Dear Friends,
I have just completed the annual report for Partnerships and Possibilities which will be coming out in October and contains some good reminders and thanksgiving to God and to individual people of the good work we have done together over the last year. Thanks to all who were mentioned and many I have forgotten.
This edition of Partnerships and Possibilities continues a good, great, and strong tradition of building community together as we share God’s goodness to us over the past year and as we anticipate the next. I would like to thank, on your behalf, Bob Webber, Ceal McLean and Cailey Morgan for their work in this document and to the CBWC Board, particularly our President Greg Anderson, for their leadership.
We experienced for the first time this year our online gathering of the CBWC. We met April 10th with a requisite that 35 churches and 100 individuals needed to participate. In fact 82 churches and 216 individuals did so and we discovered that people felt it easier to ask questions in written form in this format than in our actual assemblies. Our thanks to Laura Nelson and Amber Baker for all the work that went into putting this gathering together, which began as an experiment and turned into an excellent experience.
The Celebration Dinners continue to draw large numbers of people, as they were held in Calgary, Winnipeg, Vancouver, and Vancouver Island. With one exception, well over 170 people attended each gathering and in the case of Victoria, almost 200. Gord King spoke at each event, encouraging us by his own experience by simply sharing “the best things I have done in my life, I have done in collaboration with others.” Gord speaks of this and lives this.
I am reminded that space is limited and it remains limited on this page, but not in our hearts. I will end with two things. The first is to give thanks for Mark Doerksen as he begins as the new Heartland Regional Minister. The second is encouraging all who are starting leadership or association meetings in their areas to celebrate what God has given us and each other, as we work together.
And finally, please pray for the Assembly in Calgary next year on April 23-25th and most especially on how we work together, creating prayerful, biblical, and healthy discussions around a variety of issues and concerns.
Just to close I want to remind us of the first Baptist covenant in a newsletter I wrote from Turkey last July; a covenant of six Baptist churches in England in 1644. It pledged amongst other things to follow the Lamb wherever He would take them. I believe that in so many ways we can be encouraged that we are following the Christ, wherever He takes us. But it takes time to stop and reflect how grateful we are for God’s faithfulness and to recommit when we ask God for the courage to continue to follow wherever indeed the Lamb leads.
Warmly,
In Christ,
Jeremy