It occurred to me the first post I did on how we got here, I didn’t really get into much detail about how we leaped from a short term missions trip to Rwanda to where we are right now.  The real impetus came in the fall of 2006.

We heard there was a church planting couple hanging out with our church.  At the time we were attending Cedar Grove Baptist Church, a church of 1200-1400 people in North Surrey.  It’s easy to get lost in a big church like that, but I saw them around once or twice in the halls and at general meetings and such.  It seemed like every time I looked at the guy, Phil, he was looking at me and grinning.  I was thinking, “Who’s this guy grinning at me?” I finally decided that God, or something, wanted me to talk to him.

One sunny day in August, I caught up to him at the bike racks (seriously!)  I was just curious at that stage about what their plan was to plant a church.  I had no idea how one goes about planting a church at that stage.  He invited me out to their core team small group.  At that time, it consisted of themselves and two other couples.

I went home and asked Cheryl if she’d like to come.  She was fine with me going, but “I am NOT interested in planting a church!”

The meeting was great - the food was fantastic, and I got to see their “future logo”.  But I didn’t get a lot of questions answered.  Hardly any in fact.  Cheryl was still not interested in meeting with them at that stage.  I was interested enough in what they we doing, but didn’t know if I wanted to be involved.  I decided to just ask God to bring Cheryl around - I knew if she wasn’t interested then we would not be united and it would not be good or God-honoring.

It would not be until October, after Cheryl attended a worship conference, that she came to me and said, “I am thinking we should take Phil and Beth up on their dinner offer.”  We went over, and promptly switched roles, just like Cheryl said in her last post about how we always switch roles.  This time, it was she who was getting more and more excited as Phil and Beth filled us in on how they were called out to Surrey, and showed us a video about their journey.  For me, one of the biggest signs of God’s blessing on our decisions as a family is when we are united in spirit over it.  That was crystal clear.  By the end of the evening, we did tell them we would be happy to help them plant in Newton.

One of the most exciting things about the new church plant was that it was part of a larger vision.  They had originally come to Canada to see a movement of new churches begun across the country.  Their vision was to have a church in every major city in Canada by 2020.  This was a church with a purpose - not just to see people in the neighbourhood come to know Jesus, but to see new churches created and growing in every part of the country.

It would be a month later when we looked at our finances and discussed education.  I had gone to Seminary back in 1999, pursuing a Master’s in Church History.  Now that we were involved in a church plant, I felt like I should be learning more about how they work.  I also wanted to finish that degree, because I hated that I  left it unfinished.  I re-enrolled, but this time into a different program.  Unfortunately, I couldn’t take courses on church planting like I wanted to - but on the other hand, I was able to take a whole series on christian leadership which were amazing.  I learned so much about myself during those classes.  One aspect of the course was that I needed to be mentored.  Mentoring was a need I had been feeling for a number of months, and I had already asked Phil if he would be my mentor with regards to my Christian walk and development.  He had agreed.

In the new year of 2007, we sat down and had a discussion about where our family was going.  My heart had been changed from my original days in 1999 at Seminary.  I recalled at that time, my Grandparents and other relatives, when I told them I was at a Seminary, they said, “Oh, you’re going to be a pastor?”  I practically yelled in response, “No!”  But now, I was looking at where life had led me, and wondering if maybe that really was what God wanted of me all along.  Cheryl had a hard time conceiving of herself as a pastor’s wife, and I understood that, but my proposal was up until now, we had been letting life just happen to us.  I wanted us as a family to set a course, a long-term course, and work towards that.  She agreed with that.  The goal we set was to prepare ourselves to be in leadership in another church plant by 2010.  It was a lofty goal, but we thought if God had a better plan for us he would make it known.  In the meantime, it would give us a chance to orient our lives and move with purpose, measuring our time and our investment based upon our goal.

So now that is where we are.  Community of Hope has given us a vision not just for our own lives, but for a larger picture - a picture that spans across the country.  When we thought about where we would like to plant a church, my lingering affection for the province of Alberta gave it a focus.  It also helped that at Christmas 2007 we went to Edmonton to visit my family, and the drive through the snowcapped mountains to the cold prairies awakened in Cheryl a vision of herself there and overcame her previous fears of the cold and snow.  This was so effective in fact that when we returned from Christmas, Cheryl’s accounts of the trip alongside my continued affirmation of Alberta as a great place to live led to her family uprooting from their lives spent entirely in the Vancouver area, to move to Red Deer, AB.  So we know that is where we are being called to plant, but not yet.  We have a lot of growing and developing as leaders and as a family before we go.  What is here is a chronicle of that journey.

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