Dear Folks,
Before we get to our newsletter for this week, I wanted to say that the book, Gathering for Worship,
published by the Baptist Union of Great Britain, which was mentioned in the newsletter last week is
$59 (not $54). This week I have asked Danice Carlson, our Interim Youth Director, to answer some
questions, particularly about SERVE 2012, which is coming in July.
1. Danice, you’ve been in a lot of ministry and church experience. Please tell us about them.
I grew up going to Olivet Baptist in New Westminster, and jumped into an internship role there
fairly soon after graduating from High School. Since then, I’ve worked as a Youth Director at
First Baptist Vancouver and as a Youth Pastor at Grandview Calvary Baptist in Vancouver – where
I am now still serving part-time.
2. Danice, you have been the coordinator of youth ministry of the CBWC, could you tell us what
is involved in that role.
Basically, I get to be a support for youth ministry workers in the denomination. Most of my time
is divided between prepping and planning for Serve, and keeping up to date through the YLT
members – youth workers who volunteer to be representatives of their regions. We do our best
to notice when there are transitions, and aid both the youth worker and the church who are
in youth ministry transitions. Finally, I see a large part of my job to be maintaining some kind
of connection between the easily marginalized youth workers across 4 provinces. We have a
facebook group where we attempt to establish a place where we can share ideas and resources
and helps, but also provide a place to “run into” one another online.
3. We’re coming up to another SERVE summer. Could you tell us something about the history of
SERVE?
For sure! SERVE this year will be the 12th annual event in 13 years! In short, it is a way for
us to encourage young people from CBWC churches to come together and experience our
larger denominational family, while serving and blessing a particular community in Western
Canada. We do our best to rotate each year through a different province – last year was in
Kitimat, BC, and the year before that, it was in Flin Flon, AB. In each community, SERVE takes
on a slightly different flavour, but the purposes are the same: to connect youth from across
the CBWC; offer a missions experience in “our own backyard”, without going overseas; being
encouraged to deepen our faith as they serve God in varying ways and worshipping in a larger
group setting; and blessing a city or town with a week of service.
4. What is in store for SERVE this summer?
This July, 200 leaders and students will be making their way up north to Peace River, AB. First
Baptist Church, Peace River has been preparing for us to do a variety of projects, many of them
for the city itself. Dave Haugan has collected a fantastic crew of volunteers to coordinate all
the aspects of SERVE: food, accommodations, transportation, and work projects. From the
look of it, we’ll be spending our time and energy on restoring some public park areas and camp
grounds, painting and cleaning out some churches and other buildings, helping out at the food
bank, running a DVBS, and probably other projects we don’t yet know about!
So, the date for SERVE 2012 is July 8-14, in the not so lazy but busy days of summer. May we remember
Danice and the team leaders ramping up through and after the time of SERVE.
Warmly,
In Christ,
Jeremy