One prayer request we have kept before our prayer network has been the calling of team members to join us here. We dreamed that not only would God send us partners in ministry and in life, but that they would have skills and gifts that would complement what we bring.
Ephesians 3:20 always reminds me that our God is able to do more than we could ask or imagine. Yet, I need this constantly reinforced. I need to be reminded, “Dream bigger!” The events of the last month have been a testimony to this truth.
I would like you to meet Bart and Elizabeth Blair. They have been integral parts of the team at Grace Community Church in Mississauga for 9 years. Bart came on as the worship leader at the first Grace Brethren Church in Canada 6 months after they launched. In many ways he has grown with them, but before he even came to them he came with a background in music and the arts. He has a degree in music from the University of Texas and spent several years in children’s theatre before he found his way to Canada. His incredible giftings and passion for leading well have been blessed as he has grown a stellar worship team at Grace.
Together with his wife Elizabeth, they have three children: Sarah-Lynn, Silas and Ephraim. Elizabeth works in the mortgage field, (which complements my real estate business well) and has a passion for touching people’s lives with the love of Jesus. She has been a part of many different outreach ministries at Grace.
The story of how God moved them to begin their journey to Medicine Hat is fascinating, but I can’t tell it nearly as well as they can. Check out Bart’s Blog for their account of God’s calling them.
From our side, we had a hint dropped to us that they were thinking about Medicine Hat at the beginning of August, but obviously they needed a lot of answers – from God and from others with wisdom and discernment to be sure this was God’s will. They also needed to see for themselves what Medicine Hat is like. From a distance, it seems like a tiny town in the remotest part of the prairies (especially relative to Toronto, one of the largest cities in the world!) They planned to visit us for 4 days towards the end of August. We had an amazing time of hearing their heart, where they felt God was taking them, and in turn sharing what caused us to be moved of God to Medicine Hat and why we are in love with this city.
Finally, a week after they left, we got word: they were coming! Wow! They are coming on faith – they both have good careers, their children have good friends, but now they are stepping out as a family for God. They come with no promise of income, no guarantees, but they come because God has called and they have said, “Here I am!” They still need to sell their home and transition out here. We expect them to arrive around Christmas time (what a Christmas gift!) Suddenly we have two people passionate for the Lord, desiring to see a new church birthed here in Medicine Hat, connected with our fellowship, gifted and experienced in ways that we couldn’t imagine!
We’ve been waiting with bated breath to tell you about this but to be fair to everyone in their lives, we needed to let them make the announcement in their way. But now we can celebrate with you all! Thank you for your prayer and keep praying! If God can do this, what is next to come?
Tags: bart blair, core team, elizabeth blair, faith, fellowship of grace brethren churches, grace, medicine hat, mississauga
The short answer is offline.
The slightly longer answer is a little more technical. We did an update to the software that keeps the blog and it didn’t finish the update correctly. Plus, in an effort to save money we decided to move the blog to a new server. Now, we are taking advantage of the “do-over” to change up the look and feel of the blog. This is something we wanted to do a long time ago, but we’re seizing the day now.
So, stay tuned for the island paradise picture top right to change. And also, expect my blog posts to get shorter. I just noticed after importing that I get a bit… long-winded at times.
And shortly I’ll have a more amazing announcement for y’all. The word has been trickling out, but I’ll explain how it all went down shortly.
Tags: announcement, blog, technology
God is Good! On Thursday I completed the last of my real estate exams. This has been a critical step for us in terms of settling into Medicine Hat and becoming self-supporting. Let me explain how this fits into what we are doing here.
When we began to dream about planting a church in Alberta, one of the questions we had to answer was, “how would we support ourselves in Alberta?” That question could have been answered in many ways. We are immensely grateful for everything that Grace Brethren Canada have done to help us get where we are. We can’t imagine where we would be without their investment into us through mentorship, leadership opportunities, chances to join in to the larger Grace Brethren family through participation in ministeriums, district and national conferences, and so many other little ways that have gotten us to where we are today. Still that being said, the reality is with more and more church plants across North America, regardless of organizational affiliation, full-time support is not possible. Grace Brethren Canada is still a small organization and can only support so many full-time staff.
So, when we considered how we would support ourselves, we realized that God had gifted us with several different options. One opportunity which remains as a backup plan is seeing Cheryl utilize her bachelor’s of Nursing degree and broad experience in mental health nursing to obtain employment in that field. However, this remains a backup as with 3 children under 3 in the home, they need a mother’s love right now the most. Myself, I have a background in several fields, but some skillsets require updating to be employable in the field (such as forestry and computer & network support). In looking at my last 9 years in particular, God has been building in me a skillset which emphasizes sales. Interestingly, the particular field in which I have honed these skills has been in working closely with real estate agents across the USA and Canada, helping them do their businesses better. It set me up for considering a new career in real estate.
Real Estate is a field that has a lot of short and long-term potential. Short term, it is a business that builds on itself, and if done with diligence can easily support our family. Long term it has two benefits: the first is scalability: as God builds His church, His people will require more time. Real Estate can be easily scaled to fit in with the time demands as the church can begin to support us. The second long-term advantage is that a successful real estate agent can employ others to help grow the business. Assistants can be brought on to help which are also scalable positions – which can then in turn possibly help to support church planting interns while they grow to plant the next wave of churches to come after. This supports not just a congregation here, but also the long-term goals of Grace Brethren Canada: to see churches planted all across this vast nation!
So, back to today. Having completed my exams, the next step is to onboard with a local real estate company. God has already blessed us with a solid relationship with the manager of the Century 21 office. The man is a Christian and an elder of his church. He has lived in Medicine Hat for over 40 years and has many connections, and the ability to help me grow my business as quickly as possible. I have already explained to him my vision of growing a business for God to see new churches started and he is fully supportive of our goals. This is an absolute Godsend as many real estate managers are only interested in how many sales you make, and care only how you can generate wealth for themselves. With a money-centered manager, it would be hard to proceed with our vision but with the man God has prepared for us, we are very excited to get going.
The reality is that starting a real estate business costs money. There is business software needed to manage all the tools we need such as communications, marketing, advertising, and prospects. There are marketing items like signs, publicity pieces, business cards, and more needed to be purchased through the company. There will need to be advertising purchased to raise my profile in the community. We are believing God for all these funds but we believe that God also wants to work through His Body. So here we are, laying these needs before you, and asking you to consider partnering with us to get our real estate business launched successfully. Here is a breakdown of the expenses that will be entailed:
| Items | Cost |
| Century 21 Onboarding Package (includes company website, profile, business cards, lawn signs, open house signs, access to c21online, and more) | $1400 |
| Professional Contact Management and Marketing System | $479 |
| Professional Website Presence | $419 |
| Initial Advertising | $1000 |
| Total: | $3298 |
For those of you in the USA, you might consider a move to real estate to be foolhardy given the hard economic conditions especially surrounding foreclosures, short sales and such of that nature. In fact, while Canada’s housing market did take a hit as the recession hit, it has in most areas recovered. Alberta was hit harder than some provinces, and the market is slower here but it is by no means as bad as it is in many areas of the USA. There is still a lot of reason for optimism in Alberta, not least of which is the largest driver of employment and wealth here is in Oil, and with oil sitting above $80 per barrel right now, this province is well positioned to flourish in the recovery.
Join us in initiating the next stage our our church planting effort. If you are in the USA you can participate through GBCanada USA and you will be receipted for a charitable donation. Please follow the link to help. If you are in Canada, you can participate through Canadahelps.org and you will likewise be receipted for a charitable donation for your income tax return. We need your help urgently at this point, as the outlay for these expenses will cut significantly into our savings which we are living on until the real estate business begins to produce income. Thanks again for your prayers and encouragement on our journey. We look forward to reporting on what God has in store for expanding His Kingdom in Medicine Hat!
Tags: medicine hat, real estate, support
Did you ever wonder what the “seven spirits” are, mentioned in revelation? I know I have. I have read a couple of commentaries on it, and seen suggestions that seven, being a number of completion (like seven days of creation, etc.), it just means the complete presence of the Holy spirit is there.
Well, I was just reading through Isaiah and I came across this passage – Isaiah 11:2 -
The Spirit of the LORD will rest on him—
the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding,
the Spirit of counsel and of power,
the Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the LORD
That’s 1 – spirit of the LORD, 2 – of Wisdom, 3 – of understanding, 4 – counsel, 5 – power, 6 – knowledge, 7 – fear of the LORD. Seven Spirits!
Revelation 1:5 mentions the seven spirits. It reads: “Grace and peace to you from him who is, and who was, and who is to come, and from the seven spirits before his throne, and from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth.”
It appears on its face to be describing the Trinity. However, the seven spirits confuses, because theology tells us the Holy Spirit is a person, not a group in its own right. Interestingly, the first person described is “him who is and was and is to come” – which seems to describe Jesus. Then the seven spirits, then Jesus Christ named.
Looking back at Isaiah 11:2, we are dealing with a passage that in fact is foretelling and describing the coming of Jesus Christ – he on whom the seven spirits will rest.
Now let’s look at another passage from Revelation: chapter 3 verse 1. ”To the angel of the church in Sardis write:These are the words of him who holds the seven spirits of God and the seven stars. I know your deeds; you have a reputation of being alive, but you are dead.” We know from the context that the writer of these seven epistles is Jesus Christ himself. So we have the John attesting that Jesus Christ holds the seven spirits of God. That points to Jesus having fulfilled Isaiah 11:2.
The third Revelation passage dealing with seven spirits is Revelation 4:5: “From the throne came flashes of lightning, rumblings and peals of thunder. Before the throne, seven lamps were blazing. These are the seven spirits of God.” So now we have the seven spirits explained in the vision as the seven lamps. The seven lamps of revelation are the seven spirits of God. Helpful.
The last Revelation occurrence of the seven spirits is in Revelation 5:6: “Then I saw a Lamb, looking as if it had been slain, standing in the center of the throne, encircled by the four living creatures and the elders. He had seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth.”
Hosanna
Anyway, here, Christ is clearly depicted as being in possession of the seven spirits – they are his eyes, sent out into all the earth. This dovetails quite well with what John wrote about Jesus’ last speech to his disciples in John 16:9-11. He declares when he goes he will send the counsellor, or the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit becomes God’s presence amongst His people and in the World, doing God’s work in men’s hearts, convicting them of “sin, righteousness and judgement”.
So, let’s go back to these seven spirits mentioned in Isaiah. The first of the Spirit of the LORD (when it is capitalized, the underlying Hebrew indicates God’s proper name – YHWH). The Holy Spirit is God, is I AM, is Lord in the same magnitude and being as the Father and the Son. This is an important fact.
The second is wisdom. I think about all these purposes or aspects in light of the purpose for which Jesus was sending the Holy Spirit: to convict the world of sin, righteousness and judgement. Wisdom speaks to righteousness. Psalm 37:30 and Proverb 10:31 both speak of the connection between wisdom and righteousness.
The third is understanding, which is often synonymous with wisdom. In fact you can find 32 instances in the NIV of wisdom and understanding paired in the same verse.
The fourth is counsel. Seeing as how Jesus called the Holy Spirit “the counsellor” it’s a safe bet that this is important. A guide, one who directs your paths – when I am convicted of sin, I am guided away from sin. When I am convicted of righteousness I am led to good things.
The fifth is power. This is an interesting one. The Holy Spirit is powerful – that is a thought that doesn’t get talked about a lot. Yet, the Holy Spirit is very powerful. When I think about His job as restrainer – holding back the great evil that will be unleashed in the Tribulation, I have to be in awe of the power that He wields that the world is completely oblivious to – despite the ample evidence of it. I mean, in the last 100 years we have been privy to days of immense and disgusting evil – I think of the Holocaust, I think of the Ukrainian Famines under Stalin, I think of the genocide of Rwanda. Yet these are mere foretastes of what is to be unleashed in the end. Why do we live in a peaceful nation, and can travel the world in relative safety, despite all the corruption and evil men out there? It is only because evil is being restrained. One day it will not be, and I really hope there is a rapture before that storm hits.
The sixth is knowledge – awareness, information. The Holy Spirit often brings us an awareness or information that we might otherwise not have. It is a skill that few these days have cultivated – that of listening for the Holy Spirit to impart knowledge. I must say that I have not cultivated it enough. I can think of several instances where the Holy Spirit has given me knowledge, but you’d think I’d be listening harder. Sadly, that’s my sin nature at work still…
The seventh is the spirit of the Fear of the Lord. This fits right in with the Holy Spirit’s work of convicting of sin. Being made aware of our sin is part and parcel of recognizing that there is an authority higher than ourselves, and recognizing our rebellion against it. This is huge. This is something that I confess I harden my heart against. I don’t like to fear the Lord. Sometimes I like my sin too much. Sometimes I lean far too heavily on the forbearance, the mercy of God.
So there’s a quick run down on the Holy Spirit and the “seven spirits” of Revelation. It meshes pretty clearly for me now, since discovering the Isaiah 11:2 passage. John loved to work with Old Testament concepts in his vision of the Revelation of Jesus Christ in the end of days. A wise scholar I once heard said you won’t understand Revelation until you study the Old Testament deeply. I encourage you to do that.
Tags: isaiah, revelation, seven spirits, Theology
This was the second national conference of the Fellowship of Grace Brethren Churches we have been to, and we never cease to enjoy any opportunity to get together with the leaders and other members of Grace Brethren Churches across North America (and a few international missionaries as well!) Not having experienced national-level meetings in any other denomination, I can’t say for certain it is the best, but it certainly blesses us making new friends, renewing friendships of others we have not seen for some time, and discovering in a fresh way where we are going as a family.
I say family because I really feel that is the best analogy for what it’s like. Some relatives you never knew you had, you love them just the same and look forward to learning about how God is working in their lives. Other relatives may live far away and you long for every chance to reconnect with them. Others live nearby and perhaps just the busyness of life keeps you from spending more time together. It was family reunion time in Cincinatti, and it was a blessing!
In retrospect it appears that there was two major themes to this conference. One was reaching out to Ethnic America. We took in four workshops yesterday. It is admirable this focus, because immigration in the USA and Canada is occurring at such a ferocious pace that the Church needs to step into this opportunity to reach out to the World at our doorstep. When most immigration occurred from “Christian” nations, the churches filled as immigrants arrived. But now, most immigration to North America is from nations who have no interest in church, but do wish, like we all do, to feel welcomed, to learn what it means to be citizens. There is nobody who argues that the best opportunity for people to make life-changing decisions is at times when they are dealing with major crises – moving across the face of the earth is a crisis. I can’t wait to see the fruit of these seminars being borne, and certainly it helped us look harder at the opportunities that are there in Medicine Hat.
The other big emphasis was wrestling with some big issues about the direction of the Fellowship and what family really means in this context. That wrestling will go on, and we are excited to be a part of the voices that are calling the family to a common sense of purpose and a recognition of the reality of family. It is easy to think of church as a non-profit business, and membership in the Fellowship as a marketing alliance, to be benefited from until it is inconvenient then discarded for another alliance. I think that God is pretty clear in his Word that Christians are family, and the Church is one family. This applies to the relationship between churches as well. I think we need to guard against wordly business perpectives that merely ask “what’s in it for me?” I am reminded of a great American who said about 50 years ago, “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.” I think that for those many people who are questioning the cost of investment in events like National Conference, regional focus retreats, or even ministerium, need to turn that around, and ask themselves, “What am I contributing?” The fellowship is the greater when each voice chooses to participate in the conversation, chooses to contribute their gifts to the whole. The reward for this act is, as Jeff Bogue so eloquently demonstrated, is to become part of the sledgehammer, breaking the gates of hell!
For myself, I can’t imagine being involved in a fellowship where I wasn’t contributing to something larger. I think back on everything about my walk with Christ and it’s always been about that. When He became Lord of my life, He was ushering me into His Kingdom, and giving me a place in a grand plan that began before time: some have pictured it in Joel’s Army terms. Some have pictured it as guerilla warfare in the Kingdom of This World. It could even be pictured in terms like the smuggling of people out of slavery and into freedom (with a nod to the Underground Railroad Museum here in Cincinatti). But I became a part of that. As I have grown in Christ, there has never been a question that I need to give everything I have to offer to this enterprise. To give to the larger means I am seeing something done that I could never do on my own. I am not satisfied with acting on my own strength, because I know it is meager. I lend my strength to my local church, and the church as a whole sees souls won to Christ – many more than I could ever win on my own. My church lends its strength to other larger enterprises, and we see even more souls won to Christ and Jesus’ name lifted up in our nation. When my fellowship acts as one, we will do things that can’t even be imagined. But stepping back, not giving my all, thinking I can act in my own interests and further the Kingdom more? I just don’t see how that makes sense.
What I am thinking about is carrying this conference, and this renewed recognition of family back to our local area. We need more family in the Fellowship – we also need more family in the Northwest District. We need all hands on deck to give the gifts they have to the larger whole and see God use us in ways beyond understanding. I want to work harder than ever at connecting those I know in, and sharing my excitement and love for this family. It is a wonder and a privelege that God brought us into this Fellowship. I can’t wait to see what comes next.
Tags: family, fellowship, fellowship of grace brethren churches, John F. Kennedy, northwest district, participation, spiritual gifts
It’s been a bit since my last blog. Sorry about that. Lots has been happening, but lots needs to get done. Lots is going to happen in the next two weeks. Here’s some flashes that get things moving again.
- Cheryl has started a very awesome Vlog. What is a vlog you ask? Well, it’s kind of like this, but more visual. She has set it up on Youtube and it is right up her alley as she has always been into video – she’s actually graduated from Columbia Academy, a Audio and Video production school in Vancouver. She’s having lots of fun and I highly recommend you check her out and subscribe to her channel.
- We are heading for Ohio! I know many of you read this blog from the FBGC.org website. If you are coming to National Conference, please look us up and let us know you are reading it! We would love to meet everyone who is reading with us and praying for us here in Medicine Hat! We will be in Ohio for 2 weeks, and are planning to stuff the trip full with as many visits as we can. We will be in Wooster, OH on the 25th, and we might be in Ashland, OH for the 26th but are working out the details there.
- We have split up the boys for our trip. The oldest three are with my parents near Edmonton (actually they are staying with them at their cabin in the woods near Mons Lake) so they are having a blast with canoeing, quadding, camping, fires, all the cool stuff.
- The younger three will be with Cheryl’s folks in Red Deer. While we were moving we sent the older ones there so we could pack and stage the house. So now it’s Dannan and the Twins’ turn. They will be picking them up from the airport as we leave tomorrow.
- I am still plugging away at my real estate courses. The last one, Commercial, it the most intensive one I’ve don’e I think. I am almost done, but I probably will have to wait until after we return from our two week trip to Ohio. It took longer than I had hoped to get them done.
- We are entering fundraising mode. There were a lot of expenses related to this move, and we are praying for $40, 000 to be raised to cover such things as the real estate courses I have taken, moving costs, investment in the equipment that we need to begin our work here, and simple funds to allow us to focus on our mission here. Please pray about how you can help us in this area. There are donation links on GB Canada’s website where you can donate in Canadian or American funds.
- We’re now beginning work on our church website! Cheryl is plugging away on graphics and it is very early, but we may have something to show y’all at conference. We shall see. Stay tuned! We will definitely post links here once it is up!
See you in Ohio!
The house is unpacked and I am finally learning my way around town. I feel like I have accomplished a lot since we moved here a month ago. We have already connected with several neighbours, including helping one move in next door. The boys are quickly making friends including one little boy who daily comes to the front door asking if they can play.
I have had several opportunities to talk with the ladies as people just enjoy coming out of their house and talking in our little community. We will start with just two of us talking and more will come and join us. There were four of us talking along the side of my house the other day as we discussed gadgets (iPad, laptops..etc), family, the neighbourhood and so on. One mentioned how she just moved from a cul-de-sac and is going to miss the community she felt there with BBQs and block parties. I told her that we should have a BBQ in our front yard. We’d just need to set up some table on the lawn or on the driveway, pull the BBQs out front and have some fun. I am looking forward to making that a reality this Summer.
We have been visiting churches in the city and think we may have found the church that we are going to settle in for the year. Shane has already met with the pastor for coffee to introduce himself and we are planning on getting our families together for dinner so we can all get to know each other a bit better.
Things are happening and we are very excited!
I am thinking this vlogging idea is going to work for me. 
Two entries in one week is in this blog is a record for me. We are having a great week so far. The sun is shining, the boys are out playing and Aydan lost his first tooth. He is proud to have lost his first tooth sooner than his older brothers. They are growing up way too fast. At least it will be a while before the younger three start losing teeth, especially since the younger two are still growing theirs.
I decided that I wanted to do something different for my blog entries and I decided that I would like to vlog. I love doing creative things and what better way to be creative than to do a vlog? So, here is my very first vlog. I hope to do many more in the future cause I quite enjoyed making this one.
Everyone’s heading home tomorrow. We hosted the wrap-up at our place, and were more than touched by the warm feelings and supportive people who we now consider our friends. Of the 40 people who came from Ontario, Vancouver, Ohio, South Carolina, California, Maryland and Iowa, we only knew maybe 8 of them from before. What a blessing to have people we don’t know come from far and wide to dream with us and begin to lay the groundwork for a new church in Medicine Hat!
All told, it looks like we have almost 500 completed surveys. 
Most were done in neighbourhoods across the south side of the city, but with the deluge that hit Medicine Hat Wednesday, Thursday and today, yesterday we elected to take a different approach and sent the teams out to coffee shops and malls to casually engage people in conversation and get a few more done that way. Then, today, before the wrap up a few of them hit the streets in their neighbourhoods again to get a few more done. Such diligence! It will take a little time to analyze the data, but we are looking forward to compiling in a list all of those people who wished to get more information about the church plant, as well as returning the results to those who requested them.
The two service projects we were able to complete touched those we served in a tangible way. From what we saw it meant a lot to them to see a big group descend and bless their socks off with hard work and sweat. My sunburn still itches from Monday afternoon!
So much more happened during this Great Canadian Adventure. Armando Padovan, our Brazilian evangelist from Toronto, met a couple last Sunday who were from Brazil. He continued to chat with them through the week and Thursday night Armando and I attended a party that we were invited to. We met 4 Brazilian couples, three of whom are Christians and really excited to see God work in Medicine Hat, both amongst Brazilians and amongst those who do not know Jesus personally yet. One man at the party actually engaged us with spiritual questions, which resulted in a 45 minute conversation where Armando, myself, and a man named Peter shared the love of Christ with him. I believe he will come to Christ if we can continue to demonstrate love and remain in a position to answer his questions.
Philip and Nathan Bryant were able to arrange several meetings with other church leaders in the community, and were able to confirm many things which I had discovered in the first few weeks in town. And reports came back in to us all week long from our survey teams of people who are very eager to hear more about our vision and see something new arise here.
Again, we haven’t analyzed all the information yet, but two things are very clear: many in the city do not believe there are many choices for young families and youth in terms of church. Also, even amongst the unchurched there is a strong desire for churches to begin to address problem youth in the city. They believe that youth in Medicine Hat do not have many options and need real mentoring, teaching, engagement and outreach by churches. This will be key to address going forward.
More once we get a grip on everything. If you came on the Great Canadian Adventure, thank you once more from the bottom of our hearts for all your efforts. You have blessed us more than you know. We are so excited to build on this base of good will and wisdom that you have built for us.
Tags: Great Canadian Adventure
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