Dear Friends,
You may recall that each year about this time there are two significant events in the life of our family of churches that we pray for. The first, of course, are camps. The second is SERVE, both of which are very exciting events in our midst.
This newsletter refers to SERVE. To refresh our memories, this event is held annually in various parts of Western Canada. It involves over 200 youth and leaders from our churches. This year it will be held on Vancouver Island and coordinated by Tammy Klassen, a pastor from New Life Community Church in Duncan (New Life is the host for this event) and Brent Weicks, who is the CBWC Youth coordinator, with over 200 youth and staff participating. The speaker for this event is Jason Ballard, who is the youth coordinator for Alpha Canada. Alpha Canada, as you know, is an organization committed to courses on evangelism and encouraging and stimulating the invitation of folk to a personal relationship with Christ. That Jason is speaking means that along with amazing opportunities to serve in the community, these students and leaders will have the opportunity to embrace sharing their faith as part of their own lives and journey.
The possibility of over 200 individuals being inspired, challenged and convicted of that integral aspect of the Christian faith, sharing the good news of Jesus, brings with it the possibility of God’s renewal in the churches, the communities and indeed, the whole of Western Canada that these folk come from. There is every reason to hope for such renewal. SERVE is held July 6-12th, which by my calculations is 10 days from now. We would request that as you are led you would pray for people involved in SERVE over the next month.
Please find attached a schedule for events and the following is a list of things to pray for plus some specific areas of service from Tammy that she and her team have organized.
“We have a great variety of projects for Serve. We will be helping churches by painting lines in their parking lots, cleaning cemeteries, and helping our CBWC church plant Mill Bay Baptist clearing brush on their new property. We will be working alongside youth from the Malahat First Nations band and landscaping at a school on Penelakut Island. We will be doing yardwork for seniors, weeding at urban gardens, advertising for summer programs, painting, cleaning out a creek, garbage pickup, and many other projects for nonprofits in the Cowichan Valley.”
Please pray for:
- Safety
- As sense of community and worship
- Rest and renewal
- Wisdom for leaders and coordinators
- A sense of the Holy Spirit speaking to the church in the area of both evangelism and service throughout Western Canada.
- That there would be renewal and that, if the Lord desires it, indeed, revival.
Warmly,
In Christ,
Jeremy