Worshiping God

On Sunday we continued our series on Meaford's church vision, focusing this time on worship. It was a neat service. Instead of our typical sermon and three or four hymns, we had four smaller sermons and eight hymns. We looked at the reasons we have to worship God including His holiness, love, the cross and grace. When we meditate on these things we should be drawn into a greater desire for worship.

Plans are great but sometimes things do not work out as you expect. Everything went fine in Meaford but in Woodford our pianist got sick with the flu and so we were without music. Ironically, I played the song "Heart of Worship" that begins with the words: "When the music fades and all is stripped away." I had no idea how true that would be. Even though we are a smaller church, we made it with a few adjustments and our attempt at accapella. For me, it was a reminder of what worship is. Worship is not a performance designed to impress others but a decision to adore God for who He is, whatever the circumstances.

I Think My Wife's a Calvinist

In reality Amanda is far from being Calvinist, but this is still very funny.

Seeking God

Last week we continued our series on the vision for First Baptist Church Meaford. We looked at the idea of seeking God. Especially during the 90's, it was popular for churches to adopt a seeker sensitive model. That is they designed their services according to the needs of seekers, people without a church background but who had some interest in God or religion. That is fine, although time has shown some difficulties with that model. What I was trying to show was that being a seeker is more complicated than that. There are at least three things that we need to seek after:

1) Knowledge of God - This is our first experience of entering into a relationship with God through Jesus Christ. If this does not happen, nothing else matters.
2) Knowledge of the Will of God - We need to know what God wants for us today and what He wants for the big picture of our life.
3) Knowledge of the Peace of God - Life is challenging and Jesus promises us peace. But that peace does not come automatically. The New Testament describes a series of actions and submissions for us to experience this.

We must sek after all three of these.

The Impact of the Local Church

I have been thinking lately of the impact of the local church on my personal faith and ministry journey. I have been a part of a number of churches and all of them have influenced me to a degree. I thought I would share a little bit of that journey here.

I grew up attending St. James Anglican Church, Merritton (as section of St. Catharines). I attended this church from birth to around 1992 (with a few years off while I was an atheist). The ministers I remember from there include James Patterson, Jim Powell, Brian Collinson and David Hamilton (I was baptized as a baby by Peter Smith but I do not remember that!). Even as a young person I was give opportunities to serve including the roles of server, sidesman, reader and chalice bearer. It was while I was attending St. James (although not directly because of it) that I came to a personal faith in Christ.

It was a major jump for me to go from St. James to Central Gospel Temple, a Pentecostal church in St. Catharines. At the time I thought I was going to become a Baptist and was surprised to find myself a Pentecostal. I attended CGT from approximately 1992 to 1996. The senior pastor at the time was Mel Jenkins but I was alos significantly influenced by David Topping and Tony Sardella. I was baptized as a believer at CGT. I quickly found myself involved in ministry, including roles as a cell group leader and a youth leader. It was during this time that I felt the call to pastoral ministry and enrolled myself at McMaster Divinity College. It was also at Central that I met my wife Amanda and it was there that we were married in 2000.

As I began at Mac, I needed to find a church to do a placement at for my field education. From 1996 to 1998 I served at Niagara Christian Life Assembly in Niagara Falls as youth pastor. This was, like Central, a church affiliated with the Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada. This was my first pastoral position and my first opportunity to preach at a Sunday service. The senior pastor was Dale Hiebert and later on we had an associate pastor with Noral Woodburn. I was blessed with the opportunity to lead a youth group of both Pentecostal and Salvation Army teens. I definitely learned a lot.

After a couple of months back at Central, I was asked by one of my professors at Mac to apply for the youth pastor position at Queensway Baptist Church in Brantford. Don Fraser was also the senior pastor at Queensway and I thought it would not hurt to try. I was amazed when I found out that I was hired and that I would actually get paid to be a pastor! From 1998 to 2001 I served as the youth pastor. It was a great experience as I got even more opportunities to preach and try out new things. Don Fraser was a great pastor to work with, as was the associate pastor Carol Caswell. After Don retired, I was able to help out with interim ministry. The day after Amanda and I were married, the new pastor Ralph Neil started. Both Don Fraser and Ralph Neil were very influential in my ministry and I continue to respect them very much. It was at Queensway that I was ordained with the Baptist Convention of Ontario and Quebec.

After being ordained at Queensway, I began as associate pastor at Mount Hamilton Baptist Church in Hamilton. I served here from 2001 to 2003. I worked with senior pastor Joyce Trask and associate pastors Craig Traynor and Scott Dunham. This was my first opportunity to preach every weak and to be involved in ministry outside of youth work. This was a stretching ministry in a good way as I was able to experiment with new ways of preaching and to grow creatively. It is exciting to see many of the people from this congregation now in pastoral ministry.

Since 2003 I have been the pastor of Woodford Baptist Church and First Baptist Church Meaford. We have very much enjoyed our time here and are even more excited about ministry than when we first arrived five years ago. Both congregations are very supportive and have a hunger for God. They seek to reach out to their communities. Both are loving churches that have spiritual power beyond the size of their congregations. I look forward to what God will do in and through us in the coming years.

All of these local churches have been important to me and have helped to shape me as a Christian and as a pastor. I thank God for each of the congregations and pastors that have encouraged me throughout the years.

We Are Family

On Sunday we continued to go through our vision at church. We looked at the idea of the church as a family. As an only child I was excited when I became a Christian and discovered countless new brothers and sisters in Christ. I got along better with some than others but we were all family. On Sunday we looked at the foundation of our family relationship as not being in each other but in God, God as Trinity. Passages such as John 1:12-13 and Romans 8:12-16 remind us that the Father, Son and Spirit are all the basis of our family relationship. That means that our disagreements can not disrupt our relationship as brothers and sisters. We also looked at what it means for us to be a family. Being family means that we have to forgive each other. It does not mean that there will never be any problems. Even Peter and Paul had their issues. What is important is that we reconcile. We must also speak the truth in love. We must be willing to speak up when we see our brothers and sisters straying but we must do it in the spirit of unconditional love. Finally, we must be there for each other. We must grieve with those who grieve and rejoice with those who rejoice. Christians are never going to be perfect. But we do have something special in being in the family of God.

What if Starbucks Marketed Like the Church?

This is very funny and at the same time very true.

Being a Loving Church

We have just started a new series at church. It is based on the vision statement that we recently adopted:

First Baptist Church is a loving family that seeks God through worship, prayer and biblical teaching and embraces our community through acts of service and compassion.

Although this is the official statement of First Baptist and not Woodford Baptist, it speaks to the important aspects of a healthy church and so I am doing the same series at both churches.

On Sunday we looked at the first, that of being a loving church. We focused on 1 John 4:7-12. We saw the reason for being a loving church as being based on the fact that God is love and as children of God we should resemble our Heavenly Father. We also saw that love was best demonstrated in the giving of Jesus and that true love is sacrificial. We concluded with the role the church has in continuing Christ's ministry of teaching and loving. If we are not loving, we are not being Christian. It is as simple as that. For the next few weeks you can hear this message at www.meafordbaptist.ca.

Unmasking the Pagan Christ: The Documentary

In 2004, former Anglican priest and New Testament professor Tom Harpur wrote a book called The Pagan Christ, in which he argued that there was no historical Jesus but that the Gospels are Jewish versions of ancient myths, especially those found in Egypt, on which a which an inclusive spirituality focused on a Cosmic Christ rather than a literal Jesus might be built.

In 2006, Stanley Porter, New Testament professor and president of McMaster Divinity College, and myself wrote a response book called Unmasking the Pagan Christ, in which we argued that there is evidence for a historical Jesus and that the Gospels differ greatly from the pagan myths.

In 2007, a documentary based on the Pagan Christ was aired on CBC, repeating many of the same arguments of Tom Harpur but also including responses by Stan Porter and Ward Gasque. It was a very highly rated documentary and it created some great discussion.

Last year, Stan and I were approached by David Brady Productions, the people who produced the Pagan Christ documentary, offering to do a documentary on our book. Much of the work was done over the summer and around Christmas time, I received a copy of the completed documentary. I must say that I am very pleased with it. It is not an attack on Tom Harpur, as we strived in our book to confront the content and not the man. It gives Tom and fellow Jesus myth proponent Peter Gandy an opportunity to share their side. One of the things that I like about it is that the support for the historical Jesus in this documentary is not just from evangelical scholars. There are people from a wide range of backgrounds, including one scholar that people might be surprised at as being on our side. It is a very interesting documentary that people will want to check out even if they are not familiar with Tom Harpur's version of the Jesus myth. If you have come across the radical ideas of Peter Gandy, Timothy Freke, Robert Price, G.A. Wells or the movie Zeitgeist, you will want to see this documentary. The documentary should be aired around Easter in 2009. I will be sure to update as we get closer to that date.

Subdivisions

One of my favourite rock bands is Rush. I have seen them in concert numerous times. Christian musician Jacob Moon does a great cover of Rush's Subdivisions that was recorded in Hamilton. He does a fantastic job of this classic song.

The Bedards: Year in Review

Well, we survived 2008. It was a difficult year in some ways and a great one in other ways.

Our family both lost a member and gained a member, ironically in the same day. We lost our service dog Milo because of some behaviour issues that did not allow him to perform his job effectively. We are hoping for a replacement dog some time in the near future. We miss Milo terribly, but on the very same day, we received the call that Faith, who is Justus and Emma's sister, would be coming to live with us. Faith is a blessing. Although I was looking forward to the demise of midnight feedings as Emma had outgrown them, the joy Faith brings has been worth the work. She is doing great and is just now beginning to crawl. Justus and Emma are also doing great. They are talking and interacting in some pretty neat ways. We are just now discovering what we missed out on with Logan and Abby. Justus is a great little helper who loves to clear the table and clean up whenever there is the least little mess. Justus also began in pre-school in 2008. The pre-school is in the basement of the United Church. Between that and Sunday School, Justus can be heard on most days begging: "Daddy? Church, daddy?" Emma is also doing great despite some major food allergies. She is rather petite, being only a pound heavier than Faith, who is eleven months younger than her. Emma is picking up everything, talking lots and loving to play with her siblings, especially Justus (this play often includes a healthy dose of bickering). Often Emma is the only one to help me clean up the living room before bed (for some reason Justus loses his cleaning desire at bed time). Logan and Abby are also doing great. Logan is in grade two and Abby is in grade one. Logan has really taken to singing, especially Christian songs such as "Cast Your Burdens" and "Oh the Blood of Jesus." This often takes place at school. It was a hard year for us with Abby. There were a lot of sleep problems as about three quarters of the year her (and my) day started between two and four in the morning. There were a lot of behaviour issues as well. With the help of our doctor and God's blessing we have seen huge improvements. In the midst of that we have seen Abby start to talk again. She probably went about a year and a half without talking. She is now coming out with new words and often repeating what we say.

All of these things have given Amanda and I a lot to do. The family really keeps us on our toes. I want to say that Amanda does an awesome job with the kids. There are many challenges and yet Amanda always steps up to the task. She goes far above and beyond the call of duty. In all that, Amanda took a major step in her own life. She has signed up to write her GED high school equivalancy. She has studied hard and is catching on to subjects she has not looked at in years. I am very proud of Amanda and confident that she will pass her exam which she writes soon. Amanda has also been reflecting on her future and the areas in which God is calling her. We are looking forward to God's clarification in the direction for Amanda's future. I have also kept busy. I have been very much enjoying the Arrow Leadership Program that has taken me to British Columbia three times now and once more in March. I have also taken the step of applying for the Doctor of Theology program at the University of South Africa (no I am not moving to South Africa, it is all done by distance education). I have not been accepted yet but I have begun the application process. The book that Stan Porter and I wrote in 2006, Unmasking the Pagan Christ, has taken a new turn. A documentary based on our book was filmed during the summer. I have seen the documentary and it is quite good. It will be aired on CBC around Easter time.

All in all, it has been a very full year. We look forward to what God will do in our family in 2009. May God bless you and your families in this new year.

More Christmas Pictures

New Years Day in Meaford

This is what we see across the street from our house. Cold but beautiful.