What comes to your mind when you read this statement?

Boldly Forward.
Never Alone.

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.

As 2021 comes to a close we are getting ready to say a fond farewell to Doug Fordham, whose long and illustrious career with the Fellowship Pacific Ministry Team will be winding down at the same time. Yes, it's true that Doug “sort of” retired already—a few years ago—but has continued working part time providing many valuable services from his home office ever since.

Emotional Intelligence impacts our leadership, relationships, and ultimately our effectiveness in sharing the gospel. This statement drives the ongoing invitation extended to our pastors, ministry workers, and Immerse students to be a part of an EQ Boot Camp, and we have been privileged to host three of these in 2021!

This is an exciting year for Immerse! Fifteen new students, representing thirteen of our churches, are currently embarking on their Immerse journey. The partnership of our churches and seminary in this initiative continues to be the main catalyst for leader development in our Fellowship. Over the past year, the Joint Immerse Management Team (JIM Team), consisting of members of Northwest Seminary & College and Fellowship Pacific Ministry Centre staff, have been collaborating to develop a new avenue for Immerse students. As of this fall, together, we have launched a 2-year Master of Arts in Biblical Leadership track within Immerse.

Seven more graduates have launched into ministry!

Saturday, October 2 marked the 7th graduation for Fellowship Pacific Immerse students. From the first year until now, Immerse students continue to emerge from the theology/leadership/practical ministry incubator of the local church as the embodiment of what Christ has commissioned us to be as leaders in His church.

2021 REGIONAL DIRECTOR REPORT

As I write this report in late March 2021, we are a mere two weeks from Easter Sunday, at which time we will celebrate the resurrection of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Like every one of you, I am hoping and praying that there will be permission granted by our Public Health Officer allowing our churches to lawfully open their doors to in-person gatherings. It is unclear whether that will or will not happen, given the increased Covid case-count through spring break. Either way, it seems likely that most of you share feelings of frustration as you look around at what is considered essential to our culture, and what is not.

SAYING THANK YOU TO KENT ANDERSON

The interesting thing about human behaviour in an organization is that we all just move along in one direction without really taking a look from the Google Earth perspective UNTIL somebody decides to move into another lane. Then collectively we all say, “wait a minute, what’s happening, where are you going? We thought we would just keep moving together forever!”

But here we are, saying goodbye to Kent Anderson after 26 years of “fellowshipping” in the same lane, and this journey deserves to be noted and celebrated.

HOWARD JOHNSON: MAKING A DIFFERENCE IN PEOPLE’S LIVES

“Making a difference in people’s lives!”

This is the answer that Howard Johnson gave when asked about what has given him great joy for the past 32 years he has been a part of Baptist Housing.

Howard’s love for people and his desire to make a difference led him in 1988 to move from Ontario with his wife, Margaret and children, Jeremy and Sarah to join Baptist Housing in the capacity of COO and then for the past 14.5 years as CEO.

2020 IMMERSE GRADUATION

Graduation from the waist up!

Yup, that’s how we did it this year. Over 300 people gathered through Zoom to celebrate with our Fellowship Pacific graduates.

SURVIVING THE COVID ICE AGE

You have probably all heard the frigid metaphor being used to define our experiences with Covid 19, whereby “we thought we were in a blizzard, then we thought we were in winter, but it turned out that we had entered a new ice age.” Not really encouraging. Unlike most of you, I was happily ignorant of that depressingly accurate description until one of our Fellowship staff brought it to my attention. If you are interested, we can probably work out a trade of staff member for staff member that will be to the benefit of your church.

KEEPING OUR FOCUS

A couple of weeks ago, I was blissfully standing in an off-leash dog park, totally focused on the raw joy of my Wheaton Terrier puppy as he zoomed wildly around the park. It seems highly probable that Winston Furchill is the Greatest of All Time. While there are plenty of dog owners who might think their canine is cuter, smarter, friendlier, or more athletic than Winston, they are quite simply—wrong.