SERVE–Looking Back and Looking Ahead

Looking Back to SERVE 2025
By Michelle Porco
Riverdale Baptist Church, Whitehorse, YK

One of my family’s favourite activities in the spring and summer is gardening. It’s an easy and fun activity for my two young children to do with us. We prepare the soil by adding fertilizer and removing rocks. Once there is no threat of frost in June, we plant the seeds. We add the water and wait for the bright Yukon sun to do what it does best: shine for long periods of time, providing light and heat. In a week or two, we see little seedlings appear. Last year, half of our seeds didn’t germinate because of colder temperatures. So, we had to replant seeds in mid-to-late June, meaning that the same variety of plant grew at a different pace, and we were steadily harvesting throughout the summer. As the plants grow, my children eagerly inspect them, wondering when they will be ready to eat. Sometimes it is hard to be patient, but tasting a pea that hasn’t ripened convinces my children it’s better to wait.  

Once we start to see the red tops of radishes poke out of the ground, my son picks them and promptly goes to deliver some to our neighbour and all his friends at school. Radishes are harvested first, followed by the greens, then peas, beets, and carrots. The tomatoes get brought inside to finish ripening, and the potatoes are the last to be done. 

Hosting SERVE is a lot like gardening with children. The soil must be carefully tended to make it ready for the seeds. It is gentle work to ready a community to discern God’s call to host SERVE. The discernment process takes time to germinate and sprout, nurtured lovingly and patiently, as questions and concerns are explored. Once the community discerns a call to host SERVE, the gardening gloves get fitted and the gardening tools acquired. 

One of the most important gardening tools is Peter Anderson, CBWC’s Director of Next Generation Ministries. He encourages, equips and resources the entire community to participate in the process. Some people help during the seedling stage, others help to nurture and care for the plant until it is time to harvest, and others are there for the harvest.  

All stages are important and needed for a plentiful harvest. Despite our best efforts, there are always external circumstances beyond our choosing. We do our best in all situations, with trust and humility. Hosting SERVE is a unique opportunity for a church community to grow, to trust, to connect, to bless, and to harvest. The fruit of SERVE is not simply the week of SERVE, but the entire process from discerning as a community, to preparation, to problem-solving, to the actual week, to the impact after hosting SERVE. Like a garden, the harvest of SERVE happens at different rhythms and paces, a steady and continual fruit-gathering. 

I hope that you will look at the soil of your community and consider gently picking out the rocks and adding the fertilizer needed to invite your community to discern a call to host SERVE. 

Looking Forward to SERVE 2026
By Laura Giesbrecht
Brightview Church, Wetaskiwin, AB

Here at Brightview, we are thrilled to see what the Lord has in store for SERVE 2026, as He works in and through His people to be His hands and feet. So far, we have been firming up the main logistical components of SERVE—such as accommodations for the youth, locations for meal prep and how our church’s building will be best utilized, as well as gathering an incredible team of coordinators to help organize SERVE. With these in place, we are excited to get the word out to our community about SERVE and start organizing the projects, teams of people, and all the other details that make SERVE possible.  

Most importantly, we are also asking the Lord to prepare our hearts as a church, that we may be ready to love and serve one another, the youth, their leaders, and our community well. 

Our desire for SERVE 2026 is to provide a space where the youth who come will experience even greater depths of Christ’s love through service, worship, His Word, as well as the conversations and interactions they will have along the way. Our prayer is for this to be a pivotal moment in each of their lives—one through which they come to know Christ more and fully commit their lives to loving and following Him. And we pray that our youth will experience the great, incomparable riches found in loving and serving others, especially when nothing is given in return. For our community, our desire is for them to experience the love of Christ through the generous service of His people. We are also eager to see what service opportunities will arise and connections will be strengthened because of SERVE 2026. 

Turning the Page to a New Chapter in Edmonds

By Cailey Morgan, The Neighbourhood Church, Burnaby, with research from Natalie Warkentin 

I’ll admit I wasn’t quite sure how to feel as 160 people packed into our Edmonds facility for a banquet designed to recognize the decades of ministry in the facility—and look ahead to its impending demolition and redevelopment. 

I was in kindergarten the first time I laid eyes on the building, so every square foot of that dilapidated, lovely old place holds memory for me, from the rusty heat vents where my brothers and I would huddle before services as kids, to the various crannies we’d gather as youth small groups to listen to the Lord together, to the spot where I took my wedding vows—a mere 5 feet from the tank in which I was baptized as a preteen. 

Ten-year-old me with my dad at a Christmas event. 

But I know I’m not alone in my nostalgia. Hundreds and hundreds of people have passed through those doors to pray, to worship, to learn, and to play.  

According to a 1912 newspaper, the original Edmonds Baptist Church building was erected for about $3000.  

“Standing as it does on Walker Avenue, close to Kingsway, the new edifice occupies an imposing position in the rapidly growing settlement of Edmonds, and those who have had the matter in charge feel well pleased with their labours… The pastor of the church, Rev. Reid McCullough has worked untiringly towards the completion of the new edifice.” (“Edmonds Baptists Have New Church,” Westminster Daily News, November 25, 1912) 

Under the leadership of McCullough, Ernest E. King, Jonathan Wilson, Richard Matiachuk, Cam and Shelley Roxburgh and many others over the years, Christ followers have used that sanctuary to offer hope in southeast Burnaby for more than a century. So I was at a loss that night—how could we sum up the life of Edmonds Baptist/Southside/The Neighbourhood Church in a 3-hour event? How could we possibly narrow down which stories of offering shelter, food, meaning, and friendship to share? Which of the countless moments of God’s faithfulness would shine brightest in our collective mind’s eye? How could our hearts even handle it all? 

But on January 31, 2026, as I found my seat at the banquet and gazed into the eyes of old friends across the table, I realized it wasn’t about trying to cram a century into an evening. It was about experiencing the present moment as an opportunity to recenter on our calling as a church from the beginning.  

Jan 31 Banquet: Volunteers from several Burnaby churches hosted and served at the banquet to allow former and present church members to enjoy time at their tables 

So, that night we continued to do what we do best: celebrating the faithfulness of God through a meal, shoulder to shoulder with our neighbours. While the fancy hors d’oeuvres and table of municipal dignitaries might have been a special touch, the regular ingredients of our weekly dinners remained: a diverse group of kinda–messed–up, beautiful people coming together to share words of hope, acts of kindness, good food, prayers of gratitude, and boisterous joy.  

Feb 1: Our Sunday gathering was the final collective chance to say goodbye to the building. 

Feb 1: The kids got to say their goodbyes using Sharpies on the walls! 

BCY Regional Minister Brian Louw joined us for that Saturday evening, as well as our church’s final service in the building on February 1. “Joining The Neighbourhood Church for their Imagine Edmonds celebration was a tremendous joy for me,” Brian says. “I thank God for the clear evidence of His Spirit at work in the Edmonds community through faithful disciples serving there for over 100 years. Both gatherings over the weekend were filled with joy and wonder at the stories of God through this church, and it is my prayer that we will see many more reasons to glorify God through this church.” 

The building is now in the hands of the demolition crew.

Hot dogs with neighbours as we settle into our new home for the next 3-5 years 

On February 11, we inaugurated our interim ministry centre—a former credit union located 2 blocks from our original campus—with a neighbourhood hot dog dinner. It already had flashes of feeling like home as we picked up where we’d left off with our weekly community meals. Church was never about the building anyways. It’s about God’s people, together, declaring God’s love and His Kingdom come.  

Brian is right—God’s Spirit is present and moving here and will continue to enliven us for mission in the season ahead. 

Imagine Edmonds Development projection

Please pray for us in this multi-year season of transition. To learn more about the Imagine Edmonds project—featuring plans for an art centre, ministry centre, and 480 units of housing, read Cam Roxburgh’s article from the BCY Newsletter last fall, or visit imagine-edmonds.ca.  

Moments of Retreat

Enjoy these images of the Heartland Regional Retreat (January 19-22) and Mountain Standard Regional Retreat (February 2-4). From a car rally, games nights, and hockey, to sessions, worship, communion and prayer, both regions made space for meaningful fellowship with one another and the Lord. Special thanks to our Regional Ministers and Administrators, and to our speakers Nate and Julia Wall-Bowering and Steve Brown.