Dear friends,
If the title sounds a little like a well-known British television series, it’s been cancelled. Prayers, however, are ongoing, I trust.
I wish to share some items for prayer in the middle of our summer, and look forward to updating you as the days and weeks unfold toward the fall.
Pray for summer day camps, daily vacation bible schools, and all forms of non-residential camping. After an incredulous 7 year hiatus, New Life in Duncan, BC restarted camp last week expecting enrollment of 90. An additional 60 showed up – how exciting is that?! Thanks be to God. Good on you.
Pray for all our camps and their Directors:
- Keats Camp (Dan Galpin, Camp Director)
- Zao Outdoor Ministries (Board of Directors; Mattias Morrison, Ministry Coordinator)
- Gull Lake Centre (Steve Roadhouse, Executive Director)
- Mill Creek Baptist Camp (Alyssa Cameron, Executive Director)
- Camp Wapiti (Jerilyn Brainard, Executive Director)
- The Quest at Christopher Lake (Sean Cruickshank, Executive Director)
- Katepwa Lake Camp (Jimmy Schimmel, Executive Director)
We have just passed mid-point in the camp season about a week ago, and there are serious challenges of personal resources and spiritual vulnerabilities that are part of this season of camping. Most camps usually have their teens at the end of the summer; this is the crowd that is full of most opportunity and potential, but can also be most challenging. Please pray for re-commitments to the Christian walk and brand new decisions to follow Christ in a personal relationship. Please also pray for the churches that are, even now, getting ready to receive folk back from camp.
Pray for church Boards, especially moderators and treasurers (those very same treasurers who love summer cash flow),church staff and those who take responsibility (whether paid or volunteer) in following the calling of Christ to care for the Body. Might they be renewed and restored in preparation for what the “new year” of September brings.
I ask for prayer for our partners in ministry, whether it be Canadian Baptist Ministries (CBM) in their search for a new Executive Director, or Carey as they transition into new programmes and some new faculty.
Please pray for the orientation of the new CBWC Board leading up to the first meeting in September, and for those with new roles (like Laura Nelson our President and Kayely Rich our VP of Personnel and Programme), as well as those who are new to the Board: Greg Sumner, Herb Ziegler, Ravi George, and Loralyn Lind.
Pray for Heather Thomson and Jill Schuler (nee Cardwell) who are putting together the Banff Pastors Conference. Registrations are well ahead of last year. What a rich experience to look forward to.
I will leave you with three images from the Baptist World Alliance (BWA) in Durban, South Africa, of last month. The first is from John Upton, who is the outgoing President of the BWA from the Virginia Baptist Association. A remarkable and gifted individual, who to my jetlagged ears when I arrived in Durban, said these very helpful words:
Leadership is not an identity.
It is a function.
I am first a child of God.
And am sometimes asked
To function as a leader.
The second is from Paul Msiza, the new BWA President for 2015 – 2020, who told the winsome and funny story that whenever he drove through a village in rural South Africa, dogs would chase his car until it stopped. At that point, their barking stopped too. He drew the gleeful, sometimes painful, analogy that when we are moving, changing, heading forward, there is lots of commotion and opposition… but surprisingly very little resistance when we have ceased to move, or are becalmed…. there is no threat in paralysis or entropy.
The last vignette I cannot begin to capture for you, but it was the last keynote address from Joel Gregory building on this year’s theme of Jesus as the door from the BWA motto. He spoke about opportunities and doorways, closed then open, and I am going to listen to it on a regular basis for months to come. I leave it to you to ask the Spirit to use what he has to say without further comment.
Warmly,
In Christ,
Jeremy