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I’ve been reading Abraham’s story recently and have been fascinated by the
faith he had. In Genesis 12 God basically told him to get up and go to the
land he *WILL *show him. The destination was not clear. As the story of the
bible unfolds, we learn that the faith of Abraham was what saved him and he
is commended for it in Hebrews 11. Later on in Genesis 22 Abraham was told
to sacrifice his son (a son by the way that was no small miracle!) and as
they are climbing the mountain his son asks him about where the lamb is for
the sacrifice that they are obviously prepared to carry out. Abraham’s
faith arises and he says something like, “Don’t worry son, the Lord will
provide.” And as we know God honors Abraham’s faith and he provides.

Now Abraham is not the only example in scripture, but I believe the
faith that God wants us to have is this kind of faith. The zero hour faith.
The step off of the cliff faith. The all in faith. The faith that says yes
without the destination being clear. The faith before the answer. The faith
that leaves nowhere else to turn. The faith that takes us into discomfort,
danger and risk

Paul told Timothy to train to be Godly in 1 Timothy 4:7. Paul likens
training in Godliness to physical training. The only way to get stronger,
faster or to have greater endurance is to push yourself to the edge of what
you can currently do… and then push a little more. This makes sense for
physical training, but rarely do we think of training to be Godly like
this. To increase your strength in say the bench press, you keep adding
more weight to the bar and pushing yourself harder and harder. But how do
we do this spiritually? How do we grow our faith? How do we train? I think
there are two parts.

First we need to listen for God’s voice. In both instances mentioned above
it says that Abraham listened to God or heard God. We need to be in a place
where we can hear God’s voice through the word, through prophecy, through
the still small voice, from a trusted friend, our conscience etc… For
most of us we probably just need to stop and listen for more than 5 seconds
because we are too busy and distracted… Meanwhile God has been screaming
at us! And this could mean many things. It could mean holding strong in the
face of adversity, trials or sickness instead of walking in fear or
avoidance. It could mean a change in career or where we live. It could mean
a call to missions or to reach out to a neighbor. It could mean walking in
greater purity or being willing to sacrifice something we love. It could
mean giving generously. It could mean many things. But very likely God has
something for each of us! The important point here is to hear God’s voice –
don’t just go and do something crazy!

Secondly, once we have heard, we need to step out in faith and obey. It
will likely not be easy. It will be hard and it will require our faith to
rise up! But I don’t think there is any way for our faith to grow or to be
made real unless we face things that require faith. The test of our faith
produces something beautiful (Romans 5:3–5; James 1:2–4; 2 Peter 1:3–9) and
one of those things is more faith and a stronger walk with God.

I want to live my life as a pastor and as a father that models an
adventurous life of faith for my kids and for the people I have the
privilege of pastoring. I think many of you would have similar feelings.
What do you want your kids and grandkids to see when they see you? Someone
who lived the safest life possible or someone who chose to follow God at
any cost? Where might your faith take you?

In his book “The Comfort Crisis,” Michael Easter says this, “Most people
today rarely step outside their comfort zones. We are living progressively
sheltered, sterile, temperature-controlled, overfed, underchallenged,
safety-netted lives,. And it’s limiting the degree to which we experience
our ‘one wild and precious life’… But a radical new body of evidence
shows that people are at their best… after experiencing discomforts.”

He is not a Christian author. It is not a Christian book. However, I think
it reveals and affirms that we were not made for comfort and ease. We long
for challenge and danger and risk. This is the way God made us and we are
at our best when we walk into discomfort and into the regions of faith.
Where might you need to go or what might you need to do so that no-one but
God could make it happen? Where faith might be the only thing you are
standing on?

Do you need to give generously to the church?
Do you need to make amends with someone?
Is God calling you to missions? To a career change?
Is God calling you to be more disciplined?
Is God calling you to give something up?
To do something that doesn’t make sense?
What is God asking you to do? Maybe you need to listen for a bit?

Blessings,

Pastor Dave

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Below is Pastor Mike’s Garage! But before you get there, don’t forget about
our annual meeting coming this Sunday at 1:30 pm. We need 25 people to be
there for quorum, so please make an effort to come. We’ll be enjoying
potluck together right after the service Sunday, with the annual meeting to
follow at 1:30, so why not come out and enjoy the day! This is a family
service so the kids will be involved and Joab the Nail Sailsman will be
speaking 🙂

———

*Pastor Mike’s Garage, Feb 16/2023*

It is nothing short of scary to me how fast the years go by! I can still
remember laying on my bed as a child and teenager wondering what my life
would look like when the year 2000 came. It seemed like such a long off
pivotal milestone. It was the year I would turn 30, and I spent much time
in the eighties wondering, dreaming and speculating what my life might look
like that far off into the future. There was even some worry and anxiety as
I thought about the future. The irony is, that while I have always felt I
have lived a fortunate, blessed life, it has turned out nothing how I
thought it might. Now to ponder that its been 23 years since, literally a
longer span of time since my worry prior to 2000, is absolutely mind
boggling!

Today marks another milestone in my life, its our ten year anniversary!
Whenever people comment on how fast that went by, I quite often jokingly
say “Well nobody thought it would last this long!” My wonderful, patient
wife rolls her eyes when I say it! I have to wonder if she ever worried as
a young girl about marrying a cornball? The funny thing is as a child I
never spent any time worrying about my future marital status, I just
assumed it would happen. In my later teen years I had some concerns. Then
in my twenties, into my thirties and even fourties, my concerns blossomed
into full bloomed anxiety. So many times during that season in my life
people would make the comment “I just can’t understand why your not married
yet, your such a nice guy.” Often I would reply “Well it doesn’t seem to be
much of a mystery to any of the women I have been interested in over the
years….!” I came to the place where I was sure I was somehow broken, and
the long held dream for my life would never happen Now to look back on
those fears and anxiety over a decade after God brought the absolute
blessing into my life that is my wife, those anxious thoughts seem so
silly. Its funny, I can still remember dreaming about my future wife, and
now looking back, it amazes me how God has brought someone into my life
that is such an amazing life partner. She is such a good match for me that
it is far better now than even how good I dreamed was gonna be all those
years ago it could be!

So one would think that by now I would have learned my lesson and not be so
anxious about the future! NOT! Even though God has proven faithful in my
life, time and time again, I am still prone to worry, fear, and anxiety
about the road ahead, Will I make enough money to retire comfortably and
provide sufficiently for my family? Is a heart attack, stroke or some other
major health event in my future? There is a long family history of
alzheimer’s on my dads side, could this be in the cards for my future? I
have a little bit of a public platform as a pastor and long time community
member, will I finish strong, or end in disgrace?

How about you? What worries you today? What nagging anxious thoughts keep
you up at night? As I thought about all of this a couple verses came to
mind that I thought I would end this PG with. “Therefore I tell you, do not
worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what
you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes?
Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in
barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more
valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to
your life? And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the
field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon
in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God
clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown
into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? So do
not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What
shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your
heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and
his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.
Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about
itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” Matthew 6:24-35NLT When it
comes right down to it, not much of the big things in life are remotely
within our control! Seek first His kingdom and righteousness, leave the
rest up to Him! He’s got this!

Pastor Mike

Hey all,

I am sure you have heard the tragic news of the earthquake in Turkey.
Here’s an update from someone we know and love:

– global-harvest.ca/2023/02/08/turkiye-earthquake-relief/

If you feel led to give the best way is to give directly online is through
the following site:

– my.acop.ca/acop-helps/

Please continue to pray for our workers there and for the people of Turkey.

Blessings,

Pastor Dave

Just a reminder that our annual meeting is scheduled for February 19th,
2023 at 1:30 pm. We are also planning a potluck that Sunday so please join
us for that as well.

Blessings,

Pastor Dave

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I’ve always been fascinated with the vastness and craziness of space. The
unimaginable number of galaxies and the even more mind boggling number of
stars in the universe. There are comets and asteroids flying madly through
space that if they struck earth they would end all life! There are even
stars that compete in size with our solar system! If you altered our
distance from the sun by a small factor or the size of the moon or spun one
of the other planets off of its orbit, it’s very likely that the earth
could no longer support life. We exist literally on the edge of chaos.
Change one small thing in the cosmos and we might be toast.

I’ve also been struck lately by the “edge of chaos” reality we live in just
on earth itself. Spy balloons, nuclear silos, pandemics, government
corruption and control, natural disasters and the feeling that death is
almost around every corner. That old adage that we are “three meals away
from anarchy” is probably not far from the truth. Then, if we drill down
even more, there’s the lack of real control that we feel in our personal
lives and how fragile human life is. I don’t need to go into detail, but if
you start to think you’ll know what I mean (and some of us don’t need to
think much because we think about this stuff too much already).

All of this could start to feel pretty overwhelming, but only if we keep
God out of the equation. He is literally IN CONTROL OF EVERYTHING! There
are lots of passages that talk about this but my favorite is Colossians
1:16-17:

*For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible
and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all
things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things,
and in him all things hold together.*

In him everything is held together, “all things.” They were created by him
and are held together by him. There’s nothing outside of his scope. HE IS
IN CONTROL! There’s nothing I mentioned above that is not in his control or
outside of his capacity to control!

This is revealing my age, but a song I often sing to myself when I am
feeling overwhelmed (and which I’ve been singing a lot these days) is “You
Are In Control” by Scott Underwood. I’d encourage you to listen to it,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wL7a9Ntc6nQ, and be reminded that whatever
you are facing, God is in control.

Dean Drinnan will be preaching this weekend and I know he will do a great
job bringing God’s word. Dean has been doing an incredible job as board
chair these last few years and he has a passion to bring glory to God
through our church. Please pray for him as well as for Kelly Phillips as
she leads the worship.

Pastor Mike is away on a holiday with his family and Liz and I will be away
for a couple days starting tomorrow and so neither of us will be around
this weekend. If you need pastoral care the elders are available at:

– Garth Cole – 306-697-3382, 306-697-7111 (cell)
– Waylon Kardash – 306-589-9172

Blessings,

Pastor Dave

Hi all,

When you come to church this weekend there will be a few things to take
note of…
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There is a calendar posted on our bulletin board (the shiny gold paper)
that has events on it. Please have a look and let Tatum or Judy know if you
have an event you’d like added.
There is also a list of ways to serve in the church and a contact if you
are interested. I am attaching a copy of that document to this email for
you to look at. I really want you to consider your gift and how you can
serve the body. If there is another way you’d like to serve, but you don’t
see it listed, let me know!

Finally, another reminder about our annual meeting on February 19th at
1:30pm. Please make that a priority if you are a member… and if you are
not a member please talk to me so I can sign you up! I am attaching our
current membership list. If you are a member, please ensure your name is on
the list – or you can check the copy of the list on our bulletin board.

Blessings and have a great weekend!

Pastor Dave