a growing part of their ministry, partnering with ministries in Hong Kong to help newcomers settle into churches and communities here.
Along with new families comes an increase in children and youth, and along with the recent hire of a part-time English Ministry pastor for the college students they minister to from Douglas College, Makarios will be looking to hire a part-time children’s worker this coming summer. It is with great thanks to CBWC and our churches who support new works that they continue to grow and extend the Good News Story all around them, with a special shout-out to the hospitality shown by Olivet Baptist Church!
Emmanuel Iranian Church – North Vancouver & Coquitlam, BC
EIC continues to grow despite COVID restrictions, their main campus undergoing renovations, a great need for more leaders and for an English-speaking youth worker, limited finances, and health issues for both pastors. They have rotating services to accommodate both space and health restrictions, but this framework increases the workload for the leaders. In January 67 new believers were baptized – this brings baptisms up to well over 400 since fall of 2018!
They have also recently begun planting a new community in Burnaby out of CBWC’s Royal Oak Ministry Centre. God’s Good Story is compelling for those coming from a Muslim background, whose religion can feel like an oppressive authority. I have had several new believers express to me the great joy they have found in Jesus and the liberty and grace of being able to explore and express their journey as disciples without fear.
Please continue to pray for provision for this community, church, pastors and leaders as they continue to boldly and plainly proclaim that Jesus is God.
Hope Christian Church of Calgary, AB
In the past you’ve been invited to join us in praying for, and supporting, Hope Christian Church of Calgary, a small Arabic-speaking congregation. Our current situation is that planter and Pastor Mouner Alajji stepped aside last July, sensing a call to the Arabic-speaking mission field in Europe. One of the leaders in the church told me that Mouner was the best pastor he has ever had, and how missed he will be! Sadly, Mouner has also been undergoing serious health complications and is unable to continue at this time in the mission work as he undergoes treatment in Calgary. Please remember to pray for Mouner and his family during this time.
The church has been wrestling with the departure of their pastor and have really struggled with the COVID restrictions and how they would continue forward. The board of the church prayerfully discerned that they would shift their focus to a home church led by one of the gospel teachers in the congregation, and to officially close the Hope Christian Church of Calgary location.
While some might see this as a failed church plant, it is most definitely as successful gospel plant. The congregation continues to speak God’s Good News into their lives and into the lives of those they interact with in their places and spaces. What is a church plant after all? It is a gathering of believers who are communicators of God’s justice, love, grace, mercy, salvation, and hope, alive and active in the broken places in our lives and in our world.
As Gospel Planters in general are seeing movement of the Spirit in micro-churches as an avenue to engage people with God’s Good News, we continue to pray for this home church (one expression of micro-church) in joining God on His mission right where they find themselves.
Other Gospel Planting Work
I love how out of our deepest doubt and questions, God shows up! Well into the pandemic, a lot of conversations were going around the catalyst conversation table: How do new plants happen now? How will new church communities, committed to evangelism, survive? But, surprise! God is still at work and His Spirit is still inviting his people to join Him.
Not only have several new works actually thrived in various ways, but new gatherings happened! CBWC Church Planting is working with a new planting in Kelowna, a new plant in the discernment process in Burnaby, as well as a handful of already existing church communities looking to become family with CBWC. We will keep you updated as these new works progress!
You are invited to join too! Please continue in prayer for our existing and future plantings, lifting up the leaders and the congregations that courageously press forward with the Good News of God’s kingdom in our troubling times. They are committed to telling the Story by intersecting the stories of seekers with God’s Good News.
For that matter, remember to pray for all our churches – each and every one devoted to being salt and light in our communities across Western Canada!
CBWC Church Planting 