God's Story

I have the honour of writing this week's God Story, and I assure you, this is a story only God could tell! First of all, I want to thank you all for the warm welcome into your family. These last five months serving as Interim Worship Director have been super encouraging and now, to enter a full-time role here at SDBC, I want to say my family and I are so excited. We have been welcomed, loved, and accepted, and we can't wait to see how God uses us and works in us.

I have loved this community for over 20 years. Juli and I moved to Ladner in 1998, the year we were married, and began serving at an amazing church called Ladner Baptist Church. From day one, I have longed to see God transform lives through the gospel of Jesus, and have people respond by giving their all to the glory of God. We have seen this happen over and over again, as we worked with youth and young adults, as we poured into people, ministries, and mission, as we ministered to families, as we volunteered in the community, and as we simply committed to love people with the love that God has given us. We were extremely blessed to be a part of the Ladner Baptist family for 20 years, raising our three kids and fostering a fourth along the way. When we finished up at LBC two years ago, we thought for sure God was going to lead us to our next opportunity, thinking all the while that it would be a major shift in life and location (much to our children's disappointment). We began getting the house ready to sell, we prayed and prayed about possible opportunities that were out there, and we opened ourselves to serving in some short-term capacities at a few different churches, all until God revealed what was the big "next."

Now God, in his grace and mysterious plan, has allowed us the opportunity to continue to serve and love this same community (much to our children's delight), alongside a new and different family, but with the exact same mission: to love like Jesus, and see his good news continue to transform lives. I am so excited to worship and love Jesus along with all of you. I am thrilled to have this humble opportunity to point us all to Christ in worship, as we glorify the Father through the power of the Holy Spirit. I am looking forward to the future, where as a church, we become more unified in our pursuit of Jesus, worshipping him freely and fully, and where we become all the more passionate in our devotion to Christ and his mission to reach the world with the gospel.