2022 Lifetime Ministry Award: Harvey & Beth Peters
On January 30, Fellowship Pacific and Sardis Fellowship Baptist Church had the honour of presenting a Lifetime Ministry Award to Harvey & Beth Peters. Take a minute to read the story of this remarkable couple and their faithfulness in serving God over the years.
Harvey and Beth Peters have been serving God together since they were married on August 29, 1963. Their early years experiences, however, were vastly different. Beth was born into the home of a Baptist pastor, the daughter of Rev. and Mrs. Graham Reeve, and came to know Jesus Christ as her Saviour when she was around five years old. Harvey, on the other hand, came from a broken home with a father who was a brutal alcoholic. His mother lost an eye in one alcoholic episode and Harvey and his sister Joan were often the objects of their father’s rage. When Harvey was just around the age of four, his mom decided to leave the home, but he had to live with the bitterness and unforgiving spirit of his mother.
As a teen, Harvey brought all the products of his home life into his daily life. He left the home when he was fifteen and managed—not well—to carve out a life for himself, graduating from Radio Electronic School and beginning work with the D.O.T. God was not in his vocabulary except for cursing, but when he was almost nineteen years of age, he met Rev. H.C. Phillips, the pastor of Marpole Baptist Church. He and Harvey engaged in many "chin-wags," as Rev. Phillips called them. Harvey considered them to just be arguments. But God was in it. After one particularly bad one, Rev. Phillips told Harvey to go home, read the gospel of John, and just ask himself, "What if all this is true?" Harvey must have read the gospel somewhere around 11 times that week and the Spirit of God did His work. Harvey asked Jesus into his life the following week.
After their wedding, Harvey and Beth immediately began their ministry together, going to Squamish in September of 1963 to begin the work there. They pioneered there until September 1967 when they left for Harvey to resume studies at SFU. During his time at SFU, he did a two and a half year interim stint at Pleasantside, Port Moody while also working on the janitorial staff at the downtown Eaton's store. Harvey went to university ostensibly to prepare to teach at NBTC (Greek) following the death of his father-in-law, Graham Reeve. That did not transpire, however, so following his graduation from SFU he began work with BC Corrections as a Probation Officer. They lived in Surrey at the time and did not want for preaching opportunities, preaching in North Delta, Cloverdale, Abbotsford, etc. In 1967, they were called to Emmanuel Baptist Church Vernon and served there for four years. Following that, they were called to First Baptist Lloydminster, SK/AB where Harvey pastored until 1978.
After their time in Lloydminster, they were called to Markham, Ontario for five years before moving to London, Ontario, where Harvey served as an interim pastor in two separate communities over a two year period while also serving as a chaplain to a youth custody centre in London. In 1991, Harvey received a phone call from a former German class teacher at SFU who had become the director of BC chaplaincy asking him if he would like to return home to British Columbia.
In August of that year, Harvey began as chaplain at Ford Mountain Correctional Institution and Centre Creek Youth Custody Centre. Again, while serving in this capacity there were all kinds of opportunities to preach in the Lower Mainland. During this time, Harvey served on the Fellowship Pacific Regional Board and even for a time on the Northwest Board of Governors. He also did interim work at Sardis Fellowship on a couple of occasions while they were without a pastor.
Following his retirement from Corrections in 2005, Harvey did three separate interim pastorates at Harrison Gospel Chapel as well as two interim pastorates at North Delta Baptist Church. His longest interim was in Quesnel at Northstar Church, one of his favourite places to serve.
Harvey did around eight interims, mostly short term work, and finally called a halt when he was 75. Officially, he retired at that point, although he has carried on to be fairly involved in his local church at Sardis Fellowship in Chilliwack.
"FORGETTING THOSE THINGS WHICH ARE BEHIND AND REACHING FORWARD TO THOSE THINGS WHICH ARE AHEAD, I PRESS TOWARD THE GOAL FOR THE PRIZE OF THE UPWARD CALL OF GOD IN CHRIST JESUS."
- PHIL. 3:13B-14